The Witch Who Killed Christmas Read online

  She rarely drew a line, but I could see from the scowl on her face, and the worry in her eyes, that this whole situation was troubling her.

  “You can’t go out there in this. I mean, look outside. You can’t see your hand in front of your face. It’s a white out.” She glared at me. “It will only get colder overnight, and you said yourself, freezing rain is forecast. I won’t let you go.”

  I turned to stare out of the nearest window. There was nothing to be seen now. The bottled panes of glass rattled in their frames, and behind me the fire stuttered and spat, casting long shadows against the walls.

  “I suppose you’re right,” I said reluctantly.

  Charity narrowed her eyes at me and I shrugged innocently. “Why don’t you take this upstairs and dump it on my bed,” I said to her, collecting together everything except the coat, boots and rucksack and handing it over. “I’m going to give Florence a hand with dinner.”

  “You’re sure you’re not going anywhere?” Charity demanded, heading for the stairs.

  “Not in this. Not tonight. You’re right,” I nodded, appeasing her. I watched her climb the stairs until she was out of sight, then picked up the rucksack and the orb and quickly headed for the kitchen.

  “Florence,” I called, and the ghostly house maid whirled about merrily. She was in her element in the kitchen, and loved helping out when our grumpy French chef would let her. I held up the rucksack. “I need you to fill this up with supplies. A hot thermos of soup. Perhaps one of tea. Some water. Snacks. Sandwiches. Anything to keep me going on a long walk.”

  “Yes, milady,” Florence bobbed a curtsey.

  I lowered my voice and glanced at the kitchen door, half expecting my hotel manager to reappear. “Hide the bag for now, and make sure Charity doesn’t see it,” I instructed. “Leave it on the kitchen table after we’ve all turned in.” Florence looked startled but I knew she would do as I asked. “And, Florence,” I hissed. “Don’t tell anyone else about this.”

  I tried to behave normally for the rest of the evening, idling the time away until I could head up to bed. Given the lack of electricity, and therefore with no TV or radio to entertain us, it was easy to excuse myself to retire early, and head upstairs to join Mr Hoo.

  I quietly pushed my bedroom door closed, but left it off the latch. I intended to make an early getaway and I didn’t want anyone else in the house to be disturbed.

  Florence had organised tea light candles in all the bedrooms. They gave off a warm glow in my room, and a fire had been lit in here too. I sagged with relief as I turned away from the door, congratulating myself on not further alerting Charity to my plans.

  I nearly jumped out of my skin when I realised I was not alone.

  Gwyn stood by the fire, regarding me with suspicion.

  “Grandmama!” I yelped. “You made me jump!”

  “Well you really shouldn’t be skulking around,” she retorted.

  I shouldn’t have been surprised. My father’s formidable grandmother could often be found in my suite of rooms, otherwise known as the owner’s apartment, comprising a bedroom, a tiny kitchen, a wonderful old Victorian bathroom and an office. During her lifetime, she had slept in exactly this room, in my very bed. I regularly awoke to find her sleeping on the other side of my bed.

  To be fair, it is difficult to banish your great grandmother from her own bed, even if she has been dead for the best part of seventy or so years.

  “Why haven’t you gone?” she demanded, rather too loudly for my liking.

  “Ssshhh!” I hissed and flapped my hands, indicating the door. Charity slept on the fourth floor, but she could go past my door to reach the back staircase if she chose.

  “Oh really,” Gwyn retorted. “You’re such a worry wort.”

  “Grandmama,” I squeezed my hands together in a plea. “Please keep your voice down.” Gwyn arched an eyebrow and pursed her lips. I took this as acquiescence as she sat on the bed and I paced nervously around the room. Mr Hoo, balancing on the bedpost watched me through wide interested eyes.

  “Gone where?” I asked. “Where exactly am I going?” Gwyn folded her arms obstinately. “Tell me what you know about all this.” I kept my tone as low as I could manage while trying to fiercely demand information. When it looked like she wouldn’t answer, I wagged my finger at her and then the door, indicating she should leave. I knew this would get a reaction. We often argued about whether the bedroom was hers or mine.

  She tutted. “Really, Alfhild. It’s rude to point.”

  “Why did you ask me why I hadn’t left?” I asked quietly. “How do you know I’m going somewhere?” I caught myself. “Or might be.”

  “You are.”

  “Let’s just say, I might be. Possibly. For the sake of argument. What do you know?”

  Sometime before five the following morning I let myself out of the back door of the inn, into the relative stillness of a new day. Wearing my rucksack on my back, I tucked the orb down the front of my jacket. Getting dressed, I’d feared I wouldn’t be able to move given the number of layers I needed to wear, but Millicent had turned out to be a genius in the clothing department, and I had freedom of movement combined with a steady warmth from my thermal layer.

  Long may that continue, I thought as I closed the door carefully behind me.

  The woodpile to the left of the door caught my eye. Usually covered by a tarpaulin, I could see the corner sticking up where the wind had blown against it, exposing the axe on the block. Without thinking, I hoisted the axe in my right hand, settled the torch in my left, and headed for Speckled Wood.

  With no idea how far I needed to go, for now I turned my face towards the dawn and headed away from the comfort and safety of the inn.

  I wasn’t surprised to hear the stealthy beating of wings overhead a little later. Mr Hoo would never let me journey very far without his company, and never when I headed into the wood. He flew on ahead and settled on branches to wait whenever I was slow to catch up.

  I averted my eyes when I came to the clearing where I, along with Wizard Shadowmender and our friends, had bested The Mori, at least temporarily. I banished memories of Jed, the man I had fallen in love with, and kept on moving, concentrating on my footing, and where I was going, in the dim light of the forest.

  Snow cover seemed patchy in the wood. It had drifted against the trees in certain places, and yet the paths had been scoured clean by the wind in others. I stuck to the path where possible, because I knew it would take me all the way through the wood. My wood.

  Where my wood ended and the forest began, that’s where my troubles really started.

  Moving out of Speckled Wood and into the forest beyond was like stepping into another world.

  Dawn was breaking as I transitioned, and the light improved to such an extent that I could stow my torch in my rucksack. I kept a careful eye out for wildlife, tracks or sounds, but there was nothing. How could this part of Devon seem so remote?

  The still countryside unnerved me even with the beat of Mr Hoo’s wings close by. I felt anxious and alone not knowing what or whom I was up against, or what I would find. I considered turning back, but thoughts of Wizard Shadowmender kept me moving forwards. He had gifted me the orb. Surely he wouldn’t have packed me off alone if he didn’t think I could cope with whatever was coming.

  Perhaps food or drink would make me feel better? I’d yet to have breakfast and I needed to keep my strength up. I considered taking a drink from my thermos but I knew if I finished the tea this early in my travels, I’d be kicking myself before long.

  I paused long enough to pull out the orb and take stock of my surroundings. Holding the orb up at eye level, once the snow had cleared from within the glass, I could clearly see the wooden cabin. The tiny star glowed brightly when I continued along the same direction I was taking, so I kept going.

  There were fewer coniferous trees in this part of the forest. The branches of the tall oaks, and beeches, the ashes and the silver birches, were silhouetted spikily against an increasingly bleak sky. There was a deeper covering of snow here too, with less of a canopy to prevent the snow falling on the forest floor.

  My feet crunched through the snow, and occasionally I skidded on patches of icy puddles. Here and there I found more slippery areas where water had frozen on top of the snow, more places where my feet made sharper cracking sounds as I placed my weight on the snow. My cheeks burned as the cold wind slashed across my face, and I paused to reposition my scarf. Normally I hated having anything covering my mouth, but now I was desperate to keep myself warm.

  Thirty minutes later a strange noise halted me in my tracks. It reminded me of glass bottles, hung together in a line, glancing daintily off each other, like a wind chime. But this sound originated in the trees above my head. In confusion, I peered up through the twisted branches, but I couldn’t see any bottles.

  I walked closer, in among foliage draped lower to the ground, and I realised what the sound was. Not bottles at all, but solid ice, coating the branches above my head. When the breeze lifted, the branches clinked together, naturally melodic.

  It could have been a pretty sound. Somehow festive. The chinking of champagne glasses at a party. But to me, as it rang through the silent forest, it jibed in the stillness and reverberated around the sentinel trees. A forewarning to something or someone. Portentous.

  No. I found the sound purely ominous.

  I had intended to stop at 9.30 to drink some tea, and eat something, but the going had become ever more difficult. The snow was hard, a thick coating of ice covering it everywhere now. Even with Millicent’s rough terrain boots I was struggling to keep my footing, and falling on several occasions. Once or twice I’d come across deep drifts of snow and by mistake had walked into them and found
myself knee deep in powdery snow, jarring a knee or an ankle when I miss stepped.

  The landscape was changing too, the hills becoming steeper the further away from the coast I ventured. This was new territory and I didn’t know where I was, or indeed where I was heading. I could only trust my instincts, and every now and again, take the orb out from beneath my jacket and hold it up to catch the star. When I did, I’d begin moving forwards again, wondering at the futility of what I was doing.

  And all for what? Because Millicent, Wizard Shadowmender and my great grandmother thought someone was playing with Mother Nature?

  My breath laboured in my chest, my heart pounded, as I placed one foot in front of the other and hauled myself up another steep hill, reaching out for tree trucks, branches, anything solid enough to bear my weight and help me to keep me going.

  To compound matters, tiny shards of icy rain fell out of the leaden sky, seeming to target any exposed areas of my skin. I tried to duck my head away from them, but that meant I couldn’t see where I was going as I climbed yet another hill. I pulled my hat lower down over my eyebrows, leaving only my eyes exposed, but as I did so, I stepped into a drift once more. Mr Hoo called a warning but it was too late.

  For a long moment, I seemed to float in the air. I lashed out, attempting to grab a branch at shoulder height, but it snapped off with a sharp crack, brittle in its frozen state. I braced myself, imagining I would turn my ankle again, or jar my knee, but the ground didn’t come to meet me.

  Not immediately.

  The tangles of trees, frozen undergrowth, foliage and roots hid a sharp drop. I tumbled forwards, rolling down, crushing saplings and bushes as I went. I seemed to fall for an age until I whacked the ground, landing on my right hip and smacking my chin on the ground.

  I lay stunned and winded for a moment, waiting for the pain to kick in, convinced I must be badly hurt. I was certain I would die here, alone. No-one knew where I was or how to find me. I’d seen those survival movies where someone breaks their leg and ends up cutting it off so they can ward off infection. Or they wait for help and get eaten by wolves. Yes, I thought dramatically, all that could and would happen to me.

  Undoubtedly it would.

  Mr Hoo fluttered down next to me, landing on a gate post.

  “You’ll have to go for help.” I clutched my chest, aware I was being dramatic. The pain radiated out from the centre of me. “I’m finished.”

  “Hoo-ooo. Hoo-ooo.”

  “What do you mean?” I quizzed him. “Did you say we’re here?”

  Mr Hoo stared at me through his huge black eyes, then lifted one of his legs up, and deliberately, dropped it. When he did it the second and third time, I took in the gate post he was standing on.

  Clever owl.

  A gate meant an entrance. I was certainly somewhere.

  Gingerly I sat up, everything appeared to be working pretty much as normal. I rubbed my chin, then patted my chest. The orb was still in one piece but had punched me in the centre of my ribs, between my breasts. That explained the ache. I was going to have some impressive bruises.

  My rucksack flopped loosely to one side, so I shook it off. The left side strap had snapped, and no doubt my sandwiches were crushed inside. I turned about and gazed in awe at the steep slope behind me, an almost vertical drop of around twenty feet. I’d been lucky.

  But Mr Hoo was right. Ahead of me, up a steep incline I could see the wooden cabin. My destination.

  I just had to make the final 200 yards or so.

  So near and yet so far. Those 200 yards were easier said than done.

  I sat on a rock and drank some tea, pondering on the challenge still awaiting me. My legs felt like lead. I wasn’t sure I had the energy to actually move again now I had stopped. Yet sitting and thinking wasn’t an option. I was at the bottom of what—for all intents and purposes—was a large bowl-shaped hole.

  Meanwhile, the tiny cabin was surrounded by twenty feet or so of thick undergrowth, a tangle of sturdy bushes, brambles, branches and tree roots that seemed to rise out of the ground to create an impenetrable barrier. I had only two ways out of the hole. Climb back the way I had arrived, so abruptly, then try and go around; or go through.

  I limped over to where this natural barrier started, and peered at it, hoping to find an inlet of some kind, or path.

  Nothing.

  I skirted the edge. First one way and then the other, wondering if I could climb up the side, but no deal. I was trapped. My only solution would be to fight my way through.

  I finished my tea, and hefting my axe began glumly hacking a path through the wild web. It was slow going. The brambles tore at my coat. The twisted roots reached for my ankles. I realised I needed to chop halfway up each obstacle first, reaching forwards from waist height and attack there. Then I needed to back myself up, bend right over and have a go at the roots. The process took time, and exhausted the limited energy I had left. Slowly but surely—inch by painful inch—I travelled forwards. Brambles snagged in my hair and scratched my face. Thorns gripped my jacket and trousers, taking aim at my eyes, until finally, with a supreme explosion of energy on my part, I propelled my way through the last foot, tearing a hole in my coat when I yanked my way free once and for all.

  I dropped the axe and sprawled spread-eagled onto the frozen ground, practically weeping through the exertion of what I had done.

  An angry shriek split the silence of the afternoon. I looked up, eyes wide with fear and surprise, and came face to face with the furious and jabbering Mara the Stormbringer.

  “Show me the orb,” Gwyn had said the previous evening, and I had reluctantly placed it on the bed for her to examine. She made a small gesture with her hands and it rose in the air, hovering in the space between us, so that we could both examine the contents.

  “I thought so.” She pulled her mouth down in disapproval.

  “You thought what, Grandmama?”

  “Mara.”

  I sighed in exasperation. “What does that mean? What is Mara?”

  “It’s not a what, it’s a whom.” Gwyn frowned at me as though I was a complete simpleton.

  “I’m afraid you’ve lost me. Who is Mara? A friend of yours?” I scoured the orb for clues, but I couldn’t see a figure in the orb, just the wooden cabin, surrounded by snow and tall trees. Peering closely, I could make out a thin curl of black smoke rising above the frozen roof. The cabin was inhabited then—presumably by this Mara person.

  “In my day, way back in the twenties and thirties-”

  When you were already getting on a bit, I thought but didn’t dare say, of course.

  “Alfhild,” my great grandmother reprimanded me as though she could read my mind. I smiled innocently. “As I was saying, back in my day, Mara was a child. A young, pretty thing. An exceptional student. Brilliant in so many ways, come to think of it. Intelligent. She ran rings around all of her contemporaries. A stunning beauty, she turned the boys’ heads, but she never did settle down with anyone. Totally dedicated to her craft.”

  “So what went wrong?” I asked, sitting on the bed. It was an assumption on my part, but let’s face it, Devon found itself gripped in the middle of an iron winter, Shadowmender had sent me an orb, Millicent had loaded me up with weather-appropriate clothing, and now my great Grandmother felt the need to tell me a story? Yes, something, somewhere was very wrong.

  “I don’t know for sure. For many years she seemed happy enough, taught at the school on Celestial Street, gave lectures around the world, she even sat on the Council of Elders for a time. But she was always headstrong. Passionate. Somewhere along the line, her emotions began to affect her magickal practice.”

  I blinked. This was a new one on me. “Her emotions? How so?”

  “Well think about it, Alfhild.” I straightened at Gwyn’s stern reprimand. “What is magick except the flow of energy into the world, directed by the practitioner?”

  I nodded, seeing what she was getting at. “Of course. And the practitioner influences that energy flow.”

  “There’s the magick that we all do when we hardly think about what we’re doing. The way you direct your ghosts, or attend to the washing up, and so on.”