The Witch of Willow Hall

by Hester Fox

  So she did see Mrs. Tidewell, and still went off with Mr. Pierce right in front of her eyes. I take a deep breath, willing myself not to lose my temper. “Nothing. It was nothing important. Just some passing gossip.” Not completely untrue, but Catherine immediately catches the hesitation in my voice.

  “You’re a terrible liar,” she says. The pink has all but faded from her neck and she gives a little shrug. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

  I don’t think I’ve ever missed Emeline more than I have in this moment. I want to pull her up into my lap and forget my worries as I braid her hair and listen to her tell stories. She was always my shoulder to cry on, even if she didn’t know or understand what I was crying about. It’s not the day at the pond that makes me miss her the most, with its confusion, anger and helplessness. No, it’s these tiny, empty slivers of life, pockets of time, into which she had fit so perfectly and is now so conspicuously absent that leave me rattled and aching.

  The words slip out against my better judgment. “She was telling me about how Mr. Barrett lost his mother and little brother. And to think, this whole time we’ve known him he’s never said a word about it.” I can’t stop the heavy, shuddering sigh that runs through me. “Poor John.”

  Catherine unrolls the satin, her eye instantly locking on the minuscule stain from when I dropped it in the street. “Hmm? Oh, yes, the fire. I heard about that.”

  My skin prickles hot. “You did? When?”

  Her gaze sharpens as she realizes she has my attention now. “Mr. Barrett told me, though I can’t for the life of me remember when exactly.”

  Mr. Barrett confided in Catherine, not me. Just the other day he sat in my bedroom and told me how sorry he was about Emeline, and never mentioned that he knew what it was like to lose a beloved sibling. What is it about me that he feels he can’t place his trust in me? What makes Catherine such a good confidante?

  Catherine is still watching me with interest. “What, are you upset that he didn’t tell you? Don’t be small about it, Lydia. He lost his whole family and all you care about is that he told me instead of you.”

  “No,” I say stubbornly. “I don’t care that he told you.”

  “Mmm.” She shrugs and continues working her fingernail over the spot of mud.

  She’s right of course. He lost his mother and brother in the most gruesome way possible, grew up destitute with a hard father, and then had to struggle and scrape to pay off debts that were not his own. How can I grudge him such a trivial matter as whom he decides to tell about his past?

  But I still can’t shake the image of Catherine and Mr. Barrett standing close together at the far end of the hall, speaking in whispers, stealing a few moments together while I lay convalescing in my room. It’s the only time he could have told her.

  God, how I wish Mr. Pierce had proposed. Because now, the next time Catherine and Mr. Barrett run into each other in the hall, what’s to keep her from throwing herself completely at him again?

  * * *

  The next day Catherine informs us—with a pointed look at me—that she must go back to town, because the fabric she bought is too stained to use. Mother, who still doesn’t know the purpose of the fabric, has calls to make, and Ada needs supplies in town as well, so it’s agreed that an afternoon will be made of it. I beg off coming along, saying that I have a headache, but really I just can’t stand the idea of spending another afternoon with Catherine and her deceitful schemes. Father is at the mill, and Joe is driving everyone else so I have the house to myself. I’m enjoying a plate of cold pie on the floor in the library. Snip, my accomplice in crime, gobbles up the spilled crumbs so that Mother will never know I was eating on the carpet.

  I’ve finally finished Mathilda and am just cracking open The Romance of the Forest—an old favorite—when a clatter from somewhere in the house cuts the silence. I sit up, putting a hand on Snip’s back to keep him quiet. “Hello? Is someone there?”

  I wait, listening for an answer. If they’ve come back through the kitchen, then maybe they don’t hear me. “Mother? Catherine? Is that you?”

  Silence is the only answer. I sit perfectly still, straining my ear, but nothing else comes. Despite that, I have the prickling feeling that whoever—or whatever—made that noise, came from the dining room, and is still in there.

  Gingerly, I get up, my legs full of pins and needles from sitting on the floor so long. Just like the night of the woman in the garden, I can’t stay in the library knowing that someone might be there. I must go and look for myself.

  Even with the sun coming through the windows, illuminating the wood floors and catching the light of the crystal lamps, I feel as if I’m making my way through a dark, murky passage. My feet are heavy, as if they know something that my mind does not.

  The door to the dining room is closed. It beckons me, yet repels me, exuding a sense of silent occupation. My ears buzz. A singsong chorus of whispers grows as I approach.

  Are you ready?

  I am here.

  You attract them.

  Are you ready?

  Prepare for what lies ahead.

  Prepare.

  Prepare.

  They mount and mount into a dizzying jumble of sound and I run the rest of the way to the door, my heart in my chest, my eyes squeezed shut. Grasping the knob, I fling open the door. The voices die away.

  I knew it would be there. But it doesn’t stop me from gasping as every part of me curls back in on itself in horror. My blood turns to ice.

  Seated at the table is a woman, or what used to be a woman. She sits as if she has every right to be there, as if she has always been there. A veil covers her face, but it is gauzy and threadbare, and I can see the contours of the features beneath. Her dress is old, black as night yet opalescent as the moon through a cobweb. Paralyzed with fear, I watch as it moves about her of its own accord, a soft undulation as if she were underwater. And though I can see her as clear as day, the veiled woman in our dining room, there’s a translucence to her, and the panoramic wallpaper is just visible behind her. She is like nothing and no one I have ever seen before, and yet she is familiar, as if I have always known her.

  “Come, child.” Her voice comes from everywhere and nowhere, and when her words are finished, I have the unnerving feeling that they weren’t spoken aloud at all, but came from within my head.

  She beckons me with a knobby finger, more bone than flesh.

  I can’t drag my gaze away from her face, the sunken holes where there ought to be eyes, the lipless mouth, all teeth and blackness. The cold pie that I just enjoyed churns in my stomach and threatens to come up. She beckons me again, and I imagine those long, terrible fingers closing around my neck and choking the life out of me. I imagine them raking me across the face until ribbons of skin flutter from my skull. I stand my ground, unwilling to deliver myself up to her. She is the stuff of my novels, a grotesque horror that titillates on the page, but sends terror into my heart when in the same room as me.

  She gives something like a grunt, and as if able to read my thoughts, says, “One hundred and thirty years of death is not gentle on a body. Come, do not gawk.” I dare not disobey her, so I force my leaden feet to move a few steps closer.

  The smell of decay and death fills the room, sickly sweet and putrid at the same time. My stomach clenches at the memories the odor brings back of Emeline in her coffin. My throat is tight, my mouth cotton, but somehow I’m able to gasp out, “W-who are you?”

  She makes a noise, something between a snort and a laugh, a scraping, rattling sound, though it’s devoid of humor. “Do you not know your own forebear?”

  The blackness of her dress curls around her like a snake, but she sits as motionless as if she were carved of stone. Her stillness is suffocating, it dares the house to be silent, and punishes the sunlight for filtering in through the window.

 
; Warily, I come to a halt at the edge of the dining room table. I don’t know what she’s talking about. “Forebear?”

  “Have you not looked upon me since you were a babe? Do you not recognize in me what flows through you?”

  “I...” But then it comes to me. The lace collar, though tattered and black as her dress, is unmistakable around her neck. “You’re the woman in the painting. Mother’s ancestor.”

  The inclination of her head is small, barely perceptible.

  “I saw you in the garden, when we first moved here. What do you want?”

  That noise again that might be an impatient snort or a laugh. “It was not me you saw. You attract them. This is a haunted place and you attract the unhappy spirits that call it home. They know what you are. Haven’t I been telling you that for these two months past?”

  You attract them. My eyes widen at the familiar refrain, the words that I had convinced myself were nothing more than a figment of my imagination, though I saw them written in my mirror, and heard them on the whispers of the breeze.

  I can’t tear my gaze away from her, yet I’m terrified that the veil will fall away, revealing her face in more horrible detail. Before I can ask her what she thinks I am, the voice comes again.

  “You’ve been asking questions. Your mother would do well to educate you.”

  “Educate me?”

  “Tch, ignorant and incendiary. A dangerous combination. You might ask her for the book. It was my mother’s. Yet look at the good it did me,” she says. At this, she lifts the veil to her chin, revealing a crooked neck, one of the bones snapped clean through. My hand flies to my mouth and I stifle a cry. She drops the veil back into place. “That is what I got for my trouble.”

  Despite the pounding of my heart and the coiling of my stomach, her roundabout way of speaking is wearing on my taut nerves. “Why are you here? Did you come just to berate me? Are you a spirit come to try to frighten me away? Because that’s what you are, isn’t it? A spirit?” As soon as my questions tumble out I brace myself. What if I anger her?

  But my barrage of questions has no effect. “I have watched you since you were a little girl. I have watched and waited, wondering when you would begin to open your eyes to the world around you.”

  The thought of this creature watching me from the shadows makes me feel sick. “If you’ve been watching me for so long, then why did you come now?”

  She gives a sigh that lifts the curtains and wilts the flowers on the table. “I will not waste my breath on words you’re not ready to hear. I thought that this place would open your eyes, but I see that I’ve come too soon.”

  Frustration overtakes fear. “But I am ready! Something is happening here, to me. There’s something inside of me. You must have come for a reason. I’ve heard your voice in the woods, seen your words on my mirror! If you’ve come to say something to me, then just say it!”

  She holds up a single finger, silencing me. “Take this as a warning. If you are not able or willing to control yourself, it will not only be you who suffers the consequences, but those around you as well. If your mother will not educate you, then you must seek out your own answers. You cannot protect yourself if you do not know that of which you are capable. Already you have consigned your sister to a living death. Your ignorance has consequences, can you not see that?”

  I didn’t think my blood could go any colder, but at her words, my veins turn to ice. “Wait, what do you mean? My sister Emeline?”

  From somewhere far away in the house, a door opens and the sound of Mother and Catherine talking floats down the hallway as if from another world. Yet I can’t break my gaze from the decayed visage of my ancestor.

  “You hanged for witchcraft. My mother told me that much. Have you put some sort of curse on me, on us?” If Emeline has returned it must be because of this grotesque spirit. How could it be because of me?

  She gives another sigh. “Do not mistake death and decay for evil. Both are the legacy of all of us, the good and the bad alike. I was not a perfect woman in life, but I was not evil either, and I am no different now. I have done nothing to your sister. As I said, you are not ready to hear what I have to say.”

  “But I am ready!” I must be ready, for whatever it is. If I’m somehow responsible for Emeline’s return then I have to know. I wanted her back so badly I did not stop to consider that she doesn’t belong here, that it might cost her dearly to stay in this world.

  “Who are you talking to?”

  I jump at the sound of Catherine’s voice and spin around. “What? No one.”

  She gives me a hard look and cranes her neck over my shoulder to see into the dining room. I catch my breath, but when she doesn’t say anything I turn back around. The apparition is gone. If Catherine notices the oppressive stillness that our ancestor left in her wake, she doesn’t say anything.

  With a swallow, and legs that aren’t quite ready to move again, I follow Catherine back into the library where she spreads out several parcels, the fruits of their errands. I watch her as she unwraps a paper package containing embroidery threads and a card of new needles. Is this the same day as it was five minutes ago in the dining room standing before the spirit of my ancestor? Is this the same house, the same world, watching Catherine go about her business as if the most extraordinary thing I’ve ever seen in my life had not just occurred?

  “What are you staring at?”

  I force an inconsequential shrug. “Nothing. Just looking to see what you bought.”

  She scowls. “That mean little shopkeeper wouldn’t take back the damaged silk, so now I’m stuck with it, stain and all.” She’s removed her bonnet and is pulling out her workbasket. I perch on the chair next to her, desperate to draw her into what I just experienced. How can it be real if no one else sees what I see?

  But there’s no way to come at it directly, so I just ask, “Do you ever have trouble sleeping here?”

  Catherine looks up. “What do you mean?”

  I try to sound casual. “Oh, I don’t know. The house makes such strange noises at night, I can’t fall asleep.”

  She gives me another scowl and goes back to her sewing. She’s taken one of her best gowns and is embroidering a border of delicate white flowers around the neck with her new thread. It’s a charming addition, and I wonder that I never think of such things. “I sleep just as well here as I did in Boston,” she says. “I already told you the only difference is the sorry excuses for mattresses.”

  I open my mouth a few times. I can’t sleep because I have the most awful dreams. But in my waking hours my mind plays tricks on me. I see the strangest things. Not a moment ago I was conversing with the skeleton of our ancestor who was hanged as a witch over a hundred years ago. I feel as though I’m going mad, not knowing what is real and what is not. But I can’t find the right words. It all sounds so ridiculous, and besides, would Catherine even believe me? So I close my mouth, and we sit in silence as she works.

  20

  THE NEXT EVENING Mother makes a rare appearance in the library where I’m immersed in the final pages of The Romance of the Forest.

  Though the last thing I want to do is drag myself away from the safe, romantic world of my book, there are too many questions burning the tip of my tongue since my visit from my ancestor. I can no longer pretend that what happened was a figment of my imagination or a bad dream. And if what the spirit said was true, then Mother has some secrets of her own.

  Yet I must be careful with Mother; she has yet to emerge from the cocoon of despair she has woven for herself over the past weeks, and I’m starting to worry about her. Sometimes she looks so small and unassuming that I imagine her gradually fading into the woodblock wallpaper and heavy drapes, consumed by the grandness of Willow Hall. I won’t let that happen.

  I glance over her shoulder at the fabric she’s unfolding from her basket. It’s an embroidered coverlet.
I smile, heartened at the vibrant flowers and fanciful pattern of birds and blackberry vines. “That’s beautiful. I didn’t know that you’d started a new project.”

  She doesn’t look up. “Blackberries were Emeline’s favorite. It’s for her bed in the nursery.”

  My smile fades as I watch her sort through her thread box looking for the vermillion. We should be going through Emeline’s things, putting them away or giving them to some other child in need. It worries me that Mother has taken it upon herself to start a new project, one that Emeline will never use.

  I turn back to my book, unable to give her any encouragement. The Hale ancestor glowers down on us as I read and Mother works. Today the portrait’s expression is one of grim commiseration, as if she understands and pities Mother and me our plight. Now that I have seen her in the flesh, so to speak, I wonder if that is indeed the case.

  I choose my words carefully. “You know, I don’t think I even know the name of our old friend up there,” I say, nodding at the painting. I make my tone cheery and inviting, hoping to draw Mother away from her introspection.

  Mother’s gaze flickers up to the portrait and she gives a faint frown. “That would be Mary Preston.”

  When she doesn’t offer any more information I try again. “I thought she was a Hale. How is she related to us?”

  This time Mother doesn’t look up from her embroidering when she answers. “Mehitable Hale was our ancestor. She fled from persecution in England. She married a Barnabas Preston. Mary was their daughter.”

  “Ah,” I say, and we lull into silence again. A thousand questions whirl through my head: What do you really know of her? What is the book she spoke of? Has her spirit ever visited you as it has me? But they all sound ridiculous, and I can’t bring myself to come at it directly. The last thing I want to do is upset Mother further.