The Winter Witch (42 page)

After half an hour he is having difficulty keeping his eyes open. Darkness has almost fallen, and cold air is coming through the glass of the windows. With some awkwardness, and pain in his joints, he gets to his feet and goes to close the shutters. As he does so he glimpses something odd in the gathering dusk outside. The moon is bright, the sky clear of snow now. A moaning wind winds its way around the house. Trees are pulled and buffeted by it, so that they appear engaged in a mournful moonlit dance. But all this is as it should be, after a snowstorm, the clouds spent, the weather grimly inhaling before the next onslaught. What is strange, what is out of kilter, is the flickering of torches on the road. He peers through the icy glass, frowning to focus. Sure enough, he can just make out shadowy figures proceeding down the drive, spluttering torches and lamps held aloft. He is at a loss. There must be a dozen people marching, with purpose and determination, toward the house. By their gait and size he discerns they are all men. Then he sees them, clearly defined in the blue-grey twilight. He sees that more than half the men are carrying guns. Now he recalls how the people of the town treated Morgana when last she went there. He remembers the stones thrown and the cut on her cheek. He brings to mind what Mrs. Jones said about people fearing his wife, and how frightened people can do terrible things. And he recalls, with a shudder that shakes his entire body, that they consider her to be a witch. Only now can he admit to himself he has been fearing this moment all along. That he has been expecting it. As the figures draw nearer there can be no doubt: They have come for Morgana.

Muttering an oath he slams the shutters closed, dropping the metal bar into place. He hastens to the back door to bar it. The front door is securely shut, having not been opened for weeks. He staggers into the parlor, his breathing ragged, his vision woozy, and fastens the shutters there, too. Back in the kitchen he pauses to look one more time at Morgana. She has not moved the smallest bit, but still sits upright and composed, her eyes open, her soul he knows not where. He kisses her brow tenderly before turning to Bracken.

“Stay,
bachgen.
Guard your mistress well,” he tells him before reaching down his gun from its hooks on the beam above the dresser. He fumbles in the drawer for shot, loads the gun, takes as much ammunition as he possesses, and lurches from the room, dragging himself up the stairs and into the front bedroom, where he takes up his position at the window to watch and to wait.

“Let them come,” he says under his breath. “Let them come. They’ll not touch her. Not while I live.”

19.

Although my senses are heightened as I witchwalk, I am impervious to the cold, which is a blessing. With ease I am able to leave my body in Cai’s tender care and will myself to the broad, imposing front door of the home of Isolda Bowen. Glancing around I see that the town square is deserted. The night is clear now, the moon a shining disc in a velvet sky. Crisp snow lies thick beneath my weightless feet, but I make no sound as I step forward, and leave no footprints to give away my presence. I am shielded by the cloak of magic which means that in my current, ethereal state, none but another such as I can see me. I pass through the front door and enter the forbidding house.

How perfectly Isolda inhabits the role of well-to-do widow. How completely she fools all who meet her. Even Cai, with his generous, trusting heart. And look how she has repaid that trust! She will kill him if I do not prevent her doing so, I am certain of that now. Just as I am certain that removing the cursing stone from the well has not, for whatever reason, lifted the curse upon Cai. There is no alternative but that I face her. Now. Here. I am prepared. I have consulted the
Grimoire
and asked for the assistance of the Witches of the Well. I am ready at last to stand face to face with the awful creature who would take away from me the one person left in this world whom I love. Who loves me. My magic is my only weapon, the support of my sister Well Witches my protection, and my love for Cai my spur.

The house is quiet, though I can hear muffled voices. These are coming from the rooms at the rear of the house, most likely the kitchen. I assume it is the servants chatting, for I cannot discern Isolda’s voice. I move to the bottom of the sweeping staircase. The newels are delicately carved acorns, with twisting oak leaves working up the banisters. Small wooden mice decorate the balustrades. All is given the appearance of gentleness, of a oneness with nature. Of goodness and Godliness. How false. What lies! I make my way to the unremarkable door in the corner of the hallway. There is light flickering from beneath the door. I am drawn to it. I know, without seeing it, that Isolda’s stronghold, the place where she is most powerful, where she will least expect me to confront her, lies beyond this threshold. I sniff the air, and can clearly detect her familiar stench. I glide over the smooth floor tiles and through the locked door. On the other side there is a narrow passageway and a flight of stairs leading down into shadowy gloom. Gloom which is interrupted by guttering light, as if there are candles below, rather than lamps. I descend, and as I do so fear worms its way into my phantom being and accompanies me, a cold, slithering companion, on my journey into the unknown. The farther I go, the more oppressive my surroundings become. My every instinct bids me turn around, bids me flee, but I must not. I cannot. Cai’s life depends on me, and on what happens here in this awful place tonight. I will not fail my only love.

When I at last reach the bottom of the long flight of stairs a further passageway twists ahead, lit not by candles, but by torches fixed to the wet stone walls. Far off I hear the sound of dripping water. A rat scampers past making me start. The ceiling is horribly low and seems to press in upon me as I proceed. I venture onward for some distance before reaching another door. This one, too, is locked, and I am grateful for the lack of substance which allows me to pass through it without difficulty. On the other side is a room the like of which I have never seen before. The ceiling here is high, vaulted stone arching above my head. There are many torches, I count six or seven at a glance, giving a garish light that casts jumping, jittery shadows against the blue-grey stone of the wall. There is scant decoration or furnishings, except for four enormous tapestries which hang from the walls, large enough to reach from ceiling to floor. They depict scenes of such bawdiness and lewdness I cannot imagine what women might have stitched such images. And there is no natural light, nor air from anything which could be called a window, aside from small gaps in the stonework high up, barred with iron. At the far end of this cavernous space there is some manner of altar, with a wide table mounted on a dais. The table is no more than a slab of stone, upon which are black iron candlesticks and curious items unfamiliar to me. One is a dagger of some sort. Another a stout cooking pot. The room feels as if it is from another time, an age long ago. There is something threatening about the strangeness of the place, and about the way it is hidden here, deep in the earth, shut away from the light and from the world. As I step forward I see that there is a shape inscribed upon the dark flagstones of the floor. It is a star, I think, with five points, drawn to take up the entire space, its points touching the walls at each side.

With a suddenness that makes my heart leap beneath my breast, Isolda appears, stepping forward from the shadows behind the altar.

“Morgana,” says she, her voice syrupy, “how good of you to come and visit me. And how clever of you to find my special place. But then, you are a clever little witch-girl, are you not? Perhaps I should count myself fortunate that you are not able to speak, for who knows what tales you would tell, and to whom.”

I stand straight and still. I will not let her intimidate me. There can be no running away this time.

Isolda begins to walk around the room and I instinctively circle away from her. I find myself oddly drawn to the center, as if the heart of the curiously shaped star were exerting a force upon me, like that of a whirlpool in a stream sucking at a floating leaf, though with immeasurably greater strength.

“Do you like my pentacle, Morgana? It is precious to me. A place of magic. A site consecrated a very long time ago by one of my forebears. Oh, yes. I came new to Tregaron not many years before Cai fetched you into his life, but my ancestors had been here before. I was merely returning to my birthright. Or at least,
part
of my birthright. For there is somewhere else, somewhere sacred to me and my kind. Somewhere that will soon be mine. The good people of this town love to recount the legend of the well at Ffynnon Las. They think it a diverting tale. A story to scare small children or send an exquisite shiver down the spine on a winter’s night. They do not know the truth of it. They little know how powerful, how magical the place is. Nor are they any of them aware of the fact that I am the descendant of the very witch of whom they speak. Such stupid creatures. So easily spellbound. And soon my hold over them will be complete.” Her eyes are blazing now, alight with anger and with a mad desire to have what she wants. “The well is mine. It is my right to claim it! And with it the
Grimoire
.”

She notices my expression harden and now she knows that I have seen the book. She knows that I am aware of its power.

“So, that stout little housekeeper revealed it to you, did she? I wonder the pair of you were not burned up by its force. It is not a plaything. It’s enchantments are not meant for a silly witch-girl and a herb-boiling hedge witch. If you have seen inside it you know this. You know why I want it. It belongs to the mistress of Ffynnon Las, which, by the end of this winter, I shall be.”

I cannot help but look at the lines on the floor beneath me; they are mesmerizing. And as I look the shape begins to rotate, faster and faster. Isolda’s noxious odor fills my nostrils, making my stomach heave. Dizziness overcomes me, so that I stumble forward onto my hands and knees. The second I am contained within the angles of the drawing I know that I am trapped. Even though I am present only in my spirit form, it is as if I were solid and corporeal and heavy as lead. I am tethered to the floor by a hundred unseen chains. Fettered at ankles and wrists by invisible iron. I am ensnared. And, like a rabbit in a hunter’s snare, the more I struggle against my bonds the tighter they grip me. I fight fiercely against my bonds, turning this way and that, twisting and wrenching at the unseen ties. But to no avail.

Isolda is smiling, a slow, slippery smile. Her face has become more angular, her eyes deeper set, the hollows and shadows more pronounced, so that there is little left in her countenance that can be called beautiful.

“How long can you remain here thus, I wonder. How long before you are unable to make the journey back to your sweet young body? Where have you left it? In Cai’s care, I assume. How many hours, how many days, will he watch over you before he accepts he is merely witness to the rotting of a corpse?”

I try to summon my will, to fight back, to exert my own magic in any way that might break the hold of hers. But her sorcery is so strong, so ancient, and so practiced, that it requires a draining effort for me simply to keep my eyes open, so that all I accomplish is the noisy slamming of the door.

Isolda laughs. “What do you plan to do, Mrs. Jenkins? Startle me to death?”

Darkness begins to close in upon me, as if my vision is shrinking. Soon I am immersed in blackness. My strength is fading now, I can feel it leaving me. The dark is comforting, soothing almost. I cannot hear anything now, so that I am left floating, senseless, in this velvety nothingness. How easy it would be to give in, to accept defeat, to allow myself to be swallowed up by this endless night. What hope do I have of defeating Isolda? She is far more powerful than I. If I am a witch, then she is one of an entirely different origin. A different force drives her. A force imbued with all the sinister menace and strength of the devil. How can I match such strength? Such ruthlessness? Should I let her finish me? Perhaps, if I were not in her way, she would relent and allow Cai to live, reverting to her original plan to marry him. She cannot know he has discovered the cursing stone. She does not know that he believes her to be the cause of his illness. But then, if I were dead, and because Cai does know these things, he would resist her. And then she would kill him to get her precious well. And the
Grimoire
. I recall the broken man that the reverend became under her spell. I see the frozen, dead face of Mrs. Jones drift before my eyes. Isolda would be unstoppable should she harness the strength of the magic book. Why would she bother herself with Cai? She would destroy him just as she is set on destroying me. For she knows that only the owner of the well can wield its full power. Others might have use of it in some way, by permission or by slight, but she will settle for nothing less than total control. And what havoc she could wreak then!

I feel so very weak and, oh, so very weary.

Now I hear something. And a pale shape takes form before my eyes. At first it is hard to make out, but now I can see it is a figure. A man. I listen hard and recognize the voice that was once dearest to me in all the world.

Dada!

“Morgana,” says he, softly, his features gentle, his smile warming my heart.

Dada!
To have found him, at last! After all these years of searching and waiting and hoping. He comes to stand beside me and helps me to my feet. Even though we have no substance, have no tangible forms, I feel his touch, feel his hand upon my cheek as if I were a child once more.

“My little girl. What a fine young woman you have grown to be.” His smile turns to a frown. “I can’t abide to see you suffering so, child.”

I shake my head, for I feel no fear, no pain, no anguish, now that I am in his presence. I let him embrace me, and am enveloped in such peace, such tranquility, I never want to leave the protection and comfort of his arms.

“You are safe now, Morgana,” he tells me. “No more struggle. You are safe here with me.”