And so she has to try.
It is a hot day, almost midsummer. In the bedroom, she peels off her jeans and top – both of which are starting to become uncomfortably tight – in favour of a pair of canvas dungarees she finds in the wardrobe. She dons one of Aunt Violet’s hats – a straw behemoth with a tawny feather tucked into the band. In the cupboard under the sink there are gardening gloves, and leaning against the back of the house, a spade.
With The British Gardener tucked under her arm, she takes a deep breath and ventures outside.
She touches the smooth shape of the brooch in her pocket, reflecting that she’s breaking the only rule she’s ever set for herself. But it’s hard to feel threatened by the plants and flowers golden with the sun; the clean gurgle of the beck. She even enjoys listening to the birds – wishes she could identify each species from its song, the way she used to when she was a child.
A caw, throaty and almost human, sends a cold needle down her spine.
She looks up. Her heart beats a little faster when she sees the crow, observing her from the highest branch of the sycamore. For a moment she is still, fearing that sudden movements will bring a rain of claws and feathers. But the bird just shifts on the branch, the sun coating its wings with an oil-slick sheen.
Blinking away the memories, she resists the urge to touch the brooch in her pocket. Focus. She must focus on the task at hand.
Guided by the pictures in Aunt Violet’s gardening book, she learns that the green trumpets are rhubarb; the hairy-stemmed plant wild carrot. These, she digs from the ground, marvelling at the delicate stems of the rhubarb, the pale, gnarled carrots. She can make soups, salads. Hunger gnaws at her; the craving for food borne from the earth so intense she is almost giddy with it. She looks down at the carrot she grips in her hand. Part of her wants to eat it now – to suck the soil from it, feel the freshness burst into her mouth as she crunches down, hard. She needs this, she realises. The baby needs this.
She breathes deeply, places the carrot into her basket.
There are herbs, too, she sees: sage, rosemary, mint. These she also collects. She leaves behind other strange plants that don’t seem to feature in the book: under the sycamore tree she finds a long-stemmed bush with yellow buds, like clusters of tiny stars.
After a while, she has an urge to remove the gloves, to feel the soil against her skin. She pushes her fingers deep into the earth, relishing its softness. The smell of it is intoxicating: its mineral tang reminds her of the taste that still coats her tongue when she wakes every morning.
She feels something brush against the scar on her forearm. Turning, she sees it is a damselfly: the same insect she saw down by the beck, when she first arrived. It trembles there for a moment; then, as she watches, it flutters to her stomach.
There is a surge inside her – a fizzing warmth in her gut, her veins. Rising into her oesophagus.
For a moment she thinks it’s morning sickness; worries she might vomit, faint. She bends over, on her hands and knees in the dirt, lets the blood rush to her head.
She feels a tickling sensation against her hand, different to the silky touch of soil. Looking down, she sees the pink glimmer of a worm – and then another, and another. As she watches, spellbound, other insects emerge from the earth, glowing like jewels in the summer sun. The copper glint of a beetle’s shell. The pale, segmented bodies of larvae. There is a buzzing in her ears, and she’s not sure if it’s from the roar of her pulse or the bees that have begun to circle nearby.
They’re getting closer. It’s as if something – as if Kate – is drawing them. A beetle climbs her wrist, a worm brushes against the bare skin of her knee, a bee lands on her earlobe. She is gasping, now, overwhelmed by the heat that blooms in her chest, surges up her throat. Her vision blurs like snow, then goes dark.
When she wakes, the day is cooler, the sun hidden behind clouds. Her mouth tastes of earth, and her body, sprawled on the ground, feels heavy, wrung out. Hazily, she watches the crow take flight from the sycamore, wings blotting out the sun. Blades of grass itch against her skin, and she flinches, remembering the insects. She scrambles to her feet, brushing the dirt from her clothes, fingers searching for the creatures that surely crawl over her neck, in her hair.
But there is nothing.
Looking down, she sees that the earth is still: just an empty, velvet mound where she has dug up the soil. No worms, no beetles, no larvae. She can’t even hear any bees.
Did she imagine it? Hallucinate?
But something catches at the edge of her vision – a glitter of wings. The damselfly she saw earlier, before she blacked out. She watches as it flits towards the sycamore, dancing over the gnarled trunk, the little wooden cross, before disappearing from view.
Then she knows. She didn’t imagine it. It was real.
A memory hovers, clouded and uncertain, like something seen from a distance. Early childhood. Sun on her face, the brush of wings on her palm, that feeling in her chest … She squeezes her eyes shut, tries to pull it closer, but she can’t bring it into focus. Somehow, though, she is left with the odd sense that this has happened before.
The villagers’ gossip echoes in her mind. One word, ringing louder than the rest.
Witch.
She has to know the truth.
About the Weywards. About herself.
The next day, Kate sets off to Lancaster. The drive reminds her of the night she left London. The road snaking through the hills, stretching endlessly out before her. She feels the familiar rise of fear in her gullet as she speeds along with the other cars. Her blood beats hard in her veins. Her blood, but the baby’s blood too – the Weyward blood – and the thought makes her feel stronger, grip the steering wheel hard, determined. She can do this.
She’s never been to Lancaster before. It’s quaint and pretty, with its neat white buildings and cobblestones. But something about the throng of crowds – she is almost swallowed up by a gaggle of tourists – unsettles her. There’s a sharp taste in her mouth, a sour coating that she recognises as the precursor to an anxiety attack. She’s surprised to feel relief when she catches sight of the River Lune flashing silver in the distance, the hazy mountains beyond.
She finds the council office easily enough: a large, imposing building hulking on the city’s main street.
Inside, the air is crisp and still, and Kate gathers herself together, joins a winding queue to speak to the man at the desk. Her appointment is at 2 p.m. She’d thought the Cumbria County Council Archives might hold some information, but the curt woman she’d spoken to on the phone explained that Lancashire Council holds the records of local witch trials, given the trials took place at Lancaster Castle.
Eventually, she is ushered to another waiting room, and then summoned to a cubicle, where she takes a seat opposite a thin, middle-aged man, shoulders dusted with dandruff.
A manila folder rests on the desk in front of him. Nerves flicker at the thought of what might be inside. She shuts her eyes briefly, thinking of how much she spent on petrol to get here … Please, let it be worth it. Let him have found something.
The man offers a perfunctory greeting before detailing the results. She watches as his tongue flicks out to moisten his lips before he talks, like a frog catching flies.
‘I’ve only found four records about a Weyward,’ he explains. ‘Three of them I had to pull from the Cumbrian archives. Let’s start with those, shall we?’