Page 20 of Witchbane

I picked up the bags and carried them down the hallway and through the kitchen – breathing in a sweet apple smell and hoping my grandmother was baking her delicious apple pie – before descending to the secret room. I stopped inside and wondered whether I felt the odd sensation that someone or something else now lived among us. Thankfully it wasn’t there.

I loved the work room. It was down a few steps at one side of the kitchen. The window was concealed from the outside by hedging that circled it, leaving enough space to let in light but not allowing it to be seen. The door was covered on the inside by a sideboard that was lighter than it appeared. Not that we ever had guests, apart from the other witches in our coven, and they only appeared at the house when they were invited.

When my mother was tried as a witch, the charge was based on false evidence provided by a maid who had left my parents’ employment to work for the woman my father had been expected to marry before he met my mother. The woman had gone on to marry someone else, but having come across my mother at a party, had quarrelled with her and then returned home and suffered a miscarriage, followed by two more several months later. She supposedly believed that my mother had cast a spell not only to bewitch my father but also to cause her to become barren.

I recalled only too well the whispers and comments by shocked locals that Lord Thistlebury’s glamorous, beautiful wife used her powers against others, so much so that people had been scared to venture down the drive. I had overheard my aunt and grandmother discussing their relief that I had only been nine at the time, otherwise it was possible that I could have also been judged guilty. I had to admit that, although I was lonely growing up, knowing this gave me a sense of security.

After putting away the goods I had been given in payment for my grandmother’s potions and powders, I went down to the spell room and carefully unpacked each of the jars and phials she had asked me to take, in case one of our trusted clients requested something, and put them away until the next time I ventured out to the market to work at the stall.

A waft of that now familiar smell – damp mixed with something else I couldn’t quite decipher – hit me. I looked around, frightened in case I spotted the strangeness that inhabited my bedroom, and was relieved when I couldn’t see anything. Had I imagined that smell? Was the house slowly disintegrating as the unexplained presence took it over?

My thoughts returned to my conversation with my aunt, and how I first noticed the presence when I visited the attic, searching for an old bookcase my grandmother wanted me to fetch. At first I thought I was being fanciful, but it happened the next time I ventured up there, and after that I felt it in the room that had once been my parents’. Even now, when I passed the closed door of the attic, I felt the oppressive sensation becoming stronger, as if it was absorbing power from the very walls and floors of the building.

I placed the final phial in the cupboard and closed the door. Then, folding both bags, I left them on the table near the entrance to the room to use next time. I stopped at the door and, unable to shift a feeling of dread, remembered my vow to my mother to avenge her death.

I turned to study the room. Inside here was everything I hoped I’d need to carry out my plans. Her execution had only been the beginning of my heartbreak. The Witchfinder was the reason behind my father bolting, my aunt and grandmother losing their beloved twin and daughter, and the pair of them needing to care for me while taking on the running of my birthright and finding inventive ways to keep the estate going in my father’s absence.

They had done their best, and I would be eternally grateful to them for their love and devotion, but the way things were going I couldn’t foresee Thistlebury Manor being here in ten years’ time. The place was falling into further disrepair, and dilapidation wasn’t something we could afford to keep ahead of, not just because we hadn’t the money, but because there were fewer and fewer workers to help us take care of the estate.

I shuddered at the thought of what lay ahead, afraid I lacked the knowledge to fight the darkness in the house, but I was determined to study my magick. I had much to learn, but I also had determination. I clenched my fists. I could do this. I had little choice if I was to save what little I had left of my family and home.

I thought of my late mother’s grimoire, hidden under the floorboards of my bedroom. I had felt disloyal delving into the book too deeply before I was a fully-fledged witch, but now I had been inducted into the coven I was more confident that I had inherited the right to use as much of my mother’s knowledge as I could glean from this spell book, certain she would want to help me reclaim my family home.

I also sensed she wanted me to locate my father should he still be alive. Even if he had been heartbroken to discover her practice of witchcraft, I hoped that my father loved her enough to want to help me save the house he brought his bride to, and support my revenge for mother’s cruel and unnecessary death. If I did find him, I knew I would need to dismiss my resentment at his leaving me and ask for his help to hurt the Witchfinder in the worst way possible.

‘Are you still down there, Rue?’

Not wishing to anger my grandmother again, I hurriedly closed the door and ran up the few stairs to join her in the kitchen.

‘Sorry, I was putting everything away.’

She arched an eyebrow, clearly disbelieving me. ‘It shouldn’t have taken you that long. You were daydreaming again, weren’t you?’

‘Did you want me for something?’ I asked, not wishing to admit to my thoughts.

My grandmother was a kind, caring person deep down, but she was also strong-willed and possessed a sharp tongue. I sensed her barely suppressed anger was due to the unexpected way her later years had turned out. She shouldn’t have been taking care of a grief-stricken little girl and this huge manor house after working hard her entire adult life and almost reaching a time when she should have been able to take things easier.

‘Take this to Pierre and that boy of his. Use a cloth, though, it’s still hot.’

‘Yes, Grandmama.’ I took several cloths from the rail in front of the fire where they had been drying and picked up the hot pie dish. I carried it out the back door, across the yard and down a short path to the line of cottages where what was left of our estate workers lived. My widowed aunt Sorrel also had a cottage here, having moved out when she married her late husband twenty-five years before. Her son hadn’t been home for several years since joining the Parliamentary Navy, and her daughter, who as far as I was aware wasn’t a witch, had married and moved to another village a couple of years after that. I suspected they both wanted to distance themselves from ‘those people at Thistlebury Manor’. I understood the sentiment. After all, I knew only too well how difficult life could be when others constantly whispered behind their hands as you passed. I wouldn’t have chosen that for me either.

‘I hope that’s for us,’ Jem said, coming to join me from one of the barns. He stopped in front of me and breathed in slowly.

‘It is.’ I smiled. ‘I presume you or your father took the apples to Grandmama for this very reason.’

He laughed. ‘We did. I’m sure she’s made one for the pair of you too.’

I knew she would have done. ‘Lead the way to your cottage then,’ I said, impatient to put the weighty pan down. ‘I don’t want to drop this and have your father upset with me.’

‘Well, hello there, young Rue,’ Pierre said when we arrived, his pipe dangling from his mouth. ‘What brings you here this evening?’

Jem followed me into the cottage. ‘She’s brought us a delicious apple pie from Mistress Tredwell, Pa.’

I placed the pan onto the table close to their fireplace. ‘With my grandmother’s thanks.’

‘Now that is a treat. Would you like to join us for some?’ He motioned for Jem to go to the sideboard where bowls and spoons lay stacked in readiness for their evening meal.

Pierre stepped forward and peered down at the pie, taking in a long slow breath through his nose. ‘Hmm, that smells as good as I’m sure it will taste. Me and the boy thank you and your grandmother.’