Hobb's Cottage: A Short Story
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I don my cloak and walk down to the village. I carry a basket filled with dried roots and herbs, perhaps I can trade these for what I require? As I descend into the village my breath rises like incense in the sharp winter air and the damp seeps into my bones. Slowly I walk to the harbour, hoping that a boat is in with fresh fish. The babe needs goodness. He has been dangerously still these last days. I need a fisherman who requires salve for a wound or cloves for a toothache.
But as I make my way to the quay, my feet skidding in muck, the cold comes from more than the frosty air. In doorways goodwives stop their conversations as I pass, their eyes burn into my back and their animosity is palpable. I hear the word ‘whore’ whispered at first and then repeated, louder and louder. I raise my chin. My babe needs goodness. I cannot flee.
On the quay it is no better. In the past the fishermen would speak to me and exchange bunch of carrots or a cabbage for a mackerel. I see one man cross himself and, knowing that their superstitious nature is deep rooted, my heart sinks like kittens flung into a well.
“Witch!”
The word is a hiss, and it comes from a small boy helping to mend his father’s nets. “Witch!”
My mouth dries. I see again the terror in my mother’s eyes as they came for her. The hands that grasped and tore at her flesh. Hear the screams rent from her throat when they threw the rope around the tree and watched her dance. Hear again my own shameful whimpers. I spin round and think of home, of bolting the door. Of safety.
“She cursed the Squire’s baby,” mutters a woman from her doorway, clutching her own babe closely. “They say that he won’t thrive. The Squire’s Lady is sickening too, burning up with fever.”
“She bewitched the Squire and she bears Satan’s spawn,” whispers another.
I try to hurry but my body is unwieldy. In doorways I see people cross their forefinger and thumb in the ancient sign against evil and I know then that all is lost for me and my babe. James’ silence has damned me.
Two days later by a waning moon I brew a vicious tisane of arrowroot and hemlock, which bubbles black and vile above the few sticks of firewood that I can muster. Dark smoke rises in plumes, as noxious as the liquid that I strain into a pewter mug. These are dark dealings indeed and my heart is heavy. I drag myself to the window seat and stare out at the night, the night, which is as black and empty as death. Clouds tear in from the west and the sea spits like a tame cat turned wild. I place my hands on my belly and stroke the flesh. All my love, all my despair and all my terror seep into that gesture, before I tip my head back and drink.
“The cottage is great, Mum.” Phoebe tucked the mobile under her chin while attempting to pluck a jacket potato from the oven. “Ouch!”
Instantly the flesh on her hand started to shrivel and her eyes welled up. Why was she so emotional lately?
“I’m fine,” she promised hastily, dunking her hand under the tap. If her mother started to worry she’d never hear the end of it. “I just burned myself, that’s all.”
Phoebe tried to swat away her mother’s concerns. Her mother didn’t need to know she missed Alex so badly that it was like emotional toothache, didn’t need to know about the almost baby, and certainly didn’t need to know that in the two weeks she’d lived Hobb’s Cottage Phoebe had scarcely slept. Strange half dreams haunted her, shadows shimmered just out of view and sometimes she heard the high thin wail of a baby. She’d sit up in her bed clutching the covers to her chest while her heart beat a wild tattoo.
No, her mother didn’t need to know she was going crazy.
Ending the call, she paused for a moment. She did love it here at Hobb’s Cottage but something was out of kilter, something that floated at the back of her mind and which was more than just missing Alex. Maybe the strain of working three jobs for the entire summer season was affecting her more than she’d realised?
Phoebe retrieved her supper, grated cheese into the potato and poured a large glass of wine. Collapsing onto the saggy sofa she picked up Miller’s book and began a chapter on wreckers. Tilly’s story was too full of holes and disturbing co-incidences to make comfortable reading. Moments later she was engrossed, imagining storms and waves, terrible cries, sailors’ hands scrabbling and against the cruel rocks, their ragged nails scraping in frenetic terror. She turned the page then froze, suddenly aware that the scratching had continued. It was transported from her imagination to the sitting room.
You’re being ridiculous, it’s the cat, Phoebe told herself sternly. But the room was deserted; only the moon was peeking in. There was no sign of her mysterious new feline friend. Mice then?
She was icy cold and her breath clouded before her eyes. The scratching was becoming faster now and although it sounded as though it was coming from the fireplace there was nothing to be seen. Was she going mad? Had the strain of longing for Alex finally driven her insane?
With a half sob Phoebe could bear it no longer. Snatching her drink, she fled up the narrow stairs to the attic room where she buried herself beneath the duvet. She didn’t dare stir again until the pearly dawn stole through the windows.
When she eventually crept back down into the sitting room Phoebe was almost unsurprised to find a skeletal hand in the hearth, the fingers clawed against the stone as though they had been desperately digging into the granite. Hanging from where the wrist should be was a piece of frayed red ribbon. With a cry of horror she backed from the room, her hand pressed over her thumping heart. This was far, far more than her imagination…
Crone, crone before my time! Body misshapen, bones snapped away from flesh, scattered and desecrated! Such darkness. Bundled into boxes. Hidden from the light. Strung up and prodded, mocked, abandoned and eventually forgotten, no longer Tilly Penhalligan who laughed at the moon and threaded wildflowers through her hair but a dusty dry pile of bones in a box, nameless and shunned. Set me free! Let me see the stars again and feel the rain on my face. Let the tempests come and welcome me back into the storms. Place me with the flesh of my flesh. But do not leave me alone and forgotten. Oh no, not when memories are simmering and ready to boil over!
Pain. Agonising pain. Hours? Days? I knew not. All I knew was that I howled and shrieked, little caring whether my cries carried down to the villagers. Blood as dark as night pooled around me, secret and vile and staining the cottage floor. Then nothing but fragile bones. Still and dreadful he lay in my arms, eyes wide as though surprised that life had been ripped away so swiftly. I held him close to my breast and wept. Hot salyt tears that trickled onto his face, running in tracks through the gore.
Then I kissed his brow and placed him on the hearth. They would come for me. Witch and whore. Even now they would be lighting the lamps and climbing the hill. But they would not take my babe.
Phoebe tore down hill so fast that she tripped and grazed her knees but she didn’t notice the stinging.
“Come on!” She raised her fists again, hammering on the salt swollen paint of the museum door. “Open up!”
“Can’t keep away from me?” smiled Dan but the banter died on his lips when he saw how pale Phoebe was. He didn’t ask what was wrong but, with an arm around her trembling shoulders, led her into the office and sat her down while he brewed tea so strong that the spoon could stand up and salute at them.
Phoebe was relieved it was Dan who was there to listen as she choked out her story. Lucy would have looked at her as though she was mad, and maybe she was? The mind can play strange tricks. But some instinct told her Dan would understand. Without speaking she reached into her rucksack and held out the hand, still clenched as though clawing at the stone. She’d been surprised just how hard she’d had to tug to pluck it from the heath. It hadn’t wanted to let go.
“Tilly,” breathed Dan, gently taking the hand in his own. His dark curls fell over his face as he caressed the bones tenderly with his forefinger. “You’re back, are you?”
“You don’t seem surprised,” Phoebe said. In spite of the sugary tea she was still trembling.
“I’m not sure that I like that idea,” Phoebe said with a shiver. Yet oddly it did made sense; the feeling of knowing the cottage, the dreams, the waking with the sensation that someone had touched her cheek, the smells of rosemary and lavender that drifted unbidden through the rooms and the strange cat that came and went without warning. “So is the skeleton really the girl who once lived in my cottage? Tilly Penhalligan? The witch?”
Dan shook his head. “Tilly was misunderstood, abused and abandoned but no witch. The villagers knew no better than to suspect a woman living alone.”
“Nothing much changes then,” Phoebe said bitterly.
“Life was fragile in the seventeenth century and people were superstitious,” Dan said gently. “There was no science to tell them why a storm was coming or rationalise how sickness spread. Blaming a witch was their only explanation, however crazy that might sound to us.”
Phoebe recalled the names Alex’s wife had called her. Maybe not quite so crazy or as seventeenth century as Dan thought?
“The story goes that there was an evil storm,” he continued, his soft voice transporting her there. “Three boats were lost that night and above the howls of the wind the villagers swore they heard Tilly Penhalligan calling to Lucifer. Some even said they saw her dancing with him.”
Torches throw shadows that loom against the walls. I hear curses and feel nails bite into my flesh. Spittle hits my face and fingers pinch me.
“Burn the witch! Hang her!” they cry.
“Swim her!” howls another. “See if Satan saves her now.”
They rip me from the cottage, my boots dragging over the garden crushing the herbs. I see puss hanging from the porch, swinging in the storm like a wet glossy glove, and tears course down my cheeks.
“She weeps for her familiar!” cries someone else. “Hang her now!”
I start to fight. My fingers, already bloody with digging, lash out at the clawing hands. They mean to hang me from my porch, the very porch where James carried me inside and loved me then and there. I twist and cry and piss myself in terror.
James! Where are you? Why don’t you come?
“What happened?” Phoebe’s tea was cold and she leaned forward in her seat. She could taste Tilly’s fear, bitter as sores, and recognised that clawing sensation of betrayal. “Did James come?”
Dan nodded. “He came and stopped them from hanging her but then he left her to her fate. His infant son had died that night and cries of witchcraft were ringing in his ears too. He wasn’t going to risk anything for Tilly Penhalligan.”
“But didn’t he love her?”
Dan shrugged. “Maybe he did, but he was afraid. Those were dangerous times, Phoebe. In Colchester the Witch Finder General was hanging scores of harmless old women and a frenzy of hysteria was sweeping England. James was a coward, I agree, but also a product of his age.”
Phoebe found she was holding her breath. In her mind’s eye she saw Tilly alone and hoping, Tilly weeping for a baby she knew she couldn’t keep, Tilly abandoned and afraid. The parallels drove the blood from her veins.
“So what happened?” she whispered.
“From the research I’ve done it seems Tilly was taken to Bodmin Gaol to await trial for witchcraft. There’s little record of her from then on but it’s commonly thought she died of a fever. Believe me, that was a blessing.”
“But she’s not at peace, is she? There’s something left at Hobb’s Cottage, something she needs us to find if she’s to rest.” Phoebe gulped. She realised now that she knew exactly what this was. The knowledge chilled her to the bone.
Dan reached for her hand and pulled her to her feet. She followed him into the museum and they paused before the case of bones. Gently Dan opened the lid and placed the missing hand back inside.
“Are you ready to help her look for it?” he asked.
* * *
The hearth looked as though a team of road diggers had passed through. Sweating, Dan prised a crow bar under the last undisturbed flagstone, and placed his weight against it. Apart from his grunts the cottage was still, as though waiting. Even the gulls outside were silent.
Dan’s eyes met Phoebe’s.
“Ready?”
She bit her lip and nodded. He didn’t need to lift the stone. She already knew what lay beneath - a tiny skeleton, curled on its side, small bony thumb plugged into the void of that tiny mouth. A few tendrils of hair dusted the skull and scraps of fabric clung to the bones.
Tilly’s baby.
It’s a wild and stormy afternoon. Wild rain lashes the cliffs, driving in horizontal sheets from the boiling sea. Purple clouds race past, shadowed with sickly storm light. Gulls are snatched by the wind and their wings beat feebly before they turn back to the village for shelter.
Two people are battling against the gale and I follow them. Their heads are down against the weather and one, the man, pulls a hood over his head. In his arms he has a box clasped against his breast, held tightly as though most precious to him. The girl follows, carrying a spade and a sodden bunch of wildflowers.
Eventually they pause at the place where the cliff path turns easterly, dipping inwards and affording shelter. As the land drops away through the mist the small whitewashed cottages of Polkerryn can be spied, huddled and twisted together. Nearest to them is my little porch with its twinkling lights. In the gloom Hobb’s Cottage beckons of warmth and home.
The man is speaking. His words are soft. The dark haired girl is digging. The rain pastes her hair into her eyes but she wipes it away impatiently until satisfied with her handiwork. I’m drawn closer.
They are holding the box and now I see that the girl has a smaller parcel. She falls to her knees and places it into the earth, wiping tears from her eyes. The man opens the box and bones and red ribbons tumble into the earth and then my arms are full! The baby smiles up at me and we’re flying, soaring with the gulls and laughing!! I leap and spin and weep for joy, pressing kisses to his fat cheeks and whirling him through the air.
The dust has gone! And I’m free! Returned to skies and the sun and the storms!
“Dan!” breathed Phoebe, clutching his arm. “Look!”
Together they watched the storm cease and abruptly as it had arrived. The rain paused as though a heavenly tap was turned off and the wind dropped away as a sliver of golden light slipped through the billowing clouds. The howling wind was hushed and all was quiet.
Everything was peaceful.
Once Dan had buried the bones, Phoebe scattered thyme and lavender onto the earth, breathing in the scents that had filled her dreams for weeks. Maybe burying Tilly on the cliffs wasn’t strictly the correct procedure but from the lifting of her heart she knew it was totally and utterly the right thing to have done.
“It’s done,” she said, turning to Dan. “She’s gone, hasn’t she?”
He nodded. “She’s at peace.”
Drawing her against his chest, Dan and Phoebe watched the world quieten. It was all pink and shining and newly made after the tempest.
Deep in Phoebe’s pocket there was a buzzing sound and reaching into her woollen coat she plucked out her mobile phone. On the screen the words Alex Mobile flashed incessantly like a message from another life, a life that no longer bore any relation to her own and that she no longer wanted. With a heart rising like a hot air balloon Phoebe realised more than one person had been set free today.
Raising her arm she hurled the phone with all her might up into the newly scrubbed sky. High into the shining light it soared before plummeting deep into the depths of the sea, the waves closing over it with a sigh. Then, holding out a hand to Dan, Phoebe looked down towards the glowing light in the window of Hobb’s Cottage.
&
nbsp; “Let’s go home,” she said.
The End
Dear Reader,
I really hope you enjoyed this short story. Some of you may recognise Cornish myths, settings and stories within it that have certainly influenced my writing.
Hobb’s Cottage was written a few years ago and was inspired by an old house in the Cornish fishing village of Polperro, where my best friend was living for a summer. Although the cottage was beautiful, all beams set at quirky angles and lead paned windows gazing out across the rolling sea, the place always had the oddest atmosphere, as though it was holding its breath and waiting for something. This air of stillness was totally at odds with the bustling village outside and I always had the strongest sensation that the twenty-first century was well and truly left behind once the front door closed.
This seventeenth century cottage was situated half way up the very steep hill leading out of Polperro, a road now called Talland Hill, and the location for some of the most beautiful properties in South East Cornwall. However, it’s a little known fact that the road’s far older name is Hobb’s Hill; an ancient title that locals say means Witch’s Hill. Several people that I know, including tough fishermen and new comers to Polperro with no previous knowledge of the hill’s sinister alter ego, told spookily similar stories of supernatural experiences which occurred there.
Although I never saw anything odd myself, at least not on Talland Hill anyway, while my friend lived in the cottage she certainly had several unsettling experiences and eventually moved on to somewhere less shimmering with vibrations of the past. Since then the cottage has changed hands several times but nobody seems to stay there for long…