Chapter 21
Twenty-One
My dreams are darkness. No future, no past. My magic is as lost as I am.
I awaken to darkness around me, my head throbbing from the past twenty-four hours.
I reach to the lamp next to me lighting the room around me.
I pull off the duvet which is completely wrapped around me and a chill of the nightly air hits me making me shiver.
I place my feet on the ground and stand from my cocoon bed. I try to wrap my head around everything I have been told. I feel like I don’t even know where to start with it all. I look around the room, this room of safety where I have slept so well.
Now I just feel so unsure of everything even more so than I already did. But there is one constant. One thing my heart just aches for. Sam.
Without another thought I creep to find my jumper and boots, which I then carry carefully and quietly down the corridor and down the stairs.
I pause at the bottom for any sound of my family, but the cottage is silent.
I look at the clock. It’s just gone midnight.
I slowly peek inside the living room and see my mother asleep on the armchair next to the fire and Aradia on the sofa also sound asleep, empty bottles of red around them. I am guessing Granny will be in bed.
I close the door to the living room and find my coat and slip on my boots. I turn the lock on the front door slowly until it clicks.
“You might want this,” a quiet voice says behind me. I turn, shocked that I have been caught. I am met with Granny holding my pink fluffy scarf in her hand and her hand on her hip.
“I, er, I…” I stutter.
“He won’t be home. I had to tell Gloria.” She sighs, looking worried. “It wasn’t right not to let her know. She has to protect her family in how she sees fit.”
“Where is he?” I ask, frightened of what this means for us. For him.
She smiles. “When Sam feels emotions, like yourself, he needs to let the magic out.” She tucks a piece of hair behind my ear. “You know where he will be.”
I nod. He will be in the forest where he told me not to go at night, but I need to see him.
“Is he mad?” I feel tears brimming in my eyes.
She looks down and then back to me. “I don’t know, sweetheart. I’m not sure what he knows.”
I nod. “I need to see him.”
“I’m guessing me asking you to wait until the morning isn’t going to stop you?” she asks, raising one eyebrow.
I shake my head. “I don’t know what I want to do, but I know I need to see him, right now,” I say with tears in my eyes.
She pulls me to her, holding me tight with all her might. “Oh, sweet girl, I’m so sorry you’ve been caught up in all of this.” She sighs and lets me out of her embrace.
“I don’t want you to be sorry, Granny. You have opened my eyes to who our kind truly are. Beautiful, kind and loving people who have been misunderstood all this time. I am forever grateful for the life you have shown me.”
I can see the tears fighting in my granny’s eyes as she nods smiling at me. “Let me show you something before you go.”
I nod, my own eyes also brimming with tears. “OK.”
My granny throws on her own woollen shawl over her night gown and pushes on her Wellington boots before leading me out of the front door. She picks up an old gas lantern that always hangs up on a hook by the front door.
“I could get a torch.” She smiles to herself using a match to light it. “But I’m not one to fix something that isn’t broken.”
She pulls the lamp off the hook and carries it in her hand, opening the front door in her other. She places her finger to her lips and peeks inside the front room before sliding out of the front of the cottage.
We walk around the side of the cottage down the old stone path that weaves itself into the back garden and down to the summer house where Granny paints and Aradia practises yoga.
We walk past the chicken coop where the hens are fast asleep in their beds.
Past the snowdrops, winter aconite, lesser celandine and hellebores which brighten the border of the trees beyond the picket fences.
As we get to the end of the stone path Granny opens a small wooden gate that leads into the trees behind us.
“Come on,” she hums gently, reaching for my hand behind her. I place mine within hers and she pulls me through the gate and out into the trees.
We walk a little further. The light of the lantern lights the trees as we pass, igniting the dark bark with flickers of orange light that dance with their shadows.
We reach a small clearing. One I have not seen before. But it has the remnants of a fire pit and the trees tower above it creating a perfect circle allowing the moon to shine upon us.
Granny places the lantern on the branch of a nearby tree and slowly moves into the centre of the clearing. She gestures me to follow.
I stand opposite her, unsure of what to expect next. Her eyes close and, holding each other’s hands in a relaxed form in front of her, she smiles.
“I come here when I need to be at one with the earth and ancestors around us.” She sighs quietly.
“It’s so peaceful here.” She opens her eyes to look at me.
“Nobody around for miles, and nobody snooping, especially at night.” She winks at me as she begins to lift her hands above her head slipping her fingers out of mine. I step a few paces back to watch.
They entwine together gracefully, and her shawl falls from her arms exposing her wrinkled tanned skin. Even in the winter my granny has a beautiful glow from being outdoors at any chance she gets.
She lowly starts chanting in a language I don’t understand. As she does a low rumble tickles under my feet. It pushes itself up though my heels and flows through my legs like a cool breeze. It makes its way through my body, making me shiver, like ice is being poured down my back.
Her hands fall and rest out to the sides, her palms facing the moon above us. She pushes her hands back through the air, but stiff as if she is pushing through something heavy.
As she does, the ground rumbles again, but this time heads of snowdrops penetrate through the earth all throughout the clearing, more than I can count, rising as my granny raises her hands above her.
Each snowdrop is pure white with a small yellow glow in each flower, like tiny lanterns basking the clearing in light.
I stand there in awe, unable to move or speak.
Granny claps loudly, her many bangles shudder and the echo of it flies though the woods like a gunshot.
The glowing lights in the snowdrops flurry out of their petal homes and into the sky.
Hundreds of fireflies dance around us, darting and swirling in patterns.
Mesmerised by the experience, I watch them fly up towards the moon as if they are following their mother to a distant land we will never understand.
I look at my grandmother, the silver moonlight at one with her own silvery hair that falls down her back. The image of beauty.
“That was incredible,” I stutter.
She bows slightly. “Now you try.” She smiles.
I blink. “I-I can’t do that.”
“You don’t have to do that.” She chuckles to herself. “But you can try and do something. You know you have magic, Harri. Use it.”
I clear my throat. It’s one thing moving a spoon, but this, really?
“Stop doubting yourself,” she says soothingly like she has just been watching my own inner monologue. “You can do remarkable things, my darling. I just know it. This is not about you being a twin flame with Sam. This is about you knowing that you have power within you. As a woman. As a witch.”
I soak in what she is saying. She is right. Either path I choose I need to believe in my own ability and my own strength. Something I have never managed to do.
I look around me. The late-night breeze carries the scent of damp earth and bark as we both stand at the heart of the trees. They tower around us, their branches whispering in the wind at what they just saw.
I close my eyes, exhaling slow and steady. I focus deep within my mind.
It’s like I can feel those before us, around us.
Witches from long ago. I can feel the past’s joy and its pain.
I can feel the flames and the cruelty of those who hurt them.
I can feel the fear as they hid amongst the trees.
As they pushed their magic down so that they fit in with everyday folk, hiding who they really are.
Their emotions feel heavy on my shoulders as I carry them.
I start to think of my own joy and pain. Greg. The Belfours. Sam. Lola. My family. Brindlewood. The emotion stirs my magic from its rest, spreading its warming embrace throughout my body.
My fingers start twitching at the side of me. I focus on anger. The anger I have for those trying to hurt us, those who have hurt our kind, those trying to take me away from this. The fury burns in my throat.
“Make them move,” I say to myself, low and quiet.
The burning in my body intensifies, spreading into my chest. The quiet chatter of women sings in my ears. My ancestors helping me. Their own magic joining with mine.
“Make them move,” I say again with more intention, pushing all the emotion through my body and out of the tips of my fingers.
A pulse of energy ripples outwards. The ground trembles lightly beneath our feet. The trees, ancient sentinels of the woods, shudder in response. One by one, they lean slightly towards me, their trunks groaning as if awakening from a deep slumber. Bark cracking. Roots straining against the soil.
“Move.” An intense command leaves my throat and flies through the darkness. The chatter intensifies in my ears. The same language my granny used.
I feel the urge to throw my arms above me.
I follow my body’s command, flinging my aching arms into the air, fingers curling like hooks, and the trees follow my movement.
Their branches twist, interlocking like the fingers of clasped hands.
Some bend low, their gnarled limbs forming an archway.
Others coil into spirals, their leaves rustling in startled excitement.
My heart is now beating at a hundred miles an hour. I am doing this. Me. Harriet Montgomery. No, fuck that. Harriet Chattox. That is my name.
The chatter in my brain sings my name. “Chattox, Chattox, Chattox.”
A smirk plays at the edge of my lips. The power is intoxicating, the woodland around me bending not just in obedience, but in reverence.
I pull my arms back down to my sides and the trees snap back into form. Silence fills the air as if nothing has happened, the chatter abruptly stopping. A secret between us and the woods around us. The secret that my power has grown beyond anything I was prepared for, and my anger is the catalyst.
I look at Granny who is now stood looking directly into my eyes. Her face is a picture of pride and fear all wrapped up in one.
“Did I do something wrong?” I ask, hoping I haven’t.
She takes a moment to clear her voice, still stood stunned at my ability.
“No, no,” she whispers at first before her voice gets more clarity and volume.
“Nothing wrong. I’m just in shock. It has taken me years to do magic on a bigger scale, but you, Harriet, you’re already there.
I didn’t think it was possible. Your power is something I have never witnessed before.
I thought it was the twin flame being in effect, but no.
” She pauses for a moment. “I think it’s you. Your power is strong.”
“Strong?” I ask, unsure.
“Your magic knows no bounds.” She gasps.
“They must know. That is why they want you so badly. Oh gosh, if they know that you know how strong you are, they will lock you away, terrified of what you can do, expose you even. We can’t expose ourselves, Harriet.
” She rushes towards me griping my arms in her hands with force.
“You must not tell anyone about tonight until we know how much they know.”
“I wouldn’t…” I stammer. “I’d never expose us.”
She eases her grip on me. “Sorry, darling.” She strokes the marks where her hands have been. “We must tread carefully here. The less anyone knows, the better. Let us get back. Enough magic for tonight.”
I don’t move. I have too many questions. “I heard others in my ear. They spoke in the language you did.”
She tips her head back, looking up at the moon before bringing it back down to look at me. “A strong witch indeed.” She smiles. “Those are your ancestors. Witches before us. They will follow you whenever you may need them. Do not fear them, Harri. They will never hurt you.”
“I wasn’t scared.” I smile back, emotion still raw in my throat. “They sounded like home.”
She embraces me. “You are home.”
I hold her, her cinnamon and warm scent tickling my nostrils. I sigh and pull out of her warm hands. “I want to see Sam.”
She turns to look at me and opens her mouth to object. but stops and drops her shoulders. “No matter what I say, it won’t stop you, will it?” she questions, hopeful that it will.
I shake my head. “I need to see him, Granny. He is my twin flame, whatever that is.” My heart aches at the sound of me calling him that. “I need to know he’s OK, that’s all.”
She nods. “I understand and I am not going to stop you, Harri. But be careful, OK?”
“I will,” I reassure her.
“OK, OK.” She nods. “Do you know where he will be?”
“The last time I found him out here he was in the clearing just west of the cottage, not far from the village.”
She grabs the lantern off the tree and places it into my hand. “You don’t stop or talk to anyone who isn’t Sam, do you understand?”
“I’ll be fine, Granny.” I place a kiss on her cheek, warm and soft against me. “There’s nobody out here but witches.” I smile from the corner of my mouth.
She looks around her, studying the woods as if looking for hidden ears. She looks back at me, slightly reassured that there is not anyone there. “You are right, but the stakes are so high now, for us all, but especially you, Harri. You are special and I bet they know it already.”
I take her hand. “I’ll be fine.”
She nods and walks off back towards the cottage. I stand and watch her until her silhouette is lost in the darkness.
I need to see him.