The Whitby Witches 3: The Whitby Child (12 page)

Pushing her spectacles further up her nose, the woman squinted along the path, then peered down at a piece of paper she held in her hand.

It was now too dark to see the map, so from the smart bag which had once matched the shoes she brought out a torch and shone it upon the paper.

"Not far," she breathed, "yet it was more distant than I was anticipated."

Waving the bright beam before her, she carefully negotiated the squelching route for a further fifteen minutes then consulted the map once more.

"Here, I am certain," she said, looking down at a large, irregular-shaped stone that jutted from the ground and was scored by three weathered lines.

Cautiously, Hillian shone the torch over the edge and saw that below her the cliff face dropped less severely to the shore and in a tight zigzag, a precarious pathway wound down the steep slope beyond the reach of the light beam.

Tucking the map back into her pocket, she began to descend, and here again she was obliged to curse her expensive footwear.

Quietly lapping the shore, the dark sea was still and at peace. Behind the lazy waves that rolled almost wearily on to the stretching sands no ripple marred the smooth surface and out into the far distance the waters merged with the smothering night.

From the shallows, a massive column of black rock rose dramatically into the sky like a tower sacred to heaven that had been roughly hewn in the lost, pagan ages of the world.

Into this secluded place, Hillian came hobbling. When her shoes sank into the sand, she slipped her feet from them and continued the rest of the way with them dangling from her fingers.

Curiously she gazed up at the rearing pillar of rock and satisfied herself that it was indeed the correct spot, then switched off her torch.

An air of expectancy charged the salty atmosphere, as though the sea had been waiting for her arrival, and she felt a chill tingle travel along her spine.

Gravely, she placed her belongings upon the sand and stood as still as the immense rock which loomed nearby as she composed herself. For some moments she listened, but the only sounds were those of the waves upon the shore.

Flinging out her arms she stared fixedly at the invisible horizon then cried, "Hearken to me!" and the sudden noise of her voice tore the waiting peace into shreds.

"Here have I come," Hillian called. "This is the meeting place of your devising—show unto me that our efforts have not been in vain. Disclose the contact that we seek and are promised this night. In the name of he who has passed over and by the coven of the Black Sceptre I summon you!"

Keeping her arms raised until they ached, she waited for an answering sign, but only the soft murmuring sea called to her and Hillian's nostrils twitched in irritation and impatience.

"He keeps me lingering," she muttered, "yet bide here I shall. Does he test my endurance? More than this would any of us suffer."

Lowering her arms, she buttoned her elegant jacket and thrust her hands deep into the pockets, for the exposed shore was cold and it was not long before the chill entered her very bones.

When twenty minutes had gone by, Hillian lit a cigarette and sat upon the damp sand, for her feet were totally numb and she rubbed them vigorously.

"A waste of time this is," she told the empty shore. "Why delay further?"

Another half an hour dragged by and with an annoyed snarl, she finished the packet of cigarettes and threw the screwed up box into the water.

"Were we deceived?" she yelled. "What joke was this? Many months in the planning I spent—was it only for your amusement? Why do you not answer?"

Even as she uttered the last question she became aware that the wind had changed and was swiftly growing stronger.

From the blackness of the open sea it blew, whipping the foam from the waves and driving them against the shore with increasing violence.

"Yes!" Hillian roared as she sprang to her feet. "Show me, oh Mighty Majesty! Reveal thy will!"

At last it was happening. Rejoicing at the raging gale, the woman leaned into the squall and with her mud-splashed, sand-encrusted silk and linen clothes flapping madly about her she raised her arms in exultation.

From the furthest reaches of the sea, the storm came thundering. Huge waves crashed against the column of rock, venting a hellish fury about its solid bulk until it seemed as if it would topple and smash into the savage waters below. Upon the shore the sand was ripped up and hurled against the cliff, gouging deep cuts into its sloping face.

Hillian's short black hair streamed flat against her skull as the tempest screamed about her, yet she withstood it fearlessly and bawled back into the howling wind.

"Show me now!" she screeched. "Show me!"

From the wild darkness above, a torrent of hailstones suddenly pelted from the sky and pounded the tortured shore. Then from the deep, seething waters, a spout of icy water exploded to the surface as a small, square object shot from the waves.

Hillian clapped her hands as she watched it fly through the night in a perfect arc towards her.

Spinning and twisting, the shape tumbled down. Through hail and sleet it sliced a curving path until, with a tremendous thump, it hit the beach and was half buried in the sand directly in front of the gleeful woman.

Eagerly, she kneeled to dig it free with her bare hands and stared at the object excitedly.

It was a wooden box, no larger than a small suitcase, and Hillian snatched it up greedily.

"I
thank you!" she cried into the wind. "Now we can begin to do thy bidding. Be assured that no task shall we balk at—for if we are granted that which is promised then there is nothing we will not commit."

The sea roared about the towering rock and Hillian put the shoes back upon her feet. With a final glance at the raging waters, the plump woman carried the box up the narrow pathway and set off back to Whitby.

***

On the East Cliff, situated along the Pier Road beside the gaudy, chattering amusement arcades, The Sandy Beach Café looked bright and cheerful in its clean peppermint paint and golden letters. The establishment had only been open for a few weeks but already it was luring many regular customers away from their old haunts and had proven a firm favourite with the early holiday makers.

The new owner, Susannah O'Donnell, wiped down the last table and surveyed the shining interior of her café with undisguised pride.

She was a plain, stunted-looking woman with a dull face that held no sparkle or redeeming feature which might have lifted her from the trough of ugliness. Her eyes were small and positioned too far apart under her heavy brows where they blinked alarmingly at anxious and nervous moments. Between these a misshapen lump of freckled gristle poked into the air—it was more of a snout than a nose and burdened her with the fact that it was always shiny and on cold days looked just like a polished radish.

A mass of wiry ginger hair framed this unlovely countenance and the coarse sprouting had been cut with so little attention or skill that it seemed to grip her head like a tight-fitting helmet.

From early on in her life, Susannah had realised that she was never going to be beautiful and had taken to sinking her chin into her chest and walking with a stoop to try to go unnoticed in the world. This habit had resulted in an unpleasant curvature of the spine and now her hunched shoulders and slightly rounded back were aspects of her appearance that she could no longer control.

No, when she forced herself to gaze in the mirror, she knew that there was nothing a man might find attractive about that sorry reflection, and had resigned herself to that fact long ago. Yet every time Susannah O'Donnell opened her mouth to speak she turned the heads of everyone who heard her.

She possessed one of the most exquisitely enchanting voices ever to have sang outside a nightingale's throat. With her lilting Irish accent, every sentence that she uttered was a marvellous music that made the fortunate listener smile with pleasure. Once Susannah had harboured the aspiration to become a professional singer but her father had forbidden that, for it would never have done for his ugly daughter to make a spectacle of herself in public. And so the dream withered inside her and she retreated further into his grand house, for her family was rich, and when her father died she had become one of the wealthiest women in Ireland.

It was too late then, however, to fulfil her childhood ambition, for whatever meagre confidence she once nurtured had been mercilessly trampled and killed.

By the time she was thirty-nine years old, Susannah had become a recluse and the family residence rang with the echoes of her unhappiness.

Briskly, she shook the cloth out of the café door then pulled the rubber gloves from her hands.

"A come-down this is," she sang lightly. "To think, O'Donnell, there were servants aplenty in that rambling old house o' father's." But as she said this a smile was irresistibly curving over her mouth and she wandered slowly through to the kitchen where the cloth and gloves were consigned to the appropriate drawer.

"Ah,
but you love it, sure you do," she eventually added with a spellbinding laugh, "and when were you so happy? 'Tis a time I can't remember."

As she removed her overall, the woman paused and she did indeed recall such an occasion.

"That was it," she lamented, "that first day when
he
came sailing into my life—all grin and blarney. Oh yes, that were a sunny chance and no mistake."

Susannah became lost in a fair memory, that unforgettable day when the only man who had ever noticed her confessed his adoration, and from the moment she beheld those blazing eyes she was lost. Since that time she had followed him half-way around the world, and though he had proven faithless and cruel she had remained insanely devoted to him.

"Nathaniel," her voice chimed softly, "oh my sweet, sweet love."

For six years Susannah had been a member of the Crozier coven and during those witching years the high priest had squandered most of her fortune. But she had not cared. She knew that he had never had any affection for her and only used her when it suited him, but that did not matter. Nathaniel had let her stay by him and that was all she craved.

She was not the only coven member to be so ensnared; she could list at least two others whom he had seduced merely for their wealth. Others were procured because they possessed some skill or talent that he could pervert and enslave to do his bidding. Only one of Susannah's "sisters" was brought into the coven because of her beauty, and she had heard dreadful tales from the others of how he had dealt with those who resented the lovely newcomer.

He had been a selfish and arrogant devil who made certain that he got his own way in all matters, and those who disobeyed him were barbarously punished. But that had happened ten years before she had joined and every one of his disciples since that time had remained steadfastly loyal.

As she hung the overall behind the kitchen door and began to pull on her overcoat she smiled ruefully.

"A frightful man and that's the honest truth," she chirped. "It's mad I must have been to traipse from country to country, dodging the authorities. To what end has it brought me, I ask myself? An O'Donnell waiting on tables and wiping up grease and tea slops."

A look of fright froze over Susannah's face and she shook herself angrily.

"Of what am I thinking?" she gasped, fumbling with the collar of her coat. "Ah, that's better, much better. Be calm now, Little Carrot, think of
him—
that's it, remember his eyes. Remember his voice, hear it from your heart... ah yes, there he is—that gorgeous man."

Throughout all this Susannah had been fingering a necklace of wooden beads and as she touched it she was reassured. The obedience to Nathaniel had begun to falter but now it was just as strong as it had ever been.

"All will be well," she chanted solemnly. "We shall succeed and all will be well."

Striding through the café she placed her hand upon the light switch but hesitated for one final look around the cheery room.

"'Tis an indignity right enough," she admitted, "but mild compared to most of the things I've done these last years. Come on, O'Donnell, I said before as how you love it. Wouldn't be so bad a life running this place."

She glanced across at the menu written in large colourful letters on the far wall and wondered if she ought to change it slightly for the following week. But all such thoughts were frivolous and futile—she might not even be here then.

Quickly, she left the premises and locked them behind her. Then, hunched over more than ever, she walked along the quayside and drank in the pleasant sight of Whitby after dark.

"It's a mercy that pile of stinking fish has been washed away," she observed as she crossed the swing bridge. '"Tis a grace I had any customers at all this evening with that foul reek a-wafting from the beach. Sure, me cream teas must be improving."

Before she set foot upon the West Cliff, Susannah turned in a full circle, taking in the entire town which glittered beneath the buzzing street lamps.

"'Tis a rare place," she murmured tunefully. "A most precious community with a history as fancy and noble as any other I've seen." She lifted her eyes past the rooftops to the shadowy stones of the church and tilted her head thoughtfully to one side. "More so perhaps," she added, "a quiet dignity resides up there—hmmm."

The woman smiled regretfully then disappeared into one of the dark lanes beyond the bridge, her lovely voice humming a charming song from the old country.

Inside The Whitby Bookshop, Miriam Gower looked at her watch and pursed her blood-red lips.

"Nearly half eleven," she said tersely. "What are they up to?"

The shop was in darkness for she did not wish to invite prying eyes; besides, she was perfectly at ease sitting in the pitchy gloom. As she sipped at a cup of strong, sweet tea, the large painted woman stared out at the street and waited.

A little time ago, she had heard the stragglers leave the public houses at the foot of the abbey steps and saw them lumber past the window, clapping one another on the shoulders and laughing raucously or tottering by on white slingbacks with arms folded and moussed hair defying the breeze. Once a bony, bespectacled man who was out walking a yapping terrier had peered in at the bookshelves and Miriam drew her round figure deeper into the shadows until he and the dog had continued on their way.