Half Spent Was the Night: A Witches' Yuletide Read online

  Her pursuit stops short when she finds the Stranger standing face to face with Mr. Palsham. Shrinking back against the door, she hides behind a large marble statue of a Grecian water bearer. She trembles as she watches the two men, hardly believing they are in the same room: the man of her dreams and the man of her nightmares. She was supposed to have drawn the demon into the witches’ trap, not the other way around. How could I have been so stupid? Her blood runs cold when she realizes the young man is holding a dagger.

  “Malphas!” the Stranger shouts, circling her tormentor. “I command you to be gone!”

  In an instant Mr. Palsham is transformed, his fingers turned to claws, his suit to rags, his face fanged and snarling. The deep scars around his lips glisten in the gaslight. The smell of sulphur and rotting flesh fills the air.

  Beatrice holds her hand to her mouth as she tries to make sense of what she’s seeing.

  “I silenced you once,” the demon growls. “I’ll do it again.”

  The Stranger races to scribe a crude circle in the floor around himself and the demon with his knife. “Malphas!” he declares again. “I command you to be gone!”

  The demon laughs. “How long do you have, you squawking feathered pet of hags? A few hours? Until daylight? Only I can dispel the curse that was put on you long ago. Every time you speak my name, you weaken whatever magic is upon you now. If you stop this foolish game, I’ll free you. Wouldn’t you like to spend the rest of your days as a man instead of a lowly raven?”

  Beatrice stares at the Stranger in disbelief. A raven? How can it be?

  “Be gone, Malphas!” the Stranger cries once more as he lunges forward and sinks his dagger into the demon’s side.

  The demon reels and howls with anger and pulls out the weapon, dropping it in a clatter on the floor. Blood shines wet from the gash in his side as he clutches the young man by the neck and begins to strangle the life out of him.

  Seeing the demon’s victim suffer is more than Beatrice can bear. This is no stranger, this is the witches’ beloved familiar. “Perdu!” she cries, rushing toward them. The demon turns his gaze on her, his grip squeezing even harder on the young man’s throat. “I’ll let him live, but only if you do as I say.”

  Perdu’s face is turning pale, his body growing weaker by the second.

  Beatrice straightens, and stares the demon down. “Tell me what you want.”

  “I merely want you to become all you’re meant to be,” the demon says, licking his scarred lips. “Haven’t you grown tired of all the rules that bind you as a witch? I would never hinder you, never keep you from your destiny. I could give you powers of both dark and light: curses and spells; poisons and elixirs; all the minions of Hell at your command. Wouldn’t that be exciting? With your gifts and my power we could rule the world, you and I.”

  His desire claws at her body as his need to possess her slithers through her mind.

  “Don’t hesitate, or he will pay,” the demon growls, twisting Perdu’s neck. “This is your last chance.”

  No, it’s not, Beatrice vows as she grabs the dagger from the floor and puts it to her own throat. “Devil, devil, I defy thee.”

  The demon laughs.

  Beatrice stands her ground. “Devil, devil, I defy thee.”

  The church bells of Madison Square begin to ring in anticipation of the New Year, their pious tolling echoing through the air.

  “Run!” Perdu utters with his last breath.

  And the demon hurls him through the glass.

  Sweep the shadows from behind every door; bring the demons into the light; confess every secret, expose every lie, all before midnight. Call to the woods and the spirits of wild places, call to lost souls without rest or home. Bid them to gather for the hour of her reckoning, for the time of the Wild Hunt has come.

  * * *

  The ballroom is consumed with the chaotic frenzy of revellers ready to welcome the New Year. Couples are locked in hungry embraces, gentlemen engaged in foul-mouthed shoving matches. Drunken guests gather around the stone well to drop their precious belongings inside it: rings, watches, jewelled necklaces and bracelets all tumble into the void. Brass horns and sleigh bells clamour in every corner as fireworks and gunshots from the park rattle the windows. Eleanor and Adelaide find each other in the crush, both unsuccessful in their search for Beatrice.

  “What do we do?” Adelaide asks, fraught.

  Eleanor frowns and shakes her head. “We go on without her and hope for the best. If he’s got her, calling the hunt is her only chance.”

  Just then, Beatrice bursts into the ballroom, with the demon in frantic chase. As he makes one last lunge for her, a trio of the Baroness’s footmen catch him with the points of their spears, threatening to stick him clean through.

  Only a few of the guests even notice the curious turn, and those who do think it a clever entertainment. “Look at Krampus squirm!” one says as he points to the demon’s horns and ghoulish fangs with great excitement. The rest are far too busy with love or war or New Year’s cheer to pay attention.

  While the demon seethes with frustration inside the circle of spears, Eleanor and Adelaide run to Beatrice’s side. She’s shaking, reeling from seeing Perdu’s fate. She wants the demon to pay. There’s no time to waste. Let the Wild Hunt come and take him away. Putting all her hope in magic, she joins hands with her sister witches so they can finish their rite.

  Adelaide speaks first:

  All good creatures of the wood who bear her sacred light,

  Come by wind and winter’s turn,

  When half spent is the night.

  She watches in amazement as every guest assumes the form of the animals on their masks. Stag, wildcat, bear and boar, lumber forth to pace and snort at the demon’s feet.

  Eleanor is next:

  All strange folk who hidden dwell, in her

  magic rites,

  Come by fire and sacred song,

  When half spent is the night.

  Her verse incites a rush of elves, trolls, goblins, gnomes, dryads, and fay-folk, who all work to bind the demon with chains and spider silk.

  Beatrice, speaks last. Although her voice quakes with sorrow, it still carries:

  All lost souls in need of comfort, care and

  delight,

  Come by keening, tears and prayer,

  When half spent is the night.

  At her command, ghostly maids arrive by the dozens, accompanied by countless spirits from the parks and potter’s fields of Manhattan. They wail and cry, laugh and howl, and with bucket, rag and broom, they wash away the ceiling—plaster and paint, rafter and beam—until all that’s left is the night sky.

  Save for the three witches, no earthly humans remain.

  The room is filled with the cacophony of every strange being and spirit sounding their respective cries at once. It strikes such fear and awe in the witches’ hearts that they dare not move or speak. As they stand in silence, a woman of light appears before them, dressed in a cloak of silver stars and a diadem of moonstone. She is the Baroness transformed, the Queen of Witches, the Mistress of Yule, the Mother of Lost Souls. With a wave of her sceptre, she silences all the creatures in the room.

  “Bless you,” she says to Adelaide, Eleanor and Beatrice. “Your faith has made me whole again so that I may take flight.”

  The women bow to her, amazed by her presence.

  Waving her sceptre once more, the Queen of Witches signals for her retinue to assemble. As they go, the demon lets loose a long, anguished howl and the room is seized by a whirling mass of wind and snow. Demon, beast and spirit alike are taken up into the night sky, plucked away from earth as if they were as light as dandelion fluff. Closing their eyes against the tumult, the witches cling to one another in an effort to stay upright and together. They’d promised one another: If one gets swept away, we all go.

  The Mistress rides but once a year across the night sky with her wild attendants racing beside her. She drives her phantom chariot from
city to town, village to woodland, bringing light to those who have served her well. Woe to the liars, deceivers, and demons of the world, for her punishment is swift and harsh.

  When the storm subsides at last, everything in the room except the three witches has disappeared.

  JANUARY 1, 1882

  he women walk home in silence, lost in their thoughts.

  Adelaide resolves to begin the New Year by confessing all her secrets to Dr. Brody and accepting his proposal (if he’ll still have her). A June wedding would be nice, she thinks. Or perhaps May, in the park. Or next week, at City Hall. Why wait?

  Eleanor’s mind is busy making a list of things she might take to Paris, should she decide to go. Skirts, shoes, dresses. How cold is it there in winter? With the demon out of the way, she won’t need to worry (so much) over Beatrice.

  Beatrice is doing all she can not to cry. She’d seen no sign of Perdu, man or bird, outside the hotel. In the same strange way the ballroom had been returned to its former state, there’d been no broken glass on the sidewalk from the conservatory windows, no evidence that anyone had met with a terrible fall. She still doesn’t understand all that Mr. Palsham had said about the curse he’d placed on Perdu, so it’s hard to know how she can explain to Eleanor what happened to him. Clearly the Stranger had been in her dreams for a reason, but had it been the Baroness who’d put him there, or had Perdu worked some magic that was beyond her knowing?

  Her heart aches at the thought that he could be gone for good.

  As they approach Dr. Brody’s house, a dark shape passes in front of a streetlight and settles on the stoop.

  Beatrice stifles an astonished cry. She can’t believe her eyes.

  “How did you get here?” Eleanor says, scooping up her pet in her arms. “Did Mrs. Stutt put you out?”

  “Someone’s been a naughty boy,” Adelaide teases as she opens the door.

  Carrying Perdu inside, Eleanor sets him on the table in the foyer. She wags her finger at the raven. “Bad bird! You know better than to go out at night.”

  Beatrice comes to him, strokes his feathers and inspects him beak to tail.

  “I am no bird,” the raven chortles.

  Leaning close, Beatrice looks him in the eye. “I know.”

  * * *

  On New Year’s Day, the city is beset with gossip about the ball. Many guests claim they woke up this morning snug in their bed (or someone else’s) with no memory of how they got there. Others say the soles of their shoes were worn out by morning light.

  One newspaper headline reads:

  Prominent Citizen Wentworth is found dead in a 5th Avenue alley wearing a party mask, his stomach slit and filled with straw.

  Mrs. Stutt becomes the lucky recipient of a personal note from the Baroness that includes a recipe for Engelszopf. “It’s exactly like my Mutter used to make,” she says, as she presents a fresh-baked loaf to the three witches after supper. “Just the scent of it makes me feel young again.” The delicious treat has a most unusual effect, leading the housekeeper and Adelaide to sit in front of the fire with a bottle of schnapps long after Eleanor and Beatrice have gone to bed.

  As the pair laugh and talk over past misunderstandings, a small calico cat comes to Beatrice’s window asking to be let in. Before it can rouse the young woman from her dreams, Perdu taps three times on the glass and sends it away.

  AMI McKAY’s debut novel, The Birth House, was a #1 bestseller in Canada, winner of three CBA Libris Awards, nominated for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, a finalist for Canada Reads and a bookclub favourite around the world. Her second novel, The Virgin Cure, a Best Book pick across numerous lists, was inspired by the life of her great-great grandmother, Dr. Sarah Fonda Mackintosh, a female physician in nineteenth-century New York. And with her third, The Witches of New York, also a national bestseller, she was recognized by the Globe and Mail as “one of the country’s most beloved storytellers.” Born and raised in Indiana, McKay now lives in Nova Scotia.