Storm Child

STORM CHILD

Sharon Sant

STORM
CHILD

Sharon Sant

Kindle
Edition Copyright 2016 © Sharon Sant

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One

The basket the girl carried was almost as large as her and
she gasped as she stumbled, nearly dropping it.  It had been dragged on a
stolen handcart along dark, silent roads until she reached the edge of the
heath. The cart was useless on the dense undergrowth here and now she walked
with her precious cargo, crooning to it as she laboured under its weight. 

Biting back tears, she took one
last look around.  Her gaze returned to the lights of the tiny
house.  Was this close enough?  Would the basket be found?  What
would happen if it wasn’t?  But the girl had no choice.  The
alternative was a fate far, far worse. 

She opened her mouth and clear,
high notes rang out across the darkened terrain.  A few moments passed,
the girl singing in the darkness, until a shadow appeared on the horizon and
crept towards her.  The wolf approached and bowed its head. 

‘Thank you,’ the girl said. 
‘You will protect her until she is claimed.  After that, your will is your
own again.’

The wolf stared at the girl, as
if in a trance.  Then it sat next to the basket and turned its eyes to the
heath.

Two

First there was the cracking
flash, followed closely by the long, low rumble of thunder.  Now wide
awake, Charlotte went to her bedroom window and peered out.  Rain tore
from the heavens in vast sheets.  Another fork of lighting blazed down
towards the trees beyond the heath, making it bright as day, just for a second.
It wasn’t the lightning that frightened her – Charlotte had seen enough storms
in her time and living out in the countryside she knew all the old advice to
stay safe. In fact, she liked to watch thunderstorms from the safety of her home;
they were magical; all at once a terrifying and magnificent act of nature. No,
a second of illumination was enough for her to see the dark shape flit across
the landscape at the very corner of her vision.  Afterwards, Charlotte
could not be sure what it was she had seen, could never even be sure she had
seen anything at all.  But it was enough to send her scurrying away from
the window, seeking the sanctuary of her bed.

The storm raged for what seemed like hours. Charlotte
burrowed further under her covers as another growl of thunder ripped across the
sky above the tiny cottage.  Dare she disturb her mother again?  Last
time Charlotte’s mother had been furious. Of course, the fever wasn’t helping
her mood, and Charlotte understood why her mother was so adamant that she
should stay away. Still, with the irrational fear that had gripped her,
Charlotte was quite prepared to risk infection and her mother’s wrath rather
than stay in her own room alone.

And what was worse, Charlotte’s
mother had insisted that she put out her candle, so that now the brilliant
flashes of lightning flaring in the deep darkness threw up grisly shapes in the
corners of her room. Charlotte knew there was nothing there really, but that
didn’t stop her from wanting to hide under her bedclothes so that she couldn’t
see them.

No, she decided. Any fear that
the storm might bring was small in comparison to the scolding she would get if
she disobeyed her mother’s instructions.  She made the best of being
alone.

Charlotte was not sure for how
long the rain beat at the window of her room and the thunder boomed but,
finally, the storm began to move away. She inched above the covers and peered
across to the empty bed at the other side of the room. George would have been
laughing and teasing her now, had he been here to see her cower beneath her
bedclothes. They had been too old to share a bedroom, but the cottage was so
tiny that they hadn’t had any choice. Secretly she had liked his company. Now,
with him gone, the cottage often felt far too big.

Charlotte dried her eyes on the
frilled sleeve of her nightgown.  The night was quieter now and she
settled into her pillow, trying to tempt sleep, but it was as if her eyelids
were on springs and they opened again as soon as she stopped concentrating on
closing them. She blew out a long breath and stared into the darkness. 
Then the moon, released by the clouds for just for a moment, showed through a
gap in the curtains of her room and drew a silver sword of light on the wall at
George’s side.

And as she gazed at it and
remembered her brother, a sound caught her attention.

Charlotte listened with her
breath held.  It sounded just like a baby’s cries. 
A baby?
In
the middle of the night, out on the heath, out in the wet and cold? Who on
earth would take a baby out on a night like this?  She tried to ignore the
sound. Perhaps her mind was playing tricks on her; perhaps it was a wild animal
that sounded like a baby. Sometimes foxes sounded like that.  Or worse.  A
spirit, pretending to be a baby, to lure children away from their safe, warm
cottages, to lose them on the heath forever. Charlotte had never been one to
swallow the stupid superstitions that the other children of the village
believed in, but on a night like tonight it was hard not to. Or perhaps it
was
a baby?  Even if it was, Charlotte reasoned, there must be someone out
with it.  They’d be on their way soon enough.

But the baby, if it was a baby,
carried on crying out into the night. Like it was calling for help.  Charlotte
listened for another voice. She heard nothing but the pitiful mewling sound
carried on the wind. She wondered if she should wake her mother.  Then she
remembered the gaunt face, exhausted from illness, and decided that she
wouldn’t.

She tried to settle down to sleep
again. The sound wouldn’t leave her alone.

Charlotte
dropped from her bed, the wooden floor rough and solid under her bare feet, and
padded to the door of her mother’s room.  She pressed her ear against it
and listened.  Charlotte could hear the gentle, steady breaths of
sleep.  She waited for a few minutes, with the sound of the baby wailing
in her ears, certain that her mother must wake and come to investigate
soon.  But the door of the room remained closed.  Charlotte couldn’t
stand it, the pleading, almost hypnotic cries that seemed to say
someone
come, please come
, over and over again. 

Out on the heath it was as dark as her black velvet mourning
dress.  The fire had been down to stuttering embers in the kitchen grate,
but there had been just enough to light a candle, which Charlotte had carefully
placed into a storm lamp and now held aloft to guide her way.  The heath
was as familiar to her as her own face, but it was not often she was out on it
at night, certainly not this late and alone.  The ground was soggy from
the storm and she was afraid of marshy spots that might drag a foot down and
hold it fast.  She travelled cautiously, trying each section of ground
gently before putting all her weight down. The night was musty with the scent
of brackens and ferns washed into the air by the recent heavy rain.  As
she went, she scanned the landscape eagerly, each section captured in the
tunnel of yellow light from her lamp.  The cries grew louder and softer as
she moved in different directions, so Charlotte could pinpoint where they were
coming from by going this way and that, following where the sound led. 

And then she saw a shape, lying
right out on the open ground.  Charlotte’s heart hammered in her chest as
she approached it.  She grew closer, straining her eyes, until her lantern
threw enough light to enable her to see a rattan basket lined with
blankets.   Charlotte peered into it. As soon as the baby saw
Charlotte, it smiled, a squinty, tear-stained little smile, holding out its chubby
hands to her.  Charlotte’s mouth fell open.

‘What are you doing out here?’
she asked, immediately feeling foolish for talking to a baby who wasn’t going
to answer her.  Then she looked around, sure that whoever the baby
belonged to was nearby. ‘Hello!’ she called out to the night. ‘Hello… Anyone
out there?’

The heath remained silent, save
for the gentle rustle of the undergrowth in the low wind.  Charlotte began
to shiver and pulled her shawl more tightly around her. The land was flat and
open, the sky a moving patchwork of broken clouds and ragged pockets of
stars.  A figure standing upright would surely show against the horizon?
One last scan of the landscape convinced her that she and the baby were
alone.  Whoever had left the infant had not meant to be found. 

Then, there was another
sound.  A long, low wail carried over the heath from the woods beyond,
steadily increasing in urgency until it became a blood freezing howl piercing
the night air. She couldn’t imagine what kind of creature could have made such
a noise, but she didn’t want to wait around long enough to find out. Charlotte
took another look at the baby and made a decision.  Tying her shawl around
her shoulders in a secure knot, she crooked a finger, hung the lamp from it and
hoisted up the basket with the baby still in it.  She staggered
back.  It was heavy and bulky and she almost dropped it back onto the
ground.  Abandoning the idea of carrying everything in one arm, she
scooped the baby out, hugging it to her chest.  The baby gurgled happily. 
As her hands brushed against them, Charlotte was surprised to find that the
blankets were completely dry.  So the baby must have been left there in
the short time since the thunderstorm had ended.  Whoever had left it must
have
run
from the scene to be out of sight now.  Why would they
have done that?

‘I’ll come back for the basket
tomorrow.’ Charlotte whispered to the baby, who squealed and grabbed a loose
ringlet of Charlotte’s hair with podgy fingers in reply. Charlotte smiled,
unable to stop herself. ‘Now, now. None of that mischief, if you please.’ she
said as she carefully prised her hair from the baby’s tight grip.

The baby let go and Charlotte
staggered home with her with her odd bundle.

Three

With a single sweep of his huge hand, Ernesto Black cleared
the desk.  Ink splattered against the far wall, pens skittered across the
floor and papers fluttered into the dusty air.  He leaned forward,
gripping the sides of the table, and stared hard at the girl standing before
him. She was thin, blue eyes too big for her head, long, mousey hair tied with
a shabby ribbon, and she looked terrified.

‘I’m going to ask you
again.  Where is she?’ he growled.

She turned her gaze to the
scattered debris at her feet.  ‘I don’t know, honest I don’t.’

‘You’re lying.’

‘I
ain’t
,
on my mother’s grave I
ain’t
.’

‘Leave off her, Ernesto, can’t
you see she’s too scared to lie to you?’ The new voice came from the open
door. 

Ernesto looked up at the girl
standing with her arms folded across her chest, leaning on the frame. ‘Get
out!’ he shouted.  ‘And close the door, you eavesdropping little
ragamuffin.’

The girl heaved a bored sigh. ‘I
ain’t
no ragamuffin. 
Them
kids are ragamuffins, I’m practically the lady
of the house.’

‘Is that so?  How about I
don’t let you reach lady-of-the-house age?  If you want to see your
eighteenth birthday you’ll stop distracting me and get out!’

‘Alright, alright, I’m
going.  But I’m telling you that shouting at poor Annie there won’t get
you nowhere.  It never worked on me, did it?’

The man groaned and turned
another shade of red. ‘That’s because the devil himself sired you, now get
out!’

She grinned and pirouetted from
the doorway.  ‘Ta-ta.’

‘Shut the door!’

There was a slam and the room was
silent again.

‘That damn girl,’ Ernesto
muttered as he turned his attention back to the younger one standing before
him. ‘Now, Annie, I’m going to ask you again, and I’m trying hard to keep my
patience… what have you done with my baby?’

‘She’s not yours.’ she said in a
small voice.

‘She
is
my baby,
understand?  She’s my property. And I want her back.’

‘She’s my sister.’

‘She’s mine, and so are
you.  I bought you both fair and square.’

‘I
ain’t
done
nothin
’.’

For a moment he seemed as though
he would explode again, but as he watched the girl begin to tremble under his
fierce gaze, his features relaxed into a look of cunning.

‘You were very fond of the little
tyke, weren’t you?’ Annie bobbed her head in a small movement, not quite a nod,
not quite a shake. ‘So was I,’ he continued, ‘so I just want to know that she’s
safe. You see?’

‘I don’t know where she is,
honest.’

 ‘So how come she’s not
here?  She couldn’t just get up and crawl away by herself.’

Annie cast her gaze to the floor,
her fingers twisting around each other in jerky movements.

He sat down, silent as he
appraised her. ‘Go on,’ he said finally. ‘You have training to do and chores to
attend to.’ She curtsied and turned to run from the room. ‘And tell Polly to
come clean this mess,’ he shouted after her.

The girl who had been ejected from Ernesto’s office moments
before was sitting on the bottom step of a dusty, sweeping staircase.  She
called as Annie scurried from the office.

‘Oi, wool-brain!’

Annie stopped and turned to
her. 

‘What you done with that bairn,
then?’

‘Doctor Black wants you to clean
up his study,’ Annie stammered.

‘Maybe I don’t want to clean his
study.  You was the one who made him angry enough to mess it up.  You
should clean it.’

‘But if I go back in when he said
you…’

Polly grinned. ‘I’m
teasing.  We don’t want him blowing his top again. I don’t think his poor
old ticker would take it.’  She became serious and jumped from the step,
taking Annie’s arm and leading her to a door.  ‘In here, quick.’

Annie found herself in absolute
darkness as Polly opened the door, shoved her into the pantry and followed her,
closing the door behind her.  A symphony of smells greeted them: cheese,
bread, dried fruit,
salted
meats.  There was a
noise like someone’s stomach groaning. 

‘I’m
gonna
make this quick,’ Polly whispered, ‘the pong in here is driving me mad.’

‘What do you want?’ Annie asked.

‘I know you had something to do
with that baby disappearing.  You and I
ain’t
got real magic, so what did you do with her?’

There was no reply.

‘I won’t breathe a word to
ol
’ Ernesto, I swear.’

‘It weren’t right,’ Annie said.

‘I know that.  But it
weren’t your place to steal her away.’

‘I had to, he was going to do
something awful with her.’

‘Like what?’

‘I… I can’t exactly say.’

‘You hear ‘
im
muttering to ‘
imself
at night?’

‘Sometimes.’

‘So do
I
.
It’s all rot.’

‘Not always. I heard him talking
to other people too.’

‘Polite society don’t come
visitin
’ here.’

‘Someone came.’

‘When?’

‘A few nights ago.’

‘How comes I didn’t know about
it? I know
everythin
’ that goes on in this house.’

Annie gave a silent shrug. ‘I
only know I heard them in his study.’

There was a pause. ‘So you took
her?’

‘Don’t tell anyone, please…’

Although Polly’s face was in
darkness, her next words sounded like they were being smiled. ‘I’m proud of
you, girl.’

‘You won’t tell him, then?’

‘Duck-face in there?  Why
would I tell him?’

‘Because…’

‘POLLY!’

Both girls jumped as Ernesto’s
voice thundered along the hallway.

‘Stay here,’ Polly
whispered. 

Feeling along the shelves, her
hands detected the cold smoothness of an earthenware pot.  She gathered it
into her arms and emerged from the pantry.

‘There
ain’t
no need to shout.  I was just getting your elevenses.’

‘I didn’t ask for
elevenses.  I told that wretched Annie to fetch you.  Where is she?’

‘Feeding the horse.  She
told me an’ I was coming, but I thought you might be hungry, what with your
mornin
’ of terrorising young ‘
uns
and everything.’

‘I don’t want feeding.  Get
in here and clean this mess.’

Polly opened the pantry door and
replaced the crock, winking at Annie as she did.  Then she shut it again
and followed Ernesto to his study. 

A few
moments later, Annie crept from the pantry and ran out to the stables.

In the study, Ernesto closed the door and watched as Polly
gathered up his papers.

‘You know how you’re my
favourite?’ he asked in a silky voice. 

Polly stood, straightening papers
into a neat pile. ‘I
dunno
how these go together,
seein’s
as you won’t teach me to read,’ she frowned.

‘Never mind that.’ He stepped
forwards and took the sheaf from her. ‘I want you to do something for me.’

She narrowed her eyes, hands
resting on the fullest part of her long, threadbare dress. ‘What?’

‘You know how precious that baby
is to me,’ he said.

‘I do… so precious that we had
her in the house for weeks and you never called her anything but
the baby
.’ 

‘It’s better not to get
attached.’ Ernesto returned, seemingly struggling to keep his voice level.

‘Well, she had a name and if you
thought
anythin
’ of her you’d know it.’

‘I only need to know names when
you’re old enough to answer to them when I call.’

‘Sounds right,’ Polly huffed.

‘Watch your tongue; don’t forget
who feeds you.’

 Polly bent to collect more
sheets of paper from beneath the desk. She handed them to him. ‘She were a
witch, you know, her mother. So that
baby’ll
likely
be a witch too.’

‘I didn’t know that when I bought
her, did I?’

‘You know people who would give
good money for her, though.’

‘I don’t know where you get these
ideas from. If I knew that I would have sold you and Isaac years ago.’

‘We
ain’t
got real magic, though I can’t speak for Annie. Isaac and
me
only got tricks.’

‘I should have sold you anyway,’
Ernesto muttered. ‘You’re always sticking your nose into my business.’

‘So you didn’t buy her because
you thought she were a witch too?’

‘I wanted someone to work,
because you certainly don’t.’

‘A bairn? She’s too young to
work. But just think of the money you could make off an urchin with real
magic.’

Ernesto ignored the statement.
‘She was with Annie and thrown in for the price I paid for her.  That’s
all there is to it,’ he said irritably. Then he smoothed his expression. ‘I
want you to find out what you can from the others about the disappearance,’ he
said.  ‘Start with young Annie.  She was supposed to be taking care
of her and she knows more than she’s saying.’

Polly grinned. ‘I already have.’