by Julie Hearn
Nell stares back at her, round-eyed. She can afford to be charitable now and ignore such an insult. But her stubborn streak insists she gets the last word. “Because I’m a Merrybegot myself,” she replies, with more than a hint of pride. “So I know.”
Something clicks in Grace’s memory. She lets it settle before her eyes harden and her mouth curves in a sneer.
“Then know this, Merrybegot,” she hisses before turning away. “You are bound for Hell, one way or another. Trust me. I know!
The piskie women are pleased with their bonnet. They have torn it into equal parts and made neckerchiefs and nappies out of it. One of them is in a ditch now, feasting on nettles while its offspring chunters and slobbers on its back.
The bits of information hanging in the air are making it sneeze.
Trouble of the worst kind. Ooooo! Chaos in two people’s gut regions. Turmoil and panic and revenge. Nyingydingy ding!
It is too busy sneezing to notice the blacksmiths son loitering in the lane. Nor does it see whom he meets there or pick up on the few words that pass between them before the blacksmith’s son hands this other person a bottle that gets hidden, quickly, in a basket covered by a cloth.
Only after they have gone their separate ways do snatches of their conversation filter through the ditch-mess to tickle the piskie’s itchy nasal passages like invisible, potent snuff.
“I’ve been waiting for you. Have you been to the cunning woman? Did she give you something?”
“No. Let me pass.”
“Then take this.”
“What? What is it?”
“Its’s a drench. ’Tis what my father did give to a thoroughbred mare to drink after she got jumped by a donkey.”
“I … I don’t know. Is it safe? And will it work?”
“I don’t see why not. It worked for the mare. There be only a drop or two left, but for a person I’d say that’s enough. More than enough. You don’t have to drink it. ’Tis up to you. But I thought you might want to have something in case … in case I be killed in battle and cannot stand by you, like I promised.”
A-a-tishoooo! Oooo, what taradiddle! What falseness in the tongue region! Achoo! Achoo! Achoo!
But what’s this now, seeping through the echoes? The piskie sniffs, hard, between sneezes, and knows it to be the shattering sound and acrid smell of a single musket shot—a shot yet to be fired, by one of Cromwell’s men, but destined to hit its target smack bang in the heart region.
Oh, oh …
Nudging its offspring to hang on tight, it scrabbles and claws up the side of the ditch and peers with bright, inquisitive eyes through a clump of dirty-yellow loosestrife, hoping for a chance to flash its arse at the doomed fool who dared mention battles in the same breath as promises and thoroughbred mares. As if these things were all the same. All much of a muchness and under his control …
Too late. The lane is empty. The great, golden ball of the sun is slipping, slowly but surely, behind the rise and dip of cornfields. And there is nothing else, for now, to sniff; no other clues about the exact time and place of the foolish one’s untimely death.
Nyit, grumbles the piskie before sliding down to the foulest, greenest parts of the ditch, where the best suppers spawn and grow.
Meanwhile the cunning woman has woken up and wandered home, refreshed by her nap on the ground. She hasn’t missed her bonnet, but remembered to pick up the great pile of marjoram, which she presents to her granddaughter with a flourish.
“We were running out of this,” she declares. “So I’m glad I found some. You’ve done the worms, I see. Good girl. We’ll have our supper now, and then start shredding the hellebore.”
Nell sits her down on the bench. She needs to talk. She needs to know if she has done the right thing by Grace Madden. She speaks slowly, taking her time, so that her granny will absorb it all and, she hopes, understand.
When she has finished, she begins to cry. It is too much being both a Merrybegot and the cunning woman’s granddaughter. Too heavy a responsibility. Too hard.
“There now,” murmurs the cunning woman. “You did the right thing. I’m proud of you. There now….”
And Nell is so relieved, yet so worried still about what is to become of Grace Madden and her unborn, that she forgets to ask about Silas Denby’s purge. It is only later, with the bottom of the cauldron burning white-hot above a nest of blazing sticks and the air full of rose-scented steam, that she remembers. But by then the sun has set, and the big mans innards are already bubbling.
The Confession of Patience Madden
THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 1692
“We’re not getting up” Grace announced one morning. She said it so calm and matter-of-fact that I had to tell myself twice that this was not a usual thing to agree upon.
“Why not?” I said cautiously.
“Because I say so,” she snapped back. “That’s all you need to know for now. Just do as I tell you. Exactly as I tell you. All right?”
Father was away, but our housekeeper would expect us to behave as usual—and would, I knew, report anything amiss to Father the very moment he returned.
“Are you ill?” I asked, turning to stare at her.
“I have what feels like the beginnings of something,” she replied carefully.
I did not see why I had to remain languishing in bed just because she was poorly. And it seemed peculiar that she should wish it so.
“Well, there’s nothing wrong with me,” I told her. “So I think I ought to get up and do my chores.”
She pinched me then. Hard.
“You will stay right here,” she hissed. “Right here, or I will see you in the worst kind of trouble. Do you understand?”
I understood nothing. But she looked so odd—her face all gray and sweating—that I felt compelled to do her bidding.
By the time the housekeeper came, she was holding her stomach and biting her lips as if in mortal pain. But she kept her eyes closed, feigning sleep, while I said, exactly as she’d told me to, that we both felt “strange” (not ill, but “strange”) and in urgent need of bed rest, in a darkened room, with no fuss or bother.
The housekeeper—a simple soul—knew us to be good, obedient girls who would never dream of telling falsehoods. It worried her greatly that the two of us felt strange. Perhaps, she suggested, our father should be sent for. Or a physician.
I anticipated, then immediately felt, a sharp kick in my leg.
So, no, I assured the housekeeper. There was no need to bother anyone, least of all my father, who was so very, very busy doing the Lord’s work. All we needed, I said—remembering, just in time, that Grace wanted these things—was a pail, in case one of us should vomit; fresh linen, in case one of us should vomit and miss the pail; and a large pitcher of water to ease our thirst.
Grace kicked me a second time.
“Oh,” I added, “and the Bible, if you please, so that we may consider a psalm or two and keep our minds fixed upon the Lord until this strangeness passes.”
The housekeeper bustled away, returning some moments later with the pitcher in one hand, the pail in the other, and a bundle of fresh linen slung over one arm. Behind her came her daughter, a mute slip of a thing who helped in the kitchen sometimes, holding the household Bible reverently in both hands.
This child’s face, as she approached the bed, would have been level with Grace’s. And I can only assume that she saw something terrible in my sister’s expression—something tormented—for she jumped back with a mighty start and dropped the Lord’s book on the floor. It made a terrible thud, and our housekeeper was appalled.
“Goodness me, girl,” she cried. “Whatever made you do such a thing? Pick it up at once, and place it on the chair!”
The child did so, her hands all a-tremble and her eyes badly startled.
“Thank you,” I said. “You may leave now. We will call if we need you.”
We never did consider the psalms, Grace and I, although as the hours passed I myself pra
yed earnestly, then beseechingly, for an end to my sister’s violent affliction.
First, the sweats grew worse. Then she began to vomit. She vomited until it seemed her very heart would come up next in the pail.
“Grace!” I begged. “Let me call the housekeeper. Let Father come. Let us send for the physician. Grace, you frighten me!”
But in between bouts of dreadful sickness and pains that doubled her up, she just clung to the sheet, with her eyes tightly closed, and muttered through gritted teeth: “No! Call no one. Tell no one. It will soon pass, soon be over.”
And then, after what seemed like an eternity, it did seem to be over. The pains and the sickness eased. The sweat cooled on her brow. The sip of water she took from the pitcher stayed down, and she sank back against the bolster with a groan of what I took to be relief.
“Are yon better?” I whispered after a while. “Is it over now?”
She turned her face to the wall.
“I don’t know” she answered me. “I really cannot say.”
For both our sakes I hoped it was over. The smell in the room had grown very bad, and I was running out of sympathy.
“We’ll get up in a minute, then, shall we?” I ventured. “We’ll tell the housekeeper that we’re better now and would like our suppers, shall we? Shall we do that?”
“Shhh. Shut up.” She had not regained enough strength to kick, but she could still nip. And her mind, I sensed, was busy.
“Your hair’s all clumped together,” I said. “And your face has blotches. You look like Job afflicted with sore boils. You might have to go and scrape yourself and sit among ashes.”
“Shut. Up.”
She was thinking so fast I could almost hear her head ticking, like a clock.
“No,” I protested, when she finally spoke her mind. “No, no, no, no, no. I won’t do it. Why should I? What for? It’s a sin to lie. You can’t make me.”
“You must do as I say,” she insisted. “We might have no choice.”
And then she took one of my hands in hers and began, very gently, to stroke it.
“Let me explain,” she said. “For a start, I believe you now.”
“About what?” I replied, startled by the unexpected change in her.
“About being drawn from sleep and out to the orchard by the Devil”
“Good” I said. “Because I do not lie. I am not a liar”
“I know” she soothed, “I know you are not. You are my sister and the only living person I can really talk to and trust.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. She continued to stroke my hand. I didn’t like it. My fingers remained clenched as her voice murmured on.
The Devil, she declared, had no claim on me—yet. He had made a mistake. It was another girl he had arranged to meet that night. A girl already known to us—and to everyone else—as a lewd, foul-tempered little heathen.
The cunning woman’s granddaughter.
“But her name is Nell,” I said. “And the Devil was looking for a Mary. A Mary by God.”
“No,” Grace insisted, keeping her voice low and pleasant. “A Merrybegot. The cunning woman’s granddaughter is a Merrybegot.A ̷ a person with special powers. Dangerous powers. She came to the Bramlows’cottage while I was visiting the baby, and she told me so.”
“Oh” I said. “A Merrybegot. I see. That sounds pretty.”
I felt my sister’s hand tighten and knew she itched to slap me.
“It’s not ‘pretty.’ I’ve just told you. It’s … it’s ungodly. She is ungodly. And if Satan has her, she will be doing his work. She put this strange sickness upon me, Patience, I know she did.”
“How? How could she do that?”
“Listen. Listen to me properly!” She was really angry with me now. Her voice was weak still, from the sickness, but she pressed urgently on: “Yon heard what Father said, in church. You heard him: ‘Beware the sickening of a child, the curdling of milk, or the failing of a crop.’ The sickening of a child, Patience. That’s me. And ‘Beware one who wishes you ill!’ That’s her, isn’t it? You remember how she flew at me, the day she came into our house? You remember what she said, about a bee leaving its sting behind? She is a witch, that girl She is in league with the Devil and wants my soul. And you will be next. Imagine it, sister. Imagine the two of us burning forever in the fires of Hell. Imagine—”
“Stop!” I cried “Stop it.”
It was too much. My head was spinning with images of bee stings, curdled milk, and hellfire.
“It’s your choice,” sneered Grace, throwing my hand aside as if it bored or disgusted her. “I’m only trying to help. For you are probably in far more danger than I, anyway. Far more, since you have conversed with the Devil already—had quite a cozy chat, in fact. For all we know, your stupid … little … soul is already half wheedled, and all it will take is a little tug.”
My soul, I can assure you, was never in the slightest bit of danger. But I did not know that then, and I was frightened.
“I’ll do it,” I moaned. “If what you tell me is truly so, I will do whatever you say.”
“Good;” she said. “Then listen carefully.”
AUGUST 1645
It is spawning time for the piskies. In ditches, hedgerows, and hollow trees they make temporary nests of nettles and grass and drop their litters—one, two, three. Newborn piskies look like something you would scrape off your shoe, holding your nose while you did so. But their mothers love them, fiercely.
“Never pick early blackberries in the lanes,” the villagers warn their children. “For them piskie mothers will bite off your fingers should you get too close to their offspring.”
Normally this would be a tranquil time in the village. For the harvest is approaching, the apples are almost ripe for the picking, and days of fine weather are as mellow and golden as days in England ever get.
But nyit, nyit, nyit squeak scores of wizened little turd-shapes, turning still-blind eyes toward the light and sniffing, with learner-nostrils, at the barrage of information hanging in the air—information so troubled and dangerous that it tingles their newborn senses like a slight electric shock.
The blacksmith’s son has gone to do his duty by the King. He strode away early one morning, with a sprig of mugwort in his shoe to prevent weariness while walking and a fresh borage flower in his pocket for courage. Had he found the nerve to show his face at the cunning woman’s cottage before leaving, she might, perhaps, have given him a charm—a snippet of vervain, charged by the Powers of the south to enable a soldier to escape his enemies. It might even have saved his life.
Ordinarily people would have wondered why the lad went so suddenly—or even at all. For he had never expressed Royalist sympathies before or shown a particular inclination toward anything much besides idleness and frolicking.
But there is something else going on that makes Sam Towsers departure hardly worth remarking on. Something truly sinister, which the villagers are trying hard to comprehend.
Silas Denby has barely touched his food since that fateful night when his guts erupted like molten lava and he believed himself as good as dead.
“’Twas like the cavorting of devils in my belly,” he tells anyone who will listen. “The worst kind of torment. The very worst.” He will never be a shadow of his former self, this man, but his face is no longer ruddy, and his skin hangs that bit looser on his bones, like a badly fitted suit.
His wife is worried about him.
“Eat!” she commands, banging roasted rabbits, bowls of whey, and a cheese the size of her own head down in front of him.
“No,” he growls. “For if there be devils in my belly, best I starve the boggers out.”
Mistress Denby does not like this kind of talk.
“The cunning woman’s purge,” she confides to a neighbor, “has done my man no good at all. He be all of a rumble still and uneasy in his mind. It troubles me, neighbor, it troubles me greatly.”
The neighbor is a Watcher. G
ravely, she leans across the gate to whisper in Mistress Denbys ear.
“Never!” exclaims Mistress Denby. “The ministers daughters? Never!”
The Watcher nods.
“What does it mean, neighbor?” Mistress Denbys voice is low. This is gossip of the first order, and no piskie must overhear it. If one does, it will summon its friends, and her garden will be thick with the wretched things—all eating her cabbages and tormenting her hens while they listen out for further bulletins.
The Watcher’s eyes gleam moistly.
She leans forward again, to whisper some more.
Mistress Denbys face turns as pale as parchment. “If this be so,” she murmurs, “then we must be vigilant. We must all be Watchers, neighbor. Our very souls may depend upon it.”
It is Mistress Bramlow who brings the gossip to the cunning woman’s cottage. She also brings baby Amos, for he is ailing still and so listless that he seems more like a tired old man than a four-month child.
Nell answers the door.
“Sweetling!” she beams, holding out her arms to take the baby from his mother. He goes to her happily, as if he too remains aware of their tingling moment of connection, before he fell into the world.
Mistress Bramlow is glad to give him up for a moment and to sit quietly in the cool, bittersweet-scented shadows, resting her feet.
There are mounds of flowers and grasses on the floor, waiting to be sorted and dried. It is the month for picking dill, mustard, larksfoot, and angelica. Mistress Bramlow knows that much and can recognize what is there. It is the art that transforms these things into magical charms and potions that is beyond her understanding. And the way things are going, that is probably just as well.
“Where’s your granny, Nell?” she asks.
Nell looks up from rocking the baby. “Up there,” she says, jerking her head toward the roof space. “Asleep. She be … she be tired after a long night herb-gathering.”
Mistress Bramlow nods. Her face is both sweet and serious.
I wish I could tell you, Nell thinks to herself, I wish I could let you know that my granny’s mind be so wispy nowadays that the simplest spell or remedy be like something spilled in her head—all spilled and spoiled and trickling away. But I cannot tell you. I cannot tell anyone. Not yet. For without payment for what we do, we would not survive. And I do not know enough, just yet—I have not practiced enough—to do everything alone. I am too young. It is too soon. I dont want to.
