Hazel could not feel or see that anything happened. The wind blew past her face. Then, she felt concentration. She felt light, joined to the others, and was aware, with a tingle of surprise, that Atropos was part of their circle. Blown onward by a rush of power, this was stronger than the last time. She felt as if she was circling in the air, swimming in the tide, rolling down a hill, full of the joy of unlimited energy. They all swooped together into the black shiningness of the stone as if they were diving into a bath of warm oil.
As they moved through the blackness Hazel reached out and drew her fingers through the hard mineral grains embedded in the substrate. It felt too crowded, as if it were boiling in intense heat towards a gritty explosion. The stone might not last long in the grip of the crane that someone was organising. Was that her? Had she been in charge of the crane?
Her concentration drifted but she pushed it back into place as they crept towards the heat. They were drawing nearer to a glowing tide of golden warmth that would – Hazel realised this with a shock of certainty that made her hands sweat – burn them to their bones if Atropos had not been with them. Her strength encircled them; her particular adamantine force and wiry power curved warmly around them like a shield. Her embrace was utterly solid. They were safe under her protection.
Ishabel reached forward towards the golden warmth, pushing away the blackness, and then they could all see.
‘That gold thing,’ Hazel thought in amazement, ‘is muffled in a mass of textile, but what is it?’ She reached forward to move the mufflings aside. The ancient threads broke in a mass, and then she could finally see the silver handles.
Atropos reached past Hazel to take the shears. They fitted her hand, as familiar as a knife’s hilt, as the handles of the scythe, waiting to be used. She drew the shears close to her heart as the witches began to pull out of the stone and return to the world.
The blackness receded. Ishabel brought them back to their circle around the mound. Maggie smoothed close their passage, leaving no trace, making no mark. Hazel felt her following them out, completing their journey with the feeling of the snick of a lock. And then they were back, standing on the scuffed muddy earth next to the mound. It was still dark, and now it was wet as well, raining on their faces in gusty blasts. Hazel could see dimly that Atropos was holding a bundle close to her chest.
Something was there, waiting for them.
Hazel didn’t see the spindly shape leaping towards her. She was blinking, getting her night sight back, and then it was looming over her, grasping and clawing at her arms and face. She could hear a gabbling, angry voice.
‘I tellt you to tell me about the gold!’
She dodged and jerked away, panicking at the sudden attack. Then she was grasped by her shoulders and lifted into the air as easily as if she had been a doll.
Ishabel’s voice was quiet inside her head.
<Be still. Hang as if you were asleep. Don’t interest it.>
Hazel hung there and did not say a thing.
She shoved hard at the beginnings of terror that were chittering at the edges of her mind. You’re fine, she told herself. Ishabel will get you out of this. Her shoulder was really hurting now. She stared into the stinking texture of a sleeve and tried to avoid breathing, or getting her face too close to the coat. She swung, gently, gripped by strong fingers. The rain splashed into her face and hair. She could smell wet earth, and a horrible stink of decaying things that should be buried. And mildew. She remembered the mildew.
Maggie was having a conversation with someone, and then Hazel became aware that her swinging feet were on the ground. Her knees jerked uncontrollably, but she was still gripped at her shoulders.
‘So, you see,’ Maggie was saying, ‘No-one thought that this was still your place. You moved out a long time ago.’
‘If you would put our friend down,’ Isahbel said, with a winning expression in her voice, ‘I can give you a bannock. I have one in my pocket.’
Hazel was dropped on the wet ground in a juddering slump and lay there rubbing her right shoulder. She had been gripped by claws.
Maggie crouched down beside her. Her voice was quiet. ‘You OK?’
‘Yes,’ Hazel rolled herself away from the figure that had dropped her. It was somehow not as tall as it had been. She recognised it. ‘Is that a trow?’
‘Yep,’ Maggie said. Her tone did not encourage more conversation, not just now.
The rain clouds passed on, and now the moon finally shone down on the dig site. The wind was getting up again, and Hazel could hear surf crashing heavily against the rocks far below. Ishabel and Atropos were standing a little away from the mound, and were looking down at a short, stubby figure in rumpled clothes who was standing before them with the confident stance of a landowner. He was eating with evident relish, licking his clawed fingers.
‘That’ll do for tonight’s incursion,’ he said in a high-pitched voice. ‘But I’ll need back payment of rent for the diggings the humans have done. No-one made any arrangements.’
‘I’m sorry you feel put out, Tornost,’ Ishabel said politely, ‘but you don’t live here any more.’
He ignored her, and looked at the other women, sniffing suspiciously.
‘I smell silver. And gold. I want it. I told her,’ he jerked its head at Hazel, ‘that if she found gold she was to tell me. That’s a broken promise.’
‘You’ve already met? Well, that’s nice,’ Ishabel said.
‘I didn’t promise!’ Hazel said indignantly.
‘Should have done,’ the creature said. He stood with a truculent air, sniffing and darting glances all around into the darkness.
Hazel’s right shoulder ached horribly. Now that she had them both in front of her, the trow gave her a different feeling than Atropos did. Atropos felt like hard metal; you knew where you were with her. The trow emanated the unreliability of gritty mud, slippery and painful.
Episode 9.1 will follow.
The Shetland Witch © Kate Macdonald 2024.
Please get in touch if you want to reproduce any part of this or any other published episode.
The Shetland Witch is a reader-supported publication. As well as taking out a free subscription for the novel, you can subscribe to the paid tier for In Achaea and Mrs Sinclair and the Haa, the two worldbuilding novellas that unpack and develop some aspects of the story and characters.