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‘Yes.’
‘Then why? Why, Em?’
She shrugged her shoulders, sniffing. ‘I don’t know why.’
‘What are you planning to do?’
‘Run it as a herb nursery.’
Piers stared at her. ‘You mean we are still talking about this darn cottage? I don’t believe it. You were even having nightmares about it just now. That is what you were shouting about, Emma. You were shouting “Liza” when you scared Max. Please, Emma, you can’t do this!’
‘I have to.’
‘You are prepared to throw everything up, everything! To go and live there?’
She nodded.
‘Then you are mad. Totally, completely and utterly off your head.’
She gave a watery smile. ‘On that at least, we agree. I don’t want it to be the end of us, Piers. I really don’t.’
‘How can it not be? I’m a City person, Emma. My life, my job, my friends are all in the City. I can’t … I won’t commute. And I don’t want to spend my weekends somewhere miles out in the country.’
‘People do commute from there. It’s only –’
‘I don’t care how long it takes, or how far it is. I don’t want to do it. I won’t do it.’
‘Then it is the end for us.’ Her tears had dried and her face was white. ‘It has to be. I’m moving down there as soon as the paperwork is done. I’m sorry. I really am. But I have to do it. I have to. It’s mine. It’s where I belong.’
‘You belong here!’ Suddenly he was crying.
‘No. No, I don’t. I don’t, Piers. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’ Tears were pouring down her face, too. Pushing past him she ran towards the door, leaving him staring after her, sobbing like a child.
It was as she was sitting on the bed, cradling her pillow in her arms, having slammed the door on Piers and run to the bedroom, that she realised both the cats were in there already. Pressed tightly together in the five-inch space under the chest of drawers they were staring at her with huge, terrified eyes.
‘You’re scared,’ she murmured at them miserably. ‘And I’m scared. I don’t know why I’m doing this. I don’t understand anything any more. I don’t understand anything at all.’
17 (#ulink_aa9b0e69-81b0-59d4-bc06-4da3f70423b6)
Wednesday morning
Flora Gordon was waiting for Emma at Planet Organic. She was already drinking an orange juice. Her wildly frizzy blonde hair was if anything more dishevelled than usual, and she had a pile of shopping bags around her feet as she sat on the high stool at the counter.
‘Em?’ She slipped down and gave Emma a hug. ‘What on earth is the matter? You sounded like hell when you rang me. Why aren’t you in the office?’ Flora was one of Emma’s oldest friends. They had been at school together but after that their paths had diverged, Emma to university and City job, Flora to a career in alternative medicine which had led her to study all over the world before she returned to set up a practice in London.
Emma was fighting back tears, again. ‘I’ve resigned. It looks as though Piers and I are splitting up. I’m moving to the country.’
Flora stared at her for a brief moment, shocked into silence. Then she smiled. ‘So? Why on earth are you crying? That’s the best news I’ve heard in years.’ She hoisted herself back onto her stool. ‘Sweetheart, I know Piers is a dish and I know you thought it was forever, but you and he could never have hit it off for long. You’re too different. He’s a corporate man; if we are being honest here, a teeny bit stick-in-the-mud; even boring!’ She grabbed Emma’s hands and hauled her bodily up onto the stool next to her own. ‘I know he is sweet and kind and he worships you, but he is stifling you, Em. There’s a wonderful free woman in there,’ she prodded Emma’s chest, ‘just screaming to be released.’ She leaned forward. ‘Where are you going? I hope I can still come and see you often.’
Emma began to smile in spite of herself. She ordered a coffee from the girl behind the counter, then she looked back at Flora and shrugged. ‘You’re the first person who hasn’t told me I’m mad.’
‘Of course you’re not mad.’ Flora put her head to one side and scrutinised Emma’s face. ‘You’ve got a lot of friends, Em, people who really love you, but they are on the whole terribly conventional. At least the ones I’ve met are.’ She grimaced. ‘None of those colleagues of yours and Piers’s see the real you. I was beginning to be frightened that Piers had secretly murdered you and replaced you with a Stepford financial partner!’
Emma laughed out loud. ‘I needed to hear that. I’ve been so torn, Flora. I’ve been having awful nightmares about the whole thing. I can’t tell you how scared I’ve been. It’s such a big step. I’m not really sure why I’m doing it.’
‘Because you saw the cage closing?’
Emma stared at her thoughtfully. ‘Do you think that was it? I thought it was because I’ve fallen in love with a cottage up on the north Essex coast where I spent my childhood holidays.’
Flora shook her head. ‘We all fall in love with things and do nothing about it.’ She giggled. ‘Just as well, or Sean Bean would be in my cupboard at home right now, awaiting my pleasure! Em,’ she took a deep thoughtful sigh, ‘you’ve actually acted on this impulse of yours, so it must be important. Do you remember, when we were children, we had dreams? We played with the idea of who we would be one day. Everyone does. But when we grow up we forget those dreams. They are still there, but they seem unobtainable. Unrealistic. Best forgotten. You’ve remembered.’ She leaned forward and put her hand over Emma’s. ‘You’ve gone back to the scene of your childhood, a childhood when you were wildly happy, and you’ve been given another chance. There must be a reason for that. Don’t throw it away. Don’t look back. Go for it!’
Emma was silent for a moment. Outside a car squealed to a halt and they heard an angry exchange of voices from the road followed by the roar of an engine as it sped off again. Two people walked into the shop talking loudly and between them a child started to cry.
‘You will come and see me?’ Emma bit her lip.
‘Try and stop me.’ Flora looked at her watch. ‘Look, sweetheart, I’ve got to go. I’ve someone coming for a treatment in half an hour. Keep me informed, won’t you, and don’t you dare forget to give me your new address.’ She slipped off her stool and bent to gather up her bags. ‘Remember, there’s a reason this has happened, Em. Ring me. Keep me posted.’ She gave her a hug, blew a kiss and she was gone.
18 (#ulink_879c29bd-b17d-54b7-9eb2-bbf06a0554d1)
Wednesday night
Mike Sinclair woke suddenly and stared round his bedroom. His heart was thudding with fear and he was drenched with sweat. He sat up and reached for the alarm clock by the bed. It had fallen over and he scrabbled for it, disorientated. It was only half past eleven. He had been asleep for less than half an hour. With a groan he walked over to the curtains and threw them back. That huge yellow moon was still there, the light flooding across the garden and into the windows of the house. What had he been dreaming about? It was coming back to him slowly. It was a bear. He had seen a bear padding towards him up the lane. It was a black bear with long curved claws which scraped on the road and huge teeth through which it was slavering, its breath foul, its small red eyes fixed on his face. And he couldn’t move. He had not been able to move.
He took a deep breath, staring out of the window, aware suddenly that he was straining his eyes, looking for the bear in the black moon shadows of the garden.
‘Come on, Mike. It’s only a dream,’ he muttered to himself. He went back to the bed and sitting down reached for the switch on the lamp on the bedside table. His old Bible, the one given to him by his grandmother at his confirmation, lay next to it. He picked it up. But the prayer that was running through his mind was that old one: ‘From ghoulies and ghosties and long-leggety beasties, and things that go bump in the night, Good Lord, deliver us!’ And why not? It said what had to be said. He clasped the Bible to his naked chest. ‘Our Father, which art in heaven.’ He stopped. A board had creaked on the landing outside his bedroom door. Then he heard something scraping; a rhythmic scrape and click, like the bear’s claws. He shook his head and putting down the Bible he strode towards the door. Grabbing the handle he swung it open and stared out into the passage. There was nothing there. ‘Hello?’ The sound of his voice was shockingly loud in the silence. It was answered by silence. He stepped forward and flicked on the hall light. It shone down on the bare polished boards, the red-fringed runner lying down the centre of the narrowest part of the passage beyond his door, the closed doors leading to unused bedrooms on either side of his and the main staircase with its old black oak banisters and broad polished handrail disappearing into the dark downstairs. He moved to the top of the stairs. ‘Is there anyone down there?’ His study door was open and he could see the moonlight streaming in across the hall.
Running down the stairs on bare feet, he headed for his study and stopped in the doorway, staring in. The long French windows onto the garden were wide open, revealing wisps of mist curling across the lawn towards the house.
‘Damn!’ He whispered under his breath. He reached for the light switch. If there were intruders in the house it was his own fault. He remembered pulling the doors closed and reaching automatically to turn the key. At that moment the phone had rung and he had turned away. The conversation with the archdeacon had taken twenty minutes. When it was over he had walked out of the room without checking the doors again.
There were a couple of old walking sticks leaning behind the door – relics of his predecessor’s arthritis. He took one up and holding it firmly in his hand he began to search the house. Dining room, living room, kitchen, cellar, four bedrooms, two attic rooms. All were empty and silent. By the time he had finished, every light in the house was blazing. There was no one there.
There would be no more sleep for a while. Swiftly he dressed in jeans and cotton shirt and let himself into the garden. The front gate creaked as he pushed it open, the nameplate showing up clearly in the moonlight. The Rec-ory. The ‘t’ had long gone, to his amusement, though he meant to repaint the black flaking letters one of these days. The road was darker than he expected, the trees blocking the moonlight. This was where the bear had stalked him in his dream. ‘Our Father which art in heaven,’ he murmured as he stepped into the darkness. ‘Hallowed be thy name.’ His eyes were growing used to the dark. The road was deserted, the trails of mist dissolving between the trees. There was no bear. Of course there was no bear.
He walked steadily down towards the town centre. There were people around there, drawn as he was by the moonlit night. A group of youths hung around outside the pub. He turned away from them and walked down towards the river. The tide was running, a silver stream between the broad glittering flanks of mud, wraiths of mist hanging, almost invisible, over the water. There were dozens of small boats scattered at anchor, lying at different angles where they had come to rest as the water seeped away. In a while they would refloat, one by one, lifting stickily from the mud, turning gently to lie to their anchors in neat lines, caressed by the incoming glittering tide. He walked slowly, hands in pockets, listening to the contented chattering of ducks roosting on the mud, and the distant whistles of a group of wading birds, almost out of sight, paddling about where the mud turned to silver as the water crept in. A group of people were clustered round a hot dog van parked at the kerb. He could smell the sausages and onions and relish as he approached and his mouth watered involuntarily. He groped in his pockets. No money. Pity, he would have liked a midnight snack. He wished the young people good evening as he passed and was rewarded with a sullen silence. Once he had strolled on he heard a quiet retort addressed to his retreating back. He sighed.
A car was driving slowly up behind him. He ignored it, stopping to stand and stare out across the river. It drew to a halt fifty yards in front of him and backed up until it was almost level. Then it stopped.
‘Mike?’ Judith leaned across from the driver’s seat and wound down the window. ‘I thought it was you.’
Damn!
That was the second time he had sworn this evening, this time very much under his breath. ‘Judith, what on earth are you doing here?’
‘I was going home after having dinner with Ollie Dent. It was so lovely I thought I’d come back by the scenic route.’ She opened the door and stepped out. Leaving the car she joined him on the grass, admiring the view. ‘Couldn’t you sleep?’
He shook his head. ‘My early night came to nought, I’m afraid. Nightmares. I dreamed I was being chased by a bear.’
Judith laughed. ‘Very Shakespearean! You must have had cheese for supper. That gives one bad dreams. It’s a beautiful night to be sleepless, though.’ There was a hint of wistfulness in her voice which made Mike glance at her sideways. He knew nothing, he realised, about her private life; he didn’t think there was a man around, nor ever had been as long as he had known her, nor a woman, either. She lived alone. She taught at the school and her spare time was devoted to the church.
‘How was Ollie?’ he asked. Oliver Dent was at least eighty, so he doubted if her relationship with him was more than that of a friend, although one couldn’t tell even that these days. His question distracted them both from their thoughts. ‘He’s better. He’s got himself a cleaning lady and it’s cheered him up a lot. It’s a pity it’s Lyndsey Clark, but I suppose even she is better than nothing.’
‘Lyndsey Clark?’ He was watching the water lapping round a boat lying on the mud near them. ‘I don’t think I know her.’
‘No. You wouldn’t.’ The tone of Judith’s voice sharpened. ‘Going back to our conversation about witches the other day: she is one of them. The rector is unlikely to be on her list of close friends.’
‘She’s a witch?’ He turned and stared at her. ‘A real one?’
Judith nodded. She scowled. ‘The trouble is she’s clever. Oliver was telling me all about her. She was all set for a brilliant university career at Cambridge. But that didn’t suit her. No doubt they tried to instil some sense into her. So like the silly spoiled child she is at heart, she dropped out. I don’t know when she became a witch. Perhaps she was recruited by one of the local covens, but she makes no secret of it. She exudes evil from every pore!’ She fell silent for a moment, then she went on. ‘She lives by doing odd jobs. She’s got a lot of charm; she’s very attractive. The men all fall for her left right and centre.’ She tightened her lips distastefully. ‘So, beware, Mike, dear. If she casts a spell in your direction you could be lost.’
‘I’m intrigued.’ The boat was surrounded by water now. The tide was creeping silkily towards them across the mud. ‘You said before that there was witchcraft round here. Real witchcraft. It worries you in school.’
‘From time to time.’ Judith shivered. She was wearing a short-sleeved flower-print dress and flat strappy sandals. The warm night air was very still but a raft of small goosepimples showed on her upper arms for a moment. ‘It’s more a teenage thing. Satanism. But even my kids think it’s glamorous. Exciting. There are at least two covens round here, and the kids are in danger of being drawn in.’
‘And the church does not provide the glamour or the excitement they crave,’ Mike said thoughtfully.
‘Absolutely.’ Judith shivered again. ‘And why should it? It is not an entertainment. It is not meant to be fun.’
‘Indeed.’ He turned away to hide a wry grin.
‘Be careful, Mike.’ She glanced at him. ‘You’re very vulnerable, you know.’
‘Am I?’ He was genuinely astonished.
‘You had to ask me if there were witches round here.’ She glanced at him covertly. ‘You ought to know, Mike. One can feel it. One can feel the evil. On a night like this, when the moon is full and the mist creeps up the river, there is danger in the air. That man who came to you about the ghosts. He was genuinely afraid or he would not have come to speak to you.’
Mike glanced in spite of himself behind him towards the river. He was silent for a while, his brow furrowed. She was watching him as she let her words sink in.
Eventually he spoke. ‘Do you think I should speak to this Lyndsey person?’
‘No!’ She replied so sharply he took a step back. ‘No, Mike. I don’t want you going near her.’
‘You don’t think I’m strong enough to fight her evil?’ He sounded reproachful.
‘I’m sure you are.’ Judith was staring at a young couple wandering along the road towards them. They were arm in arm, every now and then stopping to devour one another’s mouths. She shuddered. ‘Don’t draw her attention, Mike. I’ll deal with her. My prayer circle will hold her before the Lord. We’ll contain her.’
Mike gave her a quick glance. Why, he wondered silently, did that thought worry him so much?
An hour later Judith, dressed in her cotton pyjamas and powder-blue dressing gown, went into the kitchen. Reaching for one of the pill bottles, she withdrew a single Warfarin tablet and swallowed it with a sip or two of water – something she had done every night since she had had the heart valve operation just before Mike arrived in the parish. Then she padded into her bedroom, where she knelt beside her bed and brought her hands together in prayer as she had done every night since she was a small child. The prayers lasted exactly fifteen minutes and by the end of them she was stiff and shivery, which was strange as the night was so warm. But her bedroom, unheated, even in winter, had always been cold. Climbing to her feet she took off the dressing gown, turned off the light and climbed into the narrow bed. Usually she slept at once, but tonight she was restless. She felt as if she had drunk too much coffee; her pulse was jumpy, her breathing irregular, her eyes refusing to close, searching the bedroom for shapes amongst the shadows cast by the streetlight near the garden gate.
I shall need you to help me, Goodwife Phillips.
The voice came from the figure in the corner of the room.
Judith shrank back against the pillows with a small yelp of fear. Staring, she tried to see him, but the shadows were black where the wardrobe stood between the window and the door.
We have to find every witch in the area. We have to do God’s work.
Terrified, Judith nodded. She wasn’t Goodwife Phillips. He couldn’t be speaking to her.
You enjoyed your work with me, and there is more to do, Mary!
‘I am not Mary!’ Judith found she had spoken out loud, her voice husky with terror but her indignation at the case of mistaken identity strong. ‘You’ve got the wrong person!’
She was shaking violently.
She lodges in your soul, Judith. You are kindred spirits you and she!
Was that a chuckle she could hear from the corner? As her eyes strained to see the owner of the voice a car turned into the street and the headlights shone for a moment through the thin curtain, lighting up the wall. There was no one there. Of course there was no one there. It was a dream. Desperately she squeezed her eyes shut and pulled her blankets up over her head.
By next morning she had forgotten the whole incident.
19 (#ulink_c66a3fe1-e89b-508f-a914-9f71161dfe38)
The huge moon was still lighting up the countryside like daylight as Lyndsey let herself out of her house. The row of three fisherman’s clapboard cottages was set in the shadow of the old maltings buildings on the quayside. The deep channel came close to the shore there beyond the dock, and the water was black and moved uneasily beneath the pull of the moon. There was no sound as she paused, glancing across the quay down river towards the broad estuary. Somewhere out there, beyond the strip of water and the shining mud, something old and evil hid, swathed in the cold sea mist. More and more often now she sensed it there waiting, and it terrified her. Was she the only person in the entire peninsula who felt it?
The whole world seemed to be asleep; the cottages on either side of her own were in darkness. Quietly she went back and wheeling her bicycle outside, she clicked the front door closed behind her. No one saw her as she set off along the quay and turned up the narrow road towards the centre of the village.
The site of the old church lay in the moonlight like a bright tapestry, a quilting of light and shadow, black and grey and deep velvet green. As she climbed over the wall she stood for a long time, listening. Somewhere a bird, disturbed by the moonlight, whistled plaintively and fell silent and she could hear the high-pitched squeak of bats as they ducked and dived across the grass.
Sure-footedly she made her way to the centre of the thicket where the north wall of the church had once stood, and kneeling on the dew-wet grass she pulled a night-light from her pocket. She lit the flame and steadied it with cupped hands, waiting for the wax to pool around the stubby wick. A pinch of dried herbs and a few grains of incense which hissed and spat, and quietly she began her prayer to the goddess, muttering under her breath, afraid in the still silence to speak out loud for fear of being overheard. Not that there was anyone to hear. The road was deserted, the houses, out of sight beyond the trees, were in darkness and behind her Liza’s cottage was empty and asleep.
When she had finished she stood for a long time, her senses alert, her eyes scanning the shadows. The place was quiet and still at peace.
Turning at last she walked back to the wall. In the lane she hesitated beside her bicycle, then, after a moment’s deep thought she made her way quietly towards the cottage. The For Sale sign had gone to be replaced with one which said Sold. It stood straight and proud, strapped to the gatepost at the end of the holly hedge throwing a black rectangular shadow across the path. Will Fortingale had told her who was buying it. A business woman from London who was so rich she didn’t need a mortgage. A weekender. Someone who would probably employ an interior designer and gardeners and change the place out of all recognition. Carefully she let herself into the garden. Out of the moonlight the shadows were very black. The house still seemed to be asleep. Behind the doors and curtainless staring windows she could sense its emptiness and suddenly she was afraid. She stood still, staring round, the tiny short hairs on the back of her neck bristling. ‘Liza?’ she whispered. ‘Liza, are you there?’
No one answered. The moon was sailing higher now, and smaller. In the apple tree by the gate a bird called out in alarm and she saw the small dark shape flit out of sight across the garden.
Making her way between the rose bushes with their burden of overblown, sweet-scented flower-heads, Lyndsey moved silently around the back of the house. The terrace had been extended about thirty years before by the Simpsons. Small moss-covered red bricks had been set in a herringbone design and around the edges of the terrace they had left a dozen or so large old flower pots which still boasted leggy untrimmed lavender and rosemary bushes. The weight of the roses had pulled down the pergola and their scent, rich and sweet in the night air, was almost cloying as she stepped off the terrace and onto the wet grass. She could feel the garden full of eyes, watching her. Small animals and birds, but also other creatures of the night, hidden invisible beings who had made the garden their own. They were worried too, as uncertain as she was about what would happen to this place. ‘I’ll take care of things, my darlings,’ she whispered. She felt them listening, felt them tense suddenly, their attention hers. ‘We don’t want anyone moving in here, do we? Don’t worry. I’ll get rid of her. You must help me.’
She glanced up as an owl hooted, and watching its swift silent traverse of the garden, she smiled. ‘It’ll be child’s play for us, won’t it. With Liza’s help.’ She paused, turning round. ‘You will help, Liza, won’t you? We don’t want any newcomer pushing her way in here. This is your place. Yours and mine.’
The Simpsons had lasted eighteen months, so she’d been told, before they moved out of the cottage. Holidaymakers came and went. They didn’t seem to bother Liza. After all, there were long periods when the cottage lay empty in between. And since Lyndsey had come back to the village there had been no holidaymakers at all. She had seen to that. She wanted the house empty because the garden was hers; the place, though with such care that no casual observer would see that anyone had been there, where she planted and tended and harvested her herbs.
She had lasted four terms at university. Hateful place. In town. Full of people and cars and noise. Her parents had washed their hands of her when she walked out, her father blustering and indignant, her mother crying. ‘Most people would give their right arm to go to Cambridge, Lyn! How can you do this to us? How?’
They had never understood her. Never cared about who she really was, about what was best for her, rather than for them. When Lucy Stebbings, her great-aunt, had died and left her the tiny terraced cottage in Mistley she had taken it as a sign that she was blessed and supported in her bid for total freedom. She moved in and earned a modest living doing odd jobs around the village to subsidise her real work and her passion: her exquisite, detailed paintings and her research into the occult use of herbs which would one day form the core of the witches’ herb Bible she was planning to write. She had never gone back to her parents’ home in Woodbridge. Had never seen her father again. Her mother came over occasionally with food parcels and clothes and clucked around. Lyndsey was barely civil to her. All she wanted was to be left alone.
She shook her head. What had got her thinking about her past suddenly? Liza, probably. Liza wasn’t an ancestor. She had had no children who had lived. But Sarah had, and Sarah was an ancestor. Sarah, who was Liza’s nursling, Liza’s friend and Liza’s pupil. Sarah who had ended her days in this cottage, the dower house where she had come to live in her old age and where she had carried on Liza’s work.
This cottage should have been Lyndsey’s by rights. That it had not belonged to anyone in her family for three hundred years made no difference to her at all. This land, this home, this place, was hers, her natural inheritance, and no one was going to steal it from her.
She shuddered. She could feel her everywhere, the stranger who was buying the house. She too had stood out here beyond the terrace. Her energies were strange. Uneasy. Afraid. She was bringing unhappiness and danger. Suddenly Lyndsey’s senses were screaming. This could not be allowed to happen. It would undo all the good she had worked for over the years; unleash everything that she had fought to contain. She was going to re-awaken the evil, allow it in, encourage that mist to drift in from the sea and engulf them all.
The spell was an easy one. First the circle drawn faintly in the grass, her whispered invocation to the guardians of the quarters, her arms raised to the goddess moon as she sailed serenely in the clear, midnight sky.
‘Let no one buy this house. Let no one live here. Let no one enter these doors who does not belong. Liza, mother of my mother’s race, listen to my prayer and help to guard your home. If anyone should move here, let their stay be short. Let the very doors and walls, ceilings and floors, the spiders, the rats and mice, let them all conspire to drive her out. Let the chimneys smoke and the mildew curl about the walls, let the rot take the boards and the worms the beams.’ She paused, pleased with the resonance of the words. Then suddenly she frowned. ‘But not so badly that it falls down, of course.’ She smiled to herself and shook her head. ‘Liza, this is still your home. Your house, your place. Keep this woman out. Haunt her! Scare her! Make her ill. Send her mad. Do not allow her to stay!’
