Free A Witch Alone (The Winter Witch Trilogy #3) by Ruth Warburton Page B

little of your strength, a little of your life, a little of your hope. You will walk in pain every day until your death, and when you die the curse will pass to every son of your line, until they die themselves.
    She turned and began to walk into the storm-drenched night, her coat flapping in the wind.
    Don’t you dare walk away from me, you bitch! Bran shouted. He began to walk after her and then he stumbled, his foot hitting the ground in such a way that pain shot up through his knee and thigh and hip, a piercing pain from his old war-wound. He let out a groan, but forced himself on, after Isla’s retreating shadow. Get back here! The pain stabbed again, crueller, harsher than before, and he fell to the ground, clutching at his hip, and lifted his voice in a roar of inarticulate rage. The sound rose above the storm, echoing around the empty quay. Then it faded slowly into the noise of the hospital monitors bleeping and the sound of laboured breathing. The morphine took over and Bran drifted into a drugged and dreamless sleep.
    I sat holding his hand very gently, until Elaine came back.
    ‘Was everything OK?’ she asked in a whisper.
    ‘He woke up,’ I said slowly, still trying to process what I had seen and heard. ‘But … he didn’t really recognize me. The nurse gave him some more morphine.’
    ‘Oh good.’ Elaine gave a relieved sigh. I didn’t know if she was relieved about the morphine or his lack of recognition. ‘Thank you. For coming, I mean. I really appreciate it. Even if Bran doesn’t exactly remember, I think somewhere he’ll know. I just wish … I wish Seth …’
    She stopped. I nodded, and we both stood, dry-eyed mirrors of each other’s pain.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. I hoped she knew what I meant. For Bran – for Seth – for everything.
     
    Bran died that night, in his sleep. The funeral was three days later, at the small stone fishermen’s church on the cliff, with the granite memorial to all the townsmen lost at sea over the centuries.
    Dad parked on the verge and we walked slowly along the cliff path, the wind whipping at my black skirt and flinging Dad’s funeral tie irreverently over his shoulder.
    ‘Do you know who’s going to be there?’ I asked. I thought my voice was convincingly level, but Dad wasn’t fooled.
    ‘Lots of townspeople, I’m sure. But Elaine’s very upset because it looks like Seth won’t make it. She was thinking of postponing, but no one could guarantee when he’d be allowed to fly out.’
    ‘Oh.’ I closed my eyes for a moment and some strong feeling washed over me like a wave. I wasn’t sure what it was. Relief? Disappointment? My cheeks felt hot in the cold sea wind. ‘What’s the problem?’
    ‘Apparently he put into some port he didn’t have a permit for, because he was trying to get back quickly. It backfired and he ended up mired in red tape and without an exit visa, so they wouldn’t let him fly. Elaine got the embassy involved, but last I heard it wasn’t going to be resolved this week.’
    Poor Seth. Poor Elaine. We walked in silence until we reached the graveyard, where townspeople were milling around the door of the church, smoking last-minute cigarettes and chatting with an air of grim concern.
    ‘Tom!’ someone called and Dad was absorbed into the crowd. It struck me for the first time what a part of this community he was now, how easily he fitted in.
    Someone passed me an order of service and I glanced at it. On the back was printed a poem.
     
    Death is nothing at all
    I have only slipped away into the next room
    I am I and you are you
    Whatever we were to each other
    That we are still
     
    Life means all that it ever meant
    It is the same as it ever was
    There is absolute unbroken continuity
    What is death but a negligible accident?
    Why should I be out of mind
    Because I am out of sight?
     
    I am but waiting for you for an interval
    Somewhere very near
    Just around the corner
    All is well.
     
    Canon Henry Scott