Daughters of the Witching Hill

by Mary Sharratt

  Once we reached the hilltop, after a furtive look round to make sure no one else was about, John lit the straw with the lantern flame so that the straw atop the pitchfork blazed like a torch. With him to hold the fork upright and keep an eye out for intruders, Liza and I knelt to pray for our dead. In the old days we'd held this vigil in the church, the whole parish praying together, the darkened chapel bright as day with the many candles glowing on the saints' altars. Now we were left to do this in secret, stealing away like criminals in the night, as though it were something shameful to hail our deceased. I prayed for my mam and grand-dad, calling out to their souls till I felt them both step through the veil to bring me comfort.

  In my heart of hearts I did not believe my loved ones were in purgatory waiting, by and by, to be let into heaven. There was no air of suffering or torment about them, only the joy of reunion. My mam, young and pretty, worked in her herb garden. She hummed a lilting tune whilst her earth-stained fingers pointed out to me the plants I must use to ease Liza's birth pangs. At the sound of hoof beats, I looked over the garden gate to see Grand-Dad riding up on some old nag the Nowells had lent him. Come all the long way from Read Hall to Malkin Tower to visit us, he had, his smile near splitting his face as he jumped down from the saddle to sweep me up in his arms. He whispered his old charms to bless me and Liza and John.

  A long spell I knelt there, held in the embrace of my beloved dead, till the straw on the pitchfork burned itself out, falling in embers and ash to the ground. Our John helped my pregnant daughter rise to her feet, then we made our way home through the night that no longer seemed so dark.

  All Souls' Day was no longer a holiday, but just the same Liza and I baked soulcakes of oat, apple, and honey, the way I learned from my own mam, to give to any poor folk who came knocking on our door, but our only visitors were Anthony Holden of Bull Hole and some of his hired men. He'd come to tell our John it was time to cull the herd.

  Like Judgement Day, it was. Young John sorted out the good milk cows and heifers and the bull calves from the rest. Some of the young bulls he castrated. Others went with the weak and crooked into the slaughter pen. When the first bullock was led to the killing ground, his bellowing was enough to send the rest crashing round the pen till I feared the fence would break. Our John and four other men fettered the bullock before Anthony Holden himself slit the beast's throat, quick and merciful. Though the animal was well dead, it still heaved in its death throes. So that none of the blood would be wasted, our Liza came with a firkin to collect it. Blood pudding, she said she'd make, and black pudding, sausage and tripe, and she'd pickle each hoof and head.

  But the sight of so much blood made her go pale as whey. Dropped the firkin, did my girl, splashing blood over herself. As the cattle in the slaughter pen bawled and charged, so the babe in her womb thrashed with such force that I could see the movement through her bloodstained apron. She swayed on her feet.

  I caught Liza under the arms. "Her time has come."

  John helped me bring her to the house. Whilst John ran to fetch fresh straw to spread on the floor, I took off her red-spattered apron and kirtle, and found her a clean shift to wear. After setting the kettle to boil, I brewed raspberry leaf and motherwort for my daughter who crouched on the birth straw.

  "Lad wants to come out," she said, trying to hold her baby through her own wall of flesh. Again I saw the child kicking and pummelling, making the thin fabric of her smock leap and shake. "Come to me, my little boy."

  Liza panted, too weak to stand, whilst I mopped the cold sweat off her brow and waited for her waters to break. Generally a babe stopped kicking before it travelled down the mouth of the womb and the birth pangs began. But this child kept on flailing inside her whilst outside the cattle lowed and wailed. Hours dragged on till we both knew her time hadn't yet come after all. With a heavy heart, I moved her to her pallet, swept the birth straw off the floor, and unbolted the door so the men could come in. Past sunset it was and they were awaiting their supper. They roasted fresh meat on a spit, but my Liza could only stomach thin broth. Next day I rose at dawn to get on with the pickling, salting, and sausage-making. But I collared John and told him that Liza was not to do any work besides stitching till the baby came.

  Late at night I crept out the door. Cold air slapped my face and frost-spiked grass pricked at my bare feet. As I squeezed through a gap in the hedge, a great long hare crossed my path. Caught my breath, I did, as it sailed clear over the stone wall in one mighty leap. I'd barely walked another ten paces when a second hare hopped to the middle of the track, its ears and nose a-twitch.

  "Tibb?" I whispered. "Ball?"

  No glint of recognition flickered in the creature's eyes. It just bounded away.

  When I reached the far meadow that bordered the beck, I spied more hares cavorting in the moonlight than I could count. This wasn't right. Spring and summer were the seasons for sighting hares in plenty—not this dead end of the year. What portent was this? Onward I pressed, ploughing a track through the crowd of them till I reached the beck and its rushing waters. Cried out to Tibb, I did. Cried loud, over and over, till my throat ached. When he showed himself, he seemed distant, his face washed silver in the cold moonlight.

  "I need your help," I said, fair throttling him for taking his sweet time on a night such as this. "It's Liza."

  "Aye, Bess. I know it well." He spoke up solemn as any curate. "In time the babe will come. Everything that is to be will be in the fullness of time."

  "Now you speak in riddles. Why are there so many hares and what have they to do with Liza's baby?"

  Tibb lifted his face to the moon. "As for the baby, you must love him. Above all, that."

  "What are you saying, you daft thing? You think I need you to tell me to love my own grandson?" So sharp was my temper that Tibb faded away. As loudly as I implored him, he did not appear again that night. Homeward I plodded, kicking at the hares as I crossed the meadow.

  When I opened the door, I found my Liza slumped before the hearth, tears a-glitter on her cheeks. "Wondered where you were off to," she whispered. "Couldn't sleep for my nightmares, Mam. Kept dreaming that hares were chasing my baby."

  Tibb, how could you abandon me to this? Trying to hide my fears from her, I filled the kettle and brewed hops to send her back to sleep.

  But I lay awake, aching with cold. Edging my way to the window slit of the upper tower room, I looked out to see hares sporting far as I could see, bleached ghost-white under the moon. How they chased each other round and round, having a merry old time, as if this were their world, not ours.

  Liza's travails began upon Martinmas morning. First the gush of water, then the twinging that signalled the start of her labour, her womb clenching like a great fist. Again John brought in fresh, clean straw and I brewed raspberry leaf and motherwort. The sun climbed a sky full of lacy mare's tails. Between the pains, our Liza clung to the window frame and declared that the omens were good. We both gazed out that open window till the cold air stung our faces, and we saw not a single hare.

  Hands pressed to the small of her back, Liza paced in circles, round and round, ever sun-wise for luck, till the force of her travails forced her down upon the straw. I rubbed her private parts with new butter so she wouldn't tear. Holding her upright whilst she squatted, I chanted and prayed to the Mother of God and to St. Margaret, patroness of childbirth, and begged Liza to hold on and keep pushing. At last a great purple head crowned between her thighs. Then, despite the butter I'd used, my poor girl tore and bled.

  Liza's head lolled back, her eyes twisting in their sockets. In her torment she cursed and swore she'd never let John in her bed again. My ears rang from her wailing till the biggest newborn I'd seen in all my days slipped out of her and into my arms. Huge as a full-grown hare, he was. I prayed that this harrowing birth wouldn't be the end of my girl. Help us, Tibb.

  She collapsed on the straw. First I thought she'd fainted away. Then her eyes opened, and I cut the cord and held up her
baby. Eyes filling with tears, Liza begged me to hurry up and clean him off so she could hold him. In trembling arms I cradled him. He was whole and perfect, except for his head which seemed a sight too large for the rest of him. I cleaned out his nose and mouth, and then the lusty little thing punched the air and bawled. Whilst I washed him, a sliver of dread needled me, though I didn't understand why. There was nowt wrong with the boy, nowt I could see. He already showed us his nature, brawny and full-spirited. I wrapped him in his swaddling and tucked him in his mother's arms.

  "Isn't he beautiful? My darling boy." Liza was smiling like I'd never seen her smile.

  Then, with her last strength, she pushed out the afterbirth, which I cast straightaway into the fire so that the flames consumed every part of it. An evil soul could use the afterbirth for blackest magic.

  Next I washed her, stitched her back together again, and laid on a witch hazel compress to still her bleeding. After that was done, I covered her in blankets and called out to our John who had been wandering like a lost soul between the house and the shippon, waiting till I invited him in.

  Liza was wan and weak, but grinning like a mad thing as John bent to kiss her.

  "Feel how strong our little man is." She opened the swaddling and wrapped her husband's fingers around one tiny, powerful foot, laughing as their son kicked out as he'd been kicking away in her womb for months. "He'll grow to be taller than even you!"

  "We'll call him James," said John. "After my father." Such wonder shone upon my son-in-law's face. In his baby boy, I knew he hoped to see his cherished and long-dead father live again.

  My own misgivings about the baby weighed heavy, a yoke upon my shoulders. Leaving Liza and John to their happiness, I swept the soiled birth straw off the floor and burned it in the hearth till the flames leapt high as hares. Tibb's voice echoed in my memory. You must love him. Above all, that. Then I understood that young James's birth was the turning point of our fortune and fate.

  6

  LIZA WAS WELL BESOTTED with her baby, as was our John, who swanned about with the little lad in his arms, eager to show him off to anybody who came within five miles of Malkin Tower. Little Jamie seemed to thrive. His colour was ruddy and strong, and he'd an appetite like none I'd ever seen. Near drained his mam each time she took him to her breast. He latched on and fed till her teats were bloody and raw.

  "Best wean him right fast," I said, but she wouldn't hear of it.

  So Jamie grew and grew till folk teased John that Liza had cuckolded him and that the child was the seed of some ungodly giant. Such jests meant nothing to John, who doted on the boy and told all who cared to listen that his son was the picture of unblemished health. I tried to coax smiles from my grandson's lips whilst I cooed and sang, but the boy only drooled, lost in his own world. Our John whittled a bit of wood into the shape of a bird and tied it to a string to wave in front of Jamie's face, thinking to amuse him. But the babe's eyes wouldn't follow the swinging bird. He only stared straight ahead—dull, no spark in him.

  "Can't the lad see right?" John fretted.

  "He's not blind," Liza was quick to say. Strong sunlight made him blink, so she said, and the sight of a cat made him shriek.

  By Jamie's first birthday even Liza had to admit that the lad just wasn't right. He couldn't crawl, only drag himself across the slate floor on his elbows, wriggling like a salamander. When we called his name, he was slow in turning his head, and he could not speak a single word, even to say mam. Whilst most little children raise an awful fuss if their mother leaves their sight, it was all the same to Jamie if his mam was sat beside him or some travelling pedlar stinking of donkey dung. If the lad showed no fear of strangers, he was plagued by night terrors.

  By the time he was five, our Liza still had to dress him and he was yet in clouts, having no clue what he was supposed to do when his mother sat him on the pot. He could hardly hold a spoon to eat proper but ate with his hands as though he'd been reared by wild creatures. At least by then he was finally walking and talking, though his words made little enough sense. Once I caught him kicking over a piggin of milk he was meant to carry back to the house. When I scolded him, he said he'd done it because a hare was spitting fire at him and boxing his ears. Our Jamie wasn't wicked, nor was he a liar. He was too simple to tell truth from lie, or what was real from his own foolish fancy. Liza and I did our best to set him straight. We spoke blessings over him, drew on our charms and physick herbs, but in vain.

  Not an easy future in store for our Jamie. Cruel folk took to calling him Liza's Idiot, whilst kinder souls murmured that he was touched by God. Such talk tore at my daughter's heart. She began to believe that she, a cock-eyed freak of nature herself, had passed down the stain to her son. And hadn't she gazed at the full moon whilst she was pregnant—what if her child had been moonstruck within her very womb? The thought of bearing another stricken child, passing on the curse to yet another innocent life, was enough to make Liza wish herself dead. Every new moon she brewed herself tansy and pennyroyal till her courses came.

  At least our John was steadfast and loyal. He stood by Liza and flew into a rage if any dared speak ill of his son. "He might not be a clever one, but he's a good one, which is more than can be said for many round here." John laid the blame for his son's affliction on Anne and her witchery.

  "It's nowt to do with Anne Whittle," I kept telling him. "Some children are born that way. Maybe God has some special purpose for him." Best we could do, as Tibb had said, was love Jamie as we would any other child and try our best to keep him out of harm's way.

  "Not what I expected, any of this," I told Tibb. At daylight gate in cold February, I was sat atop Blacko Hill, not caring if the temper I was in frightened him off for good. "You promised me three grandchildren by Liza, but I'm left with one who will never be right. Liza's a broken, weeping thing; she's downed enough tansy to make herself barren; and her good man lives in terror of my oldest friend. Can you do no better for us?"

  Tibb lifted his eyes to me. "Don't give up hope too soon, my Bess. It might be winter now." He waved a long arm at the naked trees, fallow fields, and the dark clouds smothering Pendle Hill. "Yet spring won't be long in coming. I promise you that."

  Stepping close, he stroked my hair till I leaned against him, let him support my tired bones. Spring couldn't come soon enough for me.

  A fortnight later I walked home from the Bulcocks at Moss End where I'd blessed a lame horse. At daylight gate, as I made my way along Pendle Water, I felt a flimmer in my belly. Something big was to come. "Tibb?"

  I heard his voice inside my head. Hurry home, Bess. Your daughter has need of you. Out of nowhere the brown dog flew out to harry me, nipping at my ankles if I lagged. He wouldn't leave my side till I was ten paces from my door.

  I found Liza sobbing over my store of dried herbs. At this ragged end of winter, we were clean out of tansy, pennyroyal, and rue. She crossed her hands over her womb and near doubled over in her desperation. It was the dark of the moon and she'd no bloody clouts to wash. That meant she was bearing. Again I felt the tingling inside me. Sinking down on my knees, I took her hands.

  "Welcome her," I said.

  "Her?" My daughter was thirty now, still skinny to the bone, but the trouble and care over Jamie had left its mark on her. Wrinkles etched the skin round her mouth and crooked eyes. Her hair had gone thin and lost its sheen.

  "Welcome your daughter." My right hand cupped her belly and sensed the life within, stirring and quickening beneath my palm. I closed my eyes to see a golden shimmer, sun spilling through shifting green leaves. I saw a lantern in a dark night, a beacon in a tower. A light far-shining. The beautiful girl Tibb had promised me those many years ago.

  Liza shoved my hand away. "I'll have it out. Midwife down in Colne must have some remedy for me."

  "Not this one," I begged her.

  "What if it's another—" She choked on the word she could not say. "Maybe our John was right all along."

  Over the years Jo
hn's talk of curses and sorcery had worn down Liza to the point where she was too frightened to call upon her own powers. She herself couldn't say the last time Ball had appeared to her.

  "My womb's forespoken," she said. "But not by Anne Whittle. I'll not grant her that much talent. Devil himself did this."

  "Stop talking foolishness."

  "Kit's Elsie—she has five children, each of them healthy and perfect." Liza rubbed her swollen eyes. "That's because she never meddled in the magic. Soon as you became a blesser, she dragged Kit off to Sabden. If I'd known the price I'd have to pay—"

  "Hush."

  I held her tight, seeking to give comfort, though her words gutted me. Was she saying that she wished she, too, had forsaken me when I'd come into my powers? Did she wish she could be just like her sister-in-law, an ordinary wife and mother and nothing more? I had tried to warn her away from this path. Pushing away my own hurt feelings, I rubbed her hair.

  "This child you're bearing now will be beautiful, our Liza. She'll be as canny as our Jamie is slow."

  "How do you know that?"

  "How do you think I know?"

  My own daughter gawped at me, loose-jawed to hear me foretell the unborn child's future.

  "She'll be your pride. Your John will melt at the sight of her. She'll be fierce and loyal and true."

  Liza wept and shook her head. "Can't you see, Mam? I've fair lost hope. I daren't trust this."

  "You must bear her for Jamie's sake. The lad will never be able to earn his own living. What will happen to him when we're all dead? He needs a sister, a canny sister, to look after him. If you rid yourself of this girl, he'll be alone in the world. Elsie won't allow Kit to take him. Stupid goose thinks he's the Devil's seed."

  Liza's tears fell, drenching our clasped hands.