A Witch Alone (The Winter Witch Trilogy #3) (22 page)

‘All right. I can’t make you. I’ll be up the corridor in the girls’ room if you need anything.’

‘Can I stay, Marcus?’ I asked. But he shook his head.

‘No. Leave me alone, please, all of you.’

‘OK,’ I said reluctantly. He closed his eyes and we turned towards the door and made our way up the corridor.

Back in our room I said, ‘Take off your boot, Em.’

‘When we’ve looked at your head,’ Em said shortly.

‘Please, just let me—’

‘Anna, are you stupid or something? What good will a bit of paper do if you’re dead from a brain haemorrhage?’

‘Paper?’ Abe said, looking from Emmaline to me.

‘Don’t ask,’ Em said bitterly. ‘Only the source of all this bloodshed, folded up under my insole.’

‘It’s the prophecy!’ I said desperately. ‘Don’t you understand? We found it – that’s what she was after.’

‘OK, I understand, but I think Em’s right,’ Abe said. ‘The riddle’s lasted this long – I think it’ll last a few minutes longer. Let me look at your head.’

He bent my head forward, probing with gentle fingers at the top of my skull, but he didn’t say anything, even when I swore and pulled away as his fingers touched a sore place.

‘What do you think?’ Em asked. Abe shrugged, but his eyes were worried.

‘Hard to say. There’s too much blood to tell.’

‘I’m going to wash it out,’ I said, moving to the sink.

‘No!’ Abe said, at the same time as Emmaline cried, ‘Don’t!’

‘Why not?’

‘Because if you’ve got something seriously wrong, I don’t want you rinsing bits of your brain down into the sewers,’ Abe said.

‘Look, I’m conscious, I’m walking, I’m talking. I think I’ll be fine. Just let me get the blood out of my hair and you can see what the damage is.’

Abe looked at Emmaline and they exchanged a glance that said,
What can you do with someone like her?

‘All right,’ Abe said at last. ‘But you’d better let me help. I don’t want you sluicing away anything vital.’

We stood at the sink and Abe poured cup after cup of warm water over my hair, while the plughole ran red as a butcher’s drain. While he washed my hair, Emmaline talked, filling him in on the discovery of the poem, the fight with the witch, our futile attempt to flee, and Marcus’ rescue. Abe said nothing.

Every now and then I felt his fingers gently exploring the patch at the top of my head, checking that he wasn’t making things worse. A gross smell filled the room; like an abattoir – blood and hot water mingling into a grim, iron-scented steam. But at last the sink was running pink and I could feel the huge clot at the top of my scalp was almost dissolved.

Em passed me a towel to wrap around my shoulders and I sat on a chair at the window, beneath the light, while she and Abe examined my skull.

‘It’s not as bad as it looks,’ Abe said at last. ‘I think you’ve just lost some skin and hair. But I’m seriously worried about concussion. From what Em said, that was quite a whack.’

‘So? Do you think I should go to some Russian A&E and wait for the witch’s mate to turn up?’

Abe’s heavy black brows knitted together and he shoved his hands crossly into the pockets of his jeans.

‘What do you suggest then?’ Emmaline said.

‘I’ve hit my head before,’ I said. ‘I remember what they said last time. I think I know what to look out for.’

‘Oh you’re impossible,’ Em snapped. Then she sighed. ‘OK. Well, I guess there’s nothing for it.’

She sat down on the end of the bed, pulled off her boot, and a piece of paper fluttered out on to the floor.

For a moment I didn’t do anything – I couldn’t. My heart was thudding too hard, my hands were cold and numb and, for a second, I wondered if perhaps Emmaline and Abe were right and I was on the brink of some kind of aneurysm.

Then I picked it up and opened it out.

A Rydelle

A childe shalle be born on the Feaft of Kynges

A childe of the Rook yet fowle she be not

And though she doth Fly, yet hath she no Wings

Born on a Chille Day but Merrie begot.

Sonne of the Wintere, yet stille she be Maide

Her Tongue speaks untruth, tho’ she doth not lye

Her Brightest of Years shalle be fpent in the shade

And though she is Drownéd, yet she shalle not die.

She shalle walk Alone from her uery first Crie

Alone in this world from her first to last Breath

For, in this world where all Mortals must die,

She reigns alone: the Mistresse of Death.

We stared at the page, all three of us in silence.

‘The Mistress of Death …’ Abe said at last. ‘Does that mean … ?’

He stopped and the sick foreboding that had been coiling in my stomach for so many months threatened to choke me. Death. Everything seemed to lead back to that word. All the deaths of the past few months pressed around me, drowning me in their shadows, and I felt the old, old fear wash over me again. The Mistress of Death. Was I some kind of horrendous WMD – a Typhoid Mary of witches? Was that what Corax had wanted from me?

I
had
the paper. And I still didn’t know.

‘Bloody witches!’ I burst out furiously. ‘Why can’t anyone ever say what they mean? It’s all smoke and mirrors and allusions. I’m sick of it!’

I clenched my fist, screwing the paper into a matted lump, and then stood, breathing hard, my fists pressed to my forehead. I felt like throwing the paper out of the window – the paper that had cost so much in lives and blood and suffering.

There was silence in the room. I could hear my own harsh breathing and a flutter as the paper fell to the floor.

Em bent and picked it up.

‘Look, if you don’t mind, I’m going to go to the Internet café downstairs and email this to Simon. He might be able to help. I’m extremely unhappy about being one of only three people who’ve seen this. I think the quicker we get this text back to England, the safer we’ll all be. OK, Anna?’

I didn’t trust myself to speak. I just nodded.

‘Want me to go too?’ Abe asked.

I squeezed my eyes tighter shut. I couldn’t speak. The lump in my throat choked me. If I’d tried, I don’t know what would have come out – a great eviscerating howl of frustration and pain.

Instead, I just shrugged.

‘Fine. Well I’ll stay then,’ Abe said in a
suit yourself
voice.

‘See you in ten,’ Em said. And then, with a laugh that tried just a little too hard to be relaxed, ‘If I’m not back in fifteen, send out the search parties.’

After she’d gone I slumped on to the bed with my face in the pillow and tried to get a grip.
Stop being so bloody pathetic
, I snarled inside my head.

‘It’ll be OK,’ Abe said, his voice low. I felt the bed springs shudder as he sat beside me.

I shook my head into the pillow and he said urgently, ‘That line – the Mistress of Death – I know what you’re thinking, but it could be something completely different. You’re not evil, Anna, you’re
not.’

I didn’t speak. My teeth were clenched against the despair. But when I felt Abe’s hand touch the nape of my neck, I couldn’t help it. A huge racking sob burst out.

He lay down beside me on the double bed and I rolled over and flung my arms around him, howling into the crook of his shoulder while he stroked his hands down my spine, one after the other, in a slow, comforting rhythm.

When I’d cried myself hoarse we lay with our foreheads touching. I felt his breath come and go on my face. His arms were around me. We were so close – as close as it was possible to get without being inside each other’s skin.

His eyes were closed, but he must have felt my gaze, because he opened them and looked at me. His black eyes were steady, but full of a hunger I couldn’t bear to see.

He touched my lip with his finger.

‘Can I?’

It would be so easy. I wouldn’t have to be careful with him. I wouldn’t have to hold back.

He leaned forwards, slowly, giving me plenty of time to move or say something to stop him. But I didn’t. I held my breath. And his lips touched mine, so gently I was almost unsure if I’d felt it at all.

Then he was kissing me. Hard. No uncertainty now. No holding back. His hands gripped at my shirt, at my waist, his breath coming hot and fast. His dark, heavy brows were drawn into a frown, but I couldn’t tell from his face if it was of pain or pleasure. Perhaps some emotion too complex to skewer with a name.

His lips were at my jaw and my throat and his harsh three-day beard scraped the soft, almost unbearably tender skin beneath my ear. Then he held himself up on one arm and, still kissing me, he yanked off his shirt with his free hand, buttons ripping and clattering on the floor. I lay back, shivering with need, hearing my breath coming loud and harsh in the quiet of the room. Neither of us spoke. The room was silent, apart from the sound of our ragged breathing and my racing heart.

It was wrong. He wasn’t Seth. And I wanted Seth – I wanted his arms around me, his lips on my skin, his weight on me. But he wasn’t here. And Abe was.

Seth
, cried a voice in my heart.

He’s gone
, answered my head brutally.
You don’t owe him anything. Why are you insisting on being faithful to him?

He wasn’t being faithful to me, that was for sure. I thought of the woman in the sarong and something hot and dark kindled inside me.

Abe’s lips at my throat. My fingers, shaking, as they helped him with the buttons of my shirt.

It didn’t take you long did it? From my bed to his.

I shook my head – shutting out the words, shutting out the memory. I owed him nothing. He’d left me. He wasn’t here. Abe was here. Abe.

My heartbeat roared in my ears.

I tangled my fingers in Abe’s hair.

‘Abe.’

He didn’t raise his head, but his lips moved against my skin.

‘Anna …’

‘Abe.’ It was a gasp. He tightened his grip. ‘Abe – Abe,
stop
.’

For a minute I wasn’t sure if he would.

Then he flung himself on to his back, his breath coming fast and ragged and furious.

I lay, my heart pounding. Then I hauled myself on to my elbow.

‘Abe …’

‘Choose,’ he said. His voice was hoarse, the word like an accusation.

‘Abe …’ I tried, but he cut me off.

‘Choose!’ he shouted. ‘I’m sick of playing second fiddle to a ghost from the past. He’s gone – he left you …’

I flinched as if I’d been slapped, but he ploughed viciously on, his words tearing at us both.

‘You can’t spend your life looking back! I’m here, Anna. I want you. I …’ he stopped, his teeth ground together so that the tendons in his neck stood out. ‘I
love
you.’

‘Abe …’ I wanted so much to say,
I love you too
. And I did. That was the worst thing. And I knew what this must be doing to him, what those words had cost him. But …

I wouldn’t cry. I
wouldn’t
cry. I pulled my knees up to my chest and buried my face in my hands.

The silence pulled out, so long that at last I scraped my cheeks on my sleeve and looked up.

Abe was staring down at my leg, where my jeans had ridden up my shin. When he looked up his face was blank with some emotion that might have been shock, or even fear.

‘Abe,’ I said huskily, ‘Abe, you’re scaring me.’

‘Your scar.’

‘My scar?’ I echoed, confused.

‘Your scar – from when you fell in the snow last winter. It’s … gone.’

I pulled back my jeans and looked at my leg. He was right. It was gone. It seemed monumentally unimportant.

‘Scars fade.’

‘It’s not faded, Anna. It’s
gone
. In – what? Six months? That’s not possible. I
saw
that scar. Marks like that don’t just disappear. That cut was healed as far as it was ever going to be. No power on earth could’ve made that scar disappear – not natural, not magical.’

‘W-what are you saying?’ I said uneasily.

‘I don’t know.’ He put his hand to his head. He looked suddenly sick with fear and I wrapped my arms around my body, shivering. ‘I wish Emmaline hadn’t taken that poem. I need to read it …’

‘What are you
saying
?’

‘It’s not possible,’ he whispered. ‘There’s a line in magic – a line you can’t cross. You can’t heal the unhealable.

You
can’t
 …’

‘What are you saying, Abe?’

But I knew. I knew before Emmaline burst into the room, her eyes wide, her breath panting.

‘Simon messaged back,’ she managed. ‘He says …’ Then she looked from my face, to Abe’s, and then back again. ‘You’ve worked it out.’

‘No,’ I said reflexively. I needed to hear her say it. Needed to hear her repeat Simon’s cool, forensic analysis of the lines. I stood up, facing her.

‘Why?’ Em said.

‘Say it, Em!’ I cried.

‘He says there’s two possibilities,’ Em said slowly, her eyes flickering from me, to Abe, then back again. ‘But they both lead to the same thing. There’s a reason you didn’t die in that car crash with Seth. There’s a reason why you’ve walked away from so many accidents that should have been fatal. You …’

She stopped.

‘I – I can’t be killed?’ I choked out.

‘You
can
be killed,’ Emmaline corrected. ‘But as long as you have a spark of witchcraft left in your body, you can will yourself back to life. And Simon thinks …’

She paused, as if suddenly doubting whether to go on.

‘What?’ Abe said sharply. His voice was hard and curt. ‘Spit it out.’

‘Simon thinks there’s a strong possibility it’s not just Anna. He thinks … she can do the same for others.’

‘He thinks she can raise the
dead
?’ Abe said. His naked chest rose and fell, and Em suddenly seemed to clock my rumpled clothes and Abe’s missing shirt.

‘What the hell’s been going on here?’ she asked thoughtlessly, and then flinched as she realized. ‘No. Don’t tell me.’

‘Does this matter?’ Abe shouted. ‘Does any of this matter any more? Anna is the holy grail, for crying out loud – a witch who can raise the
dead
. Do you realize what this means?’