Chapter 33
Chapter Thirty-Three
O nce upon a time, tales of witches were dark and scary. They spoke of ugly old women doing evil things. Putting children into ovens. Cursing the young and pure with poisoned apples. The world had found witches in ordinary women. Women who talked back to their husbands, helped others with medicine and advice. Women who didn’t want to get married or have children or embark on a life of drudgery for others. This wasn’t witch-finding, of course. It was misogyny. It used the old stories as excuses. And none of it came close to naming true witchery.
Now, Esme looked at the prone form of Lewis and felt she had strayed back into one of those old myths. She was the evil crone. By rights, she ought to be cackling. Showing a mouthful of broken teeth. An ugly shell to match the darkness in her heart.
Lucy had helped her to draw a circle in the sand and they had laid the picnic blanket out upon it. Lewis had been happy to come to the Harbour Bay beach for a picnic, seeming to accept their invitation at face value. Matteo had been stationed in the garden, where he repeatedly told the people trying to follow Lewis that they had to stay within the boundary of the house. Esme had played her part, chatting animatedly to Lewis, asking him questions about himself and gazing at him adoringly, until he had relaxed on the blanket and tucked into the food. He bolted down half of the apple pie before getting too sleepy to continue eating. Lucy had stayed hidden behind the rocks but was now moving around the circle, muttering to herself.
Esme wished that Lucy could take over. She didn’t want to do it. Didn’t want to hurt another human being. Couldn’t believe, in fact, that she was going to become a killer.
‘Do it.’
Esme thought that Lucy was in front of her, but her voice came from behind.
Lewis was asleep. The mixture that she had fed him via the apple pie had done its work. He looked peaceful.
Mixed with the horror of her actions was a more selfish pain. She would never be with Luke. He would never look at her with love in his eyes. While he had understood her reasoning and could see that there wasn’t an alternative, there was a world of difference between logic and reality. Once she had done this thing, there would only be pain and revulsion. And anger.
This last thought brought a shiver of fear. But it would be no more than she deserved.
Lucy’s voice was next to her now. Whispering into her ear with urgency. ‘It’s the only way. The thing inside needs a host. Kill the host, you kill the thing.’
They had been over all of this, of course. Esme had asked whether the hungry spirit might survive long enough to flow into another host. They were pretty sure it couldn’t find a home in Lucy, which was why it hadn’t jumped aboard Bee when she had visited àite Marbh. But, just to be certain, Esme had to be the one to kill Lewis. Lucy would not allow it to take root in Esme.
‘I’ll make it quick,’ Lucy had assured her. ‘But it has to be you. If I kill the boy and the thing does, somehow, slip inside, you won’t be able to stop me. You’re just a human.’
Esme couldn’t shake the unsettling feeling that Lucy was enjoying herself. That she wanted Esme to have to do this terrible thing. But no matter how much she thought about it, nothing altered the facts. This was the safest option, and it was for the greater good. But that truth did not crowd out the other, darker one. That killing a person was wrong. That killing the only family that the man she loved had left was evil. That, if she even survived this night, she would be forever changed. No longer Esme the Ward Witch, but something twisted and terrible. Her soul stained black.
She looked toward the causeway, the sun glinting off the cars that were queued along the road, and reminded herself that this had to be done. The thing inside Lewis had to be stopped, the cause of the infection had to be cured.
‘I will do it if you can’t,’ Lucy said, her voice slightly mocking. ‘You can just watch.’
And that’s when it hit Esme. The solution. If she threatened Lewis’s life enough, the thing might jump into her before he actually died. And then Lucy could kill her to finish it off. It wouldn’t be pleasant for Lewis and it was still risky, but he should survive. She would be dead, but she would still be her. And if there was a place that souls went after death, hers would still be recognisable. Largely unstained.
She ran over the plan, trying to find the right words to convince Lucy that this was a better idea. And that it meant only one person had to die. Her voice was steady, and she was proud of herself and her resolve. Lucy didn’t stop moving around the edge of the circle. Esme could hear her light footsteps and sense her movement, but she couldn’t see her clearly. When she appeared in front of Esme, far closer than Esme expected, she flinched in surprise.
‘I don’t like it.’
Esme was touched for a microsecond.
‘Safer to kill the boy. Many a slip betwixt cup and lip.’ Lucy glanced inland. ‘And we haven’t got much time.’
Esme followed her gaze. There were figures on the path that led to the bay. Too far away to identify, but she had to assume Matteo hadn’t been able to contain all of Lewis’s followers. Or they had come directly from the carpark. Esme knew that Lucy would be able to keep a couple of humans from interfering, but she didn’t think she would be gentle about it.
‘I can hold the spirit. Once it’s inside me, I’ll keep it. And you’ll kill me quickly.’ Esme had been learning to trust her intuition. All the meditation with Bee had given her an understanding of her inner landscape, and she was sure she would be able to locate and distract an interloper. She wouldn’t need to do it for long. ‘Please.’
‘We will have aggravated it.’ Lucy’s voice was flat. ‘If it doesn’t work—’
‘Please,’ Esme said again.
‘What if I don’t agree?’ Lucy stepped up to Lewis’s prone form. Her eyes were hungry. ‘It would be better to just finish the boy. I could do it for you. If you don’t have the stomach.’ She clicked her fingers. ‘It’s not so hard.’
‘No.’ Esme spoke firmly. She channelled Bee, the tone she had heard her use with Lucy. ‘We will try everything else first.’
Lucy pouted. ‘No fun.’
‘You’ll get to kill me.’ Esme was trying to be brave. She was playing the part of the Witch. The brave woman who would do anything to save her island and wasn’t afraid of death.
Lucy brightened. ‘Better than nothing.’
‘There you go.’
There was a tiny thread of blood in the water. A thin red ribbon that twisted and spun. And then another and another. Tobias remembered that the blood was the Ward Witch’s. It meant the island was nearby. If he kept walking, he would get there. He had been here before, a very long time ago. When the rock that formed the island was still at the bottom of the sea. The wisp of red danced in the black water. He was so deep there was no light, but his eyes didn’t need light to see. Not down here on earth that had once been in the air with legged creatures stepping across it, and was now under water with the few deep-sea fish, and would, perhaps, be in the air once again.
He was dragging his body against the press of the water, the pressure was intense down here, but it was becoming easier with every step. He was adjusting, finding the way to move through this particular arrangement of the tiny bits of matter. In the past they had been something else, behaved in a different way. In the future, the pieces would form something else. It was just a question of working with the way they were right now. He took a bigger stride and startled a grey no-eyed fish.
Time wasn’t all that important, except when things were happening. Then it compressed and became very important indeed. The future was pressing upon Tobias with urgency. Something was happening or about to happen. He could feel it.
Whatever force had blocked the entrance to the doorway on àite Marbh hadn’t realised something very important. Tobias was a god and gods can make their own doorways. Tobias was going the long way around but, luckily, he had infinite patience. And it was a beautiful day for a stroll.
The figures on the path were closer. Esme could see that it was two people. A man and a woman, and they were moving slowly but steadily toward the beach. ‘I will carry on the plan, as if it hasn’t changed,’ Esme whispered to Lucy, as if the thing inside Lewis might be listening. She was imagining it, she realised, not as a spirit, but as a parasite. A thick maggoty worm that had burrowed inside Luke’s brother and made its home. Her stomach rolled and she tried to replace the image with something less physically revolting. A cloud of smoke. Something ethereal. Something that she would inhale as easy as breathing. ‘The thing should panic and jump into me.’
‘You will have to be convincing,’ Lucy said. She looked over her shoulder, toward the approaching couple.
Esme didn’t much like the idea of half-smothering Lewis. It wasn’t quite as terrible as the original plan of smothering him to death, but it was fraught with danger. ‘I will have to be really careful with the timing. If I get it wrong, I could kill him by accident.’
‘Don’t do that then.’
‘Helpful,’ Esme snapped, forgetting, for a moment, who she was speaking to.
Lucy didn’t seem offended. Her blood-red lips stretched into a delighted smile. ‘You have claws. I like claws.’
That was enough of a reminder. The half moon scars on Luke’s chest. Souvenirs of Lucy’s attentions. And that had been her saving his life. Goddess only knew what a person would be left with if she was trying to harm them.
‘I’m just on edge,’ Esme said.
‘You’ll get used to it.’ Lucy stepped closer to Lewis and trailed a fingernail down his cheek. ‘Shall we begin?’
And there it was. She had no choice. If there was a way to avoid killing Lewis, she would take it. But she didn’t want to die. And she hadn’t had a chance to say goodbye to anyone. Not Luke. Not Fiona. Or Hammer. Not Tobias, of course. She spared a thought for him, hoping that he would make his way back. She was sorry she had failed to help him. Sorry she had failed to protect the island. But this would work, she told herself. This would stop the thing that was squatting inside Lewis and stop it from wreaking havoc on the wider world. In this moment, however, it was hard to care about the wider world. It seemed very amorphous and strange. Blank, while her own life was springing to mind in perfect multifarious detail. The faces of the ones she loved, the quiet rhythms of her life, the view of the sun on the water, it all seemed impossibly dear to her. Every breath she took, now that they were among her last, was sharply, agonisingly precious.
‘That’s the will to survive.’ Lucy’s voice was quiet. It didn’t have its usual mocking tone. ‘Humans have a lot of it. Too much, some might suggest.’
If there was one thing that Esme knew she would always do, it was this: the right thing. It occurred to her that this was the true meaning of being a witch. You had to do the right thing. Even if you weren’t sure what that meant, even if you were filled with doubt, even if you were scared. She was the Ward Witch and it was her responsibility. At the moment, at any rate. Whoever came after, whoever moved into Strand House and took over her role, well, they could make up their own mind about what being a witch meant.
At least she wasn’t running away. She wasn’t flinching from the pain and difficulty. She was facing it head on and doing what she thought was right, not what seemed the least scary. And something else dawned upon her as she climbed on top of Lewis, knees pressing into the sand on either side of his waist. She wasn’t panicking and anxious. She didn’t want to die, but she wasn’t frightened. She was in control and she was choosing to walk this path. It was a one-way journey, and all she had to do to take it was to cover the achingly familiar face with the pillow and press down. She looked at Lewis’s face for a beat longer and then withdrew the pillow from underneath his head.