Hexenhaus

by Nikki McWatters

  ‘Your daughter slanders me,’ I said defiantly. ‘I cannot speak for Agnes Naismith for I barely know the beggar woman, but I can assure you, sir, that I say my prayers to the good Lord as devoutly as anyone. I am no witch.’

  ‘That,’ John Shaw seethed, ‘will remain to be seen.’

  The next day word came up from the village that a bairn, not one month old, had died, found by its mother cold and blue with a smudge of blood caked at its nostrils. It was the work of witches many people were saying. The father was telling anyone who would listen that his tiny daughter had been murdered by the devil’s servants and he was linking this to the possession of Christian Shaw. More people began coming to watch the violent fits and wonders performed by the child as she was seen spinning through the house at times and had to be restrained from hurling herself down the staircase.

  The townsfolk of Erskine and as far as Paisley set up nightly patrols looking for gatherings of witches or suspicious signs of devilment. Fear began to spread over the countryside. The smallest rumour caused mob scenes. People no longer knew where to direct their impotent rage. Everyone was suspicious of everyone else but particularly of me and Agnes Naismith. The other maids and staff were avoiding me, even my sister. I was a pariah; they were all afraid to speak or associate with me lest it bring their own reputation into consideration. I could not sleep for nightmares. At the staff meal table I picked at my bread and felt it lump in my throat.

  What hurt most was the cool distance my sister was putting between us. When I spoke to her she gave curt responses and never met my eye. I reached out and touched her hand one day and she recoiled as if I had burned her skin. I cried as much as I blinked. I had done nothing. I had simply reprimanded the child for being precocious. It was as if I was a disfigured and foul creature as I walked, ashamed and confused, through the halls of Bargarran. Thus, after deep and painful consideration, I decided to flee. I saw it as the only way I might shed the millstone of the accusation of being a ‘witch’. I did not want my good sister tainted by her association with me. For her sake and mine I left.

  Two hours after midnight I packed my old hessian bag with my belongings, carefully re-wrapping the Systir Saga in many layers before placing it at the bottom of a small portable chest. I put my purse of money that I had saved over my months in service into the deep pocket of my coat and slipped away while there was nothing to distract me but the new moon. The world was soft and I could hear the gentle whisper of the river. The sky was clouded over. There were no lights burning in any of the dark houses along the road to the bridge. The only glimmer on that pitch-dark night was the winking of cats’ eyes as they ran for shelter when I disturbed them walking by. A light and bitterly cold wind was blowing up behind me. I met no one and made my escape smoothly.

  It was a three-hour walk to Glasgow, four if you idled, and I decided I would find shelter in some inn until I could try to locate John. He would know how to help me or perhaps give me some advice or assistance or even protection. At least my steady walking pace helped me to keep warm. I was grateful that the snow this winter was running late. This might just have been the loneliest Christmas of my life.

  I had watched Reverend Brisbane over the months as he had burrowed his way into the Shaw family like a holy tick and I knew by the way he looked at me that he was imagining my screams as I burned at the stake. He did not like me. He did not seem to like anyone much other than Laird John Shaw, who he clearly idolised, and the little girl who had become his personal salvation mission.

  As the birds began to squawk just before dawn, I found myself sitting in a pew toward the back of the Glasgow Cathedral, marvelling at the stained-glass windows yawning down on me. Although I was not a Presbyterian in my heart, to my mind God didn’t care too much for labels. He was one and all-encompassing. I bowed my head, knelt and prayed for his protection. When I came back out into the early day I saw that a cold, dreary winter’s day had begun.

  I imagined, with a shiver, that the news of my sudden departure had spread through the region of Erskine as fast as if the message had been ‘fire’ or ‘soldiers on the horizon’. I had an awful sense it would have triggered accusations as well. Nothing spread as fast as superstitious gossip. With my head well-hooded and my eyes cast low, I pushed through the markets and slunk into the shadowy alcoves as horses tramped through the cobbled streets. I listened to the gossip and realised my fears were well-founded. Fear lit up people’s conversations peppered with panic, outrage, anger and hysterical suspicions. I heard in the marketplace that I had been to blame for everything from children falling ill to beets dying in the ground.

  As soon as I had pressed through the crowds safely, undetected, unrecognised, I went straight to the hilltop that overlooked the city. I hoped with all of my heart that when John heard the news of my disappearance he would know where to find me. It was our special place. Fir Park was where we had first met and the location of all our secret, private trysts.

  The first snow had now begun to fall and I was cold and frightened, taking shelter beneath a wide oak tree. The city looked dull and grieving; the houses, heavily curtained and melancholy. I stamped and rubbed my gloves together, clapping my hands, my breath coming in puffs of pale smoke. As the day opened up, my heart and hope began to sag. I began to recollect precious memories to keep me warm from the inside.

  I let myself drift back to visiting my mother’s Irish family on Lough Gill near the Isle of Innisfree, watching the men in waistcoats and serge suits dapping for trout while the women wove rugs and told stories. It was one of my happiest memories; that adventure to the green island. What I loved most was the water, and I shut my eyes against the falling snow and remembered my father, out in a boat with my strange-talking seanair, Granaidh’s husband. My father was wearing a green felt hat, waving at me onshore while his other hand whipped his line into the glassy water. A cuckoo struggling and scratching in a bush, scuffling for worms, had distracted me and when I’d glanced back at the lake, Seanair was reaching out a net to slip beneath my father’s fish. I had laughed and clapped delightedly while my father doffed his hat to me. I watched him cast again and again as his line cut through the air and his fly landed gently on the still glass surface of the water. Waiting. Our broadened family had supped on trout that night until we were full. And the laughter and ale had poured through the dusky evening with the women as unruly as the men, my mother cackling like a banshee when she’d snagged a fish bone between her teeth. I felt a special bond with my mother’s people. My granaidh was a healing woman and my aunt Anna-Maria told me how Granaidh had brought her knowledge of the power of herbs and stones from her homeland and had healed so many in the village over the years that they spoke of her with great reverence. When she had come to live with us she was old and her mind sometimes wandered, so I cared for her as if she were a child. I missed her and my mother so much it pained me right into my bones.

  Burrowing back into the safe arms of the sheltering oak, I was surprised to see a long-eared owl sheltering in the branches of the snow-dusted tree, its speckled brown plumage doing a fine job of camouflaging it. Only the orange eyes blinked out its position. The black beak, barred feathers and tufted ears were still. It sat there, looking at me with an equal but subdued curiosity. I was unnerved to see this night bird sitting on a dead branch, close to the trunk in the daytime.

  I looked back out and up to see that the sky had closed in to a hard grey and the snow had stopped. Then I heard the sound of my hungry belly groaning for a sliver of buttered bread and felt the gnawing empty ache that told me I had gone too long between feeds. Despondently, I began to climb back down the hill, bidding farewell to the owl, my feet crunching through the light layer of fallen snow, to wander back to the market for a meal.

  At the bend that led toward the old part of the city, John Campbell was waiting for me, fear splashed on his face. He came to me and held me and it felt like the very first time.

&n
bsp; PAISLEY

  BUNDANOON, AUSTRALIA, PRESENT DAY

  The accusations have shattered my mother. She’s been so busy working on the arrangements for the inaugural Winter Solstice Festival planned for the Highlands this coming June, but now even that looks like it’s unravelling. She believes firmly that this is the motivation behind the Hooper accusation and the other ridiculous ones that are now lining up behind it. The phone has stopped ringing and the shop stays shut. Mum won’t stop crying and won’t eat and I don’t know what to do with her. Outside rain is pelting down, hammering our old tin roof like we are under enemy fire, the rash of false accusations swirling about my mother. There are three more now, each more ludicrous than the last. Migraines. One case of chronic hives and another that claims Mum gave a woman a love spell that attracted a stalker. The police aren’t following them up, for obvious reasons, but in town everyone is revelling in the drama. Mum is being painted as a human ouija board, something mysterious and intriguing but also dark and dangerous and unknown. Everyone seems to agree she has some power but some are accusing her of using it against the community. She has gone from being a breath of fresh air and colour in this town to an outcast, or, worse, a joke.

  Even all the women who used to come to have their tea leaves read, desperate to hear about the tall dark strangers about to arrive in their sad lives, have started to cross the road as I approach. Sophie’s mum and Bec’s mum pretended they didn’t hear me when I called out hello this morning. I know they definitely heard me and when they ignored me I actually felt ashamed and I have absolutely nothing to be ashamed of!

  ‘My mum thinks it’s all totally bogus,’ Emily says, sniffing back the remnants of her head cold. ‘She says people will always be afraid of what they don’t understand. What the hell even is Wicca? I mean really?’

  We are sitting cross-legged on my bed facing one another. She’s been away from school so she missed the initial flurry of drama.

  ‘It’s just … I dunno … a belief system like a religion but not. It’s not as weird as it sounds. Mum calls it the oldest religion. What people had before religion.’

  Em is the only real friend I have in the world. Having been dragged around the country like a gypsy girl for most of my life it has been hard to make good friends. We just clicked like Lego blocks when I moved to Bundanoon nearly two years ago. She is helping me summon the confidence to actually front up to Ben Digby’s tonight.

  Emily is trying to wrap her head around it all. ‘So does she really believe in magic? Like flying and making things invisible and stuff?’ she asks me, although I’m sure we’ve been over this before. ‘I thought it was just astrology and crystals she was into.’

  ‘No,’ I answer. ‘She talks about bending reality with coincidences but accepts that the laws of nature are fixed. She’s not like a fairytale witch. Right from when I was little she told me that there was nothing mystical about being a witch. She said every woman should aspire to being one. She told me it was an acronym: W for Wise, I for Intuitive, T for Trusting, C for Compassionate and H for Honourable.’

  ‘I love that!’ Emily laughs. ‘I’m in. Make me an honorary witch. So I just don’t understand why everyone is suddenly acting like they’ve had some hex put on them. Why now?’

  ‘Shh,’ I caution her. My mother is in the next room so I continue in a soft, whispery voice. ‘Mum thinks the Hooper’s are behind it and just want to derail the Winter Solstice Festival. It’s the classic distraction technique.’

  ‘So Isaiah’s zombie act is just creating a diversion from the real issue?’

  ‘Maybe. Mum came out of the broom closet as soon as we arrived in this town and most people don’t care what she believes. They love coming to have their fortunes told and everyone knows she’s harmless. Most people want the festival to go ahead. Only the Hoopers are against it. No one’s had a problem with Mum’s witchiness until now.’

  ‘I think it’s cool.’ Emily smiles at me and shrugs. ‘She read my cards once. None of it came true but it was fun.’

  It’s Saturday and we are bunkered down at home, keeping dry, listening to the rain and trying to gather our thoughts. My mother is still in bed and we can hear a fresh burst of crying every now and again. The Queen of Positive Thinking is very, very bleak today.

  ‘I don’t think astrology and tarot cards predicted this turn of events,’ I say perhaps too dismissively. ‘Poor Mum is shell-shocked. People can be so horrible. None of her friends have dropped by to see how she is. Not one. It sucks. No one’s answering or returning her calls.’

  ‘Isaiah Hooper is still a zombie apparently,’ Emily says. ‘I actually feel sorry for him if his mother put him up to it. I heard from someone who knew someone who’d actually seen him that he’s like a statue. Just sitting there, staring into space. If anyone asks him anything the answer is always “Kirsten McLeod”. He’s faking for sure. Can’t Constable Amy go and talk to him and tell him to stop the stupid act?’

  ‘She could try, I guess.’ I shrug. ‘I feel so helpless. Maybe we could find someone who knows Isaiah to talk to him, someone he trusts. Does he even have any friends?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Emily says, thinking, her eyes training up to a corner of my wall that has a nest of cobwebs lodged there.

  ‘I’ve never taken much notice of him even though he’s caught the bus with us for the last few years, every day,’ I say. ‘He always sits up the front, just by himself, staring out the window.’

  ‘Maybe Ben Digby.’ Emily grins and wiggles her eyebrows knowingly. ‘Maybe he could talk to him. They’re two local Bundy boys. And he’d do anything for you.’

  I feel my face warm with colour as my best friend leans in toward me, her blonde pigtails falling either side of her face.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ I counter with mock shyness. ‘I don’t think he thinks of me as anything more than a friend.’

  ‘I’ve got to be home in twenty,’ Em tells me, looking at her phone and making moves to pack up her stuff. She lives on the other side of the train tracks about a ten-minute walk out of town. ‘Don’t worry about your mum too much. She’s tougher than you think and after she’s cried it all out she’ll get up and fight this battle. She should come to my mum’s party tonight.’

  ‘She wasn’t invited.’

  Emily frowns and cocks her head. ‘Oh, really?’ She puts out her bottom lip, thinking. ‘Well, we were just going to go out to dinner as a family but then it was a last minute change of plan to have a party. Mum must have just forgotten to call her.’

  There is an awkward silence between us but we both know what the other is thinking. It’s not Em’s fault and I don’t want to make her feel guilty.

  ‘Did I tell you that my dad is going to be Mum’s lawyer?’ I share.

  ‘Really? I didn’t think you saw him anymore,’ Em says, looking confused. ‘But I suppose if he’s a good lawyer …’

  ‘Good lawyer. Bad dad. I hope he gets the whole thing dismissed and soon. You know she hasn’t been charged, right? Just questioned.’

  ‘So what are you wearing to Ben’s?’ Emily asks to lighten the mood.

  ‘Just casual.’ I give her my best lame face. ‘But I don’t know with Mum … Maybe I shouldn’t go. Now, if you were going …’

  ‘She’ll be fine,’ she urges me. ‘You have to go. Totally. And you have to ring me first thing tomorrow and tell me everything. I wish I was coming, too, but it is Mum’s fiftieth and she’d have a coronary if I wasn’t there to act as waitress and general slave girl. Sophie and Bec are going to Ben’s, so you’ll have them there.’

  ‘I don’t think it’s a move on his part. It’s not like a date or anything.’

  I wonder, though. I haven’t been to Ben’s before. His team of mates are all pretty tight. There’s Dean and Brent and A-Dog. It’s usually them cruising about town together. I’m not really one of his good friends so I’m hop
ing that he’s as interested in me as I am in him. Maybe he only invited Em as well so that I’d agree to go. I really am letting my imagination get the better of me. Bec and Sophie are the popular girls in town. Em and I are the dorky geeks. It feels nice, though, to be included tonight. We rarely get invited anywhere cool.

  I look in on Mum and see that she’s fallen asleep, mouth open and snoring lightly. Em and I slip out the back door, grabbing a big umbrella.

  ‘I’ll walk you with the brollie as far as the station or you can just take it if you like,’ I tell her.

  ‘Walk with me.’ She laughs. ‘That way I’ll stay dry for at least half the trip home.’

  The rain is coming down in hard vertical sheets like glass. We cling to each other beneath the wide polka-dot umbrella and take small steps, jumping over the puddles that have formed in the dirt behind the cottage. We slip though the rusted gate and hug the sidewalk as we round the corner and hit the main street.

  I see it immediately. It’s hard to miss. Someone has spray-painted the words Evil Witch in red across the glass window at the front of my mother’s shop. The awning has protected it from the rain although the letters have run and dripped so that they look like blood. I stop and gasp. My eyes are drawn to the words as much as my body feels repelled by them.

  ‘Who would do that?’ Emily shouts over the sound of the rain.

  The water is seeping through my shoes and the bottoms of my jeans are wet and soggy. We stand there, dripping around the edges, huddled beneath the umbrella and I look around to see who else is in the main street. I see various locals running between shops and cars and a few others, possibly tourists, peering into windows. It is just business as usual. Except for the angry, bleeding, vile graffiti on the Hex and Heal storefront.

  ‘Come on.’ I tug at Emily. ‘I’ll clean it up when I get back. Before Mum sees it.’

  We walk in silence to the train station at the end of the main street. There are no people on the platform and the rain dances on the metal tracks.