The Witch of Glenaster Read online

  And then the howling began.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The first time it sounded, I saw Thomas move, almost imperceptibly, as if startled. And I heard a clatter from the kitchen, as if Cornelius had dropped something. I recall starting to get up from my chair, and saying something about lighting a candle, but Thomas told me not to, that it was better if we sat in darkness. “They will be attracted to the light,” he said, and I wondered what he meant. After that, the howling noise sounded with increasing frequency - sometimes nearer, sometimes further away - but at no point could I make out exactly where it was coming from: or from what. Its echo, sounding off the mountains, and the strange atmosphere, sitting there in that unfamiliar house, in the dark, made me afraid, and I did not like it.

  “What is it?” I asked, in a whisper.

  “I do not know,” replied Thomas, who was standing facing the window. I stood up, and crept over to his side. There, far below, and snaking slowly along the valley floor, was a long, torch-lit procession, winding away into the distance; and, though far off, we could hear the steady chanting of its participants, as they moved ever closer, along the road that would take them past Cornelius’s house.

  Magnus padded downstairs, rubbing his cheek, his blue eyes wide and fearful. He had heard the noise from outside, and when he saw the looks on our faces he started to cry, for he could see we were just as afraid as he. I ran to him then, and picked him up, as his head sank into my shoulder; and I was glad to have him near, and to be forgiven, if only for a short while.

  After half an hour or so the howling stopped, but the chanting continued, growing steadily louder as the awful procession passed by; and I tucked Magnus in a blanket in the corner of a small armchair, far back from the window, and despite his terror he was soon asleep, for he was very tired. I kept an eye on him as I followed Thomas into the kitchen next door, where Cornelius was stirring some soup, his hand shaking visibly. He looked at us anxiously.

  “It’s begun,” he said, simply. Thomas nodded.

  “I’ll take Magnus back upstairs. Esther, when you’ve eaten, come up and watch over him for a while. Then I will come back down and have my supper. He should not be left on his own.” And he went in and picked Magnus up out of the armchair, and carried him gently up the stairs, without waking him. Cornelius continued stirring the soup.

  “They don’t mean us any harm, do they?” I asked, and felt naïve for doing so.

  The small man looked at me sadly, dwarfed by the large oven at which he stood, the flames from the fire, half-hidden by a great iron guard, throwing sickly shadows on to the walls.

  “I’ve locked all the doors,” he said, almost whispering. “We must not light any candles or fires once midnight has passed, at least none that they can see. When we’ve eaten we can retreat to one of the back rooms, close the curtains. It is the sorcerers’ time, you see: they still have magicians up here, though the emperor frowns upon it. I do not think that they will harm us, but I went through something like this a year ago, and I believe it was the worst night of my life…”

  There was a sudden bang, off to one side of the house, and he turned his head quickly towards it, before looking away again. I got up to go to the window, and, putting my fingers up to the glass, looked out at the little garden beyond. It seemed so still and peaceful, glowing in the light of the full moon, which was sitting proudly in a sky only occasionally swept by cloud. I leaned my head against the windowpane, and felt the welcome chill of it, and imagined for a moment that I was glued to the glass, and could not pull away.

  Then I found that I was.

  It was a tickling sensation at first, in my forehead and the tips of my fingers; then it became more of an itching, like pins and needles, until I realized suddenly, and with an awful, sick clarity, that I was unable to move, and that any attempt to force myself to do so would rip away my flesh, my blood spilling like milk on to the floor; and I had a vision then of the whole of my skin being pulled off like a sheet, leaving only glistening sinew and muscle behind. I started to scream.

  Cornelius heard me then, and ran forward to help. But something in my eyes must have warned him not to touch me, for he quickly left the room, and I heard his heavy footfall on the stairs. I felt desperate now. And then my plight worsened, for just outside, right in front of me, and separated from me only by the window, was the most grotesque face I had ever seen.

  It sat on a body the same height as mine, and roughly the same shape; indeed, even its dress seemed similar, and I thought it looked cold, wearing nothing but a towel. The face itself had once been young and fair, but now was decayed and rotting, maggots filling one of the eye-sockets, while the other, bloodshot and terrifying, looked at me pleadingly. And I screamed again, screamed until I thought my lungs would burst, because I could see with a quickening horror that the face - that grim and twisted mask, half eaten away, screaming in unison - that face was my own.

  It was then that Thomas and Cornelius appeared, Magnus padding after them, and Thomas pulled the blind down in front of the window; and I fell away from it as the spell was broken, and he caught me, but still I kept screaming, until I could be reassured that what I had seen was only a vision, and not reality.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  “I should have thought to pull down the blind,” said Cornelius, later, after we had moved upstairs. “I panicked. I thought she was possessed…”

  “Well, there’s no harm done,” replied Thomas, who was gazing through a slit in the thick, black curtains that were draped untidily over the window. “If we stay together, and see it through, I’m sure all will be well.”

  By now we could hear the Festival working its way up the valley, and Thomas described to us how the crowd outside, now several hundred strong, some wearing masks and some carrying statues, were shouting and hollering as they climbed towards the shrine to their god, Arle, which lay above Broadfarrow. It had been crudely carved into the mountainside many generations before, and its features were all but smoothed away, but still visible was its fierce jaw, opening onto a manmade cave set deep into the rock, and also the small figure clutched helplessly in its left hand, that was clearly meant to be that of a struggling man.

  The Moonlanders laid offerings of flowers and delicacies at this monster’s feet, and started to sing a long and drearily repetitive hymn, which seemed to go on forever. After that there was silence for a while, and we began to think we might get through the rest of the night in peace, if we just kept quiet.

  We were wrong.

  Of a sudden, there came a great hornblast from the mountain, that echoed around the valley and rang painfully in our ears. This was followed by a whooping and cheering from the crowd below, and it had a sickly tenor, as if they were rejoicing in another’s suffering.

  At the window, Thomas’s face was swept by a dull orange light, and his eyes widened.

  “Dear God, they cannot be…” he said, and I looked across at Cornelius, and he stared back, face as white as milk. Magnus clutched at my hand, his palms cold.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  Thomas turned to us.

  “Keep away from the window,” he commanded. “Cornelius, take them next door. Do not let them out of your sight.”

  “But what is it…?” I demanded, my curiosity besting my fear.

  “Come on…” said Cornelius gently, reaching for my hand.

  “But I want to see…” I said, pulling away. Magnus looked from me to Thomas, from Thomas to Cornelius, and back again.

  “Esther…” said Thomas, and he sounded really angry, though his voice was soft. “Take your brother and go next door.” As he spoke, I could see his right hand, the one that held the curtain, was trembling.

  “Let me see…!” I cried, and dashed across the room, nearly knocking Thomas to the floor, and almost pulling the curtain off its rail. It was only a few seconds – Thomas hauled me away, grabbing me round the waist and ordering me to stay on the other side of the room – but what I saw
was enough, quite enough, to satisfy my foolish inquisitiveness.

  The crowd of people on the mountain were now packed densely around the shrine, and their focus seemed fixed on something that was lying on the ground; and they appeared to be kicking it, and shouting at it, and hitting it with their hands. Then for a brief moment the thing reared up out of the melee, and I saw that it was a woman, a young woman; and her hair swept like smoke above her head as she thrashed and fought to get free. But she could not - there were too many hands holding her - and as she disappeared again beneath the sea of heads I saw blood, crimson and dark and shining like silk in the firelight, spatter over the faces of the people around her, as they lifted their feet and began a marching rhythm, marching on the spot, tramp, tramp, tramp…

  I stared at Thomas, but he would not look at me, only held out his hand to stop me coming back. And I cowered in the corner, holding on to my brother, and thought I heard Cornelius weeping softly; but my brother seemed too stunned to cry, and only clawed at my sleeve, as I sang silently into his ear.

  “They call it the Winnowing,” said Cornelius, his voice hardly more than a croak. “The – victims are supposed to be volunteers…” Thomas looked at him. “It is supposed to appease their god. We cannot interfere: they would kill us too…” And he stared ahead, eyes as wide as pools.

  We had hardly recovered from our shock when the laughter began.

  I do not think I have heard again laughter the like of which we heard that night. For it was laughter without humour, or compassion, or mercy. It was a mockery of happiness, and it laughed only at us.

  It started with the children.

  They appeared suddenly outside the house, and started to chant and sing, and giggle at our expense, calling out for us to come down and play with them; and their laughter found an echo in the adults below, a ripple of amusement that rode quickly on the air, and died again with the wind. But this was only a prelude to what came after; for, a few minutes after the children had run away down the hill, a low rumble met our hearing, and it built steadily, so that we were all held in its grip. For the sound that now stole across us did so like a knife against bone, and we all recoiled from it, and felt ourselves abandoned. And slowly it formed itself into a laugh, a bodiless, chaotic thing which seemed unmoored to sanity or fate. And as it went on, for what seemed like hours, poisoning our hearts to sickness as its volume increased, I knew that I had brought disaster upon us - unwittingly perhaps, but of a certainty - because surely only those in league with the Witch herself could conjure such a thing; and the Witch was after me, and I would be powerless to defeat her.

  And then, as swiftly as it had come, it was gone; and we could scarcely believe it, and sat staring at each other for some good minutes more. And then I think I cried, and my brother too, and Cornelius also. But Thomas only turned his head to the wall, and would not speak for a long time.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Magnus and I then slept, I believe, for a short while, but we were disheartened to see when we awoke that it was still dark, for the curtains remained closed, and there was only a small candle burning.

  Thomas sat in a chair, slumped over, exhausted. Cornelius was gone. And then Thomas started to speak, and his voice sounded lost and far away.

  “I have seen many things, in my travels about the world,” he said, slowly, “and I have faced many dangers. But I think this night has been one of the worst. I would not have brought you this way if I thought it would be this dangerous. I always knew the Moonlanders were strange folk, but if they have become disciples of the Witch we are in a peril greater than I could have imagined.” And he put his hand to his head, and I thought he might be about to cry. And I got up, and went over to him, and laid my hand gently on his shoulder, and said:

  “You did not bring us this way. We would have come anyway. If it is me the Witch wants, then I will continue my journey alone, and you will all be safer without me. My brother can remain here with Cornelius, and you can travel a different path to mine, or at least give me a day or two’s head start. I will leave tomorrow, as soon as it is light.”

  And Thomas laughed, and it was welcome and unexpected.

  “You have a brave head on your shoulders, Esther Lanark,” he said, “and some wisdom. But you are still so young; and the young are in love with martyrdom, but do not fully understand its cost. No. I will accompany you to the Capital, as I said I would; and we will face what dangers await together, and defeat them so.” And he smiled broadly, and closed his eyes to sleep.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  After an hour or so, there was some light leaking in from the east; another hour more, and Cornelius, who had kept up a watch downstairs after the laughter had died away, felt emboldened enough to open the curtains. Outside, everything looked more or less the same, though the garden was somewhat untidier, and there seemed some strange detritus lying around: charms and signs used in sorcery, and, I saw, four dolls, two small, and two slightly bigger.

  “I shall burn those things later,” said Thomas, and he went outside to get some air.

  Magnus came down soon after, looking weary and balloon-eyed; he squinted at me as he passed, and Cornelius made him some porridge, which served to revive him somewhat. All four of us felt closer than we had been, after what we had been through during the night.

  I felt lighter in mind and body, and was hungry for my breakfast when it came. Thomas told us to eat quickly, and be ready to leave as soon as the daylight was at full strength. We would head for the village of Lammas, south of the Three Fords, and there join the Old Road, which would take us to the Capital, cutting through the fields of West Cross, and the Middle Lowlands.

  “And what about you, Master Bryant?” asked Thomas. “Do you still wish to stay here? You would be welcome to travel with us.”

  Cornelius looked at him strangely, but a smile played over his lips, and he did not seem disheartened, for all that had occurred.

  “I have my orders from the emperor, to remain here until I am recalled, and that is what I intend to do. Besides, I do not think they will harm me once you are gone. No, it is you who should be careful, Master Taper. You say you have business with the emperor, though I suspect there is some other, more dangerous errand you are on: I know something of men, and of their moods and foibles, and there is something about your story that doesn’t quite fit. But still, I do not think you a liar, or a killer, of that at least I am certain. But be careful: there is bad witchcraft at work here, and I think it follows you, though to what end I could not say…”

  Thomas simply nodded at this, then fetched up his hat and left the room. And he and Cornelius said no more to each other in this life, except brief words of farewell when it came time to take our leave.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  A pair of greedy-eyed jackdaws, hopping and squabbling over some trinket they had found in the garden, saw us off from Cornelius’s house, and we made our way down the mountain with a fresh supply of provisions, under a heartsick sky. I turned, once, when we were nearly out of sight, to look back at that neat wooden home, crouched high on the mountainside, and could just make out the small equerry, still watching us as we left him behind. I could not say why at the time, but it made me sad; and it makes me sadder now, writing this so many years later, because he showed us such kindness, and we never saw him again.

  But Thomas seemed reinvigorated, and urged us not to tarry, for he thought we could be well on our way out of the Moonland by nightfall, if we kept a good pace. And even my brother had keener legs that morning, and he and I laughed when Thomas started to sing, which he did when we had put a good few miles between us and Broadfarrow.

  We saw hardly any other faces that day, and those we did weren’t friendly, and I wondered how Cornelius could bear to live in this place, all alone.

  “Do you think it is a punishment?” I asked Thomas. “Cornelius being exiled here?”

  Thomas thought for a bit, then said, with a shrug:

  “Who know
s? He may have volunteered, did you think of that?”

  I chewed my lip in reply. Volunteered! I thought it most unlikely.

  I swung my arms back and forth as we walked along, my hair blown into a friendly mess by the wind, my feet lighter than they had been in days.

  “That is how it is when one has been close to death, and survived,” said Thomas. “One feels invincible.” It is one of my most cherished memories of him: striding purposefully through the ugly hills of the Moonland, his face full and red and lightly bearded, his hair a wraith of greying curls beneath his soft hat, and a whistle or a song never far from his lips, as if he had not a care in the world. I little knew then how sad and sorrowing was his heart.

  By the evening we had reached the northern reaches of the Moonland, where the mountains soften into grassy hills, and the people are somewhat friendlier. We spent the night in a barn so dilapidated I feared for our safety, but we emerged the next morning unharmed, and after an hour or two’s walking found the Old Road, just north of Lammas, though here it was little more than a path, overgrown and narrow. It led downward for several miles until it reached the Three Fords, where one could cross the River Brace, the Fern’s great sister, that broadens into a wide torrent further east, but here is only a stream, split by two small islands, trickling through low rowans and small birch trees, in no hurry to get anywhere.

  “By midday tomorrow we should be on the Road proper,” said Thomas, “and then, if our feet are lucky, on the outskirts of the Capital itself in no more than a week. The wind favours us, and so does God, I hope.” And he removed his hat to wipe an arm across his brow, and smiled.

  “And what are we going to do there?” asked Magnus, eyeing me slightly. I looked at Thomas.

  “Well – we’re going to see the emperor…” I replied, though I hardly believed my own words.