Chapter 29
Sasha’s back is hurting. She’s given evidence all morning standing up, refusing the offer of a chair when she arrived, but now she’s regretting it.
Even though the injuries of last year are so much better now, it still takes its toll if she stands for too long.
On top of which, her knees are beginning to shake.
It’s not a psychic attack – she’s got the protection she needs with her, after all – but the brutality of the story that she’s telling is starting to wear her out.
She knows what the prosecutor is doing. He’s building the case against Isobel and Eliza.
Victim Support told her exactly what was going to happen.
But she wishes he would look at her with slightly less irritation when she answers his questions.
She can’t help that the weapons that the girls used were supernatural. They were weapons all the same.
Other than her mum, no one else in the courtroom looks friendly.
One of the jurors is even holding a wooden cross in her hands, as if she’s brought it in specially for protection.
Though Sasha can’t really talk, with the bouquet of rosemary and garlic that she’s carried with her today.
On the upside, at least the woman can’t be a sceptic.
That’s one person taking what Sasha says seriously.
‘Tell us about this funeral,’ Mr Alexander says.
His mouth twists as he says the word. Sasha can see the same expression repeated around the room.
Disbelieving, unimpressed. Other than the woman with the cross, who looks angry.
Then Sasha catches sight of one of the jurors sitting behind her, a man who looks like he must be in his fifties.
He’s very pale, looks the way Sasha’s mum looked the day that they had to go in and speak to the headmistress after Christian died.
Sasha was really worried about her, she looked so ill. This man doesn’t look much better.
‘The funeral?’ Mr Alexander says, a note of impatience leaking into his voice. Sasha turns round, gives him her full attention.
‘It was Isobel’s idea. But Eliza planned it . . .’ she begins.
It took place on 20th March. This coincided with the spring equinox, Eliza told them. Or as the pagans had it, Ostara.
‘Why?’ Sasha was clueless.
‘It’s the day when light and dark are equally balanced. As spring takes hold it means there’s going to be lots of energy in the soil when we do the burial. It’ll be even more powerful.’
‘What needs to be powerful?’ Christian asked. No one replied.
That was part of the plan. Christian was a dead girl walking, and dead girls don’t speak. Isobel and Eliza told Sasha first thing in the morning that she was to pretend that Christian didn’t exist.
‘We can’t stop her from tagging along,’ Isobel had said. ‘But we need to make sure it’s clear that she’s dead to us. Otherwise it won’t have as much power.’
‘Isn’t that nasty?’ Sasha had said, but Eliza laughed at her.
‘It’s neither nasty nor nice. It’s how it has to be.’
‘We’ll wait until lights out. But I’ve got everything we need,’ Isobel said. ‘I found it on the road yesterday, sneaked it into the fridge wrapped up in a plastic bag.’
‘Found what?’ Christian said. But it was only when Sasha asked the same question that they replied.
‘You’ll find out soon enough.’
‘And did you find out?’ Mr Alexander asks.
‘Yes,’ Sasha says. A shooting pain comes up her right leg – sciatica.
She’s had issues with it ever since the injuries, a permanent reminder of everything that happened.
She turns to the judge. ‘I’m sorry, but is it all right if I sit down?
I’m in quite a lot of pain.’ The judge nods.
Isobel smirks, or at least it looks that way to Sasha. She’s not going to react though.
Once she’s sitting down, Sasha gets her breath back. This part is going to be hard enough to tell the court without being in agony as well.
‘What did you find out?’
‘It . . . well, I’ll get to that. We spent the rest of the day ignoring Christian, even though she was getting distressed.
She really hated being ignored – it upset her more than anything anyone could say to her.
She kept trying to get me to talk to her, and I wanted to, but Eliza said it would break the magic.
She said we had to behave as if Christian was already dead.
I went along with it, even though it was hard.
When it got to bedtime, we were all in the dormitory again, and once everyone else seemed to be asleep, around half past eleven, that’s when we sneaked out to go back to the allotment. ’
‘They hadn’t stopped the way?’
‘No one knew about it,’ Sasha says. ‘Not then, at least. They only found out about it after Christian died.’ She swallows.
If only they had . . . ‘Anyway, we slipped out. I could see that Isobel’s bag was full.
It looked heavy and it was bulging. When we got to the shed we were relieved that it was still looking deserted, so we let ourselves in and then Isobel spread everything out. ’
Isobel and Eliza are both staring at Sasha intently now.
So is every member of the jury. The woman with the cross is leaning as far forward as she can in her seat.
She might be holding a Christian symbol, but Sasha doesn’t like her expression.
She’s almost licking her lips waiting for the next instalment.
‘What was in her bag?’
Sasha starts to list the objects. A Kim’s Game she’ll never forget.
The shoebox, the black ribbon. The black string.
A big printout of a photograph of Christian (the girl had cried out at that, though no one reacted.
Dead girls don’t cry . . .). A birthday card that Christian had sent to Sasha (Isobel didn’t ask before she took it but Sasha was too on edge to argue).
‘There was something else, though. Deep in the bottom of her bag. It was wrapped in a black cloth. When she took it out and unwrapped it, the smell hit us all. Rot. Decay.’ Sasha can taste it in her mouth still.
‘What was it?’
Sasha shakes her head. She really doesn’t want to say. But she doesn’t have any choice.
‘Go on.’
‘It was a dead cat. Isobel said she’d found it on the road the day before when she was out for a walk. It must have been hit by a car. She’d picked it up and put it in her bag.’
Mr Alexander nods. ‘What happened next?’
‘Isobel cast a circle . . .’
She keeps talking, reducing the experience to the barest of words.
But it’s impossible to recreate the horror of the scene, the bleak expression on Christian’s face as it gradually dawned on her what was happening.
The smell from the dead cat was spreading through everything, the candles were guttering, giving off foul black smoke, almost as if they’d been dipped in something toxic, too, or made from rancid animal fat.
Christian was crying and Sasha’s eyes were watering so much from the smoke it was as if she were crying, too.
But Isobel and Eliza had risen above it all, their faces pale ovals in the semi-darkness of the room.
Isobel had called upon Hecate, her voice deep and guttural, asking the witch mother to guide Christian to the other side.
‘Do you know what she meant by that?’
Sasha nods. ‘Yes. Christian was dying, that’s what the spirits had told Isobel. She had to convey that message to Christian, so that her spirit could be free. The point of the ceremony was to show Christian’s spirit that it was time to let go of life, stop fighting her fate.’
‘What happened next?’
Another deep swallow. Sasha’s mouth is dry.
‘We took the dead cat and we wrapped it in Christian’s photograph.
She was crying but we ignored her. I helped.
It wasn’t just Isobel and Eliza. All three of us did it.
When we’d finished, we put it into the box, and we put the birthday card alongside the dead cat. ’
Isobel had started chanting, her voice still deep. This vessel is the body of our dear departed friend Christian. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
‘We tied it up with the black ribbon, the black string. Then we went out into the allotment and we dug a hole. There were some tools in the shed – a spade, a trowel. I had to use my hands, though, as there weren’t enough.
It had to be deep, we needed to make sure that no fox would dig it up. But finally it was deep enough.’
‘What did you do with the box?’
‘We put it in the hole, and we covered it with earth. Then we stamped it down.’
‘How was Christian reacting at this stage?’
‘She’d stopped crying. It’s like she’d turned into stone.
She’d stopped trying to talk to us, anything.
She just stood and watched, her face paler than I’ve ever seen it.
Once we’d finished burying the box, she said only one thing.
“But I’m not dead.” Her voice was so quiet I could barely make out the words. ’
Mr Alexander goes through the documents in front of him. Then he holds up a photograph.
‘Is this a photograph of the box and its contents?’
At the sight of the birthday card, the pitiful remains of the cat still wrapped in its cloth, something breaks inside Sasha, the self-control that’s kept her talking for what feels like the whole day. She puts her head down, and she cries. For the cat, for herself.
For Christian. She can still hear her now. Please talk to me. Stop ignoring me. I’m not dead.
Sasha could have turned to her then. She could have put her arms round her, brought her in from the cold.
Instead, she turned away.