I obeyed, falling to my knees and facing north – the direction that was most conducive to both the healing and the transfer of power.
Alice placed her hands on my forehead. ‘First I’ll try to heal you,’ she said, her voice hardly more than a whisper.
I don’t know what I expected to happen. With a healer like Agnes Sowerbutts, the use of herbs and plant extracts was as important as the words and ritual. I knew that Alice administered such medicines herself and carried them in a leather pouch, but now she was using nothing more than her hands on my head. She didn’t even chant a spell.
‘It’s really difficult,’ she said after a while. ‘The poison lies deep within. It’s oozed into every part of your body. In places the damage is subtle; in others obvious and severe. I’m going to have to use more magic, but I’m scared of hurting you. There’s even a risk that the process could kill you,’ she warned.
‘Don’t let that concern you,’ I answered. ‘I would rather be dead than less than what I was.’
‘That’s your choice. But if you’re dead, who’ll retrieve the Fiend’s head?’
‘I cannot retrieve it in my present state, so what’s the difference?’ I said. ‘If I die, go and get Thomas Ward. Work together. Only you two will stand any chance against our enemies.’
I felt a slight tremor in Alice’s fingers, and then she pressed them into my skull and the world spun about me. My breathing gradually became faster, as did my heartbeat. I began to tremble all over. There were sharp pains in my stomach and chest, as if some invisible being were plunging a needle into my flesh over and over again.
Quickly the process reached a crisis. My heart was now beating so fast that the individual pulses of blood merged and it seemed to be vibrating continuously. I felt as if I were dying, but then a surge of warmth flowed out of Alice’s fingertips and I fell forward onto my face and momentarily lost consciousness.
I felt myself being pulled back up into a kneeling position, and opened my eyes.
‘How do you feel?’ Alice asked.
‘Weak,’ I said, aware that my heart was now beating slowly and steadily again. ‘Did you succeed?’
‘Yes, I’m certain of it.’ Alice gave a proud smile. ‘The last traces of the poison and its effects upon your body are gone.’
What she had done was more than impressive – it was astounding. Where Agnes, with all her skill and knowledge, had failed to find me a permanent cure, Alice had succeeded. She was still a girl, but how formidable would she be as a woman and a fully fledged witch? What better ally could I have on my side?
‘I thank you for that, Alice. Now lend me the magical power I need – the power to retrieve the Fiend’s head and deal with our enemies.’
Once more Alice laid her hand upon me. For a moment she hesitated and I sensed her reluctance: I glared at her angrily. Then, with a sharp intake of breath, she began to chant the spell of transference; within seconds a tingle started at my head and moved down my neck towards my heart and then to my extremities. She was giving me some of her magic – a lot of it. It was going straight into my body. I wouldn’t need to draw it from my necklace; it would be available the moment I willed it. The process went on for a long time. And it felt right.
I was filled with new hope. Finally I believed that I would succeed.
At first light we picked up the trail of our enemies again; it was now apparent that they were not making for Liverpool, after all. Their route led more directly westwards. They were heading straight for the sea, many miles north of that town.
‘Don’t want to draw unwelcome attention to themselves, do they?’ Alice said. ‘That many witches and a kretch – they’re best kept out of sight. Liverpool’s a sea port that does lots of trade. Got their own militia, they have, to look after the interests of all those rich merchants. Those part-time soldier boys wouldn’t take kindly to a bunch of witches strolling into town. So they’ll be looking for somewhere quieter. One of the villages further north, maybe. Then they’ll send a couple of witches into Liverpool to terrorize a captain and crew.’
‘What if they just send those couple of witches straight back to Ireland with the head? In that case they’d only need a small fishing boat,’ I said.
‘Would you follow ’em?’ asked Alice.
‘I would if I had to,’ I replied. ‘Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.’
As it turned out, we were both proved wrong. We were moving across mossy flat land now and, despite Alice’s cloaking magic, we could still be seen against the skyline, so we had dropped back another mile or so.
But then, in the distance, we saw the ship lying at anchor. She was large, with three masts, and her sails were already unfurled. The tide would be changing to ebb and she was ready for her voyage. Our enemies had prepared everything in advance. They had chartered a ship and must have sent word by mirror to other witches already waiting on board.
We began to run, but when we reached the shore, we could see the kretch and a couple of witches some distance away on the sands, staring at the ship – which was already beginning to turn away, the wind filling her sails. The majority of our enemies were on board, and they had the Fiend’s head in their possession. We had arrived too late.
‘I have to follow. We need a boat of our own.’ I pointed towards a village in the distance. ‘That’s Formby – there will be fishermen there.’
Alice shook her head. ‘She’s a big ship, her, with lots of sails. She would reach Ireland long before any fishing boat. They’ll have prepared everything, they will. Coaches with fast teams of horses will be ready to take them to the southwest. It’ll be over long before you can reach Kenmare.’
In my mind’s eye I saw the village of Kenmare once more: the circle of standing stones and, at its centre, the huge boulder and the earth hiding the flat stone beneath which the Fiend’s body was impaled upon silver spears. I saw my enemies digging it up, freeing it and then reuniting it with the head. I saw the fury in that monster’s bestial face and his lust for revenge. I had borne his child so he couldn’t come for me unless I allowed it. But Alice and Tom would be his first victims, and with Tom’s death my last chance of destroying the Fiend for ever would be gone. Eventually I too would die, and even a dead witch cannot exist within the dell eternally. Inevitably I would go to the dark, and the Fiend would be waiting for me – time was nothing to an immortal.