Witchstruck by Victoria Lamb

Author:Victoria Lamb
Language: eng
Format: azw3, mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781448120215
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2012-07-04T23:00:00+00:00

TWELVE

Devil Worship

THE NEXT MORNING, we were woken just before dawn by a hammering at the front door of Lytton Park. I ran out of my room, and saw Malcolm and Will, sleepy-eyed and still in their nightgowns, emerging from their own room at the end of the corridor. My father came out looking shocked and haggard. Dragging off his woollen nightcap, he stared down into the shadowy hall, then turned to Will and Malcolm. The three men spoke in urgent whispers at the top of the stairs, as though trying to decide what to do. Then one of the servants stumbled down with a candle to open the door, and was knocked aside by Dent and a mob of angry, torch-carrying men.

‘Where is she?’ one of the older men demanded hoarsely as they all poured into the hall. ‘Where is the witch?’

Ashen-faced, my father hurried downstairs to face the intruders. He stood his ground at the bottom of the stairs, dragging a long black coat about his crumpled night-clothes. ‘What are you doing in my home? Who gave you the right to come bursting in here at this hour? Master Dent, I demand an explanation!’

But his exclamations fell thin as the men held their flickering torches aloft and Dent came forward without answering.

The expression on his lean face was menacing, a thick pikestaff in his hand. His blue gaze glittering with malice, the witchfinder looked first at my brother’s dumbfounded expression, then at my cousin. At last he saw me standing behind my father and pointed a long accusing finger in my direction.

‘You!’

I felt my knees almost go from under me, remembering how Dent had seized me yesterday and how powerless I had been to stop him. This must be what my father warned me of when he said I had ruined the family. Was Dent’s revenge to have me strung up as a witch?

‘Speak!’ he insisted. ‘Where is your aunt?’

This I had not expected. His demand left me speechless and stricken with horror. My aunt? I had thought him here to arrest me as a witch, to have me dragged away for humiliating him.

‘Aunt Jane is sick. You cannot believe she is a witch. She has not even left her bed since before Christmas!’

‘Since Christmas, you say?’ Dent turned to the older man beside him, nodding significantly. ‘You see, Lawson? Did I not say she had a hand in your youngest grandchild’s drowning, back in December? And now this new tragedy in the village.’

My father was staring. ‘What are you talking about? What new tragedy?’

‘Little Alice Butterworth died yesterday morning. Not a mark on her when they found her poor little body. No, nor a fever when she was put to bed.’ Dent looked up at me, a malicious light in his blue eyes. ‘What is that, I ask you, but the work of a witch? A devil-worshipper!’

‘Aye,’ several of the men agreed, beginning to seethe and mutter amongst themselves. One of them stared so hard at me that I suddenly feared for my own neck too.

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