Not even that was enough to sate Nowell's hunger. In the nearest cell to ours, their cries and dolour sometimes reaching our ears, was another group of wretches: folk from Samlesbury accused of witchcraft on the evidence offered up by a child named Grace Sowerbutts. Roger Nowell would have everybody believe that Lancashire was fair bristling with Satan's army.
Some army! What were we but a lot of half-starved wraiths. Though Alice Nutter did her best to bribe the guards to bring us better rations, Covell would grant us no mercies. After a few days even Mistress Alice was as soiled and sorry-looking as the rest of us, her cheeks sunken and eyes spectral. Soon enough, Gran wasn't the only one ailing with the shakes and shivers. The gaol fever struck our Jamie. A miracle it would be if any of us lived to see our trial in August.
We'd no respite from each other, no escape from the others' moods, or sickness, or stinking flesh. None of us could scratch at our lice without yanking the chains that confined the others. Never any peace, what with Chattox's muttering and Mouldheels's temper. Meg Pearson began to lose her mind, skriking so horrified to make the rest of us leap out of our skins. Jane Bulcock and her son went into a stupor, mute and unmoving, as if wishing themselves dead.
When Alice Nutter prayed, I joined my voice to hers. She took me under her wing and taught me prayers that even Gran had forgotten.
Ave, Regina caelorum,
Ave, Domina angelorum,
Salve, radix, salve, porta,
Ex qua mundo lux est orta.
These devotions of ours were the sole comfort of our lightless days, the one thing that could ease the pain pressing from every side. Our Lady, so Mistress Alice said, was the wide open door to heaven and succour to her people who fell and longed to rise again. Whilst Mistress Alice never seemed to doubt her faith or her innocence, I prayed in atonement for the pedlar falling lame, for bringing on our downfall with my unwitting confession. One question would not stop taunting me: what
was
the power behind the black bitch that had appeared to me? Had it, indeed, been the Devil in disguise as Nowell would claim? If I were only brave enough, I would ask her to reveal her true form so at least I might know, even if the truth tore me apart.
On and on we prayed till our chanting flowed in a tide, carrying me along, transporting me. In my fever that I'd caught from the others, it was a battle keeping my spirit tethered to my aching flesh. Without even desiring it, part of me took to flight. That world of visions that had once belonged to Gran alone opened its gates to me.
Outside the Well Tower it was May—a beautiful May as there ever was. The sun I'd near forgotten shone warm upon my face. Slender white birches bore new leaves and the undergrowth was an endless sweep of bluebells. Three paths stretched before me. I started down the middle one that led deep into a forest.
I heard a singing-ringing. Upon a white mare, a lady came riding and she was so lovely, her red-gold hair floating behind her. Her tinkling music came from bells of gold and silver tied in her horse's mane. The lady smiled with such majesty and tenderness that I sank to my knees, tears in my eyes. Joy swelled up in my breast.
"Hail, Queen of Heaven," I called to her.
The lady shook her head. "No. That name does not belong to me."
Her mantel was not the blue and gold of the Blessed Virgin, but green as the slopes of Pendle Hill. Light streamed forth all about her, dazzling me after my months of darkness. Her overpowering radiance sent me spinning, reeling and turning, till the light vanished and murk enclosed me once more. There I was left, tangled in my chains.
"She fainted whilst we were praying," I heard Alice Nutter tell Gran.
"She'll be right." Gran put her lips to my ear and whispered, "You saw her, too. The Queen of Elfhame."
"There are three paths from which to choose," Gran whispered as I tended her in her fever. "The right-hand path leads to heaven. The left-hand path leads to hell." With her manacled hand, she guided my own hand in a warding gesture. "There's another path, love, betwixt and between. That leads into the heart of the forest where the Queen of Elfhame rides."
She wasn't delirious, was Gran, but uttered each word careful and deliberate.
"She's shown herself to you," said Gran. "Call out to her and she'll come to you again."
I'd no idea what to think about any of this. Seemed too much to wrap my head round. Mistress Alice's faith was straightforward, the rules carved in stone, whilst Gran's was a twisting thing, its shape as ever-shifting as Tibb's.
I'd no chance to reflect over long on such matters, for the very next day Thomas Covell swaggered into our dungeon swinging his cat-o'-nine-tails. The guards' torchlight sent his monstrous shadow leaping over the weeping walls.
"All right, you devil's spawn," said Covell, "I've left you in peace long enough. Tomorrow I will examine you, one by one, in private."
The torchlight turned his white shirt red as he lumbered toward Gran, pointing his cat-o'-nine-tails at her. She lifted her blind eyes to him.
"Nowell says you're the worst of the lot," he told her. "The mother of all this infamy."
One of the knotted tails flicked her wrist, digging into her skin. Gran grimaced but stayed quiet as the stones whilst the rest of us stared at the bloody welt. With Covell glowering over us, not even Mam dared twitch a muscle.
"Prepare your story," Covell told Gran.
My heart sank to the deepest inferno of hell. I didn't need powers like Gran's to guess Covell's plan. After our spell in the dark, he fancied he could drag even wilder confessions out of us.
"Tomorrow," Covell said, taking a torch from one of the guards and shining it in our faces so that we cringed and covered our eyes. Chained for so long in this darkness, we could no longer bear the light.
Late that night I sat up with Gran as she roiled in fever.
"Covell's coming in the morning," she said, labouring to get each word out.
Her lungs were heavy and sore, filled with such a weight of fluid that she said it reminded her of Jamie's tales of great hares pressing down upon his chest.
"If he questions you," she rasped, "blame me. You were innocent, but I led you astray. Maybe he'll go easy on you."
"Easy?" Chattox cut in, for there was no privacy in that place. "Nothing's easy in this hole."
"Gran," I whispered, "I betrayed you once. I'll not do it again."
"Not even if I beg you?" Gran's hand clasped mine with as much strength as she seemed to have left in her. "Save yourself."
Before I could protest, she pressed on, her words coming quick and urgent.
"There's something you must know about Roger Nowell. My mam was a servant at Read Hall when Nowell's father was young. He took a fancy to her, and before long she gave birth to me."
Though I'd always known that Gran was a bastard and though it was nothing unusual for the poor to claim a father from a wealthy house, the revelation that we descended from the Nowells left me legless.
"Roger Nowell's my half-brother. Your great uncle. When next you see him, love, remember that. You're his flesh and blood."
I near spat at the memory of Nowell smiling at me, pretending to be so kind whilst plotting my family's destruction. I sickened to remember his hands groping my flesh.
A fit of coughing kept Gran from saying anything more. Clenching her mouth, she hacked and hacked. When I eased her hands free, they were coated in slime. Using my sleeve, I cleaned her as best I could, murmuring my prayers over her.
"Bless you, Alizon," she said. "It's time you had a rest."
Soon as I lay back and closed my eyes, I drifted off.
I passed through a gate of graceful-twisted iron into a rich man's garden with countless rose beds, with bushes trimmed into the shapes of beasts and lords and ladies. Everything was blossoming and fresh, the lawn a carpet of tiny daisies, for it was May, the most beautiful month. Off beyond the yew hedge I caught a glimpse of Read Hall in its grandeur, the sun gleaming on its many windows, smoke curling from its chimneys. With a curse, I turned my back on Roger Nowell's manse and made my way toward a splashing fountain with a statue of a naked boy. Round that fountain children played, their laughter ringing out. Blameless, they were, Roger Nowell's happy grandchildren, who knew nowt of our lice-covered bodies or the gaoler with his cato'-nine-tails. Our little Jennet sported with them, and she was decked out in a new kirtle of yellow stuff with lace at the collar and cuffs. Her mousy hair had been curled with hot iron tongs. How she sang and how she danced, hand in hand with the others. No longer the bastard of Malkin Tower, she shone like Sunday's child, her cheeks glowing rosy and plump from the roast lamb and beef and cakes and pies they'd stuffed her with. Our Jennet's dream come true, this was, pretending to be a daughter of the gentry, lisping along to mimic their soft accents. At last she was shot of her cock-eyed mother and idiot brother; of me, her ill-tempered sister; of her family of witches and misfits. That girl would be only too willing to do and say anything Nowell asked of her. His instrument of God, he called her.
Our Jennet. Baldwin's seed. The cuckoo in our nest. Our little grey-eyed Judas.
I saw the years fly past like the wind blowing through the pages of Nowell's books. Before my eyes, Jennet Device grew into a woman, homely and graceless, as ragged-poor as she'd ever been, discarded by her wealthy protector. Left to beg and scrape, Jennet had a hounded look in her eyes, for the children chased her and pelted her with a rain of horse dung and cried out,
Witch, witch, dirty witch.
No, our Jennet,
I called out to her through the chasm that yawned between us.
You'll never be shot of us or our memory.
I awakened to hear Gran trading hushed words with Chattox.
"Forgive me," Gran was pleading. "I was your false friend."
This shocked me, for I'd always thought that Chattox had first laid her curse upon us. But Gran seemed so intent on speaking her mind that I forced myself to keep quiet and pretend to sleep on.
"Asking my pardon, are you now?" Chattox's voice was dry as snakeskin. "Them fever dreams maddled your brains?"
"Our Anne, I loved you. I'm so sorry."
By going soft and sentimental, Gran only vexed Chattox.
"Show some backbone, Bess. You were never this wet before. Covell will wring you out like a rag and wipe his boots with you."
"I'll go," said Gran, "before I can do any more harm."
"Will you now?" Chattox laughed, hoarse and raw. "Oh, aye, I'd love to see you charm them shackles off. That would be a sight, our Bess."
No longer able to just lie there and listen, I sat up.
"Gran, what are you talking about?"
I reached for her hand only to find it entwined with Chattox's.
"Peace, Alizon," said Gran. "Let us be."
I
N THE FAR-OFF COUNTRY
of my dreams, my friend Nancy still lived. How we laughed together, and I was ever welcome in her mam's kitchen. My second family, the Holdens were. Nancy's mam sat me down to a trencher heaped with spring chicken and tender garden greens, and there were fresh strawberries with cream and more buttermilk than I could drink. Made a game, Nancy's mam did, of seeing how much I could eat, with Nancy looking on and grinning. My friend and I put our heads together, whispering of the men we might one day marry, and I teased her that if she married Miles Nutter of Roughlee, she would have to embrace the old religion. Except Nancy didn't want to marry. She gripped my wrist and gave it a shake.
Chattox saw me for what I was. Do you believe in heaven, our Alizon? Do you believe that any of us are bound for heaven?
Before I could answer, bony fingers clawed my wrist where Nancy's hand was meant to be. Chattox's green eyes cut through the gloaming to peer into mine. Caught as I was between sleeping and waking, my old dread of her reared up.
Chattox was weeping. "Wake up, lass. Your poor gran's snuffed it."
I crawled to Gran and held her face, then placed my cheek over her mouth and nose so that I might feel her breath, but it never came. Her skin was cold as the floor beneath me.
"Come back," I begged her, refusing to believe that she had deserted us like this without saying goodbye.
Her mouth was frozen wide open as if she had wanted to tell me something. Her eyes were open, too, and I'd no coins to lay upon her lids to keep them shut. An unearthly scream split my ears. Mam was wailing loud enough to topple the Well Tower. She swooped down upon Gran to cradle her rigid body.
Soon enough the guards came scuttling in to see what the skriking was about. When they shone their torches upon Gran, their faces went as corpse-grey as hers. She lay before them, stone dead. But what seemed to terrify the guards most was the shimmer of light rising off her skin to touch us all. There was something holy about her. With her eyes fixed open, she looked as though she had glimpsed paradise from the depths of this hell in which we were mired. The bliss upon her face undid me. Her air of joy and rapture seemed a secret message for us. No matter what Covell and the rest were saying, we weren't damned. We weren't Satan's whores. Gran had wanted to give us hope. Taking her chill hand in mine, I kissed it.