The Winter Witch (44 page)

I sit, drawing my knees up under my chin, wrapping my arms tightly about myself.

You are right.
I lay my thoughts clearly in front of her.
I know it now. Forgive me. Have pity.

“Pity? Ha!” Saliva spits from the snake’s jaws as Isolda laughs at my pleading.

I keep my eyes cast down.

I care only for Cai,
I tell her.
Please, show mercy. If I … die.

“
When
you die. For die you will.”

Please, let him live.
I open my eyes and hold the gaze of the lurid creature that bobs its great head before me.
I beg you, let him live.

I have never before seen a snake laugh, nor heard such a cruel noise as this one makes.

“Beg me! You have caused me no end of trouble,
Mrs. Jenkins
. Were it not for you I could have won round that soft husband of yours. Could have made him mine. Then I would have been the mistress of the Ffynnon Las well, and all the power that goes with it would have been mine. I would have been invincible. I
will
be invincible. But I do not feel inclined to mercy, not now. Why should I? You will be dead very soon, and Cai will join you in a shared grave up at Soar-y-Mynydd chapel, and the farm will be put up for sale and
I
will buy it, naturally. So beg all you like, I am deaf to any request that might further delay my finally obtaining my birthright.”

I nod carefully, resigned to my fate.

Very well,
says I,
I cannot change what will happen. I will meet my love in the afterlife. We will be together then, and he will suffer no more.

The snake pauses in its slithering, regarding me closely.

One thing I ask. Let me not leave this life in such terror, with only the company of a creature from hell. Will you not at least return to your womanly form so that my last sight will be of something beautiful, and so that you can meet my gaze as it fades to nothing?

Isolda laughs again and the serpent begins to shimmer and twitch. I have appealed not to her humanity, nor her charity, but to her vanity, and there I have found her weakness.

With much flexing and twisting and slapping against the stones the snake diminishes and slowly shrinks and reduces until Isolda herself stands before me once more, with scarcely a scratch from the rats to show for her ordeal.

She puts a hand up to her hair, concerned that it should be in place.

I do not stand, but remain, small and still in the very center of the star. I look at Isolda, trying to keep myself from trembling, willing myself to stay awake and alert, even though I feel myself fading.

Won’t you step into the light so that I can see you properly?
I ask her.
You are in the shadows, so that I cannot see your face.

With only a small sigh of impatience she walks a short distance to stand between the two large sconces, the flames of the torches lending a warm glow to her handsome features.

“Quickly now, little witch-girl. Drift away and be gone. I am tired of this game,” says she, her hands upon her hips, her head on one side, watching me as a crow watches an ailing lamb.

This is my moment, my one last chance. She need only wait and I will die. But she cannot damage my body in here. In that respect I am not vulnerable. But she is.

I suck in a deep, slow breath, filling my lungs until they must surely burst. I summon all the strength of my love for Cai, all the adoration I have carried with me all these years for my father, all the love I felt for my mother, and all the wildness of the mountains. I feel magic fill my soul, feeding it, until I am aglow with it. And then I exhale. A great tumult disturbs the air inside the chamber as if a tempest were raging. My hair flies upward and outward as if billowing in a gale. My clothes are likewise disturbed. The flames on the torches flare and spit, growing in an instant to twice their size. Isolda looks about her, disconcerted. She turns her gaze back on me and with a wave of an arm sends a blow of energy to try to stop me. But I remain unharmed. Soon the room is filled with a howling, circular wind which chases round and round, faster and faster, growing in strength and ferocity, roaring as it blows, snatching up the heavy tapestries as if they were gossamer, causing them to fly and flap. And as they fly and flap they are licked by the flames of the torches. Within seconds the first one has caught fire. And then the second. And then another. Now all of them are ablaze, the racing air feeding these new, terrible fires until the entire space is a whirling mass of flame.

I hear Isolda shout oaths and curses. She rushes to the door, pulling at the handle, but I have shut it, and shut it will remain.

“No!” she screams. “No!” She runs about the room, pointlessly, for there is no other exit. Unlike me, she is here in body as well as soul. And whereas a spirit may wander at will through walls or doors, a body may not. Whereas a soul might remove itself to a place of safety without the use of stairs, a body may not. A soul will withstand the intense heat of the fire and emerge unscathed. A body will not.

Soon Isolda’s screams have turned to shrieks. I listen not with horror, nor with triumph, but with a calm acceptance, with a knowledge that I have done what I can and that Cai will be safe. And now, as the furnace engulfs every part of this stone tomb, I wait.

*   *   *

It is properly dark by the time Cai opens the upstairs window and rests his gun on the sill. Below, the men have reached the front garden. Under the bright moon Cai recognizes familiar faces: Edwyn Nails, Llewellyn, the Reverend Cadwaladr, and many more. Some have guns, others axes. One carries a coil of rope. Cadwaladr steps forward and hammers on the barred front door.

“Jenkins!” he bellows. “Cai Jenkins, open this door!”

Cai shifts his position carefully. Even resting the barrel of the gun as he is, it feels almost unmanageably heavy. He has always been a fair shot, but now, feeling so weak, his body wracked with pains, he wonders if he will be capable of so much as lifting the gun to fire straight.

“You cannot come in, Reverend,” he calls down, causing the mob to turn their gazes up to him.

Edwyn shakes his fist. “We’re come for Morgana, Jenkins,” he shouts, his face twisted with hatred. “Send her out!”

“This is my home.” Cai keeps his voice as level as he can and fights back a gasp as pain grips his chest. “Leave us be!”

Reverend Cadwaladr calls up to him, “You are bewitched, Mr. Jenkins. Bewitched by that creature.”

“She is not a creature, Reverend. She is my wife. A good woman.”

“She is wicked!” yells an old man from the back of the crowd. “She has brought death to our town.”

“That is not true.” Cai shakes his head, appalled at how easily they are prepared to believe terrible things of Morgana.

Llewellyn steps forward. “People are dying because of her. She has turned the land to ice! She will have us all dead.”

“No, you’re wrong.”

“’Twas she brought the terrible sickness to us,” cries another.

“Not she!” Cai insists. “If it’s wickedness you’re looking for try that fine house on the square. Look more closely at Isolda Bowen.”

“What?” Cadwaladr is incredulous. “What nonsense is this? Mrs. Bowen is a respectable, God-fearing woman.”

“You are wrong about her, just as you are wrong about Morgana,” Cai tells them.

Edwyn won’t be put off.

“We mean to take her, Jenkins. You’d best open this door. You’re sick, m’n. She’s made you sick.”

“I’m not so enfeebled as I can’t protect my own wife. I’m warning you, stay back!” He raises his gun.

Llewellyn laughs at him, daring him. “You can’t fight all of us, Ffynnon Las.”

In reply Cai fires his gun, the blast hitting the snow-covered ground close to the rear of the crowd. The sound is cacophonous, bouncing off the frozen landscape and echoing on and on down the valley. Men leap and scatter in all directions, flinging themselves out of range.

“You’ll have to kill me before I let you take her,” Cai shouts down at them. “Are you prepared to do that? Are you, Reverend? She’s done nothing wrong, I tell you.”

The men clamber cautiously to their feet but keep their distance. The reverend puts up his hands, half a gesture of surrender, half of prayer.

“We mean you no harm, Cai Jenkins. We will leave you now, so that you may have time to consider. We will return for her. We must return.” For once the stout man’s voice falters and breaks. “God will not allow such wickedness to thrive. He is punishing us all, Jenkins. My own darling daughters…!” He cannot finish the sentence.

Cai sees the man’s despair and shakes his head sadly. “I am sorry to hear your family is suffering, Reverend, truly. If you wish to save them turn out Isolda Bowen. Do what you must to that wretched woman, and maybe God will look favorably on your actions. But he will not thank you for persecuting an innocent person such as my wife.”

There is much muttering and shuffling of feet. Fists are waved and oaths sworn, before the mob reluctantly turns and heads back toward Tregaron. Cai waits at the window, watching them go, wanting to be certain they will not change their minds and turn back once more.

He is startled by the sound of frantic barking coming from the kitchen. Bracken, who had kept quiet throughout all the noise and excitement outside, is sounding the alarm. Grabbing his gun, Cai staggers from the room, all but falling down the stairs. He bursts through the door to the kitchen to find Morgana fallen from the settle onto the hard stone floor.

“Morgana!” He drops to his knees beside her. Bracken leaps and whines and barks, clearly aware that his mistress is in trouble. Cai takes her in his arms. Her eyes are open yet she appears blind to his presence, as if she is still in some far-off place, witnessing something terrible. She begins to struggle violently. She writhes and flails with such force he has difficulty holding her.

“Morgana,
cariad,
stop,” he begs her. “Please, my love, please.”

At last she gasps, her body stiffens, and her arms stop beating at the ground. He looks into her eyes and sees recognition flicker there. And terror, her pupils wide, her mouth opening and shutting in silent horror at some unseen calamity. Her gaze fixes on the fire in the hearth and she scrambles backward, fighting to get away from the flames.

“Hush now,
cariad.
You’re safe here, safe with me,” he tells her, pulling her close, holding her gently and rocking her to and fro.

Now her limbs relax and she allows him to help her up and back onto the settle. He takes her hands in his, kneeling on the rug before her.

“Where have you been, my wild one? How I wish you could tell me.”

She leans forward so that her brow is touching his and he feels how utterly exhausted she is. Even so she squeezes his hands tightly and then pulls back so that he might see her expression. He is surprised to find she looks …
happy
.

“Where would you go?” he asks himself as much as her. “I was ill, and you went somewhere to try and help me. To try and find a cure? No, that’s not it. To stop someone hurting me! Of course. Isolda. Did you go to find Isolda?”

Morgana nods calmly.

“Such a brave girl you are. Did she hurt you,
cariad
?”

She looks frightened for a moment and hesitates before shaking her head very slowly.

“What happened? Oh, dear God, Morgana. You must tell me. Is she coming here?”

She shakes her head again.

“You stopped her? You made her stop?”

She nods, meeting his eye with a look of such seriousness that it scares him.

“
Duw,
Morgana, did you…” He cannot bring himself to speak what is in his head. “Is she … is she dead, Morgana? Is Isolda dead?”

She nods, her eyes filling with tears. She nods and flings herself into his arms, sobbing, clinging to him as if she will never be able to bear to let him go, so that Cai can only wonder at what she must have been through. But Isolda is dead. However it was done, it is done, and they are free of her at last!

Cai kisses Morgana’s hair, allowing himself to all but collapse against her as he holds her, his body weak with relief.

“Hush now,
cariad,
” he tells her. “All will be well, my wild one. Hush now. All will be well.”

*   *   *

But all is not well. A day and a night have passed since we found and destroyed the cursing stone, and since I watched Isolda burn, and yet Cai continues to ail. At least the townspeople have not returned, and for that we are thankful. Perhaps, without Mrs. Bowen to incite them, they will not pursue me further. Surely, if she was responsible for the sickness in the town it will now abate. I dare not venture to Tregaron to discover what is happening. All I know to be true is that Cai continues to suffer. To suffer and to weaken, so that I fear for him still. We are both at a loss to understand this. Why is the curse not lifted? Can it continue, even after Isolda’s death? Am I to lose him, then? After all that has happened, after all we have endured, am I to lose him? He will eat no breakfast, but drink only thin broth. I leave him dozing by the hearth and go upstairs to fetch the brandy from our bedside. As I reach the landing I am assailed, once again, by the chill, menacing presence that lingers there. Catrin? But why? Why would she project such ire, such anger, such dark emotions toward me? Can she not see that I love Cai? That I wish only what is best for him? That I am striving, in every way I can, to help him? And now, just as my mind is aching from confusion and from strain, it is another of my senses that alerts me to the source of the phantom entity. I smell sulphur. Isolda—
still
! Or at least, Isolda’s evil. There must be another curse, then. Yes, that might be it. She has hidden some talisman or corn dolly in the house. Somewhere near. Where? Where would she place such a thing for it to have the greatest effect? I steel myself, for I know where I must go. Catrin’s bedroom. The room she shared with Cai when he was her husband. The room where she died. I force myself to throw open the door and stride in. But there is no presence here. I touch the unused coverlet on the bed. I wander about the clean, pretty room. I open the wardrobe and even gaze into the mirror. Nothing. There is nothing here to harm anyone. The presence at the top of the stairs, Isolda’s presence, not Catrin’s, cannot, it seems, penetrate further. And yet,
it is still there
! What must I do to be rid of the woman’s evil influence? She used the well to curse Cai, knowing the power it had, but I smashed the cursing stone myself. I saw it break into smithereens. Surely it cannot hold sway any longer? The stone has been removed from the magic water. The object destroyed. But the spell is not broken. Indeed, it has not let up at all. It is as if it still lies in the pool, still working its wickedness, undisturbed. The thought strikes me like a blow to the head. Perhaps it is still in the pool! What if the stone we removed was not the only one?