A Witch Alone (The Winter Witch Trilogy #3) (19 page)

‘No,’ he said sadly.

I hugged him very hard, completely unable to believe that I was about to let him go, let all of this good, comfortable life go. He hugged me back, his face in my hair, his breath ragged.

‘Good night, sweetie,’ he said at last.

‘Good night, Dad,’ I choked.

He kissed me on the forehead, very softly, both his hands either side of my face. It was a kiss goodnight. But it felt like goodbye.

W
e told Dad and Maya not to come to the airport. Emmaline and I said goodbye to them at the station, waving and waving as the train pulled away from the platform until they disappeared into the grey summer drizzle.

Neither of us spoke for the first half hour of the train journey. We just sat and looked out of the window. I wasn’t sure what Em was thinking; my own mind was a mess of churning excitement, terror, guilt, and last minute practicalities – had I got my passport? If something happened to Emmaline, would Maya ever forgive me? When could I break the news about—

‘Cheer up, love.’ The ticket inspector’s voice broke abruptly into my thoughts. ‘It might never happen.’

Dick
, I thought. But I only smiled thinly and held out my ticket.

‘It’s not too late,’ I said to Em, after he’d gone. ‘You can turn around at the airport. Catch the next train back.’

‘Shut up,’ Em said briefly.

And then she put her nose in her guidebook.

At the airport we checked in and then went to wait under the main departures board, where we’d all arranged to meet up.

‘He’s late,’ Em said, looking at her watch for the fifth time and then up at the departures board.
Go to Gate
said the St Petersburg flight.

‘Em,’ I said nervously, ‘there’s something I haven’t had a chance to mention.’

I still hadn’t told her. Or Abe.

My excuse was that in the tearing rush of the last few days there’d been no time – and that Marcus hadn’t actually
completely
confirmed anyway. But …

‘Oh here he is,’ Em said, relief in her voice.

‘Sorry I’m late.’ Abe swung his rucksack to the marbled floor with a resounding thump. It must have weighed as much as me. ‘It won’t take me two minutes to check this in and then we can go through security.’

‘N-not quite,’ I said, in a small voice.

‘Why not?’ Em said. Then, ‘Oh Jeez, you didn’t forget your passport, did you? I asked you!’

‘It’s not my passport,’ I said. ‘No … It’s just that … We need to wait. For Marcus.’

‘
Marcus?
’ Emmaline said, at the same time as Abe said a very, very rude word.

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘B-because … he’s coming.’

‘
What?’
Emmaline said.

‘Please.’ Abe’s face was suddenly dark. ‘Please tell me this is a joke.’

‘N-no.’ Then as I saw their incredulous faces, bemused in Emmaline’s case, unashamedly furious in Abe’s, I began to stammer out explanations. ‘Look – what was I supposed to do? I couldn’t just tell him to sod off.’

‘Yes you could!’ Abe exploded. ‘It’s nothing to do with him!’

‘Abe, his father was
killed
by the spy. How is that not to do with him?’

‘You know nothing about him!’

‘I know he speaks Russian – which can’t be bad. And I know he wants to hunt this spy down even more than I do.’

‘And what if the spy is your mother?’ Abe spelled it out brutally, so that I flinched and looked away. ‘What then?’

‘He knew my mother,’ I said in a low voice. ‘He loved my mother. He has as many rights over her as I do. Abe, like it or not, Marcus has a right to be here.’

‘So he emotionally blackmailed you into coming? Nice.’

‘He didn’t blackmail – he asked as a favour. Anyway,
you
can hardly talk about blackmail.’

Abe’s face went closed and hard and, for a minute, I thought he was going to say something very ugly indeed. But then he looked over my shoulder. And his expression changed from fury to disgust.

‘Anna!’ Marcus called. He walked quickly through the crowd to where we were standing and bent and kissed me on each cheek. Then, before she could object, he did the same to a slightly startled Emmaline. For the first time since I’d known him, he wasn’t wearing a suit. Instead he was wearing a Barbour jacket and combats. ‘Hello Abe,’ he added. Was it my imagination or was there a touch of amusement in his voice at the sight of Abe’s face?

‘Well,’ he said, after a short, fruitless wait for a reply, ‘no point in hanging around I guess. Shall we get going?’

‘Yes,’ Abe said, through gritted teeth. ‘You’re right. There’s no point in hanging around.’

I sighed. This was going to be a long flight.

The plane landed at some painfully early hour and we staggered out of the terminus and stood like sheep, yawning while Marcus paid off the porters and haggled in Russian with the taxi driver.

In the taxi itself we sat in silence. Marcus was silent because he was asleep, his head lolling against the passenger window. Em was silent because she was reading a book on Russian folklore, making notes in the margin with a pencil. Abe was silent because – well I didn’t know why Abe was silent. Only that he was. He sat between Emmaline and me, his arms crossed, his face dark and uncompromising. When my attempts at conversation fizzled away, Emmaline gave me a look; it was a look that said ‘
Don’t bother
.’

I was silent because St Petersburg was so beautiful.

I don’t know what I’d expected from Russia. Concrete blocks. Snow. Communist architecture.

Not this.

Not white stone, wrought-iron balconies, long vistas stretching like the Champs Elysées. Not golden domes, shining in the morning sun. Not this wide expanse of sky and water flashing past, dazzlingly bright even at this early hour.

The streets were all but deserted.

‘It’s so quiet,’ I said to Emmaline, half under my breath.

‘Is White Nights.’ The driver caught my remark and spoke over his shoulder in heavily accented English. ‘The people, we are dance, eat, drink until dawn. The sun, she does not setting. All night it is – what is the word?’ He said something in Russian that sounded like ‘sonyaky’ and furrowed his brow. Then it cleared. ‘Twilight. All night it is twilight. So we call the White Nights, when is never fully dark. We drink in the night and we sleep in the day. Today is Saturday. So. We sleep.’

We rounded a corner and I gasped. A cathedral towered in front of us, spiralled onion domes pointing to the sky, each one jewelled and gilded and bright blue as the morning sky. Then the driver swerved again down a side street and it was gone.

‘What was that place?’

‘The Church of the Saviour on Spilled Blood.’ Emmaline didn’t raise her head. ‘Built on the site of the assassination of Alexander the Second.’

‘Nice,’ I murmured.

‘St Petersburg is town build on blood,’ said our driver. ‘It is build on bones, on bodies. It is beautiful – yes. But is beauty build upon death.’

‘What do you mean?’ I asked.

‘It was built on the bones of serfs – that’s what you mean, isn’t it?’ Emmaline asked. The driver nodded.

‘Many thousands peasants died to raise St Petersburg from the mud. Ten, twenty thousands. Thirty thousands. History cannot to count. They are lost. Their bones lie beneath these streets, in the canals.’ He waved a hand towards the shining skein of water running alongside the road and I couldn’t suppress a shudder. Then we swung right, down another side street and across another bridge. The car slowed abruptly and the driver leaned out of the window, peering at the door numbers. At last we pulled to a halt and he consulted the piece of paper Marcus had handed him when we got in the cab.

‘It is here. Hotel.’

‘Wha—?’ Marcus raised his head sleepily and rubbed his eyes. ‘Oh, thank you.’ He peeled more notes from the bundle in his wallet and I groaned. I was going to owe Marcus the national debt of a small country at this rate.

The room was small, dark and depressing with a double bed, two lamps (one not working), a small sink and a threadbare carpet. The walls seemed to be covered with some kind of brown corduroy and, when Emmaline threw her rucksack on the bed, it didn’t bounce. She lay down beside it, took off her glasses and pressed her fingers to her eyes.

‘What’s the matter?’ I asked.

She shook her head without replying.

‘I don’t know. Everything just feels … wrong. Strained. Forced. Do you know what I mean?’

‘No.’

She sighed and tried again. ‘I’ve been trying to, you know,
look
.’ She had the half-defensive look she always adopted when talking about her ability to see unfolding events. ‘Trying to see what we should be doing what we should be looking out for. But everything feels weird. It’s like … I can’t explain, but it’s like we’re being pulled. Pushed. Against the grain. Is this making any sense?’

‘Kind of …’ I sat beside her on the bed. ‘Forced – how? By someone?’

‘I don’t know. That’s what I can’t work out. I can’t tell whether we’re going against the grain of what someone wants us to do, like we’re on the track of something and they’re trying to push us back, or if it’s the opposite. If it’s us being diverted, pushed into the wrong course and we
should
be turning back. But whatever it is, the pressure’s making me ill. I’ve had a headache ever since we left London.’

‘I’m sorry.’ I didn’t know what else to say. Emmaline sighed again.

‘It’s fine. I’ll take a paracetamol. What’s happening today, anyway?’

‘I don’t know …’ I said slowly. ‘All I can think is to follow the trail of the prophecy.’

‘Which means?’

‘Caradoc said the last reference he could find was to a copy in the library of Peter the Great. Which still exists – it’s on Vasilievsky Island. And I know my mother tried to go there at least once. So I think we should go to the library. See what we can find out.’

‘Sounds like a plan. Do you want to scry before we leave? See what’s happening in London?’

‘Um …’

The answer was no, not really. But I knew I was being stupid, cowardly. It was better to know. I nodded, reluctantly, and Emmaline undid her rucksack and got out a small silver bowl.

‘You prefer water, don’t you?’ she asked.

I shrugged. ‘I guess. I’ve never really done it any other way. I don’t get runes and stuff.’

‘They’re an acquired taste.’ Emmaline filled the bowl with water. ‘Like olives. OK, shoot.’

‘Don’t look.’

‘Jeez you’re weird,’ Emmaline stood up. ‘But then aren’t we all? All right then. I’ll be down in Abe and Marcus’ room, trying to break up the fight.’

I waited until the door clunked shut behind her, then I went and slid the chain across, put the bowl on the tiny bedside table and lowered my face to the water.

Grandmother
, I told myself firmly.
Grandmother.
I thought of Elizabeth in the high white bed, of Miss Vane fussing round.
Don’t think of Seth. Think of London. London.

But the first thing I saw wasn’t Elizabeth. It was Dad. He was sitting at a kitchen table and for a minute I didn’t know where. Then I recognized it – he was in Elaine’s little flat above the Anchor. Elaine was sitting next to him, her arm around Dad’s shoulders, and Dad’s head was down, his face buried in his hands. As I watched, he lifted his face and I saw he’d been crying.

My own eyes swam with tears. For a long moment I watched them both, fighting against the rising ache in my throat, and then a tear ran down my nose and dropped into the bowl. Then another. The water in the bowl shivered into ripples, the picture broke up, and when the surface smoothed again they were gone.

Instead – there was my grandmother. She was lying in her bed, just as she had been when I left. Her black hair straggled across the pillow and her eyes were closed. Beneath the thin lids, her eyes moved uneasily, roaming from side to side as if seeking something. Even asleep, she didn’t look at rest. She looked as if she was fighting to control something, fighting to hold back the tide. But she was still alive – just.

Suddenly I couldn’t do this any more. Watching helplessly from across the ocean was too hard. I closed my eyes, shutting out the thin figure beneath the white sheets. Then I raised my head from the bowl and rubbed the tears fiercely from my eyes and nose.

When I opened my eyes, the sun had gone in, thick grey cloud was blanketing the sky and rain speckled the window. I jumped as a knock came at the door. It opened suddenly, crashing against the chain, and Emmaline’s face peered through the gap.

‘Can I come in? Why have you got the chain on?’

‘Sorry, sorry.’ I jumped up and pulled back the chain to let her in. ‘Of course you can come in. I didn’t mean to be weird earlier. I just can’t …’

‘It’s fine. I get it. All OK on the home front?’

‘No. Sort of. No worse, I guess. How are the boys?’

‘Abe’s asleep – Marcus has gone out. What shall we do?’

And suddenly I knew. No more waiting. No more brooding on what was going on in London. I had to do something concrete. Fearless.

‘We’re going to the library to get that book.’

‘You think?’ Em chewed at a piece of her hair uneasily. ‘Shouldn’t we wait for the others?’

‘Why? What’s the point in waiting?’

‘Well … I don’t know. We don’t speak Russian for a start.’

‘We’ll give it a try,’ I said firmly. ‘If it doesn’t work, we can come back with Marcus.’

‘I really don’t know,’ Em said. She bit her lip and then yanked off her glasses and polished the lenses crossly. ‘It just seems a bit … I mean, people keep getting killed for God’s sake!’

‘Scared?’ I said sweetly. ‘We can wait for the boys if you prefer.’

Em’s jaw set like concrete and I knew I’d hit the right button.

‘Not on your bloody life. Get your coat, Anna Winterson.’

The wind whipped along the river, turning my hair into rats’ tails and making my eyes water. It would take me hours to comb out the tangles. Emmaline had tied her scarf around her head and looked like a Russian Babushka doll. It didn’t feel like early summer – nothing like it.

At last we reached a tall, columned entrance and Emmaline looked down at her map and up at the portico.