Rhys Bowen - The Twelve Clues of Christmas

Although it looked as if she was standing on grass, she was in bog above her ankles.

She turned back to me. “Help me,” she called.

I stood there in a moment of absolute indecision. I was free. I could run away now and leave them. It was what they deserved, after all. They hadn’t thought twice when they turned the gas tap on a poor old woman or smashed Mr. Barclay’s head in with a piece of masonry. The Lovey Curse was taking its revenge. I started to walk away, but I couldn’t. However despicably they had behaved, I could not leave anyone to die. I told myself I could run for help, but I knew it would be too late. I took a deep breath and stepped gingerly onto the tufted grass that edged the bog.

He was now almost up to his neck, his eyes bulging in terror. She was in past her knees. I felt my own feet beginning to sink as I chose the tufts of grass to stand on. “Here, give me your hand.”

I reached out to her and felt her bony hand grasp mine. It was like being held by a skeleton. “Try to get one leg free,” I urged.

She grunted and groaned. “I can’t move them an inch,” she said. “Pull harder.”

I took both her hands and pulled. It seemed that her struggles were only making her sink more quickly.

“I’m going, Trix. Damn it. What a bloody stupid way to end it,” Robbins called. She let go of me to turn back to him. “No, Robbie. No!” she screamed, trying to grasp at his face, his hair. We watched in silent fascination as the mud rose over his mouth. We heard him cough and splutter. Then it was past his eyes and then there was a horrible sucking sound and the bog claimed him completely.

“Oh, God,” she whimpered. “I don’t want to die like that. You have to get me out quickly.”

I grasped her hands again, but she was now up to her thighs. Suddenly she realized that it was impossible. She was caught.

“Well, if I’m going, then you are too,” she said and she gave a mighty jerk, catching me off guard and sending me sprawling forward into stinking mire. I tried to scramble to my feet but she still had my hands in a grip of iron and I felt the pull of the bog gripping my legs. I wriggled and strained, trying to break her grip on me. I heard her laughing.

“I guess you won’t be marrying a prince anytime soon,” she said.

Darcy, I thought. Why did I send him off to the house for help? Why hadn’t he sensed I’d be in danger? Why wasn’t he here when I needed him? And now I’d never know what it was like to make love to a man, to be married, to have a child. . . . I felt hot tears stinging on my frozen cheeks. If only I can hang on somehow until she’s sucked under, I thought. That will surely break her grip. But I pictured a dead hand locked onto mine forever as I was sucked down with her. Not a pretty image. I wriggled and squirmed closer to her so that our arms were no longer outstretched. I felt instantly that the mud was more deadly here and knew I only had a few seconds to act. Without warning pulled myself up toward her with all my might and sank my teeth into her hand. She yelled and instinctively let go. I floundered, scrabbled, slithered out of reach.

“You little devil,” she snarled. “But it don’t matter. You’re going down too, and serves you right.”

I tried to maneuver myself around, so that I was facing away from her, but my legs from the knees downward were held fast. It was utterly frustrating to have nothing firm to hold on to. I made for a clump of grass and grabbed at it, only to have it break off in my hand. At that moment the torch gave out, leaving us in total darkness. Then a voice near me whispered, “Don’t struggle. Lie flat. Spread yourself out on the surface.” I looked around, trying to see where the voice had come from, but I could see nobody through the blackness; indeed, it seemed as if the voice had come from inside my head. I obeyed it, recoiling from the cold touch of the mud on my chin. Now that my weight was not on my feet, I felt I could move my legs again. Then the voice came again. “Swim. Slowly. Gently. Big strokes. Breaststroke, like a frog.”

It was not easy to do anything gently, but I managed to maneuver myself around, away from Trixie. I could hear her wailing and cursing. “Oh, God. I don’t want to die. Somebody save me. Somebody!”

Then what looked like a rope of shimmering silver came flying out across the bog to me. It landed within reach and the voice said softly, “Hold on.” I reached for it, held and felt myself moved forward. Within a yard or two I was scraping against tufts of grass, firmer ground. I got to my knees and dragged myself forward with the last of my strength.

Unseen hands helped me up and I stood there, gasping, feeling the heavy caking of mud drying on me in the cold wind.

“You’re all right now,” the voice said and I could make out Wild Sal—the real Wild Sal—standing beside me.

“You saved my life. How can I ever thank you?” I said.

“You tried to save her,” Sal said. “When she deserved to die. Well, now she’s getting what she deserves. Now she knows what it feels like.”

We both peered out into the darkness where Trixie Robbins was thrashing and screaming. “Help me! Get me out!”

“Is there no way we could help her?” I asked.

“Only if we had planks, which we don’t,” she said.

“Is your rope not long enough to reach her?”

“I don’t have no rope,” she said.

“But you threw it to me.”

“Just the piece of cord I tie around my middle,” she said. “It ain’t but a yard or more.”

An image of the shining silver rope flashed across my mind. Surely it had been longer than that, and almost moved with a life of its own?

“We can’t reach her,” she said. “She’d go to the gallows anyway. This is Nature taking her revenge.”

Trixie’s last moments seemed to go on forever: the cursing, the spluttering, the pleading and the last horrible choking sounds. They will probably be in my head forever. She had only just vanished into the bog when we heard the baying of hounds and the tramp of feet and the first policemen appeared.

“You’re too late,” I said, feeling stupid tears running down my cheeks. “They’ve both gone into the bog. I would have gone too, but Wild Sal saved me.”

I turned to her, but she was no longer there.

Chapter 41

MIDNIGHT ON NEW YEAR’S EVE AND THE FIRST MOMENTS OF A NEW YEAR

It seemed to take an eternity to walk back down to the village. I stumbled along in a nightmare of what I had just lived through. A young policeman held my arm and helped me along, saying encouraging things, but I couldn’t shake those images from my mind. I thought about Wild Sal and how she had vanished when the police arrived. Had she really been there at all? Was she really a witch after all? I remembered the voice that had seemed almost to be inside my head. How could she have whispered to me over such a distance? But one thing was sure—somebody or something had saved my life. I was still here. The bog had not taken me.

An explosion rocked the night, then another. I recoiled in horror, wondering if this was a last act of vengeance set up by the Robbinses—blowing up the village that had sheltered them. But then a rocket burst into brilliant color over my head. It was only the fireworks at the end of the evening. More flashes and crashes could be heard as we came down the last of the slope.

“I’ve got the young lady with me,” my policeman shouted. “She’s all right.”

People started running toward us, one running more quickly than the rest. Darcy swept me into his arms and held me so tightly that I thought he’d crush every bone in my body. “Thank God,” he muttered, his lips on my face and hair. “I was worried out of my mind.”