And then the most amazing thing had happened: the car wouldn’t start. No reason for it. The ignition clicked and clicked and nothing happened. Miss Lettie had pitched a fit, demanding that the hospital send a bus immediately, but Alice had known there wasn’t time. Coira had entered the world in the sanctuary of Alice’s second-floor bedroom, her refuge from the confusion and stress of that time. By the time the medics pulled up in the driveway, Alice had her baby daughter with the honey eyes wrapped in a knit blanket and settled on her chest. Even in infancy, there was nothing the baby girl needed from the world of man.
The light outside the window shifted, and Alice knew that soon the wave would fall, destroying everything they knew. The ink would sink to the next layer, as would they. The world around them already seemed less coherent, as though the seams and edges were starting to blur. Beside her, Mum reached over and took her hand, and Alice squeezed back. Coira looked up from her charcoal pencil and paper.
“Hello,” she said simply.
Alice blinked to see shadowy figures moving from the edges of the light into the room. They all shared the raven-fire hair and great dark eyes. They all appeared as they had at their peak of power and strength. Alice gasped to see Grandmum Rowan, her hair loose and free, her eyes unlined, a sad, sweet smile on her face. She entered from a haze of the departing daylight and crossed to kneel next to Coira. The little girl smiled and gave a small nod. The figure from the bedroom that had spoken to Alice, her hair pulled up in elaborate twists and turns, knelt beside her, and Alice looked into the eyes of her Many-Greats Grandmum Moira, who had built this house and been responsible for their lives in Glasgow. Others arrived, and Mum gasped to see Grandmum Muriel, her hair more fire than raven, her eyes bright and free. Others gathered too: Catriona and Muireall, dressed in the indigo robes of the order of women who had taught her the secrets of the hills and land. The shadows grew as the light faded, and still more appeared: a girl with fire hair who had lived her life in a fishing village and shared her name with the child who sat calmly at the center of the shadows and light. A breeze that smelled of heather and burdock filled the room, and the raven-haired hag who had sat at the top of the seaside cliffs and watched man for centuries was finally among them.
She nodded at Coira, who sat calmly and still in the midst of the dying light. Outside the windows, the light began to flicker. Alice turned to see the masses of dried mud and clay begin to grow and change. She gasped as the earth stretched and formed limbs, torsos, eyes, and skin. The earth and clay fell away from their newly formed legs as one by one they began to march across the sodden grass toward the house, the first rain of the summer washing the dirt and mud from their mouths and noses. As they approached, they caught the last bits of daylight—and, like a piece of refracted glass, the light danced in rainbows across the parlor. Alice realized that she had been holding her breath, and as she let it go, she saw the faces of the women and men from the charcoal drawings at the window, newly formed from balls of clay like the first man in the old stories.
“It’s time now,” Coira said, and the centuries of hags that filled the room collectively looked to the child, who raised her hand in front of her and opened the door.
“Come,” she whispered, and the insubstantial forms began to file into the room, kneeling before Coira, one after another after another. Alice sank to the floor and wrapped her arms around her little girl, who turned to face her with an unreadable smile on her small face.
“You’ve led us here,” Coira said, “and now I must take us home. This is the completion of our line, and with it we take the souls of those who died in war and pain, the ones who starved to death and died of disease, those who died at the hands of men in violence and fear. With it we take that scar from this world and leave it afresh. We cleanse the sorrow and misery from this place. We give them a chance to start over. “Coira looked at the growing crowd that filled the parlor and into the hall. Outside the light rain began to pelt the earth, washing away the last of the dirt and clay from the women and men who filled the house, who had come here to follow Coira home.
Low rumbles of thunder rolled across the sky, shaking the house. Overhead, Moira’s crystal chandelier rocked back and forth. The rain beat harder, and Alice knew the wave was beginning to fall. They were ready, and there was no fear or sadness; the circle had been completed and with it a chance for peace in this small corner of the world. The intersecting lines of Ingwaz hummed in harmony, and the many daughters of Cailleach remembered their lives and fates. The Lethe had been crossed, and the storm outside the great manor house raged and fought the shift in the wind. A great crack of lightning flashed across the sky, illuminating the souls inside the house. A window shattered, spraying glass and drops of rain and wind.
The drop of indigo ink reached the last square of muslin cloth, and the Cailleach stepped from her cave, arms outstretched. The ley lines fired across the earth and traveled straight to the manor house on Cathedral Court. The floors shook with the weight of the centuries, and the ancient line of hags became one with the torrential Scottish wind, leaving behind their mortal forms as they flew out the manor house, through the ancient streets of Glasgow and further still, across the rough lowland grass, across the night, letting the unearthly glow of the stars overhead be their guide, leading the souls of the lost home to the underground lake set deep below the lowland crags. Coira paused at the entrance to the cave, the great stones with the ancient rune symbols moving into place. No one would find this place until the ancient line of hags was ready to rise again. The Cailleach closed her eyes in a final rest, and the one who was no longer a child, no longer bound by time or age, took her place at the edge of the underground lake. The hags of Cailleach traveled far across the waters to the place that lay beyond, but Coira would wait. Every passing generation or so, she took a man to be her mate. Her ageless soul appeared as an intoxicating blur of raven-fire hair and honey eyes. Her mate would father a child, and together they would live in the enchanted caves behind the rune stones until he died of old age or she tired of his company and set him back on the road, the memory of the time he’d spent in the cave a blind spot in his mind.
Her daughters lived extraordinary lives in the world of man, and they wore a small symbol of their ancestry inked on their left wrists. Coira knew she must wait, centuries if necessary, for the circle to come around once again and the ancient line of hags to bring the certainty of completion. So she taught her half-man, half-hag daughters how to call the wind and what herbs to mix to heal fever and the songs to calm the fussiest baby. She taught them how to summon the rain and how to listen to the hum of the ley lines that connected the earth. Then she sent them back across the Lethe into a new world that had lost its ability to believe in magic, and she waited. One day, a daughter of hers would remember, and the circle would once again be complete. Until then, the ley lines buzzed with anticipation, and the intersecting jagged lines of Ingwaz hummed with the certainty of a conclusion.
“IT’S A REAL SHAME,” the woman said to no one in particular as she stood with her neighbors and surveyed what remained of the great manor house on Cathedral Court.
“The little girl, too,” another woman tutted behind her.
No evidence of the remains of the little family that had moved into the manor house just a year or so past was ever found. The official word was that the fire from the lightning strike had consumed the remains, or maybe it was animals that came up from the vast stretch of land that lay beyond the manor house. The storm had been sudden and isolated to this little corner of Glasgow. The manor house had taken the lion’s share of the damage, and a stray strike of lightning had burned half the grand structure.
“They worked so hard to make it nice again. Such a nice family,” the neighbors murmured and then shuffled away. Truth was, the family that had lived in the now-ruined house had been a bit off-putting. “Especially the little girl, poor thing,” they all whispered in the days to come. “Her father just gone and obviously
a wreck. Never heard her say a word.” The stories of Moira Blair and her daughter swirled once again, and eventually the passersby agreed that it was a relief when the remains of the structure were torn down for good.
The lot sat empty but for the little stone cottage at the back of the land. Many a developer drew up plans; a great line of flats, an office building, a grand hotel, even a museum was considered in the line of ideas that came and went as soon as they attempted to break ground. The great bulldozers shut down and turned on their sides in the night. The rain would break and pour down, seemingly just on the lot on Cathedral Court. The neighbors would exchange glances and pull their shades shut. Eventually, the land was left for green space and signed over to the nature conservancy instead. The grass grew high and wildflowers bloomed. Willow and rowan trees dotted the land, and children played in the shade and beauty. The stone cottage still stood, abandoned and untouched. The children would make a grand game of daring each other to sneak through the woods at the back of the land to peek in the window. It was said that on the first night of summer, the shortest night of the year, the light of a single candle could be seen flickering in the window.
The whole of Glasgow found an uncommon peace and calm in the time following the great summer storm that destroyed the manor house on Cathedral Court. It was as though the animosity and ugliness that ruled so much of the world had been lifted. Matters that would have erupted in violence and anger before seemed to melt away, and everyone said it was a lovely time and weren’t we lucky to live in such a grand place? It was shortlived, however, as the women and men of Glasgow forgot what it felt to be grateful for the reprieve from the drama of the world. They crossed a Lethe of their own, and soon the world was as it had been, and the outside distraction of anger and fear and war breached the newly washed shores of Glasgow once again. But the stories still survived, and the old ones in the town talked about a line of hags who had once walked their streets—extraordinary women who in the course of telling and retelling the history had been elevated to the status of the Goddess herself. Women who could summon the winds and who knew songs to calm the fussiest baby.
Far off in her cave in the lowland crags, the Cailleach inked the symbol of the intersecting lines of Ingwaz onto her daughter’s wrist. She would leave this place and forget what she had learned. But one day, perhaps, a flash of light or a bit of a song or the sound of the sea at night would spark a memory, and the circle would begin again.
THANK YOU TO MY husband for listening to every idea, frustration, and inspiration and for talking me out of a thousand trees. Thank you to my son for being a constant reminder of what is important, and for keeping me sane with your overall awesomeness.
Thank you to Todd Bottorff and Turner Publishing Group for this opportunity. Independent publishers are the heart and soul of the book universe, and I am forever grateful for your belief in my work. Thank you to Stephanie Bowman, Jon O’Neal, Leslie Hinson, Stephen Turner, Madeline Cothren, and everyone else at Turner who worked on this project.
I come from an extraordinary line of women. They are smart, strong, and have never been known to suffer a fool. While Hag is, overall, a work of fiction, my mother filled my childhood with stories about her life and the history of my grandmother and great-grandmothers. I hope I did them proud, and I hope they forgive the creative liberties that come with storytelling.
I binge-listened to Kate Rusby, Sarah Jarosz, and Stevie Nicks while writing Hag. Thank you for the inspiration and clarity.
And thank you to beautiful Ciel, whose cabin in the woods provided not only a perfect writer’s retreat but vision on how to live a more connected life.
Hag Page 20
