The Power of Dark Read online

The girl’s eyebrows lifted. ‘That name . . . I’ve been having dreams,’ she said. ‘Really vivid ones. In the dreams, I’m her, Scaur Annie.’

  ‘They weren’t dreams, honey. Scaur Annie was a real person who lived here hundreds of years ago. The story of the ragged witch and the gentleman was well known locally at one time. You never come across it before?’

  ‘Never. What happened to her?’

  ‘The story goes she was a young, and obviously dumb as a brick, witch who fell in love with a visiting bigwig, Sir Melchior Pyke, a genius mad scientist and more besides.’

  ‘He was a cruel user!’ Lil interrupted sharply. Then she winced. ‘Why did I say that?’

  Cherry regarded her keenly. ‘You tell me. Was it in the dream?’

  ‘I don’t know. I never remember them clearly. Just feelings and faces – and a frightening man with a scar down his face and a crooked neck.’

  ‘That would be the manservant, Mister Dark. People around here remembered him as a boogeyman long after it was all over. He must’ve been a real nasty customer. Anyway, this Melchior was creatin’ an incredible magical device. The Nimius was going to be the new wonder of the age and whoever possessed it would have crazy, outtasight powers.’

  ‘The Nimius?’

  ‘You betcha. But somethin’ went wrong. Annie and Melchior argued and died, and the Nimius was lost.’

  ‘Not lost,’ Lil murmured.

  Cherry put her mug down.

  ‘Personally, I never believed in the Nimius bit,’ she said. ‘I thought it was just a gimmicky late add-on, same as happens with every other myth. Boy, was I ever wrong. I just wish I knew where the heck on the West Cliff it is right now. Somebody’s got it and they’re usin’ it.’

  ‘How did Annie and her gentleman die?’

  ‘Why don’t you tell me?’

  ‘How could I know?’

  ‘Because, Lil, the skeleton that came flyin’ through your window Friday night was Annie – leastways, what’s left of her. They were her bones. The skull that’s missin’ was hers and the malevolent spirit that’s possessin’ you right now and listenin’ to every word we say . . . that’s hers too.’

  Lil jolted upright. ‘What?’ she cried.

  ‘That pickle-barrel witch has her hooks in you. Can’t you feel it? Can’t you sense her nastiness squattin’ in your mind?’

  The girl’s hand moved to her throat. ‘No – I can’t!’ she uttered.

  ‘Then she ain’t got a strong enough hold yet. I reckon you’ve held out far longer than she was expectin’. Perhaps there’s still time to banish her. If we don’t, you’ll end up under her control completely and then you won’t exist no more.’

  Lil looked horrified and she began to twist something concealed under her jumper.

  ‘You realise what you got there?’ Cherry asked.

  ‘What? Oh. I don’t know.’ Reaching under the neck of her jumper, Lil pulled out a dirty necklace of three ammonites.

  ‘Where did this come from?’ she spluttered. ‘I’ve never seen this before!’

  ‘Another thing you been blottin’ out. It’s been there since Friday night. Annie’s skeleton must’ve put it there when you were unconscious.’

  ‘How can you know that?’

  Cherry held out her hand and showed Lil the bracelet set with three ammonites.

  ‘They’re the sign of the Whitby witch,’ she told her. ‘We’ve all had them. It’s our badge of office. That necklace would have been Annie’s.’

  ‘But I’m not a witch.’

  ‘You sure about that?’

  ‘Course I am!’

  ‘Honey, you’ve spent your whole life denyin’ the existence of magic and by doin’ that you’ve also been repressin’ your true self, pushin’ your natural talents way, way down. But you can’t stifle that gift completely; it’ll pop out in other kooky ways. Your knitting, for example.’

  ‘It’s just wool!’

  ‘No it ain’t, babe. You think you’ve been castin’ on, but you’ve been castin’ spells. When you put up your first lot of decorations the other day, I could sense there was a tingle of force in them. You were puttin’ up defences, protectin’ the East Cliff, without even knowin’ it. I’m guessin’ that’s why Annie’s had such a tough time dominatin’ you, but that’s probably why you were chosen in the first place, cos you’re a young witch like she was.’

  ‘Even if that was true, which it most definitely isn’t, what does she want with me?’

  ‘All I can say is a great power is out to destroy Whitby and it’s resurrected the old feud between the ragged witch and the gentleman as the way to do it. Annie has been granted this second chance at revenge through you, while some poor sucker on the West Cliff is the selected vessel of Melchior Pyke. The two of you are gonna slug it out, bringin’ an end to this town in the process. Sheesh, they must’ve hated one another real fierce for it to have lasted all these centuries beyond the grave.’

  ‘But you can exorcise her though, right? Get rid of her?’

  ‘Bell, book and candle ain’t really my thing, but I’ll give it my best shot. You don’t want that dirty sack of bile and bitterness clutterin’ up your psyche a minute longer. Beats me how anyone could have fallen for her in the first place. You wanna know how she died? A mob led by a Puritan called John Ashe hanged her and threw her body in a cesspit. Good riddance. She was an evil stain on this world.’

  ‘Shows how much you know!’ Lil snarled suddenly in a vicious, gargling voice that was not her own. ‘And you won’t rid this child of me. Her strength ain’t no match for mine and your powers are puny. I got the might of the Three to draw on!’

  Cherry leaned back in the wicker chair and it swung gently on its chain as she stared at the horrible transformation taking place before her eyes.

  Lil’s face was rippling as a repulsive change stole over it. Her young features shrank against the bones of her skull. Her eyes sank into their sockets and her lips withered and turned black.

  ‘Thought you was never gonna show yourself,’ Cherry said with a bitter smile. ‘Time us two had a girly chat. From one witch to another, I gotta tell you: this insane vendetta has to stop, right now. Let go of all that rage and anger and go find the peace you should’ve had when you died. Stop hauntin’ this town and clear out of this girl’s head. She’s a good kid and done you no harm.’

  ‘I will have my revenge,’ the hate-filled voice spat from Lil’s mouth. ‘I have been promised. Whitby will pay.’

  ‘OK,’ Cherry said with a resigned sigh. ‘Guess it was too much to expect you to do this the easy way. I need to understand what went on all them years ago. Budge up in there, sister, I’m comin’ in.’

  Cherry tore off her sunglasses and her pale eyes blazed out once more. A scream of protest issued from Lil’s lips, then the girl’s body slumped back, the walls of the cottage vanished and the centuries peeled away.

  Cherry found herself standing in the Whitby of long ago. Church Street stretched before her as a long, narrow road of bare, stony earth, lined by ramshackle fishermen’s cottages. It was a warm night in high summer, with a bright moon hanging low in the sky, and the inhabitants of the little town were tucked in their beds. Across the river, stripped of the clustering guesthouses and street lights, the West Cliff was a dark bank of shadow.

  ‘Where are we?’ a voice asked. ‘It’s like home but so different.’

  Cherry smiled. A wide-eyed Lil was at her side. She was back to her usual self.

  ‘Good to see ya, kid,’ Cherry said. ‘It’s reassurin’ that there’s enough of you left to manifest an avatar here. Now don’t be scared; we’re inside your head. I just jumped in. It’s kinda like my party piece.’

  The girl grimaced and gazed around.

  ‘This is my mind? It’s not what I expected.’

  ‘Yeah, well, it’s your head, but it’s not your mind. Scaur Annie’s taken that over and we’re standin’ in one of her memories. I aimed for the night it all went sour, the nig
ht she died. This better be it.’

  Before Lil could ask any more questions, they both heard desperate sobbing and turned to see the lone figure of a young woman stumbling along the street, from the direction of the shore.

  ‘Must be Scaur Annie,’ Cherry breathed. ‘Well, I can honestly say she looks better in the flesh.’

  ‘She was so young,’ said Lil.

  ‘I take it all back. That pickle-barrel stack of bones was a real babe.’

  ‘Shouldn’t we hide before she sees us?’

  ‘This is a memory, honey, and we’re just tourists. None of this is real; it already happened a long time ago. No one we meet can see or hear us. Think of it as being inside an old movie.’

  ‘You sure? Seems very real to me. I can smell the sea and chimney smoke.’

  ‘So she has a great memory. Now hush, I need to find out what happened here that night.’

  As Annie drew near, they heard her cursing and reproaching herself.

  ‘What have I done?’ she wept. ‘I betrayed them who was only ever good to me. A pestilence on my ungrateful head. They’ll spit on my footprints in the sand and won’t never speak to me no more and I don’t blame ’em. The caves’ll be shut against me from now on. Landbreed, that’s what I am, hateful landbreed, never to be trusted. No different from the rest.’

  She staggered to a halt and leaned against the wall of The White Horse inn, beating her fists against the stonework.

  Cherry stepped closer warily. She was certain the young woman could not see her, but the intensity of Annie’s anguish was unnerving.

  The gulping sobs continued. Looking straight through Cherry, Annie stared back along the empty street and screwed her face up wretchedly. Then she turned to look up at a window of the inn where a lantern was burning.

  ‘You did it for him,’ she told herself. ‘Aye, Annie, you faithless she-wolf. And you’d do it again if he asked. You’d do owt for his favour, rip out your soul and burn it, if that’d keep you near him. It’s a blind madness in your blood and there ain’t no cure.’

  Blundering into the inn, she ran up the stairs.

  ‘Come on, Lil,’ Cherry called and they hurried after her.

  Melchior Pyke was sitting at the table in his private parlour, poring over his books and writing in his journal, when Annie burst in on him.

  ‘I done it!’ she told him, her face burning with shame. ‘And may the Three punish me evermore for it! Here’s proof for you!’

  Holding out her hand, she put a small phial on one of the open pages.

  Lil and Cherry stood in the doorway.

  ‘I recognise this place from my dreams,’ Lil whispered. ‘And him.’

  ‘Yeah, this is the big love story. He ain’t bad-lookin’ I suppose, but he sure is a dork in that big lacy collar.’

  The man stared at the phial in wonder. The fluid it contained glimmered with a pale silver radiance.

  ‘What is that?’ Lil asked.

  Cherry shrugged. ‘No idea, but it must be mighty special judgin’ by the state she’s in.’

  ‘’Tis the proof you wanted,’ Scaur Annie said. ‘Take it.’

  Melchior Pyke lifted the phial reverently and placed it in front of a candle flame, then viewed it through a magnifying lens.

  ‘Is it truly the tears of Morgawrus?’ he asked.

  ‘That it is. Fresh from the sleeping serpent’s eye. So you see, there are deep secrets in Whitby, old as the bones of the earth. I spoke truly. I wouldn’t be false to my lordly gentleman.’

  ‘Whoa!’ Cherry declared. ‘That’s bigger than special. The serpent’s tears? She’s gotta be foolin’!’

  ‘How could I have doubted you?’ Melchior Pyke was saying to Annie. ‘If this precious liquid possesses the virtues I have searched so long for . . . its worth is immeasurable.’

  ‘Cost me my heart’s blood,’ Annie told him. ‘A price you won’t never know nor understand and I won’t never be rid of the guilt and shame of it.’

  Melchior Pyke held the phial to his chest and bowed his head.

  ‘So endeth the journey,’ he whispered. ‘The final element is found and all things shall be mine.’

  Then he began to laugh, wildly, and he jumped up and embraced Annie, showering her with kisses.

  ‘How can I repay you?’ he asked. ‘Thou rare, most wonderful creature.’

  ‘Take me away,’ she implored him. ‘I can’t stay here. Whitby’s done with me. I don’t belong no more. I’ve made a shipwreck of my life.’

  ‘Whatever, wherever you wish. If you did but know the joy you have given me with this. I am versed in many languages, but in none of them are there fitting words to praise you or convey my gratitude.’

  Annie pulled away from him.

  ‘What I did don’t deserve no praise,’ she said. ‘I should be whipped raw and sand rubbed rough in the welts. I’m the worst there ever were, worser than what anyone ever called me. Disgusting, that’s what I am.’

  ‘I must attend to this,’ Melchior Pyke declared, examining the phial with the lens again and snatching up the quill. ‘After this night, the world will never be the same, my dear.’

  ‘Aye,’ Annie said remorsefully. ‘Changed for all that’s bad and there’s no road back.’

  ‘Rabbit-brained witterings,’ he answered. ‘Such timorous qualms of conscience do you no service, my little gull charmer. Do not baulk now. There is a glorious golden future ahead. Be oak-hearted and iron-stomached; remember you are the fearless witch of Whitby.’

  Annie shook her head and took a stumbling step away.

  ‘Not no more,’ she uttered. ‘I overturned all that was right an’ proper. I broke the ancient order.’

  Shuddering, she hugged herself. She suddenly felt hemmed in and wanted to run and never stop. She had to get away from here.

  ‘Come walk on the cliff, my love,’ she urged him. ‘I need the sea’s breath to clear my head. Let us be together ’neath the stars again. Help me unburden my sorrow. Lift this heavy stone from my spirit.’

  Melchior Pyke’s quill continued to scratch across the pages of his journal as he drew strange symbols and made calculations.

  ‘I beg you!’ she cried.

  ‘Mistress, can you not see I am occupied?’

  Scaur Annie shied away as if he had struck her. Turning from him, she fled the room.

  In the doorway, Cherry Cerise and Lil watched her go. Cherry threw Melchior Pyke an angry look.

  ‘Was there ever a time in human history when guys understood women?’ she asked, exasperated. ‘Go after her, you dumb turkey!’

  But Melchior Pyke could not hear her. Cherry gave a grunt of annoyance and hurried down the stairs with Lil. Some moments later, the nobleman raised his eyes from the esoteric signs and squiggles on the page. His brows furrowed, then he grinned.

  ‘It is done,’ he murmured.

  Cherry and Lil were already running up the street to catch up with Scaur Annie. Leaving the inn behind, they approached the steps that ascended the cliff to the church. These were not stone, but old timbers in poor repair. Annie began the climb.

  ‘I don’t get it,’ Cherry muttered. ‘Where’s the big feud? That tiff just now wouldn’t make them enemies with a bitterness that lasts four hundred years. There must be more to it.’

  ‘What was she beating herself up over?’ Lil asked. ‘And what was all that stuff about snake tears?’

  ‘I told you how Whitby was built on the back of a gigantic sleeping serpent. Well, that’s what those tears are from. But how in the heck did Annie manage to . . .?’ Cherry turned away from the steps and looked down at the shore.

  ‘She came from that way,’ she said. ‘The answer has to be down there. Come on, Lil!’

  ‘What about Annie?’

  ‘We’ll catch up later; this won’t take long. She’ll be weepin’ and wailin’ up there a while yet.’

  ‘What if she throws herself off the cliff ?’ Lil said. ‘This is the night she died.’

  ‘N
o,’ Cherry reminded her. ‘Annie was hanged. Besides, she ain’t filled with hate yet. There’s still more to come. We got time.’

  And so they hurried from the steps, passed further down the street between the fishermen’s cottages, and scrambled on to the moonlit sands. Keeping close to the cliff wall, until it curved round to meet the rocks of the Scaur, they went as fast as they could. Then Cherry froze in her tracks.

  ‘Oh man!’ she exclaimed. ‘Would ya look at that . . .’

  Lil couldn’t believe it. In the sheer cliff face above them, two huge stone doors were wide open.

  ‘What is that?’ she asked.

  ‘The entrance to the hidden caves!’ Cherry breathed. ‘That there is a whole heap of awesome!’

  ‘Hidden caves?’

  ‘They don’t exist in our time, kid, but back then . . . I never dared dream I’d ever see this.’

  Picking her way over slippery black rocks, she gazed up at the great slabs of stone. In the space beyond a soft light was glimmering.

  ‘Who’s in there?’ Lil asked. ‘Do people live in them?’

  ‘Not human people,’ Cherry told her with a delighted expression.

  ‘Then . . . what?’

  ‘Aufwaders.’

  Even if there hadn’t been a ladder made from coarse rope and wooden slats hanging from the threshold, Cherry would have found some way to get up there.

  ‘Aufwaders,’ Lil repeated as they began to climb. ‘Yes, I think I dreamed about one of them. What are they?’

  ‘They’re the fisherfolk,’ Cherry explained, full of excitement. ‘I told you once, remember? Real shy, supernatural gnome types who love the sea. They lived in this place we call Whitby since way before the first humans came. They taught us the lore of the sea, how to use nets, make boats – all that neat stuff. But man was greedy and suspicious and violent and so the aufwaders withdrew to the tunnels and secret ways and used enchantment to hide themselves, until only humans with second sight could see them. Eventually, they became just another of Whitby’s legends, and the word aufwader was forgotten, or was muddled and turned into “Old Whaler”.’

  ‘There’s nothing about them in any of my parents’ books.’

  ‘I got better books, honey. The old broad who lived in my cottage before me collected tons of cool stories about this town. You don’t know the half of it.’