by Julie Hearn
“Bah!” this one spits, shaking fists like rotten apples in the general direction of the housekeeper’s face region.
“Answer the question,” insists the housekeeper. “As you be honor-bound to. Will I be rich by and by?”
“Honor-bound, my arse!” snarls the piskie woman, swatting away more bits of unwanted information like invisible flies. “And better ye be a witch than a bitch getting rich any day, any era, any lifetime. Eh? Eh? Throw that in your purse and clink it. Stick that in a pie and bake it. Snitch. Traitor. Causer of sorrow.”
And with a final defiant wave of its arms and a stamp of one gnarled and filthy foot, it is gone—deep into the rotting, seeding mess of thistles and back to its nest.
Well, thinks the housekeeper, staring crossly at the place where the nasty little thing had been. Thanks be for nothing. Thanks be for no answer at all.
There is no time to summon it back. The minister and the witch-finder will be wondering where she has got to. So she hurries on, wincing a little from the pain in her leg. She might need a salve, she realizes, if the skin is broken. A special salve, a magical salve, to heal a piskie bite. Only the cunning woman or her granddaughter would know how to mix such a thing. The irony of that is not entirely lost on the minister’s housekeeper, so she smiles, a little ruefully, as she limps round to the back of the house, to the door used by servants and other lowly people.
Nell is not at home when the men burst in and take her granny away. She is up in the orchard, picking the last few apples from the oldest tree. For as long as she or anyone else can remember, it has been customary for the village healer and midwife to take these last fruits of summer to use for spells and potions. So she has left her granny dozing and come by herself to perform the necessary ritual.
If she is honest, she is glad to be out of the cottage for a while. It can get very stuffy in there, with the air full of smoke and the acrid pong of boiling leaves—and lonely, too, now that her granny’s mind is all but gone.
Up here in the orchard she feels cheerier, even though there is nobody else around. She has spent a while just dreaming, with her back against the oldest tree and the autumn sunshine warming her kindly. Now the tree itself seems to lean toward her, in a generous mood, as she reaches for its remaining fruits
“Thank’ee,” she murmurs before twisting each apple from the knobble of its stem and placing it carefully in her basket. Higher up she can see a great globe of mistletoe. She will come back for some of that, she thinks, when the moon is right, and twist it into pocket-size charms for keeping lightning, the pox, or bitter imaginings away.
Higher still, among the tree’s topmost branches, there is something else. A little knot of palest pink at the tip of a twig. Blossom. Unseasonal yet unmistakable.
Nell frowns. It is a bad omen for a tree to bear flowers and fruit at the same time. It tells of death—and untimely death, at that. Nell shivers and decides to go home.
She is over the stile and halfway down the lane when she sees Mistress Bramlow staggering toward her, her dark skirts bunched up in her hands to make running easier.
Amos, Nell supposes wildly.
And as she cries out the baby’s name she drops her basket—she can’t help it—sending apples rolling in all directions, bumping and rolling and bruising their skins, so they will be completely useless after all for healing or magical purposes.
Mistress Bramlow has reached her now and is grabbing at her hands, saying, “No … no … not Amos. Not the baby. It’s your granny, Nell. Something bad … Jack tried to stop it. He told them …”
She is gasping and gabbling in distress, so that Nell cannot tell … cannot understand …
“Tell me,” she wails. “What’s happened? Is she … is she … ?”
Mistress Bramlow moans softly and shakes her head. She was not there for the dunking. She didn’t see, but her Jack has told her everything, so she can picture it clear enough. Those men, the roughest louts in the village, dragging the cunning woman through the fields and into the thick of the wood … The catcalls of mothers and the shrill echoes of children as the blacksmith slung a rope around the old woman’s middle and tied her the correct way—left thumb to right toe, right thumb to left toe, so that her arms formed the shape of the holy cross.
And then the splash as they threw her into the pond … ripples of green scum and just a few bubbles breaking the surface as she sank.
She can picture the Watchers, clumped among the bulrushes, their eyes fixed greedily on the water … and other faces, craning and peering, waiting for the cunning woman’s trussed and broken body to bob up, so they could shriek at her, and jab her with sticks, and hand her over to the witch-finder.
She can imagine the silence—charged, at first, with a shared and vicious excitement, but altering, as time passed, and one or two folk began shifting their feet in the smelly mud, and a child’s voice, sweet as a bird’s, cried out: “Where is she?”
Then: “Enough!” her Jack had dared to shout, grabbing the rope from the blacksmith’s fist and bracing himself to pull.
And nobody had argued, or shoved him away, or spoken any more about devils in their bellies or young girls spitting pins. Shame-faced at last, the very men who had hauled the cunning woman from her bed and bullied her to the brink of the pond had caught hold of the rope themselves and tugged and strained as if the love of their lives lay submerged at the end of it.
And just when it had seemed, to horrified onlookers, that the cunning woman must surely be wedged down there, whatever was holding her fast had given way and let her rise.
Splashing and wading, making as much noise as possible to cover their guilt and their shame, the men had gone into the pond and brought her out. No one had thought to bring a blanket. No one had thought of anything much beyond the thrill of trapping a witch.
So they had just landed her, like some ancient mermaid; cut the thongs from her broken thumbs and toes and prodded her nervously for signs of life.
At first they had thought her as dead as a fish. But …
“She lives, Nell. She lives. Only … the shock of it … and all the water that she swallowed … and her already frail—”
Mistress Bramlow is holding Nell like one of her own daughters, soothing her as best she can, while preparing her at the same time for what will surely come to pass as a result of such a terrible day’s business.
But the instant she hears that her granny is not dead, not drowned at the end of the blacksmith’s rope, not killed or murdered after all … as soon as she can be certain of that, at least, Nell snaps out of her stupefied stillness and runs like the Power of the wind straight down the hill and—bang—in through the cottage door, beneath the quivering mass of honeysuckle, across to the ladder, and up.
Granny … Oh, my granny.
The cunning woman, brought home in a wheelbarrow and bundled quickly, expediently, up the ladder and back into bed, is lying on her side, staring, just staring at the turnip-shaped hole in the thatch.
Someone—Mistress Bramlow, perhaps—has peeled off her wet, stinking clothes, wrapped her in the coverlet, and bandaged her broken thumbs. But one look is all it takes for Nell to understand that what has been done to her granny may never be healed. For it has broken her spirit as well as her bones, and it has blown the few remaining threads of her sanity clean away.
Standing there unrecognized, Nell waits to feel something—pain, rage, anything. But all she feels, for now, is numb. It is nature’s way, she knows, of protecting the heart and mind from great despair. And in truth, she is relieved to feel so little, for it enables her to think more clearly about what to do, which herbs and spells to use to try to make her granny better.
Quietly, methodically, for the remainder of the day she does what she can, using all the skills at her fingertips and every magical word in her head. But all the while the cunning woman continues to stare vacantly upward, her breathing growing more and more labored as the turnip-shaped piece of sky turns from blu
e to mauve and then to night.
And as the air grows chillier and the roof space dark, Nell lights a candle, climbs stiffly down the ladder, and calls to the dun chicken. It waddles obediently from under the bench, hoping for a worm.
“You daft thing,” Nell murmurs, picking it up. The familiar warmth of it and the noise of its clucking weaken whatever it is that is keeping her going. But just as she fears she might break down and cry, the sound of someone outside—someone trying not to be heard—stiffens her spine. It will be another villager, leaving something at the door. A honeycomb … a dish of plums … a peace offering, anyway, to ease a troubled conscience. They have been coming all afternoon, the villagers, and well into the evening—too ashamed to knock or to talk, but sorry, deeply sorry, for what they have done.
Nell waits, holding the chicken close to her heart, until whoever it is has gone away. The piskies can take whatever has been left, and welcome. She herself would only spit on it and leave it to rot.
Back under the roof space she kneels down beside the pallet and tucks the dun chicken under the coverlet. It doesn’t wriggle or protest. It seems to understand. And after a moment or two the cunning woman turns her cold cheek to rest upon its feathers, and Nell feels her own pulse quicken with hope.
“Granny?” she whispers.
Slowly, the cunning woman focuses, and recognizes, and smiles something like her old smile, and Nell knows one moment of blessed relief.
Until: “Fetch … my … box,” the cunning woman rasps, in a voice so small, it can barely be heard.
No.
Nell doesn’t have to ask which box her granny means or where it is kept. She knows. She has always known. But she stays where she is, as if she hasn’t heard properly or doesn’t understand. Only a jutting of her lower lip and a flash of hurt in her eyes show she understood precisely.
No.
“Fetch … it,” the cunning woman rasps again. Her breathing is dreadful, but her mind has rallied itself for this one last task, and she is not to be argued with.
All right.
There is a big lump in Nell’s throat, like a lodged crust, and a tightness in her chest as she reels blindly down the ladder again and across to the secret place. Sorrow and fury bubble and swill in her, like two potent ingredients that dont mix, and her fingers feel like a bunch of traitors as they fasten on the box.
It shouldn’t be this way, she thinks, her heart bumping, her hands dithering. One day, inevitably, her granny will die. But not now. Not like this. Not because a group of cruel, ignorant boggers have wished it so. Not broken and shamed, with the stench of the pond still about her and smears of weed lodged deep in her ears and lungs.
No.
It shouldn’t be this way. It doesn’t have to be this way.
And Nell’s fingers pass over the box. And when she returns to the roof space, she is holding the fairybaby’s caul in its wrapper of leaves and silently thanking the Powers that she didn’t use it after all for Grace Madden’s unborn.
The cunning woman recognizes the package in her granddaughter’s hands and grins weakly, to know herself so greatly loved. Nell is thrilled and relieved to see her granny’s face light up so. For it surely means that her mind is working enough to understand and take pleasure in this amazing piece of fairy magic—in this incredible piece of stuff that is going to save her life.
“I think it just needs to be laid on you, like a plaster,” she whispers. “I’ll spread it on your forehead, shall I? And call on the Powers for good measure. It never hurts to call on the Powers for good measure, does it? Or maybe just the Powers of earth will be enough … enough to ground you, I mean. To keep you here—”
No.
There is no need for the cunning woman to speak the word. It is written in every line of her face, in the stubborn set of her jaw and the stillness of her bandaged hands upon the coverlet. It is hanging in the air, that word, like an obstinate moth.
And Nell realizes that she has misread her granny’s response. This act—this extraordinary, lifesaving act—is not welcome after all.
“I’m not listening to you,” she mutters, plucking hastily at the leafy packaging that’s keeping the caul intact. “I’m in charge here. I’m the healer now, and I know what’s best. So you just lie there, and let me do my job, all right? You taught me, Granny. You taught me to do everything I can to make a body well again. So that’s what I’m doing. I’m just doing my job.”
The caul is out of its wrappings and drifting between her fingers, so wispy, so fragile, she fears it might disintegrate before it can be used.
All she has to do is lean forward and place it on her granny’s cooling skin. That’s all she has to do.
But the cunning woman’s mouth is working. “No,” it croaks. “Save it … save the caul … Not right … for me. I’m ready to go … girl. You mustn’t—”
“I’m not listening,” Nell sobs. But her fingers are shaking so much that she cannot—dare not—lift the caul from her lap, in case it tears. And the cunning woman’s will is like a force field between them, keeping the magic away. And the stupid, stupid chicken is craning its head from under the coverlet and going peck, peck, peck, as if the caul were some tasty morsel that it would shred in a trice, given half a chance and a better angle.
“I’ll rip it up, then!” Nell shrieks. “I mean it, Granny. There’s no one else will ever deserve it so. No one!”
But even as she raves, she knows she will do no such thing. Already the caul feels useless in her hands, and the moment for it has passed.
The cunning woman waits while she weeps, allows her as long as she needs to let go of the hope she had pinned on the power of the caul and to accept that the wish of a tired, hurt, old woman to drift away with dignity must be respected.
Then: “Fetch … the … box,” she says for a third and final time.
And the urge to rant and wail goes away. Nell actually feels it lift as she does as she is told. Later she will give in to a great pile of anger and more tears than she ever thought two eyes could hold. But she knows enough about time and about magic to understand that the next few hours—the last she will ever spend with her granny—can be made fleeting or endless, ordinary or incredible, depending on how she shapes them.
And so it is that with the candlelight flickering and the dun chicken pulling a loose thread from the coverlet—too stupid to realize it isn’t a worm—Nell snuggles close enough to her granny to make her feel warm and loved, without clinging or imposing her own desperate wish to keep her near forever, and waits for her own mind to be quiet.
And eventually, it is. And as the cunning woman slips in and out of different stages of drifting away, the hour, the year, and whatever is or isn’t happening beyond the walls of the tumbledown cottage no longer matter.
It’s like a birth, Nell thinks. A birth in reverse.
And just as she would anticipate the final stage of labor, she instinctively knows when the time has come to let go of her granny’s hand and open the box.
The lid is stiff, but when it gives, Nell can see that the things inside have neither rusted nor mildewed nor been eaten by insects, for all they have been hidden away for so long.
She holds a warning hand out to keep the dun chicken from investigating, but it is roosting quietly in the crook between the cunning woman’s neck and shoulder and doesn’t even turn its stupid head.
“Yours now, girl,” the cunning woman murmurs. “Only, keep … box … hidden … Dangerous times still … Keep … safe.”
“I will,” Nell replies gently. “I promise.” And she touches her granny’s things—her things now—with a mixture of sadness and awe. The knotted cord for measuring an enchanted circle. The goblet with the rim of jeweled stars. The silver knife for drawing down the moon. The box of salt, to keep powers of evil away.
And something else. Something she did not expect to find, since her granny has never mentioned it to her.
“What’s this for, Granny?” she asks,
not wanting to misuse it one day, out of ignorance.
The cunning woman has drifted a long way off now. It is a struggle to come back, but she hears and remembers.
“Found it,” she whispers. “In the … garden.”
Nell is turning the object in her fingers, close to the candle flame so that it sparkles and glints.
“It’s beautiful,” she sighs. “But how did it get into our garden? Someone must have dropped it.”
And the cunning woman holds on, although the patterns in her head and what feels very much like the powers of the air are pulling her to go. And in a swirl of images, scents, and sounds she sees again the woman from over the border, dancing in the May Eve circle. Dancing, laughing, then whirling away, away, the clasp on her cloak flashing vivid green in the firelight.
Dropped it. Yes. Must have done. Long ago, though … a long, long time ago.
And far away—from far away now—she watches her granddaughter’s wise little face recede … sees emeralds flash as if the jeweled frog Nell holds in her hand is about to leap.
Important … something important … still to say …
But how did it get into our garden?
Precious, precious girl …
And as everything fades … as the Powers move her gently onward, the cunning woman clings for just a few seconds more to the time and the place she has known, and she says:
“Hers … Nell … The clasp. It belonged … to … your mother.”
The Confession of Patience Madden
THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 1692
It was easier said than done, acting as usual, while we waited to see how Father and the Lord intended to trap the witch. I might have managed better had I not been so worried about the change in Grace—a change I truly believed to be the result of some wicked enchantment.
