“Cleaned it of evil, you fool,” Tabby said. “I don’t know what that abomination was meant for, but I know evil when I see it. That was the devil’s work. And in your front dining room too. And I warrant that Clifton Bradshaw made that circle on the night he did his evil deal, and that the poor, killed bones they found up there were nothing short of human sacrifice. You foolish, silly girls, with all your books and learning, and yet you’ve brought a curse down on all our heads this night. No good will come from this. You mark my words. No good at all.”

18

Emily

“Have we really stumbled on a sacrifice and unleashed a curse?” Charlotte asked, wide-eyed, her arm linked through Anne’s, as Tabby went into the house to wake up the servant girl, Martha. “Oh, dear Lord, I think we must wake Papa and tell him what we have found.”

“Be calm, Charlotte,” Emily said. “We do not know anything more than that which Tabby has told us. And though she is very wise and very dearly loved, she also insists on greeting every single magpie she sees and enquiring after their family before turning three times anticlockwise to warn away bad luck—so let us take a moment to collect our thoughts and discover the meaning of the designs through establishing facts.”

“Your words make sense, Emily”—Charlotte shuddered—“but rather less in the dead of night when your wretched dog won’t stop howling and barking at nothing.”

It was true that Keeper had followed them into the dark, where he, with little Flossy at his heels, continued to growl and fuss, pacing up and down the yard as if he perceived a threat that none of them could see.

“Pay no mind to Keeper—he is the best of dogs but not the cleverest. He’s probably caught the scent of a fox, that’s all. And as for Clifton Bradshaw, there is no conclusive proof that he made that design, aside from speculation and rumour. Should we lay these charges now, he will escape them as easily as he could have yesterday. The word of Tabby Aykroyd does not carry much weight with the law or the Church, and this world is not the same as it was when the Pendle witches were hung, when blind fear and superstition ruled all. Thank goodness. We must find evidence of a crime, not a bewitchment.”

Charlotte shivered. “It is almost as if you can feel evil abroad in the land, and I am not sure that science and reason are much defence against it.”

“It is the best defence,” Emily reassured her. “That and the word of God. Stay here as Tabby wants and let me try to calm her a little so that she might let us back in the house before we all freeze to death.”