Abby the Witch (5 page)

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.

She had to do
it….

'Abby!' Mrs
Hunter and Charlie both snapped at once.

Abby startled.
'Okay.'

Abby knelt
down and picked up the bracelet, covering her hand with her sleeve
so her skin did not touch it.

She had no
choice now, right? She had to do this. She had to jump off the top
of the burning tower and meet death and the fool on her way down to
solid ground.

Adventure
doesn't pick you, Ms Crowthy would say, it shanghais you – punching
you firmly in the gut and dragging you away by your collar.

Now Abby could
feel it, and she could not pretend it did not exist anymore. She
was being swept up in an Adventure – her, Abigail Gail the Witch of
Bridgestock.

What a
bother.

~~~Pembrake
Hunter~~~

Bridgestock, the
morning of the Storm of the Century….

Pembrake
Hunter sighed once more. It was becoming a habit, a bitter,
gut-twisting habit. Bridgestock was killing him and all he could do
was sigh.

Pembrake
climbed the stairs, his feet pounding heavily against the rough
stone. It was disconcerting being on solid land, not feeling the
slightest sway of the ocean underneath. But the unnerving solidity
couldn't distract his mind too long. Noticing the change of a
familiar shop front, or how a street had been renamed to celebrate
the Colonel – these things weren't enough to distract him
forever.

As Pembrake
climbed the final stair he pinched the bridge of his nose. At least
the end was in sight. If he played his cards right, he would never
have to come back to this place again.

Pembrake
always felt strange when he came back to Bridgestock. In a way it
was quite different to the other places he'd visited. And no, it
wasn't the buildings, the unique layout of the city built into the
hill as it were, or even the way it smelt - it was the way
it 
felt
. Oppressive was the only word that came to
mind, like the sky was going to fall in on him.

Pembrake
always wore his uniform in Bridgestock. It had a dual purpose – it
would serve to impress and it would serve to protect. The women of
Bridgestock were the finest in all the lands, except perhaps for
the leggy wonders of the South Islands, or the long-lashed
dark-eyed beauties of Elogia. Nevertheless, Bridgestockian women
weren't all that bad, and they always fell for a man in uniform.
But Pembrake had a much keener, much less roguish need to keep the
white uniform of the Royal Navy visible at all times – to stop the
stares, the snake-like comments, and the barely-concealed
hostility. It was the colour of his skin; and coming back to
Bridgestock, his hometown, was the only place it ever seemed to
matter.

Pembrake had
sailed the world with the Navy and nowhere did his appearance seem
to matter so completely as it did in Bridgestock. Even in Elogia
they did not care so much about the colour of his skin as his
allegiance to the Westlands. He was their enemy, not because of
what he looked like, because of something he had no power to
change, but because of the simple fact they were soon to be at war.
Grievances that begin conflict – border disputes, assassinations,
resource grabs – these are all matters that can be resolved. But it
is impossible to 'resolve' appearance because it cannot be
changed.

So coming back
to Bridgestock, hearing his feet pound sullenly along the saturated
beams of the dock – always saw an empty ache settle in Pembrake's
stomach. There was something wrong about Bridgestock, something you
couldn't notice until you'd been away for a long time.

And whatever
it was that made Bridgestock so claustrophobic and unwelcoming,
well, it was only getting worse. Every time the Royal Blue docked
at Bridgestock, Pembrake found his chest constricting a touch
tighter, his jaw setting a touch squarer, and his mind becoming a
touch harder.

It was
destroying him to even step foot in this town. Nowhere else did the
destiny of one city seem so doomed and wrapped up in bitterness.
Nowhere else were divisions and bigotry so pronounced and
celebrated.

More and more,
Pembrake grew to hate this place, to hate its people, its history,
its very existence.

So he flicked
his eyes along the street that had opened up before him for the
tenth time and receded further under the protection of his stiff,
white cap until its shadow completely covered his face. It was time
to move from this city and never return. It was time to move on
with his own destiny and leave Bridgestock to implode by
itself.

This city had
never done anything for him, so he did not owe it a thing.

Growing up in
Bridgestock had not been fun. To survive he had had to deny, lie,
and change. Twist to the wants of his friends to gain even a touch
of acceptance, and even then at the price of self-humiliation.

For all
Pembrake Hunter cared, Bridgestock could go to hell.

8 years ago,
Bridgestock

'You smooth
pleck!' Ensign Western slapped Pembrake on the back and gave a wild
laugh. 'Another object of prey has fallen to the hunter, hey?'

The other lads
chuckled and Pembrake couldn't help but join I;, he'd been the one
who'd gone bragging to them, after all. He couldn't complain when
they were just carrying on with his joke.

'Tell me,
Pearson,' Western turned to the strapping Northlandian, acting as
the ringmaster in the circus of masculine ego, 'why does Hunter get
all the girls?'

Pearson looked
around at the gathered ensigns, building up the moment even though
they all knew what his answer would be. 'Why that would be on
account of his tan, contrasts nicely with his white suit.'

They all
laughed and, once again, Pembrake forced himself to join in, even
as he felt the humiliation twist around his gut. 'Hey, come on,
guys, I've told you before,’ he said through a hearty, but forced
laugh, 'both my parents are from Westland, seriously,' each
word was like slapping himself.

Western, the
striped blue and white of his regulation shirt stretching over his
shoulders, laughed like a crazed drunkard.
'We know, Pembrake, you keep telling us.'

The others
renewed their guffaws at the pointed answer, but Pembrake just
licked his lips and slowly forced himself to release the tight fist
he had made behind his back.

As the boys
rounded the corner to the wide street a terrible shriek rang out
like a shot, making the last of their chuckles die in their
throats. The noise brought people pouring out of the shops and
taverns lining the street and they all turned to watch as several
guards walked imperiously towards them.

'Make way for
the witch,' the leader spat, moving to one side slightly to
reveal a wild woman being restrained by two of the guards

They dragged
the old witch between them like she was a piece of meat as she spat
and screamed, hurling strange, hissed words at her captors before
turning her bright yellow eyes on the crowd. 'You'll regret
thisss!' She said in the standard tongue, her s's long and g's
heavy. 'All of you, all of you.'

The two
muscular guards that gripped her, laughed with an assured
callousness. 'Speaks Standard, does she? That's a big feat for a
witch. Look, Bill,' one guard motioned to his mate, 'this one isn't
a complete idiot.'

The other
guard chuckled, his fat neck jiggling like a bowl of jelly. 'Yeah,
Sarge, I had a cousin what married a goat once – I reckon
she's at least as smart as him, if not smarter.'

'Now, now,
Bill, don't be mean to your cousin.'

The old women
howled. Her ragged hair, that was twisted and knotted around beads,
beat against the guards' arms as she thrashed.

Pembrake
watched uncomfortably. Some of the lads beside him were howling
with laughter again, their tones cruel and their comments
crueller.

'God, they
should have gotten rid of the old hag earlier – she looks likes
she's been rotting in her hut.'

'They'll have
to demolish her hovel and build something over it, a tip, maybe, to
improve the view,' Ensign Western was almost crying with
laughter.

But Pembrake
couldn't bring himself to join in. He knew he should laugh, he knew
he should pretend this was the funniest thing he'd ever seen. But
he simply couldn't bring himself to do it.

'Go on,
Pembrake, what do you think?' Western jabbed him hard in the
ribs.

He couldn't
describe what he was feeling. It wasn't so much revulsion as
terror. The pit of his stomach was so cold it felt like he'd jumped
into the iciest ocean. He wanted his mind to come up with
something, to either condemn or laugh wildly. But he couldn't. All
Pembrake Hunter knew was that the fear was snaking through his
veins like a poison.

'Hunter!'
Western grabbed his shoulder and pulled him up onto the cobbled
pavement out of the way of the guards and their prisoner. Pembrake
had been so caught up in the scene, in the terror and fear, that he
hadn't resisted Western's pull.

'Hey,
you're unusually pale,' Western always had a jovial tone,
even when he was proclaiming the dirtiest of insults.

He knew what
Western was, yet again, insinuating and it was the one fear that
could trump the frigid numbness that had arced across Pembrake's
back. 'She's,' Pembrake began slowly, shifting his eyes from the
thrashing woman and settling them on a tuft of grass sprouting
through the cobbles, 'even uglier than the Lieutenant's
mother. And I wouldn't bother building a tip over her house; it
would make all the rubbish smell too bad.'

This drew a
laugh from all his friends and the guards too. Western slapped him
on the back several times as he guffawed with a sound like a
drowning frog.

The old woman
stopped shrieking abruptly, her last hiss ending like a shot of
steam. She tucked her head down onto her chest as if she were
falling asleep. Then, with a slow roll she let her face angle up,
her yellow eyes resting on Pembrake. 'You.'

There was no
question: she was talking to him. The fear hit him again like a
blast of sea spray in a storm.

'You! The
past, the future, the present!' her eyes widened, rimming her
pupils with a thick band of white. 'Walking through time, up and
down, round and round,' her head lolled in great circles, 'got a
chance like no other, chance to change, to break, to fix again. But
this time,' her voice descended into a growl, 'don't break my
window!' She struggled wildly against the guards' hold and they had
to stop laughing to shore up their grips. 'Fix it all!' She
screamed so loudly a window behind them rattled.

Then she broke
free with an enormous snap like a bent-over sapling returning to
its true position, but, rather than rush at the crowd wildly like
everyone expected, she just stood there and stared at Pembrake as
the guards behind reigned in their surprise.

'Fix it!' she
spoke with a horrific finality, with a weight behind her words that
seemed to make the world tilt on its axis.

Then, with a
terrible, almost wet snap, the Sergeant smacked his baton hard
across the back of the witch's head and she fell, her collapse
viewed by the onlookers with as much import as a drop of rain
falling into the ocean.