Page 19 of Witchbane

He gave me a watery smile. This powerful man who had worked on the land at Thistlebury Estate his entire life looked suspiciously as if he was trying not to weep.

Chapter Nine

RUE

Pierre placed my bags on the hall floor and stared at me. ‘Mistress Rue, you haven’t seemed yourself for a few weeks. Is there anything bothering you that I can help with?’

I felt my cheeks heat at the memory of what had happened between me and Theo Le Cerf, and turning my back to him to hide my shame, I went to pick up the bags. I wasn’t ready to mention the strange presence I kept feeling in the house, not wishing to sound silly.

‘No, I’m a little out of sorts thanks to this endless hot weather, but nothing more than that. You go and carry on with what you were doing. I’ve held you up for long enough.’

He hesitated briefly. ‘As you wish.’

‘Thank you, Pierre. As always you’ve been very helpful to me.’

He left the house and walked down the steps to go back where he had been busy on the drive.

A floorboard creaked upstairs and I saw my aunt coming down to join me. I looked past her up the stairs at my grandmother’s closed bedroom door and shivered as a familiar chill trickled down my spine. This feeling of strangeness had begun soon after my nineteenth birthday, an age, my grandmother believed, when it was time to think about finding a suitable husband. Could it have anything to do with me growing up? I couldn’t imagine that it did, especially as I was not remotely interested in marrying anyone anytime soon. Whatever its cause, this feeling was happening to me more often – a strange presence in the house, growing stronger and more insidious.

‘Do you feel it, Aunt Sorrel?’ I asked without thinking.

I hadn’t mentioned my concerns to anyone else before, but it was getting to the point that I was certain others close to me must have noticed the distinct change in the house’s atmosphere, especially on the first floor where our bedrooms were.

I don’t know when I first noticed the black patches appearing in a corner of my bedroom walls. I initially assumed it was damp, from where a leak in the roof was letting in rainwater. Knowing that, if that was the case, there was little I could do, I had pulled my large chest of drawers in front of the offending sight.

Now, though, the mould had spread across two walls, the stains looking somewhat like the blue veins at my inner wrists. It was impossible to ignore these odd shapes that seemed more like someone’s arms coming out of the wall, as if beckoning me into a frightening hug.

‘There’s something alive in these walls, I’m sure of it,’ I whispered to my aunt.

She didn’t answer.

I pressed her further. ‘Please tell me I’m not the only one to be alarmed by this?’

She glanced upstairs before shaking her head slowly. ‘You’re not alone, sweet Rue. I noticed it for the first time a couple of months ago, when I was taking laundry to your room.’ She gave me a sympathetic smile. ‘Mind you, living in one of the cottages, I sometimes have a fearful battle against damp.’

‘But it’s not like usual damp, as far as I can see.’

‘I agree with you.’ She swallowed. ‘I have to admit it does worry me.’ She seemed about to speak, then held her tongue and just looked at me, uncertainty on her face.

‘You can be honest with me,’ I said, urging her to continue. ‘Please, I want to know what you think.’

She shrugged. ‘I can’t help thinking there’s a dark malice in this place. Something that wasn’t here before. It’s getting worse over time too.’

I was relieved not to be alone with this belief and to know that my anxiety about this change was not without cause. This house was the only home I had ever known. It was my sanctuary from everything I found fearful outside the gates. The thought that Thistlebury Manor had taken on something unpleasant that I didn’t understand terrified me. Where would it lead? What would it mean for those I loved?

‘Where do you think it’s come from?’ I asked, eager to learn more about this thing that was slowly taking over our home and seemingly rotting it from the inside out.

I heard footsteps and then my grandmother’s voice. ‘Are those bags full because you’ve been bartering on your way home from making deliveries?’ she asked, interrupting our conversation and startling us both. She gave each of us an irritated glance, then indicated the two almost full bags at my feet.

I nodded. Our clients often lacked money. Despite this, my grandmother never refused to help anyone who needed it. We always accepted whatever they could afford to give us in lieu of payment, knowing that the villagers hated to be thought of as accepting charity. We did this out of kindness, but also believed it showed we meant to help heal them. We feared a treatment failing, or going wrong and causing a customer to become sicker, because it was then that someone of a more spiteful nature might be tempted to go to the Witchfinder and accuse us of being witches.

I knew other healers on the island who did not follow our craft, who chose to use water from holy wells or arranged to meet their customers near one. Some also recited the Lord’s Prayer before or after carrying out their work. As pagans, it wasn’t something we would ever do, but as long as we took care to act only for the good of our clients, we hoped to remain safe.

Today I had carried home a small but heavy oak box for spices, some table linen, a mixture of vegetables, and a dead rabbit someone had poached from our woods.

‘Did you manage to see everyone on my list?’

She opened one of the bags and peered inside. She lifted the box out, studying it, then dipped her hand in once more and took out the linen tablecloth, murmuring something to herself. Satisfied, she then turned on her heels and began walking back to the kitchen. ‘Well, don’t leave them there. Give that rabbit to Tilly to deal with. She was wondering what to cook for our supper.’ She pointed to the bags. ‘Take everything else to the work room and put them away.’