Origins s-11

by Cate Tiernan

  Makeshift trials. Hangings. Witches burned at the stake.

  And so every week my mother and I knelt in this church, our heads bowed, our hands folded. We pretended to practice Presbyterianism so that we might avoid the fate suffered by other members of the Seven Clans who had been persecuted for practicing magick, for worshiping the Goddess. The puritanical wave that had been moving through Scotland had claimed many a life. The toll across the land was frightening, with tales of so many witches persecuted, most of them women.

  Just last year a woman from our own coven, a gentle wisp of a lass named Fionnula, had been found killing a peahen with a bolline marked with runes. Those of us who knew her understood that the hen was not intended as an offering to the Goddess but as a very necessary meal. Still, the townspeople could not see beyond the fact of the strange markings on the small knife she used to kill the bird. Fionnula had been charged with sacrifice and worshipping the devil.

  I lifted my eyes to the altar, staring at the robed back of the murmuring reverend who had been so instrumental in Fionnula’s fate. At her trial Reverend Winthrop had testified that the young woman missed his sermon every week, defying the Christian God. He had called her a vassal of Satan.

  I clenched my hands, recalling the horrified look in Fionnula’s eyes as she was sentenced to death. Christians had come from nearby villages to witness the trial—a ghastly spectacle in these parts—and although every Wodebayne had wanted to save her, no one spoke in her defense. ’Twas far too dangerous.

  The following day she was hanged as a witch.

  Sometimes when I catch suspicious gestures of the townspeople—a curious stare or a whispered comment—I can’t help but recall the fear in Fionnula’s dark eyes. Her execution brought a new veil of secrecy to our circles. More rules passed down by my mother, who was sometimes a bit overbearing in her role as high priestess. Ma wanted me to see less of my friend Meara, a kind girl who loved to laugh but was born into a staid Presbyterian family. Everyone in the coven had been warned to take great care in all their associations, whether it be trading baked goods for mutton or simply washing garments in the brook. No one outside our all-Wodebayne coven was to be trusted.

  Tools were to be well hidden and guarded by spells that made them unnoticeable. Skyclad circles were no longer safe, and when we gathered for an Esbat or a sabbat circle, coveners went into the woods in small groups of two. We were so afraid of being caught that we tried not to be seen gathering together at market or in the village—nothing beyond a cordial greeting. And now every member of the coven attended church every Sunday.

  We were prisoners in our own village. By night we practiced our craft in secret. By day we played at being just like the rest of the townspeople.

  The injustice of it fired up a fury within me. That my mother—Síle, high priestess of our coven—should have to kneel amid their wooden pews. It was a travesty, to be sure. Just one of the heavy burdens upon my shoulders, making me feel like a trapped animal in a dark sack that was closing in around me. There were so many rules governing my world. I had to hide the fact that I was a blood witch from the townsfolk. I had to avoid contact with other clans, whose members considered themselves our rivals although we were all witches and worshipped the same Goddess. (This was a tedious war, I felt, but I had been told the rivalry among the Seven Clans had worn on through many generations.) I had to make entries into my Book of Shadows, gather and dry herbs, learn to make healing tonics and candles, bless and inscribe my own tools.

  Aye, the life of Rose MacEwan was filled with constraints. Was it any wonder that I felt suffocated by them?

  When I thought of what would make me happy, the answer was not forthcoming. I wasn’t quite sure of my own heart’s desire; however, I knew that my destiny was not to spend the rest of my life concocting spells and practicing witchcraft secretly in this remote, provincial village.

  At last the prayers ended and townsfolk began to file out of the church. I waded into the aisle, hoping to catch Kyra before her parents whisked her back to their cottage. Kyra was my lifelong friend, a member of my clan and coven, though she was not as adept at casting spells as I was said to be.

  Wouldn’t she be surprised to see what I’d brought for her? I reached into the pocket of my skirts and closed my hand around the small gem. My fingertips felt warmed by the stone. I planned to give it to Kyra to help her attract Falkner Radburn, a boy from our own Wodebayne coven. Falkner was all Kyra had spoken of since the children jumped the broom-stick at Samhain. All winter long I had heard of Falkner’s strength and Falkner’s eyes. Falkner this and Falkner that. Bad enough that poor Kyra was captivated by him, but to make matters worse, Falkner was unaware of her love.

  I had agreed to help my friend, though I didn’t really understand why she favored him. Then again, I had never known any attraction like that. In my eyes boys were silly galloping creatures, and men had nothing to do with me. They seemed to me like the wolves who roamed at night, pouncing on their prey without warning. I was a Wodebayne of seventeen years, initiated into the ways of the Goddess at fourteen, and as most girls my age were already betrothed or wed, I had come to the conclusion that I would never meet a man who caught my fancy. Since it hadn’t happened as yet, I felt that the Goddess didn’t intend it to be.

  Outside the church, Ma greeted the Presbyterian villagers cordially. I kept my head bowed, not wanting to meet their eyes or see the cruel faces that had so quickly sentenced Fionnula to death. Some time had passed since her trial, yet I could not forgive these people for their crime. I would never forgive them.

  “Good day to you, Rose,” said a familiar voice.

  I turned to see Meara, her freckled face wrought with shadows. “Meara, I didn’t see you inside.”

  “Da and I were late getting in. Ma was up all night with the pains, but she’s back resting again. Da said we should come to church and pray to Christ Jesus for her recovery.”

  Meara’s mother had not truly recovered from the birth of her sixth child a few months earlier, and as the oldest daughter, the burden of taking over her ma’s responsibilities fell on Meara’s shoulders. I felt sorry for her, having to tidy up the cottage, mind the young bairns, and cook enough porridge for the whole brood of them.

  “Who’s caring for the children, then?” I asked her.

  “Ma’s sister, Linette, has come from the south to help for a while.” Her eyes were hollow, and I wasn’t sure if it was simply tiredness or fear over what might happen to her mother. Ma had visited Meara’s mother once, hoping to help. She told me they’d talked awhile and she had tried to raise the woman’s spirits, but ’twas all Ma could do. She didn’t dare pass on healing herbs or place her hands on the ailing woman’s worn belly to perform a spell. And that was the shame of it; Ma had the power to perhaps cure Meara’s mother, but since that very act could get Ma hanged as a witch, it would not be done.

  “I haven’t seen you down by the brook lately,” Meara told me. “Do you not draw water for washing?”

  “Ma sends me later now,” I said awkwardly. “She says the morning chill is too much.” It was a lie, and I hated telling it to Meara, who had always been a good friend. But the truth was, Ma had told me to find a different place to draw water so that I wouldn’t meet Meara every morning. “It’s too dangerous, the two of you talking with such ease,” Ma had told me. “One of these days you’re liable to slip and speak the Goddess’s name or mention the coming Esbat, and that sort of breach I cannot allow.”

  Meara’s father summoned her from the edge of the crowd.

  “I’d better go,” Meara said reluctantly. “Godspeed.”

  I nodded, wondering what would happen to my friend if her ma passed. Already Meara was acting as mother to the large family. My own father had died when I was but five years of age, and though I often wished for the protection a father could offer, I remembered so little of him. Losing a mother had to be worse.

  “Tell your ma...” I wanted to espouse an herbal tea
that would help her mother feel better, but I knew it was too dangerous. I sighed. “Tell your ma I will pray for her.”

  Meara nodded, then went off with her da.

  Ma was speaking with Mrs. MacTavish, an elderly woman from our coven who’d been suffering from a hacking cough. As she spoke, I slipped away from Ma’s side to find Kyra.

  Gently I took my friend’s arm and led her away from her ma and da. Feeling whimsical, I touched the stone in my pocket. “I have something for you,” I said quietly. “Something to attract your certain someone.”

  She stared at me, uncomprehending.

  I glanced around to make sure that none of the villagers were paying us any mind. Folks were engaged in the usual chatter, complaints of the long winter and worries over the spring planting. I turned back to Kyra. “Can you guess what’s in my pocket?” When she shook her head, I whispered in her ear, “I’ve brought an amulet for you to attract Falkner.”

  Her cheeks grew pink at my words, and I wanted to laugh aloud. Kyra was so easy to embarrass. She took my hand and pulled me off the stone path, away from the churchgoers. “Would you have everyone in the Highlands hear of my secret love?”

  “Harmless words,” I said, adding in a whisper, “though I dare not show you the magickal gem before everyone in the village.” The sun was still rising in the sky, promising a warm spring morning. Only days before, the last of the snow had melted from the ground. “Come with me to the woods,” I said. “I need to collect herbs. We’ll do the gathering ritual together, and afterward we’ll charge the rose stone.”

  “Oh, I wish I could, but I promised Ma I would help with the baking.” Kyra pressed a hand over her heart. “Are you sure the stone holds power?”

  “Ma used to let me hold it whenever we quarreled. It’s powerful enough.”

  Turning slightly, Kyra glanced toward the crowd still spilling out of the church. I knew she was looking for Falkner, a beanpole of a boy who had yet to show any signs of intelligence in my presence. “Nothing seems to work on him,” she said wistfully. “He can’t even spare me a glance. It’s as if I’m just a passing dragonfly, hardly worthy of notice.”

  I pressed my lips together, wishing that Kyra wouldn’t go into it again. It was precisely the reason I had borrowed the rose stone from Ma’s cupboard: to put an end to my friend’s pining and suffering. “Come to the woods with me, then,” I said.

  “Kyra!” her mother called. Her parents were ready to leave.

  She nodded at her ma respectfully, then tilted her head. “I cannot go,” she told me regretfully. One chestnut braid slipped over her sapphire cloak. “But I do want the stone. Can you leave it on my doorstep? In a basket by the woodpile?”

  “I dare not. It’s too precious a thing to leave out.”

  “Rose...”

  “Maybe tomorrow. Stop by our cottage on your way to market,” I told her, wishing that Kyra could just once summon the courage to sneak away from her parents. She was my friend, but in every situation I was the bolder. While I dreamed of travel to distant places, of exploring and celebrating all corners of the Goddess’s earth, Kyra was content to remain in her small world.

  I went off to join my mother, who was getting an earful of unhappiness from Ian MacGreavy and his wife. Once we were out of earshot of the village, I told Ma of the failing health of Meara’s mother.

  “I fear she is not long with us.” Ma shook her head. “ ’Tis a pity the Christians don’t accept the Goddess’s healing. I would like to help her.”

  A feeling of melancholy washed over me. “Poor Meara. She’s already feeling the burden of so many chores to keep the children fed and clean.”

  “She shall forge ahead,” Ma said stoutly.

  I wondered if that had been Ma’s attitude when my own father, Gowan MacEwan, had died. It made me sad that I barely remembered him, and whenever I asked about him, Ma went cold as the brook in winter. “Do you still miss Da?” I asked suddenly.

  Ma sucked in a deep breath of crisp spring morning. “I will always love him. But ’tis not a fit subject to discourse upon, especially when we have pressing matters at hand. The MacGreavys are in a tumult.”

  “Has the miller asked about dark magick again?” I asked, recalling how he had recently suggested calling on a taibhs, a dark spirit, to wreak vengeance against a Burnhyde man who had crossed him.

  “As if we don’t have enough trouble with the townspeople always on the lookout for witches,” Ma said as we tramped down the rutted road to our cottage. “The tension among the Seven Clans is heating up again. Ian MacGreavy is outraged over a snub by a few men of the Burnhyde clan. Seems they won’t use his mill, and they’re telling all the others in their clan to avoid it, that it’s cursed and the evil is spilling into the grain.”

  The unfairness of it irked me. “If the mill is cursed, it’s because of a spell from one of them.”

  “Indeed. Mrs. MacGreavy found a sprinkling of soil and ashes on the threshold of the mill one morning, swirled in a circle.”

  “A spell wrought of minerals and soil...” Everyone knew that the Burnhyde witches were masters of spells involving crystals and minerals. “A sure sign that the Burnhydes are behind all their trouble.”

  “Aye, and trouble is rising for the MacGreavys. They fear the mill has been infested by rats.” She pressed her lips together, and I could see from the bluish vein in her forehead that Ma was angry. “It’s dark magick the Burnhydes are playing with.”

  “I can’t believe it,” I said, kicking at a dirt clod in the road. “This isn’t about Ian MacGreavy’s mill at all. It’s about the other clans turning against the Wodebaynes again.”

  For as long as the Seven Great Clans had existed, there had been strong rivalry among them. Everyone knew of the clans and their distinctions: the healing Braytindales, the master spellcrafters of the Wyndonkylles, the Burnhydes with their expertise in the use of crystals and metals. I had heard of the astute Ruanwandes, who were well schooled in all of the ways of the Goddess, though I had never met anyone from that clan. We knew of trickster Leapvaughns in neighboring villages, and everyone dreaded the war-loving Vykrothes, who were rumored to kick dirt in your face while passing you on the road. Aye, the clans had their reputations, the most slanderous being that of our own clan. For decades the other six clans had looked down upon our Wodebayne clan, their prejudice and hatred stinging like a wound that refused to heal.

  Their hatred was prompted by a notion that Wodebaynes practiced dark magick. When a witch tried to harness the Goddess’s power for evil purposes—to harm a living thing or to tamper with a person’s free will—it was called dark magick. Other clans seemed to think that we Wodebaynes were expert at this black evil. They liked to blame their hardships on our “dark spells,” and consequently they had grown to hate all Wodebaynes.

  And now, as a result of that hatred, our own village mill was to be overrun by rats. “Can we help the MacGreavys to thwart the spell?”

  Ma nodded. “The Burnhyde spell doesn’t scare me, but their hatred of the Wodebaynes frightens me deep down in my bones.”

  Her worry spurred my anger. “Yet again we’re back to the same hatred of the Wodebaynes. What did we do to bring on such animosity? Can you tell me that?”

  “Easy, Rose.”

  “They act as if we were marauders and murderers! It’s unfair!”

  “Aye, it is,” Ma said quietly. “But I have always said that the other clans will come to know us through our acts of goodness. The Goddess will reveal the true nature of the Wodebaynes in time.”

  “That doesn’t help Ian MacGreavy, does it?” I asked.

  “We will place a spell of protection around the mill,” Ma said. “We’ll do it tomorrow, on the full moon, the perfect time to cast a spell of protection. You’ll need to collect sharp objects—old spearheads, broken darning needles—whatever you can find. They are to be stored in a jar, which we’ll take to the mill.”

  As Ma went over the details of the spell of protec
tion, I felt myself drifting off into an ocean of sorrow. My pitifully small world was growing smaller. With conflict among the clans heating up, we would be forced to become even more closed and guarded than we already were. Members of our coven would stick close to our hopelessly small country village, a tight knot of cottages that was already like a noose around my neck. Beyond my sweet but unadventurous friend Kyra, I was without a friend or possible mate within my own clan. No one outside the Wodebayne clan could be trusted, and any notions I’d ever had of exploration were squashed by the sure and steady evil lurking in new places.

  Seventeen years of age, and already my life seemed to be over.

  By now we had passed out of the village, which consisted mostly of the church, the mill, the inn, and a tangle of cottages that were built far too close to keep your business private. We came upon a flat, grassy field that was used by one of our own Wodebayne clansmen for herding his sheep, and indeed, two men were there at the edge of the field, talking to a sheep as if it had the sense in its head to understand and heed them.

  The scene made me smile. The two men looked like bumblers, but Ma sucked in her breath, as if she’d just come upon a tragedy.

  “What is it, Ma?” I asked.

  She stopped walking, her hands crossed over her chest as she stared at the men, still not speaking.

  “Aye, they could be punished,” I observed. “Out on a Sunday, when work is to be set aside to praise the Christian Lord.”