Bitter Magic

by Nancy Kilgore

  And now the tears came. Where was William the Fairy Man? Could he not come and carry me away? I tried to concentrate, to go into that place of trance, but the pain was too great, and my sorrow overtook me until I could cry no more.

  Then I remembered a charm. I placed my hand over my wound and whispered, “For pang, for swelling, for hurt, for wound, Christ went out at early morn, put blood to blood and flesh to flesh, juice to juice and vein to vein. May he heal this, too, with fair Mary and his powers together.” I had no herbs or salve to accompany the charm, and whether or not it worked, I could not tell.

  Finally, I fell back, but as soon as I fell asleep, the loud clanking and clanging woke me again. The pricker. He placed his stool beside me and commenced to repeat the questioning and pricking. I was about to confess just to make the pricking stop, but then he left.

  When they brought the bread in the morning, I was almost too worn out to eat.

  This treatment was repeated on the second day, but this time, the pricker took me outside the tollbooth, where a crowd had gathered. He stripped off my clothes until I was naked and forced me to stay standing, though I felt I would fall down with weakness and shame. He took a rough blade and shaved my head and whole body.

  People spat and jeered, but I remained silent.

  “Now we’ll see what power ye have!” screamed Jonet Fraser. “Devil’s whore!”

  The pricker rubbed his hands over my whole body, then held up the giant pin to show the people. “To find the devil’s mark,” he declared. “This be the way to find the devil’s mark and prove that she is a witch. Where the pin produces no blood or pain, this be the mark of the devil, and will be proof she is no mere mortal, but the devil’s own.”

  He began to stick the pin in, jabbing my legs and arms, buttocks, stomach, and breasts. At each prick, I recoiled and gasped. The blood spurted out, running down my body in rivulets.

  I felt myself rising above my body, and now I saw myself from above. That miserable, wasted body, so pitiful in its nakedness and shame.

  I would fly with William. I would call out, “Horse and hattock, ho!” I would fly away from this horrible place to the land of the fairies.

  But William did not come. I could not rise up to leave the yard, only enough to hover a few feet above my body where at least I did not feel anything.

  At the next prick to my back, I did not flinch.

  “No blood!” shouted the pricker.

  The devil’s mark!” the people cried.

  “And there you have the proof,” the pricker said with a grin. He wiped the pin and put it away in his bag as he let me go. I sank down onto the ground.

  The next day, Mister Harry came to the tollbooth.

  I sat up, skirts stained with dried blood, my hair dirty and askew. Mister Harry was still limping and wincing, and this brought my first smile. It had been almost two years, but the charm against him had worked. He was still in pain.

  Harry sat on the stool, fidgeting on the small seat. He lifted his bad leg and crossed it over the other, revealing socks so full of holes, they looked like fishnets. He tugged on his mangy beard and leaned over me with a look of pity. “I see your suffering, Mistress, and I have great regret that it has come to this.”

  How dare he feign sympathy? I glared at him.

  “And yet the Lord desires only that you come to him with a clean heart. To know the comfort of his love, the fruits of salvation.”

  The stones were icy beneath me, and Harry’s words brought a deeper chill. He talked about comfort and fruits, but it was all a lie. These pleasures did not come from the Lord or the kirk. William brought them to me . . . only William. With him, I had earthly and unearthly delights.

  “To be forgiven, we must confess our sins. And to repent will bring you great joy.” Mister Harry’s words came out in a blast of sour breath.

  I cringed and inched away from him.

  “Mistress Gowdie, did you curse the laird, John Hay, and his sons?”

  If only the curse on Mister Harry had worked more completely. It was I who had caused him to lie in his bed sick and sore for several months . . . a span of freedom from his hateful preaching. Would that he was still sick and sore! Or that my elf arrow had hit the target!

  I had been flying through the sky on a night ride with William when I saw Mister Harry walking through the village. He was walking in daylight, though we were riding at night. No matter . . . for in that other world, night and day can happen together. As we flew through the sky under the stars, William gave me two elf arrows, and I flicked one at Harry. But I missed.

  “Mistress Gowdie, you must answer the question.”

  “You killed my mother.” I spat.

  Mister Harry started. In the course of a minute, his face transformed into several different expressions. He raised his eyebrows in surprise, wet his lips, and grimaced like a hissing cat. “Agnes Grant, with her maleficent magic, did harm and kill David Hay, the former Laird of Park, as well as his son, William. She confessed to the crime.”

  “And that be,” I snarled, “only because you put her on the rack. You pricked her awake all night. You tortured her until she could say only what you wanted to hear.”

  “Agnes Grant was a stubborn woman with no respect for the kirk or our Lord in Heaven. She could not face her Maker unless she confessed and repented. And you must do the same.”

  I had no intention of confessing, even though I, unlike my mother, was guilty of trying to harm the laird’s family. I kept silent.

  Mister Harry asked me the same questions over and over until at last, he sighed and stood up. “Such looseness and ignorance, lying, and contempt of God I have rarely seen. I am sorely afflicted for your soul, Mistress, and I will pray for you.” He raised a hand and voice. “Lord, I am sorry and afflicted that such evil has come among us. That this miserable creature before me refuses to cling to You and your son, Jesus, and has concocted such wickedness in our land. Move her to confess her evil deeds and repent, as forgiveness is Yours. We know You offer it freely when supplicated.” He droned on in a tedious manner, and I shut my mind to it.

  When he was done, I narrowed my eyes at him. “And perhaps I know something of the wickedness in your house, Mister Harry.”

  He flinched and went red all over. He knew of what I spoke. I did not need to say the name of Agnes Pierson.

  Finally, Mister Harry left, and I lay down again. Now I could conserve my strength, and perhaps even sleep.

  But sleep was not to be.

  The pricker came again.

  And Mister Harry came again. But this time he had a different scheme.

  I was lying on the floor, so weary, so cold, so hungry. Pain in my thighs, my arms, my side, and two festering sores on my back–all the places I was pricked.

  Mister Harry sat on the stool, opened a sack, and brought out a loaf of bread and a large hunk of cheese.

  Of course, I ate it. I ate it all right there as he watched, careful not to eat too quickly, as I knew the effects of a large meal on a starving body. When I was done, I heaved a sigh.

  “And now, I would like to hear about your travels with the fairies,” Harry said with a pleasant smile.

  I stared at him. “Is it a confession you want, then?”

  “Not a confession, as yet. I and the other members of the commission are greatly interested in your story. I understand that you have great power. And that you see the fairies.”

  I smiled. Yes, I had power. And now they acknowledged it. But would I tell them?

  “We wish to know of your magic and charms.”

  I inhaled, and my whole body seemed to swell with pride, though the movement caused me pain all over. The lairds and ministers wanted to hear me. Now they would know me as a woman of power, and they would know how small they were. I would tell about t
he powers that went beyond their world. “I will speak of my gift.”

  “Will you speak to the commission about this?”

  “Aye. It is time. And you will hear of a land that is not visible to you. Only the ones who are chosen, such as I, can move between the worlds and use the powers of that other realm, the powers given to us.”

  He led me out and into the larger room of the tollbooth. Here sat the others: the minister of Nairn, Hugh Rose, the Laird of Park and Lochloy, John Hay, the Laird of Brodie, and six others, local lairds and dignitaries. The men’s faces were smug and perplexed. The notary, John Innes, sat at a desk to the side with his pen and book.

  Fortified now by the cheese and bread, I stood tall.

  The notary spoke: “At Auldearn, on the thirteenth day of April 1662, in presence of me, John Innes, and witnesses named herein, the said Isobel Gowdie, appearing penitent for her heinous sins of witchcraft, without any compulsion, now proceedeth in her confession.”

  Mister Hugh, a portly man with a kind face, was the first to speak. He rose from his seat. “Mistress Gowdie, please tell us your tale.”

  MARGARET

  Chapter 46

  “Margaret.” Someone was calling her name. She was walking on the strand, sand between her toes, skirts pulled high and tucked into her pantaloons. It was midmorning, and the strand was empty now. The fishermen were out to sea, the farmers at work in the fields. Margaret looked up and down the shoreline and behind herself to the dunes, but there was no one about. Where had the voice come from? It was low and lilting, like the rocking of waves on a balmy day or the undercurrent of the wind.

  Was it a voice or was it the wind? It sounded like Isobel’s voice. Like her singing. Margaret sat down on the sand with a plop. That voice was Isobel’s.

  On the day Mistress Collace came, after Margaret had calmed down, the two had talked. “What was the magic you saw?” she had asked.

  With eyes half closed and her body slumping down in despair, Margaret spoke. Isobel had betrayed her. She’d cursed Margaret’s family, so what difference would it make now for her to tell?

  She told Mistress about the beautiful land of the fairies as she imagined it, her thrill at hearing about William and the nightriding, and her hopes of seeing the fairy queen. The real, yes, real magic she had seen when Isobel healed her own bruises with a charm, when she had seen Henrietta at the MacDonalds’ camp, when Henrietta had arisen from her sickbed, renewed and lively. “I know you believe that magic is evil,” Margaret said, “but how could it be a sin to help people and restore them to health?”

  Mistress had remained silent for so long after this that Margaret had become fearful. Would she condemn her? Would she report Margaret as a witch?

  A heavy rain beat on the window, and Mistress Collace stood and walked over to it before coming back and sitting beside Margaret on the bed. “Magic is sinful,” she said, “but all of this—communing with the fairies, riding through the sky, even thinking that charms and rhymes can heal or harm—don’t you see how these ideas are fantasies and illusions?”

  Margaret frowned. “Then how would you explain the fact that the magic did work?”

  “When a person heals, it is the life force within them, the love of God that surges like a light in all of us.”

  “Yes! And that is what I thought, too! The charms are prayers!”

  “No, the charms are empty words. The way they use the name of the Lord or the saints, these are remnants of Catholic beliefs. The Catholics also believe that words and rhymes are magic.”

  Margaret stood up and started pacing back and forth. Was this true? Could the charms really be just empty words? Everything in her resisted this idea. “But I believe,” she said, “that words do have power. When I hear psalms and poetry, and when you quote the Bible, these words give me strength. Inspiration. They make me feel better.”

  Mistress Collace smiled. “You are a clever lass. The Bible gives me strength, too. It is, after all, The Word. But we do not use it to get what we want, either for good or ill. We refer to it to find God’s wisdom, so that we can come to Him in our hearts.”

  “Do you not, then, believe that curses cause sickness and death?”

  “We cannot make these things happen with words or rhymes. Your father and brothers will not die because of them. All of us will die, but only the Lord knows the manner or time.”

  Margaret stopped her pacing and stood at the window. The rain was letting up, and now, with the sun coming through the window, the drops on the glass created patterns of light: blue, green, purple, yellow, an undulating design. She turned. “And what about the flying in the night with her fairy man, and the fairy home under the Downie Hill?”

  “These are her dreams and illusions, don’t you see? In her wretched life, the poor woman would escape to fairyland, where life is beautiful. And so, she imagines this place.”

  “Yes.” Margaret sat down again. She had almost been able to see that marvelous place in her imagination, but try as she might, her second sight hadn’t worked. Were these places really just in Isobel’s imagination?

  “And rather than burning,” Mistress added, “this sad creature deserves our pity . . . only our pity and forgiveness.”

  After Mistress Collace left, the rain stopped and the wind died down. Margaret opened the window. A whisper of a breeze drifted in, and outside, a seabird was floating beneath a cloud, calling a plaintive song. Forgiveness. Could she forgive Isobel? Isobel had betrayed her trust and tried to kill Margaret’s father. No—she could not forgive such a wicked act.

  Now, as she stood by the water, the sky over the Firth was clear, and she could see all the way to the cliffs of Inverness.

  Had she really heard the voice? Perhaps she’d imagined it. She’d been thinking so much of what Mistress had said: about Isobel and the trial, her imprisonment, her “delusion.” She envisioned Isobel in the tollbooth, forced into that dark and clammy place—she who had lived with the earth beneath her feet and the sky above, with cows mooing and goats jumping, she who loved the trees and the birds and the dolphins.

  A groan escaped from Margaret’s chest. Her father was on the commission. He would vote against Isobel. Isobel would burn at the stake.

  “Margaret.” That voice again . . . wild and desperate, now almost a screech like a gull, but human. It must be Isobel. But, where was she? There was no one here. No one down the strand or on the dunes or the machair. No one at the water.

  Behind her perched a crow. Isobel had claimed she could “go into a crow.” Could the crow be Isobel? No, the voice had come from the sea, from the gentle susurration of the waves. In this place where the wind coursed across the strand and whipped in from the water, where gales would start and stop and change direction, where storms howled and buffeted, where skirts flapped and twisted, today held an unusual quiet. Except for that one voice, everything was still. The sky, the wind, the birds, the crow. As if God had placed a finger on his lips and said hush.

  Margaret gathered her skirts and ran. She scurried up the dune and back along the path toward home.

  She would see Isobel. She would ask and beg and wheedle, if necessary. She would go to the tollbooth.

  Chapter 47

  “No one is permitted to see the prisoner except her confessor, Mister Harry,” said Uncle Alexander.

  “But, Uncle, I must see her.”

  They were standing on the road outside the tollbooth. Margaret knew that visiting a prisoner was forbidden, but she also knew that Uncle Alexander could arrange it for her, if anyone could.

  “No, it simply isn’t done.”

  “Uncle, she has spoken to me. She’s told me about her fairy beliefs and her adventures. I believe I have been a friend to her.”

  He raised an eyebrow and looked down at her. “You do know what she is accused of?”

 
“Yes, but I have talked with Mistress Collace, my tutor, and she has helped me see that Isobel is deluded.” Well, perhaps some of Isobel’s adventures were delusions, but the magic, Margaret knew, was real.

  “Mistress Collace?”

  “Yes, and she has turned my heart to pity, not hate.”

  Uncle Alexander shook his head. “It is a good thing, to feel in one’s heart for one of God’s creatures. But this one has had discourse with the fairies, and with the devil. This wickedness must be extinguished.” He shook his head again. “I am sorry, Margaret, but there is no hope for Isobel Gowdie.”

  Margaret glared at him and raised her voice. “In that case, all the more reason for me to see her and bring what solace I can!”

  Alexander studied her, almost as if seeing her for the first time. No longer his niece’s little girl, she was a young woman now, and quite certain of her convictions. Perhaps he saw something of his daughter Grissel in her—a woman who did not hesitate to speak her mind, even to powerful men. He turned his head to face the tollbooth in the solitary gloom behind him. “I will speak to the sheriff.”

  Margaret climbed the tower steps. Pity was not the only thing she felt. As she stomped and huffed, her eyes grew wet with anger. How could Isobel have done this to her? How could she have used her magic against Margaret’s father? Behind her, the jailer jangled his keys and followed her up the steps.

  The stairway was dark, with a trace of light coming from each window as they passed. And the smell! Margaret covered her nose with her handkerchief. It was rank and sour . . . a hundred years of desolation and fear. As she approached Isobel’s cell, the stench grew stronger: feces, urine, and sweat combined. Margaret was glad she had to sit outside the door. The jailer, a frightening man with a dirty leather jerkin, disappeared back down the tower stairs.

  Margaret looked through the grate guarding the door. At first, she could see nothing in the room except the gray stone of walls and floor, uneven, chipped, and dirty. Then something moved in the corner: a creature in rags, with clumps of hair sticking out from a bald head, like an etching she had seen of a monster. No wonder they thought this woman was evil.