Seven Dead Sisters

By Jen Williams

Alizon Grey is being driven to her death, caged in the back of a cart ready to be burned to death as a witch, and for killing her father. When the cart is attacked and she finds herself loose, we follow her journey as she tries to reach safety even as the story of her life—mistreated and the last of her siblings—is gradually revealed. Alizon has had to fight for her life before now, but this time wins all and the truth will be revealed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: PS Publishing
• Release date: Jul 13, 2022
• ISBN: 9781786369581

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

I’VE LOVED JEN’S WRITING ever since her first novel, The Copper Promise, the first volume of the Copper Cat trilogy, and was delighted when she agreed to write a short story for our anthology, Cursed, from Titan Books. She is also the author of the Winnowing Flame trilogy, and her first crime novel, Dog Rose Dirt, is released this year—and I already have it pre-ordered.

With Seven Dead Sisters, you’re in for a real treat. Alizon Grey is being driven to her death, caged in the back of a cart ready to be burned to death as a witch, and for killing her father. When the cart is attacked and she finds herself loose, we follow her journey as she tries to reach safety even as the story of her life—mistreated and the last of her siblings—is gradually revealed. Alizon has had to fight for her life before now, but this time wins all and the truth will be revealed.

—Marie O’Regan

Derbyshire, 2020

CHAPTER ONE

THE FLOOR OF THE cart was strewn with dirty straw, as though she were little more than a pig off to slaughter, which Alizon Grey thought was likely appropriate. Add insult to injury, why not? Around her, the iron bars that had been cunningly heated and beaten into a cage rose up, painting weak shadows across her feet in the chilly early morning light. She knocked her foot against the wooden planks and wondered if people pissed themselves on the way to their burning. It smelled like they did.

You leave that off, Alizon Grey. You ought to be spending your last hours throwing yerself upon His mercy. At the head of the cart, the magistrate John Bowman turned and looked at her over his shoulder. He was a squat man with a wide mouth. Something of the frog about him, or toad. Alizon thought about putting him on a hot iron skillet and watching him go pop. Least you can do is not give us trouble now. But I suppose those who have grown and sprouted in sin can no more change theirselves than a dog can become a man.

Fancies himself a poet. It’s him who should be praying forgiveness for his hackneyed words.

"Cost you too much in kindling, have I, Master Bowman?" Alizon watched his face for a reaction, but he just glared at her and turned back. The driver of the cart was a man called Thomas Whittle, and he was a different sort of creature. He was tall and had hair so black his chin looked blue, and his lips were colourless. Alizon thought nothing of John Bowman, but she was wise enough to be scared of Thomas Whittle. He had not spoken since they had gotten her in the cart, but now his deep voice rumbled. He didn’t trouble to turn away from his two horses.

The flames will burn her pure again, he said. She’ll repent sure enough when the bottoms of her skirts start to smoke. They all do.

The rumour in the village was that Thomas Whittle travelled to see as many hangings and burnings as he could. That he scraped up the hot fat that was left after and touched it to his lips. Alizon turned away from them both and looked out at the passing world, one hand pressed to her stomach, which was starting to give her some discomfort.

This road was old, older than the village. It cut through the thickest part of the forest, hard dirt packed down and tamed into ragged brown lines, but the trees still pressed in on either side, a solid green presence. From here you followed the road to a fork, where you could take the road to the right and travel to Dyersbrook, a neighbouring village—or you took the road to the left and headed up an incline until the trees grew scarcer again and you got to Demdike Hill. Here was a ring of old stones, and here was the burning place. The killing road. Theirs was a wild and lawless country, remote from the king’s eye and the church’s heart, but men like John Bowman were happy to weave their own laws out of the threads of weakness and fear. Who would know, or care? Alizon’s own family were all now dead and gone—she had made certain of that herself—and people who saw the flames dancing at the top of the hill would think they lit a beacon for midsummer, or some other reason. People were always lighting fires.

It was summer, and it was hot, but on the killing road the trees seemed to eat up the light and heat. Alizon wore the dress she’d been wearing when they came for her, and her feet were bare and dirty. Her hair was pushed inside a white cotton cap, and as the cart rumbled on she pulled the cap off, letting her brown hair—in need of a wash, truthfully—fall to her shoulders. In the trees, it looked briefly like something was moving beyond the trunks, keeping pace with the cart. Alizon blinked rapidly and the impression was lost.

It goes up faster, said Thomas Whittle then. If you leave your hair down, it’ll catch like dry straw and crisp right off your head. I’ve seen it happen.

Alizon had not seen him turn and look at her. She turned the cap around in her hands, refusing to think about it, but Whittle continued.

Every bit of pain you inflicted on your father will be cast tenfold on you, girl. He sounded almost wistful. You will scream for forgiveness then. Mark it. I’ve seen it.

Alizon picked a piece of straw from her cap. When she had been around five or six years old, she had seen her father pluck the new baby from her mother’s arms and take it outside to the goat’s water bucket. Alizon had crept out after him and watched as he held the small thing upside down