Page 31 of The Snow Witch

Violet seemed angry – it was understandable really. Jake knew how passionate she was about the Witch Trials. This was kind of making it real. In fact, she was more than angry; she was twitchy.

‘Okay,’ he acknowledged. ‘Let’s leave. It’s a bit close to home this, isn’t it?’

‘Just a bit.’ Violet shuddered. ‘Yes. Time to go.’

They came out of the exhibition room and the lift was right in front of their noses, just waiting for an occupant.

Violet glowered at that as well.

‘Come on,’ said Jake, grabbing her hand and squeezing it. ‘We might as well. Let’s get in here, go down to the dungeon and pop back up and we’re done. Promise.’

Violet nodded. ‘Yeah, okay. Only because you want to do it and I’m nice like that.’ She still didn’t look convinced. ‘The lift door doesn’t open, right? We just go down and come straight back up?’

‘Seems that way.’ Jake pressed the button and the doors opened. He gestured for Violet to get in, and she took a deep breath and stepped inside. Jake followed her and they stood together, shoulders almost touching, fingers interlinked, as it began its descent.

The lobby came into view, and then the lift dropped slowly into the dungeon.

Jake had a moment to look around the cavernous, cold, depressing space, hear the recorded voice of the Gaoler give him some information – and then the lights went out, and the sound of the lift mechanism was silenced.

The lift was stuck.

And Violet screamed.

20

THEN

Nicholson had wasted no time. Within three weeks, he was riding through Newbrough on his way to Haydon Bridge. He was determined to find more witches; it had to be so. He firmly believed in Jane Martin’s guilt and, if he could not find her to prove it, he would find someone else.

He had employed a Bell Man, a stevedore who, jaded by dockside life on the River Tyne, was happy to accompany him and announce his presence.

Nicholson adored the power this new job gave him; people looked at him with respect, the same way they had looked at John Kincaid. And it was with a straight back he sat, dressed in black on a pure white horse: an imposing figure as his entourage trampled freshly fallen snow into mud, churning it into filthy slush as they passed through this foul little village full of stone cottages and hovels.

‘Hear ye, hear ye!’ called the stevedore. Brown, Nicholson thought his name was. ‘All people that would bring in any complaint against any woman for a witch, they should be sent for and tried by the person appointed!’

The crier rode ahead of the entourage, and Nicholson looked around him as he followed. Soon, he would make his mark in these Border countries, and he’d be as well-known and as wealthy as Kincaid. He would start small; these tiny villages always harboured women who were different, who did not hold men like him in the highest regard. And if he could prove his worth in one of these tiny villages, it would be a coup for him as well.

Yes. Newbrough was as good as any place to start.

‘Hear ye! Hear ye! All people that would bring in any complaint against any woman for a witch, they should be sent for and tried by the person appointed!’ repeated the crier. ‘Hear ye! Hear ye!’

The villagers who straggled around the streets stared at the procession as it passed them. Nicholson smiled, seeing the women looking at one another, assessing their neighbours, wondering, perhaps, whether they were harbouring a black secret.

‘We are here to help you,’ declared the crier in his broad Tyneside accent. He brought his horse to a stop. ‘This gentleman has been tasked with cleansing our villages, ridding them from evil. If you have any complaints of this nature, tell us. Any witches you give up to us will have a fair trial, and your minds will be settled.’

Nicholson saw the scrawny, unkempt women huddled beneath their shawls. He noted an elderly lady: a toothless, hunched old hag. She would do. He pointed at her. ‘You. Do you practise the dark arts? Do you cavort with Satan? Do you bear the witch’s mark? You are obliged to tell us…’

‘No!’ A younger woman ran up the old hag, who was trembling with fear. ‘My mother is a good, gentle, kindly, God-fearing woman. It is not the likes of her you need to be searching for.’

‘Then tell me,’ said Nicholson, his voice dripping honey, ‘who should I be searching for?’

The younger woman looked at him, then at the crowd, who were gathering nearby. ‘I think we all know who these men need to speak to.’ Her face hardened as the villagers began to crowd in, eager, it seemed, for a bit of theatre and excitement. Excellent. The younger woman clutched onto her mother’s arm. ‘We all know of someone who we could take to task for this. For the things that have happened in this village.’

‘Pray tell us, young lady,’ said Brown, playing the part perfectly. Nicholson saw how the woman preened herself, scooping her filthy, mousy-brown hair behind her shoulders and fluttering her eyelashes at the handsome, muscle-bound young man on horseback.

The woman flicked a glance at Nicholson. ‘Is this fellow here to be trusted?’ she asked the crier, suddenly brave. ‘How can we be sure he knows what he is looking for?’

‘My dear lady,’ interrupted Nicholson, tired now of her wasting his time. There were witches to find! ‘I am Cuthbert Nicholson. I have been employed by the authorities in Newcastle to cleanse your villages of witches and of evil. You speak as if there is someone here who you do not trust. Tell me. Is this person a young woman herself?’ He scanned the crowd. There were only a couple more elderly ladies in amongst them. Experience told him they were stalwarts of the village, central repositories of gossip. These women, unlike some in other areas, were not at risk of accusation. The hag’s daughter, on the other hand, looked and acted like a whore, primping and preening herself, thrusting her breasts out unconsciously in his party’s direction. He sensed competition for something here. A younger woman, perhaps, who was a threat to this female.