The Whitby Witches 3: The Whitby Child (8 page)

"Very well," she agreed, "look into my future. Will I be a bride again?"

Parry tutted at her mockery. "No game do I play," she muttered in all seriousness. "The frolics of gazing nights were founded in ancient tradition. In every tribe there was one who could really part the curtain of time and look beyond tomorrow."

"And you are one of those?" Nelda asked, not believing a word.

The other sniggered and took from around her neck an egg-shaped pebble threaded on to a piece of string. "No," came the unexpected answer, "but this bauble did belong to one and sometimes, if it allows, I can see days yet distant. Now be silent and still."

Twirling the string in her fingers, she held it over the rock pool and slowly lowered the stone into the inky water.

Nelda did not have to ask how Parry had acquired the stone. She was like a magpie and did not scruple to thieve anything she took a fancy to.

"There now," the crone gurgled in a sing-song voice as she swirled the trinket through the pool. "Remember thy mistress—'tis I, Idin. Thou knowest me, my pretty stone—awake and show unto me this night. Tell thine secrets, oh stone so round and smooth. Let out thy knowledge, Idin commands."

The disturbed water remained dark to Nelda's eyes, but Old Parry crouched over the rippling surface and peered keenly into the shallow depths as she released the stone and let it sink to the bottom.

"Ah," she hissed, "it clears. I see a lone figure—a child. Why! 'Tis no other than yourself, Nelda. Yet your face is grim. Oh, is there naught merry to show me? See, a cloud of darkness and despair is closing around you—oh unhappy bride, what evil stalks you? Ever tighter it binds; you are in direst peril and ever your voice is raised in cries of pain and woe."

Slyly, her eyes slid round to look at the young aufwader and she knew she had guessed correctly. "But the sea does drown your calls," she continued with a sneering leer spreading over her face, "and you are shrouded in its doom."

Nelda grabbed a large pebble and flung it into the centre of the rock pool. The water exploded into Parry's face and the wicked hag fell backwards, coughing and spluttering on the brine.

"Harridan!" the girl yelled. "Begone before I strike you! That stone never belonged to Idin the far-seeing, though I believe you would have stolen it from the very black boat she was laid upon before it set sail. What vile glee does your twisted mind enjoy? Why taunt me?"

Parry pointed a knobbly finger at her and gloated maliciously. "'Tis true then," she wheezed. "You have come under the curse! A bairn is growing inside your belly—'twere your words that set me on it, asking how your mother perished. Hah! 'Tis your own death you fear. Into agonies undreamed of will you be plunged. Many other hands than mine are needed to count the mothers who have died that way. They were the foolish ones—they would not listen."

Nelda grimaced in disgust, but she was afraid of what the crone would do—would she tell the rest of the tribe? Of course she would. Old Parry delighted in the pain of others. Struggling to remain aloof and not admitting that the guess was correct, Nelda said, "I have wasted too much time in your company already. Do not speak to me again, and if you wish to remain safe and well then keep a hold on your evil tongue."

But it was an empty threat and the hag knew it. "Horror and death," she repeated coarsely, "horror and death. All them seawives a-dyin' with them infants inside them. None would listen to me—not even your mother. Oh no, not her!"

"Don't you dare speak about my mother!" Nelda shouted. "Or the next rock I throw will be aimed at your head!"

Parry took no notice. "Only the clever ones survived," she intoned. "Only those who hearkened to me saved themselves. Weren't no other way."

Nelda had begun walking back to the cliffs but she halted and turned round once more.

"What do you mean?" she asked. "How did they manage to survive?"

"I could show you," the crone suggested, "though I don't sees as why I should, you being so hostile like."

"Please yourself," the girl wearily replied. "It's probably another of your tricks. I'm too tired for any more."

"No tricks!" Parry promised. "On my dear dead Joby's life this ain't." She lifted her eyes and stared at the waxing moon that shone with an icy brilliance. "Aye, 'tis the proper time; you're fortunate, child—come."

She scrambled to her feet and hurried over the rocks towards the sand and the direction of the town. "If'n you want to live to see another winter you'd best be with me."

Nelda hesitated. She still did not trust her, but soon found herself following.

Over the steps of Tate Hill Pier the aufwaders climbed and Nelda marvelled, for the crone loathed anything to do with the humans and would never normally walk amongst their ugly huts. But through the streets they went until they came to the foot of the abbey steps. Immediately, Parry hastened upwards, her eyes darting to and fro, in case they should meet one of the infernal landbreed. But at that late hour the one hundred and ninety-nine steps were deserted.

When she reached the summit Parry sat upon a tombstone and waited for Nelda to catch up. The breeze was strong on top of the cliff and her wild hair writhed about her head like a hundred snakes.

Whilst there, she took a leather purse out of her pocket and from this she carefully removed a small disc of sea-polished green glass and held it to one of her eyes.

Eventually Nelda appeared, but she was puffing and panting and had to rest before she could speak.

"See how the lifestealer within you already drinks your strength," Parry commented, "otherwise you would have raced to the top and left old me toiling below."

Still out of breath, Nelda leaned against the rail and looked down at the rooftops of Whitby. Somewhere nearby was the cottage that Ben lived in, but she could not recognise it from up here and shifted her gaze to the wizened aufwader upon the tombstone.

"What is that?" she asked, pointing to the circle of glass.

"Aha!" came the proud reply. "Now this truly is a useful trinket, and is all mine. I found it, I used it." She threw Nelda a quizzical glance and smirked. "Did Tarr ever tell you of the time before the Mother's Curse came upon us?"

"Of course he did—I know all about our histories and lineage."

"Bah! Not that bilge!" Parry snorted. "I'm talking of me. Did he tell you what I did before we were doomed?" She raised her eyebrows and laughed horribly on seeing the girl's blank face. "I was the midwife!" she murmured.

"Into this sorry world did I deliver the infants, yet never a one did I have of my own and then Oona disgraced us and it was too late for me. Yet brides still loved their husbands and life was made, so a new task was I needed for."

Leaving the tombstone, she beckoned to Nelda and passed further into the graveyard.

The girl hesitated. "Where are we going?" she asked.

Parry gave a hissing laugh through her teeth. "There's nowt to fear," she assured her. "Only the dust of landbreed bones lies beneath the sod; the shade of no human do I fear."

"I am not afraid," Nelda insisted. "I often come here to sit and think, but why are we here now?"

"You shan't ever know if'n you don't follow."

Nelda gazed into the gloom-ridden graveyard; the lamps that illuminated the church were dark and the top of the exposed cliff was forbidding, cloaked in watchful shadows. She could imagine all sorts of terrors lurking in the long grass that swayed and rustled in the wind. Many strange beings had dwelt in Whitby throughout the ages, many dangerous wild creatures with razor teeth and murderous hearts.

Old Parry had nearly disappeared into the darkness and feeling suddenly alone and vulnerable, Nelda hurriedly stepped from the path and ran through the grass after her.

Into the engulfing black shade of the church they plunged. The church of Saint Mary was vastly different at night and Nelda kept looking over her shoulder uncomfortably. The squat, square bulk of the building towered over her; no more the cosy place of worship, it was almost a crouching ogre preparing to spring—waiting until its victims were close enough. More than once she thought she could see something flit behind the panes of its unlit windows and her pace quickened to escape the range of their hollow stare.

Old Parry was totally at her ease however, and strolled casually between the forests of headstones.

The graveyard stretched in all directions, vanishing into the night whichever way Nelda turned. She had been here countless times before but at that moment the aufwader could almost believe she was standing in a country of the dead, and felt that she was a trespasser upon their peace.

Parry observed her disquiet and bared her brown teeth in a repulsive grin to show that there was nothing to fear. Then she held up the glass disc and tittered.

"Thirteen times has this been steeped in the reflection of the full moon," she explained, "once for every month that we carry the unborn within us. Forbidden words have I spoken over this shiny glass and with it I spared many of our tribe from their agonies."

"I don't understand," Nelda breathed, still looking around nervously. "What does it do?"

Parry lifted the disc to her eye again. "'Tis a boon to sight," she answered. "Through this lens can be seen much that is hidden from even we fisherfolk. Beneath the moon some things grow which it is better we do not see, yet at certain times in certain places, there is a plant—the bitterest little herb which only the glass can disclose. It is the moon's gift to us, her merciful balm sprung from the tears of her compassion at our plight."

With that, she left Nelda's side and began hunting between the headstones, parting the long grass with her eager fingers, questing the gloom like a hound after a scent.

Then, emitting a crow of delight, she called to Nelda and with a bony finger pointed at the shadowy ground.

They were standing beside a grave that was smaller than the others and Nelda felt her skin crawl in revulsion at the callousness of her companion.

"Behold!" Parry cried. "Peer through this, child, and see your salvation."

With shaking hands, Nelda took the lens from her and put it to her eye.

At first there was only a green darkness, and then as her eyes adjusted to the glass, her vision cleared and she drew her breath in sharply.

There, growing from the centre of the grave was a small, sickly looking plant.

Nelda lowered the glass and stared again but she could see no trace of the ugly weed.

"The moonlight blinds your eyes to it," Parry whispered in her ear. "Not for all is the fruit of her pity."

Nelda gazed through the lens a second time and studied the weed more closely.

It was a vile and repugnant growth. The feeble stem was a pallid and ghostly grey—the colour of putrefying death and decay. Bunched around the base were clusters of tiny blade-shaped leaves and wispy threads of spiralling tendrils wound themselves about the frail stalk as though they were trying to strangle the sap from it.

But the herb's most awful aspect was the flower. It too was leprously grey in hue, yet each of the five petals was shot through with a diseased vein of putrid red. Together they formed a spikey cup and from the centre of this loathsome vessel two long stamens wafted in the breeze.

Suddenly Nelda covered her nose and mouth. From the flower a nauseating reek was rising and she had to gulp down the clean air to prevent herself being sick.

"Is it not the daintiest bloom?" Old Parry softly sang. "See how the petals strive up to bathe in the moonlight, whilst the delicate creepers attempt to murderously choke and drag it down."

"It repels me!" Nelda gagged. "I do not think I shall ever be rid of the stench! What vileness of Nature is it? What horror have you shown me this night? See how it flourishes upon that small grave—how far do the roots reach into the earth? On what soil do they feed?"

"Don't you trouble to worry about that," the crone cackled, "for this bitter weed is your friend."

"What do you mean?"

"Exactly that—this tiny herb can save you. Hither have I brought many whose fears were no less than your own. The remedy to your woes is at hand. Simply taste one drop of the plant's juice and it is done. The life-leeching infant will be cast away and you shall live."

Nelda stumbled against the weathered headstone. "What are you saying?" she cried aghast. "Stop! I shall hear no more!"

Parry caught hold of the girl's hand and pulled it towards the sickening plant but she wrenched it free and backed away.

"Be not too hasty," the crone told her. "'Tis but a moment's work. Pluck the blossom and lay a petal upon your tongue. Others have done it before you and lived to thank me afterwards."

"Did you bring my mother here?" Nelda whispered in bewilderment.

"I did," Parry replied, "though she was too stubborn and craven to partake of the juice. Come child, one morsel, that is all. I shall tell no one we came hither or what passed between us. Who shall know save thee and me of this night's work? Do you want to die in a torment of raving and be devoured by the salt which will blister through your veins?"