I must’ve fallen into a deep, dark sleep, because when I woke up I was lying on grass. My branch and I had come to rest in a steep field. The ground was dry, the grass beneath me warm from the sun, which by now was high in the sky. It was the one thing in this new world I still recognised – that, and the raspy sound of a baby crying. The bundle on my chest moved. Bea!
The little hand reaching out from the sling slapped me square on the chin. Quick as I could, I untied her. Amongst sand, grit, a dead fish, and someone’s tasselled slipper caught inside the fabric, was Beatrice Spicer, looking cross and hungry, and more alive than anyone I’d seen these past long hours.
‘Bea?’ I said her name out loud. ‘Little Bea?’
She held up her arms. ‘Fufffffaaaaa,’ she mumbled, which I decided was definitely ‘Fortune’.
I’d never thought myself the type to fall in love with babies. But right then I did, heart first.
*
Beyond our little hillock, the floods stretched in every direction. Here and there, the rooftop of a house poked hopefully above the water, but if the thatch and wood debris was anything to go by, then most of the smaller homes had perished. It was a bleak, nightmarish scene. Yet having Bea to look after spurred me on; I’d need to find food and shelter before nightfall. In the distance, I’d already spotted a church tower perched on an island of green, at least that was how it looked, standing on a steep hill that poked out of the floodwater. It seemed the obvious place to aim for.
‘See that?’ I pointed it out to Bea. ‘When we get there, there’ll be hot food and dry clothes, and the biggest fire you ever saw.’
She didn’t want to be wrapped up again and cried when I bound her to my chest. But I was tired and weak. I didn’t trust myself to carry her in my arms. And to get to that green island, I was going to have to wade or swim through the floodwater that reached all the way to the foot of the hill. By my reckoning the distance was about a mile.
It was a long mile too. Thankfully the water never got above waist height, but by the time I got there, I was exhausted. With the last of my strength, I crawled up the side of the hill. At the top, beyond the church tower, the land fell away to another little hillock, where a few cottages were still standing. I’d never been so glad to see dry walls, dry thatch, smoke rolling out of chimneys. Even better was the smell of baking bread. Bea, grabbing my shirt collar, stuffed it in her mouth. I bet she was hungry too.
‘Where in heaven’s name have you come from?’ a voice boomed from inside the tower.
It took a moment for my brain to catch up. The church wasn’t a whole building after all, but the crumbling remains of one. A man scuttled out into the daylight. He was small, round-bellied and dressed in a dusty black coat. He looked familiar – and not in a pleasant way.
‘Dr Blood?’ I croaked.
‘Indeed. Aren’t you that servant from Berrow Hall? The one who tends young Master Ellis?’ Dr Blood stared at me in amazement.
‘I am.’ There was no point in denying it. Truth was, I was so maddened by the smell of baking bread I’d have sold my soul to the devil for a bite to eat.
‘And,’ he waved a hand at Bea, ‘this child with you is—’
‘Beatrice Spicer, youngest daughter of Mr Spicer,’ I said, because as far as I was concerned the days of pretending she didn’t exist were over. ‘Though Mr Spicer himself has perished in the flood, along with many others. I saw it with my own eyes.’
Dr Blood’s face hardened. He muttered something under his breath that might’ve been a prayer. ‘What about his other children?’ he demanded. ‘The girl with the gift for needlework? Did she survive?’
‘I don’t know,’ I admitted.
He was about to say something else when two women in white caps and rough wool dresses appeared around the side of the church.
‘A living child!’ The younger one rushed over, and on seeing Bea, cried out, ‘Two living children! We’re blessed!’ As her arms went around us, I was grateful to her for holding me up.
The woman with her seemed to be her mother since they both had beech-red hair, and the same wide smile.
‘We thought the world beyond our little hilltop had ended. Where did you come from?’ the woman asked.
‘Berrow Hall,’ I replied, shivering so hard I could barely speak. ‘Mr Spicer’s estate by the sea.’
She looked amazed. ‘That’s got to be fifteen miles from here!’
I could well believe it. If I shut my eyes, I could still feel the power of the water, that sensation of being fired from a bow.
*
The kind woman was called Mistress Cary, her daughter Ellen. They lived in one of the cottages along from the church, which they rented from Dr Blood. He owned most of the land around here, so they told me, and was not a kind master.
‘He’s our local magistrate these days, and all,’ Mistress Cary explained.
Tooth-puller, sugar merchant, landowner, magistrate: there was no end to the man’s influence. This latest role was the most worrying of the lot. It gave him the power to hold trials – witch trials – and pass punishments. The thought made me feel a little faint.
Mistress Cary bid me come closer to the fire. ‘You need to warm your bones, my sweet.’
Thankfully, she gave us food too. Bea was soon guzzling goat’s milk and mashing bread against her face, and I wolfed down a meat pie.
Mistress Cary was sorry that the only dry clothes she could lend me were girls’ ones. In truth, it didn’t matter. I didn’t need to pretend to be a boy any more. My position at Berrow Hall, and the good coin I’d earned there, had all been swept away by the sea. As for what Dr Blood might think of my sudden change of attire, it barely mattered. I just wanted to feel warm and dry again. Yet when I set about explaining myself to Mistress Cary it came out in a weary muddle, and I started to cry.
‘I’m sorry,’ I blubbed. ‘It’s been a very strange day.’
‘You’re not wrong there,’ Mistress Cary agreed. She gave me one of Ellen’s woollen gowns, which was as cosy as an old blanket. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d worn a dress. The swish of skirts at my ankles was going to take a bit of getting used to.
A heaped plate of bread and honey later, and I began to feel my strength returning. This was despite Mistress Cary’s neighbours who had crowded into her house to question me as I ate.
How far did the flood stretch? How many people and livestock had perished?
‘I don’t know,’ I said, over and over.
‘All that water came from nowhere,’ said a woman with no front teeth. ‘No warning. Nothing.’
‘Well now, Rose, who could’ve predicted such a terrible thing?’ Mistress Cary remarked.
Susannah, I thought uneasily, that was who.
In my head I could see her crewel work – the swirls of blue, the foaming caps on the waves. This morning she’d insisted it was an omen that Ellis would run away. It was so much more than that now.
Perhaps there was a rational explanation for the flood. Yet when I pictured the sea disappearing and rushing in again like smoke, it wasn’t so hard to think magic was to blame. But if Susannah had powers to see into the future, what did that make her?
A witch?