‘Dill!’

My whisper fought to shout, straw slipping beneath my feet as I ran to her. Dill stood in the candlelight, her dress muddied, her legs scratched and bruised.

‘How did you… Are you hurt?’

I drew her close, breathed her smell of meadow grass after rain.

‘No, Evey.’ The flame moved in her still eyes. ‘I am not hurt.’

I smoothed her hair. ‘That is g…’ My words caught, so happy, so guilty. ‘That is good.’ I smiled. She did not.

‘Dill, listen—’

‘Pass the candle there, Dilly.’

A hand reached from the gloom.

‘Here’s the wick, Alice.’

The candle was held to another, and as its flame passed, the room grew brighter. And I watched as, some standing alone, some huddling, those shapes became women. Two were old, gathered to that guttering flame. Three near my age. And holding to one of those three, a young lad who rolled his eyes and hummed. The women looked to me and to Caldwell upon the straw. Then their voices came all at once, like the dead whispering to life.

‘He’ll wake soon enough.’

‘We must go.’

‘I can’t run.’

‘What of the guards?’

‘They’ll come.’

I felt for Dill’s hand.

‘We must hurry, Dill.’

‘Whuu…’

‘He is rousing,’ said a girl, a cut upon her brow. ‘Bob, come with Beth now.’

She pulled the boy as he hummed.

‘Dilly come? Dilly come…?’

‘Well, I can’t run nowhere.’ The one called Alice sat heavy to the wall.

‘Nor I, Jessy.’ The other joined her, like two gnarled roots against the stone.

Dill shook off my hand.

‘I will stay with you, gentle mothers.’

‘No, you won’t,’ coughed Old Alice. ‘Get you gone, young ’un.’

My heart pulled as Dill shunned me. But she must come.

‘Dill, I’m sorry, but we—’

‘Sorry?’ She rounded to me. ‘They killed Spring for your sorry! They threw her to a flames!’

The candle shook.

‘After you left me.’

Her voice was harsh. Something turned in my mind. A dream of flying and flames.

Caldwell groaned. Tighter I gripped the stave.

‘Lizzie, Mary, come!’ said the girl Beth. The others tarried, scared to run, scared to stay.

‘Dilly. Those men.’ My voice cracked to whisper. ‘They shall pay, I do promise.’

‘You do promise!’ Dill stepped to my face, her breath hot. ‘What good are your promises, Evey?’

‘You don’t understand, Dill.’

‘You lied to me! Tricked me!’

Anger rushed through me. Was I not there to get her? She was not listening to me.

‘I had to, because you’re a silly mite always tarrying and dancing…’

‘Better than you, who don’t understand the stone what you took.’

I bit my lip. The stone was sudden heavy in my pocket.

‘Dill, we don’t have time—’

‘Better than you…’ she sneered. ‘Who don’t know no magick! Who— Ow!’

The women gasped. I hadn’t meant to slap her. It just happened.

‘Dill, I’m sorry.’ But she struck me away.

‘Those men didn’t kill Spring,’ she coughed through tears. ‘She did it. She gave me to the witch hunters.’

‘Who is she?’

‘Who do you think? The one you were so thick with. Our aunt.’

My bones turned to ice.

‘Grey?’

I felt the cell turn under my feet.

‘They have a pact.’ Dill held to her cheek. ‘And Grey’s waiting…’

She looked so angry and so sad. I was too stunned, too guilty to touch her.

‘For you, Evey. She said she’s waiting for you.’

I felt my legs sway. A pact with Tall One.

My head spun in that dank room. The world was upside down, tipping too fast. Caldwell shook his sore head through the straw.

‘He wakes and he will bring the others!’ Beth stepped quick. ‘Come now who can!’

She pulled Bob around Caldwell’s waking body. The two girls followed. The open door beckoned, and I took Dill’s arm, cold to my touch.

‘Hurry, Dill. Don’t let us—’

‘I will go with them. With Bob.’ She pushed my hand away. ‘Not you.’

The candle burned in her black eyes. Mother’s eyes, furious to me.

‘Please, all of you!’ Beth hissed from the open door.

‘Dilly come! Dilly come!’

Bob sought Dill among the cobwebs, and he smiled as she found him. I do not know whether it was envy for that, or anger at Grey, or the hurry that made me do it, but I grabbed to Bob’s other hand in a rage.

‘Fine, Dill! If you will not come with me, then let us go with your new friends!’

And I pulled that strange boy so savage towards the cell door that his body jerked.

‘Evey!’ Dill stumbled after.

‘Funny, Dill!’ Bob laughed as I pushed him through the doorway, as Beth too pushed Mary and Lizzie into the room beyond.

‘Stop!’

Caldwell stumbled to his feet. As he lunged, Beth tried to swing the door, but he caught to it, flung it wide with a crash.

‘Captain! They escape!’

Shouts thundered down the stairs. And the girls screamed, as tight I held to Bob, as he clutched to Dill, as we all rushed across the room.

‘Bring the light down!’

Beth pointed, holding to the laughing boy. The guard door opened. Meakin’s face, full of fury. High I swung the stave.

‘Stop there!’

And struck out the lantern, pitched that room into blackness.

The girls’ hands were upon me, pushing, pushing, desperate to flee.

‘Out of the way!’

Soldiers crashed into the room.

‘Get them!’

‘Stow your sword, fool!’

‘I have one, Captain! I have one!’ Caldwell cried so brave.

And sudden Bob’s hand was torn from mine.

‘Dilly! Dilly!’

‘Get off him!’

Blind I flung about and found Dill’s thin frame, grasping her good.

‘Give me that musket!’

‘Let go!’

‘Dill, it’s me!’

Bodies tussled and fell through the screams and shouts. Then a sharp pain, teeth sinking into my hand. White light in the dark.

‘Ah, Dill!’ I let go. ‘No!’

She had bitten me. She had bitten me.

‘Come on!’ Beth pulled me through the jail door.

‘They’re escaping, Captain!’

‘Caldwell, out of the way!’

‘Dill!’ I reached back in the dark but my stinging fingers found nothing.

‘No! He’s my friend! Leave me alone!’

‘Go!’

‘No…! DILL!’

But Caldwell staggered into the beacon light, the boy Bob smiling under his arm.

He grabbed me and he laughed like he laughed when he killed Mother.

‘Evey! He’s going to fire!’

I swung the stave wild.

Fire spat from the dark. Heat blasted. Blew Caldwell out.

‘I have the musket! Run!’ Dill cried out.

‘Get this devil off me!’

And Caldwell, brave Caldwell, lay bloody, laughing no more.

‘Run, Evey! Run!’

‘Dill!’

I struggled, but fear of death made those girls too strong, as Beth kicked the door shut. And then we were outside the jail. The rain was falling hard. And the girls were pushing me forward, pushing for freedom.

We ran for our lives.