The Whitby Witches 3: The Whitby Child Page 20

  "Even knowing the cost of such rashness?"

  "Aye! Let Morgawrus awake again—ah'll not weep fer it. That unholy devil is the only threat the Deep Ones fear—an to make them quake, theer ain't nowt ah wouldna do!"

  Nelda gripped his hands. "You wouldn't!" she implored him. "Oh Grandfather, it would destroy everything!"

  Grimly Tarr gazed down at her. "Without 'ee, lass, ah dinna care about owt else."

  The hooded figure turned and stared out to the blackness of the sea as if communing in thought with his powerful lords. When he returned his gaze to the fisherfolk he said bitterly to Tarr, "Unwisely dost thou gamble. To incur the wrath of the Most High is a rash and perilous game—I would beg of thee to renounce thy impudent threat and repent swiftly."

  "Nivver!"

  "Then this am I instructed to tell thee—not thy voice alone shall the Lords of the Deep and Dark hear."

  The aufwaders murmured to one another and Tarr peered curiously at the herald, wondering what he was up to. "Who else then?" he cried. "For as leader ah'm the tongue o' the tribe; the Deep Ones need listen only to me."

  But the figure in the boat ignored him. "Two voices shall they hearken to!" it exclaimed. "Thine and one other."

  Tarr scowled doubtfully. "Then who else?" he asked.

  The herald leaned forward. "Despite the prime laws which were given unto thee," he muttered, "thy race hath mingled with the landbreed and one of their number is known to thee."

  "Ben," Nelda whispered.

  "I speak not of the human child, but the aged female who dwells with him. Only when she—Alice Boston—stands upon this shore shall the Lords of the Deep and Dark hearken to thy pleas, Tarr Shrimp."

  Nelda's grandfather narrowed his eyes suspiciously. He could sense that the herald was withholding something, yet he had no choice other than to obey him. Turning, he looked at the rest of the fisherfolk and called to Old Parry.

  "Tha knows wheer the Boston lives?"

  "What if I do?" the crone answered.

  "Get thissen over theer now—and be quick."

  Parry sniffed but thought better of the viperish words she wanted to spit at him. The herald was staring in her direction and before this agent of the Deep Ones her vinegary spirit was utterly quelled. Without grumbling another word, she set off towards the town and was soon lost in the silvery shadows of the moon-glimmering night.

  ***

  Jennet let out a dismal moan. Her head was swimming and felt as though it was filled with squiggling tadpoles. Blearily she opened her eyes but found herself enveloped in a fuzzy darkness in which she floated dizzily, and a drunken titter issued from her lips.

  Through the hazy gloom, she groped with her fingers, touching the cold linoleum of the camper's floor and the low cupboards to her right. She was lying upon a narrow, padded seat, and when she reached out further with her hand, the girl rolled off and collapsed in an undignified bundle between a suitcase and a cardboard box containing groceries. Jennet giggled and spent the next few moments waiting for her claustrophobic world to stop spinning and snap into dim focus.

  Alone inside the van she remained still as her drugged mind drifted in a groggy fog and then, gradually, she became aware of voices.

  Filtering through her clouded senses the sounds were indistinct and distorted. Jennet listened in blank amusement to the weird warbling and smiled stupidly as she tried to clamber back to the seat. After falling headlong into the box and splitting a bag of lentils, she hauled herself up and pressed her nose flat against the side window.

  Outside the camper van was a wild and barren unearthly landscape which in the bright moonlight appeared all the more ghostly and desolate. Cut off from the rest of the living world, it was a lonely waste of rolling moorland, where the very skeleton of the earth projected from the soil as outcrops of cold and immovable stone.

  Jennet's distracted and wandering thoughts briefly pondered on the mysterious and melancholy place. Nowhere could she see any sign of civilisation, no friendly lights glittered in the distance and only those low and garbled murmurings disturbed the eerie stillness. It was a sepulchral isolation where ancient terrors might lurk beneath the undisturbed heathered hills and go stalking through the forbidding night.

  Then she realised that she was not alone. Indistinct shapes were moving in the pools of deep shadow and the girl watched the figures drowsily. They were as busy as ants, absorbed in the building of a tall wooden framework in a level clearing a safe distance away from the camper.

  Jennet grinned—the people did look silly. They were dressed in loose-fitting robes of billowing black and she waved gleefully as one of them paused and stared across at the face framed in the van window.

  Purposefully the figure strode towards the vehicle and when it drew close, Jennet saw that it was Pear.

  "Hah!" Jennet honked, as the side door was heaved open. "What are you supposed to be?"

  Pear smiled at her. "I'm glad you're finally awake," she said kindly. "You do like me, don't you, Jennet?"

  The girl sniggered. "Sure," she nodded, "you're my best friend."

  "Good," Pear responded. "That's good, because you're mine too and friendship's a marvellous, unexpected thing for me. You're not afraid, are you? There's nothing to worry about."

  '"Course not. Oh, but I've spilled lentils all over the floor."

  "That's all right. Now just remember nobody's going to hurt you. In fact, at the end of tonight we'll be sisters."

  The drugged girl sighed. "I'd love a sister," she burbled, "someone like you."

  "Do you want to come out of the van now? Come join us."

  Taking her by the hand, Pear led Jennet over the springy ground towards the others.

  Jennet plodded after her, throwing her head back to squint up at the vast expanse of the starry heavens. "It's so big!" she cried. "Look how big the sky is—wow, it's huge! Aren't the stars enormous and bright out here?"

  She looked at her companion and then beyond to the figures building the near-completed timber structure.

  "Pear! Pear!" she chuckled. "That's the one who wears the posh clothes in the nicknack shop—and there's the miserable Neugent thing from the café. Don't know those other two! Oh look! There's Meta and Caroline and Liz—coooeee!"

  As she staggered past them, every one of the robed women smiled at Jennet and warmly greeted her with words of welcome.

  The girl laughed, they seemed so serious, but it was all so ludicrous and she exploded uncontrollably—pointing at their poker-straight faces and earnest sobriety.

  With her fake smile withering from her face, Meta stepped next to Hillian. "I can't believe this idiot is the one hope we have left!" she muttered impatiently.

  "Be quiet," Hillian hissed at her. "She have enough wit to be performing the part set out for her."

  Standing before the tall, finished bonfire, Jennet swayed woozily and clung on to Pear. "This is funny," she babbled, "so very, very funny."

  "That's right," Pear confirmed, "it's only a daft dream. Just remember that none of this is real."

  Hillian clapped her hands together for attention and ushered the others to form a circle.

  Around the bonfire the women gathered, their obedient faces turned towards Hillian Fogle, then-acting High Priestess.

  "Pear," Jennet gurgled, "look, I'm wearing that horrible bridesmaid dress, hah, hah! You'd think I could think up something better, wouldn't you? Why haven't I got one of those groovy black numbers like the rest of you?"

  Meta threw her an irritated glance but Jennet was too giddy to take any notice.

  Hillian grinned indulgently then stepped into the circle. "Sisters!" she called suddenly. "Tonight we are being assembled together for the first time in many months and a griefing commemoration it is also. Another of our sisterhood did pass over last night. Miriam Gower—is lost to us. Thus are we only eight in number—first we lose Roselyn, then Judith Deacon, little Susie betrayed our cause and now Miriam. She will be very much missed."


  The expressions on the women's faces displayed no outward sign that they mourned for the owner of the bookshop. In fact one of the two that Jennet did not recognise had difficulty suppressing a glad smile.

  "Yet," Hillian continued, "we must never despair, for this night a new sister is to be joining us. She is already halfway to being one of our dwindling number—for when he was alive she was in truth known to him. The priest's charm was on her and is even now still at work within her soul."

  Spinning around, Hillian raised her arm and pointed directly at Jennet.

  "Greetings, sister!" she declared loudly. "Welcome, Jennet!"

  Suddenly the other women, including Pear, began to chant Jennet's name, repeating it over and over with fervent intensity.

  Spluttering with mirth, the girl fell against her friend. "Hellooo," she sang back at them.

  "Everyone here," Hillian shouted above the chanting, "does share a common bond—a shared devotion that is uniting us all and makes us strong. When the coven is assembled nothing is beyond our grasping, no one can be safe from our glorious purpose."

  "So mote it be!" everyone yelled. "So mote it be! So mote it be!"

  Hillian walked over to Jennet and took her head in her hands. Then she bent forward and kissed the girl's brow.

  "Does your heart not still long for his embrace?" she asked. "Even as we, did you not love him with each gram of your body and was there nothing you would not have done in his exalted name?"

  She gestured at the other members of the coven who were all breathless with mounting excitement, and even the painfully shy and timid Liz was flushed and eager with anticipation.

  "See, their hearts already beat the faster just to think of him. We are all tethered to that most gratifying and unparallelled man. By blood and by soul are we his and the delicious shackles of his influence are felt even beyond the grave. Never shall we forsake his memory and always shall he protect us."

  Jennet blinked at her. The effects of the drug that had been put into the glass of wine were beginning to wear off. The girl sagged against Pear as she pressed her fingers to her temples and the turgid, obliterating mists of drunkenness started to disperse.

  "This is the collar of the sisterhood," Hillian proclaimed, holding up a string of wooden African beads. "By this mark are the brides of Crozier known and under its restraint were we kept in check by his governing hand. Yoked to him, subjugated to his will, enslaved to his bidding."

  The other women reached to their throats and pulled down the black robes to reveal identical necklaces which each of them wore, and Jennet gaped at them in dumb bewilderment.

  With great ceremony, Hillian lifted the threaded string high over Jennet's head and fastened it about her neck.

  The girl grimaced—the necklace was uncomfortably tight.

  "Now be the new link in his impenitent chain," Hillian called, and with the nail of her thumb, she scored a small circle in the soft skin of Jennet's throat.

  "Now you are his forever!" the woman declared and she whirled round to face the others. "The initiate is joined!" she cried. "Coven of the Black Sceptre, we have a new sister—our number is grown to nine again!

  At this, the witches cheered and they hailed Jennet as one of them.

  Pear squeezed her friend's hand. "Now we are sisters," she said, kissing her upon the cheek.

  Jennet grunted. Her head was throbbing and she stared about her with a growing sense of unease and fear. What madness was this? The nonsensical dream was becoming a waking nightmare.

  Hillian returned to her place between Liz and Gilly Neugent and nodded to Meta.

  Pear's mother stepped forward with a box of matches and crouched before the bonfire. At the first attempt, a heap of dry bracken flared into flame and soon the whole of the wooden framework was leaping with yellow fire.

  Jennet backed away from the scorching heat but Pear's guiding arm drew her back and the girl gazed at the faces of the other witches, unable to understand what they were all doing here.

  The eyes of every woman were filled with the reflection of the flames, and the sizzling light shone red and gold over their excited faces, making them appear unclean and depraved. With frenzied and feverish expectation, they stared deep into the bonfire's crackling heart and began to murmur to themselves a name that they relished, a name that brought intense pleasure—the name of their cruel and magnificent master.

  "Nathaniel," they whispered, "Nathaniel, Nathaniel."

  "No!" Jennet cried as finally the vile truth dawned and a sickening horror swept over her. "This isn't happening!"

  She pulled her hand from Pear's grip but the older girl caught hold of her again.

  "Don't be afraid!" Pear assured her. "You're one of us now. Come—dance with us around the flames."

  As the other witches began to move about the bonfire with slow and careful steps, Pear pulled Jennet after them. Nathaniel's name was still pouring from their mouths and gradually the whispering mounted as the movements grew swifter until everyone was shouting at the top of their voices.

  "Let me go!" Jennet begged.

  Pear tugged and dragged her, spinning the girl in the terrible reeling dance. Around and around the roasting fire she stumbled, the passionate shrieks of the others deafening and terrifying her.

  "Relax," Pear cried, "this is your great chance! You said you wanted to change your life—well, this is it! This is the ultimate freedom. Nathaniel has given us the means of our deliverance. We can cast aside the cares of this miserable world and unleash the full ferocity of our inner selves. That dark corner which we keep hidden and secret can be embraced and released."

  "No," Jennet implored, "stop this!"

  Pear laughed. "Don't struggle," she told her, "seize hold of your destiny and run beneath the moon with me. Come tear through the grass and bound over the moors."

  "Never! You're all raving mad!"

  As though attuned to the essence of the bonfire, the witches were now leaping like tongues of flame. Their heavy black robes whipped about them, their arms stretched up to the hollow sky and their gaping mouths screamed for their beloved.

  It was an infernal scene. Sweat streamed down their maniacal faces and each of them grasped the primitive necklace at their throats.

  "Tonight!" Pear shouted deliriously. "Tonight the brides of Crozier will be unchained!"

  Even as Jennet stared, a hideous change crept over the others. The faces that shone in the bloody firelight twisted and stretched. The flames were no longer mirrored in their eyes for now a brighter, hellish blaze was burning there. Within each of the witches a suppressed, barbaric nature was struggling to break loose, and the whoops of delight that issued from the transforming mouths degenerated into guttural howls. Before the flickering, broiling light, their forms blurred as all that was human was cast aside and the untame wildness of their profane, wanton souls took control.

  The witches' hair shrank into their skulls, and hackles bristled down their necks as their backs buckled and they fell to the ground as hips snapped and curved inwards. Flesh rippled and bulged into tough sinew and bitter claws spiked from shrivelling hands. The hindering black robes were thrown down and, naked in their growing fur, the contorted creatures pranced about the circle, baying at the moon.

  Jennet tried to scream, but her own voice was choking and to her terror only a yammering whine came out. The necklace of beads constricted and though she tore at it with her fingers the thread could not be broken. The blood pumped fiercely through her veins, throbbing violently in her ears like the harsh beating of pagan drums, and she felt her willpower drain and seep away.

  The dense, burning woodsmoke filled the girl's nostrils and, as if that was a trigger, a dark memory flashed into her panic-stricken mind. It was the Fifth of November and Nathaniel was telling her of heathen times and chilling sacrifices, taunting her brother with heinous threats and controlling her absolutely. Before her wild, round eyes, a vision was forming, rising from her subconscious, and she howled as the ima
ge took shape in her thoughts.

  The bearded face of Nathaniel Crozier was mocking her from the past and his commanding control came stabbing out at her. Jennet tried to drive the sinister man from her mind. She knew it was fatal to remember the sound of his compelling voice and the deadly force of those glittering, murderous eyes and yet it was impossible not to.

  A searing pain sliced through the girl's stomach as all over her body the skin stung and needled. Throwing back her head, Jennet let out a shriek of pain and horror, for the transformation had begun.

  "That's right," Pear encouraged, "give yourself up to it—surrender your will, let the beast free."

  In her strange new voice, Jennet howled and her cheek bones melted into a new and different shape. Her long hair was already dwindling and her ears becoming silken points when suddenly and with a tremendous effort, she wrenched herself from the fiery ring and fell backwards on to the spongy ground.

  "I can't!" she managed to yelp. "I can't!" and before Pear could reach her, Jennet sprang to her feet and fled the lurid scene as fast as possible. Over the moor she dashed, pelting blindly through the heather, too frightened to glance round, too terrified to hear the angry cries of the coven behind.

  "Jennet!" Pear called. "Don't! You must come back—you'll put yourself in terrible danger!"

  Pear looked to Hillian who alone amongst the others was still partly human.

  Retaining much of her true shape, Hillian Fogle was a ghastly spectacle. Her face was a hybrid jumble: a great slavering snout protruded from her brows, yet her spectacles were still balanced precariously across the furry muzzle. Her short dark hair still curled behind her ears but they were huge and alert, listening to the sounds of the night and following Jennet's frantic movements through the darkness.

  Before her voice became lost in the rabid snarlings of the savage animal she was rapidly becoming, Hillian growled at Pear and snapped, "Get you after her—bring the fool back... gggo noooww!"

  The witch shuddered and fell on all fours, shaking with the horrible power of change.

  Pear looked at her, then at the others who were now almost completely mutated into immense and ferocious black dogs whose great rolling eyes were ablaze with a harsh scarlet glow. The coven barked and shrieked, tearing around the bonfire and biting at the heat haze that pulsed from the flames. In the mad scramble of fur and teeth, the girl could not even identify her mother and she stepped back cautiously. Then, catching sight of Jennet's shimmering dress in the moonlight, she tore after her.