The Mark of Cain

by Lindsey Barraclough

  He takes off his hat, scratches his head, and puts it back on again. “It’s not for kids,” he says. “‘Specially living in that house. What you don’t know won’t do you no harm.” He starts to throw more pieces into the sack.

  “Mr. Wragge — did you know about my auntie Ida — Mrs. Eastfield … about what happened here four years ago?”

  “Might have done,” he mutters without looking up. “People talk. All over and done with now, over and done. I’m sorry for it if she was family.”

  “I — I was here, Mr. Wragge.”

  There’s an awkward silence.

  The old man bends to pick up the small bottle with its neck missing. He gives me a quick glance, then lowers his eyes. “You — you was one of the children, then?” he says. “I — I heard of some such thing, that there was a couple of kids there.”

  “Roger was there too,” I say quickly, then take a breath. “Mr. Wragge … um, people died; little children mostly — even my little sister nearly, because people didn’t tell people things that might have stopped bad things happening that shouldn’t have happened.”

  He rubs his nose on his sleeve.

  “If you know something about these bottles,” I go on, “you should tell me. It isn’t fair not to say. To be honest, it’s a flippin’ nuisance.”

  Mr. Wragge straightens up, sighs, and turns the bottle in one hand, then with the other pushes up the front of his hat and scratches his forehead.

  “Please, Mr. Wragge,” I plead.

  He sighs again. “Well …”

  “Please.”

  He picks up his tea and slurps the last of it through his three teeth. “I’m not sure you shouldn’t leave well alone,” he says, “but you won’t stop with your blimmin’ pestering and you’ve worn me out. These things are — leastways they were before they was broken — witch bottles.”

  “What?”

  “Witch bottles,” he says again. “And I’ve never seen so many together in all me life before, and so well-made. Hundreds of years old, they are. Them bits of hair and fingernails, and sometimes blood and piss — ’scuse the French — are put in by scared people who think some witch is like to attack them; come in their house, like. So the witch is drawn in, like, by them human bits and pieces — can’t help herself — and then she’s trapped inside and gets skewered to death by the iron nails or the bits of glass. Iron’s magical, smells like blood. Veins of iron ore run through the earth like the veins in your body. Witches can’t abide iron.

  “When the witch is caught in the bottle, it’s best to throw it on the fire — then it explodes and you can be sure she’s well and truly got rid of. I’ve seen a fair few of these things in me time, in old houses that are being done up or knocked down, but none as old as this lot, and never so many from one place.”

  “But I — I didn’t see them when I stayed in the house before.”

  “Ah, that’s because they was hidden, in risky places where a witch could get in easy if you wasn’t careful: under doorways, under the hearth. It was really important that they was secret so the witch wouldn’t know they were there. Chimneys was always a bit of a worry to people ’cos they’re open to the outside and witches could fly down them into the house. They used to shove all sorts of stuff up chimneys in the old days to keep the witches out — dead cats, shoes, all sorts.”

  “So why have they been taken out of Guerdon Hall?”

  “Well, Ed — Mr. Blezzard — just got rid of them when he was clearing out, ’cos your dad wanted it all swish and modern and everything. Even the trees in the garden were special, the sort of trees they planted years ago to keep witches out — you know, rowans, elders, hollies. I told Ed to leave them be. He said he was only doing what he was told to do.”

  “And — and you believe all those things?”

  Mr. Wragge drops the bottle into the wheelbarrow. “We was raised different when I was a nipper,” he says. “You can’t imagine how dark and quiet it used to be at night then; no street lights nor cars going by nor nothing, and the stories you got told — enough to give you the willies. I ended up scared of every blimmin’ thing — nasty little yarthkins in the woods, Black Shuck, the demon dog in the lane, and … and the Lankin man down on the marshes, and … and why should I not believe any of it? As you say — things happened. Though I was a Hilsea boy, we all knew about the Lankin man and what he would do if he snatched a little kid. We’d never go down to the old church, wouldn’t dare. I don’t even go there now.”

  “But — but there are no witches around now, are there?”

  “Well,” he says, knowingly tapping the side of his nose. “Maybe there’s not the sort you would think of, but there are cunning people still about, be sure of it.”

  He looks up as we hear the sound of the van chugging carefully along the Chase.

  “Ah, here’s Ed coming,” he says, dropping the last piece of bottle into the sack and tying up the top; then he buttons up his coat and turns out the lamp. “Wait while I bring the barrow.”

  I take the cup and saucer and walk alongside Mr. Wragge as he pushes the barrow in the light from the headlamps, while the van squelches through the muddy wet snow and comes to a halt. We say goodnight and I go over the slippery bridge as Mr. Wragge hauls out the sack and throws it into the back of the van.

  I am almost at the house when I distinctly hear Mr. Blezzard call out from the driver’s seat, “Come on, Gideon, hurry up and I’ll get you back to the Saint Laz. Hope the van’ll get back up the hill. It was the devil getting it down.”

  The Saint Laz!

  I hurry back to the creek. The van is beginning to move off. I slide over the bridge. Then the engine struggles. The back wheels start to spin. Mr. Blezzard pushes his foot hard on the accelerator, but for a few seconds the vehicle stays stuck where it is, splurting out clods of snow and icy water. I blunder across and bang my hand on one of the battered rear doors.

  “Wait! Wait!”

  Mr. Blezzard leans out. “Oi! Push off! You’ll make a dent!”

  I hear a mumble from Mr. Wragge, weave my way round to the passenger door, and thump the window. He winds it down.

  “What is it?” he says.

  “Mr. Wragge — do you live at the Saint Lazarus Hospital — in Hilsea?”

  “I hope you aren’t having a go,” he says. “I know you’re supposed to be retired at the Saint Laz, but I like to keep meself busy and I don’t ask much money — just enough to keep me in ale and snout.”

  “No, no, it isn’t that. You …” I fumble in my pocket for the piece of paper, drag it out so quickly it tears along an edge, and push it under his eyes.

  “I’m not blind,” he says, batting it away.

  “Who are these people?” I say. “Mrs. Lailah Ketch and Miss Iris Jewel — do you know them?”

  “Course I flippin’ know them. They’re the wardens. They look after us at the Saint Laz. Live in the end house.”

  I feel my heart beating faster.

  “And what’s this — this picture? I tried to explain it before, when you came to the house for the wallpaper — this is what I meant.” I jab at the little drawing with my finger.

  “Hold still,” he says. “You’re jiggling it about.” He lifts the front of his fur hat with a dirty thumb, scratches his forehead, looks me in the eye.

  “Please, Mr. Wragge. You obviously know what it is.”

  “Might do.”

  “Oh, come on, Mr. Wragge. It can’t be any worse than the things you’ve already told me.”

  The old man looks sideways from under his hat at Mr. Blezzard, who — amazingly — takes the hint.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake where’s the blimmin’ shovel?” he says, reaching behind his seat for it and opening his door. “I’ll dig out the wheels while you’re dithering about.”

  Mr. Wragge checks in the side mirror that Mr. Blezzard is far enough away, waits for the scrape of the shovel, the soft thud of snow.

  “It’s a witch mark,” he whispers.
“The M is for Mary, like you couldn’t ask nobody more holy than the mother of God to stop a witch coming in the house for you. The circle’s the moon, the light that keeps away the dark —”

  “And what about the twigs I told you about before — a bundle of twigs tied to the door, with red string?”

  “Rowan twigs, were they?”

  “I’ve no idea what sort of twigs — and the little white stones?”

  He pulls his hat down, purses his lips.

  “Mr. Wragge?” I plead.

  Mr. Blezzard gets back in, throws the shovel behind his seat. “Should be all right now if we hurry up,” he mutters, turning over the engine. “Finished your flippin’ confabulation, have you? I want me dinner.”

  I walk beside the van as it starts to move off, hold on to the window rim.

  Mr. Wragge leans out. “The same thing,” he hisses. “To keep out a witch. It’s all the same thing… .”

  “Mr. Wragge, did you tell those two women, the wardens, about us coming back to Guerdon Hall … about the bottles being broken, the trees being cut down?”

  He purses his lips. “Might’ve done,” he says, then winds up the window so I have to let go, and his breath covers the glass in a misty film.

  What did he say …? There are cunning people still about, be sure of it. I stand there gazing after the red tail lights as they bob shakily up and down into the distance.

  At arm’s length Mother Mary Dominic runs her cane along the map, its tip following the curves of the Rhine as it flows from Switzerland, through Germany, to Holland, though I lose track of it somewhere after Cologne, as I can’t stop thinking about Mrs. Ketch and Miss Jewel, and the name scratched backwards on the leather — Aphra Rushes.

  I try to recall the little I know of her. She was found in Guerdon Hall with the dead baby, locked up first in Lokswood, then in the tower of All Hallows church, taken to trial, brought back to Bryers Guerdon, and burned. That’s all I know.

  No, not quite all I know — she cursed the Guerdon family.

  On the wall the countries of Europe blur into one another; the colours become hazy. I haven’t a clue where the Rhine has got to.

  I am ridiculously maddened at poor old Mr. Thorston — banging his head but having enough sense left to take away his papers. Where did Mr. Wragge say he’d gone — Ipswich? How far is it? Ah, I can just see it up there, on the map that is coming back into focus, on that bump that is the edge of England. How on earth would I get there? Are there buses to Ipswich? How else can I find out anything at all about Aphra Rushes?

  The girls are opening their exercise books, taking up their pens. I turn a page and look again at the Good work, Cora Mother Mary Dominic has written large and red under my homework on the industries of the Ruhr Valley. How did that happen? I suppose Madame Mary Saint Bernard will be pleased with me at last.

  I see her again as she rises to stand behind her desk while her wooden beads click to the vertical — crisply pressed black veil and scapular, stiffly starched white wimple, pale face, unreadable eyes. Behind her the colourless wall, beneath her the hard wooden floor, to one side snow sprinkling the asphalt beyond the window — and to the other the warm brown leather spines of Sorrel and Brassock’s County Records.

  In my mind I stretch out my hand and run it over the gold lettering: Vol. 21: Daneflete Hundred … 1520–1625.

  Four years ago Mr. Thorston told us that in England witches were hanged. A burning was very rare indeed, an event worthy of record.

  “You don’t seem to be writing much, Cora. Are you keeping up?”

  “Yes, thank you, Mother Mary Dominic.”

  Dad went off to London again early this morning, but I don’t feel that wave of anxiety about Mimi getting back from school or being left alone. If I’m a bit late home, it won’t matter so much now that Ange is there, and things seem to have settled well enough since the blow-up over the two women on Sunday.

  After the last bell I take my time in the cloakroom, sit on the hard bench, slowly tightening my shoelaces. Around me is all noisy commotion — soft indoor shoes kicked off stockinged feet, calls, shouts, irritations, hats dropped, retrieved, and pulled on, scarves knotted, fingers wiggled into gloves, satchels and bags flung over shoulders, doors banged open, thumped shut.

  Two rows of pegs away there is one last coat. Someone is in detention.

  I wait.

  The wall clock moves time on with its dull tick-ticking.

  The bleak strip light whines overhead.

  Hurried footsteps from the corridor, the coat is wrenched off its hook, the hat on the peg above squashed down over a forehead, a rush for the door. I sit so still and silent under the overhead racks the girl doesn’t even notice me.

  A clatter.

  Two women in blue-checked overalls clang busily backwards through the door with brooms, mops, and buckets.

  “What shall we do first, Edie?” says one. “In here or the toilets?”

  “Oh, let’s get the worst over with,” says the other, rattling her way to the green door in the corner. “Did you remember to put the bleach in your bucket this time?”

  As soon as they disappear, I slip out into the corridor.

  Some of the lights are out, and a peculiar quiet hangs on the air — a school without pupils, the only sound a vacuum cleaner humming over a distant carpet.

  I steal my way along the passage close to the wall. Round the corner and a few yards along is Madame Mary Saint Bernard’s room.

  I look furtively behind me, bend my ear to the oak panel, tap gently with my knuckles, and listen keenly for the answering voice which doesn’t come. I take a breath, glance around, twist the knob, push open the door, and step onto the polished woodblock floor.

  The room is in a gloomy half-darkness, the hard edges of the furniture reflecting back the light shining over the netball courts outside the window, where the patchy snow lingers only under the shrub borders and in the deep, unlit angles of the building.

  The distorted black shadow of the crucifix sweeps across the wall.

  I shut the door behind me, daren’t switch on the desk lamp, go straight to the bookshelves, peer close, and run my finger along the spines.

  Vol. 21: Daneflete Hundred inc. South Fairing, North Fairing, Bryers Guerdon & Hilsea, 1520–1625.

  I pull the book out. My hands drop under its unexpected weight. I rest it on the desk, screw up my eyes, fan the pages, and skim the dense small printing.

  Lists. Legal documents. Drainage systems. Land holdings. Sessions. Court cases. Letters. Transfers of deeds and lands.

  Dates and headings blur together, my eyes grow sore, but even in the thick concentration of lettering I notice two names that recur again and again, landowning families of influence — Myldmaye and Guerdon.

  Myldmaye — I have heard the name before but can’t summon up more than a speck of memory.

  At the very end of the book I land on some collections of letters.

  Appendix A: Letters of Bishop Cordwell Vernon in regard to the land pertaining to …

  Appendix B: Letters of Lady Margaret Winterbourne, of Hove Hall, South Fairing …

  I stop my thumb.

  Appendix C: Letters of Katherine Myldmaye to her sister Mary, Lady Guerdon, 1583–1584. Found in a casket hidden in the wall of the old chapel in Guerdon Hall, Bryers Guerdon, during renovation work April to October 1878. Reproduced by kind permission of the County Archives.

  But in 1584 Sir Edmund Guerdon’s murdered wife was Ygurne, of the Pleshett family. Who was Lady Mary Guerdon?

  I leaf forward, see the name Kittie Wicken, turn another page — Aphra Rushes.

  A noise from behind the door — the clack of a wooden rosary, the rustle of fabric.

  I stiffen, dart my eyes from wall to wall.

  No other way out.

  Heart thumping, I move quickly, duck down behind the desk.

  The door opens. The light is switched on.

  Barely breathing, I peer out through the kneeho
le.

  Madame Mary Saint Bernard sweeps across the floor towards the desk, the white hem of her habit swishing over the uppers of her mirror-polished black shoes.

  She lifts a sheaf of papers, picks up a bunch of keys.

  I cower lower, my lungs straining, drops of sweat collecting on my forehead against the prickly felt of my hat.

  Just beside the nun’s left heel is the curve of my bag strap. If she were to look down …

  I gulp down a silent swallow.

  The keys jingle gently back onto the desk.

  After a few seconds I hear a page turn — then another.

  She waits a moment, clearly puzzled, then closes Sorrel and Brassock’s with a dull thud, picks it up, moves to the wall, and pushes it back into its place on the shelf.

  Now she will turn, and must see my quivering hat down between the desk and the high-backed chair.

  But there is a sound from the corridor.

  Madame Mary Saint Bernard picks up her keys and moves swiftly to the open door. “Mrs. Bunce?” she calls.

  I squint out from under the desk, see in the corridor the edge of a blue overall and a hand clutching a duster.

  “Yes, Madame?”

  “Here are your keys. They were under some papers.”

  “Oh, thank you, Madame.” The woman drops a curtsy.

  “Try not to be so careless next time.”

  “Yes, Madame.”

  “By the way, did you remove a book from the shelf?”

  Click, and the light goes out. It’s darker than before.

  “I don’t recall doing it,” says the woman.

  “Curious,” says the nun.

  The door closes. The keys rattle. One of them is selected, turns in the lock.

  Footsteps move away down the corridor.

  The breath rushes out of my desperate lungs. I get up so quickly my chin scrapes painfully on the edge of the desk.

  I run across the room and grab the doorknob. Turn. Pull.

  It won’t move.

  A wave of panic.

  I go back to the desk, tug open the drawers one by one, scuffle pens into pencils, ink bottles into paper clips, rulers into erasers, scatter a box of medals and badges.

  There must be a key.