The Witch of Clatteringshaws

by Joan Aiken

  “Twenty thousand saints,” said Piers, doing a bit of mental arithmetic, “at three hundred and sixty-five a year you have enough to last till the year eighteen thousand—or thereabouts.”

  “Ay, ’tis so. The minister of the kirk ud be able to tell ye more aboot them. That’s the Reverend Knockwinnock, who’s well informed as to their various predilections and habits. But ’tis certain that nae meat or flesh food will be servit on Saint Vinnipag’s Day.”

  Dido and Piers realized that they had better make do with the porridge, for it was all they were going to get. It was washed down by a drink called mum, brewed from wheat and bitter herbs.

  “And, syne, the children of the town all gather together this morn,” the waiter told them, when Dido inquired in what way the saint’s day was celebrated. “They gather at the jetty, down yonder, and each of them flings a book intae the loch.”

  “Croopus! Why do they do that?”

  “Ah, well, ye see, Saint Vinnipag had a great, great mistrust of the written word. As they’re printed in black, he said letters were the footprints of the Evil One. So, ilka bairn must bring to the loch the book he loves the best and cast it in.”

  “If I were one of those children,” said Piers, “I’d bring the book I hated worst.”

  “And which would that be?” asked Dido, who had read very few books.

  “Logarithm tables.”

  “What in the world are they?”

  “Arithmetical functions abridging calculation by substituting addition and subtraction for multiplication and division.”

  “Save us! Woodlouse, they oughta make you King! You’re educated,” said Dido, deeply impressed. “When does this book throwing happen?” she asked the waiter.

  At noon, they were told.

  “Famous,” said Dido. “We’ll pay our shot and go and take a gander at the goings-on. I likes to watch old rites and ceremonicals, don’t you, Woodlouse?”

  And since he showed little enthusiasm, she explained as they walked along the cobbled way to the jetty, “Don’t you see, it will give us a first-rate chance to look at all the kids in town; maybe we’ll get a notion which one might be little Alfie Partacanute.”

  Piers said: “What reason do we really have to suppose that one of the children in this place might be the King of England?”

  “Well, there was a battle near here. You know that.”

  “Yes, the Battle of Follodden.”

  “King Malcolm of Caledonia, allied to King Bloodarrow of Bernicia, was fighting off the invading Picts. Malcolm traced his descent back to Brutus of Troy, and so did his wife, Ethelfleda. And our King Dick, who just died, had the same family tree.”

  “So?”

  “Well, King Malcolm was killed in that battle.”

  “What happened to Queen Ethelfleda?”

  “She died at the same time—on that hill over there.”

  The day was very foggy. The previous night’s snow still covered the ground, a thin layer of white, above which a thick blanket of gray mist mostly concealed the gaunt dark houses of Clatteringshaws. But at this moment a stray gust of wind, a stray sunbeam, parted the fog and showed a lane of blue sky, a silvery track of loch water, and an impressive dome-shaped black hill on the opposite side of the loch.

  “You see that hill? That’s Beinn Grieve. The landlord told me. It’s where the rail bridge begins.”

  Indeed, looking up, they could faintly see the bridge, a black lacework high in the gray cloud over their heads.

  “Why was Queen Ethelfleda up on that hill?”

  “She was in a carriage, waiting to see the result of the battle. But a stray musket shot smashed the carriage window and killed her. She had just had a baby. It had been in the coach too, but it vanished. The bones of the Queen’s maid, Hild, were found on the hillside. But no baby bones were ever found.”

  “How do they know it was the maid’s bones?”

  “She was wearing a necklace the Queen had given her.”

  “What had killed the maid?”

  “Hobyahs, or so it was thought.”

  “What are Hobyahs?”

  “No one rightly knows. They come out after dark. And live on the south side of the loch. And eat people. When they can get them.”

  “Who told you all this?”

  “Father Sam, the Archbishop of Canterbury.”

  “He ought to be reliable, I suppose.”

  “I reckon.…”

  “So,” said the Woodlouse, “we are looking for a baby who was born nearly fifteen years ago, and we don’t know if it was a boy or a girl.”

  “That’s so.”

  “And we don’t know what he or she might look like?”

  “You got it. But someone living here must know what happened that day.”

  Dido looked up the main street of Clatteringshaws. Fog lay like gray moss among the buildings. They were tall and narrow. There was little space between the hills behind and the water’s edge. So the houses went upward—six, seven, eight stories. Following their example, a small church thrust its high steeple up through the cloud. A green graveyard, packed with tombstones, hugged the church like a collar. Beyond it lay a narrow stretch of green that might be a park or a golf course. Then the sharp line of the hill ran down and met the loch water; there was no road out at that end of the town.

  A few boats were tied up at the jetty, but there was no activity on the water.

  “You’d think somebody ud be fishing,” said Dido. “Where’s all the folk?”

  “Maybe they don’t fish because it’s Saint What’shisname’s Day,” said Piers.

  “But every day’s a saint’s day,” argued Dido. “They couldn’t stop for that.”

  “It certainly is a quiet place.”

  This statement was about to be contradicted.

  Down the pathway beside the church came a throng of children all yelling their heads off.

  “Ach y fi! Yoicks! Doon a fumbly! Vinnipas dinnipas! Skinny pas! Ochan bochan, slide to the bottom. Hech hoich dint i’ the boich.”

  Then, observing Dido and Piers who stood at the water’s edge directly in their path, the children fell silent and came to a sudden stop. There were about forty of them, all ages from four to around fifteen. They were neatly dressed, the boys in black trousers, white shirts, black jackets, and forage caps, the girls in black dresses, white pinafores, and white bonnets. Accompanying them was an elderly clergyman; Dido supposed that he was the Reverend Knockwinnock.

  The children all carried books.

  “My stars!” said Dido, addressing the first three girls, who looked about eleven or twelve. “Are you really going to throw your books into the water?”

  “Ay, that we are! Prime fun! ’Tis Saint Vinnipag’s Day!”

  “But what a shocking shame! Do the books have pictures? Stories?”

  “Ay, so—” said one of the girls, bursting into giggles. “See, ’tis my dad’s gardener’s manual—there’s pictures of how to prune fruit trees. He’ll be fine fashed when he finds ’tis in the loch!”

  “Mine’s Ma’s hymnbook,” said her friend, also sputtering with laughter.

  “And mine’s one o’ they mail-order catalogs. I took ’t from Aunt Kirstie’s workbox—the one she had as a mystery gift.”

  “Even so, I think it’s a great shame to throw books in the water,” said Dido. “Books are useful things.”

  By this time the group of children had all clustered round Dido and Piers. The clergyman had now caught up with them and, not observing the strangers, called out testily, “What holds ye? What’s amiss?”

  One of the bigger boys said, “Ay, if ye ask me, the young leddy’s in the right of it. ’Tis gey foolishness tae throw books intae the watter. Forbye, the saint didna fancy books—we all know that. Best gie him summat he can eat. He can have my kelp bun. And we can keep the books!”

  He pulled from his pocket a sandwich made from two layers of oatcake and one of seaweed.

  It looked very unappetizi
ng.

  “The auld saint can have it for his midmorning snacket with my guid wishes. Here goes!” And he slung it, with a powerful overarm pitch, a long way out into the loch.

  Something very large burst out of the water, snapped up the bun, and sank again.

  “Weel bowled, Jamie!” yelled another boy. “He can have mine as well, and gude luck to it!” He skipped his oat bun over the water so that it bounced seven times before a fish caught it.

  “Hech! I can do better than that!”

  In a moment oatcakes were raining down all over the surface of the water.

  “Hey! I did fifteen! Did ye see?”

  “I did sixteen!”

  “Jeannie, gie me your bannock, I can throw ’t twice as far as ye can—”

  “Children! Children!” remonstrated the clergyman. “How can ye fling the bannocks yer gude hardworking mithers have made for ye into the watter? ’Tis wicked waste and ingratitude—”

  But at that moment the clamorous crowd of children was cast into silence by the size of the creature that exploded out of the loch, sucked in most of the floating oatcakes, and vanished again underwater. Because of the fog it could not be seen clearly; water and vapor streamed off it, concealing its shape.

  “Losh,” said the reverend, “now see what ye’ve done. He’d not have come up for the books, ye may be certain of that.”

  “What was it?” said Dido.

  “Och, tae be sure, ’twas the Loch Grieve Monster. ’Twas a lucky sighting. Oftentimes he’ll not be seen from one year’s end tae anither.”

  “We saw the Monster, the Monster, the Monster,” the children began to yodel, to the tune of “Weel May the Keel Row.”

  “Back to school now, bairns! Ye have had enough diversion.”

  The clergyman cast a rather disapproving glance at Piers and Dido.

  “Ah—ye’ll be on holiday here, nae doubt? Ye’ll find muckle of interest in the church—King Malcolm and Queen Ethelfleda are buried here, ye ken? And besides that, there’s the Wheel Museum—the Battle of Follodden Memorial—the golf course—” He saw that his flock were getting away from him and hurried after them, muttering, “Och, there’s too many divairshins, too many divairshins!”

  “I’ll tell you what,” said Dido, “that was some monster! I wonder if it eats people? It certainly seemed to go for oatcakes.”

  “And I’ll tell you what,” said the Woodlouse, “one of those nice neatly dressed children has picked my pocket and gone off with all our money.”

  “They never!”

  Dido had given Piers the money to carry because she thought it would build up his self-esteem, which was rather low; now she regretted having done so. Still, whoever it was had probably had a go at her pocket too, and found nothing; that was a consoling thought.

  “Shall we go up to the school and raise a ruckus? No, that would get us off on the wrong foot.”

  “Tell you what’s more, Dido. See that house along there on the far side of the graveyard? It has a sign in the window saying STAFF WANTED.”

  “What a long way you can see through those green glasses of yours, Woodlouse! Let’s go and find out what kind of staff they want.”

  SIX

  The Finnish royal family had been provided with a mansion in Bloomsbury Square. It suited them excellently, as they were very partial to the British Museum, which was just round the corner. Princess Jocandra was particularly interested in Egyptian antiquities.

  “There are so few of them in Finland, you see,” she told Simon. And she went on to tell him a great deal more than he wanted to know about Isis and Osiris, Seb (or Keb or Geb), Nut, Set, Horus, Buto, and Ra.

  “When Isis discovered her dead husband’s body in a pillar, she wept so loudly that the local king’s children all died of fright,” Jocandra told Simon.

  “Good gracious!” he responded civilly.

  “One of the children fell into the sea and was drowned.”

  “What a shame.”

  “Two sacred bulls, called Apis and Mnevis, were dedicated to Osiris.”

  “I see.”

  “When you and I are married and living in Helsinki,” Jocandra told him, “I shall revive the Ancient Egyptian religion. Don’t you think that is an excellent plan?”

  “Who says we are going to be married?” Simon said, startled to death.

  “Oh, that is quite understood. That is why we are here, after all. But we shall not live here, no, no; England is far too small. Finland is the right size. And we have more reindeer. In England you seem to have no reindeer at all. Mama and Papa miss the reindeer; they think it very provincial here.”

  “Listen, Rodney!” said Simon to his court jester. “You’ve got to get me out of this. In no time at all I shall be married to that eight-foot troll and living in Helsinki among the reindeer.”

  “Well,” said Rodney Firebrace, “then it’s a good thing I’ve come to tell you that a Wendish expeditionary force has invaded Tentsmuir Forest, south of Dundee.”

  “They couldn’t have landed at a better time,” cried Simon joyfully. “I can tell the Finnish royals that I’m otherwise engaged, have to go and defend my country. How do we get to Tentsmuir Forest?”

  “Take the train as far as it goes, then across country on horseback.”

  “I’ll start tomorrow with the army. Do you want to come?”

  “Oh, certainly. I have a cousin up in those parts.”

  “Ha ha ha,” said the parrot. “Never go fishing with a crossbow. A second is one-sixtieth of a minute.”

  “Oh, be quiet, Wiggonholt!”

  * * *

  “Well,” said Princess Jocandra on the ship back to Helsinki. “King Simon was very handsome, but he was really too short. And he didn’t seem sufficiently interested in the Egyptian religion.”

  The king and queen of Finland cast despairing glances at each other over the princess’s head.

  “Can ye cook?”

  Dido and Piers, inquiring for jobs at the Eagles Guesthouse, were being interviewed by a tall gaunt woman dressed from head to toe in black, Mrs. Euphemia McClan.

  “Can ye cook? Do ye know about gardens?”

  “I can cook,” said Dido confidently. “I was assistant to the captain’s steward on a British man-o’-war. He learned me a lot of cookery.”

  Mrs. McClan sniffed. “We’ll no’ want any of those fancy ways here. Juist plain fare is all the auld Residents can digest.”

  “I could do that,” said Dido.

  “And ye? Can ye manage a garden?” Mrs. McClan fixed a gray gimlet eye on the Woodlouse.

  “I certainly can, ma’am,” he replied promptly. “I had a garden of my own at one time.”

  “Had you really?” Dido whispered to him when Mrs. McClan left the room, summoned by a bell somewhere on the premises.

  “Yes, I did,” he whispered back. “When my parents were in England and we lived at Cottlestone Place. Before I was sent to boarding school at Fogrum Hall.”

  “I’ll take ye for a week on trial,” said Mrs. McClan, returning. “I’ll no deny that ye come at an acceptable moment. For my dear husband, who was my prop and stay, has just passed away last nicht. At a most inconvenient time, with twenty Residents requiring a great, great deal of care and attention and my dear son, Desmond, recovering from tonsillitis. So ye can commence directly,” she said, now fixing the gimlet eye on Dido, “cooking a deener for twenty: inky-pinky—that is, beef stew, but ye’ll omit the beef as ’tis St. Vinnipag’s Day, with a drappit egg forbye, and stewed prunes for dessert. And you,” she told Piers, “can bring in the onions and carrots for the inky-pinky. And dig the potato bed. I’ll show ye where the garden and the glasshouses are. And first of all, ye can fetch in some wood for the kitchen stove. That should be young Fred’s job, but the wee wretch is useless with a hurt ankle. Come, I’ll show ye the kitchen. Are ye brother and sister, may I speer?”

  “No, cousins,” said Dido, hastily inventing.

  “So ye, lass, can sleep in th
e aumry yonder”—pointing to a cupboard. They were now in the kitchen, a huge cavernous room with a mighty stove, only just alight, and a granite sink, cram full of dirty dishes—“and the lad can pit himself in the beild, outbye.” (They supposed this to be a shed, and so it proved, next to the greenhouse.)

  The kitchen had doors leading to half a dozen rooms that contained sacks of potatoes, onions, kindling, salt, barrels of beer, bags of oatmeal, eggs, dried sides of mutton, and herbs. The house must be built right against the steep hillside that sloped down behind it, Dido guessed, for a passage behind the greenhouse had rough rock walls and led directly into a large gloomy cave, which was stacked with logs right up to the roof.

  “Ye, lad, ye carry in some logs,” said Mrs. McClan. “In-tae the kitchen, and for the fireplace in the Residents’ Parlor. Ye carry them in the sling.”

  She pointed to a sack that had been slit down the side and provided with carrying handles.

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Piers, and began piling logs into the sack.

  “Ye can carry more than that! Fill it up! Otherwise ye’ll be trailing back and forth all evening over my clean kitchen floor.” And she stood over him, piling on more logs, until even a camel would have rebelled. Fortunately a distant bell sounded and faint cries were heard; Mrs. McClan sped off, muttering, “Och, I’m fair shaugled wi’ they Residents.”

  “Take some of those logs off,” advised Dido, “or you’ll never make it as far as the Residents’ Parlor.”

  While Piers was delivering his reduced load to a tidy, empty room, Dido carried in some logs and stoked the kitchen stove, then did her best to make some order out of the chaos in the kitchen.

  Fetching herbs from a shadowy storeroom, she tripped over something that let out a faint whimper.

  “Murder!” said Dido. “Now what? Do they have out-sized rats round here? Or are you human?”

  Piers, having carried in all the wood that was needed, was now searching for onions.

  “Look here,” said Dido, “there’s someone alive in this murky corner. Wait, I saw candles on a shelf.”

  She lit one and revealed a small, grimy, terror-stricken boy, curled up defensively on a piece of sacking. Dido was reminded of her first encounter with Piers.