Chapter Forty-Three

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

Kirkwall, Orkney

December 1594

ALISON

“I summon Mhairi Ness to the stand,” Father Colville bellows.

The courtroom buzzes with chatter, and I search across the room for any sight of my mother. I find myself looking for William, too, before the horror hits all over again. How can he be dead?

I expect the silence to stretch out, for Father Colville to be confounded by the failure of his first witness to appear. But then, she is there. My mother. My blood runs could, and I want to shout to her, Stop! Don’t you see? He wishes to tarnish you with the same brush as I!

But she makes her way to the front of the room, eyes fixed ahead as she walks up to the dais.

Mother stands before the crowd, wearing her best white dress beneath her mantle, a brooch bearing our family’s crest at the shoulder. She clasps her hands, sunlight from the window falling upon her face. My heart begins its fearful flutter. Her presence here is wrong. She is walking into a trap.

“Good day, madam,” Father Colville greets her.

“Good day, Father.”

“Mhairi, please tell the court who you are in relation to the accused?”

My mother takes a breath, her eyes flicking toward me. “I am Alison Balfour’s mother.”

She says it in a small voice, and so Father Colville prompts her. “May you repeat your last?”

“I am Alison’s mother.”

This time, her voice rings out across the courtroom, an announcement that stirs a rumble among the spectators and the bishops seated on the mezzanine. I watch Mother carefully, wondering why she will not look at me. Perhaps it is to spare herself from being overcome. But why is she here? Why has Father Colville called upon her?

“So, it is true to say that you know the accused very well indeed?”

“Yes, very well.”

My cheeks begin to burn, a bell ringing in my ears. I fear Mother is putting herself in danger.

Please be careful , I scream in my mind, hoping that somehow the message reaches her.

“I would invite you to tell the court about the night you saw Alison consort with a man outside her cottage.”

I snap my head up. Consort? Outside my cottage? My eyes travel to my mother, willing her to glance at me, to tell me why she has been called as a witness without uttering a word of it to me beforehand. She presses her chin to her chest, drawing a deep breath.

The crowd stares on at her, their attention fixed.

“I was in the byre behind my cottage on the evening of October nineteenth,” she says. “I had heard a noise and believed it to be my cow, who has a habit of getting her leg stuck between the wooden slats of the gate. If I don’t attend to her, she’ll break the slats, or injure herself. And so I went to check on her.”

“And what did you see?”

“I saw a man riding up the hill toward Alison’s cottage.”

“Which man was he?”

“Thomas Paplay.”

“The servant of John Stewart?”

“The very same, Father.”

My mouth falls open. Why would my mother never mention this to me? Why is she saying this?

Another murmur spreads throughout the court. Father Colville takes a step closer to her, his arms folded thoughtfully. “Please, share what you witnessed,” he says.

She hesitates. “Well, I wondered what business this man had with my daughter, or indeed her husband, and so late at night. It was close to midnight, the sky dark, and I could not imagine any business that would draw anyone across the parish so late. And when I saw who he was, I knew he would have had to come all the way from Kirkwall. It was a mystery.”

“Did you ask Alison about the meeting she had with Master Paplay?”

“I did not. I wished to see if she might mention it. And she did not.”

“Did you see him leave with anything?”

“He had a sack with him, tied with a red ribbon.”

The bishops huddle together in fervent discussion.

I want to slide off my chair and sink deep into the earth. I cannot believe that my own mother is saying these words.

Unless she is trying to protect someone.

There is a long silence as Father Colville processes her words. “Madam, there is one thing I cannot quite understand about your testimony. You say you believe your daughter to be such a powerful witch, capable of hexing the Earl of Orkney?”

She nods. “Yes, I do. She is a most powerful witch.”

Fervent whispers spiral up from the gallery, and I am dismayed all over again. My own mother, speaking so wickedly against me! How cruel she is, how hateful to stand before the bishops and gallery, declaring me a servant of the Devil Himself. But another thought stirs me—is she speaking out against me to protect Beatrice? They’ve already harmed Edward, but perhaps she fears for Beatrice, too? And it’s as though a candle is lit in the darkness of my mind. Is she sending me a message: Beatrice is at risk ?

I’ve come so far now. Surely my mother can hide my daughter away until I am safe?

“But yet, she lost three children,” Father Colville says, recalling me to the room. “She tried to use magic to restore them to health, yes?”

“Certain magic only works if the witch is of a certain condition.”

“Such as?”

My mother glances at me for the first time. “Well, there are hexes that only work if performed by a witch who is dying.” She tilts her head up and clicks her tongue against her teeth. “The hand of fate will not be turned on a whim, my lord. Magic requires sacrifice.”

I squeeze my eyes shut, tears streaming down my face. I think of my little ones. The boy I named William, and my two daughters, Eliza and Viola. My own William, who will never hold me in his arms again. My poor Edward, burned to force a confession, and Beatrice, who may yet grow old without either parent there to comfort her.

My mother is wrong. Sometimes, no magic in the world can save a life.

She leaves the room without looking at me. I feel the earth close in, the wind rattling the windows as though it brandishes knives. Inside I am filled with darkness. Regardless of her intentions, my own mother has rejected me, to see to it that I burn.

···

The whine of metal pulls me from my sleep, and I wake to see a dark shadow by the bars of the cell, the door opening.

It’s Mr.Addis. “On your feet,” he says gruffly.

“What’s happening?” I ask. I did not hear the cathedral bell toll at dawn, nor the four tolls that tell me the trial is to recommence. The window high up on the dungeon wall is blocked by snow, and my breath clings to the icy air like a cloud.

Mr.Addis does not answer, but tugs my chains roughly to hasten my pace. My head feels as though it’s filled with wool, but the thought slips into my mind—perhaps I have been freed. Perhaps I am being let go. The townsfolk have raised their voices to the earl, having witnessed the terrible and wrongful torture of my son and the murder of my husband, and I am finally being freed.

William’s death has not been in vain.

But then he takes me quickly across the castle courtyard, and I see a light in the tollbooth opposite. No carriage awaits me. Mr.Addis knocks at the door of the tollbooth, and Father Colville opens the door.

My heart lurches. Why are we here? Father Colville’s eyes travel to me, and he smiles. As the door widens, the lantern he is holding illuminates several others behind him, two guards I recognize from the courtroom. The last time I saw these men they were hauling my husband from his seat in the gallery, and my stomach turns to see them again.

“What is this?” I ask Father Colville. “Why am I here?”

I hear a noise in a corner. “Mama!”

I give a gasp as Father Colville’s lantern reveals Beatrice sitting in a chair by one of the guards, clutching the doll I knitted for her.

“Beatrice!” I say, making to run to her, but Mr.Addis holds the chains at my wrist, preventing me from going to her. My blood running cold, and my mind thrumming with my mother’s warning in court today, I turn to Father Colville. “Please, I beg you. Do not burn her little flesh.”

He nods. “As you wish.”

He answers by nodding at the guard, who takes her small hand in his and slips it in a metal contraption.

She grows panicked. “Mama, please!” she calls. “Make him stop!”

Father Colville stands by, his eyes fixed on mine, as the guard winds the machine with her fingers inside, and I see what they mean to do—they will crush her soft hand, destroying it forever.

“Stop,” I gasp.

The guard continues winding the machine. Beatrice gives a shriek like I have never heard, a high-pitched scream of pain.

I cannot bear it. First William, then Edward, and now our precious girl. My resolve is shattered.

“I will speak!” I scream.

I am sorry, William. I failed you.

The guard pauses, glancing at Father Colville. Beatrice’s scream vanishes in a deep exhalation of breath, her mouth open wide in terrible pain. Her eyes flutter, and the guard catches her as her knees buckle.

“I will confess,” I whisper. Then, a yell, from the bottom of my soul. “I will confess! But you will stop this now.”

I had to. Please understand.

I cannot abide her suffering. I cannot abide the crushing of her little hand, the fear on her face, the cruelty, oh, the cruelty against so innocent a being. Should the very gates of hell throw open wide before me I should withstand the flaming pits more than I can the harming of my daughter. I know now what my mother was trying to prevent—and yet despite the hurt she has caused, I am still in this room, still trying to save my daughter from harm.

Father Colville nods at the guards, who release my daughter. She slumps to the floor, shaking in breathless terror. In a moment I am with her, cradling her head in my arms. So long, so long have I craved her in my arms. Her body, all but broken.

And then I see The Book of Witching . It is in Father Colville’s clasped hands, though he does not see it. The book is there, capturing this moment in text scripted upon its pages, and I wonder how long it will stay.

“I confess,” I say.

Beatrice sobs. “Mama, no,” she whimpers.

“To which charge?” Father Colville asks me, and I almost want to laugh, to howl in his face. Does it matter? Every single charge against me leads to one destination: the stake.

“All of them,” I say in a low growl, a sudden ferocity springing from deep inside as I crouch over Beatrice. “Every single last one of them, if it means you’ll not hurt my bairn.”

The book vanishes from sight.