Chapter 30
THEN
Emory saw the smoke from the pyre drifting across the hillsides and wondered what was happening.
He had been visiting tenants in the Milburn properties at nearby Fourstones, and had suddenly felt the need to come back.
He’d been unsettled the whole time he had travelled, and Meggie had been at the forefront of his mind.
As he galloped back through Newbrough, he found the place to be far too quiet and deserted.
This was not the bustling village he knew – and there was nobody to ask what was happening.
Emory… He looked around, convinced he’d heard Meggie speaking his name. But it was more like a desperate plea for him to go to her, rather than their love language: softly spoken, and full of desire.
Then: ‘Oh! Ellen! Are you well?’ he asked, as a woman came stumbling out of a side street, her fist rammed in her mouth, tears streaking her face. Ellen, Meggie, Alice and he had all been friends, when they’d been growing up. But Ellen had married a few years ago and had children now.
‘She is dead,’ sobbed Ellen. ‘They killed her. They killed her.’
Emory’s stomach turned over. ‘Who?’ He jumped down from his horse as Ellen bit down on her knuckles more. ‘Who has been killed? Tell me.’ He dipped his head to try to catch her eyes, but she remained looking at the ground, shaking her head.
‘She is up by the Well. She is dead, Emory! They strangled her, and burned her and stabbed her…’
‘Who? Who is up by the Well?’ Emory felt the colour drain from his face. Automatically, he looked up towards Meggie’s cottage. ‘Tell me. Tell me!’
Ellen just continued keening and wailing and speaking words which made no sense to him.
‘Tell me what happened! Please!’ He was desperate to shake her but kept his hands firmly to himself. ‘Ellen – tell me.’
But she just shook her head and rammed her fist further in her mouth. Then she turned and ran away. ‘My children. I must go to my children. They are alone…’
‘Ellen!’ Emory called after her, but she either didn’t hear or didn’t care to respond.
Emory climbed back on his horse, and urged it to gallop along the street and up the lane to Meggie’s cottage. Far in the distance, he could see the smoke wreathing up from the area next to the Well – to that damn Well that Meggie loved to haunt—
Emory…
‘No, please. No!’ he muttered as he headed up the lane, his imagination making up things he was praying couldn’t be true.
Before the horse was fully at a standstill, he slid off and ran to the door of the cottage.
He burst straight in and looked around him wildly.
It was dark in there, the fire guttered and the embers almost out.
She would never let a fire burn that low.
He yelled her name, knowing that she couldn’t be hiding anywhere in that tiny place, but hoping, nevertheless.
‘Meggie! Meg! Where are you?’ He strode to the dresser that held her plates and cups, and, praying she’d forgive him, he pulled open the drawers – she kept that dagger in here, didn’t she?
Beside the dried herbs and the beeswax and the pestle and mortar and the myriad things he was intrigued about but never questioned.
A little knowledge was dangerous, she’d said, and he’d been happy with that explanation – but the dagger.
It wasn’t there.
Emory swore.
If that was missing, chances were, so was Meg. She’d be up at the Well doing whatever she did up there, probably praying to the goddess to hurry the thaw, to bring spring back to the village…
Up at the Well where someone had apparently been killed.
Emory… His stomach was in knots.
Emory slammed the drawer shut and paced the small room. ‘Meg!’ he tried again, feeling the panic rising in his chest, but of course, there was no answer.
As he paced, he felt a flagstone wobble beneath his feet and stopped. He looked down. It was where he’d found Meg kneeling that day, looking guilty as she’d sensed him opening the door. He remembered how her face had cleared when she realised it was him.
Whatever she had hidden in there, he was sure that she would forgive him if he looked.
Emory…
He pulled her table over to block the door – God forbid anyone who wasn’t Meggie came in and found him looking for anything in there.
Then he knelt down and his fingers found the edge of the flagstone. He eased it up, and it grated, stone against stone, as he dragged it out of its position, and he saw a book nestled in a space beneath it.
It was an old book – leather bound, parchment pages.
His hands shook as he lifted it out and opened it.
There were lines and lines of careful writing: diagrams, pictures, recipes.
Words in strange languages. Numbers, symbols…
things he could neither fathom nor understand.
Names of plants jumped out of him that made his flash crawl: belladonna, foxglove, angel’s trumpet, devil’s helmet, hemlock, mugwort…
But it was some sort of recipe book, she had said. And who was he to criticise? He didn’t know enough about any of it.
He pushed it back under the flagstone and looked around him. Where the hell was she?
Then, he was sure he heard her again: Emory! As clear as day, as if she had said it right in his ear. He knew her better than he knew himself; he had always known when she was in danger.
And he knew.
He knew he had to go to Coventina’s Well.
He jumped to his feet, dragged the table away from the door and burst outside.
God alone knew what he had to do, but he knew he had to do it at the Well.
The sense of needing to be there was overwhelming.