CHAPTER FOURTEEN

POSSESSION

The old bell of York Minster began to sound midnight. She had lain there, waiting for it. Though she was exhausted, sleep was a distant memory, a fantasy of the rest she could not have. Not yet. At the second toll, she breathed out, stood up.

He had said he would come shortly after that hour. To pray with her, over her. To ask her once again to change her mind, before it was too late.

She faced the door, listened to the iron tongue she’d heard so often, knowing that it was the last time she would hear it strike the twelve. Whatever the new day brought, she would never listen to that deep voice again.

He came while the twelfth toll still echoed around the cellar. She closed her eyes, even as the bolts were shot. She had lost the habit of prayer lately. But she prayed then.

“Let there be another way, Lord. Merciful Father, let there be another way.”

The door, her eyes, both opened, and she asked him the question she always asked him first. “The children?”

The words of his reply were the same, the sense of them different. “They are…well.”

She took a step toward him. “They are not if you say it that way.”

He closed the door behind him. Someone outside threw the bolt, locked them in together. “Isaac is…”

“Unwell?”

“Unhappy. He threw his supper at the servant girl, screamed and would not stop.”

Meg looked away, to the dark night. “You are hanging his mother at sunrise, Matthew,” she said softly. “Did you expect him to rest content?”

“I did not think he knew.”

“I am sure there are many kind enough to tell him. The servant girl, for one.”

He would not meet her eyes. “Nevertheless, it was necessary to quiet him. Punish him.”

“You…beat him.”

“The child would not hear. Kept screaming. Cursed me. Cursed God!” He flushed red. “As if he had one of your demons within him, like the one who spoke when you came out of the water.” She stared at him, and her look turned his guilt to something else. “It is your fault, Margaret. While you have consorted with Satan, you have ignored your children. Or worse…sought to corrupt them. Well, I have them now.”

“You have them now.”

She said it quietly. And her quietness quieted him. “Have you thought more on what I said?”

“I have thought of little else.”

He came toward her, hope in his eyes. “It is the only way, Margaret. Yesterday you were judged guilty in a court of law. If you had admitted that guilt, owned the Devil inside you, the court might have been lenient. But you did not. And the people of York have demanded justice.”

“They have demanded vengeance. Vengeance for the horrors this war has inflicted upon them. They look for Satan in it. When they should look for men. Men like you.”

He colored again, as if he would argue. Then he shook his head. “This matters not. What matters is your neck in a noose.” He paused. “Or not, if you so choose.”

“Choose? You say you can spirit”—she faltered on the word—“spirit me away from here—”

“I can, though I risk all to do it.”

“—take me to another prison far away. Appeal to a higher court—”

“Yes! There is a little hope. A little time, at the least. As long as you admit your sin, renounce Satan, return to God.”

“At the price that I must name others—”

“Those you consorted with, yes. For witches always gather in covens.”

“And the final price”—she took a deep breath, fearing that even the words would make her faint—“that I must never see my children again.”

He nodded, swallowed, looked away. “It is hard, I know. But Satan, once he has gripped you, will never let you go entirely. They would never be safe with you. Only a lifetime of prayer, of repentance in some faraway place, may free you.”

I have them now! That was what he’d said. She looked at her husband, this man she had once so loved. At the hair cropped to the skull, because to let it grow would be frivolity. At his black garb that spoke to his purity. At the scar of war so livid even in this lamplight. At the scars within his eyes, which this war had also given him.

He took her silence as consideration. “That is your choice, wife. Your only choice. In the end it comes down to just one: God or the Devil.”

She had thought to appeal to him one more time. On the heads of their children. On the love that once they’d had. But her study had told her—he would not bend. He preferred God, and His cause, to her and them.

Her prayer was unanswered. God had not helped her. Only she could help herself.

She moved toward him, her hands clasped before her. She could see the hope plainly within his scarred eyes. “But there is one more choice, husband.”

Her words, the softness of them, the gentle rising of her hands to his chest, all lulled him. He spoke as softly as she. “What?”

“This.”

Her hands touched him, pressing into his doublet, through his doublet. His hands rose then, sought to grab her wrists. But there was no flesh to grab. “No,” he grunted, but she stopped the breath he needed to shout for help, trapping it in spirit fingers that pressed through to his spine. He sagged, yet she held him up, as he had held her at the mill pond, taking his weight, which was nothing to her now, as she sank into him, deep into him, her Double disappearing into him.

She had not been sure she’d remember the way of it. It had been so long ago when last she’d done this. And she had only gone into animals then—run as a fox, hunted as an owl. But midnight was the hour, “the witching time,” it was called. When a witch was at her most powerful.

There had always been a struggle when possession was resisted. She was surprised to discover that a man’s resistance was no stronger than a beast’s.

She took the breath now that they both needed; staggered, his legs unfamiliar under her, reaching out to steady herself against a wall. She closed her eyes—his eyes—and somewhere from deep inside his body she heard a scream, trailing off, as if someone was falling into a void of nothingness.

“Hush,” she whispered, in his voice. She felt him, every part of him…and the delight in that. The strength of the man! The belief in himself! He had no doubts; nothing could stand between him and his certainty.

She felt his chest heave with her joy! She’d forgotten this—the pure exhilaration of possession! And a fox, a bird, the only things she’d inhabited before? They were nothing. A human, now! It was extraordinary. Why had she not done this before? Well, she’d never deny herself this…this wonder again!

She laughed out loud…and heard Mad Meg in the delight. Her Fetch, freed. She could run wild if she chose. Draw this sword at her side, use his skill with a blade to cut her way to her children, free them, ride from the city….

No! She leaned against the wall, took a deep breath, another, to steady her thumping heart—his thumping heart. It was not the way. She had her plan. She knew what she must do. And Mad Meg, even with Matthew’s strength, could not do it.

Gradually, her heart and breath steadied, and other feelings came from her possession. His memories flooding in, of her, of their children. Of the war. She felt his terrible hurts, all that he’d tried to heal in devotion to his cause.

“Oh, Matthew,” she whispered, her pity in his voice.

She stood there for a long moment, till she knew what was her, what was him, till Mad Meg had stepped back. Then she crossed the room and threw back the blanket on the bed.

Meg’s body lay there as she had left it, and she looked at herself for a long moment. Then, using his strength, she picked herself up. She was surprised by how light she felt.

“Sergeant,” Matthew Brakespeare cried. “Praise be to God! She repents.”

The bolts were thrown again, the door opened. The reed torch beyond showed her Matthew’s man, the same whose discovery of the deserter on the road beyond York had exposed her. Wainwright was his name. Then his broad, swarthy face had been wrought in anger. Now it was lightened by joy. Heavenly joy.

“Hallelujah!” he shouted. “For our Savior has visited the prisoner and delivered her, like Peter from his chains.” Then his eyes adjusted to the darkness of the cellar and he saw the woman in his officer’s arms. “She is delivered, is she, Cap’n?”

“She’s fainted, ’tis all. Overwhelmed by Jesu’s presence.”

“Praise Him!”

“Aye.” She carried herself across to the door. “But now we must hasten, Sergeant. Is all prepared as I asked you, against this small hope?”

Wainwright stepped back into the corridor. “All, sir. There’s a door into the yard hard by, the horses saddled. Come!”

He gestured, but Matthew’s head flicked upward. “The children, first.”

The man slapped his forehead. “How could I forget? I have prayed they would not be made orphans this day. Motherless, I mean. I can’t help thinking of my own five in Bridport.” He smiled, reached out his arms. “Shall I take her, sir, while you fetch ’em?”

She’d thought of leaving her body there while she went and got her children. But the sergeant had said “fetch.” And she had never left her body with anyone, not even Matthew, when her Fetch had walked before. Just made sure it was safe, in an empty barn or unvisited copse. She could not leave it now. “See to the horses. Make sure none are about. I’ll keep her by.”

“Aye, Cap’n.”

He stepped aside, and she moved to the narrow stairwell, went up. In the corridor of the merchant’s house he had commandeered, she did not hesitate, took two more flights, up to the attic. She realized she knew the place as well as Matthew…no, as Matthew. She shuddered…and her thoughts moved again into his, to a churchyard hard by the river, a sunny day, the making of Isaac….

She opened her eyes. She’d only ever been a fox, knowing its runs, the gaps it sought in hedgerows; a bird, and the best place to flush a mole or mouse. There was danger in this, to be so lost in another. She shook her head. Despite the power, the delight of it, she needed to be free of him as soon as she could be. She could get to like this too much.

Reaching out awkwardly beyond the body she held, she turned the doorknob.

Gudrun, as ever, was asleep in her cot. Isaac was standing, facing the door. He blinked as his parents came into the room, and spoke. “Have you hanged her already, sir?”

The cold way he said it! It nearly broke Meg’s heart, the way he was holding himself, trying to be so brave. She nearly dropped the body she held, ran to sweep him up into her arms. Knew she couldn’t. Matthew would not behave like that. She must behave like him.

“Wake your sister, boy,” she said, as kindly as she could. Somehow it still came out hard. “Wake her, dress fast, and follow.”

Gudrun protested but came awake swiftly enough. Their few clothes were flung on. Hand in hand, they followed their parents down the stairs.

“Is Mama sleeping?” she said.

“Hush, child! Yes. Yes, she sleeps.”

They stepped into the perfect dark of the yard. “Sergeant?” he called.

“Here, sir.”

The children held on to Matthew’s long buff coat, making progress even harder. Then a light came, a gate on a lantern swung open. “Here,” the sergeant called again.

Isaac had ridden soon after he could walk. Gudrun could sit a horse. The boy was swung up, given the reins, the girl placed before him. Though Meg hesitated for a moment, there was no other way. She handed her body over to the sergeant, mounted, then bent down.

For a moment, Wainwright did not pass her up, just stared into her sleeping face. “A miracle indeed, Cap’n,” he murmured. “And it’s good to cheat those jackals of a lynching.”

He lifted her, and she grabbed herself, settling her between the strong arms, the reins either side. “Thank you, Jeremiah.”

The sergeant laid his hand briefly upon his captain’s. “I’ll pray for you, Matthew,” he said softly. “For all your deliverances.”

She nodded, turned the horse’s head. “God’s blessings upon you,” came the call from the darkness.

When she’d left York two days before, the customary reply had nearly choked in her throat. Now she declared it fervently. She needed all the help she could get.

“And His Son’s love.”