“As if I’d know the address of a witch!” Tabby exclaimed furiously. “Me, a good, God-fearing woman, as pious and proper as any. And anyway, what would you want with a witch? Did I circle this house with salt and dress the doors with rowan boughs in vain? Are you so determined to end your days as a toad or a goat that you are prepared to ignore my warnings and not stay away from such unholy ways?”

“No, dear Tabby,” Emily assured her. “It is only that we require the expertise of a person acquainted with charms, runes and spells to help us decipher that”—almost too late Emily remembered that they had promised Tabby the mysterious design had been destroyed and no record of it kept—“that which we cannot. Charms and runes that we discovered in a . . . book, yes, a book we found at Ponden Hall.”

“A book, you say?” Tabby seemed a little comforted. “I don’t suppose any true harm can ever come from a book. However, though you may think me a pagan, I am afraid to tell you, Miss Emily Jane, that your Tabby Aykroyd, loyal servant of this house for more than twenty years who has loved you as if you were her own child and hoped you might return even a scrap of such understanding and affection for her, does not know the witch of the Wage of Crow Hill.”

“Oh.” Emily was disheartened.

“I do, however,” Tabby said, “know the visionary of the Wage of Crow Hill. And I suppose she might be able to help you, as a scholar of all things. Listen good now, for she lives a solitary life and makes it her business to be hard to find, and I will not tell you the way twice.”

“I will,” Emily promised, smiling at the prospect of a most interesting day.

“Oh, and there’s one other thing,” Tabby said.

“What’s that, dearest Tabby?” Emily asked, hugging the old lady.

“You’ll have to cross the border into Lancashire,” Tabby said. “For she’s all that’s left of the Pendle wit . . . wisewomen now.”

“Lancashire, hey? Oh well,” Emily said. “Needs must.”

29

Charlotte

Charlotte had risen with the dawn, encouraged by the prospect of the day ahead and looking forward to spending a morning with Lady Catherine Hartley. So she took great care over her hair and wardrobe, choosing the rings that best accentuated her fine fingers, and fastening around her neck a little string of garnets that was once her mother’s.

Just as she considered herself ready, she heard the sound of horses and Lady Hartley’s carriage was outside, though it came as something of a surprise to Charlotte to find her sisters and Branwell waiting ready to accompany her.

“Oh,” Charlotte said, looking at them with some dismay.

“What do you mean, ‘Oh’?” Anne asked her.