by Julie Hearn
Silas Denby intends to get roaring drunk.
It has been a wet, sorrowful day. And as dusk falls, the shapes of things—trees, scarecrows, hedges—darken and drip and seem ready to walk.
Nell has been busy. She has cleaned the cottage from top to bottom, prepared a syrup of angelica stalks to cure coughs and colds over the winter, and spent quality time with the dun chicken. She knows full well what night this is and intends to mark it properly with a ritual.
The jar of ointment she will need sits ready and waiting beside the cauldron. The top of it is sealed with a pig’s bladder and marked with a black cross. The black cross means the contents are baneful and must be used sparingly. Belladonna, hemp, and other secret ingredients, shredded, powdered, and steeped in hog’s lard, buried for a year and a day, and charged by the Powers of the north.
Flying ointment.
Nell is going to fly.
Matthew Hopkins, Witch-finder General, is polishing his boots. The minister’s housekeeper would have done it, but he is a meticulous man and likes the job done properly. It doesn’t matter that in a few hours’ time both the boots and the hem of his expensive cloak will be splattered with mud. It is part of his personal ritual to look as imposing as possible before setting out to trap a witch.
He could, of course, ride out to the cunning woman’s cottage on horseback. But it is important that he walk the whole way, carrying a lantern as big as a pumpkin and accompanied by the minister. It is important that he get noticed passing through the village and that as many people as possible decide to join along. Witnesses, all …
The witch-finder has no idea what the cunning woman’s granddaughter will be doing when he reaches her, but even if she is merely sleeping, he has enough evidence now to condemn whatever she is up to as diabolical. She could be eating a bowl of stew, and he will say there is human flesh on her spoon. She could be mending a dress, and he will denounce her for wishing to look her best for Satan.
On the washstand, beside the witch-finders honey-water hair tonic, silver ear pick, and a small pot of tooth powder, lies the dun chickens feather. When the witch-finder is ready, he will slip it into a cloth pouch, along with the roll of parchment upon which he has written the testimonies of the minister’s daughters and enough other information to make the case watertight.
The minister had been keen to include his elder daughter in the night’s affairs, for the mere sight of the cunning woman’s granddaughter on All Hallows’ Eve would send her into a frenzy for certain. But the witch-finder did not think her presence was necessary. There might be womenfolk looking on who would take one glance at Grace Madden’s belly and make awkward connections. Best she stays out of sight—tonight and for what he calculates to be another three months, at least.
The younger daughter, though …
Easing on his boots, the witch-finder thinks of Patience Madden. A strange, fanciful child, not altogether correct in the head. Pious, though, and obedient to her father. It will do no harm, he decides, to have her in tow. At least her belly is flat.
Colors. Flashes of amber and topaz against the cottage walls. And voices. Women’s voices calling, “Hellooooo … here you are!” The sound is as jumbled yet as sweet as a chorus of blackbirds, cuckoos, and wood pigeons on a spring morning.
Lying prone in the firelight, tingling from head to toe, Nell feels the sweat breaking on her, counts the escalating beats of her heart, and tells herself not to panic.
No evil … no evil Safe as anything, surely? For I have sprinkled salt … called on all the Powers for protection … and placed the silver knife just so, with the blade pointing south.
Uncertain how much of the ointment to use, she was sparing with it at first, rubbing just the teeniest blob onto her wrists and the base of her throat, where the pulses are, before lying down next to the hearth. Better, she knew, to be out in the elements to experience fully the exhilaration of this flying ritual. But because she is alone and scared of being seen, she has made do with leaving the cottage door open, so the wind and the rain can blow in. The fire is raging so fiercely that nothing will put it out. The dun chicken, for fear of being roasted, has retreated under the bench.
Tradition also required Nell to be naked: sky-clad as nature made her. But being by herself with the door open made her wary of going that far. As a compromise, she has slipped her granny’s dress over her bare skin, fastening the loose folds across her breast with the jeweled frog.
For a long time—too long, it seemed to her—she just lay there, waiting to feel something, while the chicken grumbled hotly across the room.
“Bogger this,” she muttered eventually, reaching out for the jar of ointment.
Too much.
She has larded too much of the stuff onto herself. Impatiently, foolishly, convinced that she knew what she was doing—that a smidgen more wouldn’t hurt—she has let such a powerful, baneful dose of herbs into her system that she is flying, all right: looping the loop like a crazy thing, while her body lies drugged and rigid on the ground.
And the colors and the women’s voices are just the start of it all—like sailing out of a choppy harbor, feeling just a little queasy, but not unduly worried until you’re out there on the open seas, fighting a storm.
No wonder the ones with the Knowledge—the women taken as witches—spoke of wild dancing and demons and leaping flames when required to confess what happened when they flew. For this is a trip of the most terrifying kind, so weird yet so utterly believable that to suffer it is to know yourself at the mercy of whatever devils your mind cares to spit in your face.
And so Nell, flying higher and wilder than she ever intended this night, sees fairies swarming and dead babies by the score …
Looks down from a great height upon the cauldron to find it full of wasps and earthworms, discussing a surefire cure for the pox …
Follows the ghost of her mother up the chimney and away over the moors, until the lovely, misty figure turns into a hare, thumps its hind feet, and disappears …
Weaves among the trunks of apple trees, touching wet bark and the rough shape of a heart …
Hears the dun chicken squawk a warning … sees it kicked by a boot, a highly polished boot with a silver spur on the heel … watches it flap and scuttle, dazed and bleeding, out of the doorway and into the night while other boots take aim at its stupid head and rough voices call it an “imp” and a “devil.”
Real. This last bit seems horribly real. But it cannot be. It cannot be.
Can it?
“She’s wearing the clasp!” a girls voice cries out. “The witch is wearing my mothers clasp—the one she stole to work her spells with! The one she is using to harm my sister! She is using it now! Stop her! Stop her!”
And because she cannot speak, because she is still flying, Nell offers no resistance when the minister hauls her body up and sits it on a stool. Nor does she struggle when he and the man with the silver spurs tie her body with rope, to stop it keeling over.
Swooping and soaring she is … a little bumpily now … but still enough to have no clear idea at all about what is really happening.
Only when a clammy hand reaches out to tear the jeweled frog away does she come to her senses enough to respond—instinctively and automatically.
“Devil’s spawn!” cries the minister, jumping away. “She bit me!”
And his face is truly a parsnip. A pale root with a hat on. And because, in Nell’s drug-glazed eyes, he is just a vegetable, with tendrils for fingers and toes, it seems perfectly reasonable to have taken a chunk out of him. Reasonable and funny—very, very funny.
“Into the pot!” Nell cries, her voice rasping and peculiar as it returns to her throat. “Into the pot you go, and I will have you for my supper.”
And as she sits and rocks with laughter—between the worlds still and beyond the bounds of time—the Watchers press forward in gleeful fascination. And even those villagers who did not want to believe, who had come to see fair play and w
ould have sent the witch-finder packing had he overstepped the mark—even they can only gawp, openmouthed, before melting away, hurrying home as quickly as possible lest one look or word from the cunning woman’s gibbering granddaughter should endanger their own precious souls.
Home they go, to bolt their doors, check on their children, and drink cider to calm their nerves. For Satan is abroad this All Hallows’ Eve, and the minister was right all along. There is a witch among them. Young Nell is a witch. And the sooner she admits to it, the better.
The Confession of Patience Madden
THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 1692
It took three nights and two days, so ’twas rumored, for the cunning woman’s granddaughter to be trapped. I was there, on All Hallows’Eve, when my father and the witch-finder went to her. Half the village was there, actually. It was a spectacle.
The poor girl was fair terrified. Her chicken flew at the witch-finder, and he kicked it away. I expected it to change shape or to curse, since it was supposed to be an imp in disguise. But it just ran away, squawking in pain and alarm. Only a bird after all. Only a fat old hen, its side slit by the witch-finder’s spur.
I stayed by the open door throughout the proceedings and said nothing. I just listened and watched. Was this girl really so powerful that she could make someone’s belly swell like dough? She didn’t look it.
My sister had remained at home. I thought that strange. I had expected her to jump at the chance of seeing the witch and her familiar get their comeuppance. She always did like to gloat. I thought she would have wanted to be there, among us, in case the witch repented and took the bloating sickness from her there and then.
I know now, of course, exactly why she stayed away—why she dared not show her belly in public.
What a goose I was. What an innocent fool.
The cunning woman’s granddaughter got tied to a stool. Then the witch-finder read out the charges against her:
That on May Morning, the year of our Lord 1645, she did use vile witchcraft to beguile Sam Towser, the son of John Towser (blacksmith), so that he became aimless and distracted about his work and did leave the village unexpectedly, with no word come from him since.
That in July 1645 she did conspire with her grandmother, Eleanor Thwaite (deceased), to bring a wasting sickness upon Silas Denby (farmhand).
That sometime between April and August 1645 she did enter the home of Elias Madden (minister) and steal from there an emerald and ruby clasp, which she did use for the purposes of vile witchcraft.
That on August 9, 1645, she did call upon the minister’s daughters, Grace and Patience Madden, and finding them abed and ailing, did use vile witchcraft to inflict further sickness upon Grace Madden.
That she did consort with an imp, being in the shape of a dun chicken, and did use its feathers for the purposes of vile witchcraft.
The cunning woman’s granddaughter did not admit or deny these things. She seemed dazed. So the witch-finder announced that he would stay for as long as it took for her to respond to the charges. And he chose a woman from the village to remain with him as a witness. The rest of us, he sent home.
What transpired that night and over the two days and two more nights that followed, I cannot fully account for. But I can well imagine what the cunning woman’s granddaughter suffered, and as the Lord is my witness, I am sorry for it.
She was watched. I know that much. Kept tied to the stool, denied sleep, victuals, and water, and watched for signs that the Devil had her. Stubborn, though. She was mighty stubborn, that girl, and would not break or speak or give an inch, for all she must have been weak with hunger and thirst and half crazed from lack of sleep.
’Tis said her familiar dragged itself through the open doorway at dawn on the third day and that she screamed at it to stay away. To fly, to run, to hide. And that the witch-finder went after it, speaking the Lord’s words as he prepared to stamp on its neck.
And ’twas then the girl broke down, all stubborness gone.
Our housekeeper could scarce keep the excitement from her voice as she brought news of all this to my sister and me. It was early morning, four days after All Hallows’Eve, and we must have been the last to know. I saw a mist hanging cold and gray beyond the window of our bedchamber. I watched the housekeeper licking her lips as if the information spilling from them was sticky and sweet.
“Has she confessed?” Grace demanded. “Has the witch confessed to planting the Devil’s spawn inside me?”
“She must have done “the housekeeper replied. “She must have confessed to everything. For the witch-finder is well satisfied and eating a hearty breakfast.”
“Good,” said Grace.
I cleared my throat.
“What’s the Devil’s spawn?” I asked.
A look flashed between Grace and the housekeeper.
Then: “All in good timem,” my sister answered, almost kindly. “I cannot talk of it while the witch lives. But I will explain it to you in due course.”
I let the matter lie, content that I had not been rebuffed or pinched for my curiosity.
“What happened to the chicken?” I asked instead.
The housekeeper said she didn’t know. “But ’tis said the witch bears the familiar’s marks, all right” she told us. “Raised red spots where that fat chicken did suck her blood.”
They could have been flea bites, those marks. They could have been any kind of rash. But I needed to hear, and to believe, that they were truly the Devil’s brands. For to think otherwise as I lay safe in my bed, was to know myself part of a scheme to trap an innocent girl.
After the housekeeper had gone to ply the witch-finder with more porridge and ale, I got up and began dressing. Grace stayed in bed. She had permission because of the bloating.
We said nothing further to each other about any of it. I, for one, did not want to dwell a moment longer upon the things that had happened to the cunning woman’s granddaughter. I particularly did not want to think about the next thing—the very last thing—that was going to happen to her now that she had been trapped.
I just wanted my sister back to the way she was. I wanted everything to be all right.
You believe me, don’t you, brothers? You are trusting in what I say? For I am a God-fearing woman and have never born false witness in my life.
NOVEMBER 1645
The piskies are angry. Mutinous. Fit to bite the ankle regions of anyone foolish enough to walk too close to their nesting places. How can they sleep? How can anything possibly sleep with so much tension in the air?
And now the banging.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Every thud shakes the plugs in their nostrils and brings information so tantalizing that even the offspring, who would usually hibernate through anything, cannot ignore it.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
It isn’t even all that close, this din. It’s coming from the crossroads, a good walk from the village. And if it was simply a carpenter making a cradle or a farmer mending a barn door, it would barely register.
But this is no cradle or door being hammered together. It is a gallows pole. And that, for most piskies, is impossible to ignore.
Away up the hill the minister’s housekeeper is making whitpot, a pudding of bread, cream, eggs, currants, and spices. It is comfort food. It will make everyone feel warmer. She, too, hears the banging drifting on the wind and stops what she is doing to cross herself.
In the parlor the minister’s daughters are putting the final stitches in their samplers.
“What’s that noise?” asks the younger one, looking up.
“Nothing,” Grace Madden replies. “Just the wind howling in the trees.”
But her thimble has fallen from her finger to roll upon the floor, and she can feel her Merrybegot kicking and kicking inside her, as if it knows its mother for a deceiver and a murderess.
“Liar,” says the younger girl before snipping carefully through a wisp of red thread.
Grace Madden stares across at her sister,
and for no reason she can recognize, feels suddenly afraid.
“Don’t call me a liar,” she says, speaking fast and clenching her cold fists to ease the strange and sudden fear. “For you are the biggest liar in this house. You have been dreaming up falsehoods all your life—and speaking them, too, when it suits your purpose. You know you have. You cannot deny it.”
Patience Madden shrugs to show she doesn’t care a fig what her sister or anyone else says about the tales she can weave in her head or speak aloud if she has to.
Then: “What do you think?” she asks, holding up her finished sampler.
Grace Madden considers the work. It has all the right stitches in it—buttonhole, braid, chain, overlapping herringbone, satin, tent, cross and half cross, long-stemmed cross and Italian cross—but is hardly a thing of beauty. The unicorn is misshapen, and the border of lilies and moths is ill-spaced and puckered.
The text in the center, painstakingly worked in funereal black, reads:
DEATH LIKE AN OVERFLOWING STREAM SWEEPS US AWAY—OUR LIFE’S A DREAM
Grace Madden shivers and reaches for her thimble. The baby in her belly has gone very still. The hanging will be the day after tomorrow, a Monday. She will be kept away and so will Patience, and for that, at least, she is grateful.
“I cannot tell for the life of me what your unicorn is,” she says sullenly to her sister. “It could be anything. It could be a dog playing a trumpet or a white cow with a hat on.”
“I don’t care,” the younger girl replies gaily. “I don’t care what it looks like. It’s done and that’s that.”
Bang! Bang! Bang!
“Now I’ll tell you a story,” Patience Madden says to her sister. “About the witch Jezebel, who was thrown from a tower so that her blood splattered and sprinkled the wall. And lo and behold, they went to bury her, because she was a king’s daughter, but found no more of her than the skull, the feet, and the palms of the hands….”
Across the hall the minister is shut away in his study, going over the words he will recite at the foot of the gallows pole. The emerald and ruby frog sits on his desk, glinting at him. The girl gave it up eventually, when she had no spirit remaining to fight for it and no strength left to bite.
