Chapter 39
39
She wasn’t sure of the hour but Luna stirred and reached her arm out to Marcus’s side of the bed. Although the sheets were still warm, he was absent. Sitting upright, she focused on the shapes in the shadows, but there was no moment to suggest he remained in the room with her. Where had he gone to in the middle of the night, on All Hallows’ Eve, the one night he knew she would not want to be left alone?
Bran had still not appeared and she went to the window, lifting the sash and hoping he would fly down to greet her. But all that came in through the open gap was a chill breeze and the faint aroma of woodsmoke.
As she looked out, she saw someone crossing from the house to the woods. It was definitely a man judging by the length of his stride, but the figure was of slim build and far more likely to be Mr Webber than Marcus. Could he be connected to Bran’s disappearance or her husband’s night-time wanderings? Luna wondered if he was heading to the well; she would not be at all surprised if he had made the clay figures of her. Although Webber had not shown much outward interest in his wife’s supernatural leanings, the cursing of Mother Selwood still sat uneasily with Luna. Had he cursed the old woman? Her heart started to thud alarmingly. She wondered, not for the first time, if their manservant could be the witch.
It was only then that it struck her that Bran and Marcus might be in danger. Was tonight the night Luna would finally wreak her ghostly revenge? And if the Ravenswood Witch was in league with Webber, what might the two of them be capable of? Findlay had warned her there would be people at the well, and that blood would be shed. A cold fear started to seep from her chest and spread to all areas of her body, rendering her arms and legs numb. Her fears of being exposed as Rose were superseded by this much more immediate concern, and she couldn’t stand by and do nothing.
‘ The magic is only real if you believe ,’ she reiterated to herself, as she quickly pulled on a woollen skirt over her nightgown and grabbed a shawl from her wardrobe. It was interesting how her deep love and concern for another gave her the courage to overcome her fears. The woods were not evil; they were simply a place of quiet solitude and wisdom. Marcus had shown her that she did not need to be afraid of the trees or the shadows. But she had long suspected there was cause to be frightened of Mr Webber and what he might do.
Five minutes later, she was downstairs and peering in every room in her attempt to locate her husband, desperately hoping he had popped into the drawing room for a nightcap, or, unable to sleep, and taken himself to the library with a hot cocoa. But when she eventually got to the boot room, she saw that his boots and warm woollen coat were missing. It meant Marcus had left the house, so she collected a hurricane lamp and slipped outside, noting that the back door through the kitchens was unbolted. As a last-minute thought, she scooped some salt from the salt box, in a feeble attempt to protect herself from evil spirits.
She was done with all the secrets and lies. Marcus must know what had happened to his wife and she could no longer pretend it didn’t matter. Their life together was a fabrication and they would invariably be found out. She may not have been responsible for Daniel’s death but, by running away, she had let the real culprit escape justice. And Mr Webber was a bad man, cruel to his wife and up to no good in the night. It suited him for everyone to stay locked up on All Hallows’ Eve because then he would not be followed into the woods. But she no longer thought he was turning his hand to something innocuous, like a bit of poaching, and now genuinely believed he was practising the dark arts.
The lamp cast long shadows as the chill in the night air bit into her skin. There was a low mist floating about her feet and she wondered at her bravery. But then she was a different person to the nervous maidservant who had turned up at Ravenswood six months ago. She pulled the shawl tighter around her shoulders and set off with determined steps, towards the smell of woodsmoke and faint glow she could see between the trunks of the skeletal trees, wishing Bran would appear, his prolonged absence now causing her real concern.
The handle of the lamp gave an eerie squeak as it swung in her raised hand, but she kept striding deeper into the wood that had been so welcoming only a few hours before, trying not to think of the spirits of the dead, until the bonfire was within sight.
She stepped into the clearing, looking for whoever was responsible. The mist was patchy here, where the heat from the fire had dispelled it, and she could see a selection of puzzling objects on the ground next to a small hessian sack. A large area of soil had been swept bare of leaves, and a pentagram was scratched into the dirt within a larger circle. She had no idea what the shapes and symbols meant, but suspected necromancy was at work here. This was no bonfire lit in remembrance of those who had passed away over the previous year, but something far more sinister. This fire was symbolic of creation and destruction, a way to harness transformative powers. Someone was trying to summon the dead, or perhaps even the Devil.
She hurried over to the well and had the unnerving sensation she was being watched, but by a physical presence or a spiritual one she wasn’t sure. A lantern stood on the well’s edge, and its flickering light illuminated several new poppets that certainly hadn’t been at the site that morning.
‘Well, well, what do we have here?’ a voice came from behind.
A rough hand gripped her shoulder and her blood froze in her pulsing veins, because she knew exactly who was standing behind her.
‘I’ve been expecting you.’