Flinging myself down, I rocked back and forth, back and forth, as Jamie would do, till my hair and clothes were rain-sodden and I cowered in a pool of mud. When at last I dared to look round, it was gloomy-dark. Tree branches writhed in the wind whilst the damp leaves slithered. But the black dog was nowhere.
When I dragged myself down to Malkin Tower, my brow throbbed in fever. I was chilled through, shivering too hard to speak a word.
The second I crossed the threshold, Mam folded me in her arms and wept over me as though I'd crawled back from the dead. Turning to Gran and Jamie, she spoke up sharp.
"You two stop plaguing my girl. I don't want to hear another word about familiars." First time I'd ever seen her standing up to Gran.
Shooing the others from the room, she stripped off my wet clothes and dried me in front of the fire before helping me into a clean shift. Wrapping a blanket round me, she steered me to her own pallet. Mam, not Gran, brewed feverfew, mint, and valerian. She stayed by my side the whole night through, laying cool cloths upon my forehead till the fever broke.
We were of the same mind, my mother and I, wanting nothing more than that I should awaken the next morning with my health and peace of mind restored. That I would simply be her daughter again, plain Alizon Device. No cunning woman and no witch. No terrified thing chased down by spirits.
Heavy rain had turned the tracks of Pendle Forest into quagmires. Mam wouldn't allow me to walk to Bull Hole Farm, saying I'd catch my death. Instead she brought me and Jennet along to work at Henry Mitton's, his house being only a stone's throw from Malkin Tower. To be dead honest, I'd no liking for the man who had once refused Gran a penny when we were hungry and needy, and his goodwife was just as sour. In their draughty kitchen I was sat spinning with only the poorest of fires and a bowl of watery broth for comfort. But work was work. I spun till my fingers turned to lead whilst Mam carded and Jennet wound the yarn. High time my little sister learned to do something more useful than whine about my devil dog. At least she'd kept her promise not to tell anyone about Jamie's clay picture.
Jamie himself was working for Master Duckworth, in the hope that the man would give him his old linen shirt as a reward for mucking out the cow byre. Gran was left behind at Malkin Tower. Saddened me, it did, to think of her spending her hours so lonely, but I was well nervous round her these days. Though she'd left off even mentioning the dog, I could tell that underneath it all, she was disappointed in me. I'd let her down, so I had, but it was time for Gran to face the fact that I just wasn't made of the same stuff as she was.
On Sunday, with the roads awash in mud, Gran again stayed behind as the rest of us made our cumbersome way to the New Church.
Soon as I stepped through the lych-gate, I sensed something was not right. From the ash tree with its golden autumn leaves, a murder of crows cawed, raucous as a host of demons. The Holdens were gathered on the church porch with a cluster of folk about them. I spotted Nancy's parents, Matthew, and the little children, every one of them downcast.
Breathless, I raced up, looking for Nancy. Yet I knew even before Mistress Holden clutched me with shaking fingers that my friend had passed in her sleep. Forgetting myself, I wailed as though a hunk of flesh had been hacked from my side. Chattox had robbed me of my father, and now she'd stolen away my dearest friend.
Jagged and raw, I sobbed till Mam wrapped her arms round me and steered me into the church. Held my hand all through the service, she did, and her strength buoyed me. I knew that she understood my pain when Gran did not, so blinded Gran was by whatever loyalty had once bound her to Chattox. My eyes scoured the congregation for that hag's despicable face, but, like Gran, she'd stayed home, being too old and feeble to flounder those miles through the mud. Only Annie Redfearn and her girl had come, their skirts coated in muck.
Surely now the Holdens must lay blame upon Chattox. After church would be the perfect time, with all the parishioners to bear witness. Roger Nowell attended church in Whalley, but Constable Henry Hargreaves was right in our midst. One word to him and he'd ride for West Close, arrest her, and haul her in for questioning. Half of Pendle Forest would be willing to speak against her, so I wagered, and my mam would be first amongst them to denounce Anne Whittle as a murdering witch.
After we'd sung the final hymn and the Curate gave us leave to depart, I turned to Anthony Holden and waited for him to speak out, but he only hastened out of church. I ran after him.
Say it. Just open your mouth and have at it.
I was bold enough to reach for his hand and stare up, beseeching, at his face. My friend's father looked at me with brimming eyes. The man was fair unable to string two words together in the state he was in.
Mistress Holden took my arm. "Would you like to come back with us, Alizon, and see her one last time before we lay her in her coffin?"
My friend rested upon her bed, her hands crossed over her slender breast. Nancy was fresh and lovely as I'd ever seen her. Her mam had bathed and dressed her with such care, I could almost believe she was sleeping and would awaken any minute, smile into my eyes, and laugh at the cruel trick she'd played on us. She was clad in her best gown, trimmed in lace and velvet braid, as though it were her wedding day. A garland of Michaelmas daisies crowned her loosened hair. Stroking her curls, I could not get over how peaceable she looked, happy even, a smile upon her lips. But when I touched her cheek, it was cold as my father's had been the morning I'd rushed to his bedside to find him murdered.
Helpless and undone, I burst into tears. Mistress Holden hugged me close, and I cleaved to her as I'd once done to Nancy. When we drew apart, Mistress Holden took a folded blanket from the foot of Nancy's bed.
"This was hers," she said, offering it to me with both her hands. "Take it, love. She'd want you to have it."
I pressed my face to the wool, so warm and soft, with one of Nancy's long, curling hairs still clinging to the weave.
On my way home I bore the blanket high upon my shoulders to keep it clear of the mud.
That night I kept my promise to Nancy. Whilst the rest of my family slept, I prayed for her immortal soul, chanting my Aves till Jennet burrowed deep in the bedclothes to block out my voice. I prayed till my throat ached and my knees turned to wood, prayed that my friend might step through the gates of paradise into that glorious place where Chattox could never trouble her again.
***
The roads had dried out some by the day of Nancy's funeral, making it possible for Gran to make the journey with me guiding her along. When we reached the New Church, we could scarce squeeze our way through the throng gathered from far and wide. Nancy's godmother had travelled from Trawden Forest with her dark-haired nephew who had been Nancy's betrothed. I wondered if he would grieve her a tenth as much as I did.
Nancy's coffin was strewn with asters, ivy, and late-blooming roses, but when the men lowered it into the earth, dirt soon shrouded the lovely blooms. So it had been with my friend's life, snuffed out far too soon thanks to Chattox.
Gran craned her neck, her blind eyes raking the crowd. "She's missing. She didn't come."
"If Chattox isn't here," said Mam, "it's because the Holdens let it be known she wasn't welcome."
Gran's face twisted to one side as though a ghostly hand had slapped her. Even I had to admit I'd never heard of anybody being banned from a funeral. A serious slight, that was. Folk would murmur about it for weeks. This was the closest thing to an open condemnation that could transpire without Anthony Holden taking himself to Roger Nowell and outright declaring Chattox the agent of his daughter's death.
When the burial had ended, Mistress Holden was stood at the lych-gate handing out funeral doles to the poor. She gave us more bread than we could carry. But Chattox and her daughter would go without.
Winter took its toll. That miser Henry Mitton died, and the chill crippled my gran, freezing up her joints. She could no longer mount the tower stairs without one of us guiding her. During those months of cold and darkness, she dwindled and grew ever frailer. Only time she stopped shivering was when she was sat before the fire, though the smoke made her eyes stream. Yet her wits remained sharp as the wind trumpeting down the chimney.
One afternoon when the others were out, I stayed home to look after her, fixing an herbal potion to ease her cough. The herbs were so bitter I worried she'd have a hard time getting the stuff down.
"Next time I go to market, I'll bring you back some honey," I promised.
Gran just screwed up her face and knocked back the physick as though she'd far more important matters on her mind.
"Go up the tower, love, and fetch my pallet. I'll sleep down here from now on."
For all her pride, she'd finally broken down and admitted that the stairs had become too much for her. As long as I could remember, she'd slept in her room at the top of the tower—I couldn't picture that chamber without her inside it.
"I'll bring down your pallet. But come spring, you'll feel more limber. Then you might want to return to your room."
With my whole heart I longed to make time run backward so that she could be her old self—the gran I'd known in earliest childhood, that vigorous charmer who could still see and walk on her own, back in the days before Chattox had laid her curse upon us. In truth, I'd begun to suspect that Chattox's malevolence had cast this dark enchantment on Gran, which made her suffer and pine even as Chattox hungered now that she was cast out by decent folk.
"Bless you, Alizon," said Gran. "But my days of sleeping up the tower are gone for good." She grinned, some of her old spirit shining through. "But you, love, are a hardy young soul. Your blood's still warm enough to withstand the draughts. That room is yours. If you want it."
I turned away, for I knew she was offering me much more than a room. Though Gran had kept her word to Mam not to badger me about familiar spirits, she was now inviting me to take her place at the top of the tower, the place where a cunning woman would sleep.
A hollow buzz filled my head as I stripped her pallet and carried down the bedclothes and the bolster stuffed with straw and mugwort, the herb that gave Gran her visions. On the second trip I heaved the pallet itself up off the creaking oak boards and hefted it down the stairs to the hearthside. Quiet and brisk, I made up the pallet, placing it just so, with its head-end against the chimney breast so that Gran could sit up in bed with the bolster to cushion her back against the warm stone.
"There you are, Gran." I did my best to pretend I wasn't rattled by this.
"Now you'll want to make a pallet of your own since you won't be sleeping with Jennet anymore." Gran's lips curved in a smile. "When I was younger and still had my eyesight, nowt made me happier than lying a-bed and gazing out at the stars."
Lost in thought, she seemed, as though mulling over everything that she had lost to old age. But when I chafed her chilly hands in mine, the caul covering her eyes melted away. A much younger woman I saw, her face bathed in starlight. I blinked and saw the dusky firmament awash with pinpricks of light, the Milky Way sweeping across the heavens. The stars swirled in a diadem, a perfect wheel, spinning round and round Malkin Tower. Then the vision faded. and my heart banged loud enough to deafen me. Gran touched my face as if to draw me back to earth.
Mam helped me stitch the new pallet and bolster, then stuff them with straw, rosemary, catmint, and lovage. Not only did the herbs smell nice, but they also kept the fleas at bay.
My first night in the tower, I thought I'd die of frostbite as the draught whistled through the window slits. Even so, I was well overjoyed to be shot of sharing a pallet with Jennet. Nestled in Nancy's blanket, I lay in blessed contentment with no sister to shove and kick me.
The dark of the moon, it was. In every window the stars blazed pure white fire. As a blast of wind stirred my hair, I imagined I was soaring through the heavens to join Nancy, who took my hand, bearing me aloft, higher and higher till Malkin Tower and then Pendle Hill were lost in the swimming darkness below. Fair thrilled me, that did. Off in the night a hound wailed, rending the stillness. But I shut my ears to the thing and called out to Nancy, letting her draw me above it all.
I
N THE MORNING
I set out for Colne Market with my basket of fresh eggs to sell.
Threading my way through the stalls, I pricked my ears to the gossip, fair curious to know if folk would speak ill of Chattox after she'd been shunned from Nancy's funeral, but I heard nowt to do with her. Out of sight, out of mind, she was. Old and infirm, she wasn't likely to show her head outside her door in such weather. Air was so cold it turned my breath to mist.
In hope of soaking up some warmth, I wound my way through the horse market, passing close by those shaggy creatures with their steaming coats. Young lads galloped them over the green to show off their paces whilst the sellers were stood beside their nags, eager to open the animal's mouth to prove how young it was. Our Jamie, who should have been looking for a day's wages, sidled up to a bay mare. The pretty pony, hobbled to keep her from straying, rubbed her head against his chest. Using Jamie as a scratching post, so she was, and fair tolerating his clumsy stroking. Such a look of loneliness burned upon my brother's face as his fingers tangled themselves in her mane.