The Return of the Witch (5 page)

“Let's talk about it more in the morning.”

“There's nothing more to say,” she told me as she scooped up Aloysius and left the room. “I am not going to run.”

I sat for a while, gathering my thoughts. She could be so very stubborn! Could she not see how dangerous her situation was? Surely it would be better if she left, took herself out of harm's way, perhaps to visit one of the witches with whom she had studied and spent time, somewhere distant. Somewhere safe. And yet, at the same time, I admired her courage. It had taken me a dozen lifetimes to find the strength to stand and face Gideon. And, after all, was it not for her that I had, ultimately done so? I knew in my heart that she would not be persuaded to run. I had no option but to simply do more to protect her.

Even as I formed this thought I felt a sickening chill descend upon me. Outside a wind had got up, and now it moaned down the chimney, sending smoke into the room. As I watched, the smoke appeared to pulsate and to move in an unnatural manner, as if it were trying to take on a form, to become something. The temperature of the air about me dropped dramatically. I experienced a great pressure upon my chest, so that I was compelled to struggle for breath and feared I might have the very life pressed from me. Not without difficulty I rose, holding my hands out in front of me, calling upon the Goddess to help me drive this wickedness from my home.

And then, it was gone. The room was quiet and still once more, save for the pounding of my own startled heart.

That night I was unable to sleep. Indeed, I did not so much as go to my bed, but instead sat in the kitchen on a wooden chair that would not allow me to slip into slumber. He was near. I could feel it. I could sense him. At times I could hear whispering. I contemplated waking Tegan, but decided against it, reasoning that come morning she would be better able to face whatever came if she had rested. Whilst we remained inside the cottage, doors and windows locked, with me on my guard, Gideon would not be able to gain entry. He would also be stronger under the cover of darkness, so that we might venture out in daytime, so long as we kept together and kept alert for signs of imminent danger.

How had I brought us to this moment? How had it happened that we should have to face him again? What could I have done differently to spare Tegan such peril? When she came downstairs and found me at my vigil she knew at once that our situation had become grave.

“Elizabeth! Are you all right? What happened? Did you see him? Has he been here?” She knelt beside my chair, snatching up my hand. “Why didn't you call me?”

“I am quite well; please, do not fret on my account.”

“But he was here, wasn't he?”

I nodded. “He remains close.”

“Did he hurt you?”

I shook my head. “We are well enough protected, in here.”

She got to her feet. “We can't stay indoors forever.”

“He will be less powerful while the sun is up.”

She began to pace the room, already the idea of being contained pressing upon her. “I wish we could force him to confront us in daytime somehow. There must be a way we could lure him out. God, I'd like the chance to deal with him! Once and for all.”

“Be careful what you wish for.” I stood up stiffly and filled the kettle, attempting to stir my aching body to action. I opened the stove door and fed in another applewood log. It was the last from the basket.

“I'll fetch more,” Tegan said, plucking her coat from the hook on the back of the door and stepping into her boots.

“Wait…”

“Elizabeth, we can't lock ourselves away. It'll be OK. I'm just getting some wood.”

I watched her go, knowing she was right; we could not become prisoners in our own home. Even so, my pulse quickened at the thought of her out there alone. I hastened to put on my own outdoor clothes and followed her into the garden. At the far end of the vegetable patch she was already using the axe to split logs. She hefted the blade with ease and strength, each blow striking with good aim, slicing through the seasoned wood. With a shudder I experienced a vision of Gideon similarly employed, long, long ago, deep in Batchcombe Woods. I had been younger even than Tegan then.

“We need more milk,” she said, not in the least out of breath, “and butter. I'll go to the shop when I've finished here.”

She did not meet my eye, but I knew what lay behind her words. The idea of tempting Gideon out of wherever he was hiding, of provoking him into showing his hand in daylight, clearly was uppermost in her mind. She had already told me she would not run. Now it was clear to me she was not prepared to wait, either.

“I'll come with you,” I said.

“It really doesn't take two of us to buy a pint of milk,” she said, turning to look at me.

“I will come with you,” I insisted.

The village had altered little during the years of my absence. Ducks still lived on the green, frequenting muddy patches of snow where local people threw bread and scraps for them. The short run of redbrick houses had their own thatch of snow, while the reed-thatched cottages sat under fat layers of white as if their roofs were several sizes too big for them. Everything was pretty and as picturesque in the quaint way only an English village can be, and yet I saw danger skulking in every shadow; threat lurking around each corner. If Tegan was enduring the same heightened sense of anxiety she did not show it. We walked briskly along the slippery pavement. A small white van drove slowly past, its wheels swooshing through the smear of melting snow on the road. I could not stop myself from glancing in through the windshield to swiftly scrutinize the driver. What was I expecting to see? Would Gideon disguise himself, or would he brazenly confront us? The latter seemed more in keeping with his arrogant nature. The sun flared against the glass and obscured my view. An intrepid jogger puffed past us, causing me to step closer to Tegan. She took my arm.

“It's OK, Elizabeth. Really, it will be OK,” she said, so that I wondered who was protecting whom.

Once inside the shop Tegan began filling a wire basket with essential items. I did my utmost to turn my attention to the matter of our stores, but such a strong sense of unease gripped me that I was unable to concentrate. A young woman glanced in my direction as she rounded the end of an aisle and I was certain I saw her irises glow red. I followed her, only to see her chat happily with the shopkeeper, who evidently knew her well. Two teenage boys entered noisily through the shop door, jostling one another in a good-humored way, and yet one seemed to me to be possessed of unnaturally sharp teeth, and the other I could swear had a tongue that was disturbingly long. I plucked goods from the shelves and hurried Tegan to the counter to pay for them. My witch senses were not trying to trick me. I knew that, in reality, none of the people in the shop presented a danger. It was the proximity of a very real threat that caused me to see such warning signs. Gideon was near, and he was not about to leave without what he had come for. I was convinced it was Tegan, and not myself, that would be his target.

We arrived back at the cottage to find a man up a ladder. When I gasped Tegan smiled.

“It's just Ted,” she told me. “He's been cleaning windows in the village for years. Morning, Ted!” she called up to him. He paused in his cheery whistling to wave a sponge at us before resuming his work. “You're being paranoid, Elizabeth. That's exactly what Gideon would want. I'm not going to live like that,” she said, taking the goods she had purchased into the house.

I paused, watching the window cleaner. He descended the ladder and came over to me.

“Any chance of a refill?” he asked, holding out his yellow bucket.

“Of course,” I said, and took it from him. He picked up a dry cloth and began to polish the small window in the front door.

I left him and walked around to the back of the house, using the garden tap to fill the bucket with freshwater. I told myself Tegan was right, I was overreacting. Of course we had to keep our guard up, but we could not exist in such a heightened state of suspicion. What manner of life would that be? But as I turned off the tap I experienced such a shock of fear I dropped the bucket. Water flooded down the path while I listened, nausea threatening to overwhelm me, to the familiar tune the window cleaner was now whistling. At first I thought—I hoped—that I was mistaken. But, no. It was that tune. “Greensleeves.” Gideon's tune. I ran to the front of the house, not knowing what I would do, only aware that I had to confront him outside, here, in the open, to keep him away from Tegan.

As I rounded the corner of the cottage the whistling continued, but to my astonishment I saw Ted lying on the ground. He was motionless and silent, the dreadful tune not coming from his lips. He was not breathing, and the moment I touched him I knew he was dead. His eyes stared up at me in surprise, as if he might have lost his footing and fallen from his ladder. But I knew he had been working on the downstairs windows while he waited for the water. I knew he had not fallen. With awful finality, the whistling ceased.

“Tegan!” I cried as I raced back to the kitchen door and flung myself through it. Her boots were in the hallway, the snow still melting on them, forming little pools of icy water on the flagstones. The kettle was singing on the Aga. “Tegan?” I called, but she did not answer. I ran into the sitting room. Here there were signs of disturbance, of struggle. The coffee table was upended, candleholders and incense burners swept from the mantelpiece and broken and on the floor. Tegan's staff lay on the floor. The room stank; an acrid, musky smell that filled the air, making me gag. And Tegan was gone. Not simply gone from the room, or the house, but taken away. I knew it. I could feel it. I could sense a chasm of distance opening up between us, as if in an instant she had been transported to some far-off place.

A tiny movement in the hearth startled me. At first I could not make out what it was that snuffled and wriggled in the cooling ashes of the fireplace, but then I recognized the small shape.

“Aloysius!” I stooped down and took him in my hand. The poor mouse was trembling, his fur blackened and filthy with soot and ash, but he was otherwise unharmed. He looked at me, his bright eyes questioning. I knew Tegan would never have willingly left him behind. Tears blurred my vision. I had failed her. I had let him take her! For an instant I thought I could hear her voice calling me. I whipped about, searching, but she was not there.

“I will find you, Tegan!” I told her. “Wherever you are, do not lose heart. I promise I will come for you!”

 

4

The cottage felt achingly empty. It was not as if I was unaccustomed to solitude; indeed my long life had, of necessity, been a largely solitary one, but I felt Tegan's absence keenly. To begin with there was my impotent rage at Gideon, and at myself for having let her down so catastrophically. Added to this was the panic-stirring anxiety over what she might suffer before I could find her. And then there was the lack of her, the hole left by her not being there. I knew this was in part due to having been separated from her for so long, and having only recently felt the sweetness of being reunited, however, there was more to it than that. I had not realized how her presence filled the house, how she somehow inhabited every corner of it, inside and out, charging the atmosphere with her singular spirit. For she was, now, a person of special qualities. Her latent magic, her dormant talents and gifts, had been brought forth by her years of study and application. Had been enhanced and developed, no doubt, by her proximity to other powerful witches who dedicated their lives to the craft in one form or another. I could not be certain how aware she herself was of her own abilities, but there was an unmissable energy about her that added oxygen to the air and Willow Cottage seemed a sorrowful, diminished place with her gone.

In the moments after Gideon had taken Tegan I did my utmost to gain clues as to where they might have gone. Aside from being alert to whispers from Tegan herself, should she try to reach me, I scoured the sitting room for signs of what form Gideon had taken. The previous night his dark energy had entered via the chimney—had this been sufficient for him to snatch Tegan? Or had he had some more tangible, physical presence? That furniture had been knocked over suggested a scuffle, or Tegan could have fallen against things herself whilst she was being abducted. Aloysius appeared to have been flung into the fireplace, but whether by a cruel hand or by a more magical force I could not tell. My investigations were interrupted by sounds from the front garden. Looking through the window, I was astonished to see the window cleaner up on his feet! I hastened outside. The poor man was clearly dazed and clutched at his head as if in pain, but he was very much alive.

“Ted, do you know what happened to you?”

“It's all a bit fuzzy, to be honest. Must have fallen off my ladder. I don't remember. Did I fall?”

“No, I don't think you did. Can't you recall anything? Anything at all?”

“It's the weirdest thing, one minute I was standing by that window, I can remember that now, the next … nothing. Nothing until I woke up flat on my back in the snow. Feels like I banged my head, though. Do you think I could have slipped on the icy path?”

I sighed. Evidently he had no clear memory of what had befallen him, and therefore could not shed any light on how Gideon took Tegan.

“You are certain you didn't see anyone?”

“Like who? No, I don't think so.” He still appeared addled. Whatever spell had been inflicted on him to render him so convincingly lifeless had left him badly shaken.

“You'd better come inside,” I told him, and when he protested I pointed out he was in no condition to drive. “Ten minutes' sit down and a cup of tea. Best to have you steady again before you get behind the wheel. And no more ladders for you today, I think.” I led him into the kitchen. It took a great deal of self-control to focus on Ted when my whole being was in turmoil. It seemed wrong to interrupt my search for Tegan but, in truth, I knew no amount of rushing blindly about would help me locate her. For the moment, Ted needed my attention, if he was not to compound his condition with a traffic accident. I allowed the healer in me to take over as I tended to him. As soon as he was safely on his way I would go to the pool in the back garden and cast a spell that it might show me where my dear girl had gone.