The Memory of Snow

by Kirsty Ferry

  ‘Meggie. It is definitely Meggie,’ cried John, stepping forward. There was a stifled cry from the girl who stood half naked in front of the men she had grown up with.

  ‘Yes. It is Meggie,’ said Robert. ‘Make the witch suffer.’ There was a rumble of assent from the men and Meggie moaned softly. She was struggling to breathe, her face trapped inside the material of her shift. She shook her head to try and slacken it off, but it wrapped itself tighter and she began to choke and cough. She raised her hands to her face to try and pull the cloth away, but somebody grabbed her hands and pulled them down. She twisted her hands, trying to loosen the rope which bound her wrists, but the fibres bit in even more. She gagged and coughed again. Nicholson wrinkled his nose and viewed her with contempt.

  ‘It is the demon inside her trying to escape,’ said Nicholson. He raised his staff and showed the men the wicked pin on the end of it. ‘I shall prick the witch with this tool. I shall need to find a witch-mark first. I shall approach the accused and look at her body.’ Nicholson stepped towards Meggie and inspected every inch of the flesh that was exposed. He was so close she could feel his hot breath on her body. His breathing was ragged and she wanted to pull away from him, but she was held fast by his men. His voice spoke next to her ear, his face invisible to her. ‘Do not struggle, Witch. If you are innocent, you have nothing to fear.’ Meggie could feel the icy cold seeping through the broken stone slabs on the floor, numbing her feet and creeping up her legs. She thought she would faint with cold and humiliation. Then she prayed that she would lose consciousness; it would make this more bearable if she was oblivious to it.

  2010

  Liv turned her back on Ryan. Honestly, he was being completely annoying today. She’d sometimes had the impression that he wanted to become a bit more than a friend. She’d known him since primary school; they’d grown up together like brother and sister, been best friends for years. She’d always dismissed him as anything else. But lately he’d started to look at her in a strange way. He’d draw his eyebrows together and stare at her when he thought she couldn’t see him. And she could tell he was thinking stuff that hadn’t entered his mind before. She’d given it some thought herself, to be honest. She was going to say something or at least let him know he had a chance with her if he’d behaved himself today. But that was out of the question now. He was driving her mad. She felt an unreasonable, simmering anger bubble up inside her and quashed it firmly. She knew he hated stuff like this. His thing was sport and geography and science; nothing ‘girly’ like history, as he kept telling her.

  ‘Liv?’ Ryan tried again. ‘I’m sorry, Liv. But honestly. I did see someone next to you. He held his hand up a few inches above Liv’s head. ‘Here. He was about up to here and he was standing right beside you.’

  Liv sighed.

  ‘Look, Ryan,’ she said quietly. ‘I know you don’t really want to be here with me. It’s fine. You go on home. The bus will be coming past again shortly. I can finish up here, and write my notes when it’s nice and quiet. Then I’ll see you tomorrow.’

  ‘Liv…’

  ‘No. Please. Just… go home,’ she said. She turned back to the altars and squatted down again. She couldn’t let the idea of Marcus slip away from her. She needed to understand how they worshipped here and how they lived here. She was desperate to absorb the atmosphere and try to feel something of the place. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, letting her surroundings fade away. Liv gasped as an image, not of a Roman soldier, came to her; but of a young girl standing in the temple with fair hair. The young girl was holding her hand out and Liv opened her eyes quickly, looking around her.

  ‘What on earth…?’ she said. She turned to see if Ryan was still around, automatically wanting to mention it to him but he’d disappeared. Of course he had. She’d told him in no uncertain terms to go, hadn’t she? Liv sighed. It was too complicated to think about. She stood up and shuffled her papers together. Maybe she should go and write up her notes. She shivered and looked at the sky. It was a cloudless blue, but there was a distinct chill in the air. She turned away from the altars and walked back towards the entrance. She paused at the place where the door would have been. There was a whispering noise behind her, like a chanting or something. It got louder and louder. Then she heard a scream. Liv jumped and turned back to face the altars. A bird of prey was curving away from the temple. It must have been that. But she had the definite impression that she had just missed something. Something had happened when she had turned her back. She looked around her again, wishing Ryan hadn’t actually listened to her and left her on her own. Too late now, she thought. She hurried out of the temple, and found a patch of grass to sit down on, throwing her backpack on the ground next to her.

  Liv spread her papers around her, weighing them down with heavy stones from the field. She pulled a pen and a notebook from her backpack and chewed the end of the pen as she decided what to write. Her mind wandered as she stared at the blank sheet of paper before her, and she thought again of the strange chanting. Then a girl’s voice broke into her thoughts.

  ‘Blessed Coventina, save me.’ Liv froze, her pen out of her mouth and halfway to the notebook. An eerie silence descended over the countryside and Liv felt something flutter down from the sky and touch her skin like a butterfly kiss. Then she felt another. And another. She looked up and saw a cloud rolling in across the field, bringing with it a blizzard. The snowflakes fell faster and faster, and Liv scrambled to her feet, stuffing everything into her backpack.

  ‘Typical!’ she cried, looking around for some sort of shelter. Her best bet was the bushes and trees up near the fort. This weather hadn’t been forecast, she was sure. She lifted her bag and balanced it on her head as she ran, cursing Ryan for taking the waterproofs and umbrella with him. She had made him put them in his backpack – her excuse was that her bag was full of notes for her project. And she didn’t think that she would have fallen out with Ryan like that. They’d had squabbles in the past, but he’d never annoyed her to that extent; or indeed walked off and left her when she’d ordered him away in the past. She ducked her head and hurtled through the field. Then she wasn’t sure what happened, but one minute she stumbled and righted herself, pelting onwards, and in the next minute, she was in the entrance to the temple, looking at a tableaux of such horrific proportions that all she could do was stare in horror and open her mouth and scream.

  1650

  Nicholson circled Meggie three times. He pressed his grimy, rough fingertips all over her body, squeezing and nipping her, kneading her flesh, trying to find a witch-mark. He wanted a beauty spot, or a small mole. Anything he could see that would justify the trial.

  ‘There!’ his voice was strong and excited. ‘She bears the mark of the Devil. A brown circle beneath her breast. Look, men, see the filthy witch’s mark?’ He pointed at a perfectly round mole, dark against the white skin where Meggie’s breast met her torso. The men crowded around her and murmured their assent.

  ‘It is. I see the witch’s mark,’ said Robert. He reached out and poked it for himself. Meggie flinched and spat out a curse. These men were evil. They were filthy. She had never in her life cursed anyone before; but this was a situation she had never dreamed she would be in. They thought she was a witch, a servant of the Devil; evil incarnate. She felt dirty and abused, pawed all over by these wicked men, trying to prove something that was untrue. She felt the ground sway beneath her and again prayed that blessed oblivion might carry her away.

  ‘Behold, gentlemen. I shall prick the fiend and test her,’ cried Nicholson. He raised the staff and again displayed the evil point on the end of it. He made sure nobody ever touched this staff. Its secret was too precious. For hidden in the shaft, was a small mechanism which was under his control. The sharp point, which now glinted in the frosty light from the temple entrance, was retractable. Cuthbert Nicholson had only to tweak a small lever worked into the carvings on the staff and the point disappeared. This left only a blunt end of wood which
he would press against a woman’s thigh. By this method, he had control over who he tortured and who survived. He was a fickle man. If he needed money, he would find a witch or two easily. If his purse hung heavy and full by his side, he was more lenient. But he was a greedy man; and the leniency was becoming less and less evident.

  Nicholson’s eyes flickered over Meggie again, but decided this one was different. He wanted to see the fear in her eyes as he pressed the staff against her thigh. He wanted to see her thin little face crumple and her lips tremble as he carried out the test.

  ‘Men, I am about to test the witch. You Sir,’ he nodded at John. ‘Reveal the witch’s face to me. Her body must be tested, but her face must be visible. I must see whether she moves her lips in a chant or a spell to produce the blood which might prove her to be human.’

  John ripped the dress down from Meggie’s face. He held the fabric away from her, so her body was revealed and her face was free. Meggie gasped for air and opened her eyes. She was looking straight at Nicholson; to his great delight he saw her confusion turn into fear as she registered the point he held up to her eye level. This would be a joy. He curled the edges of his mouth into a sneer and held her gaze.

  Mesmerised by his eyes and frozen by terror, Meggie did not see the swift move as he stabbed the staff into her thigh. She felt the cold wooden edge pushing against her skin. Her eyes opened wide and her mouth formed a silent ‘o’ as she realised she could not feel the pin stabbing her. She looked down, seeing no blood running out of her body.

  ‘She is a witch!’ screeched Nicholson. ‘She does not bleed. Look! She has failed the pricking. She bears a witch mark. We have heard foul curses stream out of her mouth in this pagan temple. I declare this woman to be a witch; a child of the Devil. Take her away! Deal with her as appropriate!’

  ‘No!’ cried Meggie as the men seized her and began to drag her away. ‘No! Please, do the test again. I beg you; I’m not a witch. Please. It’s the cold weather – it makes the blood stay within my body. It has settled within me. I am not a witch…’

  ‘Very well!’ cried Nicholson. ‘I shall test you again.’ He raised the staff and prepared to prick Meggie once more. Then there was a blood-curdling scream from the entrance to the temple. Nicholson looked up and his face filled with horror. The staff wavered in the air, as if he was unsure of what to do with it. Meggie managed to turn around; she saw the men who were by the door fall to their knees as a black shape sped through the middle of the temple.

  ‘Blessed Coventina!’ cried Meggie. ‘You came to save me! Merciful goddess, prove to these men I am not a witch!’ She knelt and raised her bound hands to the shadow, imploring it for help. It was the shape of a slender, young woman. She had long, dark hair and her clothes clung to the outline of her body. The image was hazy, but as it approached Meggie, it leaned towards her, reaching out its hand. Meggie had seen spirits and shades before, but nothing like this. It had to be Coventina, it had to be.

  ‘Demon!’ cried Nicholson. ‘The witch has summoned a demon. Get thee back to Hell!’ he shouted. He raised the staff in the air and grasped it with both hands. He brought it down with a crack across Meggie’s shoulders. The girl let out a cry and crumpled onto the stone floor, falling face forwards. Nicholson raised his staff again and this time thrust it point first into Meggie’s back. He stabbed again and again, repeating his accusations, until even his men were sickened by what they saw. Three of the men wrestled Nicholson’s weapon away from him. The girl was obviously dead; she lay unnaturally twisted on the ground, blood congealing around her, matting her hair and soaking her clothing. Someone had the decency to throw a cloak over her and they led Nicholson to the side of the temple. He was still hurling abuse at Meggie, even whilst they tried to reason with him.

  John staggered outside and vomited. Robert crawled out shortly afterwards and sat beside him, his face pale. The images of what he had just witnessed replayed over and over in his mind’s eye. John wiped his mouth and turned to speak to the older man.

  ‘She bled,’ he whispered. ‘She wasn’t a witch.’

  Robert shook his head.

  ‘No. But she’s something queer. She summoned up something in there. What else could that…thing…be?’

  ‘I thought it was maybe Alice,’ choked out John. His eyes filled with tears and they spilled down his cheeks. He looked helplessly at Robert. ‘Maybe Alice. Coming to help her.’ Robert shrugged.

  ‘I don’t know. She would have called her by name, surely, if it was Alice,’ he said.

  John dropped his head into his hands.

  ‘What’s going to happen to her? They can’t leave her here like that, can they?’ he whispered.

  There was a commotion from the temple, and Nicholson stormed out. He was no longer restrained by his lackeys, but they guarded him closely as he left; Robert thought it was for his own protection.

  ‘Remove it from the temple. Take it away and burn it. Reduce it to ash and scatter the ashes in running water,’ rambled Nicholson. ‘The place where we found the witch- it was a spring. It was the source of this stream that runs past us. Take the body there and burn it… Tell nobody what we witnessed here. Let it be known that she was a witch. Let anyone who defies my findings be condemned as a witch or a wizard. They shall meet the same fate without the trial. Only a person who harbours a dark side would have seen anything in there; anything that happened in there. Do you understand? Do you understand?’ He leant down and screamed the last three words in John’s ear. John flinched and nodded. Nicholson fixed Robert with the same gimlet stare and waited for a response. Robert stared at him and inclined his head. Satisfied, Nicholson stormed off and ordered someone to clear the temple.

  One of the men, who had been sent to escort Nicholson - perhaps Bell- left the temple with a bloodied bundle slung over his shoulder. John retched again and Robert looked the other way, across the field to the ruined fort. He saw a man up there on horseback. Charles Hay. He was watching to see what the outcome was. Hay didn’t have to wait long before the smoke began to curl upwards into the slate-grey sky. It had stopped snowing now, but the landscape was blanketed in white and the clouds were hanging heavy with the promise of a fresh fall before evening.

  Long before the new snow came, the pyre had burnt out and the so-called witch’s ashes had been scattered in the burn which sprang from Coventina’s Well. The water swept the ashes away and tossed them downstream, where they danced and whirled, flowing eventually into the River South Tyne. Meggie had always believed Coventina made the ice melt and the winter thaw. And nobody thought to wonder why the Dene Burn hadn’t frozen over that day.

  Nobody gave the flowing water more than a fleeting thought as they left the Well and straggled back to the village in silence. Nobody, that is, except Charles Hay.

  Two days later, Charles brought his horse down the hillside and rode it past the temple. Hay felt no emotion as he followed the track towards Coventina’s Well. He walked the horse slowly past the burn which gurgled as it ran through the field. He pulled the horse up by the Well and gazed into the water. He leaned over to peer into it. Was that where they had thrown the ashes? He had heard tell they’d scattered them somewhere. He thought he could make something out in the depths of the pool. It looked like a person. He frowned. They’d burnt the body, he’d seen it. It must be a trick of the light. Whatever they had done, as far as he was concerned, it was good riddance. The girl had been a menace to society, guilty of attempted murder no less. Why should she have been spared? As he reasoned with himself, a movement behind the stone wall of the Well made him look.

  A young woman slipped out of the shadows; dark haired and dark eyed, she stared curiously at Hay. She gazed at him brazenly for a while without speaking.

  ‘What is it?’ Charles snapped eventually. ‘Why do you stare at me?’ She was starting to make him feel more than a little uncomfortable.

  The girl blinked and tilted her head to one side.

  ‘Is this yours?’ she aske
d, not answering his question. She held up her hands, offering him something she clasped in her palms. Despite the wintry conditions, the girl stood in a loose, white gown which lifted gently in the wind. She didn’t shiver or seem cold in the slightest. Hay glared at her, not trusting her.

  ‘Show me what you have,’ he stated. ‘I do not come here regularly, so I doubt anything you find would belong to me.’

  ‘I have seen you before,’ she said. ‘You were on the fort two days ago, watching, were you not?’

  Charles felt unsettled by this woman. She spoke evenly and quietly; she did not take her eyes off him for an instant.

  ‘Do you know who I am?’ he said. ‘I am allowed access wherever I care to go. It is not my problem if I stumble upon something distasteful.’

  ‘It is you who caused the problem, Mr Hay,’ said the girl. Charles started. He hadn’t mentioned his name to her at all.

  ‘No. It was not me,’ he answered. ‘It was a misunderstanding between some villagers, that’s all.’

  ‘A mistake, Mr Hay?’ asked the girl. She held her hands out a little further. ‘Please, tell me. Is this yours?’

  Hay glared at her. He didn’t recognise her at all. She wasn’t a village girl; her voice was accented slightly he realised. Was she a traveller? Or a gypsy? He noticed a thin golden ring on her finger and a golden cross around her neck. So she had some things of value, he thought. The ring was intricately carved and no doubt stolen from some poor sap she had fleeced.

  ‘Show me,’ he repeated, nodding at her hands. They were white, smooth hands. Not the hands of a worker.

  The girl unfurled her hands and presented Charles with the object; a small, sharp bladed knife. Bone-handled and slim, he recognised it from Meggie’s house. It was the knife she had used to stab him in her pathetic attempt at self-defence.

  ‘No!’ he cried, blanching. ‘No, that’s not mine. I don’t know who it belongs to. I’ve never seen it before...’