Shadowstitch, p.1
Shadowstitch, page 1
Copyright
HarperVoyager
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2024
Copyright © Cari Thomas 2024
Map and chapter illustrations copyright © Nicolette Caven 2024
Cover design by Andrew Davis
Cover illustration © Andrew Davis
Cari Thomas asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008407056
eBook Edition © June 2024 ISBN: 9780008407070
Version: 2024-05-07
Dedication
To my husband, James Williams,
for walking through the shadows with me and always seeing my light
Map
Epigraph
Hel unthreads.
Hel Witch Proverb
One to fall,
Two to get lost,
Three to remember,
Four to distrust,
Five for the heart,
Six for the dark,
Seven to die,
Or learn how to fly!
‘Rhyme of the Ravens’,
Mother Holle Nursery Rhymes
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Map
Epigraph
The Key Players
Threadneedle Recap
Buried
Darkness
Shadows
Ravens
Ave Satana
Bells
Smoke
Blood
Snow
Blood, Hair, Bone
Hide and Seek
Trick or Treat
Dumb Feast
Live to Die
Constellations
Writing
Falling
Roots
Crackers
A Gift
A Letter
Washing Machine
Shadowthread
Maps
Concert
Ouija
Glitter
Crush
Touch
Footprints
Hammer
Sinking
Well-Meet
A Kiss
Poppet
Pins and Locks
Thimble
Below
Stillness
Confess
Run
Acknowledgements
Also by Cari Thomas
About the Publisher
THE KEY PLAYERS
Anna Everdell – Our lead witch, who’s grown up under the shadow of her Aunt. Not allowed to practise magic, she’s been trained to suppress her emotions, tying them away in her Knotted Cord.
Vivienne Everdell – Anna’s cruel Aunt belongs to a grove of witches known as the Binders, who believe magic is sinful and dangerous.
Marie Everdell & Dominic Cruickshank – Anna’s mother, a witch, and father, a cowan, who died in tragic, violent circumstances when she was a baby.
Selene Fawkes – An old family friend who went to school with Vivienne and Marie; a hedonistic seductress who specialises in love potions.
Effie Fawkes – Raised by Selene, Effie is rebellious, wild and the self-appointed leader of their coven. Her one weakness is …
Attis Lockerby – Effie’s best friend and not-so-secret lover. An insatiable flirt and ladies’ man who can often be found in his forge.
Rowan Greenfinch – A wise-cracking, boy-obsessed, self-deprecating member of their coven; hails from a family of Wort Cunning witches who practise botanical magic.
Miranda Richardson – A highly strung, highly driven member of their coven, who comes from a non-magical family.
The Juicers – Darcey, Olivia and Corinne – the ruthless mean girls of their year, named after the green juices they sip each morning.
Peter Nowell – Anna’s popular and dashing long-time school crush.
Bertie Greenfinch – Rowan’s mum and all round legend in the field of Wort Cunning magic. Gives excellent hugs.
Pesachya – A man with skin covered with words who lives in the magical library buried beneath the British Library. He helped Marie when she came seeking answers to the curse.
Nana Yaganov – An ancient, if somewhat deranged, curse witch with a flair for creating nightmarish visions and a penchant for riddles.
The Seven – The most powerful witches and protectors of the magical world.
The Hunters – Some believe a sect of five members known as the Hunters were behind the witch hunts of the past. However, most witches believe them nothing more than legend.
THREADNEEDLE RECAP
Six women with the same face have been found hanging in the windows of Big Ben. The mystery of the ‘Faceless Women’ has unsettled the ordinary ‘cowan’ world, while the magical world knows they are the Seven, protectors of all witches – six found hanging, one disappeared – but who killed them?
Anna’s Aunt fears magical exposure, warning Anna that such a thing could lead to witches being hunted once more. Anna must soon follow in her Aunt’s footsteps and become a Binder, facing a Knotting ceremony that will leave her magic bound for good.
That is until old family friend Selene arrives at their door with her daughter, Effie, and Effie’s partner-in-crime, Attis. On joining Anna’s school, Effie and Attis lure Anna into a coven, convincing her to practise magic. But when Anna’s spells begin to reveal the seven-circled mark of a curse, ‘The Eye’, Anna is forced to question the truth of her parents’ deaths. They died when she was a baby – her father strangling her mother and killing himself after she accused him of having an affair.
Anna discovers her parents died in the house she lives in, in the room on the third floor that Aunt has sealed off from her. Her search for answers sends her deep into the hidden magical world of London. But suspicions of magic are creeping into the news more and more, while a mysterious organisation has begun to investigate the deaths of the ‘Faceless Women’, suggesting occult links.
Torn between her Aunt’s fears and magic’s allure, Anna’s magic is spiralling. As she and Attis grow closer and the coven casts a vicious rumour spell at school, tensions and jealousies bubble between Anna and Effie. Tensions that culminate in Effie betraying Anna when she sleeps with her date, Peter, at the summer ball.
Anna is driven back to her Aunt for her ceremony, but that night, breaks into the third floor room discovering her ‘father’ – although it is actually a replica ‘Golem’ version of him created by Aunt for her own pleasure. Aunt is forced to reveal that Anna and Effie are twins, cursed to fall in love with the same man; one of them to kill the other over it. The curse goes back through the generations – Aunt and Anna’s mother both fell for Anna’s father. Aunt claims Marie betrayed her just like Effie betrayed Anna and that the curse must be bound during the ceremony. She warns that it goes beyond them … that curses are powerful magic and, with everything going on, will only attract attention.
Anna faces her ceremony. She must sacrifice Effie and Attis to complete the ritual and bind the curse. However, Anna releases her Knotted Cord, unleashing her held-back power and overcoming the Binders. Attis still attempts to sacrifice himself but Anna and Effie unite their magic and save him. Anna turns the Golem on her Aunt, strangling her … but when she can’t go through with it, Binder Lyanna Withering takes over, killing Aunt.
Selene reveals the truth: that Marie and Vivienne were driven apart over their love for Anna’s father, Dominic – Aunt turning to the Binders; Marie and Dominic ending up together. When Marie fell pregnant, she searched for a way to end the curse. But after Anna and Effie were born, Vivienne returned to exact her revenge, binding Dominic’s will and forcing him to kill Marie and himself. She blackmailed Selene into helping her frame Dominic and into raising Anna and Effie apart. They would bring them back together aged sixteen to set off the curse so it could be bound.
But Aunt didn’t know that Marie had found a solution to the curse – a living spell whose blood could break it: Attis. Selene was the one who gave birth to him. Attis and Selene had planned for him to sacrifice himself during the ceremony to end the curse forever. Anna vows she will not let him try to kill himself again.
The book ends with rumours that the Seven have returned but are claiming they are being hunted … Meanwhile, the organisation investigating their deaths have rebranded themselves the ‘Witchcraft Inquisitorial and Prevention Services’ and are publicly stating that the Faceless Women were witches and that magic is a real and growing threat for all. Magic must be kept under wraps but, after the coven’s antics at school end up on the news, have they landed themselves right in the centre of the growing storm – curse and all?
* * *
They met in secret. They met in darkness. Light was not welcome. The stars pulsed weakly above. They were not welcome either. The walls rose thick and ancient around them – walls of stone; walls woven with bone and magic; walls built not to keep things out, but to keep things in. Beyond, London roiled, restless by night, blaring and bellicose, but within, silence reigned. Silence prickled. The Tower of London had never truly belonged to the city.
One robed figure in the centre, four around the outside. The moon was dark above – the Dark Moon made for the darkest of deeds. They raised their heads but the night recoiled from what lay within their hoods – for they could hardly be called faces at all. Half flesh; half skull. Half living; half dead. One half reflecting the light; the other sucking it into their dark caverns – the voids of their faces where eyes and noses and lips had once been, and now, only rot and bone and hollows deep as death.
They opened their mouths – one side, cheek, lip and tongue flexing; the other, skull, teeth and chasm – and they spoke, but the words were too terrible to comprehend. Words that could have shrivelled the night; plucked the stars from their orbits; stopped London in its tracks; turned everyone within it mad with fear. Words more dead than alive. They echoed like a trapped thing, their echo rebounding between the walls, climbing higher and higher, desperate and hungry, clawing for life, for death, and then, over the walls, escaped—
Flying off into the night, black as the feathers of Hel.
BURIED
Do not bury your dead for they live among us. While their spirits remain active in Hel, their earthly bodies should be regularly bathed, fed and honoured with offerings; their death days celebrated and their altars attended to.
Tending the Dead, Hel Witch Initiation Stage One
I won’t look down.
I won’t look down.
I won’t look down.
Anna pulled the cord between her fingers. It was habit more than anything. It offered no comfort now, no knots left in it to hold her together – only rough, bristled cord beginning to fray, like a memory. It had once contained so much of her: her joys, her fears, her silenced griefs, her buried longings, her rage and hate; her love, perhaps. Her life with Aunt ordered into tight bindings of everything she had not been allowed to feel. But the knots were gone now – why can I still not feel?
The sky was the emptiest sort of grey, ravens scoring its colourless murk as they moved between the trees, their shrill, indifferent calls the only music in the mute air. The funeral guests huddled around the open grave, their coats black and slick as the birds, their faces grey and bleary too, as if they’d been carved out of the drizzle. There weren’t many in attendance – some of Aunt’s work colleagues, a few neighbours, a handful of old acquaintances. No Binders. Selene stood out among them in a purple outfit that bordered on inappropriate. Her hair, brighter than anything for miles, tumbled beneath a wide-brimmed hat. No one else seemed to notice that she was entirely dry beneath her umbrella although the rain was coming in sideways. She tried to catch Anna’s eye but Anna could not meet it. Instead, Anna looked out over the vast, modern cemetery. Aunt would have approved of its efficiency and organization – endless rows of polished graves, as faceless as death itself. Some had flowers tucked beneath them, wilting in the rain; faded offerings. No one would leave Aunt flowers. No one would visit her grave. It would soon be forgotten, lost among the masses.
I won’t look down.
I won’t look down.
I won’t look down.
Anna clutched the limp and lifeless cord, the world warping and bending around her. Was she really here, at Aunt’s funeral? Aunt. My aunt. Was Aunt really dead? It didn’t feel possible. Aunt had always seemed invincible. An inescapable force. Anna tried to imagine what freedom might feel like but all she could see was grave after grave after grave. How could she live when Aunt was the one who had always given her life shape and meaning? How could she live when Aunt’s death was her fault? All my fault.
I won’t look down.
I won’t look down.
I won’t look down.
But the cold of the ground began to rise up – over her feet, climbing up her legs like stiff roots, wrapping around her – squeezing – darkness swallowing Anna’s mind as she remembered. The day she had undone her knots came back to her in a devastating blur of images: the Binding ceremony, vines tightening, rose petals flying, Attis’s blood erupting, her hand in Effie’s, their magic uniting, the ragged sound of Attis’s breath returning – the most wonderful sound she’d ever heard; the golem’s fingers around Aunt’s neck as she gasped for air – the worst sound she’d ever heard. The world had turned to magic that day and Anna at the centre of it, sewing its threads into something powerful and terrible.
‘Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust: in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ.’ The priest bowed his head and the guests followed suit.
I won’t look down—
I won’t look—
I won’t—
I—
Anna looked to the sky. To the leaves dragged from the trees. To the desperate emptiness inside of her. And then – she looked down.
There it was. Aunt’s coffin gleaming at the bottom of the grave. Aunt down with the dirt and the worms and decay – everything she’d always hated. Anna tried to look away but she couldn’t. The darkness had taken over now – swallowed her. She was down there too. She couldn’t see, couldn’t breathe – falling and falling with nothing to hold onto—
A scream tore through the air.
Another. Another. Screams erupting all around her. Anna struggled against the darkness – her head jerking back up – trying to understand what was happening, but what she saw did not make it any more comprehensible …
The guests were screaming. All of them. Eyes flared wide, mouths gaping, features carved with terror, hollow screams rising from deep within. Mrs Chapman, their neighbour, gripping her face and shrieking; another guest stumbling backwards as they erupted; the priest dropping to his knees and howling to the heavens, as if they held none of the answers he’d promised. The ravens in the trees screeched along, a wretched choir, the noise unbearable, shredding the sky to pieces, so loud it seemed it would wake all the numb and silent dead.
Selene was the only one not overcome. She looked at Anna aghast and then raised her hands to the air and called out: ‘Alsamt!’
The screaming stopped abruptly.
Slowly, the funeral attendees began to return to their senses – shutting their mouths, shaking their heads, adjusting hats and coats and clasping hands together once more, as if nothing had happened. As if they hadn’t just lost their minds.
The priest clambered back to his feet, continuing. ‘Now, let us say the Lord’s prayer—’
The guests cast their eyes back down to the grave, and the service trudged along through the rain to its bitter end.
Anna did not look down again.
They held the reception at Aunt’s house on Cressey Square. The place had never been so lively – guests nibbling at sandwiches and sipping on sour wine as they offered Anna limp, insincere smiles – so sorry for your loss. Anna nodded her way through the room like a hollow wind-up toy, saying the right things, feeling nothing, Selene playing the gracious host – yes, we were old friends. I know, so terrible, a heart attack at such a young age. We’ll miss her terribly. Anna suspected most of the guests had only come so they could snoop around – to judge and sneer at the house of the woman who had judged and sneered at them.
No one stayed long. After an hour, the whole thing was done and dusted – Aunt’s life wiped clean like an accidental spill no one would remember. Love is all that is left of us and you had little of that, Aunt. Anna and Selene sat in the kitchen, Selene trying to chase away the silence with chatter, making her way through a bottle of wine.
‘Thank the Goddess that’s over! Some man had me cornered for half an hour talking me through his fly fishing collection. I do hate cowan funerals. So sombre, so much black. Black is for seduction, not for mourning. I want my funeral to be bursting with colour and men falling to their knees. Champagne fountains. Dancing all night. Wild rituals beneath the moon. It’s not a funeral worth attending if there’s not some nudity—’ She tried to catch Anna’s eyes with a smile, but, giving up, tipped back her glass. ‘Are you sure you don’t want some? It might help take the edge off things.’
