Hexenhaus

by Nikki McWatters

  ‘I’ll call you tomorrow,’ Em says and gives me a warm hug. ‘And you go get Ben tonight. He is all kinds of awesome and you could really do with a boyfriend, you big nerd-burger.’

  I laugh her off and wave as she breaks into a run and heads up past the hotel. I walk home, head down, hiding beneath my umbrella, making no eye contact with anyone.

  At home I stand in the rain with a bucket of soap suds and a scouring brush and scrub at the red paint. The tears merge with the rain as I walk back around the corner and tip the pink frothy water into the muddy puddle.

  Inside Mum has woken up and is making a pot of tea. We don’t talk but we are saying so much. She’s a flighty bat, sometimes, but I love her with a fierceness that I don’t often contemplate. I love her for who she is and the goodness that fills her heart. Mine is breaking in my chest, bleeding out for her. It hurts that my mother, who is the most trusting person in the world, who would do anything for anyone, has been betrayed this way.

  I get dressed and ready for Ben’s: a light sweater, Converse and jeans. I slap on a little lipstick and tell Mum I’ll walk. It has stopped raining and I don’t really want her behind the wheel of a car tonight. Her hands are still shaking. They’ve been shaking for days.

  VERONICA

  BAMBERG, FRANCONIA, 1628

  Hans and I sat by the open fire, telling Frau Berchta that we were on our way to Würzburg. At first I had not wanted to tell her even that much, but her kindness made it difficult to lie. I explained that we were orphans but did not tell her how that had come to be. I told her only the bare bones of our story. The old woman had a warmth of spirit that seemed to emanate from her like a halo. I felt safe, but our lives were in danger and it was hard to know who to trust. Something about her smile and the gentleness of her old eyes worked like a spell over me and I found I wanted to unburden myself. She reminded me a little of my late great-grandmother who had passed on when I was small. I only remember her as a soft, wispy white-haired woman who smelled like lavender and ale.

  Hans was exhausted and fell asleep in the chair by the fire. I went to wake him but Frau Berchta reached out to stop me.

  ‘Let the boy sleep,’ she had murmured, her old face beaming in the flickering light from the fire. Hung over the flames was a heavy iron three-legged pot. ‘You both look weary. You may rest in my home for as long as you care to. It is half a day’s walk to Ebrach but if you are in no hurry I could do with some help around the cottage.’

  ‘Our kin in Würzburg do not know we are coming,’ I shared, ‘but it might be good for my brother to rest a few days before trekking up through the mountains. You are very kind. And I promise we will help you with the animals. We passed a wild apple orchard. We could go back tomorrow and pick you baskets full as well as berries.’

  The old woman crossed the room and stirred her pot, waving the aroma of garlic and the unmistakably rich scent of cooking chestnuts into the air around us. ‘Ja,’ she smiled back at us, ‘there is much ground work that is becoming too much for these old bones. Your labour will be most welcome. You look like a strong girl.’

  So she had seen through my disguise as a boy. It wasn’t really very convincing. I pulled off my cap and let my long fair braid tumble down over my back.

  I looked about the cottage. It was a homely crowded space. In one corner sat a spinning wheel. A row of pewter mugs lined the mantle over the cooking fire. A birch broomstick sat behind the front door and the walls were covered in the most beautiful tapestries and paintings. I wondered if the woman had painted the many bird images: ravens, woodpeckers, herons and snowy egrets. There were few windows, so candles danced from many different surfaces, their waxy bodies melting out like plates beneath the flames. It was only beginning to darken outside and the moon was still high. A narrow staircase led to an attic room. Beneath the stairs was a wide bed, which was spread with a patchwork quilt.

  As if she could see into my head and examine my thoughts, the old woman spoke. ‘You and your brother can rest upstairs. There are two beds and they are quilted and comfortable,’ she said. ‘My bad leg won’t let me climb up there anymore. The children have left, now, and there may be some clothes for you in the chest.’

  ‘And your husband?’ I asked.

  ‘I have no husband.’ She smiled a sad but resigned smile. ‘I’ve been alone here for more years than the two of you put together.’

  She served me a bowl of nutty broth and came back from the larder with a basket of bread rolls. I gently woke Hans because his little belly needed filling. We sat at the table with Hans and me on one bench seat and the old woman on the other. She studied us intently and then nodded and smiled.

  ‘We pray,’ she said. Hans and I clasped our hands shut, closed our eyes and listened to the lilt of her lowered voice. ‘We thank you for this food and ask that all who eat it shall have health and happiness, wisdom and love, full storehouses and many blessings. Though this meal be eaten in frith, hail thee Mother Nerthus.’

  I opened my eyes, startled. It was unlike any meal blessing we cast in our own family home. Frau Berchta smiled at me and nodded for me to share my own blessing.

  ‘Father, bless this food to strengthen us and to praise You. Amen.’

  Hans, who now felt safe, tagged his own on after mine and thanked the good Lord for his ravenous appetite.

  ‘These bread-cakes are wonderful,’ I told our kind hostess as I mopped up the broth with the torn chunks of bread. ‘Sweeter than we are used to. Is it honey?’

  Frau Berchta nodded and smiled. Her teeth were small and straight, unusual in a mouth so puckered and old.

  ‘Ja, honey, some wine, some myrtle and a hint of rue.’

  I ate in thoughtful silence and frowned at Hans when he slurped his soup. After we had eaten, the woman looked at me.

  ‘We are quite safe here from any unwanted visitors. There are some who know the path and come. They are good people and bring me news and gifts. I go to the town only once or twice a year to visit the children. I bring them gifts and play with them. As I get older I am more drawn to the company of children. I will soon be too old to visit them. You will be safe here. Safer than in the big towns.’

  I looked at her quizzically. Something in the way she spoke the words told me that she knew or suspected that there was much more to our story than I had shared with her.

  That night we lay in the darkness, the warmth from the fire gently rising up to keep us protected from the autumn chill that had come early to the forest. It was always colder in the hills and with summer coming to an end, we would soon need warmer clothes. Especially now that we were out of the city and our belongings had been left by the road. I was wearing a delicate cotton nightshift that had belonged to one of Berchta’s faraway daughters. The thick blankets were soft and light. A small round window framed the waxing moon. I heard the screech of an owl outside and then the faint rising howl of a wolf. I shivered despite the warmth, imagining how dangerous it might have been if Hans and I had still been in the woods at night, having to sleep in the safety of a tree branch. The howl came louder, closer. I thanked God for the shelter that Frau Berchta had offered us. Such kindness was a rare thing. I imagined she was quite lonely and would welcome the company.

  For the first time in many months I felt at peace. Ever since they’d taken Mutti away I had lived with a creeping sense of terror. It had soaked into me. But lying there in the small cottage in the woods, I felt as if the burden of the terrible tragedy upon my family had lifted.

  I heard a noise downstairs and felt a sudden change in the air. The creak of the door sang and a voice spoke, low on the heels of it. Frau Berchta had a guest. She was definitely speaking to someone. Hans was sending out little puffs of sleep breath and I crept out of my bed carefully, trying not to let the floorboards groan beneath my bare feet. I crouched low and looked around from the top step, through the banister to the room below, peering be
tween my two hands.

  Frau Berchta was in a white linen nightshift, not unlike the one I was wearing. Her hair was loose, as silken as cobwebs, and she was patting a large grey dog. I gasped with a sudden intake of air. It was not a dog. Frau Berchta was patting a wolf, as wild and toothy as I had ever seen. It padded over to the fireplace and dropped into a heap with a satisfied snort. The woman bent down and again stroked its dark grey fur and tickled beneath its strong jaw.

  ‘Rest well, Rudi,’ she said, slowly straightening her old body. Then she looked directly at me, cowering there above her. ‘Have no fear, child. He is here for our protection and poses no threat or harm.’

  KATHERINE

  RENFREWSHIRE, SCOTLAND, 1696

  I had not dreamed of love like the other girls my age. I had more of a mind to be a man than to love one. I coveted their freedom and their potential. I wanted what they had – a life of adventure and learning, unfettered by the constraints of politeness. A man might take out his honour and defend it in a duel or choose to marry this one or that and then run off to war or to discover new shores on the high seas. A woman was tied by her softer blood to the hearth and spinning wheel, the pots, the fires and the butter churning. I always wanted more than my birthright had bequeathed me, which was not much at all.

  In the short space of only months, not a year, I had gone from thinking naught about men to looking at John, the Earl of Mar, and not being able to place a time when I did not love him. The feeling was so voracious that it frightened me.

  On the bend in a hush we talked and talked of escapes and shadows and the future, and then he wrapped his cloak about me as if I was a baby bird beneath his sheltering wing and took me to his home in Paisley.

  ‘Tell me all of you, Kat,’ he said, taking my calloused hand in his, pressing the pillowed flesh of my palm. ‘I see a long lifeline with many bairns and a beloved husband here.’

  ‘You talk nonsense.’ I laughed back at him. ‘There are no passages in my hard-worked hands that tell of love and the future. This line you see is a scar from a gutting knife.’

  I sighed and relaxed my hand into his, letting his warm fingers trace the dells and hills and valleys of it. Only when he stopped and held both my hands in his, breathing deeply, shaking, did I look up into his eyes and frown as he leaned forward and kissed my lips. His warmth and the scratch of his stubbled whiskers against my chin thrilled me and I felt like a child tumbling down an embankment.

  ‘Marry me, Kat Campbell,’ he said urgently. ‘It’s the only way I can protect you from these allegations.’

  I was so surprised that I bit my lip so hard it presented a bubble of blood. I tasted the salt of it. He had not spoken of love but of protection. With a tiny shadow of disappointment I fashioned that they meant the same thing.

  ‘But you are a nobleman and me just a Highland commoner,’ I stammered as he held a finger to my lips. John’s family owned a townhouse in Paisley, the small village on the outskirts of Glasgow. He had brought me there under the safety of his cloak and had stoked up the fire and made me a honey mead brew. His primary family estate lay north in Clackmanninshire. We were on the divan in the parlour room when he looked at me and took me in his arms and kissed me until I needed breath.

  ‘My family home is in a state of some disrepair. I mean to fix it up after winter but it is comfortable enough. If we make haste and away there by the end of the week I believe we can put some distance between us and this accusation. Will you be my wife, Kat?’

  The sun was casting dark shadows across the floor from the small window, the warmth and glow disappearing as day turned to night. John lay, holding me to his chest as we reclined on the divan. I was happy but afraid. It seemed a very big thing to give someone my whole heart. As a child I had shared my heart with Mammie, Da, Granaidh and Isabel in almost equal measures, with Gran taking the biggest slice of pie. But with Isabel gone cold on me, my heart was a big gaping lonely field and by entering into marriage with John, I would be sowing that field with him only. It was exciting and terrifying at the same time.

  ‘Yes, John. I will.’

  I wanted to feel more happiness than I did. Perhaps the cloud of the accusation hanging over me had tempered what should have been one of the most joyous moments in my life. I was happy as I felt the blood beat in John’s chest, but I felt ashamed in those moments that I wanted to be happier, more filled with rapture than the gentle, homey joy I was feeling.

  A local reverend with sympathies to the old faith would marry us in a small church on the edge of the city, John told me, where he would allow us to say our whispered vows with the blessing of the Papist faith. The marriage licence would say nothing of that and I would simply become the Lady Erskine of Mar and stay indoors and out of society until the warrant for the vanished housemaid from Bargarran fell aside and was forgotten. It was all happening so fast that it made my head spin, but John was adamant that it was the only way we could get through this calamity.

  John Erskine was a clever young man. He knew arithmetic and politics and read Latin and Greek as well as his own tongue. I hoped he would school me in these subjects as well.

  ‘I did not think to marry so young and to someone I barely know,’ I muttered, dizzy with the pace of his proposal. ‘And yet I feel you are a good man and I will make a good wife.’

  In the firelight spilling from the wide-open hearth, my russet hair was like a halo of flames falling down over my shoulders. John and I talked until the early hours of the morning, building a sacred trust and an understanding of one another, each snippet of our childhood memories piled upon one another like bricks, building a shared wall. Through the window, with the moon high and silver, I could see the snow floating down and smoke coiling up from nearby chimneys, drifting into the darkness and being lost into the night sky like paint into water.

  ‘They will burn me if they find me,’ I whispered into the crook of his arm. I lay there, crumpled with tiredness but cosy in the shadow of his safety. ‘No wedding band or husband will save me from the stake.’

  ‘It is a nonsense this witch-hunt,’ John bristled. ‘It’s Shaw and his bullies out to squash the rebels. If they pull in the others and they squeal under the pilliwinks, then I’ll be for burning, too.’

  ‘I would die before I gave your name,’ I whispered, and I meant it. ‘We have, all of us, sworn in blood to protect the identity of our fellow Jacobites.’

  ‘And I will die before I let them take you away for witch-testing,’ he answered me, running a hand over my brow, sweeping a red tendril of hair from my eyes, and planting a soft, wet kiss on my lips.

  ‘But young Christian Shaw is not a political girl and that performance of hers,’ I mused, breathing in his scent, a heady blend of leather and peppercorns, ‘it reeks of the devil. But it is Brisbane who has put her up to it.’

  I told my husband-to-be of the book that the Reverend Brisbane read to the young girl, a tale of possession and witchcraft from the New World and Salem. John had heard the tales, too, but until this time had not thought to gather the strings to weave the two stories together: two disturbing tales of possession, a wide ocean apart with only a zealous clergyman to connect them. What these incidents had in common, more than the devil or witchcraft, was the Reverend James Brisbane.

  ‘If it is a round-up of anti-royalists and Stuart supporters,’ John said grimly, ‘then they have infected this wee girlie’s mind with a demonic worm. They are using the poor child as a puppet to increase hysteria to allow them to round up locals to be questioned about Satan and Stuart alike.’

  John leaned down and kissed me again with a passion and tenderness that made tears prick in the corners of my eyes. This was what love felt like and it felt good. In those moments nothing else mattered. I knew I could be happy with him but not completely until this curse of witchcraft was lifted from me.

  The next evening, at dusk, Reverend Groth married us in
a small chapel in a laneway in Paisley. I wore my best blue dress, one that my mother had sewn up with her own dear hands. I had thought to pack it in my little bag, and John was clad in his brocade pale-blue coat and a musky curled white wig. I said the words, promising to honour and obey this man, and he promised to cherish me forever. Afterwards we threw ourselves under the anonymity of heavy plaid cloaks and clattered back to town in the fancy Erskine of Mar wagon as husband and wife. I was, although only secretly at that stage, a Lady. I wondered if Granaidh could see me from Heaven. I had always wondered what it might feel like to be titled, but I found, with some surprise, that it felt like nothing at all out of the ordinary.

  It was Christmas night and John played the pipes as I danced for him, laughing through my Highland fling. He clapped and told me I danced like a dervish. It was the happiest night I had had in a long time and I wished that it might last forever.

  For the next week, five days, almost a week, John and I began the sacred work of learning to know one another with a view to eternity. I marvelled that I had found a man who would haul me out of the meadows and moors, out of the empty husk that was left of my barren and wasted family life to a new future. He offered me a springtime in an estate, with trips to London and further afield to France where he had supporters. Winter, however, was for hibernating, keeping a low profile and loving one another. We tied ourselves into one knot so that no one could ever undo us. Stories were told into the wee hours of morning, of folk and farm and fine city visits, and there was much laughter as I recounted my wild windy moor life and adventures in ruined castles.

  John would leave most mornings and tend to his business deals and rally support, listening at the local inn for news on the fugitive maid from Bargarran. He brought home fish from the small village market and I cleaned, gutted and salted it well before cooking it. John brought me new shoes and a woollen shawl flecked with silken bows. From an upstairs casket he brought down to me handkerchiefs that had been his mother’s, embroidered with fine French stitching. We discussed what our children might look like and what we might name them. I wondered how many daughters’ names I would have the honour of inscribing in the treasured family tome of the Systir Saga. I hoped for a handful of them. My happiness swelled every day and I was learning to love John Campbell more and more as we settled into domestic contentment.