The Return of the Witch (9 page)

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That night I was too restive to attempt sleep. Instead I sat on the end of my bed in the living quarters, letting the sounds of the night drift in through the open window. Erasmus had made up a bed for himself on the floor above. I discovered that the windmill had five floors: The one on ground level housed the colossal millstone; the one above that was where grain was stored, the bags being winched through a doorway at the rear designed for the purpose; the next one up was the main living area; above that was a storeroom and extra sleeping space; at the top was the machinery that allowed the roof of the windmill to pivot and turn, so that the sails could capture the wind, and where the sturdy iron workings transferred the energy from the sky down through the core of the structure and into the great grinding stone at its base. When the mill was at rest, the whole building seemed to sigh and shrug its shoulders, grateful to take its ease. The heat of the day lingered in the living space, and the air was dusty. I leaned forward to catch the soft, fresh breeze that stirred the hay meadow. Aloysius scampered onto the sill. We both looked warily about for the resident cats, but they must have taken themselves off to hunt out of doors for a change. The diminutive creature settled to washing his whiskers. I was tired, but my limbs had a curious restlessness about them, and my heart was given to jumping and skipping beats in a most provoking manner. I surmised this was a delayed aftereffect of Time Stepping, and concluded that had I suffered any serious harm during the transition it would surely have manifested itself more plainly by now. I needed time to settle. I needed to settle to time. In truth, I was also wary of lowering my consciousness into sleep. Gideon was close, geographically, chronographically, and magically. I did not yet know his purpose in transporting Tegan as he had done, but his choice of time and place strongly suggested that I remained the primary object of his obsession. Why else would he bring Tegan to my childhood home, the place where he and I had met, where our destinies had become so irrevocably entwined?

“Are you unable to sleep, Mistress Carmichael?” Erasmus's voice behind me came as a surprise. For a non-witch, he was adept at moving about unnoticed. I decided this was because at times he did so with what was truly an unnatural speed. A consequence of his ability to bend time to his will, no doubt. “It is a common response to Stepping,” he told me, coming to stand at the window. He rested his hand on the upper frame and leaned forward, breathing deeply. “I swear my lungs are half filled with flour, or dust from the grain, or pollen from the meadow.”

“You are not a natural miller.”

“I am a city boy. I find all this … emptiness,” here he waved his hand at the countryside below, “… pretty enough, but a little lacking.”

“But you are quite wrong. The fields and forests wriggle with life and activity even at this hour.”

“Yes, it is precisely that they can be described as ‘wriggling' that bothers me. You see soft open spaces, I see only absence. Where are the people? Where are the signs of our great civilization? A library, perhaps? An institute of learning would sit very finely just there. And a tailor who knows what he is about.” He smiled down at his own shabby clothes, patting his rough shirt to send up a little puff of dust. “Put simply, I miss London.”

“It is your home?”

“I consider it so, though of course my chosen path does not entirely accommodate the notion of ‘home.' It was where I grew up. Where I studied and ultimately became what I am.” He turned to smile at me now. “I visit when I am able.”

It occurred to me then that we shared a rootlessness in our long, unconventional lives. I had been compelled to move on in every generation so as not to draw attention to my longevity. I, too, had no real place to call home. Even Willow Cottage, which I now considered so important in my life. In time I would have to leave there, to leave Matravers and seek out another place to live.

“But this was your childhood home, was it not?” he went on. “Of course, you will feel quite differently about it.”

“Returning here has indeed stirred many memories.” I nodded. “Some more pleasant than others. I do feel more at ease in the country, wherever it may be. Are you yourself not seduced just the smallest bit by the peace and quiet?”

“Quiet it may be, but peaceful it most certainly is not. Not anymore. Alas, I fear the Batchcombe you once knew is quite changed.”

“Has it been greatly affected by the war?”

“Indeed it has. This is a truly terrible situation, for it is setting Englishman against Englishman. Villages are divided. Families, even. And those who have not lost loved ones to the fighting have lost to hunger. To poverty. Armies must be fed, and they will take what they need from wherever they find themselves. And if all the men have gone off to fight, who is left to farm the land?”

“And without a harvest…”

“People starve.” He became earnest now. “I do not wish to cast you down, Mistress Carmichael, and I am aware you have your own very pressing concerns, but again, I must counsel caution. People hereabouts have suffered, and for a long time, and they see no near end to that suffering. They are hungry, they are weary. Many would dearly love to find someone upon whom to vent their grief and their frustration.”

“I recall the plague putting people in just such a frame of mind.”

“Do not allow yourself to fall victim to their desperation a second time,” he said, before bowing good night and leaving me to my thoughts.

*   *   *

I rose early and readied myself for my trip into town. I reasoned that if Gideon was expecting me to find him, he might well be there waiting. If not, I could at least ask discreetly if anyone had seen a man and a young woman come recently to Batchcombe. Erasmus had found clothes for me, selected with more care than I might have expected. The dress was of good quality, but not ostentatious in any way. The blue wool and crisp white cuffs and collar befitted my station as a merchant's widow. The bonnet with the helpfully low brim would enable me to keep my face at least partially covered against the chance of my being recognized. I took a piece of bread and some warm milk before setting off. Aloysius insisted on traveling with me but I was concerned he would come to harm if not secured in some way. I cast about in the cupboards and found a small purse with a toggled flap. I slipped this around my waist and the mouse seemed quite content to travel inside it.

The day was bright and promised to be hot later. I walked briskly in an effort to rid myself of the nervous knot in my stomach and buzz in my head. I had no clear plan beyond seeking out Gideon and Tegan. How could I have? I would have to rise to whatever situation I found myself in, for I could not know how or where the warlock would be keeping her. I had no way of discerning the purpose behind his actions. I suspected he was trying to lure me into some manner of trap, but that was a risk I had to take.

Over the mile and a half of dry earth track that lay between the mill and Batchcombe, my anxiety did indeed begin to lessen. How much better it was to be engaged in action rather than conjecture. I was expecting to find the small town changed, but there were few new buildings, so that the high street and its surroundings were poignantly familiar to me. The wide road that ran through the center was less busy than I might have expected, and I took this to be a sign of the difficult times. People were still abroad, going about their business, in and out of shops, leading children by the hand, carrying baskets, but few seemed to be at their leisure. And those same shops had little displayed in their windows and many empty shelves due to such shortages as only prolonged war can bring. Batchcombe presented still the same enduring mix of the lowly and the highborn. There was the run of low-roofed cottages, two rooms up, two down. Farther along were three merchants' houses, each trying to outdo the other with their grand and elaborate construction, oak-framed and smartly painted plasterwork or glowing red brick. Front doors were carefully carved with symbols of a person's trade or profession—a bunch of grapes here, a mason's chisel there. The wealthier residents enjoyed leaded glass in their windows, with painted shutters largely for show. The inn where Gideon had first demonstrated his magic to me continued to do brisk business. I shuddered as I passed the Court House, where both my mother and I myself had been tried as witches. All too vividly the memory of the gaol beneath it came back to me. The rancid cell where I had bid my mother a tearful farewell. The same cell from which I had only weeks later used magic—Gideon's magic—to escape.

As I gazed about me an elderly couple passed, the man looking familiar to me. In my eagerness to take in every corner of the town I had raised my chin, making my face plainly visible. The gentleman paused in his step and for a moment I feared he had recognized me. I quickly lowered my head and hurried on, taking more care to conceal my identity. For over an hour I walked the streets of Batchcombe, aiming to see but not be seen wherever possible. My frustration grew as I realized how near impossible my task was to be without questioning people. I would have to choose wisely, selecting only persons too young to have a likely memory of me, or those I was certain I had never seen before. Erasmus was right about the town being altered. Although, so far, the buildings remained unchanged, there was a subtle shift in the feel of the place. What had been a bustling and thriving town now felt down-at-heel, shabby, with a desultory air about it. And there was a sour smell, which was not produced entirely by the drains and gutters. It was the smell of poverty. I had encountered it many times over the centuries I had roamed this country. It was the bitter aroma of wasted hopes and dreams, the acrid stink of fear, the malodorous atmosphere of disease. There might not be plague, thank heavens, but there was all manner of other ailments and afflictions caused by prolonged hunger, by grief, by a lack of society and care, by wounds unhealed, and the perpetual anxiety of an uncertain future.

Suddenly, my attention was taken from the general to the specific. The woman in me, who had lived among these people and cared about them before they so brutally turned on me, was suppressed by the witch, who sensed a greater danger. Gideon. I looked up and down the street, but could not find him, and yet I could sense him. He was so close! If only I could spy on him, follow him. Was he watching me, even at that moment? I wondered. I stepped close to the window of a haberdashers, feigning interest in the few wares displayed. I narrowed my eyes to focus on the reflection so that I might view the street behind me. An empty wagon rumbled past. My pulse was quickening, sweat dampening my palms. He was here! Two small boys scampered by, followed by their harassed mother, who called unheeded admonishments after them. And then I saw a tall, lean figure, dressed head to toe in black, wearing a broad-brimmed hat. His face was in shadow beneath the brim, but it was unmistakably Gideon. There were two women with him, but I could not see either clearly. Could one of them be Tegan? The nearest, walking a step behind him, wore her hair unusually loose, hanging long and wavy down her back, and her gait was not familiar. The other was the same height but was on the other side of Gideon, so I did not have a clear view of her. I froze. Had he noticed me? If I turned and confronted him here, in the open, the chances are he would not harm me, but nor would he lead me to wherever he was staying. I needed to know. If she was one of the young women with him, she must return to their new home. If she was not, she might well be a prisoner in the same place. I found I was holding my breath. As I watched, he walked to the corner of the empty iron-monger's store and then turned the corner into a narrow alley. Quickly, I moved to follow him.

“Bess? Bess Hawksmith, can it be you?” The woman's shrill voice halted me in mid-stride.

 

7

Without exposing my face further I glanced up and found a stern-faced middle-aged woman standing at my side. She was expensively dressed, her clothes somber but of fine quality. Her bearing further suggested a woman of some wealth and standing in the community. I tried to identify her, but dared not look at her too boldly.

“Madam,” I replied quietly, “you are mistook.”

“I think not,” she insisted. “But how came you here?”

“I assure you, I am not the person you believe me to be.”

“I know what I see. Husband!” she called to her spouse, who emerged from the shop behind us. “Come, tell me that I am correct. See who I have found. Is it not strange?”

Her husband peered at me myopically through thick spectacles, uncertain of what or who he was supposed to be looking at. His wife became louder in her assertions, causing one or two passersby to stop to listen to the altercation.

“My name is Mistress Carmichael,” I assured her. “I am recently widowed and come to stay with my brother at the mill…”

“No, I will not have it! Your features are too familiar to me. I am convinced of the evidence of my own eyes, and you are Anne Hawksmith's daughter, Bess.”

“I tell you, my name is Carmichael,” I all but shouted.

Such was the tension of the moment I had not noticed a smart gig draw to a halt beside me. The occupant leaned out through the window and spoke in an assured voice, evidently accustomed to his authority being accepted.

“Widow Carmichael,” he called to me, “my sincerest apologies for arriving late for our meeting.” He opened the door, stepped out of the little carriage, and made a hasty bow.

At last I dared raise my face and found myself looking into the warm brown eyes of William Gould. He was no longer a youth but a mature man, his hair showing some grey, his frame more solid than I recalled, but he was still William. Bess's William, that is what Margaret used to call him to tease me. There might have been a time when there was some truth in such a description, but ultimately his place in society was beyond my reach. I think we had always both known that, in our hearts. And now here he was, quick-witted as ever, arrived at the perfect moment to rescue me.