The Witch’s Daughter (22 page)

I ceased fidgeting with the lavender bags and looked at Tegan. The gauche girl was fading, and a newly confident woman was taking her place. Only love could lend such instant confidence and bring about such a rapid transformation. I had been right in my assumption. She was lost to me, then. Her study of the craft was surely not far enough advanced to hold her attention when faced with the distraction of youthful lust.

‘Thought I might call round tomorrow, if that’s okay,’ she said.

‘Won’t you be busy with your new friend?’

Surprise altered her features. ‘How did you know?’

‘It doesn’t take magical powers of divination to see when a person is in love.’

She blushed and grinned.

‘He’s performing in Batchcombe tomorrow.’

I flinched at the unexpected mention of the town of my origins. Tegan noticed my reaction and I turned away, anxious she should not think the disconcertment written on my face was connected with her romance. There was a pause where she waited for me to respond. Fortunately, two new customers presented themselves, and I gave them my attention. Tegan lingered for a while longer and then slipped away. I felt a painful tugging in my chest. I knew I had snubbed her and she had felt that rejection. What choice did I have? Better that I give up the idea of her as my pupil, of ever sharing with her the beauty and the blessing of my magic. She is just a girl, and I must let her be one.

MAY 6—THIRD QUARTER

I must say I admire Tegan’s thick skin. She arrived at my front door a little after twelve this morning.

‘I would have come earlier, but, well, me and Ian had a late night. He’s gone to Bournemouth now. He’s got this cool motorbike. Says he can make shed loads of cash on a Sunday lunchtime this time of year. He plays the guitar brilliantly.’ She ventured a coy smile, ‘I think he loves me.’

‘I’m happy for you.’

‘You’ve gotta meet him. I know you’ll love him. He’s … special.’

‘Of course he is.’

She shifted from one foot to the other. A blackbird in the garden behind her began to sing.

‘Well, are you going to invite me in or what?’

I stood aside and she brushed past me. In the kitchen, she fell to idle chatter, clearly trying to regain some of the ground she had lost. It is not in my nature to be sullen, but I did my best at least to be uninteresting in the hope that she would get bored and give up. She did not. Eventually she got cross.

‘Look, what did I do that’s so wrong?’

‘Do you need to ask?’

‘So I missed some stuff. I’m sorry. I’ll do it next time.’

‘Stuff!’ Now it was my turn to be angry. ‘You missed Beltane. You passed up on the opportunity to experience one of the most exciting and spellbinding Sabbats of the wiccan year. One of the most important rights of passage any apprentice witch can take.’

‘What did you say?’

‘I said Beltane is of huge significance, not to be treated as a casual event…’

‘No,
witch
. You said
apprentice witch
.’

The air in the pause fizzed.

‘I might have.’

‘You did! You really mean you are going to show me how, to train me up to be like you. Me! A witch! It’s not just a few bits of New Age larking about and some smelly oils, is it? This is so mad.’ She sat down heavily in my chair by the unlit stove, not taking her eyes from me for an instant.

‘I don’t think you even know what the word means,’ I said, embarrassed by my own petulance.

‘I do. I’ve been reading the books you gave me.’

‘When you thought it was all just, what did you call it, “larking about”—I’m surprised you bothered.’

‘I did. I am. Look, never mind what I thought before. It was always cool, I mean, I wanted to learn. And d’you know what? I think that’s because I always knew. You tried to pretend. Admit it, you tried to make out it was just, like, a lifestyle choice or something. Hippy values. Natural way of living. Grow your own veg. Make your own herb oils. Culture your own yogurt. I knew that stuff you gave me fixed Sarah Howard. I told you then I’d sussed what you are, but you were having none of it. Told me about your ancestors and all that but wriggled out of it, didn’t you? Tried to get me to believe it was all just a bit of fun, just old remedies and fairy tales and superstition.’ She narrowed her eyes at me. ‘But it’s more than that, isn’t it? Much more.’

I had been so determined to push her away, but I felt my resolve weakening in the face of such fascination. The ego is a dangerous thing.

‘To be brutally truthful with you, Tegan, I no longer believe you have what it takes to be my pupil.’

‘Bullshit!’

‘Must you use that language?’

‘If you didn’t think I could hack it, you wouldn’t have started showing me stuff in the first place.’

‘To learn the ways of the craft demands dedication. Commitment. Sacrifices have to be made.’

‘You’re saying I can’t have a boyfriend?’

‘I’m saying you have to prioritize.’

‘Choose, you mean?’

‘Not necessarily, no.’

‘What then?’ She sprang up from the chair and strode over to me. To my surprise, she took my hands in hers. ‘Tell me what I have to do to prove myself. I want to do it. I want to learn. I want to be like you. What do I have to do?’

I wondered: If I had asked her to give him up, would she have done so? Was she daring me? Challenging me? Or did she know me better? Know me well enough to be certain I would not, could not, ask that of her. How could I? The child had barely known love her whole life, who was I to take it from her now that she had found it?

‘You would have to devote far more time to your studies.’

‘I will.’

‘Serious study, not simply leafing through books and treating the whole matter as a pleasant diversion from your schoolwork.’

‘Serious. I can do serious.’

‘Why do I doubt it?’

‘Test me, go on.’ She hurried to the sideboard and fetched my
Grimoire
. ‘Ask me something. Anything. I
have
been reading.’

‘Your commitment cannot be so easily tested.’

‘Let me show you what I know.’ She shoved the heavy book into my hands. ‘Go on.’

‘Very well.’ I put the
Grimoire
down on the kitchen table and folded my arms. ‘Tell me the difference between a wand and an athame.’

‘Easy. A wand is for moving energy and directing it; an athame is for sacred rituals and ceremonies and for banishing negative energy. Ask me another.’

I pursed my lips. ‘Which tree is sometimes called the Lady Tree and must never be cut down.’

‘The elder! Come on, ask me something harder than that.’

‘List the Sabbats in the order they occur in thirteen moons.’

She did so. She also listed the Esbats, the Equinoxes, the festivals of the pagan deities, and wiccan lore. She went on to explain the plants associated with each Sabbat ceremony, as well as the colors and foods that should be used. When she had finished, she sat back down, a triumphant smile on her face.

‘Go on, you’re impressed, admit it.’

‘Learning things by rote is hardly a sophisticated skill.’

Temper flashed in her eyes, but she mastered it well. Taking a breath, she said, ‘I am serious, Elizabeth, really.’

I sighed. I so wanted her to be in earnest.

‘We shall see,’ I said. ‘You can start by making me lunch while I consider what is to be done.’

‘No problem.’ She jumped up again and wrenched open the door of the stove. She peered into its cold interior. ‘We’ll have to get this thing lit first,’ she said.

I focused, then blew gently in the direction of the kindling I had laid earlier.

Tegan leaped backward as the fire burst into life. Despite myself, I was unable to conceal my amusement. Tegan slammed the firedoor shut and turned to frown at me. ‘Serious, you said. I’m lucky I’ve got any eyebrows left.’

Tegan busied herself and cooked a dhal for us. As we ate, she continued to try to impress me with the knowledge she had so far amassed of the ways of a hedge witch. I was pleasantly surprised, both by what she had learned and by the quality of our lunch.

‘Your cooking has improved,’ I told her, when at last she fell quiet.

‘Wow, Elizabeth, don’t go wild with the praise, will you!’ She wiped her bowl with a piece of bread and pushed back her chair, stretching out her legs. ‘I’m stuffed,’ she said. I sensed her hesitation before asking me. ‘Will you tell me more? About what it’s like. Being a witch, I mean. What it’s really like.’

‘What do you want to know, specifically?’

‘You know, do you ever curse people? Put hexes on them? Has anyone ever done it to you? Do you know lots of other witches? I mean, they could be everywhere, couldn’t they? All around us and we just don’t know it. Do you belong to a coven? That sounds seriously scary. And what about men, can they be witches or are they wizards, or what was that bastard in Bess’s story? Warlocks, are they always warlocks? And can you really heal people? I mean, I know you have your potions and oils and you don’t have to persuade me they work, but what about bigger stuff? Real illness. Can you mend people? Can you?’

‘Healing is the reason for being a witch, Tegan. If you are truly of the craft, of the sisterhood, you cannot
but
heal. Sometimes with more success than others.’

‘So, you could cure cancer, that sort of thing? Wow, you could go into a hospice or a hospital and just … make people better! Couldn’t you? Could you?’

‘It’s not that simple. There is a great deal you don’t yet understand.’

‘Tell me.’ She leaned forward again, holding my gaze. ‘Please, tell me.’

The afternoon had begun to wane and sultry summer clouds darkened the sky. I waved my arm in a slow, expansive movement and the candles placed around the room gained tongues of fire. Tegan gasped but sat still.

‘There are witches who use their healing magic to great effect, Tegan. And there are those who would use it in the very opposite way.’ I shook my head. ‘Such power is terrible. It is against nature. It is a desecration of the craft. It is to be feared.’ I let my eyes be taken by the dancing flames of the candles and started to tell my tale.

Fitzrovia, London, 1888

1

The cadaver had already begun to stink. Eliza stepped aside to allow the men to manhandle the corpse off the handcart, through the doorway, and into the coolness of the morgue. The left arm of the deceased brushed against her brown skirt as he was carried by.

‘Put him over there, please.’ She pointed at a vacant wooden table in the near corner. ‘Gently now.’

‘Don’t you fret yourself, ma’am.’ The older of the two men treated her to a toothless grin. ‘The odd knock or bump ain’t going to bother this fella no more.’ He grunted as they swung the body up onto the scrubbed surface.

Eliza peered down at the figure. In the low gaslight, his features were softened, but there was no mistaking the face of someone who had lived a cruel life. All his woes were etched around his eyes and across his forehead, and his own aggression dragged down the corners of his thin mouth. Small flecks of light glinted off the backs of the lice that inhabited his hair. The noose that had dispatched him to another place had burned a vivid line around his neck. His clothes were filthy. Eliza pitied him his lonely end. What had brought him to the gallows she did not know. Whatever his crime, it seemed unreasonably cruel to deny the man a burial. But such was the fate of murderers with no one to claim the body or pay funeral costs. His destiny was to be an instrument of instruction for the medical students of the Fitzroy Hospital, who would pore over him, greedily slicing his organs, delving and probing and dissecting without a care for who he was or where he had come from. Eliza wondered how she herself would look if the story of her own life were so clearly written on her face. She fancied she would be too hideous to contemplate. Instinctively, her hand went to her hair. She let her fingers trace the broad sweep of pearl white that she did her best to conceal, tucked into her neat bun. It was indeed a mark of her history. A legacy of the moment of her transformation all those dark years ago. Aside from this memento, her appearance had changed little. She was no longer a girl but a woman. It seemed her body had continued to grow into maturity, and then the aging process had slowed. The magic that sustained her, which give her the eternal existence Gideon had spoken of, also gave her continued youth and strength. Eliza had observed that she aged outwardly no more than five years or so for every century she lived.

She became aware that the two men were still standing behind her, shuffling their feet.

‘Oh, please go up to Mr. Thomas. He will see you get your money.’

‘Thank you, ma’am.’ They touched their caps and scuttled away.

Eliza checked the watch she wore pinned to her dress. She must not keep Dr. Gimmel waiting. She hurried up the stairs from the basement into the main body of the hospital. The Fitzroy, as it was known locally, had been open as a teaching hospital for only four years, but the building was not new. Funds had dictated that part of a street of townhouses be bought and modified to produce a space that could accommodate both patients and students. Consequently, with its many floors and narrow hallways, the Fitzroy presented unusual challenges when taking patients to and from the operating theater, or to the mortuary. The theater itself had been constructed for the purpose of surgical procedures and was well planned and equipped. By the time Eliza entered by the side door to collect her white apron, the room was already a-buzz with eager pupils. The smell of carbolic mingled with that of sweat and polished wood. A short oak partition screened off the area where the nurses, dressers, and surgeons donned their theater garments. Nameplates above a row of pegs identified the owner of each apron or coat. Once a week, all the bloodstained clothes were taken to be laundered, though some doctors became superstitiously attached to a particular coat and would rather proceed with it in its gory state than give it up. Eliza harbored no such sentimentalities. She had learned a very long time ago, from her mother, that cleanliness was inseparable from healing. It astounded her that the medical profession had only recently woken up to this fact, and some still stubbornly persisted in their own dirt-ridden ways. She wrapped her spotless apron around herself and tied it tightly at the small of her back. Despite being better qualified and more experienced than many of the medical staff working at the hospital, she knew it would be provoking to dress in a surgeon’s gown rather than a nurse’s uniform. It was hard enough gaining acceptance in such a man’s world without drawing avoidable criticism. She covered her hair with a fresh white cap and went through to the theater proper. There was barely a space empty in the rows of tiered stands that formed a semicircle in front of the operating table. Since it had become a legal requirement that a practicing doctor should have a minimum of two years’ anatomical instruction, there had been no shortage of students. As was her habit, Eliza briefly searched the muddle of faces, checking for new students, for someone unfamiliar, someone set apart. She had felt safe since coming to the Fitzroy, but the habits of suspicion and wariness were deeply established after all these years. She had never fully shaken off the sense of being pursued. She knew it would be dangerous to do so. She was accustomed to ignoring the ribald remarks thrown in her direction. Aside from an elderly nurse who was now busy pouring sawdust into the blood box beneath the operating table, she was the only woman present. She was aware that some of the young men saw her only as a female, as someone to be seduced or ignored depending on taste. She was also conscious that many resented her presence, and some were fiercely jealous of the regard in which she was held by Dr. Gimmel. It was no secret that he saw her as his protégé and took pride in her skill as his most talented pupil. In truth, Eliza believed he enjoyed scandalizing some of his fellow surgeons. She counted herself fortunate to have such a mentor. So fortunate that she had so far decided against going into practice herself. While women were now permitted to work as doctors, they seldom practiced as surgeons. By staying at the Fitzroy as Dr. Gimmel’s assistant she had the opportunity to perform operations she would never have been able to carry out anywhere else.