Chapter 30
‘Let’s move on to the events that preceded Christian’s death,’ Mr Alexander says. ‘After this funeral scenario, did you and the other girls start to acknowledge Christian’s presence again?’
Sasha nods. ‘I was the first, the others eventually followed. But Isobel and Eliza weren’t happy with me.
Isobel seemed particularly stressed about it – she said that there was dark magic at play and that I must stand back, let it play out.
Otherwise, I might get hurt. Eliza kept saying it wasn’t their fault; the situation was beyond their control.
They kept trying to remind me that dead girls don’t speak.
I thought it was a bit shit, though. Sorry .
. . I mean, a bit rubbish. Christian wasn’t dead yet, and it didn’t seem very kind. ’
The advocate depute nods. ‘Right. I’m going to take you now up to the end of April last year,’ he says. ‘Tell us what happened at the beginning of term.’
Sasha remembers it only too well. The Easter holiday had been the most welcome break she’d ever had.
Her mum had taken a week off work, and they’d hung out together at home in the Borders, baking and watching bad TV together.
The biopsy on the lump had come back normal and the cancer scare was over – that made it all worthwhile, all the time Sasha had spent with the girls doing those things that she hated doing.
She’d made that sacrifice to protect her mum, and maybe her mum sensed it because she made a real effort to spend the holiday with Sasha, too – it wasn’t her mum’s fault that she had to travel so much for her job – Sasha appreciated everything that it brought.
It had been Sasha’s idea to go to boarding school in the first place, obsessed as she was with boarding school stories like the Chalet School series and Malory Towers and the Kingscote books by Antonia Forest which had belonged to her mum.
She’d spent that holiday tucked up in bed reading those books when she wasn’t spending time with her mum.
She wanted to go back to an easier time, more innocent, when she still believed that it would be the experience of her life, not an experience that she would do anything to avoid.
There were so many times that she could have said to her mum that she’d changed her mind, she’d rather go to the school down the road.
But then her mum told her about the promotion she’d been given, the conferences in New York and Dubai that she was leading – it was obvious that she was thriving in the time that she now had to herself with Sasha away from home. Sasha would have to deal with it.
Going back to school was hard. She’d kissed her mum goodbye, jumped out of the car and walked into the grounds without looking back.
Her biggest hope was that Christian might have decided to leave.
Without her, Sasha had a fantasy that they would all be happy again.
Isobel would stop all this witch stuff, Eliza would stop going on about death, and they could be normal teenagers again.
The first person she saw was Eliza, accompanied as ever by Isobel.
‘They told me that they’d been talking a lot over the holidays, making plans. Their instructions from the spirits were clear – they knew what they needed to do.’
‘What did you understand this to mean?’
‘That they’d kept doing tarot readings. Ouija boards too. I knew they’d done a lot of reading, as well, so they knew about other rituals, though they didn’t tell me about them.’
‘Did one or other of them seem to be more enthusiastic about this?’ the advocate depute asks.
‘Eliza was excited. I could sense the energy coming off her. Isobel was quieter about it, more resolute. A messenger, though. Passing on instructions to do something. They didn’t tell me what. They were still whispering in corners. They’d shut up whenever they saw me come near.’
‘How were you all behaving towards Christian?’
‘I was being normal. We had a lot of the same classes and we spent free periods together.’
‘And the others? How did they behave towards her when you were in sight?’
‘They were better. Not quite as friendly, but not so weird. I can’t be sure, but I think that she was trying to stick with me as much as she could – it seemed like she didn’t want to be left on her own with them.’
‘Was there a point when it became less friendly?’
Sasha nods. She glances over at the dock.
Both girls are staring at her. She puts her fingers to the protective talisman in her pocket, bringing her hand to her nose to catch a whiff of rosemary, a reminder of a life beyond.
‘Yes. It came to a head at the end of April. Eliza came and found Christian and me in the library. She told us that we were going to have a ceremony for Beltane.’
‘Beltane?’
‘A witchy word for May Day. The first day of May. Another important date. They’d had messages, she said, and now it was time. I thought she was looking at Christian in a funny way, calculating, but that was all she said.’
She stops, takes a drink of water.
‘They wouldn’t tell us what they had planned,’ she continues.
‘They told me to get out of the dormitory at one point and even though I tried to argue, they weren’t having it.
I had to go away for an hour. So I went for a walk round the grounds.
I ran into Ms Waites but she wasn’t very friendly.
No one else was around, there was no one to talk to.
In the end I went back to the library and read for a bit longer.
Then it was time, I was allowed back in. ’
‘Did they tell you then what they had planned?’
‘All they said was that we would be getting up at four. Then the lights were off.’
It was dark when Isobel shook Sasha awake, dark as they crept out of school and over the road to the allotments, only a glimmer of dawn in the sky.
No part of Sasha wanted to be there – she felt sick to her stomach, cold dread permeating through everything.
She jumped at every shadow, certain that this would be when they would be caught, expelled.
Or worse. Christian walked slowly beside her, the girl’s footsteps even more reluctant than Sasha’s, or at least that’s how it sounded.
When they arrived at the allotment Isobel led the way into the shed, lighting five candles in jars that were already placed at the points of a pentagram that was drawn on the floor with chalk. She must have been here earlier in the night to set it all up.
‘That wasn’t the issue though,’ Sasha says. ‘There was something in the corner of the shed. Isobel’s black bag. But there was something wrong with it. Something horrible.’
She can still see it now, the way that the bag writhed and twisted. It had taken on a life of its own.
Or it held something that was alive.
Isobel and Eliza were both wearing black gowns.
Sasha hadn’t seen these before, and as the girls drew the hoods up over their heads, casting their faces into shadow, she felt even more disturbed.
There was a ghostly quality to the set-up, other-worldly.
She felt very close to the edge right now, as if she were about to cross over into a place unknown.
Somehow, she can’t put that into words. Again, she’s trapped by the limitations of language, the difficulty in trying to communicate exactly how horrific it was, to see the bag move and the inexorable quality to Isobel and Eliza’s actions, as if they were carrying out a ceremony ordained by an ancient power.
‘Eliza picked up the bag and handed it to Isobel. She reached inside. Isobel was being very careful, cautious, and when she brought her hand out I saw why. It had a pigeon in it, a big one, but with an injured wing. It was trying to struggle, but it had clearly lost a lot of strength as she was able to hold it with only one hand.’
‘Did you say anything when you saw this?’ Mr Alexander says.
‘“What the fuck?” That’s what I said. I thought I was going to be sick. At least the cat had been dead. But this . . . this was a step further again.’
‘What did Isobel do next?’
‘She put the pigeon down in the centre of the pentagram, holding it in place. Then she started to chant. Eliza joined in. I don’t know what they were saying, exactly – they were calling on various demons by name, bringing in the elements.
They must have learnt it while they were together during the Easter holidays. I certainly didn’t understand it.’
It should have sounded ridiculous.
It didn’t.
‘She looked straight at Christian. “The cards have spoken,” she said, “the spirits too. You have tarried too long.” Then she began to chant. “This bird is the physical representation of our sister Christian. We are going to ease her over to the other side.”’ Sasha stops.
She’s fallen into a chant as well, the words sing-song in the court.
Everyone is looking at her, she knows it, and her cheeks flush red.
‘What did she do next?’
‘She took up her knife – it had been in the bag as well. Then she turned the pigeon on to its back and stabbed it through the breast, over and over again.’
‘Was she saying anything as she did this?’
The court is completely silent. Sasha can hear the beats of her own heart, pounding in her chest.
‘She was screaming. “DIE CHRISTIAN DIE. DIE CHRISTIAN DIE.”’ A pause. Once more. ‘“DIE CHRISTIAN DIE.”’
‘What did Christian do?’ The advocate depute is speaking very quietly, every word very clearly spoken, shards of glass.
‘She started to sob.’
‘What happened next?’
The words are stuck in Sasha’s throat. She can’t swallow, she can’t speak. How to describe it, the horror she felt. Her reaction, so childish – to curl up on the floor, her head in her hands, her eyes tight shut.
Movements around her, a clang of metal on metal, a scream from Christian.
Sasha on the ground for a moment, head clutched in hands, but compelled by a force greater than fear, she sat up slowly, opened her eyes, transfixed as she watched Eliza and Isobel advance on Christian, take hold of her, the girl’s scream a terrible sound but even worse the screech that came from the two witches.
NOW IT’S YOUR TURN, the words that still echo in Sasha’s head.
‘Now it’s your turn? You’re certain it’s what they said?’
Sasha nods.
‘And you’re certain it was both of them screaming together?’
Sasha nods again.
‘I’m certain of it.’
‘What happened after that?’
She shut her eyes again, huddled back down.
Christian was struggling against the hold of Eliza and Isobel – Sasha could hear the heaviness of the girls’ breathing, the grunts and muffled curses.
Finally a yell – Christian – followed by shouts from Eliza and Isobel, wordless sounds full of rage.
Footsteps, a shout, another clang of metal.
The slam of the door. Sasha was paralysed momentarily, pinned to the spot as if by Isobel’s knife.
Then her strength came back and she got up off the floor to find herself alone, the knife beside her on the floor.
Terrified, Sasha made her way back to the dorm.
She didn’t look over her shoulder, eyes down as she ran as fast as she could.
Isobel and Eliza might turn on her at any moment, that was her selfish fear.
She hoped beyond hope that she’d get back to find Christian safe in her bed, all wrapped up.
All the beds were empty though. She heard Isobel and Eliza come back in a few minutes later, but she pretended to be asleep and the girls ignored her, whispering furiously between themselves, so quietly she couldn’t make out the words.
Christian did not make it back.
Sasha looks out at the courtroom now. ‘I never saw her alive again.’
Mr Alexander clears his throat. ‘Obviously you can’t know exactly what happened while you had your eyes shut, but from what you could hear, what do you think that Eliza and Isobel were doing?’
Sasha stops, thinks back. ‘It’s hard to separate out all the different noises.
Obviously I was scared, as well as tired, disorientated.
I think that they went at Christian with the knife, pinned her down, that there was a struggle during which the knife was dropped, and that Christian managed to get out of the shed and run away, them hot at her heels, before it all got too much for her heart. ’
‘Thank you,’ Mr Alexander says. ‘Just one more question from me for this evening. Do you have any idea who was actually holding the knife?’
She contemplates the question, searching through the memory of the incident to see if there’s any detail she might have missed, no matter how many times she’s gone through it already.
There’s nothing, though. No new moment of eureka.
‘I don’t know. Isobel was holding it before.
She was the one who stabbed the pigeon. But it was on the floor nearer to where Eliza was standing in the struggle with Christian.
It could have been held by either of them. ’
As Sasha speaks, she looks directly at Isobel and Eliza. Now that the story is out there, they’ve lost some of their power. Though as she catches Isobel’s gaze, feels it tear through all her defences, reaching for any weak spots it can find, she knows that the grip they hold on her is still strong.
Not strong enough to stop her from telling the truth about them, though.