A Curse of Ash and Embers

by Jo Spurrier

  Kian glanced around. ‘You have to be careful what you say,’ he said, slipping the arrow back into his quiver and slinging the bow over his shoulder. He came closer, dropping his voice. ‘They can possess animals, you know, and use them to spy on folk. They can bewitch people, too, and force them to do their bidding. And I’ve heard tales of the things that grow in the orchard there, and the gardens. Things that look like trees but no birds will roost there and no animals will graze underneath.’

  I found myself nodding. ‘Aleida, my mistress, I mean, she told me to stay out of the orchard,’ I said.

  ‘There used to be two witches there, did she tell you that? The old one found your mistress rotting in a dungeon somewhere. Pulled her out, made her an apprentice and taught the girl everything she knows, but the young one hated her for it, and turned on her. Folk said there was a fight, but I was off running traps over the Greyback Ridge, so I don’t know the right of that.’

  ‘Oh, there was a fight, all right,’ I said, thinking of the wreckage and the scorch-marks in the kitchen. ‘The old witch is gone now.’

  ‘Is she? I wouldn’t be so sure of that, not unless I saw it with my own eyes. Witches like her are hard to kill — else the folk ’round here would have done it years ago.’

  Somewhere in the trees came the sound of flapping wings, and Kian fell silent, raising his head like a hunting dog.

  ‘Maybe we should walk,’ I said.

  ‘Mm. You’re heading for the Sanford place, you said? I can come with you a little way. If you like.’

  I nodded, feeling a shy smile come over my lips. I liked him, and even if I hadn’t, he was the first person I’d met who didn’t seem too scared to talk about what was happening here. Together we set out along the track. ‘What about Aleida? What can you tell me about her?’

  ‘I’ve heard all kinds of tales of what she used to get up to before Old Miss Blackbone took her on,’ he said, darkly. ‘She was a thief and a con-artist and a gutter-tramp. She’s got a tongue sharp as a whip, and a fierce temper. She’s good with potions. Poisons, too. Back when my ma was still alive she bought a potion off her, after she’d been sick all winter and was coughing up blood. The potion cured her, that time; but it made all her hair fall out, and it grew back white as snow. And I hear she poisoned a man in the tavern in Lilsfield a few years back. Left a wife and five children behind.’ He gave me a sidelong glance. His eyelashes were dark and outrageously long. Wasted on a boy, they are, Ma’s voice whispered in my head. Why don’t you have eyes like that, Dee?

  ‘I know you said you need the work, but I don’t know that I’d have the nerve to live under the same roof as that creature,’ Kian said.

  ‘Oh,’ I said, making my voice sound much lighter than I felt, ‘I doubt she’ll go poisoning me, or turning me into a frog or anything like that. Frogs aren’t much good at cooking or hauling water or scrubbing floors.’

  ‘Ha! Well, you have a point there. But you’re still braver than I am.’

  The words lit a warm glow inside me, but the heat quickly travelled to my cheeks, and I hastily looked down. ‘What about these monsters?’ I said. ‘Know anything about them?’

  ‘Not much. Haven’t even seen one in person, just the tracks they leave. They’re big, though. Real big. If I come across one my plan is to run away and hope I’m faster than it. I doubt these would do me much good,’ he said, laying a hand on his quiver.

  We’d turned off the main road now, heading along another wagon track; and as the noise of a distant axe reached my ears Kian stopped. ‘I’d better head back now, before anyone sees me.’

  I turned to him, clasping my hands. ‘Thanks for walking with me.’

  ‘Oh,’ he ducked his head as a flush of pink swept over his freckled cheeks. ‘It’s nothing. Just nice to see a friendly face. Not so many of them around here.’

  I drew a deep breath, summoning courage. ‘Well, maybe I’ll see you again? If my mistress has more errands for me to run, I mean.’

  ‘I hope so,’ he said with a shy smile. ‘Nice to meet you, Elodie.’ He gave a nod of his head, and strode off quickly on his long legs. He glanced back once, with another bashful smile, and then vanished into the bushes.

  I gazed after him while my heart skittered beneath my stays as his words lingered in my mind: nice to see a friendly face. As much as I missed my family, and as strange as it was here, maybe it wasn’t all bad.

  I started out again, following the sound of axes, and before long I heard a girl singing as well.

  I found them just beside the path, two young men cutting wood while a girl about my age helped load the lengths into a two-wheeled cart. The lads let their axes rest as they saw me and the girl started over, waving and calling out. ‘Hello! Who are you?’

  After what Kian had said about being unwelcome here I wasn’t sure what to expect, but the girl, round of face and with blonde hair bound in two braids, had an open and sunny smile. Then again, with my pack-basket and my dusty skirts I was clearly not a poacher, or a sneak-thief after their lambs.

  ‘I’m Elodie,’ I said. ‘I’m the new hired girl at Black Oak Cottage. Is this the way to the Sanford farm?’

  She ignored the question, her smile fading. ‘You’re from Black Oak?’ she glanced back at her brothers who both edged closer, one looking worried, the other thunderously dark.

  I tried not to, but all the same I could feel myself scowling. ‘I’m not a witch or anything,’ I said, ‘I just work for one. This is the way to the Sanford farm, isn’t it?’

  ‘It is,’ the girl said at last. ‘I’m Melly Sanford, and these are my brothers, Ed and Bruen.’

  ‘You have some business with us?’ one of the lads blurted.

  The harshness of his voice made me take a step back, wishing I’d stayed talking to Kian instead. But I had a job to do, so I squared my shoulders and looked him in the eye. ‘I do. My mistress sent me to buy a goat and some chickens,’ I said. ‘And some food for our pantry, it’s all but bare.’

  The three of them exchanged glances, and Melly drew a breath. ‘You’d best come talk to Ma,’ she said. ‘I’ll walk you to the house.’

  ‘Melly!’ one of the lads said.

  ‘Oh, hush, Ed. She’s just a girl, not a witch.’

  ‘So she says.’

  ‘Hush, Ed!’ She gave me another smile, though this one not half as bright as the first, and stooped to pick up a basket full of mushrooms. ‘This way, miss, if you please. I’ll show you to the house.’

  I followed her without another word to the boys; their charms rather lacking compared to the lad I’d met by chance on the road.

  We set out together, her with her basket slung over one arm, me with mine on my back. ‘Don’t mind Ed,’ she said. ‘He’s only in a mood because Ma won’t let him go visit his lady love, what with all the strife that’s going on. Have you seen them?’

  ‘The monsters? No. You?’

  Melly shook her head. ‘No, just heard them, in the night,’ she said and shivered. ‘Now, it’s only a little way. Where are you from, Elodie? When did you come to the cottage?’

  Ma would have turned her nose up at her for being nosy. I wasn’t sure how to take it, myself — hearing Kian talk about how he wasn’t welcome on their land had got my back up on his behalf, but I made myself push that aside. I didn’t want to be the new girl who was too stuck-up to talk to her neighbours, especially when I was only a servant. ‘I only got here yesterday. My folks have a farm down on the plains near the river, but I had to come away for work.’ I told her about Burswood Farm and the journey up here. Then, I asked her about Black Oak Cottage.

  Melly pursed her lips for what felt like a very long time. ‘Is it true she’s dead? Old Miss Blackbone, I mean?’

  ‘My mistress said so. What happened? I know there was a fight of some kind . . .’

  ‘It was five or six days ago. No, six or seven, now. That’s when the first of the monsters appeared.’ She gave me a sidelong glance. ‘We don’t go near B
lack Oak if we can help it,’ she said. ‘Not since our old mule got into Miss Blackbone’s orchard. How on earth did you end up working for a witch? If it’s not too rude to ask,’ she added with a flush

  ‘When I took the job, I had no idea,’ I said. Six or seven days? That would put it at about the time the letter arrived. Coincidence? It was all so strange I wasn’t sure I could believe it had happened just by chance.

  ‘Oh,’ Melly said. ‘You poor thing. I must say, if it were me in your shoes I’d have a hard time not turning around and blessed well marching home again, but I suppose that’s easy to say when I’m not the one miles and miles from home. Well, I suppose the old witch really must be dead, she’d never bother to hire herself a servant. She cursed our old mule, you know, for eating her apples. She made him go blind. We had to sell him to a miller up in Scottsdale. Pa said it didn’t matter if he was blind if all he had to do was walk in circles all day. So what’s she like now? Miss Aleida, I mean?’

  I held my tongue for a moment, weighing what I could say. I had enough sense to know it was a bad idea to gossip about my employer. And that went double if my employer was a witch. ‘She’s a bit odd,’ I went with, ‘but she’s not been well. You must know her better than I do, though. You’re her neighbour, after all.’

  Melly pursed her lips. ‘We’d meet her on the road sometimes, but we never really talked to her. Well, they weren’t here a lot of the time — Old Miss Blackbone would be gone for months and months, and Miss Aleida would go with her, of course, up until she went away.’

  ‘Went away?’

  Melly nodded. ‘A few years ago they had some sort of quarrel and Miss Aleida took off. We thought it was for good. But then she came back, just lately.’ She turned to me — she was very pretty, with curling hair and large green eyes, but her face was quite serious. ‘Do you know why they called the old witch Blackbone?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘’Cause that’s all they’d find of anyone that crossed her — a little pile of blackened bones.’

  I scowled at that. ‘Sounds like a tale for little children, throwing fire and whatnot.’

  ‘Oh, but they do throw fire,’ Melly said, wide-eyed. ‘I’ve seen it.’

  Her face was so guileless and innocent that I couldn’t believe a word of it. She had to be teasing me. ‘You haven’t.’

  ‘I have so!’ She drew herself up with indignation. ‘When I was little, we were in Lilsfield and the Glossops’ dog started chasing me. Miss Aleida threw a fireball at it and drove it away. Bruen was there too, you ask him.’

  I looked down at my feet, not sure I could bring myself to believe her. And if she told you she saw a ghost last night? What would you say to that? Who are you to call her a liar? ‘We don’t have witches where I come from,’ I said by way of apology.

  Melly was quiet for a few moments. ‘I’ve heard people say that some witches help people. They make medicine and deliver babies and calves, and make charms and blessings. But they must be different sorts of witches to ours.’ She shuddered. ‘The day Miss Aleida came back was something I’d sooner never see again. Great-granny said she’d never seen the likes of it, and she’ll be eighty next year. It was black as night, like an eclipse. It was over us but it didn’t reach the Greenwood place, and that’s the next farm over towards Lilsfield. Folk in Lilsfield or up on the ridge could see it better — they told us it was over Black Oak Cottage to start with and then it spread up into the mountains. All our beasts went mad. I mean, we’ve got a cow that Pa hand-raised since she was a day old and he had to climb into the hayloft to get away from her, and Ma had to shut our cat in a chest because it would attack anything that moved.

  ‘Ever since then there’s been . . . things in the woods,’ Melly said. ‘Big things. Tearing down trees, ripping up the earth, like hogs if hogs grew the size of bulls. One of them tore into our henhouse the other night. The dogs wouldn’t do a thing, we found them all cowering under a wagon the next morning. Pa and Drevin went out there thinkin’ to drive it off, but they came right back in and wouldn’t say what they’d seen. They made us girls and the little ’uns spend the night in the cellar while they stayed on guard.’ She looked across at me, lips pressed tight together. ‘I don’t know your mistress, though she was kind to me when I was little. Lord and Lady know, people change, but you should talk to her if you can. See if she can do something, before someone gets killed.’

  I thought of my mistress, wrapped up in blankets, weak and trembling from the effort of sitting up to talk to me, and I thought of Kian recoiling when I said I worked at Black Oak Cottage. ‘I don’t really know her either,’ I said. ‘But I’ll tell her what you’ve said. That fight knocked all the wind out of her, though. She’s right poorly, and there’s barely any food in the place . . .’ I made myself stop there, afraid I’d already said too much.

  We were at the farm now, the house built of thick, stacked logs, with a garden to one side and outbuildings scattered around. A woman with blonde hair tied into a tousled knot sat on the step, working a butter churn while a toddling boy pottered around the yard, chasing hens as they hunted after some spilled grain. A black and white dog trailed him but stopped to size me up as I followed Melly into the yard.

  The woman looked up at me, but didn’t stop working the churn.

  ‘Ma, this is Elodie, she’s the new hired girl from Black Oak Cottage.’

  ‘Good morning, Mrs Sanford,’ I said with a bob of my head. ‘My mistress sent me here to ask if you would hire her a goat and some chickens, and some pantry goods, if you have any to spare.’

  The woman looked me over with Melly’s green eyes. A handsome lady. Lem would have leered at her, and Ma would have scorned her for it. ‘Good morning to you, Miss . . .?’

  ‘Forster, ma’am,’ I said, flushing at my lapse. ‘Elodie Forster, of Burswood Farm. Lately of Burswood, I mean.’

  ‘Will you have a cup of tea, Miss Forster?’

  My belly growled just at the thought. ‘I’d be delighted, Mrs Sanford.’

  ‘Very good. Melly, go and tell Tara to bring us a pot of tea.’

  ‘Yes, Ma.’

  As Melly bustled inside with her basket, Mrs Sanford gestured to the step beside her. I was grateful to get off my feet. Yesterday’s walk, a cold night spent sleeping in my clothes and then this morning’s efforts had left me stiff and sore.

  ‘Have you been in Lilsfield long, Miss Forster?’ she asked.

  I rubbed a hand across my eyes, feeling gritty and tired. I’d splashed some water on my face but that was the nearest I’d had to a bath in days. ‘I only arrived last night, ma’am.’

  ‘And where is Burswood Farm?’

  She asked about what beasts we raised and what crops we grew, and about my family and why I left. The talking and the rattling rhythm of the butter churn helped to settle my thoughts and push the strangeness of the last day and night from my mind.

  By the time I’d answered her questions, another young lass had brought out a pot of tea and a little basket of fresh scones, still warm from the oven, together with jam and cream. My belly growled at the scent of them.

  Mrs Sanford broke off her churning to pour the tea, and waved me towards the scones. ‘Do have one. Is young Miss Blackbone feeding you well?’

  I hesitated with a warm scone in my hand. ‘There’s no real food in the house at all,’ I said. ‘And Miss Blackbone is so ill she can barely stand. I don’t see how she hasn’t perished of hunger and thirst.’

  ‘Oh, witches have ways about these things,’ Mrs Sanford said, her voice dark and hard. ‘I daresay she managed to keep herself fed.’

  I thought about something Melly had said, about Old Miss Blackbone never hiring a servant, but I still had no idea what she meant. ‘Well, she must have,’ I said, ‘but I don’t see how. And not at all well. She hasn’t even had a fire, and she’s very poorly.’ I had to try very hard not to wolf the scone down like a starving dog.

  ‘And how did you find her? Aside from si
ckly, I mean?’

  I frowned while I chewed and swallowed. ‘Ma’am? I’m sorry, I don’t understand . . .’

  ‘Is she bad-tempered? Cruel? Do you feel she’ll be a hard mistress?’

  Still frowning, I reached for another scone. It was the ghost that had scared me, not my new mistress. I shook my head. ‘Short-tempered, perhaps, but not bad-tempered.’ I remembered her pleading with the spectre before reaching for her wand. ‘And not cruel. Not at all.’

  ‘Oh?’ she said. ‘Indeed? Well, people change, or so they say.’

  I wrapped my hands around the teacup. After everything I’d heard that morning, first from Kian and then Melly, there was a question burning in my mind, only I wasn’t sure I had the courage to ask it. I glanced towards the orange cat, sitting in a patch of sunshine with his eyes closed. Something about it felt strange, but I couldn’t say why. It certainly wasn’t as strange as the owl last night, carrying an apple in its talons. ‘Ma’am?’ I said at last. ‘May I ask you something?’

  ‘You may,’ she said. She had an arch manner about her, this woman. I could tell her tongue would cut like a razor if you gave her reason to turn it on you, but I could also tell that she was willing to be patient with me.

  ‘What has Miss Aleida done to make everyone fear her so much?’

  Mrs Sanford looked away. ‘Nothing to me. Gyssha Blackbone gave us plenty of reasons to fear her, but Aleida . . . I thank the gods that my lads were too young for her to toy with; except for Drevin, but he had the sense to stay shy of her. I don’t suppose she did anything other lasses haven’t done when they learn the power they have over young men, only she had witchcraft behind her. Played with them, she did, like a cat with a mouse. Never for all that long, thankfully; the witches rarely stayed at the cottage more than a few months each year. Though Aleida was never as cruel as Gyssha was, I’ll grant her that. And then when she left, I thought at the time, it was the most good sense she ever showed.’