Free The Whitby Witches 3: The Whitby Child by Robin Jarvis Page A

toiling below."
    Still out of breath, Nelda leaned against the rail and looked down at the rooftops of Whitby. Somewhere nearby was the cottage that Ben lived in, but she could not recognise it from up here and shifted her gaze to the wizened aufwader upon the tombstone.
    "What is that?" she asked, pointing to the circle of glass.
    "Aha!" came the proud reply. "Now this truly is a useful trinket, and is all mine. I found it, I used it." She threw Nelda a quizzical glance and smirked. "Did Tarr ever tell you of the time before the Mother's Curse came upon us?"
    "Of course he did—I know all about our histories and lineage."
    "Bah! Not that bilge!" Parry snorted. "I'm talking of me. Did he tell you what I did before we were doomed?" She raised her eyebrows and laughed horribly on seeing the girl's blank face. "I was the midwife!" she murmured.
    "Into this sorry world did I deliver the infants, yet never a one did I have of my own and then Oona disgraced us and it was too late for me. Yet brides still loved their husbands and life was made, so a new task was I needed for."
    Leaving the tombstone, she beckoned to Nelda and passed further into the graveyard.
    The girl hesitated. "Where are we going?" she asked.
    Parry gave a hissing laugh through her teeth. "There's nowt to fear," she assured her. "Only the dust of landbreed bones lies beneath the sod; the shade of no human do I fear."
    "I am not afraid," Nelda insisted. "I often come here to sit and think, but why are we here now?"
    "You shan't ever know if'n you don't follow."
    Nelda gazed into the gloom-ridden graveyard; the lamps that illuminated the church were dark and the top of the exposed cliff was forbidding, cloaked in watchful shadows. She could imagine all sorts of terrors lurking in the long grass that swayed and rustled in the wind. Many strange beings had dwelt in Whitby throughout the ages, many dangerous wild creatures with razor teeth and murderous hearts.
    Old Parry had nearly disappeared into the darkness and feeling suddenly alone and vulnerable, Nelda hurriedly stepped from the path and ran through the grass after her.
    Into the engulfing black shade of the church they plunged. The church of Saint Mary was vastly different at night and Nelda kept looking over her shoulder uncomfortably. The squat, square bulk of the building towered over her; no more the cosy place of worship, it was almost a crouching ogre preparing to spring—waiting until its victims were close enough. More than once she thought she could see something flit behind the panes of its unlit windows and her pace quickened to escape the range of their hollow stare.
    Old Parry was totally at her ease however, and strolled casually between the forests of headstones.
    The graveyard stretched in all directions, vanishing into the night whichever way Nelda turned. She had been here countless times before but at that moment the aufwader could almost believe she was standing in a country of the dead, and felt that she was a trespasser upon their peace.
    Parry observed her disquiet and bared her brown teeth in a repulsive grin to show that there was nothing to fear. Then she held up the glass disc and tittered.
    "Thirteen times has this been steeped in the reflection of the full moon," she explained, "once for every month that we carry the unborn within us. Forbidden words have I spoken over this shiny glass and with it I spared many of our tribe from their agonies."
    "I don't understand," Nelda breathed, still looking around nervously. "What does it do?"
    Parry lifted the disc to her eye again. "'Tis a boon to sight," she answered. "Through this lens can be seen much that is hidden from even we fisherfolk. Beneath the moon some things grow which it is better we do not see, yet at certain times in certain places, there is a plant—the bitterest little herb which only the glass can disclose. It is the moon's gift to us, her merciful balm sprung from the tears of her compassion at our plight."
    With