Witching Tree (Alice Gray Book 1)

4

I lingered on the landing for a few moments, watching Evan bound down the stairs.

When I finally looked down for my keys, my eyes flickered to a book discarded on the landing. It was a copy of The Lancashire Witches, a nineteenth-century historical novel by the English author W. H. Ainsworth. Strange that somebody else here would have a copy of this.

And why was it on the landing?

Looking around anxiously, I began to suspect that I was, in fact, the only nineteenth-century novel fan in the building. This was confirmed when my apartment door was ajar. I hesitated, trying to catch any movements inside.

All was silent.

I slowly pushed the door open the rest of the way. Inside, the room was trashed. The packing boxes had been emptied. My belongings were strewn all over the floor. The furniture had been pushed over, the cushions slit open.

Even the bookcases were overturned, and all my lovely books were scattered everywhere. Some had pages ripped from them, crumpled and discarded carelessly. Others had the bindings bent back in a way that looked irreparable.

I stood there, frozen for a few seconds, before turning and walking into the hallway, movements mechanical, mind in a trance. I needed help.

Leaning over the bannister, I looked for Evan.

"Alice, what's up?" His eager face peered up at me.

"It's...someone's been in here...my apartment, can you come up here please?"

The words got stuck somewhere between my brain and my mouth, the dryness there making it hard to form the shapes needed for speech. My body was cold, I looked at my hands, numb lumps weirdly detached from any conscious feeling.

Evan was up the stairs in a flash. Waiting outside, I began to shake. A consuming dread filled my mind as I realised what this break-in might mean.

It was too much. The ground spun beneath my feet, my head heavy with a loud buzzing noise.

"Ev...," I descended into darkness before I could finish my plea for help.

The first night was the worst.

Fifteen of us crammed into a cell, hardly enough room to sit. The stink of unwashed bodies rotting in their own filth was enough to make me vomit. I swallowed it back down, there was nowhere for it to go.

I ignored the sound of them approaching. I didn't need to see Elizabeth's face when they brought her back in. Selling herself to feed her daughter, that simple child Alizon, whose imaginings had given them cause to hunt us.

When the cell door didn't open, I turned. At the grate, a man's face, young and arrogant, but oh, so beautiful, looked directly at me.

I came round, muscles tight with cramp, a foul smell clinging to the inside of my nostrils. With my eyes still closed, I flexed, trying to stretch out in my bed. That didn't work. There was something restricting my movement.

My senses began to sharpen. I opened my eyes to find that my face was pressed against a crisp white shirt. Strong arms encircled my back and my legs, cradling me like a child.

I opened my eyes to find my bad-tempered neighbour Thomas looking down at me. His face, softened by a gentle expression that was entirely unfamiliar in my previous dealing with him.

An overwhelming sense of déjà vu shocked all thought out of my brain, which was telling me that I knew this man.

Intimately.