The Book of Witching, page 3
Clem takes a breath, holds it, willing her heart to be calm. This is exactly the kind of nightmare that her cardiologist said she must avoid. No smoking, booze, or stress. There is no avoiding this, however.
She tells the nurse her dosage, and they proceed hastily down the corridor. ‘Has she woken up yet?’ she asks, forgetting what Dr Miller said on the phone about the medically induced coma. Everything’s mashed together, confusing and too real to grasp.
‘We’ve placed her in a medical coma for now,’ Dr Miller says, nodding at the stretch of corridor ahead of them.
‘Why?’
‘Anaesthetic sedation is beneficial for pain control.’
‘When did this happen?’ Clem asks, glancing at Freya in the nurse’s arms to reassure her. ‘Where was the fire?’
‘Yesterday, in Orkney. A ranger found her in the early hours of the morning.’
Clem reels. ‘Yesterday?’
‘About four or five in the morning,’ Dr Miller says. ‘On one of the islands. They took her to the hospital in Kirkwall, then air ambulanced her here by this morning.’
Clem can’t get her head around that. ‘So she was found over twenty-four hours ago? Why did nobody call me?’
‘She had the number for a Chinese takeaway listed as her next of kin,’ he says. ‘Which unfortunately led to some confusion … It delayed us reaching you.’
An odd compulsion to laugh blooms beneath her horror. A Chinese takeaway. Typical Erin. Clem wants to explain to the doctor that Erin does things like that, just for laughs. Erin’s defunct Facebook profile has her listed as married to Bilbo, their late family dog.
‘One last thing,’ Dr Miller says, coming to a stop mid-way along another corridor. ‘Erin has been assigned a police officer to be present in the room with her at all times.’
‘What? Why?’
‘It’s part of the investigation, a formality. Until we know she’s safe, Constable Byers is with her.’
Clem’s mouth falls open. ‘Until you know she is safe?’ she repeats. ‘That doesn’t sound like a formality. Was she attacked? Are you worried someone might come and attack her again, here in the hospital?’
A door opens in front of them and Dr Miller falls silent, beckoning her into a hospital room with chirruping machines and snaking tubes and a single metal bed in which Erin lies, swaddled thickly in bandages and heart-wrenchingly still.
‘I’ll be right outside,’ the nurse says, still clutching Freya.
In a corner, a man – Constable Byers, Clem realises, the promised protector – stands sombre and gowned as she is, his uniform just visible through the transparent sheet. He gives a polite nod which Clem returns, but her attention is pulled to Erin in the bed, horror yanking her up out of her body. ‘Hello, sweetheart,’ she attempts to say, but her words are strangled, stolen by a sudden flourish of shock that rushes throughout her body.
Her bravery crumbles, the whirring of the ventilator, the rustle of the plastic gown, the sound of distant traffic a jarring mash of impossible realities.
Clem stands a little away from Erin, though her impulse is to rush to her, cradle her in her arms. But she registers how delicate she is, how the IV and the ventilator are working hard to keep her on the side of the living. There is barely an inch of her that isn’t swaddled by bandages and dressings. Her pink curls have been shaved. Erin will be livid – it took three boxes of bleach and then a costly visit to the hairdresser to get her hair that shade of pink. A green toenail flashes at the end of her left leg dressing, but the other foot is an odd shape – truncated, smaller.
It’s only when Clem sees Erin’s hands – pawlike, a black hook peeking out from the bandage that turns out to be a badly burned finger – that she realises the toes of that foot are missing, gone completely. And Erin’s eyes – why are they like that, like a doll’s, swollen and fringed by long black lashes? Clem stares, realising with a gasp that they’ve been sewn shut, a macabre seam of black stitches running along the skin beneath her eyes.
The room seems to dissolve around her, the walls bleeding into the floor.
Dr Miller appears beside Clem, and when he starts to speak she realises she did not hear the door or see him enter, in fact she seems to have blacked out for a moment, coming to mid-way through his sentence.
In low, measured tones, he says words that she can barely comprehend. Fourth-degree burns on twenty per cent of Erin’s body, third-degree burns on another twenty, mostly the arms and legs. Some of Erin’s digits were necrotic, requiring urgent amputation at the hospital in Kirkwall to reduce the bacterial load on the wound surface. The burns team in Glasgow will monitor the level of injury to her deep tissue, which means that Erin may yet lose more fingers, more toes.
Clem hears herself ask about legs, arms, ears, whether Erin’s face will remain as relatively uninjured as it is, and then she feels her knees giving again, and a nurse materialises at her right, steadying her, with Dr Miller on her left.
Somehow Clem finds herself in a chair, in a different room entirely, her protective robe and gloves removed.
The room feels icy cold, her body numb from head to toe. Where is Freya? Is this all really happening? She lurches in and out of confusion and back to the too-realness of this situation, of the hospital with its signs of neglect and echoing corridors. Dr Miller and a nurse from the burns unit, Nurse Lewis (but call me Biola, or Bee for short), sit opposite, telling her things that she registers are important, things she is supposed to be taking in. A cup of water sits on a table alongside a vase with plastic peonies.
She has so many questions, but they lag in her brain, snared by the maelstrom of this vicious new reality.
‘Her eyes?’ Clem says finally. It’s as much of the question as she can bring herself to speak. She looks up at Erin’s nurse, Biola, who nods sympathetically.
‘Erin’s eyes have been sutured for protection,’ she says. ‘Infection after a bad burn is an extremely high risk. And the eyes can dry out. We suture them until that risk has passed.’
‘Will she be blind?’
Bee glances at Dr Miller. ‘We don’t know yet.’
‘Will she be able to walk?’
‘We just don’t know.’
‘But … how did this all happen?’ she asks. ‘The fire, I mean. What happened?’
‘The police will be here soon,’ Dr Miller says. ‘They’re investigating the area as we speak.’
‘Can we call anyone for you?’ another nurse asks from a corner. Clem starts – she hadn’t realised the nurse was there, holding Freya, who is fast asleep.
‘No,’ she says, confused for a moment why she should want to call anyone.
‘Is Erin’s father in touch with her?’ Dr Miller asks. ‘Perhaps we can call him for you so you don’t have to answer questions …’
She wants to scoff at the question of Erin’s father, but is too numb, too shattered, to do anything but stare at the space on the floor by her odd shoes. Quinn, in touch with Erin? Barely. But he’ll have to be made aware of this. And Heather, Clem’s stepmother, and their boys, Erin’s half-brothers. Siblings Erin yearned for and barely knows.
‘It was a hiking trip,’ she says in a thin voice, mentally trying to answer her own question. ‘Just … just a hiking trip. Up north, around the Orkney Islands. Turns out my side of the family is from there and she wanted to explore, maybe see if she could find some ancestors. She … she had friends with her, where are they?’ Clem straightens up, her hands dropping from her face. ‘She was … was with her boyfriend. His name is Arlo, Arlo McGrath. And a girl, Senna, Erin’s friend. Were they injured?’
Dr Miller frowns. ‘I’ve not heard anything about the girl,’ he says, glancing at his colleague. ‘But I’ll note that name down for the police. Senna, you said her friend’s name was?’
Clem is finding this very difficult to comprehend. ‘She wasn’t with Erin when they found her?’
‘I don’t believe so. Do you have her parents’ number?’
She shakes her head. ‘What about Erin’s boyfriend?’ She adores Arlo. He is nerdy, sporty, polite, funny. Everything she could have wished for her daughter. ‘Arlo McGrath. He’s twenty, into sports, really strong. Wears glasses. Do you know where he is? Is he OK?’
Bee leans forward, her dark eyes creased with concern. She reaches out to take her hand. ‘I’m afraid Arlo was already dead when they found him.’
Clem slumps back in her seat, all the air pushed sharply out of her lungs, the walls of the room seeming to fall in. She can’t believe it. Arlo, dead? It’s unbearable. He’s too young. He’s in his first year at university, has a part-time job in a café just around the corner, where Erin also worked. He always offered to do the dishes when he visited their flat. He’s about to take his driving test, had showed her pictures of the car he was saving for. What was it? A Ford something, a decade old. She had sympathised with him about the cost of the insurance, over a thousand pounds. But it’s worth it, she had told him. To get your own set of wheels. Your own freedom.
‘Where is he?’ she asks, an invisible curtain of ice sweeping across her skin. ‘The … body?’
Dr Miller lifts his eyes in a dark look. ‘He’s at the mortuary in Kirkwall.’
‘Oh my God.’ She begins to tremble from the shock of it. ‘Did he die in the fire?’
‘From what the police have said, yes – it seems he was killed by the same fire that injured Erin.’
‘Do his parents know?’
‘Yes. They are with him.’
There is no processing it, no accepting the horror of it.
Erin will be absolutely ripped apart.
Freya starts, as though the stunned silence in the room has bothered her, and Clem motions to the nurse to pass the baby to her. The nightmare pauses.
‘Is she your youngest?’ the nurse asks warmly, lowering to settle Freya into her arms.
‘She’s not mine,’ Clem says, feeling the tightness in her chest begin to ease as Freya curls into her. ‘She’s Erin’s baby.’
CHAPTER FOUR
Isle of Gunn, Orkney
August 1594
ALISON
Late summer, and still the gardens outside are bursting with colour, the rose bushes drowsy with fragrant blossoms. Orkney in August is a heaven in its own right, a place where you can easily imagine angels sitting on the hilltops, the fae gathering in the valley. This is the time of year when I feel I can breathe, when the warm sun turns the sea into a gold disc, when the brae is cloaked with sweetgrass and heather makes the valley seem to blush. The stones at the fairy glen disappear out of sight, swallowed by the wildflowers that push up, like a remembered song.
Today we are to travel to Kirkwall, where William is unveiling his work at the cathedral. It is an important day, not least because we will fetch him home. After many months of working tirelessly on the new quire, he will unveil it before the townsfolk, the clergy, and John Stewart, the Master of Orkney. I am so proud of him, but secretly I am more pleased to be bringing him back to Gunn. So many months apart has me longing for his company, for the feeling of safety he brings to our home. For his touch.
It is this that has me singing this morning as I hang the coverlets and garments out on the line to dry, and when I see Edward return from the byre, I notice he is smiling, too. This pleases me greatly, for he has been melancholic of late, caught up in a dark mood. He has been since he turned thirteen. My mother tells me I was thus at his age, but I worry he is overhearing too much talk of strife in the isles. Gairsay, the isle next to ours, is the most fertile of the isles, and often the earl has made mention of it. Last month, a fierce blaze consumed seven cottages and fourteen acres of crops. Two men died, and their families have been left without food or shelter. We offered to take in several of the children, an offer that was not made lightly – our own supplies have been stretched this season. Without a milking cow, we have no milk, butter, or cheese, and Earl Patrick keeps raising the skat. Edward and I have been working in the udal fields to the south of the island, stolen by the earl.
In the end, the people whose cottages were destroyed went to stay with relatives on other islands. I have no doubt that they will yet be liable for their own skat, despite the destruction of their lands. And when they cannot pay it, Earl Patrick will then seize those lands against the skat. It is easy for him to do, given that udal law means that land is passed on verbally, without written deeds. It is an ancient practice upheld by trust, but one that allows the earl to usurp our property.
When William is not in Kirkwall, he is busy in the quarry, or meeting with the men from Gunn and other islands who seek to redress the earl’s tactics. When William is home, they meet oft in our cottage, sitting by the stove, discussing ways to petition the king. It has become apparent that the king is not sympathetic to the plight of Orcadians, which makes our situation doubly precarious – a tyrannical earl and an apathetic king make us easy pickings.
I fear that Edward has overheard too much of his father’s conversations. It is a double task, living in such times – protecting my children both from the consequences of an avaricious tyrant, and the bitter rage that fills the hearts of simple folk because of it. Edward is soft-hearted and still tender of age.
But today, the sun has lifted his countenance, and he is holding one of the hens in his arms, still smiling as he approaches.
‘What has you in such a fair weather?’
It is Beatrice’s voice, and I turn to see her addressing her brother, her fists on her little hips.
‘Kirkwall has me in a fair weather,’ he answers. ‘And …’
He pulls a gleaming red strawberry from his pocket and drops it into his mouth, making both Beatrice and me gasp, but for different reasons.
‘Give me!’ she shrieks, and I chide him for picking the strawberries too early.
‘It’s only one,’ he says, laughing as Beatrice attacks him, and I tut and say no more. He races off, Beatrice chasing after, the hen flapping out of his arms. I mark the way his tunic has started to slip above his knees, his legs growing faster than I can weave.
‘Good morrow, Alison,’ a voice calls. It is Agnes, making her way across the field, accompanied by a shaggy Kyloe heifer tethered by a rope. Agnes lives on the other side of Gunn, and I have known her all my life. She is not Triskele, which endears me to her even more since I left. Before, all my friends were Triskele. My mother encouraged me to play only with Triskele children, to speak only with Triskele adults. It made leaving all the more difficult.
‘Good morrow,’ I say, greeting her with a kiss on the cheek. ‘Is this your new steed?’
‘This is your new milking cow,’ she says, and I stare, agape.
‘I can’t accept,’ I say, reaching out to scratch her fluffy nose. ‘This is too much.’
She turns to Edward, who races past as Beatrice chases him with a stick. ‘I missed a certain young man’s birthday,’ Agnes says, winking. ‘But what better gift than one that provides milk.’
Edward and Beatrice stop running and stare at the heifer.
‘She’s such a bonny colour,’ Beatrice says, rubbing the ginger flank.
Edward reaches out to touch the Kyloe’s horns. ‘Is she ours, now?’
‘No,’ I say, but Agnes says ‘Aye’ at the same time.
‘She is,’ Agnes tells him, passing me the rope, and I take it, reluctantly.
‘You are too kind,’ I tell her quietly. ‘I will have to repay you.’
‘The point of a gift is that it is not repaid,’ she says with a smile. She watched me cry after our own cow was killed. It was a brutal thing to happen – we loved her, had made the mistake of naming her. Penny, she was called. We couldn’t afford to replace her, and so have depended on my mother’s donations of milk and butter these last eight months.
‘Will you be coming with us to the cathedral in Kirkwall?’ Beatrice asks her. Agnes reaches out to touch Beatrice’s blonde braids, fastened with a little piece of white ribbon at the ends.
‘Sadly, I shall not,’ she says. ‘The boat unsettles my stomach. You must bring me back some sweetmeats.’
Beatrice nods obediently. ‘I shall.’
‘Why are you not Triskele, Mama?’ Beatrice asks. We are on the boat to Kirkwall, travelling with others who are going to the market. Beatrice is weaving stalks of barley into a doll, her little hands expertly braiding and tying until she is satisfied that the doll is made as she wishes.
‘Papa isn’t either,’ Edward interjects.
‘You mean, why did I leave?’
‘She was born into the Triskele,’ Beatrice tells Edward. Then, uncertain: ‘Weren’t you, Mama?’
I make to answer, but Edward gets there first. ‘You don’t have to be born into it,’ he says. ‘Anyone can be initiated. Isn’t that right, Mama?’
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Anyone can, so long as the other members of the Triskele approve.’
‘How many members are there, Mama?’
‘Well, that is difficult to say. The Triskele are all over the world.’
‘Even in Persia?’
Beatrice has been learning about the countries of the world. I have taught the children since they were five, ensuring I gift them the education that was gifted me. With a pang, I remember that the only reason I received an education at all was because I was Triskele.
‘Yes, even in Persia.’
‘What about Egypt?’
‘I believe so.’
Her eyes widen, and the questions tumble out of her: do the Egyptian Triskele hold fast to the same traditions as the Triskele here in Orkney? Do they speak the same language as us?
‘It matters not, Beatrice,’ Edward chides. ‘The magic is the same, and that is what matters. Isn’t that right, Mother?’
I hold back from saying what I really want to say, because I know it will get back to my mother – that the Triskele are no longer regarded as a noble, warrior clan of magic-makers and spell-wielders. Instead, they are seen as feral and barbarous, their wisdom outdated and their methods peculiar.
And while Orkney has suffered under a litany of tyrants, wicked men purchasing their authority from the king and using it to seize land and starve the people, the Triskele has done nothing to stop them. Once, I believed they did not act because they were disinterested, that they considered themselves different from Orcadians, and therefore stood impassive to the earl’s evil upon this land. Now, I believe that William is right when he says that the real reason the Triskele do not support the rebels is simply because Triskele magic is not as powerful as I once believed. They are not a noble clan, the Protectors of Ancient Magic, but a group of cunning folk. Nothing special at all. Rather, they are shameful.
