Aria Remains
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

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‘I hath been forth to see him,’ William said, by way of a greeting.

Bridgette had finally found him, sitting on a verge overlooking the villagers as they buried the victims of the night the storm came.

‘Back, thee be?’ she said bluntly, a statement as much as a question, an indication of her dolefulness as much as any real interest in his practices. She had spent their time apart in a state of lethargy, enduring a sleepless night beset with trepidation.

‘Aye, just returned,’ William smiled.

‘Avery, also, found it within himself to come back,’ she said. Her tone remained flat and unfriendly, which would always cause William to attach a greater degree of cheeriness to his own than he may otherwise have been feeling.

‘Ah,’ he replied, still smiling, although his face was now beginning to feel uncomfortable. ‘To where hath he gone?’

‘Was in the fields aways, took shelter where he couldst replace it. Took an injury to his hip, that being the reason for his late return. A tree, it was, struck him badly, but he be improved now, thanks to Elinor.’

William nodded, then tried to think of how to begin telling her what he had learned as an uncomfortable silence wrapped itself around them, unfitting and smothering.

‘Thou went to see…?’ Bridgette finally said, breaking the tension, urging his continuance before realising who he meant. ‘Why?’ she then asked, a sudden annoyance now tainting her voice.

‘I needed to uncover the truth,’ William said, gesturing for her to sit beside him. She was reluctant but, tired from walking, from consoling, from worrying, she conceded and took a position on the grass a few feet away from him.

‘I needed to replace Beckett, to discover from him whether he had any part to play in this nightmare we hath suffered.’

Bridgette frowned, staring at him.

‘Why wouldst thou entertain such a notion?’ she asked. ‘Wouldst thou hath me believe it were Beckett who shoulders the responsibility for this terror we hath been fortunate to survive?’

William thought carefully. He did not want to say too much, to bring her yet greater need to worry, yet he wanted her to know what he had discovered, what had been revealed to him as he lay close to the old woman’s hut.

‘I needed to replace my own certainty,’ he said, ‘and I hath now come to understand that it were not he with whom I entered into our agreement, our deal.’

’Thou chose to take thyself away at a time we needed thee more than ever, just so thy mind may be certain? Bridgette asked sharply. ‘And what, if thou might allow me to ask, didst thee say thou hath found on thy trek to comprehension? That it be not he? And if not he, then who?’

‘It be not Beckett. The papers of our pact layeth not at his door and, indeed, I think he hath been tarnished with the wrongdoings of another in many other instances.’

Bridgette exhaled, slapped her hands on her thighs and said, ‘Ah, so if he sayeth it were not he, then not he it must be. How very glad I am, how we can now all take our ease.’ She looked at him bitterly, then asked, ‘And what proof hath thee of such madness? Such a ludicrous conception?’

‘I saw something else, whilst I be out looking for Beckett.’

‘And what be that?’ Bridgette asked. She sounded dismissive, yet William knew he had to persevere, had to tell her what he knew so that she might understand, might even replace herself in a position to help.

‘I journeyed away to the hut, the dirty, stinking hut in which I first came to my agreement with the person I thought to be Beckett. I found no one yet, as I were there, I came across a bright flash of white light which knocked the legs from beneath me, laid me out for the whole of the night.’

He looked at Bridgette who, although listening, was watching the villagers by the docks.

‘It was then a vision did come to me, the idea of the error I hath made, the trickery by which I hath been blinded.’

‘Vision?’ Bridgette repeated, still looking to the docks.

‘Before me came a young maiden, out from the woods, in a sad state, to be sure. And there, from the stinking hut to meet her, came an aged crone, a hag withered so that it came as a surprise she were still able to walk and stand and utter a word of sense.’

‘Then she be in better sorts than thee,’ Bridgette said dismissively.

‘Please,’ William said, ‘wouldst thou at least let me finish my account? To advise thee that this hag, this bent and decayed thing, who gave off an air of such an evil presence, appeared to me so diabolic in her ways and habits that I became sure she hath some great hand to play in all of this. I think that it be she who hath somehow, in some infernal manner, taken poor Beckett unto her, hath lead him far astray into the pit of damnation. It be she, I hath no doubt, with whom I hath undertaken this contract, the mask of poor Beckett somehow affixed upon her visage.’

Bridgette said nothing for a while, her eyes still trained upon the dock. William knew well she was thinking not only of what he had told her but of what her response should be. She breathed deeply, then turned slowly towards him.

‘What thou means to say,’ she began, her voice steady, her tone serious, ’be that thou hath not agreed this deal with Beckett but hath, in his stead, brokered a contract, a contract that shall last five hundred years, no less, with nothing other than what? A witch? A harridan of the occult, in some way disguised so that thee considered it be someone else? Wouldst thee agree? Hath I correctly understood the story thou wouldst now have me believe?’

William shifted his position uncomfortably. He suddenly felt as though he was a child, embarrassed by his error of judgement, by the way he had been fooled, and consequently was now preparing to be chastised.

‘I would say that thou hath the main parts of the tale correct, yes,’ he offered, half turned to her, wincing in preparation of her retort.

Bridgette was silent for a few more seconds, then pushed herself from the edge of the verge and, not without difficulty, got to her feet.

‘Then it be another night thee shall spend alone, William East. Alone but accompanied by yet more dreams of thy gorgon. Enjoy thee, then, thy second night with this ogress, this termagant, then think yet more of what thee hath done, the danger beneath which thou hast shrouded each of us. And further,’ she called over her shoulder as she walked away, ‘consider the toll thou hath tallied, the pain thou hath brought upon this place if it be thy shrew that squats by the root of this tempest.’

William sighed and hung his head. Although distressed at the spite of Bridgette’s riposte he felt he could not argue with her underlying salience, that there was some element of truth amongst her bile. He had not, he conceded, thought that the five hundred years assigned to the deal would bring anything other than happiness and improvement, that the gentrification he wanted for his fellows would be the only consequence of the accord. Bridgette, nor anyone else, knew of the side of the bargain he had offered and he felt, more now than ever before, that it must be something he would take to his grave, that no one should ever know the assurance he had given, the price to be paid should he be responsible for any violation of the agreement.

And was she, indeed, accurate in regarding him as being, if only indirectly, culpable for the terrible storm that had ravaged the village? William thought not. He had done nothing to pique the fury of whom he now knew to be a witch, had in no way contravened the consensus they had reached, and so could not imagine that it had been she who was liable for the destruction of their village. The accountability must lie, he concluded, in nature’s hands. She, and she alone, must have had good reason for introducing such carnage, such anguish to their village. Still, why would the old woman have seized upon this dreadful opportunity in order to satiate her thirst for blood?

He had to refrain from admitting the entire story to Bridgette, could not tell her of the condition in which he had found the dead. The reverberations from the storm would ensure she remained shaken enough; she did not need to know that the brute with whom he had dealt must also be responsible for not only their loss, but the manner in which they had been consigned. The only person he had told was Cordell, just as he was leaving in search of Beckett the day before, who, so close to and respectful of William as he was, gave him his promise of secrecy and stealth and agreed to swathe and conceal the bodies as best he could, in an attempt to hide the most distressing of the injuries from those who would feel the most pain. Should everyone learn there was a killer, if not physically amongst them but at least active, he feared the disaster would soon grow to a catastrophe, which might then lead to an attitude of sedition, something he knew he must avoid for the sake of them all. This was not, he knew, something that would be of any benefit to anyone and so, explaining to Cordell that he was certain the slayer was not one of them and had already moved on, he left his trusted friend to the grim work.

As he looked once more at those lying their dead to rest and then got to his feet, deciding he must return to the foul, distant hut so that he might perhaps replace further answers, he wondered if the turbulent onslaught of the storm had been sent as some kind of message, a dispatch from nature herself. She could be reminding them all that they should not allow for any complacency, that they should not become too self-approving of the new lives they had established for themselves, for they were as vulnerable to the capriciousness of their environment now as they had been at any other time.

As if to underline the point, as William strode across the meadows once more the clouds gave way, the sun appeared and it shone down upon him with such a beauteous warmth it was almost an apology, almost contrition for the dreadful means required to bring them the message. He removed his jacket, hanging it on one of the fenceposts that were being planted in preparation for the cultivation of another field, and wiped his shirtsleeve across his brow. More than once he paused, before the village grew too distant to see, and looked upon what he had established. As he scanned the scene it was not a sense of pride that he felt, nor was it triumph; instead he found his satisfaction in what he had been able to do for those he brought with him. Despite the terrible aftermath of the storm he knew that, as the time passed and their lives went on, they would replace themselves in a place that would bring them a far more substantial degree of security and well-being than they would otherwise have known. For a moment he wondered what would have become of them if they had not left Calcote, and gave thought to what kind of damage the weather had inflicted upon that other place. He had no way of knowing that their previous home had escaped the devastation completely, that the eye of the storm had been directly and exclusively focused upon Easthope, and he would never know, since he would never have either cause nor desire to return there again.

It was mid-afternoon by the time he finally reached the narrow copse behind which he would replace the hut. He had not walked with any great alacrity, since he was in no hurry to finish his business and then have nothing more to do than return home to a lonely night, trying to settle himself amidst the painful air of sorrow. He had asked Cordell, once he had completed his task at the dockside, to replace the most appropriate moment in which to pass word that the next day would see him call a meeting of all the villagers. He would do his utmost to calm their grief, would ask them to gather all they could to help with the reconstruction of their homes and would then set about organising Easthope’s recovery. This time he knew, as he reached the trees, that the work would be completed without the assistance of any mystical powers and would consequently be an effort that would take them many weeks but, he felt sure, the allocation of the work and the shared accomplishment once it was done would help unite the community even further.

Carefully, making as little sound as possible, he began deciphering his way through the trees, moving the branches aside slowly, trying to ensure his footsteps amongst the detritus went unheeded. After a few minutes he saw the hut, that putrid, noxious hovel in and around which he had already spent far too much of his time. All appeared quiet, with no hint that anyone was nearby and so, uncertain what else he could do, he found a large enough space between the trees to allow him to carefully sit, leaning against a trunk, facing the open ground.

After a few minutes he heard someone approaching, the quiet sound of footsteps rustling through the undergrowth at the side of the copse. He ducked his head and leaned slightly forward, peering through the leaves, and saw a small dog, a terrier, wandering into the clearing and standing by the entrance to the hut. Shortly afterwards they both heard someone else, these steps heavier, slower, and they both looked in their direction.

It was the girl, the beautiful girl with the long dark hair and the semblance of purity itself that William had envisioned on his last visit to this place. He gasped, trying to imagine what was happening.

Who was this girl? What was she doing here?

The dog seemed to recognise her and, together, they went into the hut. He heard the girl say something, although couldn’t be sure what it was, and then saw the dog come back outside, look around as if it were searching for someone and then, apparently having made a decision, unaware William was close-by, it walked away towards the fields at its left. A minute or two later, as William continued to watch, his awkward position amongst the trees beginning to cause his legs and back to ache, the girl emerged from the hut and looked all around. Then, shrugging, she went to the side of the shack and sat atop one of a pair of stools.

The yellow-red flare of the pitching sun brought such an aura to her, cast her in such grandeur, that William became transfixed. She was such a winsome girl, so compellingly alluring it was as though she would be able to shatter everything around her, that she held such power and was blessed with such beauty it would resonate and vibrate across the universe. And somehow she seemed so very familiar to him; he felt sure that he had seen her more than once before, because this familiarity occurred to him in a greater, deeper way, a way that felt as if he had known her for all her life, that made him as proud of her as he was of the village he was now attempting to preserve. But who was she? And why could he not recall seeing her anywhere else other than here, at this ugly, nauseating place, a filthy spot that served only to enhance her elegance even further?

The girl smiled to herself and then, having thought about something for a while, said simply, ‘Home.’

The pain in William’s legs had grown so bothersome that he was unable to hold his stance for any longer. Just as the girl sighed and repeated the single word, ‘Home,’ he shifted his weight and snapped a twig underfoot. The girl immediately turned, staring almost directly at him, narrowing her eyes.

‘Hello?’ she said, now sounding frightened, still scanning the trees.

William needed to move again, to try to replace some comfort in his confining situation, but now every twitch, every slight movement of his muscles seemed to result in another sound and another spike of pain and discomfort. Still the girl looked fixedly towards him, her brow furrowed. She started to stand, then returned to the stool and shuddered. Whoever this person was, whatever she was doing in this wretched place, most likely an acquaintance of the evil hag he had come to see, the last thing William wanted to do was to frighten her. She seemed innocent, she seemed lost and very alone, and that she was afraid of something. She did not, he concluded, exhibit any of the repugnant malice he sensed from the old woman, and was as equally sure that she was not involved in any of her contrivances.

After he had managed to reposition himself without further cramping, adjusting himself slowly and noiselessly enough to have not disturbed any further the scene around him, the girl appeared to fall into a deep spell of thoughtfulness, a look of unhappiness developing across her face. William wanted to approach her, to offer her solace, yet knew the sight of him emanating from the copse, bent through soreness, dirty through scavenging amongst the trees, appearing as if he had been waiting for her, spying on her, would probably frighten her even more. And then, with a deep breath, her attitude changed. She seemed to suddenly grow stronger, more determined and, with one final look towards him, she turned and walked away towards the valley.

Just at that moment he saw the old woman appear from the other side of the hut and then, seconds later, the small dog came racing to her side.

‘What be it, hound?’ she asked.

The dog looked up at her and then walked towards the side of the hut. ‘And where be that girl? Thought you would have it that she hath retired from the fields?’

Dog looked over to her, then carried on towards the gully.

‘Aye, off thee go, replace her and bring her back.’

As the dog walked more quickly, its tail now raised, she ran her tongue around the inside of her mouth, spat onto the ground and, staring into the trees, at the point where William was squatting, said coldly, ‘Out with thee, thy cowardly bargainer.’

William swallowed, wondering what he should do. Even though he had made this journey in order to confront her, for a moment his courage failed and he could think only of the young girl, wondering if she was being held by the old witch against her will and whether he should just leave for the moment so that he might summon the scheme with which he could return and free the girl from the hag’s clutches.

‘Out with thee,’ the old woman said again, more loudly, more poisonously and, with a wave of her hand, at once all of the trees that stood between her and William moved aside, as though pushed out of the way by a giant. ‘Be thee afraid, afraid of me?’ she asked with a wicked grin.

William stood, winced as he rubbed his back, and walked towards her.

‘No, not afraid,’ he said. ‘I was simply being careful not to frighten the girl.’

‘Girl?’

‘Aye, the young girl. She be just here. A friend of thee, I take it?’

‘No,’ the old woman said, shaking her head. ‘Thou must be seeing things, for there be no girl here.’

She looked at him suspiciously, ignoring his look of confusion.

‘But enough of this nonsense. What be it that bringeth thee so far out to this most beauteous setting?’

‘Thee and I hath a need to share words,’ William said. ‘I know, now, who thee be and what it is thee hath overseen.’

‘Then speaketh and unburden thyself,’ the old woman replied, glancing around as if she were already bored by the conversation, that she had far more important things to which to attend.

William studied her dull expression and, thinking of the devastation brought upon the village, of the lives lost and the insecurities Bridgette harboured about the deal he had made, he felt the strength return to him, the powerful indignation he felt towards this harridan rise and swell within his heart. He knew, since the idea had been delivered to him almost without his knowledge, without his attention, as if brought upon the air and fastened to his capacity, that she had tricked him, had eclipsed his mind when they first reached their concord, not only by masking herself as Beckett but by already having a mind to violate her side of the agreement. Had he known then what legerdemain she was employing, that the whole covenant wasn’t even worth the cracked and heavy parchment upon which he signed his name, he would never have complied, regardless of how strongly he felt about his mission. Perhaps it was unwise to have trusted the unreliable incarnation of Beckett, that he should have thought more deeply about whether he would have been able to deliver on his promise, but Beckett would not have proven a difficult problem to solve. As she had already shown, this old woman, this witch, provided an entirely different obstacle.

Still studying her he realised that, no matter what fate might befall him, it was imperative he breach this deal, that it be brought to cessation before anyone else from Easthope was exposed to the smallest amount of further suffering or torment as a result of his own shortsightedness. And so, his body beginning to shake with intensity, the blood pumping through his veins, he steeled himself for what he had to do.