Miss Mary's Book of Dreams

by Sophie Nicholls

  It had a been almost a year now, since her discharge, almost a year that she’d been visiting Dr Murray in her book-lined room with the box of tissues and the vase of flowers on the table. She’d been making steady progress. Feeling stronger all the time. Wasn’t it OK, then, to begin to expand her life a little? Wasn’t it OK that she felt drawn to the bookshop in the courtyard off Grape Lane, that she wanted to find out more about this whole phenomenon of dreaming and visions, to begin to understand more about what she remembered from her childhood? The candles, the cards her mother had kept hidden in her bedside drawer and had even let her play with when her father wasn’t around? The funny words, the whispered prayers? The minute she’d set foot in the shop, she’d had the most peculiar feeling that she’d find the answers there.

  But it wasn’t just that, either. There was something about that young woman, Ella. She seemed so lost, somehow. In some strange way, she reminded Bryony of herself. Bryony couldn’t explain it, not exactly, anyway. It was like a gentle tugging sensation, something that had caught hold and wouldn’t let go.

  She placed an onion and three cloves of garlic on the wooden board, stripping them of their papery skin, focusing on chopping them as finely as she could. She threw the pearlescent pieces into the frying pan, watching them turn gradually translucent under the tip of her spoon. Then she grated potato, letting it sizzle, before cracking the eggs and dropping them into the pan, nudging them gently as they began to bubble. Gradually, the rhythm of her own movements calmed her.

  She threw in a handful of basil leaves, savouring the fragrance on the tips of her fingers, and black pepper, turning the big glass grinder, one, two, three, four, five times. The steam rose up from the pan and she let herself breathe it in.

  She set down the white plates on the scrubbed pine table, taking pleasure in their symmetry and in the knives with the bone handles that had belonged to her mother. On a whim, she added a miniature cut-glass vase with a single rose from the garden, the rain still clinging to the creamy petals.

  ‘Very fancy.’ Ed was already forking the food into his mouth. ‘What’s the occasion?’

  ‘Oh, you know. Nothing in particular.’

  He looked at her then, one of his long, hard looks. ‘Feeling, all right, Bry?’ he said.

  She nodded.

  ‘You’re not overtaxing yourself?’

  She shook her head.

  But when the plates were cleared away and he’d gone out to his shed across the courtyard to tinker with whatever it was he tinkered with in there, she stood at the sink, her hands loose inside the flaccid, pink rubber gloves. An orange scum floated on the surface of the cooling water. She could hear the clock ticking on the wall behind her, the hands creeping steadily round towards two o’clock.

  She felt a wave of something beginning to build in her stomach again. Hot and red, pulsing and then pulling. It wasn’t fear. It felt more like desperation.

  She ripped off the gloves and flung them dripping onto the draining board. She crouched and slipped the book from the back of the kitchen cupboard where she’d hidden it behind a stack of saucepans, somewhere Ed would never look. Because it really wouldn’t do for Ed to find out about this. He was just like Father had always been about this kind of thing. Superstition. Complete nonsense. Is it really helpful for you to be filling your head with this kind of stuff, Bryony? Don’t you think you have enough trouble working out what’s real and not real, Bryony?

  But the red leather cover felt cool and smooth in her hands. She carried it up to the bathroom and locked the door.

  Sitting on the cold lino, her back wedged against the side of the bath, she balanced the book on her knees and glanced down at her hands. On impulse, she slipped Ed’s ring from her finger. It stuck beneath the knuckle and she had to give it a sharp tug. She must have put on weight, then, in the last few weeks. That would keep them all happy.

  She set the ring carefully on the floor beside her. It had never felt quite right.

  ‘I’m sorry it’s so small,’ Ed had said, when she’d opened the box. ‘I’ll buy you a better one, when I’m a bit more flush.’ But she didn’t want a better one, whatever that was supposed to mean. She wasn’t even sure now if she wanted this one.

  These past few weeks, she’d felt different, somehow, in a way that she couldn’t describe. As if she’d been sleep-walking through her life and now she was just waking up. Her work with Dr Murray, the decision to flush those stupid tablets down the loo – and Ed most definitely mustn’t find out about that – it was all helping her to get some perspective.

  And she would never have admitted it to Selena but, of course, she’d been right the other day. What she’d said about Ed. Now that Bryony could see him more clearly – really get a good look at him – she wasn’t sure if she even liked him. He’d just been there, at St Jude’s, smiling and bringing her cups of tea, plumping her pillows, taking charge of things.

  ‘Will you be OK, Bry, when you go home? Will you be able to manage on your own?’ he’d said.

  And she hadn’t been able to answer. The truth was, at the time, it had seemed an almost impossible feat to decide what to have for breakfast.

  That’s when Ed had offered to stay with her for a while.

  ‘We could continue our little arrangement,’ was how he’d put it. And so, almost without her agreeing to it, he’d moved in, driving her home from St Jude’s that spring day, his own small bag in the back of the car.

  Three months later, he’d presented her with the ring. But Bryony wasn’t even sure what the arrangement, so to speak, was anymore.

  He pottered about, mainly in the shed. He’d given up the voluntary work at St Jude’s. He told Bryony he’d retired early, had a bit of a pension, some savings. He’d been a lorry driver, up and down between Scotland and France. Didn’t have any family. Bryony had no idea where he’d been living when she first met him.

  Now she slipped the ring into her pocket. She was getting that breathless feeling, as if there were hands pushing down on her chest. This was always what happened whenever she tried to think about what she should do about Ed.

  She went back to the book, began to turn the pages. The slightly musty smell of the paper, speckled in places from damp and age, wafted up to her. As she read, she felt her mind beginning to quieten again:

  A question that is often asked of me is ‘What is magic?’ Indeed, it is the question that I have often asked myself. I am a simple woman. I live on my own in the house that belonged to my mother and her mother before her and I practise the skills and knowledge passed down to me by the same lineage. Whether this should rightfully be called ‘magic’ or whether it is simple common sense – the Old Ways, the ways of women for generations and the way of anyone who opens her mind to the bountiful nature around us – I cannot tell, and I think it is not for me to say. These are questions debated by great men – of the Church and of philosophy. I am not wise or learned in books and the ways of men. I have never travelled and I do not possess the wit to join these conversations.

  I only know how to recognise those herbs that may ease a sore heart or heal an ailing limb, or how to read in the moon’s face the courses best suited to help a body that is lost or taxed to its limits.

  I know how to guide a woman who is with child and how to soothe a sickening infant. And when the time comes, I know what words to say that a person needs to hear in order to snatch life from the jaws of death or recover his strength of mind when all seems hopeless.

  If this is magic, let people say that this is so. For me, it is the knowledge that is there for all to learn when they open their eyes and hearts to the Great Mysteries with which God has surrounded us . . .

  When Bryony looked up, the late afternoon sun was slanting through the bathroom window, making patterns on the tiles through the frosted glass and glinting off the chrome taps. She glanced at her watch and realised that almost an hour had passed. She stood up stiffly, rubbing her legs.

  The house beneat
h her was silent. In the hallway, she put the book into her bag and scribbled a hasty note to Ed: Gone for a walk. Needed some fresh air. If she didn’t tell him something, he’d only come looking for her. He could make a terrible fuss.

  She snatched her coat from the hook, pulled on her boots, checked in her pocket for her keys and closed the door softly behind her.

  Outside, the pavement was slippery with wet leaves. She went slowly at first, careful of her footing, but as she reached the end of the street and passed through the iron gates into the park, she put her head back and gulped mouthfuls of the cold air.

  Out here, she was free. There were the trees bending their branches down to cradle her in their arms. There was the sky, so much wider and bigger than her, opening to receive her.

  And now, if she let herself think of who she really might be, just for a moment, it felt not like some fixed thing but something more like weather, some force that was both inside her and outside her at the same time, something that was always moving, always changing, like the leaves falling from the trees or the shadows shortening and lengthening again.

  And how, Bryony thought, could any of this not be real? Right now, she could taste it on her lips and feel it pressing just under the surface of her skin.

  She passed the boarded-up cafe and thought, not for the first time, how much she would love to bring it back to life. Its sad, blank windows seemed to plead with her to throw them open to the air. The trees that drooped their branches over its broad, brick terrace seemed to call out to her in a low wail. Bryony imagined how the empty terrace might once have looked, filled with children clutching ice-cream cones and loud with the clatter of cups and tin trays. She’d seen photos in the Castle Museum, when the cafe had been full of life – families grouped around the wooden tables, people queuing up the slope to the little hatch, above which a painted sign read: Cream Teas 2/. But now it was as if the cafe was sleeping, ivy growing up its walls and beginning to twine itself around the windows.

  She walked along the path past the dovecote, watching the flurry of white feathers as a little girl threw fistfuls of bread onto the murky green water. People had once swum here. She’d seen that too in the photos. Little boys wading with their trousers rolled up and groups of bathing beauties in knitted costumes, arranging themselves along the walls in the sun. It must have been lovely, Bryony thought, on a hot summer’s day when the water was clear and silvery. She imagined it slipping over her skin like silk.

  It was only as she came out of the park, following the path by the river in the direction of Lendal Bridge, that she realised where her feet were taking her.

  *

  Ella moved her fingers over the laptop trackpad, flicking from one photo to another. Lately, she’d developed an appetite for property websites. She found herself clicking through photo tours of houses she’d never be able to afford. Town houses with huge, high-ceilinged rooms and tall, shuttered windows, pale plaster walls and elaborate cornicing. Farmhouses with beamed kitchens and inglenook fireplaces and gardens giving onto misty, blue hills.

  Every so often, she’d flick back to the two or three lines of black Palatino font at the top of her empty document or glance up to see Grace playing on the floor by herself and she’d feel her stomach tighten and the familiar panic rise up into her throat. Why couldn’t she just get a grip?

  The shop bell jangled. Bryony Darwin stood in a pool of sunlight, stamping the wet from her boots and fiddling nervously with the strap of her bag.

  ‘How lovely to see you again!’ Ella came forward, smiling what she hoped was a welcoming smile. She felt a sudden inexplicable urge to kiss Bryony on both cheeks, just as Mamma would do, to press Bryony’s cheek against her own, breathing in that scent of moss and damp leaves, but she sensed that Bryony wouldn’t want it. Her Signals were fainter today, trembling at the edges, those green tendrils dampened, her wool coat steaming a little in the warmth of the shop. ‘Coffee?’ Ella said. ‘Or perhaps hot chocolate? I was just going to make one for Grace here.’

  Grace held out her Rapunzel doll in a chubby fist. Bryony, glad of the distraction, crouched down and smiled, making exaggerated admiring sounds. ‘Oh, she’s very beautiful. How lovely.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Grace. ‘And her hair is really, really long. Look. And I can comb it, like this, with this special comb . . .’

  ‘I don’t approve, of course. Have you seen the size of Rapunzel’s waist?’ Ella sloshed milk into a chrome jug and flipped the switch on the coffee machine. ‘So how are you today? How are you getting on with Miss Mary?’

  She saw Bryony’s cheeks colour. ‘Well, that’s just it,’ she said. ‘I absolutely love her.’ Ella could see her trying to cover her enthusiasm. ‘And . . . well, I was wondering if you knew anything else about her. I’m sort of intrigued.’ She pulled the book out of her bag and stroked the cover. ‘It doesn’t say much here. It’s more or less just as she wrote it. There’s an editor’s note, talking about how she chose to leave it mostly in Mary’s original form, just modernising spellings and so on, for ease of reading, but nothing very much about who Mary was . . . where she lived, well . . . her story, I suppose. And I remembered that you said that your husband might know more. I just wanted . . . well, I suppose, if I’m honest, I really want to know what happened to her.’ She shrugged apologetically. ‘For reasons I can’t even explain to myself.’

  Ella spooned foam into the mugs of chocolate and added chocolate curls. ‘Ah, so she’s already got you hooked. She seems to do that to people. My husband, for example.’

  She set the mugs on one of the little tables and arranged herself in an armchair, Grace wedged between her knees. ‘Well, I think I can tell you a little. She was quite a character, Miss Mary. That much I do know. Please. Do have a seat.’

  Bryony was hovering, fidgeting with her bag again. It was making Ella feel on edge.

  ‘All I really know,’ Ella began, when Bryony had perched on the edge of a chair, ‘is what Billy has told me. My husband’s a lecturer at the university and he has a sort of special interest in social history, from a political angle, mostly. He went to a conference a few years ago about religion in the thirteenth century – magic, superstition, that kind of thing – and he came back all excited about this particular paper, which mentioned Mary. Because she’s so local, I suppose. She lived somewhere up on the Moors . . . north of Pickering, I think. A bit of a bleak spot. An isolated cottage. There’s a book somewhere in the History section. I’ll look it out for you.’

  ‘And was she . . . Well, did people accuse her of witchcraft? That’s what I’ve guessed, reading between the lines.’

  ‘Witchcraft,’ said Grace. ‘Is that a word?’

  ‘Yes, darling.’ Ella held the mug so that Grace could dip into the foam with her spoon. ‘Yes, she was a cure-wife, as they were called back then. She knew about herbs and she delivered babies and she knew how to reset broken bones. Here. Could you?’ She handed the mug to Bryony. ‘Grace, Bryony’s going to help you with your hot chocolate whilst Mummy just goes and finds something.’

  Grace leaned herself obligingly against Bryony’s knee. ‘Are we going to play word-hunting?’ she said.

  ‘No, darling. Not right now.’

  Bryony looked worried. ‘What do I . . . ?’

  ‘Oh, just let her stir it a bit. She tends to spill more than she drinks. Don’t worry. I can see you’re a natural. She loves you already.’

  On the other side of the room, Ella dropped to her hands and knees and crawled along the length of a shelf.

  ‘Yes. Thought so. Here it is, hiding in this corner.’ She jumped up again, dusting off the knees of her jeans. ‘The History of Witches and Goddess-Worshippers in North Yorkshire by J. L. Cruikshank,’ she read. ‘Sounds like a nice bit of light reading, doesn’t it?’

  She opened the book and ran her finger down the contents page. ‘Here we go. Page 116 . . . Mary Cookson. Shall I read it?’

  Bryony nodded, spoo
ning chocolatey foam between Grace’s half-parted lips.

  ‘In the seventeenth century, Mary Cookson, a woman of about twenty-eight years, lived out on the Moors in a stone cottage, concocting healing ointments and tonics out of herbs she carefully gathered and stored. One dark winter’s night, a man rode on horseback to Mary’s door and pleaded with her to treat his father, a farmer who’d fallen and suffered a severe leg wound. Mary gathered up her herbs and went with him. She spent all night crouching over the sick man, cleaning the wound, applying compresses and holding her special tisanes to his lips. Later, when the farmer had fully healed from his injury, the rumours of Mary’s witchcraft began to spread. People began to walk many miles to consult her and it was said that she had brought about so many healings and miracles that she must have access to a strong magic. But in the autumn of that same year, a woman died after giving birth to a stillborn baby, as a result of severe haemorrhaging. Mary had supplied ointments and medicine but she hadn’t managed to save her life. The woman’s husband accused Mary of black magic . . .’

  ‘That’s so unfair!’ The words seemed to surprise Bryony as they burst out of her.

  ‘Yes,’ Ella nodded. ‘That’s the way it went, back then. You just couldn’t win. Save someone’s life and you were a witch. Someone died in your care and you were a witch, too. Anyway, it says here that she was brought to York and imprisoned before her trial. It seems that the only visitor was a sympathetic doctor, a man of science, who thought all the rumours were a load of nonsense. He listened to her story and wrote it down. Apparently, they have it in the museum archives, and that’s how we know about her. Here. Have a read.’