Shaman of Stonewylde (56 page)

‘Nice little tits, Leveret,’ he sneered. ‘They’re bigger than they was last time I had a feel.’

She said nothing and he felt her body shrink beneath his touch. He slid his hand across to examine her other breast, giving it the same rough treatment.

‘That must’ve been . . . ooh, ’twere that time we had old Magpie in the woods with the rabbit, and you tried to rescue him. Remember? And I chased you across the Green and pinned you down, and you were bloody rude to me. Remember? How things have changed. You won’t be rude to me tonight, will you? Will you?’

‘No,’ she croaked.

‘You’ll say stuff like “Oh Jay, you’re so good” and “Ooh Jay, do it again!”’ He laughed hoarsely at this. ‘And you’ll be squirming underneath me, but for a different reason this time around. You’re such a lucky girl doing it here for your first time, ain’t you? Bet you never dreamt o’ this. But I have and it’s taken a bit o’ planning to get it to happen tonight.’

With a final painful squeeze, he pulled his hand away and stood upright. He towered over her and felt a hard jolt of lust as he imagined how it would soon feel when he forced his way deep inside that small, soft body. The puppy’s distant yelps had died down a little. With a grunt of anticipation, Jay spun Leveret around to face the way they must go to climb up to the top of Snake Stone.

Magpie entered the busy kitchen and located Marigold amongst the team of youngsters and adults. All were hard at work cooking for the large number of mouths that must be fed, and Marigold was far too busy to be interested in his attempts to communicate. Frowning, he made his way to the tower, but of course Leveret wasn’t there and neither was Clip. He turned on the electric light at the bottom of the spiral stairs and peered into Leveret’s bedroom, then went up the stairs and found Hare on the top floor. She climbed out of her basket and stretched, then hopped over to greet him. Magpie stroked her soft fur absently, gazing
around
the shadowy room. He opened the door and stepped out onto the staircase leading to the roof.

Up there it was cold and dark, with the moon peering through the branches of the trees. Magpie stood gazing out, lost in contemplation as he stared at the Hunter’s Moon. Suddenly the crow landed, appearing from nowhere in the darkness and settling on one of the crenellations. Opening its beak, it began to caw loudly and repeatedly. Magpie stared at it for a while but then returned indoors. He sat on the sofa in the cold room and Hare jumped onto his lap, laying down her ears and nuzzling his hand gently.

On the top of Snake Stone Jay stood tall; a king surveying his realm, his captured woman meek at his side. The brilliant white moon shone down on them, silvering their skin and eyes. Jay was out of breath from the strenuous climb and his heart pounded. He glanced down at Leveret.

‘What time is the eclipse?’ he asked but she shook her head, unable to speak.

He’d turned off the flashlight to see the scene by moonlight. Taking the bottle from his pocket again he drunk deeply, the heady mead feeling good inside him, then lit another cigarette.

‘You can get undressed now, Leveret. Take everything off underneath, but you can keep the cloak on until I’m ready for you. See how kind I am?’

He untied the rope that bound her wrists – she couldn’t escape him here unless she jumped. He chuckled, feeling the strangeness of the night pulsing through his veins, the wildness of the place drawing him in. As she silently obeyed him, he thought back to all the insults this girl had flung at him, all the times she’d turned her nose up as if he were repulsive, all the disdainful looks she’d cast his way. Somehow she’d always managed to make him feel stupid and ugly; he’d never thought this night would finally come.

He glanced down at her now that she was still again, standing small but straight-backed with the cloak wrapped around her. In
the
silvery light he glimpsed her bare feet on the rock, and, at the thought of her nakedness under the cloak, he was suddenly alive with hot, dark desire. He almost chose to forget about the eclipse and take her now, hard and fast, spill her virginal blood on the white rock, spill his seed into her ripeness and seal her fate forever. But Old Violet had impressed upon him that if the magic were to be truly powerful, it was during the darkness of the eclipse that he must take the girl. So instead, he denied the primeval urge and turned back to gaze out over the shadows of the quarry waiting below.

The dog was quiet now and all was still as the hard white moon rose higher in the glittering sky. And then . . . the eclipse began. Just a tiny edge of the moon disappeared, the merest dent in her round perfection. But this dent grew into a small bite, taken from the side, and slowly, slowly, the silver was eaten away. Jay watched in fascination, blood pumping hard through his body, mead fuelling his anticipation. The desire to break her pulsed harder and harder inside him – very soon he’d push her down onto the rock, pin her there and take her as brutally as he could. Up here at Quarrycleave, nobody would hear her if she screamed. And how he longed to make her scream – to know that he’d finally pierced her arrogance and her superiority and reduced her to nothing more than a receptacle for his thrusting pleasure.

He was aware of the silent girl by his side watching and waiting, counting the heartbeats until that moment when the Bright Lady was completely shadowed and perhaps even bloodied by the dark eclipse; in reality the Blood Moon as some still called her in October. Then he’d spoil the girl forever; taint her purity and plunder her magical gift. After that, she could never truly be the all-powerful Wise Woman of Stonewylde.

Jay felt a slight rustling movement by his side and sensed the folds of material brushing his arm and leg. He smiled – was she readying herself for him without being told? Was she removing her cloak to welcome him into her arms? Perhaps she wanted him after all, had felt a secret need for him all along. He gazed
up
at the moon, now so dark crimson as to be almost gone, and then turned at last to the girl waiting by his side.

In absolute shock he gaped at what he saw, almost gagging on his own saliva. His eyes popped in horror at the thing that now stood beside him in the eclipsed darkness on the Snake Stone.

‘
I shall go into a hare
,’ it whispered, and he saw the long ears on her head standing tall and erect.

‘
I shall go into a hare
,’ it snarled, baring sharp teeth that gleamed in the moonlight.

‘
I shall go into a hare!
’ it screamed, and pale arms rose up and the cloak fell back and she was naked, a tiny perfect woman with the head of a hare and bright, feral eyes, and teeth so small and barbed. Her arms were held high; pointed, clawed wings that jutted above her, and she spun in frenzy, a flurry of fur and dark hair and blurred transformation in the eclipsed moonlight.

Jay screamed in terror as suddenly the girl was no more and in reality, a hare stood before him. A great hare standing up on her hind legs advanced on him with vicious paws that boxed him hard, beating off the violator. The wild creature was powerful and female and brooked no domination – she was
not
to be taken and would fight to the death. She pushed him, punched him inexorably to the edge, to the precipice where he teetered . . .

But as he fell, down, down like the silver-haired man before him only fourteen years ago; as he fell from Snake Stone like so many others before had fallen throughout the ages, down into the waiting maw, down into the jaws of the Beast below; as he fell – Jay grabbed at her. For why should she live and not him? He grabbed and she stumbled and in the darkness, as the Bright Lady was veiled, the Hare Woman of Stonewylde slipped. She fell and the thing waiting hungrily below for blood to be spilt – that thing was waiting for her too.

27

Y
ul was awoken the next morning by Magpie flinging open the door to the cottage and tramping inside in the darkness. Both were equally shocked to see the other, and almost immediately Magpie stumbled out again and disappeared. Yul sat up on the tiny narrow settle where he’d spent a cold, cramped night and tried to stretch his stiff limbs. He found matches and lit a lantern, and the tiny cottage flared into life in the brightness. He then lit the fire and put the kettle on to boil, having noticed a jar of homemade herbal tea placed nearby with a mug. Leveret had certainly made herself cosy here. He gazed at the rows and rows of carefully labelled jars and bottles on the dresser and the shelves, but his mind was elsewhere.

Last night had been a bad one, watching the eclipse alone at Mooncliffe. So many ghosts had haunted his reveries, but most of all Magus, who’d capered about on the great disc of stone laughing gleefully, taunting Yul for his stupidity. Yul had seriously considered jumping from the cliff-top and ending his pointless life. He knew that his act of betrayal was a marriage-breaker. Bad enough to be unfaithful to his beloved wife, but to have done so with Rainbow, at the Summer Solstice on Sylvie’s birthday, and then for others to have seen a drawing of it . . . She would never truly forgive him for this. She might try, in time, but Yul knew it could never again be the same between them. Something pure and magical had been smashed, and even the glue of forgiveness would never make it whole again.

The only thing that had stopped him plunging to his death last night was the thought of his daughters. He’d pictured their little faces, so serious and loving, as Magus had urged him to spill his brains on the jagged rocks far below. He couldn’t make them suffer his suicide, so instead he must live apart from Sylvie for the rest of his life. That would be just punishment for his transgression. He’d stepped back from the brink, and then dear Mother Heggy had come to him just as the Bright Lady was emerging from her blood-red caul, and had led him down through the dead bracken to her cottage. He’d even heard her crow, perched on the rooftop above, calling to him as he’d pushed open the door and stumbled inside.

Yul had tripped over a jumble of things lying on the floor but had made it to the little settle against the wall, thrown himself down with a groan of anguish, and huddled under the blanket in the silvery blackness. Sleep had come eventually as the ancient rocking chair moved very slightly to and fro, and the ancient Wise Woman, who’d always loved him, watched over him in the darkness of the Hunter’s Moon.

Magpie banged on the cottage door and then barged inside, causing Maizie to sit up in bed in alarm. Nobody called out so she quickly found her warm shawl, pushed her feet into her slippers and went downstairs, holding up her lantern to see who’d come into her cottage at this time of day. It was the hour before dawn and she’d been awake anyway, contemplating getting up to stoke the range and put the kettle on. She recalled that Sylvie wasn’t there, but Rufus was asleep in Yul’s old room whilst her little granddaughters slept in their room next to hers. It made Maizie’s heart glad to have a cottage full of young ‘uns again, and she’d planned on cooking them all a nice bit of bacon this morning, along with their eggs and toast.

She was bemused to see who had come crashing uninvited into her cottage.

‘What do you want, Magpie? ’Tis very early to be disturbing folk like this.’

Of course the lad couldn’t answer her, but hopped around the parlour in a state of distress, gesticulating wildly and tugging at her arm. She had no idea what was wrong with him and shrugged him off, calling up the stairs to Rufus and the girls to come and see if they could understand what was up with Magpie. They should be getting up soon for school and Nursery anyway.

It was Bluebell’s idea to give Magpie pencil and paper, and he seized it gratefully, sitting down at the table with Rufus and the girls crowding around him to see what he produced. Maizie took herself off into the kitchen to make tea and start the breakfasts, still irritated at Magpie’s lack of manners in arriving at such an hour.

He drew a fast sketch of Leveret, whom they recognised instantly. He nodded and tried to drag them out of the cottage but nobody understood.

‘We can’t visit Auntie Leveret now, Magpie!’ said Celandine. ‘It’s too early and Granny’s making our breakfast!’

But then they realised something was wrong, and by miming he explained she was in trouble and they must help. But where she was – how could he explain that? He had no concept of the distance involved though he knew it was a long way. He tried to mime, tried to explain, and eventually picked up the pencil and wrote “
cwri
”. This elicited guesses about cows and fields, and Rufus, who’d heard of cowry shells, thought of the beach. But it was little Bluebell, a new writer herself, who cracked the code.

‘Quarry!’ she shrieked. ‘She’s at the quarry!’

Rufus proved himself to be calm and level-headed, throwing on his clothes and running up the lane with Magpie to the Great Barn, where there was a phone. He rang up to the Hall but nobody was in the main office where he’d hoped to find Yul. Martin answered another extension and was singularly unhelpful, saying Rufus was talking a load of nonsense. Next he tried his mother, who immediately told him to call Hazel on her extension if it seemed as though there might have been an accident. All the while that Rufus was trying to get help, Magpie hopped around frantically, nodding at Rufus’
explanations
on the phone and almost in tears with frustration.

After that things moved very fast indeed. Magpie’s state of distress was taken seriously and Hazel swung into action. The boys and several others drove in borrowed work vehicles up to the quarry, pink and benign in the rising sun that washed the pale rock-faces clean of all guilt. But the rose-hued stone revealed the horror of the previous night as Jay was found broken and white in a great pool of dark, sticky blood, his body as smashed as the bottle inside his pocket.

The sound of a dog’s desperate yelping echoed through the canyons of rock. It bounced off the cliff-face at the end where everyone gathered around Jay’s mutilated corpse. Magpie was already traumatised by the car journey and terrified of the Place of Bones and Death, remembering his previous visit with Leveret. Beside himself with fear, he began to climb the great boulders in dangerous haste, a terrible keening noise bursting from his throat, and the others struggled to keep up with him. The swarming snakes carved all up the sides of the huge column of stone were bathed in the soft pink light that permeated the place. It should have been a beautiful sight, but everyone was frightened, and everyone dreaded what they’d discover next as they neared the platform above.