A Witch In Winter (18 page)

CHAPTER ELEVEN

I
t took a long time for me to fall asleep that night, in spite of my exhaustion. I lay and read until my eyes scratched with tiredness and the radio had finished the Shipping Forecast and Sailing By. When the reader announced close-down I knew it was time to turn out the lights and – hopefully – to sleep. It was still school the next day, in spite of everything.

So I turned out the lights, turned my pillow to the cool side, and lay staring into the blackness, my eyes playing tricks on me with small twinkling lights that existed only in my mind, or as an echo of my reading lamp.

I’d never get used to the darkness of Winter, I thought. In London there’d always been a faint orange glow around my window where the street-lights filtered through, no matter how dense the blackout blind. But here, night was dark. Completely dark, unless there was a moon. I could hear sounds though – not the muted roar of traffic that had always filled my room in London, but the sound of Dad snoring through the wall and the movement of small animals in the woods outside. The screech of an owl and the scream of the small creature it had just caught. The rustle of leaves, the crack of a twig, a gate swinging in the wind, very faint and far away.

I lay and dozed, not quite sleeping, but not far off.

Crack
.

My heart thudded, loud in the silence. What was that? A crack, a definite loud crack, like someone stepping on a stick. Then, a scraping, stealthy rustle. My heart was pounding so hard that I put my hand up, as if to press it into silence.

Was it the crow again? There were so many of them around the house, more every day it seemed. They stalked across the lawn like hunched old men in mourning weeds, tapped on the windows, threw bones and shells down the chimneys in the middle of the night. I’d developed an irrational hatred of them and their bold, watchful malevolence.

Please, let it not be a crow, scrabbling into my room in the darkness of the night and stealthily creeping around, with its sharp beak and malignant black eyes.

I was still paralyzed when there was a knock, not at the door, but at the window. I leapt, stifling an involuntary scream with my sheets. For a long moment I sat, completely still apart from my trembling hands. But the next noise I heard stirred me into movement. The window, which I’d left ajar, was opening. I knew its distinctive creak anywhere. With shaking fingers I fumbled for the lamp and turned it on expecting, I don’t know – dark wings, black eyes, a cold black beak.

The room blazed. A bare foot and a leg, covered in blue denim, was appearing from under the curtain. I drew breath, ready to scream the scream of my life – and knocked over the lamp. I heard the bulb smash. The room went pitch black again. Then, very loud in the silence:

‘Anna – it’s me.’

It was Seth.

My heart was thumping so hard I wasn’t sure whether to run over and hug him, or push him back outside. He stumbled into the room in the pitch black, knocking over a pile of books by the window. At that I jumped out of bed, blindly heading for the reading lamp on my desk, and we blundered into each other in the dark. His frozen fingers clutched at me – I could hear his breath tearing in his throat as though he’d run a mile, or more likely swum it, judging by his shivers and his damp T-shirt.

‘Are you mad?’ I whispered. He stumbled again, and I wrapped my arms around him, trying to steady him. He leaned against me, pulling me into him, shuddering with cold. We both staggered and he dropped to his knees, pulling me with him. I put my hand up to his face in the dark; it was wet, though I could not remember it raining. I felt him shake his head.

‘Perhaps. I don’t think so. But I’m drunk.’ He laughed bitterly. ‘Not very drunk, just drunk enough.’

‘Seth, what are you doing? You’ll wake my dad.’ Although I knew that wasn’t true. Dad was still snoring, and if the clatter of Seth’s entrance hadn’t woken him, nothing would.

‘I don’t care.’ His voice was hoarse, and I could smell whisky and smoke on his breath, on his skin.

‘Where have you been all week?’

‘Were you worried?’ I could hear a smile in his voice.

‘Yes! But not as worried as I am now. Seth, please, this is crazy, let go of me.’

‘No.’ His fingers clutched me tighter, painfully tight through my thin pyjamas.

‘Yes.’ I began to gently disengage his grip. ‘I just want to put on the light.’

‘No, wait.’ He held me still, and I could feel his heart pounding even faster than mine. ‘Wait, Anna, it wasn’t true, what you said.’

‘What? What wasn’t true?’

‘All that—’ He shook his head angrily, like a swimmer trying to get the water out of their ears. ‘All that crap, about bewitching me, enchanting me.’

‘Oh please no – Seth, not this again.’ I felt desperation rise up. ‘It’s true. I swear, it’s all true. You saw the apple.’

‘It’s
not
,’ he hissed, with frightening vehemence. ‘It’s not true. I don’t care – I don’t care what you did, or what you thought, or what you said, d’you hear me? I don’t care. I know what I feel. I
know
. And I love you, Anna. It’s nothing to do with any stupid bloody schoolgirl potions. I love
you
. Can’t you understand? I love your skin, your lips, the little line between your eyebrows when you frown, the way you catch your breath before you speak, the way you smile when you think no one’s looking. You can’t
enchant
that.’ His hands were in my hair, on my cheek, gripping me with painful intensity in the darkness.

‘I did,’ I said wretchedly. ‘I wish I could pretend not, but I did. Seth, please believe me—’

‘Anna, just shut up! I know what I know. I know what I feel. Yes, those stupid first days when I kissed you and acted like a twat, none of that was me. I know that. You and your silly potions did that, you can have that. But you can’t change someone’s soul with a spell, Anna – you can’t make them
love
, not real love, not like this. How can I make you believe me? For God’s sake – I don’t
want
to love you – can’t you see that? I want to hate you. But I can’t.’

He stopped, his forehead resting on mine in the darkness, his hands twined in my hair. I felt his breath on my face, his lips so close to mine that I could feel the heat of his mouth, and my knees went weak. I knew in a minute I would do something very, very stupid. Every part of my body wanted to believe Seth, but wasn’t I just hearing what I wanted to hear? Whatever Seth thought, whatever his feelings now, it all rested on a lie. The truth was that I had started all this, with the spell book. And I had to finish it.

I shut my eyes, drawing up all the strength I possessed.

‘No.’ I tore his hands away and stood for a minute, trembling with the effort of will. Then I felt my way across the room and groped for the reading lamp. ‘Seth, please go.’

He looked awful in the lamplight. His T-shirt was wet and torn, his jeans ripped and muddied up to the knees. But he se ses.justiemed not even to hear me. Instead, he stumbled to the foot of my bed and half slumped, half knelt at the foot, his head resting on the bedspread. He was cut about the face and hands with brambles, the slashes shocking even in the soft half-light.

‘How did you get here?’ I whispered.

‘Walked, climbed …’

‘Up the sheer side of my
house
?’

‘It’s not so hard …’ His voice was faint and he shuddered. ‘Anna, I’m so cold.’

‘You’re wet.’ I laid my hand on his back and felt his T-shirt. ‘Did you swim too?’

He didn’t answer, his only response was the rise and fall of his ribs beneath my hand, and the occasional tremors from his cold, exhausted muscles. My heart seemed to hurt inside me. I wanted so much to hold him.

I gathered together all my resolve, all my willpower, for one final attempt.

‘Seth,’ I said softly, holding his shoulder, ‘Seth, you need to go. Please go, you can’t be here. It’ll be morning in a few hours, my dad will be up.’

He raised his head with a great effort and looked at me with exhausted, bleak grey eyes. The cuts on his face stood out, sharp and beaded with blood where he must have caught twigs and brambles in the dark.

‘Please don’t send me away, Anna,’ he whispered. ‘I’m so tired…’

He’d never make it home, I realized. Even if I managed to smuggle him past Dad’s room, downstairs and out the front door, he looked as if he could barely walk from one side of the room to the other, let alone the two miles into Winter through the dark, treacherous wood, then another mile or so across town to the Crown and Anchor.

‘OK,’ I said, defeated by his vulnerability. ‘I won’t make you go.’

I turned out the light and he crawled into bed beside me, pulling off his wet T-shirt. I wrapped my arms around him and he huddled into me, his head on my shoulder, the harsh stubble of his cheek grazing my bare neck. Gradually his shivering subsided. His shuddering breaths grew regular, and he slept.

I lay awake, listening to his quiet breathing, and feeling his cold skin begin to grow warm, absorbing the heat of my own. I had no right to feel so happy, so content, yet I did. I lay there, hardly daring to breathe, feeling the weight of his head on my shoulder and the slow, dreamy thud of his heart. When I was sure he was completely asleep I risked a small movement, pulling my dead arm out from under his head, and turning to face him. It was too dark to see much, but I could sense his face just inches from mine. I imagined his dark lashes sweeping his bruised cheeks, his lips, slack and peaceful in sleep.

I closed my eyes and slept, deeply and completely relaxed.

When I woke it was early morning, the birds were singing the dawn chorus, the sun was filtering through the curtains, and I stretched, wondering why I felt so happy.

Then I turned my head and he was there, beside me, his tousled head on my pillow, his eyes still closed in complete contentment. I couldn’t help it – I broke into a huge smile. He was here. Everything was right.

I let my toes explore beneath the sheets, feeling Seth’s long legs and the roughness of his jeans. When I raised my head I could see his bare feet and half a foot of shin sticking out over the end of the bed. He’d thrown the duvet partly off in the night, and lay with one arm outflung, his naked back golden in the muted, rose-coloured sunshine, perfectly at peace. Only the little fish was awake, still endlessly circling in the small of his back. But then Seth stirred, and suddenly I was aware of the narrowness of my bed and the way my body was curved into his. I jumped up and scrambled out of bed, turning to the window to hide my fiery blush, pretending I was admiring the view and had been there for ages.

‘Morning,’ Seth said sleepily, as sunlight flooded the room. I turned back to him. His eyes were open, crinkled against the sun, and he gave a huge smile as wide as my own. I hoped it was just general contentment and that he would put my pink cheeks down to the dawn sun streaming through the window. ‘Did you sleep well?’

‘Very, thanks. Did you?’

‘Oooooooooohhhh.’ He stretched luxuriously, so hard that I heard his joints click. ‘Soooo well, the best I’ve slept in ages. What’s the time?’

‘Still early – it’s only five – but you have to be out before my dad wakes up.’

‘Five! Come on, there’s not really any huge hurry, is there?’ Seth coaxed. He held out his arms. ‘Come back to bed. It’s so cold, and my clothes are still wet. And we wasted all that time last night sleeping … Besides, you wouldn’t be so cruel as to throw me out in the middle of the night, would you?’

‘It’s not the middle of the night.’ I tried to look stern but his grin was infectious. He looked so endearing, lying there with his hair all tousled against the pillow, his cheeks flushed with sleep. ‘It’s morning.’

‘It’s too cold.’ He stretched again and held out a hand. ‘Anyway, I think I’m feverish. I should stay in bed.’

I took his hand and sat on the side of the bed. Now that I’d adjusted I could feel that his skin
was
very hot. I touched his forehead with the back of my hand, as Dad used to when I was small and running a temperature. It was burning.

‘I think you
are
feverish,’ I said. ‘Though why I’m surprised I don’t know – running around in wet clothes in the middle of the night … What were you t sat Thohinking?’

‘I wasn’t thinking.’ He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. ‘I was acting …’

‘Enchanted?’ I finished.

‘Drunk,’ he amended defiantly.

‘Let’s just say, “under the influence”, and agree that you were talking a lot of rubbish.’

Seth gave a groan and propped himself on his elbow.

‘Anna, please, not this again. Don’t spoil today. I thought I’d convinced you last night.’

‘You’ll never convince me. I know what I know.’

‘You don’t know
me
.’ He shook his head. ‘And I do. Ugh, for a rational person you’re remarkably stubborn, Anna Winterson.’

I had to laugh in spite of my frustration – I’d just been thinking the same thing about him.