Page 52 of The Queen’s Witch

We made our way through pathless forest, and when we reached a small patch by a great holly bush, the misty light blinked out. Again, I tried to run—but could not move. Agnes had invoked a binding spell. My entire body collapsed immobile on the dirt, my head set rigidly to face a small gap in the foliage, a gap that framed Bredham Abbey, sitting in dim moonlight.

“Ye cannot escape,” Agnes said. All I could see from the edge of my eye was her bent silhouette, now completely still. Waiting? Spelling? Both?

Finally, she said, “Familiar mine, come to me,” and her toad hopped forward from the trees.

So now it would happen. What would happen? I did not know, but I could sense the thinning of the boundary between this and the Otherworld. The air vibrated like the strings of a lute. On this night, both Goddess and Dark One gained strength in the earthly realm. Both more readily answered summons. Both could send their servants into the affairs of men. Both.

I sat bound as Agnes spoke in the old language, words she had not taught me. But I knew what they would do.

A red glow, deep as flame. Within the glow swarmed a cloud of small black specks like flying gnats. The bare ground smoked. Small animals skittered away; crows left night perches, cawing loudly. An owl hooted amid a rush of wings. Someone cried out, and I knew it was me.

The Dark One appeared. My cries ceased.

I could see Him only in wavering, glowing snatches as He appeared and disappeared, but what I saw was beautiful beyond words. Naked, male to a degree no human body could be, desirable in ways no human could begin to match.

He smiled at me.

Agnes chortled. “Ye feel it, do ye not? He wants ye. He chooses ye, Alysoun, daughter of Joan, daughter of Frances. Pledge yerself to Him. Ye need a mate, and ye feel it!”

I did feel it: the same heady pleasure as when I had sickened Jane Boleyn and Elinor Sedlow and Sister Beatrice. As when I had killed the abbey fowl. The same pleasure but tenfold, twenty, and not only in my mind. My breasts taughtened, my loins swelled and ached with desire such as I had never felt for Mark, or Roger of late, desire that I had not even known possible. Desire that burned in its demand to be satisfied even in me, a virgin.

“Go to Him,” Agnes said. “I release ye.”

I could now move. I stood, took a step forward.

And I heard Mother Redcap’s voice in my head, as clear as if beside me: Ye get nothing from the Dark One without a price. He was going to take you. Ye were vulnerable. Mother Redcap had paid that price, losing all her magick so that I might be safe, so that I might not succumb to the unholy joy offered now. Agnes would not do the same. She wanted me under His sway.

I struggled to speak, could not, tried again. “No.”

Agnes made a guttural sound and spat. The Dark One did not so easily give up. He smiled, and in His smile was the promise of lewd delights I had never known. He beckoned with one wavering finger, and my body’s response was powerful. But I found the strength to step backward, until the new ground I stood upon erupted with flowers with scents so enticing my nostrils and mouth both opened as if to devour them through every sense possible.

My mouth filled with sweet liquid. My loins ached with desire.

I closed my eyes, and visions came: hands gently caressing my breasts, clothes whispering off my body so that all was exposed to warm, soft breezes. Then my own hands were on my breasts, between my legs, even as I knew my caresses were only a pale imitation of what He could offer.

The owl hooted, loud and commanding. I opened my eyes and saw, behind the Dark One and to His right, a second wavering form, almost too faint to discern. I felt it, rather than saw it. Grandmother.

On Samhain, the boundary between this and the Otherworld thins.

“No,” I said.

Still, He did not give up. He tempted, using powers far beyond those of any thrice-braided Sister. I resisted, harnessing memories of the two women who had loved me, had given up everything for me.

How long did it go on? Until Agnes rose, cried, “Enough! There is no more time!” and uttered more words in the old language.

Pain lanced through me. I fell to my knees. The Dark One vanished. Beyond the trees, the single bell of Bredham Abbey clanged against stone as the bell tower began to sway.

Agnes stood with arms upraised, chanting. Power flowed from her. Around her body swarmed the cloud of the Dark One’s tiny, gnat-like servants, screaming like ravens. They flew toward Bredham Abbey.

The bell tower wobbled, and the first stone fell.

I staggered to my feet. The tower swayed again, and the clapper hit the bell: clang. My knees were as water.

A second stone fell. Then a third, and the clanging increased with the sway of the tower.

The abbey door flung open. Shouting, indistinguishable. A figure holding a lantern ran outside, rounded the side of the abbey, and looked up at the tower. Clang. And I knew what Agnes intended.

I stumbled forward. When I burst through the trees, three figures stood gesturing at the tower, with a fourth emerging from the abbey door. Three barefoot on the cold ground, all in white night shifts and white caps tied over their shorn hair. Then the one, running from the doorway, whose bright hair streamed in the sudden wind: Elizabeth.