Abby the Witch Read online

  'Nonsense.' Mrs Hunter turned towards the patio doors, 'now come in out of the cold.'

  Abby paused and tried very hard to think quickly. Charlie was right; Abby was best to go home and ignore this storm and bury her head in the sand until it had whistled on by. But surely she could do that after a cup of tea and biscuits…?

  And so, ignoring Charlie's hissed warnings that if they stopped to have tea with the old dear they would never get home before the storm properly hit, Abby meekly followed Mrs Hunter into her sumptuous kitchen.

  ~~~

  'You don't say?' The man took a long draw from his glass and returned it to the table with a clang. 'Run aground she has?'

  'Aye – about a half-hour up the coast. It was those winds coming off the south.'

  'Someone's stirred up the devil and no mistake,' the man paused, seemingly to whet his lips. 'She's going to get killed on those rocks if that storm comes true.'

  'Aye.'

  Both men turned to glance out the window at the racing clouds.

  ~~~

  The Royal Blue was one of the flagships of the fleet. Huge, powerful, and fast. She had been known to outrun even the fastest of the Samarian pirate ships. She was proven against the Elogian fleet too, even in battle with their most powerful gunships. But power and speed could not help her now. She had run aground on the Knife Rocks along the winding coast of Bridgestock.

  Every sailor aboard would try their darndest to pull her free of the rocks, but it wouldn't be enough. Something different, something dark was stirring in those clouds, and that something had the Royal Blue in its sights.

  The Captain yelled orders over the swirling wind, his Commander picked them up, standing on the base of the bridge stairs, and bellowed them at the awaiting crew. His keen, deep voice cracked through the howl of the gale that, as it whipped ferociously above them, sounding like a thousand wolves stuck in a cage.

  The energy of the men was frenetic. Drenched, striving against the constant tilt of the ship, they hurled themselves across the deck to their tasks, their loyalty and respect towards their captain forcing them onwards even as they could see it was a lost cause.

  'Captain!' The Commander pointed at the topmast.

  A massive fracture line ran deep through the wood.

  It could withstand no more.

  Soon it would break.

  ~~~

  'Abby get away from the window, please!' Charlie peeked out from underneath the blankets. 'The glass could blow in!'

  Abby reached out and placed a flat hand on the wobbling pane. It calmed under her touch slightly. She was pretty sure it wouldn't break. Because, after all, this was not the storm of the century, and if it wasn't the storm of the century then it wouldn't go around breaking attic windows that belonged to witches….

  'I'm worried,' she mumbled to herself as she crossed the room to stand before the lantern burning on the table, the only source of light in the room.

  'I'm terrified.' Charlie's muffled voice came from under the covers.

  'No…' Abby stared at the flame, watching it pitch back and forth in its case as if a draft had somehow squeezed between the glass. 'Not about the storm.…'

  They'd managed to make it back from Mrs Hunters with time to spare before the storm hit. Charlie had been very productive and had at once set about grabbing his favourite blanket in his mouth and pulling it to a space on Abby's bed that was furthest out of the draught. Abby had just sat down heavily at the table and stared at her hands, lost in thought.

  The lines of destiny on her hands were very different from what she remembered….

  Thoughts kept on flitting past her mind, not tangible and formed, but loose like wisps of smoke. Her feelings of unease had grown. She felt that simply by getting out of bed this morning she'd set in motion a terrible set of events that she could never hope to mend. And the feeling ground her to the spot like a sack full of potatoes.

  As darkness had encroached from outside, the dark clouds finally claiming the remaining light of dusk, Abby had lit her candles and waited.

  There was an important lesson she'd once learnt from Ms Crowthy, and it was about reading the future. For some reason Abby wanted to know what lay in her future, now more than ever. She wanted to look ahead and see that, regardless of the storm, regardless of the cards, everything would turn out right. The storm would blow over and the cards would turn out to mean nothing – she wanted to see her future safe and steady.

  According to Ms Crowthy, telling the future wasn't that hard really; all you had to do was watch to see how things moved. If you watched closely, if you concentrated really hard on the path an object took through space, you could predict what would happen next. But it was not just that you can say the floating parchment will fall to the ground, or that the babbling brook will drain into the river – because that's just remembering things. No, the movement of the slightest thing, to the trained eye of a witch, could be used to predict anything in her environment.

  The sad fact was, witch or no, people get distracted, there is too much stuff going on in people's heads to really pay attention to the world. Plus, the more you watched – as Ms Crowthy had put it while she was stoking her huge cast iron stove for a pie – the less you can do. So you had to strike a balance, find a way to let your second sight run along in the background of your mind so you could still bake a loaf of bread or see to the hens before nightfall. Second sight was a gift, but there was a reason it was called second. If you allowed it to run all the time, if you paid absolute attention to the fall of an autumn leaf while on a walk in the forest, you wouldn't see the cliff till you were very dead at the bottom of it.

  Plus, you always missed out on the details. There are many versions or perspectives of reality running along at the one moment, as numerous as the many souls in the universe, in fact. And second sight only ever gave you one version. So it never really made full sense. It was like seeing events shot by an amateur film maker: there were a lot of close ups of the fly on the wall and an interesting pattern in the sand – but very little plot.

  It is, after all, said that it is only with the benefit of hindsight that events become clear. So it is only logical that if you can't understand things in the present, you can't possibly hope to understand things in the future. So, yes, second sight was a gift – true, but it was also a right bother.

  Taking all this into account, it was unsurprising Abby could make something out in the dance of the flame then. Even less surprising that it was unformed: wild and erratic like the fevered pitch of a wasp.

  She leaned closer till she could feel the heat on her face.

  'Abby?' Charlie pulled himself out of the covers.

  Shapes danced to and fro in the heart of the flame, like shadows on a white wall.

  'Abby?' Charlie jumped to the floor. 'You okay?'

  There was s dark sky above, a dark sky below, but deeper, colder, stifling.

  'Abby?'

  Rising through the air, rising up into a new sky.

  'Abby!' Charlie gently bit at her bare foot.

  Abby jumped, and the vision of rising – the all encompassing greyness and horrific vertigo – popped like a soap bubble. 'Ow!'

  'You looked like you needed some help there. I don't know if you'd noticed, but those were your eyebrows singing.'

  'Oh,' Abby rubbed at her face, suddenly aware of the latent heat prickling across her skin. 'Thanks.'

  'Sure, kid. Your foot tastes pretty bad by the way. You might want to take a bath sometime soon.'

  'Well, now that you mention it – I was planning a little impromptu shower.' Abby remarked absentmindedly.

  'Aha.' Charlie padded over to his water bowl, clearly uninterested. 'Don't forget to use soap.'

  'I don't think I'll have time.' She walked over to the door and grabbed her broom. As an afterthought she grabbed her jacket too. 'But I'm sure the rain will soak me through.'

  Charlie spun on the spot. 'What? You can't be serious, Abby! Listen to the wind
!'

  'I am, and you're coming too.' Abby lurched for the door, the remnants of the long ascent she'd envisaged making her dizzy.

  'You are serious. Abby!'

  'Look I have to do this, Charlie. Something is going to happen, someone is in danger… I have to save someone, I think. I think it is very important I save someone.' Abby's voice came in sharp little bursts.

  'No you don't. That's what the doctors and guards are for, Abby – you're just a –'

  'Witch.'

  'Ab-'

  'Come on, Charlie; we have to do this.'

  Charlie rolled his eyes but bounded after her, jumping into her arms with an annoyed mew.

  She raced down the stairs of the old building, avoiding the cracks and holes in the wood, allowing her broom to lift her just that little bit so her feet just grazed them. To do otherwise would see her knee deep in splintered timber. It was a tremendous security feature Charlie had pointed out, unless termites and cockroaches were invading…which they sort of were.

  She didn't really know where she was going, only that she had to be somewhere. Images of a body tossing through the waves filled her mind. Then, and this had come to her the millisecond before Charlie had bitten her, a man lying sodden on the edge of a cliff and her – Abby – standing over him.

  That's how she knew she had to be somewhere. Just who exactly she would save, where, and from what, was lost on her right now, but that shouldn't be too much of a problem; she was a witch, after all.

  So Abby hit the howling streets with Charlie in her arms, looking for the one person that the future knew needed her.

  It did not take long for Charlie to point out that this was a terrible plan. She'd had some horrible vision, fair enough, but wilfully going out during the storm of the century was suicide. It went directly against the witchly code of sitting by the sidelines and just watching destiny whizz on by with a cup of tea in your hands and a thoughtful look in your eyes. This was getting involved, Charlie had assured her, and getting involved was wrong.

  First there was the cards, then the storm, now a terrible vision of rescuing someone - was she trying to be swept up in adventure, Charlie had asked with his whiskers twitching madly as they'd run down another street. And she did not want an adventure, he'd reminded her, she really, really did not want an adventure.

  But the strangest thing happened as Abby pounded along the streets, searching for some clue that would lead her to whoever it was that she needed to save. She started to feel… right. The heavy burden and guilt of this morning were giving way to an almost heady knowledge that this was right. Yes, she should be out here looking for someone. Charlie was wrong; this wouldn't lead to adventure… all she was going to do was save someone….

  After a while Abby found herself on the familiar wide boulevard of Esquire Street. She hadn't planned on stopping for long, but had run along half the street only to find a sodden figure standing propped against the wall.

  Abby had approached the figure warily, not wanting whoever it was to be scared off by the black cat and broom, but within metres she'd recognised Mrs Hunter. The old dame was standing against her own stonewall, looking up into the swirling clouds, her clothes and hair drenched.

  'Mrs Hunter?' Water dribbled off Abby's lips as she spoke. 'What are you doing out in the rain?' Abby had to shout against a sudden powerful blast of wind.

  Mrs Hunter lazily shifted her eyes to Abby. 'Pembrake,' she said softly, 'he's in trouble… I can hear him.'

  Abby reeled back on her feet as if she'd been burnt, and she could feel the prickle of Charlie's fur as it stood completely on end. Magic was crackling around Mrs Hunter and hissing as the rain slammed down from above.

  Without stopping to think, Abby guided Mrs Hunter back up her garden path and through the swinging open door. She had to get off the street before someone saw them, before someone raised the alarm and called the Guards.

  It wasn't until she'd locked the door behind them that Abby let the surprise shake through to her bones. Her mouth was so dry from the shock that it felt like her tongue was grating past sandpaper.

  Abby did not know much about magical talismans, she had to admit. After all, very few still existed, especially in Bridgestock of all places. But Ms Crowthy had still taught the young Abby how to identify the effects of a proper talisman – how to read the aura that it gave its user, how to understand the signs and symbols that would appear at their feet.

  So with her head turgid from a strange tingle as if she had been struck hard on the skull, Abby looked at Mrs Hunter square on. The old lady was standing perfectly still, staring up at the ceiling as if she could see straight through it and out at the rolling clouds above. Her eyes were darting quickly from the left to the right, as if she were watching a scene of theatre, or trying to keep a vast panorama in her sights all at once.

  Abby looked down at Mrs Hunter's hands and, sure enough, they were gripped over some object with white knuckled pressure.

  'Abby,' Charlie croaked, 'what's happening to her?'

  Abby moved forward very carefully. There was nothing for it; she would just have to do it. 'Get down, Charlie, 'she released him from her grip.

  'Abby, you can't just pull it out of her hands!'

  Abby ignored his warning and within another second had closed her hands over Mrs Hunter's. She pried them open to reveal a bracelet with stone beads.

  She grabbed it.

  A crack in the mast so deep that is would surely break! And the winds, so terrible and quick, so biting and powerful that the waves were thrashing with murderous ferocity. They could never survive, they would surely all die. The Captain, the crew – all of them were done for.

  The wood beneath his feet was cracking up around him like a giant clawed hand clutching up from the depths. If he didn't impale on the shards of wood, then the icy sea would drown him for sure-

  'Abby!' Charlie had launched himself at her, clamping his mouth so fiercely over her wrist that his teeth drew blood.

  Abby dropped the bracelet and gasped, reeling backwards towards the wall till she came up sharply against it.

  'Abby, what is that thing?' Charlie was low to the ground and sniffing very carefully at the stone bracelet in the middle of the hallway.

  She had been in another person's mind, Abby realised with a terrible shiver. She had seen through the eyes of man: watched the terrible and unrelenting storm as he stood on the deck of a great ship as it broke up underneath his feet. She had heard his thoughts, felt his belly-shaking fear….

  Abby's eyes flicked to Mrs Hunter. She was standing in the hallway blinking disconcertedly, as if she had been woken from a deep sleep. Then her mind seemed to catch up to the situation and filled in the blanks with whatever was at hand. Both Charlie and Abby watched fearfully as Mrs Hunter took in their soaked appearances with confusion.

  'I was wondering when you'd arrive,' Mrs Hunter said after a small breath, 'I saw you coming through the front door this afternoon, but when I looked up I realised that it must have been much later.' Mrs Hunter nodded at her statement, as if she believed it to be the most clarifying thing that could possibly have been said in the situation.

  Abby locked her gaze onto Charlie, and he shared her wide-eyed shock. Mrs Hunter was using second sight.

  'All afternoon, ever since you left – I've not been able to get you off my mind,' Mrs Hunter continued unabated. 'I kept on seeing you coming through that door and taking the bracelet off me – over and over and over again.'

  It wasn't only witches that had second sight; it was a fairly common gift. Traders, merchants, and bankers all had it to some degree, though nothing compared to a fully grown witch.

  But now Mrs Hunter was standing there dripping on her carpet, relaying a completely accurate prediction with a frightening matter-of-fact tone.

  'My Pembrake is in trouble,' Mrs Hunter walked up to Abby, ignoring the bracelet at her feet, and staring directly into Abby's eyes, 'you saw it too, he's going to-' Mrs Hunter broke off
and shook her head.

  Abby would have wanted to deal with this situation better. She would have wanted to be free of the eerie tingle that was snaking over her back, the bell-bottom dread that was dragging at her stomach, and the ear-splitting buzz that was ringing in her ears.

  There was so much energy in this room. Mrs Hunter was still crackling form the effects of the bracelet and the bracelet itself seemed to be drawing the rest of the room into it like a giant hole sucking in all of space.

  For Abby it half seemed that everything she had been trying to avoid today – all those terrible portents and predictions – they were all coming to a head in this room. They were all coming to a head and being sucked straight into that bracelet….

  'Abby, I knew you would come, I know you can fix this,' Mrs Hunter's voice suddenly broke with pure emotion and Abby realised that the old woman had been holding herself in before. But now her watery eyes were dancing with fear and uncertainty.

  'Pembrake?'

  'My son. He's in trouble, Abby, he's… Abby you have to go and save him now! You have to take that broom of yours and fly like the wind! Abby,' Mrs Hunter grabbed Abby by the shoulders, ' you have to save my son!'

  It was too much information to process. Abby nodded weakly, her skin slick and prickly with sweat. The confrontation, the proximity – Abby was not used to such unbridled emotion. 'How did you know I was… a witch?' Abby's cheeks were burning with shame from the admission.

  'Don't worry about you being a witch, child; I've known since the first time I met you. I've seen you flying on the broom trying to reach my top windows several times, and I've heard Charlie chiding you even more. It doesn't matter. All that matters now is that you save my son!'

  Abby tried to back away, but there was nowhere to go. She tried to make her limbs move, but there was nowhere to run to. And she realised, with cold regret, that she had just walked into a burning tower.

  Abby was a witch. Mrs Hunter knew, and now she was charging Abby with rescuing her son from certain death.