Abby the Witch Read online

  Then she was upon it, the break in the clouds stretching out above her.

  It was a calm, a strange calm. Moonlight filtered in from the rift above, a perfect circular hole in the monstrous storm.

  It was almost serene.

  Something white caught her eye, and she looked down through her rain-soaked lashes to see something sink between the waves.

  She brought the broom down, her legs plunging into the swell and shoved her hands into the seething surf. They grabbed onto something and she pulled with all her might.

  Her broom span wildly as she tried to lift the man from the clutches of the ocean. But just as the recognition washed over her, that what she had saved from the waves was an actual human being, so did a huge wave.

  Clutching at the body with both her arms, trying to hurl it across her broom while keeping Charlie tucked safely next to her chest, she closed her eyes against the wall of water.

  The ocean roared.

  Desperately, with only her legs to steer, she shot out of the water, finally securing the man in front of her.

  She angled her broom up, trying to escape the slap of the waves. Up and up and before she knew, Abby had flown through the break in the clouds.

  There was a strange moment, a strange rushing, a strange quiet. The world seemed to tip: to slant like a framed picture being corrected against the wall. And then things became very cold indeed.

  But as quickly as it had begun it was over. The break in the clouds disappeared, and the storm rolled back in even angrier than before.

  Back was the drenching rain, the roar of the wind, and slam of the surf.

  She had to get him to safety, Abby reminded herself, pushing all wonder from her mind.

  Abby held on with all her might, willing the man not to be dead, or not to die before she could get him ashore. She begged her hands not to lose their grip as she headed for the cliffs, rising higher as the waves began to burst up from the ocean like hungry hands.

  The ocean wanted the man back and was more than a little angry she'd snatched him from it.

  Witches did not get along with the sea.

  Just as a huge wave descended from behind, Abby raised the broom sharply and swung wildly towards the cliffs. She forced the broom into a vertical rise to climb quicker. The considerable weight of the man, and poor Charlie squeezed between him, knocked into her and she almost let go of the broom completely.

  But with one arm around his middle, the other holding desperately to the broom, she reached the top of the cliff.

  She didn't even bother to look if she was alone. Bone-weary, numb, and close to falling, she crashed into the soaked ground, letting the man roll off beside her.

  Abby had managed, at least, to get the man ashore. The storm had not, apparently, been able to rob her of that.

  ~~~

  It was odd waking up in an unfamiliar place – especially for a witch. Witches, what with one thing and another, are usually blessed with a very keen sense of place. They'll know when someone has been rooting around their sock drawer and when the fine china cups have been moved. If someone had broken in to eat their porridge and ruffle up their fine cotton sheets, they'd have guessed it about two metres up the garden path.

  That's why it is very dangerous to steal from a witch. Not only would she know exactly what you stole and probably where you hid it, but her sense of inner justice would have her round your mother's place dobbing you in before you could even pull the stocking from off your face.

  There was a disadvantage of having such a keen sense of place though. When something moved, and most things make it their habit to, a witch feels it. And when it's something big, when you've lost your house in a fire or have woken up on your neighbour's haystack half-drunk and covered in pie – a witch really feels it. It's like a train running over her toes or a house falling flat on your face – something memorable and quite impossible to ignore.

  So when Abby regained consciousness every bone in her body tingled like it had been set on fire then doused in a bucket of ice-cold water. It was worse, far worse than the time her house had been buried under an unusually deep rift of snow, or the time Ms Crowthy had accidently set fire to their woodshed.

  From the tips of her toes to the very last frazzled hair on her head – Abby knew something was very wrong indeed.

  Sure enough, when she opened her eyes, Abby was greeted by the sight of an unfamiliar ceiling. It was wooden with huge supporting struts the size of tree trunks running along its width. There was something decidedly rustic about it; she could even see a section of thatch popping through from the outside.

  The smell of honey and milk warming over a fire gently filled the air. Abby prided herself on her unusually keen sense of smell, and with her mind racing to find the answer to where she was, it was a pleasant distraction.

  She fluttered her eyes closed again, trying to concentrate with all her might on her jittery witchly senses. Why did she feel so off? Why did she feel so very wrong? Was there something she was meant to be doing? Some other place she was meant to be?

  Her reverie was interrupted by a shuffling sound, and she opened her eyes just as a kindly voice said, 'hh hello there, dear, you've finally woken up then!'

  Abby didn't jump, though her heart felt like it had popped out of her rib cage with fright. She swivelled her head until a warm ruddy face came into view.

  A woman with greying black hair and watery brown eyes was peering down at her, a decidedly motherly twist to her broad smile. 'I'm glad to see you're awake– you've been sleeping nearly all the morning. That boy of yours got up hours ago, but you just kept on sleeping merrily. You must have got quite a chill from that storm last night, I'd say. So here,' the woman whipped a steaming mug of honey and milk in front of Abby, 'you just have a drink of this.'

  It was an information overload. Storm, boy, night – every word set off a huge explosion of gut-wrenching recognition until Abby snapped up, her brow slick with sweat. 'Where's Pembrake? Is he alright? The storm! What happened? And where's my cat?' Abby realised with a desperate sweep of her head that Charlie was nowhere to be seen.

  'Now, now, now,' the woman sat heavily on the side of Abby's bed, her smile morphing into a strict frown, 'you just take it easy there, dear, everything's alright. That cat of yours is curled up by the fire purring like a putting engine.' The woman forced the mug into Abby's hand and steered it up until she was forced to take a sip.

  'But,' Abby swallowed the liquid quickly, glad for the warmth against her parched throat, 'where-'

  'Oh that boy of yours is fine enough too. He's a strong one, I wouldn't wonder. He'd hardly woken up and he was out of bed quizzing us about some ship. But likes we said, we've never heard of no Royal Blue.'

  'What? But…. But it often docks in the bay – everybody knows that.'

  The old lady peered down at Abby with crinkle-nosed confusion. 'Well I didn't know, nor did me husband, Alfred, nor did any of the other fisherman round these parts – and you'd think we would, dear. What with us practically living on the bay and all.'

  Abby opened her mouth to protest further but stopped. The feeling was still there curling around her body like a strangling jungle vine – something was very, very wrong. She stared down into the swirling, eddying mug of milk, willing the movement to help her understand what on Earth was going on.

  'He was like you, dear, couldn't believe that we hadn't heard of her, kept on asking if she's sunk and if the Captain had made it ashore. Why, Alfred could see the boy wasn't going to get anywhere with us just telling him there weren't no Royal Blue around – so he's taken the boy out to the bay so he can see for himself. Left me here to look after you, he did.'

  'So Pembrake is okay?' Abby held tight onto that knowledge; it was something right in the swell of wrongness.

  'Oh yes, good strong lad you've got there miss.' The woman winked knowingly.

  Except Abby wasn't sure what it was the woman thought she knew. Then it dawned on her. 'Oh no… we aren't
…' she felt a hot blush take to the corner of her cheeks.

  'Oh really,' the woman said disbelievingly. 'When Alfred found the two of you, you was practically stretched on top of him you were. Alfred said it looked as if you'd fought off the very sea to protect him then fainted right there on the cliff. I said it was the sweetest thing I'd ever heard. Young love is just so beautiful, me dear.' The woman was speaking with such passion she'd clutched a hand to her heaving bosom.

  Abby shook her head meekly, every loud warning from Ms Crowthy about being with boys going off in her mind, her blush only growing deeper with every breath.

  'No need to be embarrassed, child – I was young too once,' the woman sighed deeply and fixed her eyes on a patch of stonewall longingly, before coming back to herself and patting Abby's leg through the blanket. 'Anyhow, I'm sure they'll be back soon. You just rest here,' the woman stood up and pulled the covers taut from where she'd been sitting, 'and I'll go and fix you some soup and bread.'

  With the woman gone, Abby cast her eyes around the unfamiliar room intently, looking for some clue of where she was. It was strange. It looked like other houses in Bridgestock. But somehow, from the quaint furnishings to the colour of her bedspread – things seemed strangely old, almost as if the room was decorated to remind the occupants of the past.

  Abby pulled her still warm mug closer into her chest, until she could feel the warmth through her clothes, but the simple move was not enough to ward off the chill that had been steadily spreading from her heart since the woman had told her she had never heard of the Royal Blue.

  For the first time in her life, Abby felt the impossible urge to look at a clock. Most witches go from birth to grave without ever wondering once what the time is. Ms Crowthy had often pointed out that witches have the most accurate of internal clocks and shouldn't be bothering with nonsense watches. Watches, after all, break and witches rarely do. Plus, you can't be trusting no manmade timepiece – it'd only go lying to you.

  But Abby felt this overpowering urge to look at a timepiece. A sundial, a watch, a grandfather clock – it wouldn't matter, she just needed to know the time.

  Time, strangely, was not a topic Ms Crowthy was fond of. The only lessons Abby had ever had on it, had been hushed warnings delivered in front of a blazing fire, as if the Crone had been worried time would creep in on a cold night and kill them all.

  It wasn't that she was afraid of it, Ms Crowthy had sharply informed her, it was that other people didn't fear it enough and that's what frightened the socks off the old Crone. The most powerful stuff in the universe, as she'd put it, and people just think they can catch it in a clock and be done with it. Except you can't capture it, not in a diary or a watch or a calendar, because while you are sitting there and admiring the tiny amount of time you'd trapped, the rest of time is roaring on behind you. And you miss out. You lose 'perspective' Ms Crowthy had said, proud she'd found a use for such a large word.

  Things can happen fast, slow, and all together immediately, and you wouldn't know, because as far as you're concerned it took exactly 3 minutes and 15 seconds for farmer Peaches' house to crumble to the ground. You lose the quality of time when you quantify it, and in baking your pie for exactly 45 minutes you might forget the rest of the universe has gone through far more time, far more explosions and crashes and bangs than you could possibly fit in your nightly diary entry. You forget that time runs differently for every single person, and yet, it is the one thing that binds us all together.

  So, Ms Crowthy had concluded, don't be forgetting that time is the most powerful stuff in the universe and don't you go messing with it.

  Abby swallowed hard and looked down at her hands. Why couldn't she shake the feeling that she had broken that one golden rule? Why couldn't Abby convince herself, sitting in this unfamiliar bed, in this unfamiliar room, that everything was fine, that whatever was wrong could be fixed with a long hot bath and a good lie down?

  But most of all, why couldn't Abby figure out what the time was? She was a witch, for crying out loud, why couldn't she figure out whether it was quarter-past-one in the afternoon on Tuesday the 1st of April in the Year of the Rose or something else entirely.

  ~~~

  'But,' Pembrake looked at the calm, empty, bay and felt a shudder run across his shoulder blades, 'where could she be?'

  Alfred just shook his head, biting down softly on his pipe with a comforting smile. 'It'll be alright, son. Be sure, if a ship had sunk here last night – we'd have known about it. We'd have all been out of our houses running into that surf looking for survivors, you be sure of that. But just look at the bay, look at them rocks – nothing sank last night.'

  Cold, aching weight stretched through his limbs, threatening to pull his body right through the wet sand like a meteor plunging from the heavens. Where was his ship?

  Alfred had lent him clothes and, although the old man's shift stretched tightly over Pembrake's body, he was glad at least that they were dry. They were rough though, and Pembrake found himself itching at his collar distractedly.

  How could a ship just disappear? Where was the crew, where was the Captain?

  He caught the old man looking at him with a wary side-glance, and Pembrake tried for a thin-lipped smile. 'I don't understand.' he conceded, gesturing to the barren beach.

  'You did, ah,' the old man paused to scratch his long grey beard, 'get knocked out, son. Mind can do funny things-'

  'I'm the Commander of the Royal Blue,' Pembrake said coldly, 'and I know she sank here last night.'

  'Alright, but you can sees for yourself, she ain't here now, what more do you want?'

  I want my ship back, Pembrake thought viciously as he walked his eyes along the small strip of sand that separated the cliff from the Knife Rocks. He knew this section of beach, he used to walk along here with his mother when he was a boy, he knew that funny-shaped rock that looked like a lion's head, and the other perfectly level one where he'd once had a picnic with Miss Patridge - he knew this beach and yet he didn't know it. It should have had some sign of the Royal Blue.

  'Well …' Alfred put a gnarled hand on Pembrake's shoulder, ‘we best be getting back, son. That girl of yours is probably awake by now.'

  Pembrake just nodded. “That girl of his”, even though he had only seen her twice in his whole life, was the only one he could think of that would have some answers for him. She was the girl he'd seen outside his mother's house and then again outside the pub where she'd told him her name – Abby. She was the only reason he hadn't marched down into town and demanded why the citizens and Guards of Bridgestock weren't out looking for survivors.

  He needed her to fill in the gaps in his memory. What had he been doing on that cliff? And more to the point, how had he gotten there? Last he remembered he was letting go of the sinking mast, all vice in his frozen hands lost to the churning sea. So where had she come in?

  'Yes,' Pembrake took one last long look at the calm waters of the bay, 'I suppose we had better get back,' he said quietly, his heart heavy.

  'We're both men of the sea, son, I understand the storm in your mind,' Alfred patted him warmly once more and, keeping his hand on Pembrake's back, turned him away from the cliff.

  ~~~

  Abby stood at the window, the thick woollen blanket from the bed wrapped around her shoulders, staring out at the sea below.

  She chewed on her lip distractedly, waiting for a solution to present itself to her mind, waiting for any kind of reason or explanation that might help her to understand what was going on.

  Nothing.

  Sighing fitfully, she walked off around the small room ending up in front of the tapestry. Up close she could see the seal of the Royal Family and the familiar crown of the Queen. Except it was not the current Queen, which was strange. Even staunch Royalists rarely bothered to display pictures of past Queens and Kings.

  Abby turned from the tapestry, a strange confusion setting in, just as the thick material that hung from the doorway – concealing her r
oom from the rest of the unexplored house – was pushed aside.

  An old, wizened face with a stupendous grey beared pushed through. He blinked two small eyes at her then nodded sharply. 'Awake then. young lass? Well that's good, isn't it? What say I leave you two alone to catch up for a bit while I go and check on the missus?' The old man retreated behind the curtain again and Abby found herself nodding blankly at the empty room.

  Then the curtain was pushed to the side again and someone else stepped through.

  Abby found her mouth clicking open as she recognised those broad shoulders, the smooth light brown skin, and piercing green eyes. It was the man from yesterday, the naval officer that had rescued her from the sea of sailors. 'You!' she tried to keep the accusatory tone from her voice, but her mind was racing. 'You're Pembrake?'

  'Do you know me?' His eyes locked onto hers hopefully. 'Do you know where we are?' He took a sharp step forward as she recoiled slightly from the panicked urgency in his voice. 'Look, I don't mean to upset you, I know you've only just woken up but please, do you know what happened last night?' His expression was a palpable mix of confusion and desperation.

  'I,' Abby clutched at the blanket around her and found her eyes slipping to the tapestry, 'don't really know….'

  'They said they found us on Knife Cliff. What were you doing there?' Pembrake interrupted quickly, clearly dissatisfied with Abby's hesitation. 'Please, this is really important.'

  Abby sniffed quietly, the half-constrained panic rippling off Pembrake was making her head hurt and lighting a fire under her own latent sense of dread. 'I…' but how much could she tell him? She was a witch, their surroundings may be unfamiliar, but she could count on the world still hating her kind. 'I don't know,' she lied.

  His eyes searched hers with a keen ferocity that saw her blush creep back up her cheeks. 'Are you sure?'

  'Yes.'

  'Then you can't help me,' he said flatly and he turned abruptly away to stare out the small window.

  There were a few seconds of strained silence before Abby broke it by asking: 'I… do… do you know what the time is?' the question had pushed its way from her mouth before she could stop it, and she put a hand up as if to catch it before it reached him.