The Witch Hunt (Jonny Roberts Series Book 3) Read online

  I couldn’t give her the real answer, that seeing her screaming on her bedroom floor had made sleep exceptionally difficult. “The light woke me up,” I said, giving a half-truth instead.

  “Hmmm. Maybe we need to get some darker curtains for that room. Anyway, I hope you packed some walking boots. It’s quite muddy where we’re going.”

  Typically, the only shoes I’d brought were my gleaming white Converse and my Nike trainers. Knowing that my Converse would be beyond resurrection if I wore them in so much as a drop of mud, I decided to risk my trainers.

  Thankfully, people were a little chattier on the car journey to Devil’s Lake. Dad’s eyes seemed to have been restored closer to their normal colour, and Bella seemed as cheerful as ever. Even Zara made some conversation at one point.

  The mood was quickly dampened though as, just after we’d paid admission and entered the place, the first raindrop fell.

  “That’s typical,” said Dad. “Bloody typical. You wouldn’t think it was summer, would you?”

  Unfortunately, the rain only worsened. And when we finally turned the hill, and saw the lake for the first time, I began to wonder what all the fuss was about. Maybe on a bright day, Devil’s Lake might have been pretty, a blue oasis in the middle of a canopy of green. But today, I could see how else it had got its name. For as the trees swayed in the harsh wind, and the rain battered the surface of the lake, it looked more like the entrance to hell. The water had turned a threatening grey, and the ripples made it look like something was under it. Maybe even the witches, clawing their way back to the surface. Sent by the devil to wreak havoc on Earth once again.

  “Matthew Hopkins, the Witchfinder General, first came here in 1645,” said Kevin, our tour guide, over the noise of the rain hammering on the trees around us. We were stood by the edge of the lake, a group of ten or so. I was soaked. I had a waterproof, but it was cheap, and the rain had started to seep through to my t-shirt. “The lords of Hertfordshire paid Matthew Hopkins and his army of peasants fifteen pounds to clear the local area of witches. This, of course, was a lot of money in the seventeenth century. Just one of the ways in which he tested to see if a woman was a witch was to tie her thumbs to her big toes, throw her in the lake, and if she floated, she was a witch, and had used her magic to stay afloat. If she sunk, then she wasn’t. Obviously, all would sink, being unable to swim. But nobody would rescue these women from the lake. They’d be left to drown. And ironically, their bodies would soon float after death.”

  Kevin shook his head. He seemed to have taken this personally.

  “How about we go somewhere a bit drier now?” Everybody nodded, murmured. The rain had reached a crescendo, drowning out Kevin’s voice. “Matthew Hopkins’ headquarters is just this way. Follow me.”

  It was only a few minutes’ walk, but it was far enough for us all to get drenched a little more. Irritatingly, Dad and Bella still seemed happy enough to be trudging around in the mud. Zara was stomping around though, and had already moaned a couple of times about why we’d all had to come here.

  “Because it’s interesting,” said Bella. “Pay attention, and you might learn something.”

  Watching Bella as we walked around the curve of Devil’s Lake, I wondered how she’d found her interest in witches. It was an odd fascination. Then again, perhaps she’d needed to fill a gap in her boredom during the year she’d spent without a job.

  The closer we got to the opposite side of the lake, the clearer our destination became, emerging beyond the sheets of falling rain. It was a little cottage, the slate that it was made from even duller with the dark sky.

  “This is the cottage where Matthew Hopkins directed his operations, and tortured many accused witches,” said Kevin, as he opened the heavy wooden door. We followed him in, our shoes squelching against the cold flagstone floor. I daren’t look down at my trainers, out of fear that I wouldn’t recognise them.

  Once we were all through the narrow doorway, and I was able to move around the group a little, I saw that the downstairs of the cottage was little more than one small room, with a staircase in the corner, leading up. But the rest of the room, which was badly lit by a few candles, comprised of little more than a few pieces of furniture. Firstly, an old oak desk, covered in scrolls, which had probably been added by the guides in an attempt to make the scene more authentic. Also, a couple of more modern-looking glass cabinets. There was a fireplace, and a red rug spread out in the middle of the room. Finally, a portrait completed the decorations. It was the least cosy cottage I’d ever seen.

  “The desk in the corner is where Matthew Hopkins would have worked,” said Kevin. “And the picture of him on the far wall would have been how he’d have looked while he did so.”

  I focused on the picture, tinged orange from the dim candlelight. It was indeed of a moustached man, long hair passing his shoulders, scribbling away at a desk. I thought that the man must have been pretty arrogant and narcissistic to pay an artist to paint him at work.

  “He directed all of his operations around St Albans from here. In just over two months spent at this cottage, he killed 68 women. For the mathematicians amongst you, I’m sure you’ll be able to work out that this equates to roughly a woman per day. And Matthew Hopkins didn’t stop there. He worked his way across Hertfordshire, to lots of different towns, who paid him to sort their own witch problems.”

  Kevin turned away from the desk and picture now, and walked towards one of the glass cabinets. As I looked to it, I realised it contained some sort of model. It was a long wooden object, surrounded by smaller pieces of straw at its foot.

  “He hanged some of the witches, tortured others.” Kevin gestured to the wooden object, his voice taking a dramatic tone. “You’ve also heard about how he drowned them in Devil’s Lake. Perhaps, however, it was those that burned at the stake who suffered the most. Take a look at this small replica of the stake. The witch would be tied to the stake, and then the kindling at the base would be set alight, engulfing the body of the witch. Just picture it, burning alive. Think how that must feel.”

  I winced. I pictured the flames licking up my body, charring me and cooking me and burning me to a crisp. I shook my head. Surely there couldn’t be many worse ways to die.

  I looked back to the stake. Wondered how anybody could be sick enough to want to inflict that sort of pain onto someone.

  Sitting in the café, I still felt a little queasy from the strange torture equipment that Kevin had gone on to describe. The damp, which was now pressing against every inch of my skin, certainly wasn’t helping, either. I’d also risked a look at my trainers, to see that they’d turned brown over the past half-an-hour.

  “So, did we enjoy that?” Bella asked, wringing her hair over her shoulder. Zara looked to me, probably for my reaction. After all, we already knew what hers would be.

  “Well, it was a bit wet,” I said. Then, sensing a little disappointment from Bella as her eyes sank, “but it was still really interesting.”

  She brightened a little. “Really? I’m so glad to hear you enjoyed it. It’s so interesting, of course.”

  “The question is though,” Dad began, running his hand over his sopping raincoat, “do witches really exist? Were they right to kill all of those women in the middle ages?”

  “What do you think?” said Bella, seeming affronted. “Of course witches don’t exist. These poor women were put to death for absolutely no reason. The whole thing was disgusting.”

  I mulled this over. Just over a year ago, I didn’t believe that ghosts existed. But now, I knew that I could talk to them.

  “Who knows?” I said.

  Dad looked over his shoulder. “Do you think these teas are going to be a while? I need the loo.”

  “Same,” said Zara, who stood up immediately and clomped from the table. Dad disappeared a moment later. Which left Bella and me.

  She looked towards the toilets, as if to check that Dad had definitely gone. Then, she smiled at me. The corners of her mouth
gently lifting. Her eyes filled with perhaps the only warmth left in the room. Almost the complete opposite of how she’d looked the night before, I thought. Demonic. Her eyes black and huge.

  “Jonny,” she started, “I just want to say that I know how tough this must be for you, especially after your dad didn’t talk to you for such a long time. I know you’ve not forgiven him, and I know he still has a long way to go to make this up to you, as do I. But I just want to let you know that I haven’t seen him smile so much for over a year. Since he last saw you, in fact. So thank you. Thank you for giving your dad a second chance.”

  I didn’t know what to say. “It’s okay,” was all I could muster. I shuffled my feet awkwardly, looked to the table. Bella continued to smile, as if she knew how to do nothing else. She said nothing more though, and after a time I realised that it was my turn to make conversation.

  “If you don’t mind me asking, I still don’t know how the two of you met?”

  She looked down to her hands. “I knew your father for a year or so before . . . you know. And we met at a work event. We got chatting, and it all just moved very quickly.”

  “Right. Which work event?”

  “A dinner, in London. My recruitment firm were there, and we recruited people that worked in finance, like your dad. We met at the bar. He bought me a glass of wine, and it all started from there.”

  I nodded. “So, if you’d ordered drinks at different times, then you might not even have met?”

  She frowned. “Maybe not, no.”

  And in that case, my family might not have been destroyed. Mum might have been okay for the past year-and-a-half. I bit my lip. I wanted to forgive Bella. She seemed kind, and well-meaning, despite everything. But at the same time, I couldn’t forgive too easily. I reminded myself that I’d only known her for 24 hours, even if she’d gone a long way to changing my view.

  “But you’re together,” I said. “And you both seem happy.”

  “We are happy.” Her frown returned to that smile.

  “Then I guess I’m happy,” I said, even if I didn’t wholly mean it.

  We didn’t have time to say anything else, as Dad was wandering back over.

  “What have you two been talking about?” he asked, his chair scraping against the floor.

  “Nothing much,” said Bella. “Just talking about the weather, weren’t we?”

  “Just the weather,” I echoed, still thinking about what might have been, and what was.

  6

  We spent the rest of the afternoon playing board games and watching TV. Meanwhile, rain thrashed against the windows, and the sky remained grey and murky. Dad lit a fire in the living room, which certainly warmed the place. Snuggling into the sofa with a cup of tea, it felt a little like Christmas.

  There were surprisingly few arguments during Monopoly, even if Dad did get a little arsey with Zara when she wouldn’t sell him one of her properties. Dad had always been a little over-competitive.

  “Now, now, Michael,” Bella said, giving him a look which quickly shut him up.

  After Zara wiped the floor with all of us, completing four sets of hotels, I wondered whether I might finally see her smile. Yet, she didn’t even revel in her victory. She merely shrugged her shoulders, and started to load her cards back into the box.

  Taboo was a bit more fun. We all laughed at making a fool of ourselves. Even Zara had to snigger.

  In the evening, Bella cooked a stew, which was an odd thing to eat in summer. But it was so cold outside that I almost craved something wintery and stodgy.

  And, crawling into bed that night, I felt a lot better for it. I felt warm and cosy. In the end, it had been a pretty good day.

  It was then that my stomach panged. For a few hours, I’d completely forgotten about Cassy, Stephen, everything. It had all just slipped from my mind. I supposed that it was being away from Grantford; perhaps it had released me from my shackles. Though it pained me to think that I had to go back the following evening, to pick up the pieces of my life again. To try to make some sort of picture out of what was left.

  I pushed it all away from my mind. I’d had an alright day, so why spoil it?

  I smiled. Two days ago, I’d been deeply hesitant to let Dad into my life again. Okay, we’d had the argument in the car, and I still thought he was an arsehole for what he’d done. But, he was trying. He wanted to show me that he knew that he’d made a mistake, that he could be different now.

  I decided that I wasn’t going to resist him any longer. He was my dad and, tomorrow, before I left, I knew that I was going to tell him that what had happened was in the past, and that we were moving on from it. A fresh start.

  I repeated these three words in my mind, my eyelids growing heavy. I pulled the duvet closer around me. Things were going to be alright again, between Dad and me. And if things between us could be alright, after a year-and-a-half of not speaking, then maybe everything else in my life could be alright again, too.

  The gentle patter of rain against the window soon became the soundtrack to my sleep.

  The rain had stopped when I awoke at two.

  As soon as my eyelids flickered open, something sank inside of me. I waited to hear another of Bella’s screams, echoing through the house. I tensed. Held my breath.

  It was just as I began to wonder if I’d woken up by chance that I heard the bang from downstairs. Then another bang. And then a scrape, from directly below me. I heard no other noise in the house, so perhaps I was the only one aware of it.

  I blinked. It could have been an animal. Maybe even a burglar. Though, admittedly, it might just have been an open window, banging against the wall. I didn’t know Dad’s house, and the noises it made during the night.

  However, as my skin tingled, the hairs on my arms rising, I could no longer resist the other possibility. As the image of Bella’s demonic eyes entered my mind, I felt an irresistible curiosity, an urge to investigate.

  It was like I was watching myself as I climbed out from the duvet. I wandered across the bedroom floor. Peeled back the door. All déjà vu. Only this time, after the door had opened, I looked out onto the darkened hallway, rather than the screaming figure of Bella in her bedroom.

  But, after my eyes had adjusted a little to the darkness of the hall, I noticed that her bedroom door was open. My mouth became dry. Maybe Bella was downstairs, fetching a glass of water. Or maybe she couldn’t sleep and had decided to read a book. There could have been a whole manner of reasons for why that bedroom door was open. A whole manner of logical, explainable reasons.

  So why was I shivering, when the house was warm? And why did the dark feel like it was shifting? Why did it feel like there was something else here?

  Something uninvited.

  I swallowed. Began to feel for the stairs with my feet, walking blindly on. The stairs barely creaked under my weight. Occasionally, I would hear another bang, or a rattle, from somewhere downstairs, somewhere within the darkness. But then, there would be nothing. Just the loud silence, permeating the house.

  It was when my foot brushed the final step that the loudest bang sounded. A deep, gloomy thud.

  I recoiled, my heart revving. A thought shot through my mind, a prayer that whatever had made that noise wasn’t waiting for me in the blackness. I thought back to my past. To Alice Pickering. To Katy Johnson. This was how it had felt, as I’d stalked those spirits. The crypt. Every sinew in my body, screaming. Screaming right now. Screaming at me to turn back, to not turn that corner to the living room.

  I breathed in. Braced myself. Stepped around the corner.

  Gasped.

  Rushed forwards.

  “Dad!” I bellowed. “Dad! Come quickly! Come quickly!”

  I had to shout it several more times before I heard thunder on the stairs. Before the light from the hallway threw an ugly, pale glow over her face.

  Dad raced into the living room. When he saw us, he froze for a moment, his mouth hanging open, his eyes pools of disbelief.

>   Then, he blinked.

  “We need to get her down!” he yelled. “Zara! Zara!”

  Zara charged in a few seconds later. She said nothing as she entered: there was no time for discussion. Each of us grabbed a different part of Bella.

  As soon as I touched her leg, electricity coursed through my body. Like she was a plug socket that I’d put my finger into.

  Somehow, I managed to cling on. Between us, we were able to lift her slim body.

  “Can you hold her?” Dad asked us. We answered yes. He raced from the living room. Must have gone outside: a cold breeze blowing into my face. Meanwhile, I looked at Zara. She looked at me. It was the first time I’d seen her show something other than anger, or sullenness. Because now, she was afraid. Her pupils were split.

  Her mum panting in our arms.

  “Is she going to die?” she asked me then. I said nothing. In truth, I didn’t know.

  A minute later, Dad ran back into the lounge with a saw. He made straight for the rope. The rope that had been laced around the ceiling beams. That had been strangling Bella to death when I’d stepped around the corner.

  He nearly tripped over the chair though, kicked sideways to the floor. The chair that had been used as a platform. The chair that must have made that terrible bang, just before I’d seen her.

  “Hang in there, Bella,” I said, as Dad sawed through the rope. A tear pricked my eyelid, but inside me, there was little room for sadness. I was engulfed by her tight, blue lips; her milky, upturned eyes; her gurgles and groans, as coarse as a cheese grater. All the time her limbs struggling in ours, desperate for us to leave her to her fate.

  Dad had to go beneath the knot of the rope, for it was tightly strained around Bella’s neck. Her wheezes were barely making it out of her throat. Her eyes beginning to close.

  “No!” I shouted. “Come on, Bella! Come on!”