Aria Remains
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

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‘Why wouldst thee perfume such evil, such wickedness?’ William asked, his voice straining with emotion as he stood in front of the old woman, preparing himself for whatever might come. ‘Why wouldst thou have us suffer so? What need was there for such dreadful acts?’

Alice seemed as though she was about to reply but, as yet unfinished, William raised his voice and continued, ‘No, thou shalt explain to me, thee vile and monstrous object of darkness, why thou wouldst bring about the terrible torture and death of so many, so many who have done nothing with which to cause thee harm?’

‘And why,’ Alice finally interrupted, silencing William with a wave of her hand, ‘wouldst thou consider it to be a fine thought, a noble gesture, this unwelcome visitation, this dishonourable scattering of threats and stories? Who be thee to come to me, playing at the bully, uttering such words as would make thee seem of import? T’was not I who stands responsible for these incidents of which thou speaketh. These pitiable and two-penny half-penny deaths, this shower of rain and breath of wind, none of which thou canst have proof falls unto my door. Is this for why thou has traipsed so far abroad from thy homestead? To come hither, to accuse, to lay scorn at this sacred place?’

‘Sacred?’ William scoffed. ‘This be the most cursed of places, the most unholy.’

‘Well,’ Alice said menacingly, leaning closer to him, ‘that all depends, of course, on who thee looks to as thy deity. No image of Edessa shall thee replace here, no sudarium stained with the stinking sweat of the soles of some tawdry and meritless woodworker.’ She looked away again, her displeasure at this conversation, at this intrusion clear in her cold black eyes. ‘Now, be gone, thou hapless, faithless fool. Be gone, afore I send thee myself, else thou shall regret this trespass.’

‘I shall not depart before I hath received my redress,’ William said. ‘I shall hold my position until we have seen this so-called deal broken and dismissed.’

‘Dismissed?’ Alice replied, her grin developing into a sickly, crackling laugh. ‘What maketh thee imagine such a fanciful outcome wouldst come to pass? Oh, no, no.’

She waved a thin, boney finger close to his face.

‘No, there shall be no retraction, no break from our exquisite pact, lest thee so wishes me to collect my bounty so soon?’

‘I care not,’ William said, pushing her hand away. ‘Do all that thou must do, but do it only to me. This agreement is no more, and that be the end of it.’

’No, no,’ Alice said again, leaning closer to him, her foul, stale breath forcing his head back in retreat. ‘It be not for thee to decide at which point our dealings are complete, no matter how delicious it wouldst unquestionably be for me to claim my prize. No, I hath other plans for thee, other glories thou shall be assigned.’

William, now as angry as he could ever remember being, shouted, ’No, it endeth now. Even if that should mean the village is no more, that we all are forced to return to the lives we left so many years ago - that would be infinitely better than us all being in thy deceitful debt forever more.’

‘Forever?’ Alice said quietly, leaning back again, a devilish smile on her face, a glint of scarlet flashing deep within the ink of her eyes. ’Ah, but forever be such a long, long time. Far too long for a soul such as thee once held. No, I think the five hundred years we discussed on the charming occasion of thy pledge would more than suffice. Five hundred years. To thee that be a span far too great to conjure. To me, ’tis but a blink of an eye, a glance at the sun.’

She paused, her eyes growing smaller, boring into William’s face. He felt the stiffness in his back again, the soreness from the myriad of cuts and scratches.

‘Five hundred years,’ she said again, slowly, savouring the words. ‘Now, here be fun. What say we, rather than abandoning our deal, just add to it further? Compound it, if thee wouldst?’

She idled since more, running her tongue around the inside of her mouth before spitting onto the ground.

‘Aye,’ she started again, speaking calmly but with a malevolent, Machiavellian air, ’let us agree that, for the next five hundred years there shall be no interference from my goodly self, my most beauteous self. I shall not stand in thy way, shall not impinge upon the bits and pieces of a life thee and all those other paltry wretches have so cleverly constructed. Thy self-satisfaction shall remain most buoyant, fear not. But, once that period has passed, when thee be long gone, no longer even a memory, the merest speck remaining in the universe blown far, far away by the four winds, it shall be then that I shall act.

‘The crop thou hast so carefully and lovingly raised, that thou hath tended and protected, shall not remain unharvested forever. Beneath forsaken skies of lamenting clouds there shall come a time, in and after and amongst all the other time thou hast squandered on the plight of thy children, when it shall be proven to hath been for nought. And at that time, at that delicious taste of moments, I shall take from thee the one thing thou hast never been able to give to them. I shall rise up, I shall track, I shall persecute the most vile, most delectable sufferances upon those poor beings who follow in thy wake. I shall see it come to pass that not one of thy descendants shall replace joy, shall replace peace; no, they shall replace nothing but trouble and pain, distress and loss. Aye, I think that shall suffice as the penalty for thy insurgence, for thy laughable braggadocio.’

William felt his skin begin to warm and then prickle, as though it had been feasted upon at all quarters by invisible, ravenous swarms of fiendish insects. As he looked at the old woman she appeared to flicker, her image seeming to dance before him as though she was being viewed through a haze. She raised her hands, pointing all her fingers towards him.

‘Do not forget,’ she said, with a despicable, admonitory grin, ‘who it be holds thy fates and thy future here, tangled betwixt these handsome fingers. Do not allow thyself to lose all idea of who it be holds tightly the reins, for thee wants not to be reminded again. Now, away with thee, for I have other things to attend to, any and all of which be of far greater substance than a worm such as thee.’

At that moment they both heard a dog barking, the sound growing louder and louder, the animal getting closer. And then, so quickly he could do nothing to protect himself, an invisible force pulled William high above the trees and spun him around, the pain in his body converging into one congealed, suffocating barrage of agony inside his head. Just before his consciousness faded he felt himself travelling at an extreme speed through the air, the cold rush of wind against his face and then…

He stirred in the middle of a field, the cool air of the night crawling over him as an owl, at first startled at his presence, looked all around and then, thinking it had seen a mouse scuttling through the grass, and having not eaten for almost three days, took flight, swooping less than twenty feet from William’s prostrate body to claim its prey. For a time he was confused, unable to recall how he had arrived there, what had caused him to fall asleep in such a way and what the plummeting shape that came so close to him had been. Then, as he sat up and felt the sharp pulse of pain in and all around his skull and the soreness of his frame, he remembered. He had been to confront the old woman, to try to replace the reason she had brought such despair and desolation upon his village. He felt disappointed, that he should have known better, that he should not have acted so incautiously. Still, at the very least he now had his proof, he knew for certain that his theories had been correct, that the old woman was, indeed, a practitioner of witchcraft and that it was she with whom he had agreed his injudicious contract.

He slowly, pitifully got to his feet, looking around in an attempt to determine his location, wondering how he could possibly make it home with his body in such distress. And then the young girl he had seen returned to his memory, the beautiful girl with the long dark hair. He wondered, again, who she could be, why he could not recall having seen her before but why it was he was so convinced that he had, and that he had experienced her radiance, her wordless pledge of better things to come.

It was as if the answer was just out of reach, so infuriatingly close but still somehow hidden from him. Almost as if there was something precluding him from knowing the truth.

Calculating where he was from the position of the moon and the slope of the land, he first looked back in the direction of the old woman’s hut, now a great distance away, and then turned towards Easthope. Suddenly emboldened by thoughts of the girl, reinforced by her unspoken promise, it seemed to him that it wouldn’t take too great a time for him to return home but, as he started to step through the grass, its dew dampening his boots, he also remembered Bridgette’s anger, and that she would not welcome him back.

For the first time in many years, since the idea occurred to him that he should do something to help his friends, that they needed to replace a better place and a better way to live than they had experienced at Calcote, and despite the hope that had grown inside him at the sight of the young girl, he was overcome with a feeling an insecurity, an uncertainty about the future, worried for himself and for his family. How could he have been so blinded, in such haste to agree the pact? How could he have been so stupid? What had made him think that Beckett had the ability to have granted him such power, such prowess? He should have known there was more to it, should have been aware that if something seems too good, if the rewards seem too great, there had to have been something he was missing, a further price he would have to pay no matter the toll he had already been charged. A cost and consequence for which so many others, so many innocent people who would also, it seemed, now replace themselves accountable.

But what could he do? How could he make things right again? He knew now that there was no reasoning with the old witch, that if he attempted to change anything she would strike him down and would, in all likelihood, take her anger out on the village, wiping it from existence. He began to wonder why she had approached him, what it was that drew her to him in the first place with her offer, her deal. What did she stand to gain from his constructing the village? Why would she even care?

As he was thinking about the advances they had made, the developments that had been serving Easthope so well, trying to connect them in some way to the old woman so he would see how she could possibly have benefited, he thought he caught sight of someone further ahead. Even guided by the pale silver of the moonlight he could see it was a distinct figure, out there, just across from the field he had now almost finished crossing, yet there was something peculiar about it. It was there but, at the same time, despite how clearly he could see it, it was also still not quite there. Frowning, rubbing his eyes, he looked again and still, now only fifty feet away, he could see the figure.

Gradually the person began to softly glow, the light tracing the outline of its body and then falling across it completely, bringing them more clarity. It was then William could see who it was, yet he could not believe what he was looking at.

It was… it can’t be, but… it was Travet.

Travet, his friend, the farmer. Travet, who worked harder than almost any other. Travet, who liked a drink, and a game of cards and Penny Prick.

Travet, who had been killed on the night of the storm.

William stumbled, losing his footing on the dewey grass as he stared ahead in horrified disbelief. How could this be? What kind of chicanery was this? Can it be the work of the evil old woman, beginning a new round of persecution against him and the villagers already?

He had seen him, had seen Travet lying amongst all the other shattered bodies, smeared in blood, his limbs twisted into absurd, terrifying positions. He had watched with regretful sorrow as his body was swathed and entombed, and knew full well that there was no other way to describe his predicament other than he had been killed and he was dead. Yet here he was now, standing in the next field, luminescent in the darkness, looking straight at him.

As William came within fifteen feet of him, he spoke his name.

Travet, the light within him now coruscating wildly, appeared to move his head down as if acknowledging William’s presence. He moved stiffly, slowly, his eyes unblinking as he gazed at his friend.

‘Travet, canst it really be thee?’

Again Travet moved his head in a nod that said yes, it was him, and that he was risen from the grave, a spectre haunting the dark fields.

‘But,’ William went on, ‘how can it be thee? I saw thee, I saw thee lying upon the ground, amongst the others, the morning after the storm. How can it be that thee be now here, here with me?’

Travet contemplated him for several long moments before, at last, he spoke.

‘William,’ he said, his voice coarse, quiet. He spoke slowly, choosing each word with care. ‘It be true that you saw me lying upon the ground, as it be true I be then placed into the ground, swaddled and returned to the earth, but I could not stay where I had been left. Since I have been gone there be things I have learned, things thou must know. It be so very different there. We see what cannot be seen, know what cannot be known.’

‘But what doth thee mean?’ William asked, not understanding what he was hearing, unable to believe his friend, his deceased comrade, was standing before him.

Travet looked to the ground, the light around him beginning to grow softer, more faint.

‘We see all things,’ he said, his voice also becoming weaker. ‘We see what has been, what is now and what is yet to be. There are things thou doth need to know, yet already I feel that I am growing tired, that I shall be unable to remain here for long.’

‘Then, tell me, I pray thee,’ William said quickly. ’What is it thou must say? And who be the ‘we’ of which thee speaketh?’

‘Tomorrow,’ Travet muttered, whispered, his figure now almost translucent, fading into the night. ‘I shall return tomorrow and shall do all I can to inform thee of what it is thou must…’

And then, as he raised his head again to look at William, Travet’s light shimmered and gradually bled away into the night, as smoke is reluctant to leave the air surrounding the candle once it has been extinguished.

‘Travet?’ William said, looking all around, the moonlight offering little assistance as he scanned the dark fields. ‘Travet?’

He waited a while, his eyes straining against the dimness, and then dropped to a sitting position on the ground. It didn’t matter that the grass was damp, made no difference that his back was aching and that the mass of tiny abrasions along his arms and legs was pricking and nipping at him. It was his mind that preoccupied him, becoming overwhelmed with thoughts and questions, the security and certainty he had long nurtured about the village, of its fortune, its future, now seeming a most delicate, fragile thing. His trust in all he had accomplished, the comfort and confidence he thought he had built and conveyed to those who had joined him, appeared now to no longer be in their hands, that there were outside forces with much more authority than himself. And then here was Travet, the fallen Travet, with something to say that would be important and, most likely, relevant to this entire situation, since Travet the extant had never been one to waste either time nor breath on more words than were necessary.

William thought of the old woman again, of how she had tricked him, had presented not only herself as someone else but also their pact, their agreement, as something other than what it really was. He was now terrified that it was she who had been at the foundation of the damage caused by the storm, as she had the murders that followed it, and that they had been executed on little more than a whim of the old hag. It was almost as though she had been bored, that she wanted something to stimulate her interest and had found her abominable entertainment in both William and Easthope’s suffering. And if she was capable of such wanton malevolence what more would she bring down upon them, what further cruelty would she inflict for no other reason than she had nothing better to do? His fate, and that of all those who had followed him, who had believed in him and trusted him to look after them, was no longer in their own hands. They were not living, not as they had been living before; instead, they faced a future of frightened subsistence at the mercy of an evil old woman, a witch who could, at any time, bring their world crashing down around them.

No, he thought, manipulating his back as he continued to sit upon the grass, the damp now seeping uncomfortably into his leggings. I cannot let it be so, and I cannot allow anyone else to know of this, any of what has happened this night. It would not be fair to have them all as worried as he, and he could not blight their lives any further. Instead he must replace a remedy, a rebuttal to her, must do all he could to bring an end to her sickly pleasures. Yes, he admitted with a sigh, he had tried, but he had been unprepared, had wandered into the conflagration without any form of protection. Now he needed to think, to plan for a different approach, to replace a way to cast her out so that peace could be assured for the innocents in his charge. There would be something he could do, there would be an answer out there somewhere. There had to be, because darkness must always replace its combatant in light.

He got to his feet just as the dawn began to break, the merest sliver of sun puncturing the horizon. Stretching his spine, he felt that the pain was now not so intense, and that the sting of his lacerations was now not so keen. As he shielded his eyes, looking across the water, a faith in his ideas began to establish itself, to strengthen his will. And then, turning towards Easthope, still some way off through fields and across ditches and hedgerows, he started to grow more certain still that something was happening, that salvation was a good deal closer than he had thought just a short time ago. The emerging daylight had diminished his fears as it had dispensed with the night, had scattered them, dispelled them, replacing them now with fresh clarity, a new aspect. The supreme golden sun, climbing steadily now, unwaveringly, trustworthy and perpetual, provided him with new direction, showed him that there was another way, that all would never be lost as long as there was light and hope and goodness.

A very long way away, at a distance inconceivable to him, there was other movement, a different shifting of prospect and of fate. There was a change on its way, a deliverance, a promise.

Invigorated, confident once more, William raised his head, steadied his shoulders and began walking back to Easthope.