Missing Joseph (47 page)

“I'm sorry,” he said softly. “I didn't know what else to do. We didn't have any money. We didn't have any place to go. I couldn't think what to do to take care of you proper.”

“You said you would,” she said dully. “Last night. You said you would.”

“But I didn't
think
it would be…” She saw his hand close round his knee. “Mag, listen. I can't take care of you proper if I don't go to school. I want to be a vet. I got to get through school and then we'll be together. But I got to—”

“You lied.”

“I didn't!”

“You phoned your dad from Clitheroe when you went to buy the food. You told him where we'd be. Didn't you?”

He said nothing, which was affirmation enough. The nighttime scenery slipped by the window. Stone walls gave way to the bony frames of hedges. Farmland gave way to open country. Across the moors, the fells rose like Lancashire's black guardians against the sky.

Mr. Ware had turned the car's heater on along with the radio, but Maggie had never felt so cold. She felt colder than she had when they were walking in the fields, colder than she had on the floor of the cart-shed. She felt colder than she had on the previous night in Josie's lair, with her clothes half off and Nick inside her and the meaningless promises he'd made creating fire between them.

The end was where the beginning had been, with her mother. When Mr. Ware pulled into the courtyard of Cotes Hall, the front door opened and Juliet Spence came out. Maggie heard Nick whisper urgently, “Mag! Wait!” but she pushed the car door open. Her head felt so heavy that she couldn't lift it. Nor could she walk.

She heard Mummy approach, her good boots clicking against the cobbles. She waited. For what, she didn't know. The anger, the lecture, the punishment: it didn't really matter. Whatever it was, it couldn't touch her. Nothing would ever touch her now.

Juliet said in a curiously hushed voice, “Maggie?”

Mr. Ware explained. Maggie heard phrases like “took her to his uncle's…bit of a walk…hungry, I'd guess…tired as the dickens…. Kids. Don't know what to make of them sometimes…”

Juliet cleared her throat, said, “Thank you. I don't quite know what I would have done if…Thank you, Frank.”

“I don't think they meant real harm,” Mr. Ware said.

“No,” Juliet said. “No. I'm sure they didn't.”

The car reversed, turned, and headed down the lane. Still, Maggie's head drooped with its own weight. Three more clicks sounded on the cobbles and she could see the tops of her mother's boots.

“Maggie.”

She couldn't look up. She was filled with lead. She felt a whispery touch on her hair, and she withdrew from it fearfully, taking a gasping, indrawn breath.

“What is it?” Her mother sounded puzzled. More than puzzled, she sounded afraid.

Maggie couldn't understand how that could be, for the power had shifted once again, and the worst had happened: She was alone with her mother with no escape. Her eyes got blurry, and a sob was building down deep inside her. She fought against letting it out.

Juliet stepped away. “Come inside, Maggie,” she said. “It's cold. You're shivering.” She began to walk towards the cottage.

Maggie raised her head. She was floating in nowhere. Nick was gone, and Mummy was walking away. There was nothing to grab on to any longer. There was no safe harbour in which she could rest. The sob built and burst. Her mother stopped.

“Talk to me,” Juliet said. Her voice was desperate and uneven sounding. “You've got to talk to me. You've got to tell me what happened. You've got to say why you ran. We can't go any further with each other until you do, and if you don't, we're lost.”

They stood apart, her mother on the doorstep, Maggie in the courtyard. To Maggie, it seemed that they were separated by miles. She wanted to move closer but she didn't know how. She couldn't see her mother's face clearly enough to know if it was safe. She couldn't tell whether her voice's quiver meant sorrow or rage.

“Maggie, darling. Please.” And Juliet's voice broke. “Talk to me. I'm begging you.”

Her mother's anguish—it seemed so real—tore a little hole in Maggie's heart. She said on a sob, “Nick promised he would take care of me, Mummy. He said he loved me. He said I was special, he said we were special, but he lied and he had his dad come get us and he didn't tell me and all the time I thought…” She wept. She wasn't quite sure what the source of her grief really was any longer. Except that she had nowhere to go and no one to trust. And she needed something, someone, an anchor, a home.

“I'm so sorry, darling.”

What a kindness sounded in those four words. It was easier to continue in their echo.

“He pretended to tame the dogs and to find some blankets and…” The rest of the story came tumbling out. The London policeman, the after-school talk, the whispers and rumbles and gossip. And finally, “So I was afraid.”

“Of what?”

Maggie couldn't put the rest into words. She stood in the courtyard with the night wind whistling through her filthy clothes, and she couldn't move forward and she couldn't go back. Because there was no back, as she knew quite well. And going forward meant devastation.

But apparently, she would not need to go anywhere, for Juliet said, “Oh my God, Maggie,” and seemed to know it all. She said, “How could you ever
think…
You're my life. You're everything I have. You're—” She leaned against the door-jamb with her fists on her eyes and her head raised up to the sky. She began to cry.

It was a horrible sound, like someone was pulling her insides out. It was low and ugly. It caught in her breath. It sounded like dying.

Maggie had never before seen her mother cry. The weeping frightened her. She watched and waited and clutched at her coat because Mummy was the strong one, Mummy stood tall, Mummy was the one who knew what to do. Only now Maggie saw that Mummy was not so very much different from her when it came to hurting. She went to her mother. “Mummy?”

Juliet shook her head. “I can't make it right. I can't change things. Not now. I can't do it. Don't ask me.” She swung from the doorway and went into the house. Numbly, Maggie followed her into the kitchen and watched her sit at the table with her face in her hands.

Maggie didn't know what to do, so she put on the kettle and crept round the kitchen assembling tea. By the time she had it ready, Juliet's tears had stopped but under the harsh overhead light, she looked old and ill. Wrinkles reached out in long zigzags from her eyes. Her skin was blotched with red marks where it wasn't pasty. Her hair hung limply round her face. She reached for a paper napkin from its metal holder and blew her nose on it. She took another and blotted her face.

The telephone began to ring. Maggie didn't move. Which way to head was mystery now, and she waited for a sign. Her mother pushed back from the table and picked up the receiver. Her conversation was emotionless and brief. “Yes, she's here…Frank Ware found them…No…No…I don't…I don't think so, Colin…No, not tonight.” Slowly, she replaced the receiver and kept her fingers on it, as if she were gentling an animal's fears. After a moment in which she did nothing but look at the telephone, in which Maggie did nothing but look at her, she went back to the table and sat once again.

Maggie brought her the tea. “Chamomile,” she said. “Here, Mummy.”

Maggie poured. Some sloshed into the saucer and she reached hastily for a napkin to soak it up. Her mother's hand closed over her wrist.

“Sit down,” she said.

“Don't you want—”

“Sit down.”

Maggie sat. Juliet took the teacup out of its saucer and cradled the cup between her palms. She looked into the tea and swirled it slowly round and round. Her hands looked strong, steady, and sure.

Something big was about to happen. Maggie knew. She could feel it in the air and in the silence between them. The kettle was still hissing gently on the cooker, and the cooker itself snapped and popped as it cooled. She heard this as background to the sight of her mother's head lifting as she made her decision.

“I'm going to tell you about your father,” she said.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

P
OLLY SETTLED INTO THE TUB AND LET the water rise round her. She tried to concentrate on the warm wash of it between her legs and the gush of it across her thighs as she sank, but instead she caught herself in the midst of a cry, and she squeezed her eyes shut. She saw the negative image of her body fading slowly against her eyelids. Tiny pits of red replaced it. Then black swept in. That's what she wanted, the black. She needed it behind her eyelids, but she wanted it in her mind as well.

She hurt more now than she had this afternoon at the vicarage. She felt as if she'd been stretched on the rack, with her groin ligaments torn from their proper housings. Her pubic and pelvic bones seemed beaten and raw. Her back and her neck were throbbing. But this was a pain that would recede, given time. It was the other pain that she feared would never leave her.

If she saw only the black, she wouldn't have to see his face any longer: the way his lips curled back, the sight of his teeth and his eyes like slits. If she only saw the black, she wouldn't have to see him stagger to his feet afterwards, with his chest heaving and the back of one wrist scouring his mouth of the taste of her. She wouldn't have to watch him lean against the wall while he stuffed himself back into his trousers. She would still have to bear the rest of it, of course. That endless, guttural voice and the knowledge it provided of the filth she was to him. The invasion of his tongue. His teeth biting, his hands tearing, and then the last when he scourged her. She would have to live with that. There was no memory pill she could take to wipe it away, no matter how much she liked to hope there might be.

The worst of it was that she knew she deserved what Colin had done to her. Her life was governed, after all, by the laws of the Craft and she had violated the most important:

Eight words the Wiccan Rede fulfil:

An it harm none, do what ye will
.

All those years ago, she had convinced herself that she cast the magic circle for Annie's own good. But all the while in her most secret heart, she had thought—and hoped—that Annie would die and that her passing would bring Colin closer to herself in a grief he would want to share with someone who had known his wife. And this, she had believed, would lead them to loving each other and lead him to an eventual forgetting. Towards this end—which she called noble, unselfish, and right—she began to cast the circle and perform the Rite of Venus. It was no matter that she had not changed to this Rite until nearly a year after Annie's death. The Goddess was not and had never been a fool. She always read the soul of the petitioner. The Goddess heard the chant:

God and Goddess up above

Bring me Colin in full love

and She remembered how three months before Annie Shepherd's death, her friend Polly Yarkin—with sublime powers that came only from being a child conceived of a witch, conceived within the magic circle itself when the moon was full in Libra and its light cast a radiance on the altar stone at the top of Cotes Fell—had stopped performing the Rite of the Sun and had switched to Saturn. Burning oak, wearing black, breathing hyacinth incense, Polly had prayed for Annie's death. She had told herself that death wasn't to be feared, that the ending of a life could come as a blessing when the suffering endured had been profound. And that is how she had justified the evil, all the time knowing that the Goddess would not let evil go unpunished.

Everything until today had been a prelude to the descent of Her wrath. And She had exacted Her retribution in a form that exactly matched the evil committed, delivering Colin to Polly not in love but in lust and violence, turning the magic three-fold against its maker. How stupid ever
ever
to think that Juliet Spence—not to mention the knowledge of Colin's attentions to her—was the punishment that the Goddess intended. The sight of them together and the realisation of what they were to each other had merely acted to lay the foundation for the real mortification to come.

It was over now. Nothing worse could happen, except her own death. And since she was more than half dead now, even that didn't seem so terrible.

“Polly? Luv-doll? What're you doin'?”

Polly opened her eyes and rose in the water so quickly that it sloshed over the side of the tub. She watched the bathroom door. Behind it, she could hear her mother's wheezing. Rita generally climbed the stairs only once a day—to go to bed—and since she never made that climb until after midnight, Polly had assumed she would be safe when she'd first called out that she'd be wanting no dinner as she entered the lodge, hurried up to the bathroom, and shut herself in. She didn't reply. She reached for a towel. The water sloshed again.

“Polly! You still taking a bath, girl? Didn't I hear the water running long before dinner?”

“I just started, Rita.”

“Just started? I heard the water running directly you got home. More'n two hours back. So what's up, luv-doll?” Rita scratched her nails against the door. “Polly?”

“Nothing.” Polly wrapped herself in the towel as she stepped from the tub. She grimaced with the effort of lifting each leg.

“Nothing my eye. Cleanliness is next to whatever, I know, but this is taking it to extremes. Wha's the story? You fancying yourself up for some toy boy to climb through your window tonight? You meetin' someone? You want a spray of my Giorgio?”

“I'm just tired. I'm going to bed. You go on back down to the telly, all right?”

“All wrong.” She tapped again. “Wha's going on? You feeling queer?”

Polly tucked the towel round her to make a wrap. Water ran in rivulets down her legs to the stained green bath rug on the floor. “Fine, Rita.” She tried to say it as normally as possible, sifting through her memories of how she and her mother interacted to come up with an appropriate tone of voice. Would she be irritated with Rita by now? Should her voice reflect impatience? She couldn't remember. She settled for friendly. “You go on back down. Isn't your police programme on about now? Why don't you cut yourself a piece of that cake. Cut me one as well and leave it on the work top.” She waited for the answer, the lumber and huff of Rita's departure, but no sound came from the other side of the door. Polly watched it, warily. She felt chilled where her skin was wet and exposed, but she couldn't face unwrapping the towel, uncovering her body for drying, and having to look at it again just yet.

“Cake?” Rita said.

“I might have a piece.”

The door knob rattled. Rita's voice was sharp. “Open up, girl. You a'nt had a piece of cake in fifteen years. Somethin's wrong and I mean to know what.”

“Rita…”

“We a'nt playing here, luv-doll. And unless you intend to climb out the window, you may as well open this door straightaway 'cause I mean to be here whenever you get round to it.”

“Please. It's nothing.”

The door knob rattled louder. The door itself thumped. “Am I going to need the help of our local constabulary?” her mother asked. “I c'n phone him, you know. Why is it I expect you'd rather I didn't?”

Polly reached for the bathrobe on its hook and slid the lock back. She draped the bathrobe round her and was in the act of tying its belt when her mother swung the door open. Hastily, Polly turned away, unfastening her hair from its elastic binding to let it fall forward.

“He was here today, was Mr. C. Shepherd,” Rita said. “He cooked up some story 'bout looking for tools to fix our shed door. What an agreeable bloke, our local policeman. You know anything about that, luv-doll?”

Polly shook her head and fumbled with the knot she'd made in the belt of the robe. She watched her fingers pick at it and waited for her mother to give up the effort at communication and leave. Rita wasn't going anywhere, however.

“You'd best tell me 'bout it, girl.”

“What?”

“What happened.” She lumbered into the bathroom and seemed to fill it with her size, her scent, and, above all, her power. Polly tried to summon her own as a defence, but her will was weak.

She heard the
clank-jangle
of bracelets as Rita's arm raised behind her. She didn't cringe—she knew her mother had no intention of striking her—but she waited in dread for Rita to respond to what she didn't feel emanating like a palpable wave from Polly's body.

“You got no aura,” Rita said. “And you got no heat. Turn round here.”

“Rita, come on. I'm just tired. I've been working all day and I want to go to bed.”

“Don't you mess me about. I said turn. I mean turn.”

Polly made the belt's knot double. She shook her head to gain further protection from her hair. She pivoted slowly, saying, “I'm only tired. A bit sore. I slipped on the vicarage drive this morning and banged up my face. It hurts. I pulled a muscle or something in my back as well. I thought a hot soak would—”

“Raise your head. Now.”

She could feel the power behind the command. It overcame whatever feeble resistance she might have been able to muster. She lifted her chin, although she kept her eyes lowered. She was inches from the goat's head that served as pendant on her mother's necklace. She bent her thoughts to the goat, his head, and how it resembled the naked witch standing in the pentagram position, from which the Rites began and petitions were made.

“Move your hair off your face.”

Polly's hand did her mother's bidding.

“Look at me.”

Her eyes did the same.

Rita's breath whistled between her teeth as she sucked in air, face to face with her daughter. Her pupils expanded rapidly across the surface of her irises, and then retracted to pinpricks of black. She raised her hand and moved her fingers along the welt that scythe-cut its path of angry skin from Polly's eye to her mouth. She didn't make actual contact, but Polly could feel the touch of her fingers as if she did. They hovered above the eye that was swollen. They tapped their way from her cheek to her mouth. Finally, they slid into her hair, both hands on either side of her head, this time an actual touch that seemed to vibrate through her skull.

“What else is there?” Rita asked.

Polly felt the fingers tighten and catch at her hair, but still she said, “Nothing. I fell. A bit sore,” although her voice sounded faint and lacking in conviction.

“Open that robe.”

“Rita.”

Rita's hands pressed in, not a punishing grip but one that spread warmth outward, like circles in a pond when a pebble hits its surface. “Open the robe.”

Polly untied the first knot, but found she couldn't manage the second. Her mother did it, picking at the tie with her long, blue fingernails and with hands that were as unsteady as her breath. She pushed the robe from her daughter's body and took a step back as it fell to the floor.

“Great Mother,” she said and reached for the goat's head pendant. Her chest rapidly rose and fell under her kaftan.

Polly dropped her head.

“It was him,” Rita said. “Wasn't it him did this to you, Polly. After he was here.”

“Let it be,” Polly said.

“Let it…?” Rita's voice was incredulous.

“I didn't do right by him. I wasn't pure in my wanting. I lied to the Goddess. She heard and She punished. It wasn't him. He was in Her hands.”

Rita took her arm and swung her towards the mirror above the basin. It was still opaque from steam, and Rita vigorously ran her hand up and down it and wiped her palm on the side of her kaftan. “You look here, Polly,” she said. “You look at this right and you look at it good. Do it. Now.”

Polly saw reflected what she had already seen. The vicious impression of his teeth on her breast, the bruises, the oblong marks of the blows. She closed her eyes but felt tears still trying to seep past her lashes.

“You think this is how She punishes, girl? You think She sends some bastard with rape on his mind?”

“The wish comes back three-fold on the wisher, whatever it is. You know that. I didn't wish pure. I wanted Colin, but he belonged to Annie.”

“No one belongs to no one!” Rita said. “And She doesn't use sex—the very power of creation—to punish Her priestess. Your thinking's gone off. You're looking at yourself like those sodding Christian saints would have you do: ‘The food of worms…a vile dung-hill. She is the gate by which the devil enters…she is what the sting of the scorpion is…' That's how you're seeing yourself now, isn't it? Something to be trampled. Something no good.”

“I did wrong by Colin. I cast the circle—”

Rita turned her and grabbed her arms firmly. “And you'll cast it again, right now, with me. To Mars. Like I said you should've been doing all along.”

“I cast to Mars like you said the other night. I gave the ashes to Annie. I put the ring stone with them. But I wasn't pure.”

“Polly!” Rita shook her. “You didn't do wrong.”

“I wanted her to die. I can't take back that wanting.”

“An' you think she didn't want to die as well? Her insides were eaten with cancer, luv. It went from her ovaries to her stomach and her liver. You couldn't have saved her. No one could have saved her.”

“The Goddess could. If I'd asked right. But I didn't. So She punished.”

“Don't be simple-minded. This isn't punishment, what happened to you. This is evil,
his
evil. And we got to see that he pays for doing it.”

Polly loosened her mother's hands from her arms. “You can't use magic against Colin. I won't let you.”

“Believe me, girl, I don't mean to use magic,” Rita said. “I mean to use the police.” She lurched round and headed for the door.

“No.” Polly shuddered against the pain as she bent and retrieved the robe from the floor. “You'll be bringing them out on a fool's errand. I won't talk to them. I won't say a word.”