A Witch In Winter (28 page)

One last time he quailed, and one last time he stepped back – into nothing. We heard a scream, and a hideous, dull cracking: the sound of a body ricocheting off rocks. And then nothing.

‘Are you OK?’ Emmaline was sobbing. ‘Oh Anna! Are you OK?’ She flung her arms around me, her face wet with tears and sea spray.

‘I’m fine,’ I was shaking. ‘But – but – Mr Brereton!’

‘Gone,’ Abe said succinctly. ‘And good riddance. C’mon. Let’s get up to the castle and get stuck into the rest of them.’

‘Oh God.’ The horror of it suddenly struck me and I sank to my knees. ‘I’ve killed him; I’ve killed a man.’

‘A man!’ Bill spat on the ground disgustedly. ‘He’s not what I call a man – barely human. I’d sooner spare a rat’s life. He would have killed us, Anna. All seven of us. It was one life or seven.’

I knew he was right, but it didn’t stop me turning with a backward glance to look at that spot on the cliff edge where I’d seen him last, as we started our walk up the road, towards the castle.

I’d taken only a few steps though, when I realized Seth wasn’t beside me. I looked back and he was standing, staring out to sea, still where Mr Brereton had rooted him.

I ran back and plucked at his arm.

‘Are you OK?’

‘No,’ he shouted back above the gale. ‘I can’t come, Anna.’

‘Your feet!’ I turned to call to the others, to tell them to stop, to come back, help me release Seth. ‘Don’t worry, Seth, I’ll get the others. We’ll get you free.’

‘It’s not that.’ He put a hand on my arm to stop me. ‘I have to go back; I have to get Grandad.’ He nodded towards the Spit, almost invisible behind the lashing rain and enormous waves.

‘What!’ I was horrified. ‘Seth, you’re mad. Look out there …’ I swept a hand towards the churning black sea, filled with who-knew-what kinds of nameless, snapping creatures. ‘Look at the sea – you’ll never survive!’

He shook his head.

‘Grandad needs me – he’s an old man, Anna. I can’t just abandon him.’

‘Seth, please, please no. If there was any chance, I’d tell you to go, but there’s no way any boat could survive out there, let alone land on the Spit. You’ll die. You know it.’

He nodded, but his face was set and I could see my words had had no effect on his resolve.

‘There’s a chance of that, I admit.’

‘A chance!’ I felt a sob rise in my throat, ‘A chance? A certainty you mean.’

‘No, it’s not a certainty; boats have weathered as bad, or worse. I wouldn’t go if I thought it was suicide.’

‘Seth,’ I said desperately, ‘please don’t go. Please, please, I’m begging you. It would break my heart to lose you. I love you – I always have loved you. I should have told you that long ago.’

Seth only stood very quietly in the pouring rain, water streaming over his skull and down the bridge of his nose. Then he smiled so that my heart lifted and twisted and ached all at once.

‘I know,’ he said very softly, so quietly I had to strain to read his lips. His words should have sounded arrogant, but they didn’t, and his face was full of a fierce sadness and joy. ‘I know you do. But Anna, you know there’s a chance that you won’t come back from the castle. Would you turn back from there, if I asked you?’

‘Yes!’ I sobbed, knowing I was lying but not caring.

‘OK then.’ He put his arms around me, and they were warm, strong and infinitely comforting. I put my head on his shoulder and it felt like coming home. He held me close, so that I could hear his voice, softly, through his chest, in spite of the waves and the wind. ‘Come back with me. Inland. I won’t go to the Spit if you turn back from the castle. We’ll run, away from all this.’

I pulled away. I buried my face in my hands, unable to answer.

‘Well?’ Seth said, his voice almost lost under the shrieking wind, ‘Will you do it? Will you turn back?’

Wretchedly, I shook my head. Not even for Seth could I abandon Winter to its fate. If there was even a small chance that I could help save the town I had to lend my strength to the fight. And of course Seth had known that all along. He smiled and stroked a lock of wind-whipped hair behind my ear.

‘Come on, Anna, we both know there’s no chance of you running now. I know what you have to do, and I’m not going to try to persuade you out of it. Let me go.’

I could not find words, so I only hugged him, winding my arms so tight around his neck that he almost choked. Then he laughed, an incongruously joyous sound in the bitter, shrieking storm, and wrapped his arms around me, lifting my feet off the ground.

‘Come back safe,’ I choked in his ear.

‘I’ll try. I love you, Anna.’

‘I love you too.’ I buried my face in his shoulder. His skin smelled of salt and sweat and soap. ‘I love you, Seth. If you die,’ my heart clenched cold with the effort of even uttering the words, ‘if you die I’ll – I’ll – I’ll never forgive you. Do you hear me? Come back, come back safe, do you promise?’

‘I promise,’ he said, and there was something in his voice that made my tears spring afresh. Then from up the hill I heard a bellow.

‘Anna, Seth, what’s going on? Are we going or not?’

‘I’m not,’ Seth shouted back, his words ripped and twisted by the winds. ‘I’ve got something else to do.’

He kissed me again, quick and fierce, then he was gone, running down the slope towards the harbour, into the dark.

I turned back to the others, wiping the tears from my face with my sleeve.

‘OK, let’s go.’

As we climbed, shapes began to resolve themselves out of the murk. First was the dark hump of the castle headland, then the gap-toothed, tumbledown towers of the castle itself.

‘My God,’ Abe muttered under his breath, ‘they’ve made it into a bloody fortress.’

And then I realized what they had done, and why the Ealdwitan had chosen this place for their stand. Not only was the castle the highest point in Winter, protecting them from the rising waters, but it was still, in spite of its age, an impressive fortification. The Ealdwitan had gathered on one of the farther battlements, where they could see both the sea and the town of Winter.

It was the perfect place to co-ordinate their attack. They were shielded from outwith eyes, invisible behind the castle walls as they lashed the town with wind and waves. But just as importantly, they were shielded from attack; shielded by the castle’s imposing moats, battlements and towers, and by its ancient magic. They’d twined their spells about the castle walls like a fantastic mesh of magical barbed wire and before we could even touch them, we’d have to penetrate a dark web of spell and counter-spell.

A wave of despair wa of

Beside me I could see from their devastated faces that Emmaline, Abe and Bill were having the same thoughts.

‘We’re lambs to the slaughter,’ Emmaline said bleakly. ‘Is it even worth trying?’

‘Of course it’s worth trying!’ Sienna snapped. ‘What’s wrong with you all? Have we come this far to give up now?’

‘It’s a spell, you fools.’ Carl grabbed Emmaline’s shoulder and turned her to look at him. ‘Emmaline!’ He shook her. ‘Emmaline, Anna, resist it, do you hear me? This feeling – it’s just a spell, they’re messing with your minds.’

I shook my thick head and felt the despair lift a little, then settle again.

‘Come on,’ Sienna urged. She shook Bill’s shoulder. ‘Bill, listen to Carl, he’s right. This is
not
hopeless, do you hear me? Abe, Anna, snap out of it – you’re falling into their trap.’

The effort of resistance was like wading through treacle. Every cell of my mind wanted to give in to the black washing despair and just lie down and weep, but Sienna and Carl’s nagging voices kept telling me to keep pushing, keep resisting, keep the black tide back. And gradually it began to ebb … I saw Emmaline surface with a gasp, shaking her head like someone with water in their ears. Then I pushed out of the thick goo of the spell, breathing hard, as if I’d been swimming against the tide.

‘For goodness’ sake,’ Sienna said, and her voice was grim, ‘that was just the first line of defence. You’ll have to be a bit tougher than that if we’re going to get anywhere.’

‘It was so real,’ Emmaline said, still slightly dazed.

‘Anna’s got an excuse, she’s never encountered this kind of thing, but you,’ she stabbed a finger at Emmaline, ‘and above all
you
, Abe, should be ashamed of yourselves. Now pull yourselves together.’

‘What a kids’ trick to fall for,’ Abe said disgustedly, as we began to walk. ‘I deserve everything I get after that.’

‘Look.’ Sienna put a hand on his shoulder. ‘It was the right spell at the right time. Which, as the saying goes, is half the work done.’

‘What do you mean?’ I said, confused. ‘What saying?’

‘One of ours, not one you’d know. “The right time and tide does half the work, the wrong makes half again”. What it means is that magic works best when it works
with
the tide, not against it. We were already despondent and depressed – coming on top of that, the spell worked far better than it should have done.’

We trudged on up the gedl workhill, the castle glowering over our heads, and when we reached the top I looked back. The sight that lay below was both beautiful and terrifying. Where the small harbour had been, cosily surrounded by cottages and dotted with small boats, there was now a great spreading mass of black water which had overflowed the harbour confines, flooding the quay and the gardens of all the cottages round about. Thread-like tentacles of sea were spreading across the rest of the village, penetrating the streets of Winter with probing oily fingers, until the whole town was enmeshed in a dark, glittering web of water, spreading and growing with every passing minute. Soon only the roofs of the harbour cottages would be visible. Then, not even the roofs. The river would break its banks and rise through Wicker Wood to taint our house with all its muck and murk. Its waters would merge with the sea and together climb the high street, flowing into every living room, gushing under the doors, overflowing windows – welling unstoppably out of the plugholes and toilets as even the sewers became overwhelmed.

I thought of Dad, asleep in his bed and unconscious of the dark waters creeping towards him through the night. And of Seth, somewhere out there, fighting the waves.

‘Anna.’ Emmaline pulled softly at my sleeve. ‘Anna, come on. We need to keep going.’

I nodded and together we crested the hill, to stand in the shadow of the castle.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

W
hether they were really oblivious to us, I don’t know. But as we stood, staring up at the castle’s sheer granite walls, I felt like we were less than ants to them, ants in the path of their destructive flood, about to be swept away by the waters.

‘What now?’ I asked in despair.

‘I don’t know,’ Emmaline said. ‘Sienna, any ideas?’ Sienna shook her head. ‘Carl? Bill?’

‘I have an idea,’ Abe said. We all turned. ‘It’s like Sienna said, right time, right tide. We have to use the weapons they’ve supplied, weapons we can turn against them.’

‘Which are?’ Sienna asked.

‘The weather. They’ve whipped up this storm to suit their own ends. But I think we can control it – turn it back against them. They’re in a really exposed position up here, very vulnerable. I think we could make them very uncomfortable.’

‘It might work,’ Sienna said, with a kind of dawning hope in her voice.

‘We all know what you can do with the weather,’ said Carl, ‘and Bill’s not so bad with electricity either. We could do some pretty effective stuff with lightning I reckon.’

‘No!’ I said instinctively. They all turned to me, surprised.

‘But, Anna,’ Emmaline said, ‘it’s a good plan. Plays on our strengths and their positional weakness. What’s the problem?’

‘Seth!’ I said desperately. ‘He’s out there, on the sea, he’s gone to fetch his grandfather. If we whip the storm up now…’

They all looked at each other, uncomfortable. I could tell they were weighing the life of one outwith against the safety of the entire community of Winter – and finding the balance unequal.

Sienna cleared her throat, and I couldn’t bear to hear what she was going to say.

‘I know, I know!’ I cried. ‘All those people, all those innocent people, but Sienna, it’s
Seth
. Emmaline – can’t you understand?’

‘I understand, Anna. But it’s not just Seth we have to consider,’ Emmaline said softly. ‘It’s your dad … Seth’s mum … my mum … all our families. You know that.’

Of course I knew that. And I knew she was right, which made it all the more bitter. But agony welled up inside me and I snapped, ‘If he was a witch you wouldn’t be so bloody cavalier about risking his life.’

I regretted the words as soon as I said them – the more so because I didn’t really believe them. Emmaline flinched.

‘Is that what you really think?’

‘No,’ I said wretchedly, ‘no, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. But Emmaline, you don’t feel about Seth the way I do …’

‘No, I don’t.’ She looked at me steadfastly, her brows furrowed with compassion. ‘But I understand how
you
feel.’