The Black North (21 page)

‘Are you here to help us?'

Another voice from somewhere close, and not Witch. In a whisper –

‘Girl – please tell me you're here to take me home.'

Oona searched but saw nothing except wet. But her imagination willed her towards something, the Loam Stone warming a little and urging her to recognise: she saw a face on the wall beside. Face of a child, a girl, but with no flesh or blood left in it. It spoke and its lips crumbled, cheeks caving – it blinked and clay fell from its eyes, a solid stutter of tears. Oona heard it whisper once more: ‘Please tell me you're here to take me home to my mammy.'

Then not one but many faces, more captured girls forming in the walls, more whispers –

‘Please help us.'

‘Take me home to my mother, I miss her.'

‘I want to go back above, I never wanted to come down here.'

‘I'm sorry I ran away from home, I should never have trusted those creatures.'

‘
Quiet out there or we'll do worse to you!
'

Oona shrunk tight, stilled. The whispers of the children dwindled. Oona looked for but could no longer discern any face. A shout of a Briar-Witch: ‘
That's the good girls! Behave yourselves or we'll have to go and tell your mammies that you've been bold and not done as you should!
'

More damp laughter.

Surrounded by nightmares, no escape, Oona wondered,
How could I have lived so long and not known the like of this nastiness? Not known nightmares at all, not had such desperate sights?

The thought of the children, of the Witches and their merciless taking – it all pushed Oona lower, and she was certain as certain that a dispell was winding its cold web around her heart. A sure banishment of hope, and a thriving of misery pouring into its place. But she'd seen such hopelessness before. She'd seen her grandmother trapped by it, and Oona was determined to be different. She'd promised herself she'd fight and this was the time to.

But then a sharper voice spoke, and all other Witches were quietened –

‘
My daughters.
'

Oona remembered words from the Boy of the Big House:
the Mother, their Queen
. She listened, and the same sharp voice continued, like the slow scratch of a fingernail along stone –

‘
We waste time with such games when there are more pressing
matters, don't you agree?
'

An agreement in silence, no reply came.

‘
I trust that you are aware of the presence of another close by?
'

Nothing in Oona moved.

‘
Someone of great interest just beyond our nest?
'

Oona tried to make herself ready for what might come but all she had for encouragement was her own wilful and contrary heart, and a final whisper by her ear, one of the girls in the wall returning to say, ‘Now she'll take you and toy with you but listen – the only way to stop her is the claw. If you can take the claw off her altogether that'll kill her, and then the other ones won't know what to do. They say whoever holds the claw of the Mother of the Briar-Witches controls the whole lot of them.'

‘
Bring her to me.
'

Oona had no time for reply, no time to nod or thank the trapped child as the rattle of roots sounded over the entrance to the nest like an agitation of old bones. The ground churned beneath and Oona's hands went fumbling for a weapon, thoughts skipping – knife, pistol, Stone? Fight or slash or shoot or –?

Claws around her ankles –

Oona knew purest panic – earth in her eyes and mouth and throat, thickening on her tongue and no seeing and nothing heard as she was dragged down into dark.

When air came again it was clammy and sour – spiked with the same kind of stench as in the garden of the Big House. But worse. Oona was released, spat and dragged dirt from her eyes and spat more. She realised her hand didn't hold the Loam Stone. And her satchel? Couldn't find it. What about her knife? She didn't try for it. And dragging more earth from her eyes made her wish away sight: surrounding were so many lips peeled back from so many mouths, blank spaces all adding to the reek with impatient blasts of putrescence.

Then the sharper voice said –

‘
Such a skinny thing! Just a collection of bones with skin like a bag thrown over and another foul, fake skin over that. Hasn't eaten much in days, I'd say. Small breakfast this morning maybe? Bring her closer, my daughters.
'

Oona saw the mouths mass, pressing forwards. Then claws, then clubbed hands – one hand went to the back of her neck and a sharp spur settled at the soft hollow of her throat. Again Oona was dragged, over broken earth and discarded bone to a whorl of snapped stick and reed. Something dark and glistening had been smeared to bind it together, and the sharp voice of the Mother was speaking from this tangle: ‘
Why have you come here, child?
'

Oona said nothing. Sweat covered every bit of her. She watched, but didn't see anything until the Mother moved. A scalp sprouting rushes stirred, and Oona discerned a face – a stiff mask of encrusted earth that cracked and split as the Mother of the Briar-Witches spoke:

‘
Why would you come here? Why venture down when you know well the stories? Why seek us out? You think you have something you can accomplish?
'

Oona was seeking but didn't see eyes. She saw the Mother's claws twitch – one almost human, nails long and thick and curling, the other rough and misshapen, bloated, its spur longer and thicker and sharper than the others Oona had seen, felt. Still, Oona said not a thing. She couldn't reach for her knife, had no gun near, no Stone – no notion of what to do.

‘
And I see you are not unaware of my daughters. You have encountered them before.
'

The Mother of the Briar-Witches ran a long finger over the wound on Oona's hand – her touch was the coldest thing, and at this slow caress the pain in Oona awoke, a memory of the hurt returning to bite. It made her wish to scream, but she wouldn't.
Can't!
thought Oona.
Mustn't show more weakness.

‘
You escaped before?
' said the Mother.

‘I did,' said Oona.

‘
It has made you bold. You think if you found escape once, you can find it again?
'

‘Yes,' said Oona. She swallowed. ‘I will.'

Outrage from the other Witches – hissing and spitting, phlegm and venom spilling.

‘
Silence,
' said their Mother, and the Witches were quietened. ‘
Only a childish arrogance, thinking you can change a world already so changed. There is nothing you can do now to stop the ones from across the sea. The King of the North, of the Echoes – he commands all things. You will, in the end, bow to him. Or you will be destroyed.
'

‘Then I'd rather be destroyed,' said Oona.

‘See – she is a stubbornly proud one, this girl.'

A new voice, and Oona recognised it immediately. The Briar-Witches shifted, and Oona was allowed to see: Master of the Big House, huddled in his father's cloak in a corner. He was cowering, but at the same time nothing about him said ‘prisoner'.

‘I think you'll agree I've brought you a good one,' the boy said. His mood at that moment: mixture of haughty, proud, but not without fear. His gloved fingers fiddled with the brass buttons on his cloak. Fiddled and fiddled. And he spoke only to the Mother of the Briar-Witches, throwing her looks and then looking away but anyway beseeching: ‘You promised that if I brought you every child in Loftborough or told you where they were then you'd restore my sister! You said that you'd make her human again and lift the dispells on us and on our home!'

‘
I did promise,
' said the Mother. ‘
Did indeed. And you have been useful.
'

Oona saw the human side of the boy begin to shake and she wished she could take hold and do more than shake him, the two-faced fool! Then, from behind him came briars snaking, closing slowly around his ankles, creeping around his wrists and across his neck –

‘No!' he cried. ‘No! I did as you asked!'

‘
My promise was this,
' the Mother told him, her voice too calm. ‘
If you had stopped your yapping and listened properly, this is what I promised: that once all the children of this town were ours, I would release you and your sister. But there are many types of release, boy. So your release will come now, as will that of this girl that you've brought. And I assure and promise you this – your sister will have her release soon enough, too.
'

Oona was suddenly thrown from the Mother's grasp like something foul, falling, and she was quickly encircled by salivating Witches. Their Mother spoke, slow and delicate and sly: ‘
My daughters – you may now satisfy yourselves on the final two children of the town of Loftborough.
'

Briars went for Oona boasting thorns two fingers long and she scrambled back. Her hand went for her knife – wasn't there. She looked but could discover nothing for protection – no weapon at all to save her. Then unlikely help came – from faces in the walls, the girls who'd been snatched and trapped were emerging, swarming to one point and all shouting, ‘Over here! It's here!'

Oona looked again – below where the faces showed was her satchel. She crawled for it, claws at her feet all grabbing, and she was kicking – anything that touched she fought against. Then her fingers found leather and they hunted: whatever came to her hand first she was determined to use. It was the Loam Stone. Oona turned and wielded it –

‘Stop!' she cried. The Stone's light was small, unwilling. ‘I have power you don't! I can see what haunts you all, what nightmares you have, and I'll use them against you and don't think I won't!'

The Briar-Witches stalled, so many eyes and claws and mouths around her. Then they looked to their Mother for guidance.

‘
What is this?'
said the Mother. ‘
Nothing less than legend and rumour and whisper made real! Can it really be the Stone? The Darkness and the Seeing?
'

‘It is,' said Oona. ‘And I've learned how to use it, so stay back!'

Then the worst laughter from the Mother of the Briar-Witches, and implacable words: ‘
That Stone can have no effect on me or my daughters. How can we nightmare? We are made of such nightmares.
'

Every word spoken by the Mother was true, and Oona knew it. And knew nothing else, the Stone cold and empty in her hands.

‘
Take her!
'

Briars bound Oona's body, squeezing and wanting to strangle, tendrils itching towards her throat, and she had only one thought, one wish, one image in her mind – for Merrigutt to find her, as jackdaw or old woman or any way she chose to appear, and in answer the Loam Stone blazed against Oona's hand, so hot she was certain she'd have to release it …

Something dark dropped to the ground and a voice told Oona –

‘Didn't I say, my girl? Didn't I say there'd come a time when you'd wish you'd not gone wandering off!'

It was a jackdaw.

The scream of the Mother: ‘
Grab that bird!
'

A precise plucking of her beak and Merrigutt discovered Oona's knife and lifted into the air, swooping and dropping the blade by Oona's hand as the Mother screamed again –

‘
Stop her! Woman of the North transformed, shame to her family and exile – stop her!
'

All the Mother's attention was on the jackdaw flying and evading claws and teeth. So no one noticed Oona cutting herself free, slipping the Loam Stone back into the satchel. No one saw her inch closer to the Mother, readying herself for the strike. No one but one: just feet from the Mother and hands came to Oona's ankles to anchor her – one hand flesh and the other stone …

‘Please don't!' the boy of the Big House said. ‘I want my sister back and this is the only way! Don't kill her!'

And Oona took such pleasure this time in kicking, her heel catching him on the aged side of his face. The boy of the Big House released her but –

‘
I have her now!
'

Merrigutt was caught in the Mother's long-fingered hand and Oona watched the Mother's mouth widen to a fathomless dark, ready to drop the jackdaw inside.

The girls' faces appeared again in the walls, a chorus of support for Oona –

‘Get her! Stop her!'

‘Do it now! Strike the Mother!'

‘The claw! Remove the claw!'

So Oona stood and lunged – first slash of the knife was to the hand that held Merrigutt, releasing her, the Mother shrieking.

Merrigutt added her voice to the din: ‘Do it now, my girl!'

And Oona slammed the blade against the Mother's clubbed claw. It left the wrist, fell heavy to twitch and squirm and weep black and half-scratch at the ground. But the scream that exploded from the Mother of the Briar-Witches sent Oona flailing onto her back. Everything scuttled and roared, every Briar-Witch opened her mouth as wide with the same pain.

‘
Vermin!
' was the scream and the echo. ‘
Plague! Pest!
'

And screams and echoes to match the Witches: from the children in the walls, all rushing to surround a darker place in the nest and telling, ‘Here! There's a way out! Over here!'

Merrigutt swooped and snatched up the claw, shouting to Oona, ‘Quickly! Follow!' and then she vanished through the dark in the wall.

The nest was collapsing, Witches being buried –

Oona grabbed her satchel and slung it over her head, knife still in one hand. And with the other hand she took the boy of the Big House by the hair, telling him, ‘Come on, you two-faced get, or I'll leave you down here with them!'

Oona whispered thanks to those faces, those girls overarching the way to escape, and then she crawled on into the dark. And up. A climb through a passage near vertical that crumbled at every scratch, fingers and toes working hard, Oona feeling like she was having to burrow. And still the screaming behind them, the ceaseless rage and roar of the Mother –