We couldn’t go back for the crewel work. Behind Dr Blood’s wall, the dogs were yammering. And in the other direction coming up the lane were the maids, swinging their empty baskets and arguing amongst themselves. Dr Blood was there too, looking the most furious of the lot.
‘Quick! Get down!’ I pulled Susannah and Bea behind a nearby woodpile.
‘That baby might mean nothing to any of you slatterns,’ Dr Blood was fuming as he went by, ‘but she’s currently my most valuable asset.’
‘And we’re only saying, sir,’ one of the maids protested, ‘that we were told in good faith of a pedlar come to town. The girl who said so had breeding, so she did.’
‘What girl?’ Dr Blood demanded.
But they’d hurried past before I could catch the answer.
‘We’d better get out of here,’ I said, scrambling to my feet.
I wasn’t much worried about him discovering Bea was missing – to be honest, he’d probably be glad. It was the likelihood of him finding the crewel work bothered me, and realising it depicted an enormous, terrifying wave, of exactly the kind that had flooded most of coastal Somerset.
If he wanted King James’s interest, this would get it. It would also, surely, seal Susannah’s fate.
*
We hurried down the track as far as it would take us. It was starting to rain – nasty, sleety stuff driven sideways on a bitter wind. By my reckoning, it was only just past midday, but already the light was dim, leaching colour out of everything. It was hard to believe that what lay sullen and brown in the fields all around us was water from my beloved sea.
By the time we reached the church tower on the hilltop, we were being followed. I felt a surge of panic. Dr Blood had found the crewel work – and us – a bit too quickly. To make matters worse, he had a group of men with him, villagers probably, who’d know the countryside around here better than we did.
Susannah hadn’t noticed yet. She was trying to wrap Bea in the folds of her dress, and fretting that we’d not thanked Mistress Cary for her kindness when we were still wearing Ellen’s two spare gowns.
‘It’s good manners, Fortune,’ she was saying. ‘They’ll think we’re unprincipled thieves.’
I nudged her to look over her shoulder. ‘Better that than a witch.’
Dr Blood and the men were gaining on us. They were carrying sticks and pitchforks.
We started running. On the hillside itself, the track split in many directions. I picked one that dipped out of sight around the back of the church, beckoning Susannah to follow: if we were quick then the building might give us a bit of cover.
At ground level there wasn’t much to hide behind. The tower was open on all sides to the weather: rain was now streaming in. There was no roof, either, or windows in the arched frames. But there were shallow footholds in the wall.
‘We’re not, are we?’ Susannah looked at me, aghast.
I checked outside: Dr Blood hadn’t yet reached the split in the track. But he wasn’t far behind.
‘If he can’t see us, he’ll run straight past,’ I tried to persuade her. ‘It’s either climb the tower or hand ourselves over.’
‘Just don’t go too high up,’ Susannah warned me.
Bea gave a little grumble in protest.
Tucking my skirt between my legs, I went first to prove it could be done. The stone was rough against my fingers and shins, but the holds were well spaced: I probably wasn’t the first person to hide up here. About ten yards from the ground was a stone ledge. It ran underneath a small window and was just about big enough for us to sit on.
‘It’s not too bad if you keep close to the wall,’ I told Susannah.
She was frowning with concentration, and her climb was painfully slow. It was so much harder with Bea, who kept trying to grab everything. And when I reached down to help, we very nearly lost our balance and went crashing to the ground. Susannah made better progress by herself. All the time, I kept my ears pricked for Dr Blood. Just as Susannah’s fingers felt along the ledge for purchase, I heard his voice on the wind.
‘It’s blatant witchcraft and now I’ve proof of it.’ He was furious still. ‘Our whole county has been overlooked.’
‘Overlooked?’ Susannah heard it too and frowned at me as if she didn’t know the word.
I did, and shivered. ‘Under a witch’s spell, that’s what he means.’
We both knew the dropped crewel work was his proof.
Taking her arm, I hauled her up next to me on the ledge. Bea’s unhappy face poked out of Susannah’s bodice. She was probably hungry, poor thing. I kissed her and promised we’d find her something soon.
Moments later, Dr Blood was inside the church tower. We found ourselves peering down on to the heads of a dozen or so men. They felt dangerously close. I could see the weave of a jacket, the lice in one man’s hair. Any of the men would only need to glance up, and they’d discover our hiding place. Susannah wrapped her arms tightly around Bea. I pressed a finger to my mouth: it was vital we kept absolutely silent.
Thankfully, the men were convinced we’d carried on down into the valley.
‘We should follow the main track,’ a man in a waistcoat was suggesting. ‘I s’pect they’ve gone that way. Floods are shallower down there.’
‘I’ve heard witches don’t like water,’ said another.
Dr Blood muttered under his breath about the rain. Outside, the weather had worsened, and the men seemed reluctant to go out in it again, lingering under what little shelter the old tower gave. And so we waited. And waited. I dreaded Bea starting to cry or me needing to sneeze.
It was Susannah who made the noise – her heel scraping the stone wall. A shower of dust fell on to the sheltering men’s shoulders.
‘What was that?’ one of them asked.
‘Whole place ain’t about to come down, is it?’ said another.
I didn’t see them glance upwards, though they must have. I was twisting round to look out of the window. The drop wasn’t more than six or seven feet, since the ground rose up around the church walls. At most we’d turn an ankle, which, to my mind, was worth the risk.
I climbed up on the sill. Swinging myself round, I got my legs out first and shuffled to the edge.
It was now or never.
Yet before I could jump, I was pushed.
‘Go!’ Susannah hissed.
Arms, legs, barrelled into the back of me, and suddenly we were both falling. I landed badly on my side, the air forced out of my chest. Susannah hit the grass bank then rolled into a nearby hedge.
I crawled over to her. Bea was fine and blew dribble in my face. But the fact Susannah was still sitting on the ground wasn’t a good sign.
‘Come on!’ I cried, grabbing her arm.
‘I can’t move! Ouch, don’t pull me!’
The men were spilling out of the church, bewildered as to where we’d gone. We had seconds at most before they spotted us.
‘What’s hurting?’ I demanded.
She pointed frantically to her head. ‘My hair. It’s caught in the hedge.’
It really was too. Her cap had come off in the fall, and now the knotted mess of hair and hawthorn held her as fast as a gaoler’s rope. The only way we’d get her out was to cut her free.
‘I’ll find a flint,’ I told her. ‘Stay still.’
But there weren’t any flints, and the men were coming around the side of the church. I crouched in front of Susannah and took both of her hands.
‘I need you to be brave,’ I said.
She gulped.
‘On the count of three, I’m going to pull you up and you must push,’ I told her. ‘It’ll hurt but it’ll be quick.’
I felt bad at asking her to do something painful. My only hope was that her hair was brittle like mine and would snap when we pulled.
Yet before I could count, Susannah got up so fast she almost knocked me off my feet. Her head was yanked back. Another wrench. A snapping of twigs. And she tripped into me, free.
I didn’t look back to see how close the men were. Or how much of Susannah’s hair we’d left hanging in the hedge like Old Man’s Beard. All we could do was run.