A Gathering of Ghosts

by Karen Maitland

  Ma let Ryana argue with her sometimes, though never win, for she said Ryana would become the well-keeper when Ankow came to lead her own soul to the lych-ways. She said the gift always passed to the eldest daughter, but I watched Ryana whenever she said the spirits were talking to her and I reckoned she couldn’t hear anything, just pretended to. Not that it mattered: those black crows at the priory wouldn’t let her or any of us near the well since they’d built the chapel over it.

  ‘We’ll go up to the Tor three nights from now,’ Ma said. ‘Moon will be nine days old by then, according to my reckoning.’

  The leather curtain that served as door to our cottage was pulled aside to let the grey light of morning trickle in. Rain dripping from the thatch was blowing through the gap and collecting on the earth floor in a long puddle just across the threshold.

  Ryana stared at it and scowled. ‘How you going to see the moon, if it’s pissing like this?’

  ‘I seen what’s coming,’ Ma said. ‘There’ll be mist, but night’ll be dry enough for what needs doing.’

  She squatted on the edge of her low bed. The frame was larch poles lashed together, then criss-crossed with cords. It was light enough to move close to the fire on a winter’s night, and when space was needed, it could be pushed back against the low wicker partition that separated the livier, where we ate and slept, from the shippon, where the goats were bedded. Ma pulled an old sheepskin from the bed and wrapped it around her shoulders. She always felt the cold after she’d been journeying.

  Whenever I came back from journeying, it was as if I was seeing everything around me through a drop of water, which made it bigger and brighter. I’d see each tiny feather on a skylark’s body, even if it was flying high above me, or watch a raindrop grow fatter and fatter till all the colours of the rainbow burst inside it before it ran down a leaf. I saw each shining buttercup and stone as if for the first time, looking right into them, the colours so bright they dazzled me, the grains in the pebble so sharp, they were bigger than a rock. I longed to ask Ma if she saw these things too. I wanted to share the colours and the things I’d seen with someone who understood, but I could never tell Ma that I journeyed. I wasn’t the firstborn. I had no gift, no right.

  ‘That bread done yet, Morwen?’

  I started guiltily at the sound of Ma’s voice and, wrapping my hand in the edge of my kirtle, dragged the flatbread off the hot stones set round the edge of the glowing peat fire. It was scorched and crumbled into half a dozen pieces before I could tip it into Ma’s lap. It was mostly pounded meadowsweet and rush roots, and they never held together like flour. But since those black crows had stolen our well, there’d been few coins pressed into Ma’s withered palms, not enough to buy flour from the village mill, and what little grain we sowed turned black and rotted afore the shoots were even halfway grown.

  Ryana took small, quick bites from the edges of her bread, like a sheep nibbling grass. She looked like a sheep, with thick curly hair always falling into her eyes, big yellow teeth and a long face that rarely smiled.

  Ma gobbled down the bread as hungrily as if she’d been walking all night, though I knew her wizened old carcass had never left her bed. Ryana was supposed to keep watch when Ma was journeying, see that her body came to no harm, for if someone were to wake her or move her while her spirit was gone, it would never find its way back. But Ryana always fell asleep, so it was always me who watched.

  Ma licked the crumbs from her fingers and frowned. ‘Tae’s a long time fetching that water.’

  When Ma had woken, that was where I’d told her Taegan had gone, but the truth was my sister had slipped out in the night, just as soon as she thought they were both asleep. She’d be in a byre somewhere with Daveth or his brother. Tae giggled that the lads shared everything, including her. But Ma would kill her if she found out. She’d forbidden Taegan to see the brothers. There’d been a bitter feud ’twixt her granddam and theirs, and probably their granddams before that, but Ma refused to speak of the cause. Don’t suppose she could even remember. Besides, Ma reckoned men were only good for one thing and that was getting a woman with child. She’d told us to keep well clear of the whole tribe and trouble of them till we wanted a babe. Ma was staring suspiciously from Ryana to me, and I knew only too well whom she’d pick on to question.

  Afore Ma could speak, I leaped up and pulled a sheepskin cloak around my shoulders. ‘I’ll go and find Tae. Maybe she’s taken a tumble, ground’s so slippery.’

  Go and warn her was what I really meant, else Taegan would come sauntering back, blithe as a blackbird, without the water she was supposed to be fetching. She’d get a beating, all right, but I’d get a worse one for lying to Ma.

  Outside, I snatched up a couple of pails and set off towards the stream that bubbled and meandered through the high clumps of sedges and marsh grasses. Clouds rubbed around the great rocks of the tor, like fawning dogs, and swirled down between the folds of the hills. The sound of two stones being struck together echoed through the rain. But it was only a stonechat – such a great noise for such a little bird. I glanced back at our cottage.

  It had been built sloping sideways on the hill, so that water and animal piss would run out through the drain hole in the lowest wall of the shippon. At the opposite end, the highest corner of the cottage was formed around a great craggy boulder that stuck out of the ground, and at the back of that, among the smaller rocks, there was a cave. You’d not see it in passing, unless you knew where to look. In good times, we kept our stores in it. But since the famine, it was mostly empty save for Ma’s tools that she used for her charms – a hag-stone, a hare’s foot, feathers of owls, jays and magpies, the bones and skin of a viper, the skull of a badger and many other things the beasts and birds had given her over the years.

  But there were other treasures too, things only Ma and Ryana were allowed to touch, especially the ancient white stone carved with the three women, their arms and faces pressed so tightly together that when I first discovered it – I’d been no bigger than a rabbit then – I’d thought they were all one creature, which in a way they were: the women were Brigid and her two sisters, who are one. The Bryde Stone, Ma called it. One night, when they thought I was sleeping, I’d watched Ma teaching Ryana how to feed the stone with milk from the cows and with wild honey. Ryana held it just as Ma showed her, but I could see she didn’t feel it stirring in her hand or see the cold blue flame that burned around it, not like I did.

  I dropped into a crouch and stayed very still. Through the rain and low cloud, I’d caught a fleeting glimpse of someone moving further down the hill. At first, I thought it might be Taegan, but if Ryana was the sheep-face of the family, Taegan was the cow, with a shaggy mane of ox-blood hair, and breasts and buttocks that, no matter how scrawny her face became when food was short, never lost their undulating curves.

  As for me, Ryana said I was the scroggling of the family, stubby and skinny, the shrivelled apple left on a tree that isn’t worth the picking. But I’d the reddest hair of all three of us. Once, I heard an old hag in the village say it was so fiery-looking that any man who touched my pelt would surely get his fingers burned. And he would too, I’d make sure of that.

  A woman was toiling up the rise between clumps of heather, but as she came closer I saw she was altogether brawnier and much older than either of my sisters. A withered memory fluttered feebly inside my head. There was something familiar about her, but it died before I could revive it. She looked to be making for our cottage, for there was no other dwelling or road on this tor. She was taking the long way round to avoid the mire, but I could find a way through it, using stones and markers you’d never see, unless you knew what to look for.

  I ran home like a hare and arrived before our visitor appeared above the rise.

  ‘Woman’s coming, Ma. Reckon she wants a cure.’

  ‘How would you know, Mazy-wen?’ Ryana sneered. ‘She might want a curse.’

  That was the name she’d tormented me with when I was
small. She still used it whenever she wanted to remind me of how stupid I was.

  Ma struggled up from the bed and took her place on a low stool behind the fire in the centre of the floor, poking it vigorously with a stick till the flames leaped and crackled. She liked her customers to find her there and be forced to peer at her through the smoke. She could make smoke form the shapes of birds and beasts, if she wanted.

  ‘Fetch her in, Morwen.’

  The woman was standing a little way from the door, her ruddy face glistening with sweat after her climb in spite of the cold wind. She was wearing a faded black gown, patched and worn but not homespun, like the village women. She shuffled awkwardly, evidently trying to make up her mind whether to come or go. Those who’d not come to Ma before often lost their nerve at the last moment. It was my job to coax them. I reckon even Ma knew I was good at that, not that she would ever say as much.

  ‘Kendra knew you’d come.’ I smiled encouragingly. ‘She’s been expecting you. She’s waiting for you inside.’

  Still the woman hesitated.

  ‘No need to be afeared of her. She wants to help you.’

  Finally, she seemed to make up her mind. Wiping the sweat from her nose with the hem of her gown, she ducked through the door.

  I slipped in quietly behind her and crouched with my back to the rough stone wall. Ma would send Ryana for her journeying things if they were needed, but if she wanted fresh herbs, she usually sent me. Ryana could barely tell larks-claw from lungwort. But one glance at Ma’s face told me something was wrong.

  The woman was standing in front of the fire, her meaty arms crossed defensively, but Ryana was on her feet glaring at her, and Ma, crouching low over the flames, was spitting on the back of her fingers, as if our visitor had the evil eye.

  Ryana turned on me. ‘What you let her in here for? Don’t you know who she is?’

  ‘Morwen was no more than seven summers when last she saw her,’ Ma said. ‘That child’s not been to our Bryde’s Well since, ’cause Meggy wouldn’t let us through the gate!’ She thrust her hand towards the woman’s face, her fingers clawed in a curse.

  The woman staggered back a few paces, but she did not run out. ‘I only do what I’m bade, as well you know, Kendra. I was birthed on this moor same as you and my ma dipped me in Bryde’s Pool just like you done to your chillern. But what can I do? You’re blessed, you are, got three strapping daughters to take care of you if you’re ailing. My man’s dead and the only boy I bore who lived to be full-grown was taken to fight the Scots and I haven’t heard so much as a whisper of him these past ten years. I’ve not a stick or stone to shelter under that I can call home. Those sisters of St John are good to me. Give me work, a warm bed, and a good bellyful of food – even give me their old robes while there’s still plenty of warmth and wear left in them.’ Meggy plucked at the faded black cloth.

  ‘Gave you my work, that’s what they did. Mine! Took the living from my family that’s been keeper of that well since ever it first sprang from the rock.’

  ‘It’s Sister Fina who looks after the well. I’m keeper of the gate, that’s all, as well you know, Kendra.’

  ‘Aye, I know it well enough. I know you won’t let us through it, not even when they’re all abed.’

  ‘I’ve my orders,’ Meggy said sullenly, staring at the earth floor as if she was suddenly ashamed.

  ‘So, if these women been so good to you, what you come to me fer, Meggy? They thrown you out?’

  The woman glanced round and picked up a low stool. She set it opposite Kendra, on the other side of the fire, then squatted awkwardly on it.

  ‘Ankow came for Father Guthlac’s soul. I could tell someone had been taken when I woke with a shiver in the night. I knew for certain Ankow had passed through our gates, for a cold wind follows him wherever he goes. And when death’s bondsman enters a dwelling, he never leaves alone.’

  ‘That what you come to tell me?’ Ma sneered. ‘I saw black Ankow galloping across the moors on that skeleton of a horse, with his hounds baying at his heels. I knew he was hunting souls. The magpie told me it was the old priest he was after. Good riddance, says I.’

  I stared at Ma. Had she really known? She hadn’t said, but she’d rarely tell me what she’d learned from the birds.

  Meggy stared into the flames. ‘Thing is, Kendra, it wasn’t a natural death. That much every soul in the priory knows. There was a blind boy found in the chapel after dark that night. Abandoned by his kin, they reckoned, but I never saw him come through my gates, nor anyone leave that evening who could have brought him. Father Guthlac took against him the moment he came close to him, said the lad should be drowned in the mire, so as he could do no mischief. But the prioress wouldn’t have it, insisting the boy stay. But his spirit hag-rode the old priest all night till he was worn to rags. You could hear his cries of torment all over the priory. Pitiful they were, poor soul. The boy’s evil spirit left Father Guthlac at cockcrow and that was when the old priest died. He’d warned us the boy would destroy us all, and he was the first to be taken.’

  She spread out her wrinkled hands before the blaze and lifted her head to look at Ma. ‘Who is he, Kendra? He’s not human, that’s for certain, ’cause I never leave those gates when I’m on duty, save to piss, and when I do those gates stay locked till I return. No mortal being could have got in, unless they used sorcery to make themselves invisible.’

  I expected Ma to send Ryana to fetch her stones or feathers, but she sat staring unblinking into the fire. Then her lips parted and her finger stirred. As the column of smoke drifted up, the heart of it began to swirl dense and dark. All of us leaned forward to see what creature might be hovering above the flames. But it was neither bird nor beast that shaped itself in the smoke. It was the head of a man in profile, great beetle brows hung over deep dark eyes, craggy cheeks and a sharp angular nose. Then, like a wraith, it dissolved away, drifting up into the blackened thatch.

  ‘You saw,’ Ma said.

  Meggy nodded, her face glistening with sweat from the heat of the fire. ‘I saw, Kendra. And I’ve seen it afore on Crockern Tor, when there’s a great storm a-brewing. I’d know that face like my own. But what does it mean?’

  ‘The old man of Dertemora has protected these moors from danger since the day the tors rose into the sky and the first lark sang above them. Old Crockern senses danger, death. He’s come to warn us evil has come to this place. The boy’s eye is closed now. But if he opens it, malice will pour from it, like a river in flood.’

  I’d seen old Crockern’s face in the smoke too, plain as I saw Ryana dozing in the corner, but I’d seen something more. Someone was standing behind him, a shadow, but not of him. There was a woman in the smoke who wasn’t Ma or Meggy or Ryana. I knew, like you know when a storm is rolling in, it was her that Ma should have been paying heed to. Ma should have listened to her.

  ‘You must learn the boy’s name,’ Ma was telling old Meggy.

  ‘He doesn’t speak. And none knows who he is or where he comes from.’

  ‘Bring me something of the boy’s, something I can use to ask the spirits. But take care how you get it. He mustn’t know, else he’ll put you in the grave alongside the priest. You come to me on Fire Tor three nights from now. I’ll make a charm that’ll keep him from Bryde’s Well. He must not touch that water else his middle eye will be opened.’

  Meggy gnawed her swollen knuckle. ‘Can you not give me summat to protect me now?’

  Ma stood up and felt along one of the beams that supported the thatch, then pulled down a three-armed cross woven from reeds. I knew what she would do and, without waiting to be asked, I handed her the sack in which she kept her bits of wool. Ma said naught, but pulled out three strands, one black and one white as the sheep that had given them, and a third stained red with madder – Brigid’s colours. She wove them sun-wise around the heart of the cross and held it out to Meggy over the flames of the hearth fire.

  ‘Dip it three times three in Bryde’s Well a
nd put it under your pillow, along with a sprig of hare’s beard to guard you from demons while you sleep. That’s when he’ll come to torment you if he learns what you’re about.’

  Meggy reached out, but let her hand fall without grasping the cross. ‘Prioress says Christ’s cross is all we need to protect us from the evil one. She don’t hold with Bryde’s crosses, specially this sort. Says it’s pagan. If someone were to see it and tell her . . .’

  ‘Then you’d best make sure they don’t,’ Ma said tartly. ‘The four arms of his Christ’s cross didn’t protect old Guthlac, did they? And if you thought they would protect you, you’d not have come to me.’ Ma thrust the woven cross bound with the three strands of wool at Meggy again and this time she took it, pushing it down inside her gown between her breasts, glancing uneasily behind her through the open door as if afraid she was being watched.

  Ma held out her hand again, and Meggy fumbled in the small cloth bag dangling at her waist and drew out a silver coin, which she laid in Ma’s palm.

  ‘Three nights hence,’ Ma said, as Meggy ducked out of the door. ‘And, remember, you’ll not be safe till we know his name. Bring me something, do you hear? And whatever you do keep the boy away from Bryde’s Well until the charm is ready. If his eye ever opens, there’s not a soul on these moors will escape the darkness.’

  Chapter 9

  Sorrel

  The long, sharp blade glinted in the sodden grey light, as the outlaw pressed his knife harder against Todde’s throat. The whole world seemed to stand still, like a waterfall frozen as it crashed over the rocks. Even the wind held its breath. A single buzzard hung above the tor, its wings scarcely flapping, its clawed beak pointed down at Todde, who was hunched, motionless with fear. The bird watched as if it knew death waited below.