Page 55 of Witchbane

Why would my father want to hurt me, though? I thought how shocking it must have been for him to see my mother arrested, accused of witchcraft and put to death. The destruction of his trust in her innocence deepened my loathing of the Le Cerfs and made me all the more determined to carry out my oath to seek revenge for my mother’s death.

I gasped as something occurred to me. Could my mother’s presence have something to do with my vow? Was she trying to warn me against carrying it out? Did she not wish me to avenge her death? Maybe she knew that if I did, I might bring about my own. Not that I yet had any idea how to ruin the Le Cerfs. But I was resolved to show them that taking on the women in my family would cause them more grief than they could ever know. The thought made me feel much better.

‘Where is that girl?’ I heard my grandmother moaning from the attic room above me.

I tensed. How had I not heard the coven return? I realised it must be time for us all to prepare for our spell and ran to fetch my grandmother’s book of shadows from where she had hidden it. Excited to be doing something practical, I then hurried upstairs to join them.

‘Where have you been?’ Aunt Sorrel whispered, noticing me as soon as I walked into the attic. She grabbed hold of my wrist and pulled me over to join the others. ‘Here, help us move back some of the furniture. We need space for our magick.’

I did as she asked, dragging a chair backwards, catching an edge of the covering and accidentally causing a cloud of dust to woosh up into the air. My nose tickled and I began to sneeze.

‘Stop wasting time,’ my grandmother hissed, glaring at me as if I had done this on purpose. ‘We must make haste if we want this done.’

The women all gave me a withering look, and I mouthed an apology. Sometimes being the youngest witch was less fun than I had expected.

I tried harder, with the next piece of furniture, not to disturb any dust and as I finished moving it, caught Iris watching me, a sympathetic smile on her face. She knew how I felt, I realised. It was comforting to have someone else understand how strange it occasionally was, trying to fit in with these older, more experienced women who knew each other well.

I looked around the room to see what else I could move but everything seemed to now be in place.

‘This is good,’ my grandmother said, seemingly satisfied with our efforts.

She gave one of the other women a nod. The woman, Mistress Le Tissier, whose first name, Loveday, made me smile. It was such a pretty, wholesome name; but although she was a lovable person, she wasn’t beautiful and as far as I was aware had never been married. I felt badly for her that her name didn’t suit her better.

Loveday immediately reached down and with a large feather drew a circle in the dust on the floorboards. It was big enough for all of us to stand inside.

Our space prepared, I watched as Loveday picked up an incense stick and waited for my grandmother to light a candle and place it in the middle of our circle. Loveday then lit the stick and watched as it began to smoke. She handed it to my grandmother, who circled it above her head and passed it on to the witch next to her until each of us had handled it. The stick was then placed in a tiny holder. Now cleansed, we stood barefoot and silent to ground ourselves in the cleansed space.

Two candles were chosen, a red one for courage and strength and a purple one for spiritual power, which we were going to need in abundance. My aunt produced a small bowl of oil with herbs in it. She set it down next to the candles, next to a sprig of basil for protection and one of cinnamon for energy. My grandmother produced three crystals: clear quartz for clarity, black obsidian for protection and another I recognised as black tourmaline, to repel negative energies and protect us.

As our high priestess, my grandmother opened her book of shadows and the rest of us closed our eyes, waiting for her to begin the chant for our spell that she had been working on with Appoline de la Mare since the day before. I heard her inhale slowly, but before she could utter a word, the sound of cantering hooves echoed through the air. There was more than one horse, I realised with horror.

‘Who could those horses belong to?’ I asked, staring from one wide-eyed witch to another as we all stood in silence. ‘Why are they racing down our drive?’ I asked my grandmother, as if she knew. We all knew that for us to be caught here with this evidence of magick being cast was nothing less than a death sentence.

‘Who can that be?’ Aunt Sorrel asked as she ran to the nearest window. I held my breath as she peered down to the drive and saw her face pale as she turned to us, a finger to her lips. ‘It is that hellhound, Theo Le Cerf.’

‘The Witchfinder’s son?’ one of the women asked, immediately bending to collect her belongings without waiting for an answer.

‘We discussed this earlier,’ Grandmama said, her voice shaky, though I knew she was trying to remain calm.

‘Did we?’ I asked confused.

‘You hadn’t arrived yet,’ Iris said.

Several women began fretfully to pick up their bags and put on their cloaks.

‘He is not alone,’ my aunt hissed from the window. ‘But I can’t see from here who accompanies him.’

‘He must not find us all here together like this,’ Aggie cried. ‘What is the best way for us to leave without being seen?’

‘As I instructed earlier when we discussed the possibility of being disturbed, you are to remain up here,’ my grandmother instructed.

‘No!’ Maisie Trehorel motioned for her two sisters to stand by her side.

My grandmother held out her hands, palm downwards, and lowered her voice to the soothing tone she used when persuading her clients that they would survive whatever ailed them. ‘It is the best option,’ she insisted. ‘Find somewhere to sit and don’t move. Don’t talk either. We will go down and see what that fiend wants and one of us will let you know as soon as you’re free to leave.’

A couple began to argue, so I stepped forward. ‘Please. My grandmother knows what to do for the best, I promise you.’

‘We never had these constant interruptions before the Witchfinder employed his son,’ Loveday grumbled.