Witch Finder (23 page)

‘Nothing,’ Rosa said miserably. ‘But would it be so impossible to pay them a little more? Enough to move out of poverty, to somewhere with a little light and clean air?’

‘They would take their filth with them,’ Sebastian said softly. ‘If you gave them a bath, they would not wash in it, for they have never been taught how. It is the people who live here who create these neighbourhoods, not the other way around. Besides, what do you think would happen if I paid ten per cent more than our nearest rival? Our matches would cost ten per cent more, people would cease to buy them and the factory would end up having to close. Ten per cent of no wage is nothing.’

‘But if you explained that the cost was in order to give a humane wage . . .’ she tried despairingly. Sebastian only shook his head.

There was a rap at the door and Sebastian stood up.

‘That will be the tea. Come in!’

But it was not the tea. It was a small messenger boy, stunted and anxious. He shook his head as Sebastian asked him for his message and beckoned him outside with a look at Rosa. Sebastian sighed, but followed him into the corridor and closed the door. When he came back inside, he was holding a tray.

‘Rosa, there is a matter that requires my attention in the dipping room. I’m sorry to leave you, but it’s urgent. Here is the tea . . .’ He poured her a cup and added milk and a lump of sugar with silver tongs. ‘When I come back I’ll escort you down to the carriage.’

After he left, Rosa sank back in the chair. She felt numb. She knew she should drink the tea, that Sebastian would be angry if he came back and found she had not touched it, but she could not bear to think of consuming anything in this dark, poisoned place. He had not even asked her if she took sugar. Was this what her life would be like from now on, dictated to not by Mama’s whims and Alexis’ moods, but by Sebastian’s instead?

She took a forced sip of tea. It was sickly sweet and she pushed the cup away.

Today should not have changed anything – everything she had found out about Sebastian’s nature she had known already. She already knew that he was cold, that he was dictatorial, that there was a streak of brutality that frightened her.

But it had. It had changed everything.

She had been prepared to sacrifice herself. But she saw, clearly now, that it was not only her sacrifice. This factory had paid for Southing, its pastures wrung out of the suffering of men, women and children. Their happiness and health had paid for the bricks and stones and glass and paddocks. Every horse in the stable, warm and shining and well fed – how many matches did it represent? A thousand? A million? Each one whittled and dipped and packed by those desperate, grey-faced, blank-eyed workers.

She could not let them pay for Matchenham too.

She ripped off her glove and pulled at the ruby on her finger, yanking at the ring with all her strength. It was no use. The band dug cruelly into her finger and the more she pulled, the harder it bit. She spat on her knuckle and tried again, whispering spells under her breath to try to force it free, but the ring stayed firm, and when she stopped her finger was red and swelling, with blood beading scratches where the ornate setting had cut her skin.

Rosa let her hand drop. What was she planning to do – run away, leaving only the ring as the sign of her change of heart? No. That would be the coward’s way out.

She would find Sebastian and tell him herself.

She stood, her heart beating suddenly hard and fast. She was more afraid that she had ever been in her life, more afraid than when the girth broke and she was dragged through the grit. More afraid than when Cherry had plunged to her death in the river.

In private she would be at Sebastian’s mercy. She had to tell him now, in public, at the factory.

Outside the office she stood for a moment looking up and down the long, grey corridor. There was no one in sight, so she set off back the way they had come earlier, hoping to luck. As she turned a corner she bumped into a listless girl hurrying in the opposite direction.

‘Excuse me,’ she said. The girl didn’t stop and Rosa put out a hand, grabbing her wrist and forcing her to halt. ‘Excuse me!’

‘Don’t stop me, miss.’ The girl’s face was grey with fear. ‘I daren’t be late. I’ll lose my post.’

‘Then tell me quick, which way to the dipping room?’

‘Visitors ain’t allowed,’ the girl said automatically. She tugged at her wrist, but Rosa held fast.

‘Tell me and I’ll let you go! No one will know it was you, but if you’re late—’

‘Straight ahead,’ the girl said with a look of fear and fury. ‘Take the third passage on the left and keep going past the packing room. It’s the last door on your right, marked “no entry”. Now, let me go!’

‘Thank you,’ Rosa said as the girl tugged herself free. She watched her hurry away and then turned, her heart beating hard, the girl’s directions ringing in her ears.

Straight ahead
 . . . 
third passage on the left
 . . . She passed one opening to her left, a dark room stacked with the packed-up matches. Someone had left a coat on the topmost pile. To Rosa’s horror, it glowed in the dimness. She hurried on.

At last she came to the last door on her right and, sure enough, it was marked ‘no entry’. She raised her hand, about to knock, and then something told her this would not be a good idea. Instead she grabbed the handle. It was locked and she whispered a charm, looking over her shoulder as she did.

The door gave way suddenly and she stumbled into the room.

The fumes hit her first, as physical and painful as a slap in the face. They were eye-watering, stinging not just her eyes, but her skin and the inside of her nose as she struggled for breath.

In the centre of the room were great boiling vats filled with chemicals, men and girls bending over them, working the dipping machines to coat the tips of the matches just so. The floor was covered with powdery residue and Rosa could see that it glowed in the dark corners.

But none of this was what made her stand in the doorway, gasping and struggling not to flee. It was the faces of the men and women.

Almost all were horribly swollen and deformed – with missing teeth, missing jaws even. Their skin was mottled from yellow, to red, to greenish black. She had never seen anything like it – it was as close to Hell as she could imagine, these walking, working zombies of death.

‘Please . . .’ she managed. She put her hand to the sleeve of the girl closest to her. ‘What in God’s name is wrong with your faces?’

The girl did not answer, she just continued to work, like a golem. Her eyes were dead and blank.

‘What is wrong with you all?’ Rosa shouted. ‘Why won’t you answer me? Why don’t you stop work?’

They did not respond – and suddenly she understood. They were under an enchantment, all of them – like the men, women and children in the rest of the factory. Why else would they keep going, keep returning to this living Hell for the few shillings a week, while their faces and bodies slowly rotted away?

If she had stopped to look she would have seen it earlier; the air was thick with magic, putrid with it. But it was not directed at her and so she had not noticed. She had never looked.

‘Ætberstan!
’ she sobbed, trying to feel her way through the thick web of spells wound around the machinery and the silent men and women. But it was far too strong. She did not have the strength to snap the enchantments. ‘
Ætberstan!
’

Who had created such an enormous machine of evil? Who would have had the strength? She remembered the Ealdwitan edicts that she had recited as a small child on her father’s knee:
I shall let the outwith be, and so no harm will come to me, I shall not seek to bend his mind, but keep my spells to my own kind.

Who would dare to go against that, the very first law that their kind were taught?

She knew. Even before she raised her eyes to the portrait of Aloysius Knyvet, Sebastian’s father, hanging high above the doorway. He was seated in a carved mahogany chair and in his hand was his cane with the ebony shaft and the snake’s head. The cane that was now Sebastian’s.

Rosa dropped her eyes unseeingly to the vat in front of her, racing through possibilities. She could not free these men and women. She was not strong enough. Could she persuade Sebastian to do so? If only the outwith would trust her – if she could rouse them from their stupor long enough to fight against the enchantment, she might have a chance. But to them she would be just another witch.

Footsteps sounded in the corridor and she jumped. If Sebastian found her here . . .

She ran to the far end of the room and crouched down, close to where the great stove bubbled away, heating the chemicals to make the dipping mixture. Back here, in the shadows, she would be hidden . . .

The door opened and she saw Sebastian’s face look in sharply. He glanced up and down the row of dippers and Rosa held her breath. The heat from the stove was almost unendurable and she longed to cast a spell to shield herself from the worst of it, but did not dare in case Sebastian caught the flare of magic. She felt the heat of the gas against her cheek and the stench of chemicals made her eyes water. She put her face in her skirts and prayed . . .

Then the door swung shut and she let out a great breath and stood up. The sudden movement made her head spin and she stumbled and almost fell, clutching at the girl next to her to save herself.

‘Oi, watch yourself,’ the girl said dully, but didn’t break from the work. Something about her voice was familiar.

‘Minna?’ Rosa touched the girl’s shoulder. ‘Minna? Is that you?’

She would hardly have recognized her. In just a few short weeks she had become thin almost to the point of being skeletal and beneath her cap Rosa could see her hair was thinning.

‘What of it?’ the girl said huskily. With a shudder, Rosa saw that two of her teeth were missing.

‘Minna, it’s me – Rosa, Miss Greenwood. I gave you my card.’

‘What of it?’ Minna repeated dully. Her face looked almost stupefied, but her hands never faltered, moving swiftly, automatically, as unchangeable as the machinery of the factory itself.

‘Please, come away with me,’ Rosa begged. ‘I was wrong to send you here.’ She strained to snap the spells – if she could not save all the workers, perhaps she could at least save Minna. If only Minna would help her, trust her . . .

‘I’m Luke’s friend,’ she said desperately. ‘He sent me, with a message. He wants you to come away.’

‘Luke Lexton?’ Minna said, and something in her eyes seemed to flicker, a moment of recognition, like the moon breaking through the clouds. Then the haze closed over again and she shook her head. ‘No, I can’t stop. I must keep going.’

‘Please, trust me!’ Rosa begged, but Minna didn’t even reply.

Frustration rose within her like a great sob. What had she done? What had she condemned Minna to?

Luke. It came to her like a breath of air in the foulness of the room. If Minna would not trust her, she would trust Luke.

‘Minna, where can I find Luke?’ she demanded, but Minna seemed to have sunk back into that terrible torpor and she did not answer, but only shook her head.

‘I
’ve to go and see a man about a set of gates,’ William said, wiping his chin and putting down his fork. ‘Can you manage?’

‘Yes,’ Luke said with a touch of irritation. He was growing weary of his uncle’s anxiety. There might be a hole in his memories, but he wasn’t ill and he was sick of being treated like an invalid.

‘There shouldn’t be anything too much, couple a horseshoes maybe, and there’s that fireguard Mr Maddocks wants mending, if you have time. I shouldn’t be more than an hour.’

‘I’ll manage,’ Luke said shortly. Then he felt bad. ‘I’ll be all right, Uncle. Go. We need the work.’

It was true. In the weeks Luke had been missing, and since his return, William had let the forge slip and the work had dried up. No one wanted to bring a limping horse to the forge only to find the farrier busy or gone. Now with Luke up and about they desperately needed new work and William was taking on anything he could find – blacksmith work and tinkers’ stuff that he would usually have refused.

‘All right.’ William pulled on his cap and coat and went to the door. ‘Remember, if you’re feeling tired, there’s no shame in stopping—’

‘Go!’ Luke said, more roughly than he meant. William sighed and shut the door behind him. Luke sighed too and put his head in his hands wishing, wishing that he could remember what lay in that great gulf in his mind. Once he had dreamt and there had been the smell of burning rosemary and a gold-red swirl, like forge-flames in the darkness. He had woken with a word on his lips,
rose
– but whatever it meant sank far away as he rose to consciousness and the memory, whatever it had been, had gone. The more he scrabbled for it, the further it retreated.

Now he got up slowly from the table and went out to the forge to blow the fire into life again.

‘Luke Welling?’ Rosa said again, desperately. There was a catch in her throat. The evening was drawing in and the streets of Spitalfields felt very dark and narrow. In her new silk dress, part of Mama’s trousseau shopping, she stuck out like candle flame in a darkened room, all eyes turning to her as she picked her way through the filth-strewn streets.

Now she stood at a street corner, trying to ignore the gales of ribald laughter coming from the public house in front of her, and asked the girl again, ‘Are you sure you’ve never heard of him? His father’s a drayman. He’s about nineteen, twenty perhaps – he’s lived here all his life.’

‘I’m sorry, darlin’,’ said the girl. She eyed Rosa speculatively through her lashes and Rosa saw, to her shock, that the girl’s lips and eyelids were painted. ‘Someone’s bin telling you porkies.’

‘Porkies?’ Rosa echoed stupidly. She felt close to tears.

‘Pork pies – lies. Ain’t you never heard of rhyming slang?’ She made a face and laughed. Rosa felt her cheeks grow hot.

‘I’m sorry. I won’t waste your time any further.’

‘Not to worry, darlin’. But if your boyfriend lived round here, I’da heard of him. There’s not many men round here unacquainted with Phoebe Fairbrother.’ She gave a raucous laugh.

‘Would your friend know anything?’ Rosa pleaded, nodding at the brunette seated in the tavern window. The girl shook her head, impatiently now, setting her brassy curls swinging.

‘If I ain’t heard of him, Miriam won’t know ’im neither. I’m telling you, there ain’t no Luke Welling round ’ere. The only Lukes what live in this district is Lucas Michaels, but he’s fifty if he’s a day, and Luke Lexton. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got my customers to attend.’

She turned, but before she could go Rosa grabbed her arm.

‘Wait. What did you say? Luke Lexton?’

‘It’s clear you ain’t deaf anyhow.’

‘I’ve heard that name. Oh, God, where have I heard it?’ She shut her eyes, desperately scrabbling for the memory. She
had
heard it, recently too . . . It came to her suddenly – Minna, in the factory, asking ‘Luke Lexton?’ when she had mentioned Luke’s name. And she hadn’t even noticed.

‘Luke Lexton!’ she cried. ‘Yes! That’s it, I made a mistake. I should have said Luke Lexton, not Welling. Do you know where he is?’

‘Made a mistake, didja?’ The girl snorted disbelievingly, but there was a smile at the corner of her mouth. ‘What do you want with Luke Lexton then? You’d need two more legs for him to take notice of you.’

‘What?’ Rosa said, too confused to be polite.

‘He’s sweeter on horses than women,’ Phoebe said. ‘Not that I wouldn’t give him a ride, if he came asking.’

Rosa knew she should pretend to be shocked, but she didn’t care.

‘Where does he live?’

‘At his uncle’s forge, off Farrer’s Lane. But his father’s no drayman – he’s dead.’

‘Farrer’s Lane – where’s that? Can you – would you show me?’

‘Why should I?’ The girl folded her arms and Rosa felt desperate. ‘I’m a working girl, darlin’. I get paid for my time.’

‘I don’t have any money!’ She could force Phoebe to tell her. That was dark magic, but she had seen the spells in the Grimoire, although Mama had told her never to look at those pages. If only she had a coin . . .

Phoebe looked her up and down appraisingly, her eyes hard. She seemed to come to a decision.

‘Give me that locket.’

‘What? No!’ Rosa’s hand closed around it reflexively. She felt its heavy warmth against her collarbone, where it had rested since Papa had given it to her on her tenth birthday. ‘You don’t understand . . .’

‘I understand that you want a service and you’re not prepared to pay for it. But I don’t care, wander the streets of Spitalfields on your own; you’ll soon find some kind fella prepared to take you under his wing, no doubt.’ She gave a raucous laugh and Rosa bit her lip. She could well imagine what kind of fellows she might meet in the dark streets between here and Luke’s uncle’s forge. They were spilling out of the Cock Tavern now, amorous and angry by turns. One of them plucked at Phoebe’s sleeve.

‘Gi’s a tumble, Phoebs, for old time’s sake, eh?’

‘Oh piss off, Nick Sykes, you old soak,’ the girl snarled. She gave him a shove and he stumbled backwards, tumbling into the filth-filled gutter where he lay, laughing or sobbing, Rosa could not tell which. Phoebe turned back to Rosa. ‘Well? Take it or leave it, I ain’t got the time to be gabbing here.’

‘I’ll take it,’ Rosa said, though her heart hurt as she fumbled for the catch of the locket. Phoebe reached for it, greedily, and Rosa said, ‘Wait!’

She opened it up and, using her nail, prised out the tiny pencil drawing of Papa. She saw now that it was crude, the work of a child. But it was all she had.

For a moment the locket hung from her fingers, still hers. Then she let it drop into Phoebe’s outstretched palm.

Phoebe nodded.

‘Come on then. Look slippy and don’t talk to no one. You’re like a fox in a hen house. No, hang about, that’s the wrong way round. But there ain’t no such thing as a fox house.’

But perhaps Phoebe had it right, Rosa thought, as she followed her down the first dark alleyway between two buildings. She was more dangerous, more predatory than any of the poor drunkards. She could gut them alive if she chose. She was aware, suddenly, horribly, of the power even the feeblest witch held over the outwith. No wonder their kind had been hated and feared for so long.

Phoebe was cheerful now, chatting as she led Rosa through stinking back alleys, where children played in spite of the filth and the darkness. They cut across the corner of a deserted market space, where a few beggars were rummaging in the cast-off boxes, and then up a street less forbidding than the rest, if only because it was emptier. The evening fog had begun to descend and Rosa shivered, wishing that she had not left her wrap in the carriage. What would the driver be thinking? Would Sebastian have noticed her absence?

Then suddenly Phoebe swung left through a low arch and into a cobbled yard. There was a roaring sound, as of a huge fire, coming from a low brick building to their right, and a shower of sparks flew up suddenly from the chimney.

‘Luke,’ Phoebe yelled. ‘Gotta visitor.’

‘Who is it?’ The voice was so familiar that Rosa choked. She could not speak.

Phoebe stuck her head through the door to the forge.

‘La-di-da type by the name of . . .’ She looked back over her shoulder at Rosa. ‘What was your name, darlin’?’

‘Rosa,’ she whispered. ‘Rosa Greenwood.’

‘Rosa Greenwood,’ Phoebe repeated back. There was a reply that Rosa could not hear and Phoebe shrugged and turned back to Rosa.

‘Says he’s never heard of you. Well, there you are. Not my fault if you made a mistake. Anyway, I’ve done what I said. Tarra now.’

And with a swish of skirts and a flash of scarlet petticoat, she was gone.

Rosa took a deep breath and stepped forward into the forge. For a minute she almost didn’t recognize the man working the bellows. He was stripped to the waist, sweating, his muscles standing out in the light from the fire, the flames flickering across his naked chest and shoulders. His head was down, his brows knit in effort or concentration.

Then he looked up and she saw his clear hazel eyes.

He wiped his brow with a cloth and then took a shirt from a peg by the door and pulled it over his head.

‘Yes, miss,’ he said as he tucked it in. His voice at least was familiar, the same low voice she remembered, though his East End accent sounded stronger than it had in Knightsbridge. ‘What can I do for you? My uncle’s not here, as you see.’

‘Luke . . .’ She didn’t know where to begin, how to start. ‘Luke, it’s me, Rosa.’

Something flickered in his eyes, not recognition, but a kind of wariness.

‘I’ve never seen you before,’ he said flatly.

‘That’s not true.’ What could she say? How could she convince him? She had taken
everything
, every memory of herself, of why he had come, of what had happened to him there. ‘I know things about you.’

‘Like what?’

‘I know that you’ve lost your memory, that you can’t remember anything for the last month back, maybe longer. I know that you have a scar on the back of your head, that you came back with a wound there, from a fight.’

‘Anyone could know that,’ he said hoarsely, though he looked uneasy. ‘You could have talked to Phoebe.’

‘I know that you have a mark on your shoulder.’ She thought of him washing under the pump in the yard. ‘A scar, like a brand.’

His hand went involuntarily to the place and then he shook his head.

‘You saw it while I was dressing, just now.’

‘Luke, why won’t you believe me?’ It was not what she wanted to ask; she wanted to shake him, ask why he’d come to Osborne House, why he had changed his name and lied about his father. Had it all been a lie? No – she thought of his confession, in the dark of the stable yard. His uncle and the forge – that had not been a lie. And she remembered his other confession. About what he could see.

‘I know something else,’ she whispered. ‘I know that you – that you . . .’ She swallowed. ‘I know that you can see witches.’

He flinched, as if she had slapped him.

‘It’s true, isn’t it?’

‘How do you know?’ he demanded. He was across the forge in an instant, grabbing her arms with a strength that almost frightened her, except that it was Luke, Luke who would never hurt her.

‘I know b-because . . . I am one.’

She let her magic shine out, feeling it flicker across her skin like electricity, flow through her limbs and her fingers, crackling to the tips of her hair like static energy.

Luke let go of her as if she had burnt him. He was staring at her with a look of horror. His hand went again to the scar on his shoulder as if it hurt.

Rosa stretched out her hands, where the witchlight burnt, clear and bright in her palm.

‘
Please
, Luke.’ She tried to reach him, to heal his mind, pour back the memories she had ripped out of him by the roots. ‘Don’t you remember? You came to my house, you saved my life, you
kissed
me.’

‘No!’ he cried desperately. He put his hands to his head, as if it might explode, as if something might crack. She was not sure if he was trying to force the memories back in, or keep them away.

‘It’s true. I need your help – I’ve found your friend Minna—’

‘Get out!’ He cut her off.

‘She’s at the match factory, down by the Thames, where
I
sent her, Luke. It’s horrible – the workers are under some kind of spell, they’re dying, but they won’t listen to me. Please, come and help—’

‘Get out!’ he roared. His face was suffused with blood.

‘Please, just—’

‘Help you?’ he cried. There was something desperate in his eyes, as if he was breaking apart inside. ‘How can I help you? I should kill you.’

‘What?’

‘Have you heard of the Malleus?’ He took a step towards her and for the first time she noticed that he had something in his hand. A hammer.

‘No,’ she whispered.

‘We’re sworn to kill your kind.’

‘
No!
’

‘Yes. Now, get out.’

Rosa looked at him.
This is Luke
, she told herself. She tried not to tremble.
Luke!

He raised the hammer above his head.