Chapter 9 #2
‘Not that one,’ Cybil said, sharply, and she took one grimoire back: it was a smaller book, with a black leather cover embossed with a three-headed bird. She laid it carefully at the top of her stack, tucking it beneath her chin. Miriam eyed it curiously, but she had no reason to protest.
They went down the corridor, where Cybil stopped in front of a closed door. She used her foot to thump on it, as her hands were full. ‘Mother?’ she called. ‘Are you awake?’
No response came. Cybil shifted, trying to distribute the weight of the books.
‘Mother,’ she repeated. ‘Listen to me. A witchfinder is coming from the town to investigate us. If you have any of Father’s things in there—anything that might incriminate us—please burn them.
Or hide them if you must. I will do my best to keep him away from you.
And I shall—I shall return for you. I swear it. ’
She did not wait for a reply, and she marched down the corridor without glancing back.
They slipped through the dark house in hurried silence, the only noise Cybil’s staccato breathing.
They came through the kitchen, into a servant’s passage, and out into the gardens.
Cybil fetched a cloak on the way, but the cold was clearly quite severe—the moment they came outside, her teeth began to chatter, and her cheeks flushed.
In the far distance, Miriam could hear dogs barking.
It would not be long before Cybil would hear them too, and she would grasp the true urgency of the situation.
Would she respond with fear, Miriam wondered, or determination?
A fox leaping for its den, or a wolf flashing its teeth?
Leaving her stack of tomes on the gravel, Cybil went to the shed, returning with a spade, another cloak, and a sack for the books. She tossed the cloak at Miriam, who stared at the fabric in her hands in confusion.
‘I thought you would be cold,’ Cybil said.
‘You thought I would be cold?’
‘I need you to aid me with the books,’ she snapped. ‘And you can hardly do that if you are—well—I know not if you can be cold, actually, so—no matter.’
She put her books into the sack and slung it over her shoulder. Then she spun around and tramped toward the exit of the gardens. Amused, Miriam followed her, obliging to pull the cloak around her shoulders.
The forest swallowed them whole, plunging them into black. Miriam could see without trouble, but Cybil clearly could not, as she quickly stumbled over a branch. Miriam caught her.
‘Release me,’ Cybil said, tugging at Miriam’s hands.
There was fear in her voice; fear and anger both—how lovely it was to hear, the music of her desperation.
But then Cybil froze; she was looking into the distance, where the glimmer of torches was edging the horizon.
Miriam could hear the dogs louder now, and the men shouting, the horses shattering the frozen leaves beneath their hooves.
Shuddering with cold and terror, Cybil pulled away from Miriam. They walked a little longer before they found a suitable clearing. Beside a wizened oak, Cybil attempted to break the earth with her shovel, only to find it frozen solid. She swore and bit savagely at her bottom lip.
‘Fool that I am,’ she muttered to herself. ‘Of course I cannot bury them, not in November. I am acting without sense. I shall have to burn them, after all.’
Miriam, tempted by the novelty of benevolence, took the spade from her and began digging, tossing clods of icy earth behind her shoulder. Cybil watched her silently with widened eyes, clutching the cloak around her shoulders.
‘Stop,’ she said, eventually. ‘It is deep enough now.’
They laid the sack of books within the hole. At the last minute, Cybil said, ‘Wait,’ and stooped to reach into the sack. She withdrew the book with the black embossed cover, tucking it beneath her arm.
Miriam covered the hole with dirt; then Cybil covered the dirt with fallen leaves. There was something funereal about the whole process, as if they had dug and filled a grave. The way Cybil bowed her head after was a mourner’s movement, strands of red hair falling to veil her face.
‘Why are you aiding me?’ Cybil asked her. ‘Because you still believe I will bargain with you? Because you take amusement from my presence?’
Miriam smiled at her. ‘Perchance both.’
‘You laugh at my misery.’
‘I marvel at your destruction,’ Miriam corrected. ‘Do men not do the same? Gasp in delight when a great tree is felled?’
‘You are so insistent I will be destroyed—’
Miriam’s patience was beginning to thin, and she interrupted. ‘Because you shall be, Cybil. We both know that. The grimoires may be gone, but Martingale will find something else. That house stinks of witchcraft.’
Cybil’s face remained hard, her eyes cold. ‘I know. And you are the one that led them here.’
‘What difference does that make? I have paid you a favour.’
‘A favour?’
Miriam pitched her voice low, gentle. ‘Sweet Cybil. You are not made for this world. Someone had to take you out of it.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘How hollow is the heart of a mortal,’ Miriam said. ‘How starving the soul. Your kind has spent thousands of years crawling out of the dirt, and yet still to the dirt you return. A curse, a gift—whatever your power is, you deserve better, my dear.’
‘Deserve better? I have killed people, Mistress Richter. My curse has killed people.’
‘Mayhap that is so. But if you permit your life to finish here, at the witchfinder’s hands, that shall be the only legacy you ever leave behind. Make a deal with me, and your existence shall mean something more; its ending will mean something more.’
That resonated with Cybil—Miriam could see it upon her face. Scenting blood in the water, she stepped slightly closer.
‘I could give you all you desire,’ she continued. ‘I could find you a place without loneliness, without fear. Without the weight of your guilt upon your shoulders. I could bring you there.’
Cybil said, ‘The curse—you could truly lift it?’
‘Certainly.’
‘But it would cost me my soul.’
‘Eventually. Still, we could come to an arrangement. You would have years before then. Decades, even.’
Her expression wavered. Miriam took another step closer, and their skirts brushed.
‘How much time would you like?’ she asked her. ‘I am your willing servant. As long as you want me, I will be yours; I will follow your every command. Simply promise me, Cybil, that you will be mine, also.’
Cybil tilted her head up towards her, in a movement that seemed more unconscious than deliberate. Miriam cupped her cheek, and Cybil’s breath sped up, blood rushing to her face.
Miriam said, ‘I see the desire in your eyes,’ and looped an arm around her waist, tugging her closer. Cybil stumbled forward, and when Miriam pressed her mouth against her neck, nipping at the soft skin there, she whimpered.
‘You…’ Cybil whispered. ‘You cannot—I…’
‘Just say it, darling. Say your soul is mine, and I’ll give you what you need.
’ Miriam brushed her lips against the underside of her jaw, the skin beneath her ear, the crest of her cheekbone.
She touched her mouth with hers—promising a kiss, withholding it at the last moment—and asked, ‘You do want it, do you not? All you need to do is ask.’
Cybil’s pupils were blown wide. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, I—’
In the distance, someone screamed.
Both women froze; then Cybil said, confused, ‘Mother?’ and shoved Miriam away.
The shriek sounded again. Cybil turned to Miriam, eyes flickering back and forth like flames, hands reflexively plucking at her skirts; the wildness in her face, the panic, was utterly breathtaking. ‘What is happening?’ she demanded. ‘Did you do this?’
Miriam shrugged. ‘It must be something to do with the witchfinder. Does it matter?’
Cybil looked aghast. Then, taking her skirts in her hands, she turned and ran towards the Hall.
Miriam groaned in frustration. ‘Cybil!’ she cried, exasperated. ‘Cybil, wait!’
But Cybil was not listening. She continued to run. Her mother’s screams were a constant wail now—almost musical in pitch, a melismatic song.
Miriam picked up the spade and followed her. As they ran, Harding Hall rose before them: its hill a grave-mound beneath it, and its windows laid out like an epitaph.