Hag

by Kathleen Kaufman

  “I had a particular costume that I was so very proud of, and it had a silly top hat—black silk with a neat little bow around the rim. I printed my name in it so no one could ever walk away with it and say it was theirs. ‘Alice Grace Kyles’ it said, printed there in ink with my own hand. A couple of years later, we were all moving up to the woods—Grandmum, your Great-Aunt Polly, your Uncle Arthur who you never got a chance to meet but you would have loved so very much. The four of us were moving to the cabin and were throwing out all our rubbish and packing our bags. I found my old hat in a box, and your Grandmum asked me if I wanted to keep it, but I said no. It didn’t fit any more by then, you see, and I wasn’t taking the dance class any more, so I threw it in the trash and I thought it was gone forever.

  “I never saw it again until over ten years later. Your father showed up at my door with that crazy hat in his hands. I thought I had gone mad to see him standing there, his ginger hair hanging in his face, silly grin on his lips, holding that hat. He told me it had nearly killed him, and did I want it back? I think I told him to go away and put it back in the trash where it belonged. But he didn’t go away. Instead he told me how he had been driving up Ute Pass, and he was behind a truck full of old rubbish, old furniture, and boxes of records and whatnot. Then, as he was driving, a box blew open as though something had jumped inside it, and that hat came flying out. The way your father told it, it sailed straight into the air and then straight back down and fixed itself right onto his windshield. He nearly drove right off the road. When he did stop, he had to tug it off the car as though it were stuck with glue, and that’s when he saw my name printed in the lining. Alice Grace Kyles.”

  Coira smiled, and the rarity of the expression on her stoic face made Alice’s heart warm.

  “He knew me, you see, and he thought I’d never speak to him, but here was this hat, like a sign.”

  “You loved him,” Coira said simply.

  “In my way, I did. He was not easy to love, but as he stood there in my doorway, so young, I saw his path, and I saw you, and I knew that no matter where it took me, I had to follow. So, yes, I suppose I did love him.” Alice’s throat tightened, and she ran a finger down Coira’s soft cheek.

  “He understands,” Coira said softly. “He told me that the world was a loud place when he was living, so many voices and sounds, and it was so confusing for him. Now he can see clearly, and it’s quiet.”

  “You talk to him?” Alice asked, not wanting to push too far.

  “A bit,” Coira said with a little shrug. “But he hadn’t told me about the hat. I like that story.”

  With that, she rolled over, hugging her plush bear, and closed her eyes. Alice kissed her forehead and turned off the lamp, leaving the little girl to her dreams and the moonlight.

  ALICE GRACE KYLES WAS two years old. She did not understand why Mum was so very angry and why Dad’s voice was raised so very loudly and why Mum had slapped her hand away from the little green plant in the courtyard garden and why she had been sent up here to her room when she was hungry for her tea. All she could do was cry and bury her tiny head in her worn pillow.

  In the shop below, Catherine paced the floor.

  “I don’t understand why you’re so upset. She didn’t mean to kill the plant; she must have poured something in it. She’s a child, for god’s sake.” Catherine’s hazel-eyed husband was entirely confused by her reaction, and there was no way she could explain what it was that had upset her so.

  The child had been wandering to and fro in the courtyard, as she tended to do. As Catherine watched, she reached a tiny hand out to a sprig of peppermint growing in a row along the window. At the same moment, a bee that had landed on the girl’s bare arm stung her, and the child cried in pain. Catherine rushed to her but stopped in her tracks to see the peppermint, still intertwined in the child’s fingers, turn to ash and blow away in the summer breeze. A chill ran from the top of Catherine’s head to her toes, and she slapped the girl’s hands away from the window box. The little girl, her arm aching from the bee sting and her eyes wide with surprise, screamed in confusion and pain. When Catherine’s husband came home, she had tried to explain that the child had been messing about in the garden and that was why she was being punished. It didn’t make any sense, and no one but Catherine knew exactly what it meant.

  Mum had already warned her about Alice’s unconscious abilities. Mum had seen the child sit perfectly still in the courtyard and the next minute be covered in a dozen bright butterflies. They swirled and danced around her and then flew away while the girl giggled. Alice had no conscious awareness of the things she could do, and so far her father had not seen a thing out of the ordinary. She’s good with animals, he said blindly when the skittish street cats followed her down the lane or the bluebirds landed on her picnic blanket and ate from her hand. She has your talent, he said with his eyes flashing bits of green in the hazel, as the child revived a drooping flower with the touch of her hand. Each incident left Catherine feeling queasy and unsettled.

  Did you know? Catherine asked her Mum in regard to Grandmum Muriel one night as her family slept upstairs and they sat over cups of thick black tea in the tiny shop. Did you know about Grandmum Muriel?

  I knew she was attacked by a group of men in the woods, Mum answered. I knew she was never the same and that was how I was conceived. I knew I was born in the midst of a wave of consumption that nearly wiped out the city. I knew that was probably a bit of why I was driven to study medicine. I have always known that all the women in our family are extraordinary and you more than most. I knew that, no matter how I tried to conceal my part in our family’s unique talents, she said with a small smile. I knew that even I could not entirely hide behind my books and labs. Your daughter will not be able to hide much longer either, and as the women in our family have done for ages, you have to teach her, guide her.

  But Mum, Catherine pleaded. I can’t, she cried.

  Your Grandmum didn’t usher in anything that wasn’t already headed this way, Mum said softly. Our line is ancient and based in something far older than man or nature. Nature is cruel; illness sweeps through a city and pays no never-mind to who is innocent or guilty. You cannot blame your Grandmum for a force that is far older than even our line. Plague, disease, illness—it sits just below the surface of our cities and fields; it waits for us to look away and forget the danger we’re in. Whatever transpired in that field on that terrible day so long ago, you cannot use it to deny your daughter her gifts.

  Catherine heard her mother’s voice but still could not erase the image of the rowan tree falling to ash and the burning of blood as it rose from her lungs to her lips. She shook her head. Her daughter would have a chance at an ordinary life, free from the ancient burden that followed her and all the women that had come before.

  ARTHUR JAMES KYLES WAS born in a caul like his aunt. And like his aunt, he was born blue and still, unbreathing and motionless. Catherine, near unconscious from the blood loss and exhaustion, had known something was wrong for weeks; nothing terribly obvious, just a growing dread, and then the cramping and pain had started. The bombing raids that rocked the walls and filled the air with ash and smoke had been incessant, and Mum, in her fear, had moved Catherine to the hospital at Queen Margaret’s and Alice to the cottage on the lot of land behind the manor house on Cathedral Court. It was on the far end of town, away from the munitions factory, and had escaped much of the destruction wrought upon the rest of Glasgow. Catherine’s green-eyed husband was three months gone with the 15th Infantry Division. Last she had heard, he was outside London, but the mail took an age to pass back and forth so he could be anywhere by now. There had been no way to tell him the baby was coming, and for all Catherine knew, he could be dead already.

  The nurses were rushing back and forth, a neatly bearded doctor was calmly issuing orders, and Catherine felt a weight on her chest that made it impossible to breathe. Alice and her grandfather were in the next room, waiting. Alice, barely out of todd
ling, was old enough to understand that it was too early for the baby. Mum was right there by the bedside, allowed only because she was a senior member of the medical school faculty and would not take no for an answer. The pain was unbearable until finally the baby boy was pulled from inside her, his tiny body unwilling to make the journey on its own. Later, Catherine would say it was as though he knew he was entering a world that had fallen to the darkest parts of itself. A world shaken by the continual roar of machines from the sky, the constant threat of death and fire; it was a world that had been flipped upside down to expose the ugliness and evil that had previously lain dormant. Catherine did not fault her baby boy for not wanting to enter such a world.

  The room was oddly still as the infant’s limp body met the Scottish air for the first time. A hush fell over the nurses, and even the stoic doctor sat perfectly still for a moment before barking out more orders. The baby lay still on the little metal table, where the doctor pressed his tiny chest and listened for a heartbeat while the nurses fluttered nervously around, tending to Catherine and hovering over the doctor’s shoulders. Finally, Mum couldn’t take it any more.

  “Give him to us, just give him to us,” she ordered. The nurses looked to the doctor, who gave a small nod and a look of deepest sympathy to Catherine. The baby was dead, stillborn, and nothing could be done. The nurses wrapped the tiny creature in a blanket and laid him on Catherine’s chest.

  “Let us have a moment with him,” Mum said quietly to the doctors and nurses, who filed out, exhausted and defeated. Mum made sure the door was shut and the room empty before crossing back to Catherine, who was stroking the tiny, still face and weeping softly.

  “None of that,” Mum said briskly. “You know what to do. I know your Grandmum taught you well.”

  Catherine shook her head slightly. She couldn’t, she had left that behind, she had a normal life now, even Alice’s uncanny incidences had slowed. They were normal people, and this tragedy was, in all its horror, what nature intended.

  “You don’t have much time. His soul is still here waiting for you to call it back,” Mum said, her voice firm. “You know the words, you have to do it. You’re his mother.”

  Catherine looked down at the tiny being, his perfect, miniature fingers and delicate ears. A son, rare in their line; a miracle she had never expected. His tiny lips were parted slightly, and his body was growing cold. He’d never drawn a breath, he would never open his eyes. She would never know if he had his father’s hazel or her family’s darkness. The few scraps of hair on his head were tawny, lighter than any of Catherine’s line, fiery and fierce.

  “You have to do it, or he will die,” Mum said softly. “He is waiting for you to call him back. Only you can speak the words, only you can bring him back, and you must do it now or he will be lost to this world forever.”

  Catherine swallowed a sob; he was perfectly formed, tiny angular nose and long eyelashes. But what world was she bringing him into? A world where the rumble of explosions and destruction lasted through the night and into the dawn? A world where the bodies of children were pulled from the rubble, and hundreds walked the streets, huddling in corners and alleyways, their homes destroyed. She felt her mother’s hand on her shoulder and closed her eyes, the symbol of Ingwaz dancing behind her eyelids. The certainty of a conclusion; that was what the rune meant—the idea that for every start, there was a purpose. Catherine opened her eyes, and with all the remaining strength she had, begged the universe and all the goddesses and gods to tell her what to do. Was she to save a life that would be lost to a bloody and painful death? Outside the hospital walls, a rumble shook the sky, and Catherine looked up to lock eyes with her mother. Her mother, who had seen countless horrors in war already and came out on the other side. Her mother who had defied every expectation; her mother who had once brought an infant lost to a caul back to life.

  Catherine leaned to whisper the ancient words in the infant’s ear. She felt the mark on her wrist pulse in time with each syllable. The language was as rough as the lowland crags and unrecognizable to all but the most ancient of hags. She felt a tingling sensation rush through her body, and her head felt disconnected from her neck. The words came out on their own as they slipped into the current. This was the way Grandmum Muriel had told her; this was the magic that was lying dormant in her soul, always waiting for a key to open the door. All this was poured into the infant boy’s ear and flowed through his veins and into his tiny, immobile heart. With a gasp, he opened his eyes and regarded his mother with a solemn, dark stare. His tiny fingers wriggled, and he looked at them as though amazed. Mum knelt down and laid a hand on both of them, and Catherine felt a flow of energy pulse through their hands. His lips lost their blue hue and opened wide. His scream made Catherine weep, the sobs uncontrolled and full of shock and joy.

  The door flew open, and the doctor stood there, his mask pulled down onto his chin and his eyes wide.

  “He woke up,” Mum said with a satisfied tone.

  Later, as Alice slept in a cot in the corner of the hospital room, Catherine sat in her hospital bed holding her baby boy. There was a part of his chest that still held the grey-blue rot that he had been born with. She knew that for the miracle that he was, she was too late. Death had sunk a claw into him while she waited and agonized. She held him closer, stroking his sleeping cheek, now pink and warm. She shivered to feel the power that had coursed through her and Mum’s hands, and how, like Polly so many years before, it had defied nature.

  THE BACK LAWN, SODDEN from the rains, was now peppered with dozens of mounds of mud and dirt. Alice watched Coira from a wicker rocking chair on the back patio. She hadn’t said a word while her daughter worked from the time the sun came up to when it fell in the sky. She had marched out into the dawn light wearing a pair of trousers, her raincoat, and galoshes. Methodically and with great care, she had knelt in the muddy and sodden field, gathering up handfuls of sticky clay and forming them into oblong shapes that rose from the earth. The tallest among them stood to Coira’s knees, the shortest just above her ankle. Alice couldn’t see from here, but they appeared to have details that Coira had carved into them, almost like features on a human face. When she finished one, she moved on to another.

  It was remarkable, Alice thought as she rocked and observed. By all rights, they should collapse and crumble once they dried, but instead, even the tallest of the lot seemed to have hardened into a form of clay even though the meager sun brought little heat. The rain had staved, despite what was predicted, and Alice couldn’t help but wonder if the little girl out in the field, covered in mud and grime, had had anything to do with that. The summer solstice was coming up soon, the longest day of the year, but the Scottish weather felt far from summery.

  Alice closed her eyes and tried to make sense of the dream she had had last night. She had been on a rocky shore. A high sea cliff rose from the sand upward to land overlooking the water. To her right was a small fishing village with wooden cottages and planks laid side by side for walkways. A great wooden dock stood in the water, and ships were lined up and down in the port. There was no sign of life or any movement but for the light of a small candle flickering in the window of one small cottage. Alice had crossed the plank walkway to the rough-hewn door and knocked. She felt no fear or cold; the moon hung high and illuminated the scene as though it were day. The door swung open at her touch, and Alice saw a woman sitting in a worn wooden chair in front of a dead fireplace. The woman turned to regard Alice as she entered. Her face was covered with a cross pattern of lines and sags. Her scalp was bare but for a few long strands of fire-red hair that fell haphazardly like a spider’s web. Her eyes were huge and dark, and they stared at Alice as she stood in the doorway.

  “You’ll be wanting to see my mother, I expect.” The figure spoke without moving her lips, the sound reverberating through Alice’s head. She lifted one bony finger to point up, up to the sea cliffs. As she pointed, Alice could see the symbol on her left wrist, the intersecting jagge
d lines of Ingwaz.

  “Go on now.” With that, the hag turned to face the dead, black fireplace again. Alice tried to speak, but her throat was caught; no sound escaped, no breath. She backed out of the cottage and looked up at the cliffside. She could see a faint light, no brighter than a candle, far, far on the very top. As she stared, the water on the shore was sucked back into the ocean. With a thunderous roar, it reared up far into the sky and lurched forward, alien tendrils of sea water clawing their way to the top of the rocky cliff. As Alice watched, it hung in midair for a still moment: the moment before everything ended, before nothing could ever be ordinary again. It hung with spits of icy seawater escaping to the wind and blowing to and fro. It hung as though a great hand with a set of strings hovered above it.

  Then, with a deafening crash, it fell onto the town. Alice saw the wooden structures and the port split and fly apart. Just as the water reached her toes, Alice snapped awake. She lay in bed, breathing heavily and trying to persuade her heart to stop pounding. Just then, from the corner of her bedroom with the little window seat, she heard a voice.

  “I love this room,” it said in a thin and wistful tone. “I kept a piano and a harp in here. Never learned to play much, mind you.”

  Alice shot up in bed and saw a woman not much older than her sitting on the forest-green cushions that lined the window seat. Her raven-fire hair, so much like Alice’s, was swept up in an elaborate series of twists and turns. Her eyes were huge and dark. Her body melted into the moonlight, giving the impression that she was as inconsistent as the breeze.