The Book of Witching, page 26
‘What scholarship?’
‘It basically means she was trained by the elders of the group about life and magic and things.’
Clem rolls her eyes. Such bullshit. ‘OK. And then what?’
‘The graduation ceremony is called Crossing the Boundary. Basically, when Erin and Arlo met, they had to have sex. As part of the ritual.’
Clem has to grip the steering wheel, as though she might veer off road at this information. Senna all but whispers it, and the car feels as though the doors and roof and windscreen have pulled closer together, squeezing the inhabitants.
‘Were you there?’ she asks Senna, who doesn’t answer. ‘I’ll take that as a yes.’
They pull into the McDonald’s drive-through, which feels disorientating in its banality. But the shift in the journey – the drive-through intercom reminding them of why they’re here – gives Clem time to think. She has questions of her own, questions that hurtle through her mind like bullets. Was Erin forced? Why did she go through with it? Was it filmed? The timing of it hits her. Was this how Freya was conceived?
‘She wasn’t forced,’ Senna says once Clem has paid the cashier and passed her the food. ‘She joined the Triskele because it made her happy.’
Clem reads the tone of Senna’s voice. ‘You were the one who got her to join,’ she says, thinking of the timing. ‘Didn’t you?’
‘I never forced her. And anyway, she left.’ Her tone shifts again, and she sounds disappointed.
Clem processes that. ‘And you’re still involved?’
‘Yes, I’m involved.’
‘Then why did Erin have the book?’
‘Not long after Erin got pregnant, The Brother gave her this old book and asked her to look after it. But as time went on, she said it was driving her mad. She said it made her think about killing people.’
Clem thinks of the night she woke up to find Erin standing next to her bed, clutching the pair of scissors. How she’d lied when she said she was sleepwalking.
‘She tried to give the book back,’ Senna says, haltingly. ‘But The Brother had killed himself. Really awful. Erin thought the book made him do it. No one would take it, so she threw it in Loch Lomond. And it came back.’
‘Came back?’
‘I watched her do it. She literally threw it into the water and we watched it go under. And then, when we got back to your flat it was sitting on her bed.’ Senna shudders. ‘Every time she threw it away or chucked it in a manhole or tried to shed it, it would reappear.’ She looks at Clem. ‘I know what you’re thinking, I do. But honestly, I saw it happen. I hadn’t believed her. How can a book just reappear? And it didn’t even look like anything special. Just this old, strange book. But nothing, and I mean nothing would get rid of it.’
They pull up in the hospital car park. Clem presses her face into her hands.
‘So what was the ritual in Orkney about?’ she asks. ‘On Fynhallow. What really happened?’
‘Erin contacted someone,’ Senna says. ‘She tried to speak to people in the Triskele but nobody knew anything about the book. She finally found this bookseller who knew about the Triskele. He knew about the book.’
‘Paul Renney,’ Clem says, and Senna nods.
‘Yeah, the antiquarian. He said the book was probably the Book of Witching. He told Erin that the book was cursed, and the only way to break the curse was a spell. It involved a fire ritual.’
‘Arlo’s hands need to be bound,’ Clem mutters.
‘Right,’ Senna says. ‘He was to perform a role. The Green Man. And it had to be on Beltane. Erin and Arlo were counting down the days.’ She falls silent, recalling that terrible night. ‘It all went wrong. I don’t know what happened but it did.’
‘And where’s the book now?’ Clem asks.
Senna bites her lip. ‘I put it in the fire on Fynhallow,’ she says, growing upset. ‘I saw Arlo and Erin were burning and there was nothing I could do but put the book in the flames. They’d said the words of the spell. I watched it burn, and then I ran for my life. But it came back. It followed me.’
‘Where, Senna?’
Senna’s voice drops to a whisper. ‘It’s in my bedroom.’
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
Kirkwall, Orkney
December 1594
ALISON
‘We have some concerns about the burning of the witch’s body here in Kirkwall,’ Bishop Sinclair proclaims after Father Colville has passed my sentence. ‘This has been raised by the earl, who notes that oftentimes the wind draws leaves into his courtyard. He does not wish the ashes of the woman’s body to end up drifting upon his dwelling place. Therefore, we propose the witch be taken to her own island of Gunn for the execution.’
‘Very well, your graces,’ Father Colville says with a deep bow. ‘We will see to it that her execution is implemented on the morrow at the isle of Gunn.’
The darkness of this small, dank room feels deeper than ever tonight. I am numb, through and through. I have been sentenced to death but it does not feel real.
I think of the Book of Witching. How one becomes a Carrier not by signing one’s name upon its pages, but by screaming into its void. The howl of pain. I wish to scream, but I cannot. I think of Edward, and Beatrice. It astonishes me how so much relief is brought to me by the fact that they did not meet the same end as William. They are doubtless alone. I fear that my mother has abandoned them, as she has abandoned me. They must be terrified. They are both so young, and have only each other.
‘Mother?’
I look up, recognising the voice before I see the face.
‘Edward?’
I squint into the gloom, making out a figure beyond the bars. He steps closer.
‘Just a second,’ Mr Addis says, putting a hand on Edward’s shoulder. He wants payment. I offer him my coif, but he shakes his head. ‘I don’t need no women’s clothing.’
His wooden teeth click as he talks. Two teeth at the front of my mouth are loose from when the guard tore me away from Edward in the courtroom, and so I remove them from, holding the cloth of my kirtle to my gums to stop the bleeding. He takes them, beaming brightly.
‘Take all the time you need,’ he says, shoving Edward forward.
I rush to him, taking his hand when he slips it through the bars.
‘My son! Are you well?’
He nods, though still I look him over, checking his injuries. He wears a clean tunic and waistcoat, his cap pulled low over his eyes. I notice that he grimaces when my hand brushes across his chest from where he was burned.
‘Mother, I need to tell you something,’ he says. My heart drops.
‘What has happened? Is it Beatrice?’
He shakes his head, and I feel weak with relief.
‘Beatrice is well,’ he says. ‘Grandmother is caring for her at the cottage.’
‘Grandmother?’ I feel panicked – my mother betrayed my children when she betrayed me. ‘She is not to be trusted, Edward.’
‘Not to be trusted?’ he says. ‘She was protecting me, Mother.’
‘What?’
He begins to cry. I reach out and take his hand in mine, clasping it tight.
‘Edward, what is wrong?’
‘I am Nyx.’
‘What?’
‘The charm for John Stewart. I made it. And I gave it to Thomas Paplay.’
He is weeping, his voice shaken with pain. I glance quickly at Mr Addis along the corridor, in case Edward’s words reach him. He is busy cleaning his new teeth, trying to fit them into his wooden mouth brace.
‘Why do you say such things?’ I ask Edward.
‘I saw something,’ he says. ‘In the Book of Witching. It happened the night that Grandmother initiated Beatrice and me into the Triskele.’
‘What did you see?’ I ask, studying his face. A memory flashes in my mind of the day the same book appeared here in the dungeon, almost where I sit now. The woman tending her daughter in bed.
‘In its pages, I saw a …’ He falters. ‘I don’t know what to call it. It was like looking through a window. As real as though it was happening in front of my very eyes.’
‘Tell me.’
He wipes a tear from his cheek, angry at himself for crying. ‘I saw you being tied to a stake, Mother. I saw you burning in the flames, right outside our cottage. I saw everyone standing watching. I begged them to help but no one would. They just watched you die.’
He folds forward, wracked with sobs, and I hold his hand in silence as I try desperately to comprehend the reason behind this terrible vision.
‘Did you tell anyone else about this?’ I ask him softly.
‘I told Grandmother,’ he says. ‘She opened the book to see if it would show her the same thing.’
‘And did it?’
He shakes his head. ‘She took me to speak with Solveig. He said that the book must have showed me you being burned for a reason. He said it was likely the future that awaited you. He said perhaps I alone had seen it because only I alone could do something to help you.’ His face crumples then, as though a terrible thought has flitted across his mind.
‘Tell me,’ I urge.
‘I saw you speak with Thomas Paplay and John Stewart in the gardens of the cathedral,’ he says. ‘And when you left, I approached them to see if I could help. Thomas Paplay recognised me, and he asked me if I knew how to make a charm. He told me it was to cause death.’ He stops, his eyes wide, as though seeing something deeply profound. ‘I knew then that this was the reason I had seen you being burned at the stake. The Earl needed to die in order to save you.’
Edward tells me he made the charm and placed it outside our cottage as promised, watching as Thomas collected it. He had hexed it for Earl Patrick. He had intended to kill him, so that I would be spared the fate he had witnessed in the pages of the book.
‘That is why I made the charm. I knew the rebels wanted the earl gone, because he has robbed our lands and killed the people of Orkney. And I thought that, if he died, the burning I witnessed in the book would not happen. You would be saved.’ His voice is stolen by gulping sobs. ‘But … But … I think I only made it worse.’
I try my best to soothe him, and eventually he calms.
‘You are not responsible for my imprisonment,’ I tell him firmly. ‘That is entirely in the hands of wicked men. Not you.’
He shakes his head in disagreement. ‘I have learned what the book can do, Mother. I have learned soul-slipping.’
His words rattle me, and I think back to what I learned when I was a child of his age, how my mother said that Carriers could slip for a time inside the bodies of animals, such as ravens and hares.
‘You have soul-slipped?’ I ask him softly.
‘I became drawn to this idea,’ he says, lowering his voice. ‘And when you were arrested, I thought that soul-slipping inside a raven would allow me to come and save you.’ He grows upset again, and I reach for his hand. ‘But the spell went wrong. I found myself not inside the body of an animal, but inside a girl.’
‘A girl?’ I say, disbelieving. ‘How?’
‘I was in an evil realm,’ he says with a whisper. ‘The people there were evil spirits, and so I told them I was Nyx, so they’d know that if they continued with the burning I would take revenge …’
He begins to weep again. ‘I was so confused. I didn’t know what had happened. I did the spell again and again, each time finding myself in the body of the girl. And she was in pain, but I endured it … They gave me potions and I thought I might die.’ He lifts his eyes to me. ‘And I could not find you there. I was so lost, Mother. And now they are to take you to be burned at the stake, just like the book showed me. I have failed you.’
I speak gentle words to him, my thoughts flinging in many directions because of the things he has told me. I think of my mother and Solveig, counselling with him. And the woman tending to the girl in the strange white bed. I did not recognise either of them. But there is always a reason for the book doing what it does. It is not by accident that Edward and I both saw what we saw.
Perhaps the woman is a Carrier, or the girl. Perhaps the book wishes her to be so.
But why show me this, when I have left the Triskele?
As I am wrestling with the vision of the mysterious mother and daughter, I think of my own mother, and her betrayal of me in the courtroom. She did so to protect Edward. She knew that was what I would want. If he was found to be the one who made the wax effigy, with the name ‘Nyx’ scored through, they would exile him, or burn him at the stake. And she knew I would want to protect him from that fate.
Or perhaps, she knows that Edward must continue to be a Carrier. Or Beatrice.
‘I have seen things,’ he says. ‘Through the eyes of the girl.’
A shiver crawls up my spine. ‘What things?’
‘I know she is badly injured, her body spoiled by fire. She is in a white room in a metal bed, the floor and walls wrought of whitest stone, that she is surrounded by strange lights and machines.’
‘Machines?’
‘I cannot explain them, Mother. It is a wicked place. But I know the fire was caused by a spell she cast to be rid of the book. It backfired and killed a boy.’
An image is unfurling in my mind. The picture the book showed me, when it appeared on the floor of my cell. Of the woman attending to a girl in the bed. Is this what Edward has seen?
‘There may yet be a way that you can help,’ I tell him. ‘You and I know that David Moncrief is on my side. I believe that, if we can get David to testify that John asked me for the charm, that he is the one behind this plot, I may yet be set free.’
He nods. ‘You want me to approach him?’
‘Yes. Once it is done, you and Beatrice must leave Orkney. As soon as you can. If they find you, they will kill you.’
‘You will follow?’
‘Of course.’ I smile, trying to hide the lie in my words. I sense he knows I lie, that it is the last time I will ever hold my son.
‘I love you,’ I tell him, pressing my lips to his hand. ‘Now go.’
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
Glasgow
May 2024
CLEM
Clem drives Senna to her flat in the west side of Glasgow. Elizabeth is still at the hospital, but Senna lets herself in with her key. Clem follows her into her bedroom, holding her breath as Senna opens the door to her wardrobe and lifts out a shoebox.
‘I didn’t know what else to do with it,’ she says. ‘I mean, I thought it had been burned, but when I was hiding in the caravan park, I woke up one morning and it was there, on the end of my bed. I was terrified.’
‘So you brought it home?’
Senna nods, opening the box. ‘I didn’t know what else to do with it, and it freaked me out too much to think I’d got rid of it and then have it appear again out of the blue.’
She lifts out the black cloth inside the box, then stares down. ‘Oh no.’
‘What’s wrong?’
Senna looks up, frantic. ‘It’s gone. I swear I had it. I brought it home and I put it in here.’
She reaches inside the wardrobe, removing clothes and shoes, searching for it. She claps her hands to her face, growing tearful. ‘Where is it?’
‘You’re sure you put it in here?’
‘Swear to God, I did.’ Senna pulls out her phone and dials. ‘Hi, Mum,’ she says. ‘Have you been in my wardrobe at all?’
Clem can hear Elizabeth on the other end of the line, asking where Senna has got to. Exasperated, she hangs up and begins searching the rest of her room, under the bed, in her chest of drawers. She begins to cry. ‘Where is it?’ she says with a sob. ‘Where the fuck is it?’
Clem pulls her into a tight embrace, calming her. ‘We’ll find it,’ she says. ‘I promise.’
When Clem returns to the hospital, she’s shocked to discover Erin is in surgery. The injuries she inflicted on herself have opened some of the burn sites, and surgeons are battling to prevent the delicate wounds in her hands from becoming infected.
Bee takes Quinn and Clem into the family room and holds the door open for Dr Miller, who has spoken to the surgeons involved in Erin’s operation.
‘How is she?’ Clem asks.
‘We’ve managed to perform an emergency skin graft on her right hand,’ Dr Miller says. ‘But she’s broken a bone at the knuckle and fractured three of the metacarpals there.’
‘What does that mean?’ Quinn asks.
‘It means there’s good news and bad news. Which do you want first?’
‘Good,’ Quinn says, at the same time as Clem says, ‘Bad.’
‘I’ll start with the bad, which explains the good,’ Dr Miller says. ‘She’s essentially pulped her hand. We’re trying to save her thumbs at the minute, but the other four digits of her right hand are lost.’
Clem covers her face with her hands and tries not to cry. ‘And the good news?’ she whispers.
‘As long as we hold onto the thumbs, she can retain use of her hand with a prosthesis. It really is good news, I promise you. Without the thumbs, a lot of movement is completely gone and it involves quite complex prosthetics, which, to be frank, a lot of young people can’t get along with. But with her thumb, I have confidence that we can make this something she can manage.’
Clem allows herself to feel glad, and relieved, but she is far from it.
‘There is one more thing,’ Dr Miller says. ‘Erin’s emotional welfare. It’s clear that there are some complex issues here. We simply can’t afford anything like this to happen again.’ He eyes them carefully.
‘Go on,’ Quinn says.
‘We propose to restrain her, very carefully. It’s not an ideal scenario but the alternative isn’t ideal, either.’
Clem feels faint, the room suddenly closing in. ‘What’s the alternative?’
Dr Miller pushes his glasses up his nose and clears his throat, hesitating. ‘We place her back under sedation. Not a coma, but close to it.’
The room is silent. Quinn must feel as torn as she is, as though each step forward sends them ten steps back.
