Nanette claimed that Morcum and Ursule managed so much work between them that she felt like the baroness herself, lounging on a chaise all the day and having every need attended to by her servants. Indeed, she began to put on weight, which rounded out her face and her arms. It was gratifying to Ursule to see the lines of care ease in her mother’s face.
Ursule, in fact, was content enough. Morcum repaired the thatch and caulked all the windows against the winter winds that battered the farmhouse. When the weather drove him indoors, he always found something to do, replacing cracked floorboards, clearing a clogged flue, shoring up a broken stair. He had no conversation, but Ursule had Nanette for that. They spoke French with each other, out of habit. Morcum took no offense that they could see.
The years passed, three, five, ten, twelve. Wedding anniversaries, even birthdays, went unremarked. Ursule no longer measured the years by Sabbats, but by the farmer’s seasons—spring for selling preserves, summer for tilling the crops, fall for breeding and harvesting, winter for carding and sewing and mending. She had not climbed the tor to the temple in years.
She was surprised one morning, going in search of Nanette, to find her mother with a thick, ancient-looking book laid open on her bed.
“Maman? Qu’est-ce que c’est?”
Nanette looked up in surprise. Her hands stretched out as if to hide the page. They hovered above the book, fingers splayed, but then withdrew and dropped into her lap. “You know what this is, do you not, Ursule?”
“No. I’ve never seen that before.” Ursule moved closer. The book was even older than she had thought, with fragile pages closely covered in ink that was faded almost past reading. “That’s not—Oh! Is that Grand-mère’s book?”
“Close the door.”
“Morcum is in the byre.”
“Just the same. Lock it. I thought I had done that. I must be getting forgetful.”
“Maman, you always talk as if you’re getting old.”
“I am old, Ursule. I’m fifty-two.”
“That’s not old, it’s only …”
Nanette pressed on. “And you’re thirty-four. Today, in fact.” Ursule’s hand flew to her mouth, and Nanette gave a wry smile. “Morcum doesn’t notice, does he?”
“Not just Morcum. I didn’t notice, either!”
Nanette smoothed the yellowed vellum beneath her hand. “You’re such a comfort to me, ma chère. I worry that you will have no babe to comfort you when it’s your turn to be old.”
“I never think of it.”
“You should, Ursule. Don’t you want a child?”
“There’s nothing I can do about it, is there? Sometimes the nannies catch, and sometimes they don’t. Some things are out of our control.”
“We can at least try,” Nanette said, and returned her gaze to the page under her fingers.
Ursule settled gingerly on the bed beside her mother, careful not to jostle the old book. Its pages were wide, and its cover appeared to be made of leather, but so dry it was almost like wood. She leaned over it to see what her mother had been studying. “What does it say? I can’t read the French.”
“It’s Old French. I couldn’t understand it if I hadn’t studied it before.” Nanette pointed to a thready illustration, a vial with several leaves of different shapes poised above it. “This is a potion,” she said reverently.
“A potion for what?”
Nanette cast her daughter a wary glance from beneath her silvery eyebrows. “We haven’t spoken of this in a long time, Ursule.”
“I never think of it anymore.”
“It’s such a shame you don’t believe.”
“I don’t believe what Morcum does, either, all that about body and blood and salvation.”
Nanette’s smile returned. “Still, I don’t want you to be alone when I’m gone. I want you to have a child for your old age.”
“Is that what this potion is for?”
“Yes. You should have a babe to comfort you, as you comfort me. To carry on here at Orchard Farm.”
Ursule pointed to the book and said softly, “You don’t expect a child of mine to carry on this particular tradition, I hope?”
Nanette’s smile faded. “No,” she said in a rusty whisper. “No, I used to think so, but now … I expect the craft will die with me.”
“But Maman, you’re not going to die for a very long time!” Ursule put up her hand to touch her mother’s shoulder.
Nanette shook her head. “None of us can know the day. But I feel it coming.”
“What does that mean, you feel it coming? How could you?”
“You know the way you feel a storm building over Mount’s Bay? How the air seems to vibrate? Your skin tingles, and your hair crackles. It feels something like that.”
“I don’t believe that, either!”
“Eh, bien. It doesn’t matter whether I’m right or I’m wrong. Either way, you have Morcum now, and if the Goddess wishes—and if I am strong enough—you will have a babe, too.” She let her voice trail off, and laid her hand on the book again.
“Maman, I don’t want you going up to the tor alone at night.”
“I will be safe,” Nanette said.
“You could fall, or …”
“Oh no. The cat will be with me.”
“Oh, the blessèd cat!” Ursule expostulated. “He can barely walk himself!” The ancient beast still clung to life, long past any natural life span. Morcum detested it, and threatened often to drown it if it got in his way. “If it matters so much to you, I’ll come along.”
“No. Morcum mustn’t suspect.”
“He wouldn’t mind, Maman.”
“He would!” Nanette stiffened in alarm. “Ursule, you must believe me! Nothing has changed because we’ve left Brittany. These people still hate us.”
“Surely not! Why should they?”
“Because men believe it’s their right to tell women how to live. They tell us who to marry, what to wear, when to go out and when to stay. Some men beat their wives, and no one speaks a word about it. But despite all the power they hold over us, they feel powerless against our kind. We resist. We cause things to happen. We interfere with their plans, with what they think is the natural order. That frightens them. Men hate being afraid, so they hate us instead.”
“Morcum doesn’t hate me.”
“He doesn’t understand your power.”
“I’m not sure I have any.”
“Ursule, listen to me! They will pursue us, if they suspect, whether we have the true power or we don’t. You haven’t seen this, but I have.”
“You were only four,” Ursule reminded her.
“I remember. I remember the dark, and the cold. The terror.”
“Maman—”
“I remember finding Grand-mère.” Nanette shivered. “Her eyes were open, staring at the sky, but when I touched her, she was as stiff as the standing stones.”
“Oh, Maman.” Ursule found her mother’s hand and held it. It felt shockingly small and cold in her strong one.
Nanette bent her head. “I started to scream, but they shushed me. The mob was looking for us, and it wasn’t safe. I couldn’t even cry for Grand-mère.”
“I’m so sorry,” Ursule whispered.
“Listen to me,” Nanette said, passing her hand over her eyes as if she could erase the old memory. “You mustn’t trust them, any of them. Not even Morcum.”
“Promise me you won’t go up to the tor alone.”
Nanette cast her a sidelong glance. “Can you slip away without Morcum knowing?”
Ursule squeezed her mother’s hand. “I can. I will.”
Nanette nodded and closed the book with care. “Very well. Soon, Ursule. We have to go soon. There’s no time to waste.”
7
Ursule, fearful that her mother would attempt the climb to the temple on her own, made plans with her for the very next night. It wasn’t difficult. Morcum worked long days, and when he laid his head on his pillow, he slept soundly unt
il the morning. Ursule waited until he began to snore, then slid out from beneath the comforter in the cold darkness. She had left clothes in Nanette’s room, and there she dressed for the cold night.
It reminded her of the days when the uncles were still alive, and the Orchiére sisters prepared in secret, crept out in darkness, and returned in utter silence. Nanette had already gathered her materials, and the two of them went out through the kitchen, closing the door with only a faint creak, then on to the garden gate. They climbed the tor under a gray marine layer that shifted and roiled above them, an ocean of cloud drowning the stars.
They were halfway up the steep slope before Ursule realized her mother was carrying the gray cat in her arms. “Maman, do you mean to carry that nasty creature all the way up and all the way down again?”
Nanette was already breathing hard. She just nodded.
Ursule shifted her bundle and reached for the cat. “I’ll carry him, then,” she said, “although it seems to me if he can’t make the climb on his own he should stay home.”
As her fingers touched the rough gray fur, the cat hissed at her, and shrank deeper into Nanette’s grasp. “Never mind,” Nanette said, her voice thin for lack of breath. “I can manage.”
“It’s ridiculous,” Ursule said, glowering at the cat.
“He knows,” Nanette panted, “that you don’t like him.”
“Not stupid, then,” Ursule said tartly.
It was an old argument. The cat had remained with them, nameless, sour-tempered, and aloof. He had learned to stay clear of Morcum’s boots, and though Ursule had attempted to befriend him once or twice, the cat would have nothing to do with her. He followed Nanette everywhere, and slept under her bed. He had grown steadily thinner over the years, despite the table scraps Nanette fed him, and his coat remained ragged and coarse. As he got older, one foot began to drag, and he sometimes yowled as if he were in pain. Nanette brewed concoctions to make him comfortable, and wrapped him in blankets against the cold. Morcum suggested that he put the creature out of its misery. It was the single time Ursule saw her mother turn on Morcum, hissing with fury as if she were a cat herself.
Nanette was laboring by the time they reached the top of the tor, but Ursule said nothing more, only stayed close to catch her mother should she stumble. They wound through the dark stone entrance, relieved to be out of the wind. Nanette put the cat down and struck a sulfur match to light the lantern waiting in one of the niches. Its light revealed an accumulation of leaves and twigs and feathers fouling the cave floor, unswept for years. She insisted on cleaning before she began the ceremony, and Ursule helped her, wielding the broom while her mother wiped dust from the pedestal and rubbed grime from Grand-mère’s stone. The crystal, with its rounded upper surface and jagged base, looked as timeless as the stalagmite it rested upon.
When the cave—the temple, as Nanette called it—was more or less clean, Nanette set a thick candle beside the scrying stone and set a flame to the wick. She sprinkled water, burned herbs, and recited the words from the grimoire in a rhythmic singsong, three times three times, following the old ways.
The ritual seemed much as it always had to Ursule, and just as pointless. She yawned, waiting for it to be over so she could return to her bed.
At last, after the chill of the stone walls had begun to make her bones ache, the rite wound down. Nanette’s scarf slipped to her shoulders as she bent over the crystal. She laid her hands on it, and she spoke a few more words, not in Old French, but in the French Ursule understood.
Mother Goddess, hear my plea:
Let my daughter blessèd be
With the very gift you gave to me.
The sweet naïveté with which her mother recited the little verse made Ursule’s eyes sting with tears. Nanette spoke the rhyme three times three times. When she finished, she stood for a moment, her head bowed over the stone, her palms pressed together before her face.
Sure now that the rite was finished, Ursule moved toward the altar. Before she reached it, the candle’s wick guttered in its pool of hot wax and went out.
Nanette pulled the scarf from her shoulders and took a step back.
Ursule, both hands reaching for the stub of the candle, froze.
Something flickered inside the murky crystal, feeble but distinct, like the farthest star in a dark sky. It glowed red, as if an ember had leaped from the candle flame into the depths of the polished stone.
Ursule cried out.
Her mother started and turned to her. “What? What happened?”
Ursule bent to look closer. The light was still there. Nanette’s shoulder pressed hers as she, too, gazed into the crystal. The cat pushed between them, twining around their ankles with an insistent hiss.
Stunned, Ursule breathed, “Do you see, Maman?”
Nanette was silent for a long moment. When she spoke, her voice trembled with wonder. “Oh, Ursule. I haven’t seen that light in such a very long time.”
Ursule straightened, staring at her mother in disbelief. “Did you make that happen? Another candle, or a mirror …”
Nanette gazed back at her daughter, excitement overcoming her fatigue. “Ursule!” she exclaimed. “It speaks to you!”
“What?”
Nanette’s voice vibrated now with triumph. “I was right! If only Louisette could see!”
Nanette seized up the scarf she had dropped, and draped it over Ursule’s head. “Look again!” she commanded. “Look into Grand-mère’s stone! Oh, Ursule! I knew, when you were born—I just knew!”
She put her hands on Ursule’s chin and turned her face back to the stone. From beneath the hem of the scarf, Ursule peered into it. The light was still there, a glimmering, coruscating spark. It made her feel oddly dizzy, and a vague ache began to spread from her hipbones and up through her spine.
“Now put your hands on the stone. Ask the Goddess!”
“Ask for what?”
“A babe, of course! Ask Her! The crystal is speaking to you. It’s Her way!”
Ursule’s head spun, but when she put her hands on the stone it steadied, and the light—there was no denying it—the light grew brighter.
“Ask!” Nanette hissed.
But how could she make such a request, she who had always disdained every ritual she observed? Ursule gripped the crystal with her palms, trying to think of what to say and how to say it. Finally she whispered, “A babe. Great Goddess, Mother of Earth, a babe for me.”
“Not that way! Let it come to you, let it come through you.”
“I don’t know how, Maman!”
“You do. It’s what Grand-mère did. It’s what I used to do. Don’t try to think of the words, but when they come to you, speak them. The spoken word holds so much power! You’ll see.”
Ursule was not convinced, but her mother was gazing at her with shining eyes, her hands linked together under her chin in an age-old gesture of supplication. Ursule wished she had time to think this through. She could at least go through the motions, she decided. She expected nothing, but then, she had never expected to see anything in the old stone.
She moved her hands a little apart and gazed into it once again. The faint, flickering light, like a lamp in the darkness, still shone. It was, she thought, like a light left in a window, to call a traveler home. She felt the rush of energy in her backbone, in her thighs, in her hands. The rush of power. Of magic.
A moment later the words were in her mind. She didn’t trust them, or believe in them, but they were there. They issued from her mouth almost without her volition:
Mother Goddess, hear my plea:
Though I all unworthy be
Let there be a babe for me.
She glanced up and saw her mother’s face aglow with hope, and with the faith she herself did not possess. Nanette said, joyously, “Again, Ursule! Three times three times!”
Ursule did as she asked, reciting the bit of verse again and again, until she had fulfilled the proper repetitions. Then, silently, she added
to her prayer: To please Maman.
8
Despite Nanette’s hopefulness, and despite Ursule’s efforts to entice her husband more frequently to the pleasures of the marriage bed, nothing happened. Yule came and went, though Ursule was careful to call it Christmas, following Morcum’s tradition. Then there was Candlemas, and the dark days of Lent, a time when Morcum flatly refused all Ursule’s advances. He relented after Easter, but still Ursule did not conceive.
She worried more over her mother than over her lack of pregnancy. Nanette was growing thin again, and the last remaining dark strands of her hair turned to silver. There came a day when a bucket brimful of milk was too heavy for her to lift, and then a day when even an hour of weeding the kitchen garden stole her breath, and she had to sit down in the shade. By Pentecost she had given up even churning butter. She spent her days sewing or reading at the kitchen table. The gray cat lay across her feet as if she might float away if he didn’t hold her in place.
Every month she asked Ursule if there was any sign yet, and each time, when Ursule shook her head, Nanette seemed to wither a little bit more. She refused to see a doctor, and refused Ursule’s efforts to get her to eat more, or sleep longer. She ceased speaking to Morcum, as if it were all his fault. The blessing, Ursule thought, was that Morcum didn’t appear to notice.
“You must go back,” Nanette said one morning, when Morcum was off on Aramis to look at a pony he was thinking of buying.
“Go back where, Maman?”
“To the temple. To ask the Goddess again.”
“There’s no point,” Ursule said.
“There is! The crystal responded to you. You must give Her another chance.”
A Secret History of Witches Page 12
