Ruth Warburton - Witch Hunt

‘Gerroff!’ Phoebe shoved past him, banged the kettle down on the grate and pulled the tea gown closed. ‘I didn’t invite you in to paw at me, Luke Lexton.’

‘Did you take her locket?’

‘No, she give it me!’

‘You liar!’

‘It’s true!’

‘I sold it to her.’ Rosa’s voice cut through their argument. ‘That’s quite true. It was fair exchange, Luke.’

‘Exchange for what?’

She bit her lip, looking at the floor, and he turned back to Phoebe.

‘Exchange for what ?’

‘If you must know,’ Phoebe said huffily, ‘I told her where to find you. Took her there, in fact. And so what if I asked payment for my time? I’m a working girl, ain’t I? And she’s no friend of mine. If you wanted to see her so bad, you should’ve given her your address. You got a funny way of showing a girl you care, Luke Lexton.’

‘Give it back to her,’ Luke said, through gritted teeth.

‘No!’

‘Give it back.’

‘No.’ It was Rosa who spoke this time, quietly, but firmly. She put her burnt hand on Luke’s arm. He winced at the sight of it, swollen red from the fire. ‘No, it was fair exchange just as I said, Luke. I didn’t have to pay the price she asked.’

‘There you go.’ Phoebe gave the fire a vicious poke and then walked to the door. ‘You heard her. I’m going up to change. You can sort your own tea out.’

There was a silence after she’d gone. Rosa moved to huddle in the corner of the settle with her knees up, wrapping her skirts around her legs like a child. Luke stood, facing the fire, leaning against the mantelpiece and looking bitterly down into the flames. He was angry at them both – Phoebe for cheating Rosa out of her locket, Rosa for letting her. Most of all he was angry at himself for being the unwitting cause.

‘Luke.’ Rosa’s voice cut through his thoughts. ‘What are we going to do?’

‘I don’t know,’ he managed. He turned back to face her. She looked very small and pale sitting in the corner of the settle, her magic just a thin wisp of red-gold in the darkness. The firelight caught her hair and the ruby on her hand, sending back echoes of the flames. ‘We’ve got to get away. So we need horses. Or a horse at the least. And money.’

Where could they find either? William had money – Luke thought of the iron box beneath the floorboard of his uncle’s room – but his heart failed at the thought of creeping in there while William was asleep and stealing his savings. And William had no horse. Could Rosa magick them up some money?

No: he pushed the thought away. He refused to ask. It felt like stealing, and he would not ask a woman to do his dirty work for him.

‘We could sell this.’ Rosa held out her hand, the ring glinting up at them. ‘If only I could get it off.’

‘That’s not a bad idea . . .’ Luke said slowly. ‘It’s too conspicuous as it is. I could get it off at the forge. William has all the tools I’d need. But we’d have to be quick. He was out drinking last night so with luck he’ll be sleeping in today, but not for long.’

The kettle gave an ear-splitting shriek and they both jumped. Luke moved to the grate, pulled off the kettle, spooned leaves into two cups and poured on the water. He passed a cup to Rosa and then drained his own.

‘I’m sorry about the locket,’ he said gruffly, as he set his cup on the edge of the mantelpiece. The lees had made a strange flickery swirl in the bottom of the cup. They reminded him of flames.

‘It’s all right,’ Rosa said. She put her hand to her pocket of her dress, feeling for something. ‘I’ve still got the portrait, that’s the main thing. The locket didn’t really matter. It was the memories.’

‘Portrait?’

She pulled it out, a little dirty scrap of paper, slightly sooty, cut oval to fit the shape of the locket. He took it in the palm of his hand, cradling it carefully as he turned it to the light of the fire, trying to see what it was. It was a child’s drawing of a man with large dark eyes and a full beard, the perspective a little skewed and the proportions wrong. But she had caught something in the expression, something kindly and perhaps a little sad.

‘Who is it?’ he asked, but he knew, or thought he did, even before she answered.

‘My papa. It doesn’t look much like him really. In fact, Alexis—’ She stopped.

‘What?’

‘Alexis said . . .’ She gave a short laugh, a little bitter. ‘He said that it reminded him of Charles Dickens crossed with a potato. But Papa liked it.’

Luke said nothing as he looked down at the scrap. He had no portrait of his own father and mother, not even any memories, save that one earliest blur: of himself, a small boy crouched beneath the settle as their blood ran red down the walls and a hand crept towards him, feeling for the snake’s-head cane that had rolled across the floor through their pooling blood. The cane that he had last seen in Sebastian Knyvet’s hand as he leapt from the factory window to freedom . . .

He could have followed. He could have followed and found out the truth about his parents and why they’d had to die. But instead he had turned back, for Rosa. He had chosen friendship over vengeance. And now it was too late.

He handed the scrap back to Rosa and she took it and tucked it into her pocket.

‘Ready?’ he asked.

‘Ready,’ she said, and stood, looking as if she were steeling herself for something.

‘Ready for what?’ Phoebe stood in the doorway. She had put fresh paint on her face and the locket hung defiantly between her breasts, above her knotted woollen shawl.

‘Thank you for the tea,’ Rosa said. ‘We have to leave.’

‘Ain’t you gonna tell me what all this is about?’

‘I’m sorry.’ Luke took her hand. ‘I can’t explain. But thank you, Phoebes. You don’t know what you did for us. You might’ve saved our lives.’

‘What is all this about, Luke?’ For the first time she looked alarmed. ‘You’re not joking, are you? Are you in some kind of trouble?’

‘Yes. Bad trouble. Phoebe, if anyone comes asking for us – doesn’t matter if it’s Leadingham, even my uncle – you never saw us, right?’

‘All right.’ She looked at him for a moment, her eyes worried, and then she leant forward and kissed him on the cheek, softly. ‘I dunno what you’ve got yourself mixed up in, but you take care of yourself, Luke.’

‘Goodbye, Phoebes.’

At the door she watched them go, biting her lip. They were halfway down the street when she called out, ‘Wait!’

Luke turned as she came running down the alleyway towards them.

‘What is it?’

‘Here.’ She pulled at the shawl, yanking it off over her head, and pushed it towards Rosa. ‘Take this. Part-exchange for the locket, yeah?’

For a minute Luke thought Rosa was going to refuse. Then she nodded and wrapped the shawl around her shoulders.

‘All right. Thank you, Phoebe.’

‘G’bye.’

She watched them go, until the shadows closed around them all.

Luke probably didn’t mean to walk so fast, but his legs were longer than Rosa’s and he wasn’t hampered by skirts and petticoats. She found herself half running to keep up, a painful stitch in her side where her corsets pinched. She told herself she could keep up, that she wouldn’t beg, but at last, as he turned yet another corner in the dark and narrow maze of streets, she burst out, ‘For God’s sake, slow down!’

He turned to look at her, his mouth open in surprise.

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean . . .’ He stopped, looking around. The quarter wasn’t yet busy, but there were people about. ‘I just . . .’

He swallowed and then said almost under his breath. ‘The Malleus. The Brothers work these markets. We can’t afford to meet ’em. Any of them.’