Page 2 of Witchbane

‘Let us find your aunt and leave,’ he said quietly as he lifted me. ‘Your father doesn’t want you here.’

My aunt cried out again, as did several other women, as the Witchfinder oversaw a lit torch being lowered and the flames near my mother taking hold and beginning to lap at her bare, swollen feet.

‘That bugger will watch until there’s nothing left of Martha Underwood’s body but ashes,’ I heard a man say as the dense crowd blocked our departure.

‘I believe he won’t settle until he’s matched the number of witches put to death in the 1590s,’ another said.

I glared at the Witchfinder over Pierre’s shoulder, as a satisfied smirk spread across his pinched face. How could someone that evil be allowed to live after taking the life of my beautiful mother?

‘Nooo,’ I sobbed, reaching out towards her, swallowing as nausea rushed up my throat.

I dashed away tears from my cheeks, and movement to my right caught my eye. A boy about my age was staring at me. I glowered at him, hating him witness my distress. A deep sadness filled his eyes and soothed me slightly; I wasn’t the only one horrified by this macabre spectacle.

‘Theophilus.’

The boy’s piercing blue eyes widened briefly and he looked away. I followed his gaze to the Witchfinder who waved the boy to him. He went to stand next to the man responsible for my mother’s murder. The Witchfinder then rested a hand on the boy’s shoulder. I could not miss the shame in the boy’s expression as he caught my eye once again, aware I now knew his identity.

My breath hitched in my throat. He was the Witchfinder’s son. As I stared at him it occurred to me exactly how I could avenge myself on that evil man. I would study everything my grandmother and aunt did as they made up their spells. Watch them closely each day and learn how to cast my own spells. Work on my own powers, which I had only recently discovered but had yet to master fully. I was still surprised to be able to cause another pain through my concentrated thoughts, but delighted that the gift of witchcraft I had been born to, like my mother, grandmother and all those who came before them, did run through me too.

Calmed by my plan, I resolved not to waste a day without practising my craft, and that when the time was right, I would find a way to take from the Witchfinder the person he held most dear. His golden-haired, blue-eyed son.

Only then would that man have a sense of how broken my heart was at that moment.

Chapter One

THEO LE CERF

1650

Before I turned the corner from the stables where I left my stallion, Warrior, I felt the stamping of feet through the ground. Noisy laughter rang in my ears as villagers danced to fiddles, flutes and at least two drums. I stopped to watch by the last house before the village green, my mood rising as I let their merriment envelop me. It was a long time since I had felt this carefree. I was determined to join in the fun.

I pulled my hat down further onto my head, glad that I hadn’t allowed my concern about attending the Stanthorpe’s May Day celebrations deter me from coming. Anyway, I reminded myself, my attendance at the fair had been my father’s decision. As the local Witchfinder, and now my employer as well as my parent, he insisted that one of the things I must do was mingle with the locals.

‘The more they learn to trust you, Theo, the easier they will open up to you. It’s by keeping up with local news that you’ll discover anything underhand going on that villagers often keep to themselves,’ he insisted.

Now, watching the pink-cheeked faces of those dancing, as men spun their partners around, their arms linked, I was glad I had come along.

I might have only been his assistant for the past six months, since he determined it was time I return to Jersey from living abroad with my maternal aunt and uncle in Norway, but it hadn’t taken long for me to discover how suspicious people were of the Witchfinder’s son, despite not knowing me at all.

‘They’ll struggle to trust you simply because of your father’s work,’ my mother explained one day when I confided how difficult I had found it, having spent my youth making friends easily, to now be seen as someone to fear. I missed the luxury of anonymity and people not knowing my father’s profession. Here, on the island of my birth, I was once again back to being an outsider and greeted with false affection and wary politeness.

I leant against a granite wall and watched the carefree dancers, musing how I had yet to witness any witchcraft. I struggled to understand my parents’ beliefs and why they so easily gave in to their superstition. My father seemed only too readily willing to see the worst in people and believe many of them practised sorcery, certain that this was a danger he needed to extinguish.

As their only living child I knew they relied on me to follow in my father’s footsteps. Unable to bear disappointing them, I relented and gave in to their wish for me to keep up our family tradition. Thankfully, apart from one incident when I was made to witness the strangulation and burning of a witch’s body a decade before, I hadn’t been party to anything too unsavoury yet. I knew from experience, though, that my father for some reason found a distasteful enjoyment in seeing fear in people’s eyes. We were different in many ways and this, as far as I was concerned, was the greatest of those differences.

Today, yet again, I fought my regret that I didn’t have a sibling to take my place, forcing me to feel obliged to follow my parents’ ambitions for me. One day I would even need to take over my father’s position in the town. I dreaded that time coming and prayed it wouldn’t be for a very long time.

The music stopped momentarily, only to then continue with a similar lively tune. Once again the people danced.

‘Keep dancing, Jem.’ The most beautiful girl I had ever seen, with long auburn hair cascading down her back, laughed. It was a joyous sound and for a moment everything else around her vanished, even the music.

Her light-hearted insistence to her companion brought me back to the present and I watched with envy as she grabbed hold of the man’s hand and pulled him towards the other dancers. He didn’t seem all that reluctant to go with her, as far as I could see. In fact, I mused as I watched him, he looks extremely happy to be with her. I didn’t blame him.

I surmised she must be a few years younger than me, eighteen or nineteen. I watched her full lips part in a wide smile as he gave in and swung her around, her thick, shiny hair flying out behind her as they danced, his delight obvious.

My breath caught in my throat and it was as if someone had punched me hard in my chest. She was the most easy-going, exquisite woman I had ever seen. I had heard my cousins talking about love at first sight but thought them silly and fanciful. For the first time in my life, I understood what they meant. I stared at her, enthralled by the sheer joy emanating from her as she flung her free arm wide and closed her eyes, her rosy lips parted, face tilted up to the sunshine. She was enchanting.

I wondered why I hadn’t ever seen her before. I didn’t come to the village often, but I would have remembered her vividly if our paths had crossed before now.