A Witch In Winter (32 page)

‘What is it?’ Seth asked.

‘It’s just …’ I knew I was being irrational but I couldn’t help it. ‘Seth, the last time I was in a boat with you, I ran up such a storm we nearly died.’ That was true but, too, I was thinking about the Ealdwitan’s flood – those strange, deep-sea creatures that lurked in the deep ocean, about my terrifying dive through the fathoms to release Seth from a watery grave in his truck, about Seth fighting for his life on his desperate race to the Spit.

Seth gazed up at me steadily. He looked as if he knew what I was thinking, and after all, he’d come even closer to death than I had, but his face was quite calm, no trace of fear at all.

‘I understand. If you don’t want to, we’ll do something else, it doesn’t matter. But it’s a completely calm night – we won’t even be able to sail. I’ll have to row us, it’s so calm. I’ve triple-checked the forecast. But most of all, I know the sea. I’ve been in it, on it, around it every day of my life since I was a tiny kid. I love the sea, and I know you’ve seen its terrifying side, but I want to show you how lovely it can be.’

I hesitated a moment more, then jumped – and the movement sent a thousand glittering sparkles across the bay as Seth caught me surely and set me on the stern.

‘Shouldn’t I wear a life jacket?’ I asked as Seth picked up the oars. Seth smiled.

‘Well, if you like. But I’ve seen you dive to fifty feet without oxygen. So if you don’t want to, I
think
you’ll be OK. Plus, I’m here to pull you out.’

We sat in silence while Seth rowed us slowly out of the harbour and on to the night sea. It was nearly the longest day and, although the sun had set some time ago, the sky was still infused with a wash of lemon towards the west. Above the horizon the shades deepened, through aquamarine, turquoise, azure, to a glorious midnight blue. Stars began pricking out as Seth rowed.

At last, far out across the bay, he stopped and set the oars to drip. We drifted with the current, watching the lights of Winter, very small across the bay, and the lighthouse making its lazy searchlight-sweep every few minutes. Everything, every glittering light, every cottage and house, even the moon, was reflected in the clear waters of the bay, and the waves rocked us gently with an almost imperceptible swell.

‘It’s so beautiful,’ I whispered.

‘I know.’ Seth smiled. He opened the basket and the sight and smell made my mouth water: dressed crab, crayfish, crusty rolls, strawberries and cream. I could have eaten the whole lot that minute. But it was for something else that Seth was searching. He dug in the basket and came up with a bottle of wine and two glasses. Then he laughed. ‘Damn, I thought I’d packed so carefully! I’ve forgotten the corkscrew.’ He examined the bottle for a moment and then shrugged, ‘Oh well, I’ll have to cork it.’ He pulled off the foil and pressed. There was a short, silent struggle, then wine spurted up his sleeve. He licked it off and then poured two glasses, the cork bobbing in the bottle.

‘Well, Anna.’ He held one out to me. ‘Here’s to us. And love.’

‘To us,’ I echoed, and we touched glasses.

To
us
, I thought. It had a nice sound. No, better, it had a wonderful sound. A magical sound. I set my glass carefully on the plank and leaned across towards Seth. Then I kisse. T witd him.

I didn’t think about the Ealdwitan, or Bran, or my mother, or any of the troubles that might lie ahead. I just kissed him, letting my fingers wander through his hair, under his shirt, up his forearms, so that he shivered and tightened his grip. I kissed him the way I’d been wanting to, ever since we’d met; until my blood seemed to turn to molten gold and the whole world shifted and rocked and rearranged.

‘Whoa! Steady, steady.’ Seth pulled back, laughing, and set his hand to the tiller to right the rocking boat. I laughed too, looking at the waves that had suddenly sprung up around us, stirred up by the force of my desire. As my heart calmed, so did the waves, and the little boat slowly steadied.

Seth let go of the tiller, put his arm around me and we lay back against the stern, side by side in the deepening night. I rested my cheek on his shoulder, and a happiness so deep it was almost terrifying began to unfurl inside me, as the moon set and the stars came out over the sea.

Behind us, as the boat drifted, the starlight shimmered off a beautiful iridescent trail. A trace of petrol from the boat’s motor floated on the sea, making broken rainbows of our lazy wake. It was a thing of beauty, a little piece of magic out of nowhere. From just oil and water.

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AN INTERVIEW WITH RUTH WARBURTON

How did you come to write
A Witch in Winter
?

I’ve always written stories; the first one I can remember writing was when I was about seven and it was about … witches! Surprise, surprise. I can’t recall the title but I do remember it was about a factory caretaker called Cardy. He’s sweeping up the factory one night after dark when he’s surprised by a mother and daughter appearing on one of the walkways high above the factory floor. Strange things start to happen and he realises that it’s Hallowe’en … It was all told from the point of view of the sixty-year-old Cardy, which in retrospect was a bit of a strange choice for a seven-year-old, but I remember my teacher liked it.

I wrote lots more stories after that, and they got longer and longer, but it took me a long time to come back to witches as a subject. One day I was listening to a programme on the radio about romance in literature, and one of the interviewees said that the challenge is finding original reasons to keep the hero and heroine apart – because there’s no story if tr="#00ce="serifhey just fall into each other’s arms and live happily ever after on the first page. I listened to it, thinking that for me, the most compelling reason not to fall into someone’s arms is because you don’t know if they really like you or not. And suddenly the idea for
A Witch in Winter
came into my head – a girl who enchants the boy of her dreams to fall for her, but then has to live with the fact that she’ll never know for sure whether he truly loves her.

Can you tell us a bit more about the spells in the book
–
how did you research them?

A lot of them are based on real beliefs, for example the idea of putting a broom across the door to stop an evil-doer from entering is found in lots of cultures. And the piece that Liz reads aloud about a wife putting blood in her husband’s wine is actually an old voodoo spell (although in voodoo tradition you add the blood to his coffee).

The reducing spell is based on an old Hebrew spell for banishing spirits and demons. You take the demon’s name and reduce it, letter by letter, until the demon is vanquished.

So there are a lot of seeds from folk traditions and different witch-craft practices, but I adapted them to suit my purposes, and nnone of the spells that Anna performs are real.

The incantations look like they’re written in a foreign language – are they?

Sort of, yes. They’re mostly written in Anglo-Saxon (also known as Old English – the English of
Beowulf
, the
Dream of the Rood
and the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicles
). This is the language that was spoken in England before about 1000 AD. Later it mingled with Norse, French and other languages to become first Middle English (the English of Chaucer and Malory) and finally Modern English (which is Shakespeare’s English, and also our own).

I studied Anglo-Saxon as part of my English degree and found it really hard! It’s basically a completely foreign language and almost impossible to read without a dictionary and a grammar guide, although some of the words sound like their modern equivalents when you read them aloud. For example ‘sc’ is usually pronounced ‘sh’ so the Old English word ‘Sceadu’ is pronounced quite similarly to what it means in Modern English; ‘shadow’.

Lots of the words in the spells are borrowed from Anglo-Saxon poetry, particularly
Beowulf
which is beautiful and full of evocative words and phrases: the sea is a ‘hronráde’ which means ‘whale-road’ for example. Several of the phrases used to describe and summon the storm demon are taken from
Beowulf
, including the word ‘Hwat!’ which introduces the spell. This is a word used in Anglo-Saxon poetry to begin a poem, and means something like ‘hey!’ or ‘listen!’. Seamus Heaney gives it as ‘So’ in his trandition of
Beowulf
. It’s completely inauthentic to use it for a spell, but I loved the idea of a poet casting a spell upon his listeners, summoning them to be entranced, like Anna summons the demon.

Is Winter a real town?
wn?v h

No, but it was inspired by several real places. The seaside setting comes from holidays in Cornwall, Devon and Brittany, but the town of Winter itself was influenced by Lewes, where I grew up. Lewes isn’t exactly like Winter – it’s bigger for one thing, and it’s about five or six miles inland – but it does have a lot of similarities. It has a very long history, including an Iron-Age fort on Mount Caburn above the town, and a spooky ruined castle almost a thousand years old, which partly inspired Winter Castle (although Lewes Castle is in the middle of the town, not overlooking the sea). Lewes was also heavily flooded in the year 2000 while I was still living at home. My dad’s house, which overlooks the river, was flooded almost a metre deep and some of those experiences found their way into
A Witch in Winter
.

Who is your favourite character?

Oh this is really hard! I’m not sure I can pick one – I do have a really soft spot for Emmaline. Partly because she has the same faults as me – I can be equally sarcastic and impatient – and partly because she’s all about the sisterhood. I love an unapologetically strong woman who stands up for her friends.

But I also love Anna – she tries so hard to do the right thing, even when it’s painful. And she’s courageous, even when she’s full of self-doubt, which is the highest form of courage really.

And of course I heart Seth – for loving Anna in the truest way – not wanting to change or limit her, or make her less than she can be, and for not being fazed by the prospect of a girlfriend who could kick his ass several times over, if she wanted to. I could never write a book where only the guys get to have cool powers and do fun things, and the girls just sit around and get saved – in
A Witch in Winter
Anna is the one with the cool powers, and she and Seth both save each other in different ways.

Actually I really like all the girls in the book – even Caroline, who gets a pretty raw deal in my opinion.

Is there going to be a sequel?

Yes – A Witch in Love. Stay tuned …

Can readers contact you with their own questions?

Yes! Absolutely, I love to hear from readers. You can find me online at
www.ruthwarburton.com
, or if you prefer pen and paper, you can write to me c/o Hodder Publishers, Hodder Children’s Publicity Dept (their address is at the front of the book). Please come and say hi!