The Whitby Witches 3: The Whitby Child (25 page)

When it was time, Pear poured a pan of water over her friend's head to rinse out the henna and Jennet dried her hair with a towel, then borrowed a brush from Meta.

The women sat down around her and looked on the transformed girl with sincere admiration.

"You look a hundred times better," Meta told her. "What a difference—quite like 'The Ugly Duckling'."

"Don't listen to her," Pear said. "You were never ugly. Meta's just scared you'll be prettier than she is."

"Mm," Liz nodded, "very nice."

Jennet drew her fingers through her hair and longed to see how she appeared. "Have you a mirror?" she asked.

"Only the ones on the van," Meta answered. "Go, take a peep—see what you think."

Jennet rose and walked apprehensively to the side of the camper. Crouching, she gazed into the wing mirror and stared at the image within.

She hardly recognised the face that looked out at her. The henna had inflamed a lustrous, coppery fire in her drab dark hair and when it moved the rich colours rippled and gleamed. Jennet could not believe the change, she seemed older and more assured and after staring at the reflection for several minutes, she whirled around and gave Pear a delighted hug.

"It's better than I ever hoped!" she cried. "I even feel different. It's marvellous, thank you!"

Caroline took her fiddle from the van and as the others complimented the girl, began to play a gentle melody.

"I predict that our fledgeling is going to blossom into a great beauty quite soon," Meta crooned. "What a frightening woman she will be. Imagine all those hearts that will turn to her—will she spurn them and be a cold destroyer of men? Or will she have one great passion in her life and be dominated totally by it—forsaking all else and consumed utterly by its ravaging flames? Which would you prefer?"

Jennet sniggered. "I shall choose only millionaires," she told them gravely, "and make them buy me lots of expensive jewellery."

"Jewels for M'lady Jennet!" Pear announced and she removed from around her neck several long strings of glass beads. "There you are, your ladyship, your crown jewels."

Jennet swung them round in her fingers and looked haughtily from side to side. "Not forgetting lovely clothes," she added.

From the van Pear brought a sequin-covered shawl and wrapped it around her friend's neck. "There you are, Your Highness—cloth of gold from the far-off Indies."

"But what will you do if his wealth runs out?" Meta asked. "Will you stay by your bankrupt millionaire and sell all your finery?"

"No chance!" Jennet answered. "I shall leave him and find another."

"How deliriously wicked," Meta purred, "but what about love? Millionaires are always fat and bald and their breath stinks of cigars—you must have a paramour."

"A what?"

"A lover of course—the special one to whom you always return and who visits your dreams."

The smile faded from Jennet's face, and she pulled the shawl from her shoulders. "I don't think so," she muttered. "I did think that at one time perhaps—but I was stupid. It was only infatuation, a silly crush and besides, he was a horrid man."

Meta smiled disarmingly. "Why are we drawn to the wrong men?" she drawled. "It's never the reliable and faithful ones—always the beasts who treat us like dirt. Bewitched moths to brutal flames, that's what we are."

She stretched like a feline and took a deep breath. "It's another ravishing evening," she remarked, "and there just happens to be another bottle of wine waiting to be opened. Would you like a glass, Jennet?"

The girl hesitated.

Meta watched her and put her hand to her brow, peering around the van as if searching for something. "I may be wrong," she said, "but I don't think there are any stray nuns on the horizon. You're perfectly safe, child—or did that overgrown penguin make you sign the pledge? Do you think you have to be saved from our terrible influence?"

"No," Jennet rallied, "I'd love a drink."

It was not long before they all held a glass of wine in their hands and Meta led them in a toast.

"To the flowering of our new friend," she declared. "May her tinted tresses be but the first of many changes in her young and vital life."

To prove that she didn't care what Sister Frances or anyone else had to say, Jennet took a great gulp of the wine and pulled the shawl over her shoulders once more.

Gradually the rest of the women took up their instruments and joined Caroline in the wonderfully soothing tune. Jennet listened to them happily but the sound was so enchanting that it began to lull her senses and before long she was yawning and blinking.

"I'm sorry," she apologised, "it's been a long day—what with the wedding and every... oh dear, I am tired."

The women smiled at her and continued to make the melodious music until the battle to keep her eyes open grew more and more hopeless for the girl and, in the end, the incredible weariness overcame her.

Without warning, Jennet fell back on to the grass and lay as still as death.

Pear leaned over her and gently pushed one eye open. The pupil was large and stared unflinchingly upwards.

"Has it worked?" Meta asked, putting her concertina down.

Pear nodded, "Yes," she said sorrowfully, "she's out cold."

"Then let us go at once!" her mother hissed to the others.

Immediately, Liz and Caroline ceased playing and as one they rose to put their instruments into the camper van.

"Now pick up the girl," Meta told them, "and put her inside."

"Carefully!" Pear added.

"Just be quick!" snapped Meta, glancing warily around the car park.

Hastily, Jennet was bundled into the vehicle and when the two women had climbed in after, Meta pulled the large side door shut with a loud slam and hurried to the front where she jumped into the driver's seat.

"Pear!" she called. "Get in!"

Her daughter had wandered to the cliff edge and hardly heard her.

"What is it?" Meta barked. "Hurry! We must waste no time!"

Reluctantly Pear clambered in beside her. "Did you hear it?" she asked.

"Hear what?"

"The music. It was unlike any I have ever... you must have heard it. It was floating up from the shore far below—it was so sad."

Meta sneered. "Those loathsome wading creatures!" she spat. "They must have assembled and begun already. Now there is no time to be lost—your annoying little friend must be initiated tonight!"

Pear wriggled on her seat to look into the back of the van and gazed thoughtfully at Jennet.

"You won't hurt her, will you?"

Meta turned the key in the ignition and grappled with the gear stick. "Don't bother about her!" she shouted above the splutter of the engine. "Fill your mind with our great cause. What is she to you? Just some fool of a girl the High Priest hardly gave thought to!"

Pear stared glumly out of the window and with a lurch, the camper van lumbered from the car park and sped down Abbey Lane, leaving Whitby far behind.

With his fist wrapped tightly about his staff, Tarr stood stiffly upon the rocky shore, his wind-burned countenance grim and resolute. Gathered around him in a large semi-circle that faced the outgoing tide, the rest of the tribe were sitting upon boulders and gazing in subdued silence at the impassive leaden sea.

Every face was set and grave, for that night was a solemn and melancholy occasion and their hearts quailed within their breasts when they thought of what their leader had taken upon himself to do.

The aufwaders were dressed in ceremonial finery and even the older members had washed and scrubbed themselves until their leathery and lined skin glowed ruddily. Beards had been brushed free of twig and shell and all heads were bare in honour of the expected guest.

At her grandfather's side, Nelda had clothed herself in the bridal dress she had worn when Esau had claimed her, but now the blue-green garment was tight about her middle and the stitches gaped at the seams of the richly-embroidered fabric.

With a heaviness of spirit, she looked around at the other fisherfolk but drew no comfort from their sombre faces.

"We waste our time, grandfather," she said hopelessly. "The Triad beneath the sea will not choose to hear us. Why should they after all this time and the cries of every mother who has gone before me?"

Tarr's bristly eyebrows knitted together and a fierce scowl creased over his face. "They'll hear me, reet enough!" he snarled, glancing up at the darkening sky. "The hour grows near—the moon is rising."

Low over the horizon, the round disc of the full moon appeared faint in the fading blue of the evening and at a signal from Tarr the aufwaders began to sing.

Very faintly at first, each of the fisherfolk commenced the chant. They were old words handed down from mother to son, a song that stretched back into the early days of the Earth when the many tribes crowded the shoreline and dealt freely with the three powers of the waking world. Not once in living memory had the remaining aufwaders assembled to perform the litany, but it was so deeply anchored within their being that no one faltered and the words of the ancient chorus rose before the cliffs, borne upon the twilight breeze.

Only Tarr and Nelda remained silent, and as the dirge-like music burgeoned about them they stared resolutely out to sea.

Early stars pricked through the cobalt sky which grew gradually dimmer until the shore beneath the cliffs became swamped in a dismal gloom. Yet still the funereal chant continued and as the moon climbed higher, Tarr beckoned to Eurgen Handibrass who was crouched at the front of the semi-circle and the elderly aufwader rose creakily to his feet. In his gnarled hands he carried a bulky object covered by a cloth of fine muslin decorated with intricate embroidery and, treading carefully, he took it over to the leader of the tribe.

Eurgen bowed and uncovered the sacred artefact that he bore. There in his hands was the ceremonial conch. Its lustrous interior mirrored and revelled in the bright silver moonlight, reflecting a pearly sheen up into Tarr's unwavering face.

Staunchly, he received the shell from Eurgen and curled his fingers about its smooth surface.

Raising it above his head he held the conch aloft and in a bold and authoritative voice called out, "Behold the Horn o' the Deep! Ever has it summoned the herald o' the mighty Triad and let this night be no exception! Yet ah would'na call down their fury on any save messen—fer the sake of my son's bairn I call to them this neet and if wrath is all they offer then let it fall on me alone!"

Throughout this stout, defiant speech the fisherfolk had continued to sing and showed their approval of his actions by rocking to and fro. Even Old Parry joined them in this, for the time had indeed come when all resentments must be put aside. Her cracked voice chanted loudly as Tarr put the great shell to his lips and blew.

A single blaring, sonorous note blasted over the waves. Nelda's grandfather had never sounded the conch before but now he put all his strength into that one bugling roar. Every pent-up bitter memory, every wretched and grief-filled fear was poured from his soul and hurled in a tormented scream out under the stars.

When his lungs were spent and long after Tarr had given the shell back to Eurgen, the awful, piercing note continued to echo and ricochet around the encircling seas and he put his trembling arm around Nelda's shoulders.

"What now?" she murmured.

"We wait, lass."

The hours deepened. The heavenly field of stars blazed with glacial fires in the velvet blackness, and soaring high above at the pinnacle of its ascent, the cream-coloured moon radiated an ethereal splendour over the slumbering world.

Upon the shore, the aufwaders had grown silent and a small number, goaded by Old Parry, began to complain that they were wasting their time—the Deep Ones had ignored the age-old summons.

Sitting on the ground, with his granddaughter asleep in his arms, Tarr kept his weary eyes trained upon the darkness, where the far distant rim of the sea had faded into night. The damp slowly crept into his bones but he made no movement to ease his discomfort and, like a figure rendered in stone, remained silent and motionless.

And then his fatigue disappeared and the hope which had dwindled to cold ash inside him revived.

"Nelda!" he cried, shaking his granddaughter. "Look! Behold, all of yer! See what glimmers yonder!"

The tribe stirred and raised their dozing heads at this excited outburst.

Upon the invisible horizon a tiny pulse of light gleamed, sailing ever nearer out of the darkness towards the shore.

"'Tis the herald!" Tarr yelled. "He comes! At last he comes!"

Everyone staggered to their feet and waited with refreshed vigour as the dim glow drifted closer, and only those with the sharpest sight could discern its origin.

A small rowing boat was floating over the water, at its prow a lantern swung gently and its pendulous beams threw a sweeping blue light over the craft's single occupant.

The herald of the Deep Ones was a hunched and hooded figure, whose cloaked form remained motionless throughout the long journey to the water's edge.

"Grandfather," Nelda whispered, "what if he has only come to scorn us and cast a further doom upon our heads?"

"Dinna tha fright so," he muttered. "Ah've a bargain to strike wi' thattun," and he patted the flap of the satchel that was strung over his shoulders.

Steadily an uncanny, unseen force propelled the wooden vessel through the waves, and when it was just in reach of the shore, the boat drifted to an abrupt halt.

The huddled form within the boat made no move but Nelda could feel that it was staring straight at her, glaring at her swollen stomach, and she caught the briefest glimpse of a glittering cluster of eyes beneath that deep, sea-green cowl.

Leaning upon his staff, Tarr strode to the edge of the tide and raised his hand in dignified salutation.

"Ah welcome thee, most noble guest," he began, reciting the courteous words of greeting, "as sole leader of the aufwader race, the keeper of the..."

"Peace, Tarr Shrimp," interrupted an unearthly, strident voice from the depths of the herald's hood. "Thou art known unto me and so too the plight of thy bantling. Hearken to me now, for the pleas and entreaties which bite at thine tongue are known also to my masters. Thou wouldst beseech of them mercy and compassion—is that not so?"