Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
RUE
Ilistened to Grandmama and Aunt Sorrel rage over the Witchfinder’s orders.
‘That man! He was a rogue as a youngster. Ever since your mother—’
‘Mama, no,’ Aunt Sorrel pleaded, her eyes wide with warning.
I glared at Aunt Sorrel, irritated with her for stopping my grandmother in mid-sentence when I hoped to hear her thoughts on the matter. ‘Please continue, Grandmama. What about my mother and the Witchfinder? Please, you must tell me. What don’t I know?’
I saw Grandmama glance at my aunt, and my aunt look back appealingly. My grandmother lowered her head briefly. ‘Your aunt is right. Now is not the time.’
It was all I could do not to scream. ‘If now isn’t the time to tell me everything I might need to know, then when will be?’ I looked from one to the other. I could tell by their closed faces that I was wasting my time.
My grandmother walked over to the basement door. Unsure whether to follow her, I waited.
‘Well, come along the pair of you,’ she snapped. ‘We have much to do if we are to outwit that Witchfinder creature.’
My aunt and I immediately followed her down the steps to the spell room.
‘What are we doing first?’ I asked as she unlocked the door.
‘The most important thing we need to do,’ my aunt replied while my grandmother tucked the key back into her skirt pocket, ‘is hide everything we use to cast our spells.’
I followed them into the room and looked about me at the rows of shelves, the large table in the middle of the room, and the enormous array of bunches of herbs hanging from nails in the black beams. ‘But there’s so much of it. Where can we possibly hide it all?’
My grandmother sighed heavily and turned to me. ‘We won’t worry about the herbs, oils or tinctures. Anything we can explain as medicinal is fine. Only the more dangerous herbs like wolfsbane or belladonna, and our wands and especially our grimoires. Paraphernalia that will mark us out as witches.’
My aunt snatched her spell book from the table where she must have left it earlier in the day.
‘I’ll not be sharing any of these spells with anyone else.
I’ve taken years to build up all this knowledge.
’ I knew she didn’t mean me or my grandmother because we often helped each other when creating or enhancing spells.
I used to keep my own spell book tucked away under a floorboard in my bedroom – until that black mould appeared and spooked me, and I moved it.
Now I went to a box of old rope stored at the end of the room and rummaged around until my hand touched it: my mother’s spell book, which my grandmother had passed on to me when I was twelve.
I held it in front of me and ran a forefinger over one of the smoother patches in the leather worn by her fingers over the years.
This was my most valuable possession, one I would never be able to replace.
‘No one is taking this from me. I’d burn it rather than let it leave my hands. ’
‘Fetch a wooden crate, or something with a lid, Rue,’ my aunt instructed as she peered at several jars and moved some of them away from the others, pushing those left behind closer together to hide any gap. ‘I’ll begin collecting everything we need to keep hidden.’
I slipped my grimoire into the pocket in my skirt. It was larger than most pockets – deliberately, so that I could collect herbs and nuts and anything else I found, if I was out without a basket.
My grandmother wrapped her arms around a group of jars and carefully pulled them closer together, ready to sort and pack them away. ‘I’ll look through my notes and take my book of shadows from here. You’d be wise to do the same, the pair of you. Find somewhere safe to hide your treasures.’
I was about to do as she recommended when a thought occurred to me and I lifted my hand and touched the obsidian crystal amulet I wore for protection. It was similar to those worn by my grandmother and the rest of the coven.
‘What are we thinking?’ I said. My aunt and grandmother stopped what they were doing and gave me questioning looks. ‘If we are taken to the castle and our bodies are inspected, surely wearing these crystals will give the Witchfinder further proof of our work? Or go some way to doing so.’
Aunt Sorrel and my grandmother exchanged glances. ‘She’s right,’ my aunt said.
‘That’s the problem,’ my grandmother grumbled. ‘We are so used to these things being around us each day that we don’t realise others will see them as signs of our guilt.’
I continued. ‘We should hide these, but we’ll need something invisible to the Witchfinder and his cronies to replace them.’
‘A protection spell,’ Grandmama said thoughtfully.
‘Yes,’ my aunt agreed. ‘And a very powerful one at that.’
Relieved that they agreed with me, I said, ‘Shouldn’t we be conducting our protection spell before doing anything else? After all, we have no idea when the Witchfinder’s assistant will return, do we?’
My grandmother’s hand flew to cover her mouth. She looked at my aunt, frowning. ‘The girl is right. Why didn’t you think of that, Sorrel?’
My aunt glared at her. ‘Why didn’t you?’
I cleared my throat as they began bickering. Thankfully both ceased after a few seconds. ‘Enough,’ Grandmother said. ‘For all we know, that assistant will be back here again on some pretext or other. Let’s get to work.’
They immediately began collecting ingredients for a spell to protect us and the rest of our household and estate.
We worked in silence, each of us knowing what needed to be done.
I lit a black candle to force away negative energy, then a white one for spiritual protection.
We removed our shoes to ground ourselves and my grandmother mixed her chosen ingredients: rosemary, sage, frankincense and cedar.
‘Maybe add a little pine,’ my aunt suggested, dropping a pinch from the jar she was holding into the stone mortar my grandmother was using. The three of us stood in a circle around the lit candles and bowl.
‘I believe Rue should be the one to lead the casting of this spell,’ my grandmother said.
The thought made me nervous. I was used to helping cast spells but was rarely the one in the foreground; I was happy to leave that to the more experienced witches in our coven. ‘Why me?’
‘Because you’re the focus of this evil man’s attention, your intent will be the most powerful. And because you’re still young and were restricted from developing your powers until you joined the coven, you must practise as much as possible to bring out your full powers.’
‘I have been doing that,’ I assured her.
I didn’t admit that I had been working on strengthening my powers since I first discovered them as a child, because I knew I had been forbidden to do so in case I accidentally hurt someone.
Secretly I quite liked the idea of being the one to lead the protection of my beloved grandmother and aunt as well as myself. ‘Of course.’
My grandmother handed me her small silver bell, then I took up my wand and waved it in a circle above our heads.
‘By leaf and flame, light and smoke, do the bidding we invoke,’ I said with as much intensity as I could muster. ‘Keep us safe and those like family, morning, noon, night and for eternity.’
I repeated the chant and this time my grandmother and aunt accompanied me.
A warm sense of protection and love wafted over me, seeming to rise from my bare feet up through my entire body and out of my head like an invisible light, calming my fears and giving me strength.
I had never known one of our spells to fail and I trusted in my powers implicitly, because if my grandmother insisted I could do this, then who was I to disbelieve her?
That done, we blew out the candles in silence. After a moment’s contemplation, I took a long, deep breath, satisfied we had done our best.
‘I’ll fetch a casket now for our treasures,’ I said and left the room, my hand resting on my skirt pocket where my spell book somehow felt warmer against my skin.
I wondered where to hide my most valuable possession.
It had always intrigued me as a child when I saw my mother studying or adding to her spells.
Now, whenever I experienced the ache of losing her, I would sit quietly somewhere and open the grimoire, confident that I’d be soothed by reading her perfect handwriting, or running the tip of my finger over the dried ink.
I hated the thought of someone discovering her precious words and spells and the keepsakes she had glued into the pages – such as dried bay leaves with sigils painted onto them to bring safety to our home, or money, or better health.
I often tried the easier spells and was sure that was why we always had enough money to get by.
I loved that her old spells still worked and dreaded the day when they might not do so.
I ran my fingertips over several tiny notes on another page.
I had read these many times and knew them to be from my grandmother.
Other pages held love tokens from my father, and snippets of poetry in his spidery handwriting.
There was a thin ribbon tied in a tiny bow around a dark curl of what my grandmother insisted was my hair.
So many mementoes that my mother had held dear.
I treasured them. Where was the safest place to hide this most precious memento of her life?
I ran to the barn to fetch a casket for my aunt and grandmother to fill.
I had almost crossed the back yard when a white dove took flight, its wings fluttering noisily, surprising me and giving me a fright.
I was about to continue on my way when the bird stopped and hovered. It was giving me a sign, but what?
I watched it, willing it to make me understand. Then, behind it, I spotted the old oak tree where I used to store keepsakes as a child.
‘Thank you, you clever dove,’ I said, blowing it a kiss. The bird flew away.
Delighted at this discovery, I looked around me, checking no one was in sight, before running over to the tree. I hoped there was room in my secret hiding place.
I reached up and felt inside the hole in the trunk that had been left by a branch that was torn down many years ago.
It was deeper than I recalled, which was a relief: my book wasn’t large and it would be very secure there.
Needing to protect the beautiful leather cover, I went to the barn to find an oilcloth to wrap it in.
The last thing I wanted was for insects to dine on the pages, or driving rain from a storm to ruin it.
A short while later, I stood on the casket I had also collected from the barn and carefully slid my book, now wrapped and tied neatly with twine, into the hole.
Standing back, I studied the tree from various angles until I was satisfied that nothing was visible to a passer-by, or even someone looking for it.
‘Where is that girl?’ I heard my aunt shout from the back door.
‘I’ve not seen her,’ Pierre answered. ‘But I’ll look for her now and send her to you.’
I didn’t want to reveal my hiding place, reasoning that what they didn’t know they couldn’t inadvertently be overheard discussing. I picked up the casket and ran across the yard to the back door. ‘I’m here, Pierre,’ I called, passing him quickly as I entered the house.
‘Where have you been?’ my grandmother snapped, waving for me to take the casket over to the table and place it in front of a stack of jars and bunches of herbs.
‘Help your aunt pack that lot away. We can’t waste any more time if we’re to ensure everything is as we need it to be before that dreaded man returns. ’
‘I wouldn’t be surprised if he already has someone posted in the bushes watching us right now,’ my aunt said with a shiver.
I hadn’t thought of that and hoped she was being over-cautious. I helped her pack everything she had gathered, using pieces of linen to protect each jar and hide what was in inside.
‘We’ve finished,’ my aunt announced, and waited for my grandmother to check there were no gaps on the shelves that might alert the Witchfinder’s assistant to what we had done.
Grandmama came over and inspected our box of ingredients, wands and paperwork. ‘Well done. That’s all of it. At least, I hope we haven’t forgotten anything. I hate to think of us missing something that’s staring at us in plain sight.’
‘I’m sure we haven’t, Mama.’
I agreed with my aunt. ‘Anyway, we can each come down here after supper and study the room to see if we can spot something we might have overlooked,’ I suggested.
That night, having each checked the spell room and found nothing amiss, we said our goodnights.
Aunt Sorrel returned to her cottage, while Grandmama and I locked the doors, took our lit candles and went upstairs to our bedrooms. I yawned but, as tired as I was after such an emotionally challenging day, I couldn’t imagine being able to sleep. Not in my bedroom as it was now.
I kissed my grandmother outside her room and went into my own, knowing she was not going to leave the hall for her own bedroom until I did.
As I entered, my candle lit the wall and I spotted something different.
I shuddered to see that the blackness had grown even more.
The mouldy veins resembled two arms outstretched to envelop me.
I was unable to move, my feet feeling as if they were planted there.
Why did I have to return to this room each night? Surely I could move to another bedroom?
I was about to leave the room to speak to my grandmother, but as I turned and took hold of the doorknob her voice rang out. ‘Go to bed, Rue,’ she snapped as if she sensed what I was about to do.
I groaned. There was nothing for it but to do as she said.
I stood for a moment, trying to pluck up the courage to get into bed, then decided to keep my clothes on, so that if my fear of the presence became too much to bear, I would be free to bolt from the room without losing my dignity.
Tomorrow morning, though, I would speak to Grandmama and plead with her to allow me to move my things into another bedroom.
As I lay in the dark the faint scent I had detected earlier wafted over me.
Maybe changing rooms wasn’t the answer. What we had to do was discover what had caused this blackness; why it was here and what it meant to us.
Was the scent of my mother a ruse to trick us?
Although I had only known my mother when I was a child, I couldn’t imagine why she would send something like this to my room.
It was very odd and extremely disconcerting.