The Witch's Secret by Samantha Grosser

Author:Samantha Grosser [Grosser, Samantha]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Samantha Grosser

Later, at dinner with his mother, he said, ‘I visited my father’s grave today.’

She lowered the hunk of bread in her hand to the plate, and her face grew still, set hard against her emotions. She said nothing.

‘I found the yew tree.’

She smiled at that. ‘When he died I took a cutting from the tree in the Grove, where we used to go,’ she said. ‘Ancient, sacred …’

‘It’s growing well.’ He would ask more about the Grove another time, he thought, curious now about this different facet of magic. He would ask her to take him there.

‘Did he come to you?’ She lifted her eyes to his. They were very grey today in the dim light of the main chamber, and filled with sadness.

He shook his head. ‘We exchanged no words, but he was there, I would swear it.’

‘He used to come to me often, for a while,’ she said.

‘In your dreams?’

‘And in spirit.’ She hesitated. Then she said, ‘For a long time I wanted to go with him, to follow him into death – a life without him seemed not worth the living. But he had given me you and so I stayed.’

‘Forgive me,’ he said. For though he could barely begin to imagine the pain of her grief, he understood the sacrifice.

‘You are Tom’s son.’ She smiled, and he caught a glimpse of the beauty of her youth, when she was loved and all seemed possible. ‘How could I do anything but love you?’ Then, the smile fading, ‘And I will be with him soon enough – a mortal life lasts barely a moment …’

Thoughts of death edged away the brief flush he had seen of her girlhood, and the years marked her once again with sadness. But still, it was hard to think of her in the cold, dark earth with her kind eyes closed for the final time and her skin leached pale of blood. All these years she had been waiting, he realised, and when Death came finally to take her, she would go with him willingly to take her place beside her brother. They would meet again in Hecate’s realm of death, he knew, not the Heaven and Hell of Judith’s faith. He would bury her at the Cross Bones beside her brother, he decided – she needed no Christian rites to speed her soul on its way. He said nothing, and they finished their dinner in silence.

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