Hag

by Kathleen Kaufman

  “It’s time to go. The girl is waiting for you to understand. Time is coming soon.” The woman spoke gently, the sound filling Alice’s head and dancing from one ear to the other before fading away like a wisp of smoke. She lifted her left hand and pointed up. As she did so, Alice could see the mark of Ingwaz glowing on her moonlit skin.

  Alice fought her body, willing it to rise, to move, to cross to the figure in the window. But her body lay still and her muscles betrayed her intent. I’m still asleep, Alice realized with a shock. I’m still dreaming; my body is asleep. She tried to scream, but her voice was frozen solid. In the midst of the struggle, she felt the darkness overtake her, and she fell back into an inky star-filled sky.

  The next time Alice awoke, light was seeping through the curtains, and she knew her body was entirely hers again. She wouldn’t tell Mum or Coira about her dream; she needed to figure it out for herself first. Coira’s birthday was coming soon, right as the seasons turned to summer. Alice wondered what this year would bring. Coira would soon be the same age she had been when she’d left Glasgow as a child. She felt a sense of urgency, and a vision of the seaside cliffs from her dream flashed behind her eyes. It was time to wake up and lead her daughter to whatever was to come next.

  COIRA ONLY CAME INSIDE after the sun had fallen and the night wind had begun to whip through the trees. She hadn’t eaten all day; all attempts to offer food or rest had been refused. She was entranced with her singular and utterly mysterious task, and her work caught the light of the rising moon. Mum lifted her off the ground as soon as she hit the doorway and carried her to the bath. The little girl sat impassively as her grandmum scrubbed the dirt and mud off her hands and face.

  Alice watched from the doorway. Time had started to escalate and move faster; she could feel her blood beating in a higher pulse than before. Once Coira was clean and dry, they sat her down to a steak and kidney pie at the kitchen table. She ate slowly; once finished, she neatly folded her napkin and walked to the front room. There she stood, gazing out at the stone steps and willows in the front of the manor. Alice came to stand behind her. If you looked just beyond the edges of Cathedral Court, you could see the Necropolis, where generations of their line lay.

  “What else did you see?” Coira asked quietly.

  Alice flinched these were the first words she had spoken all day. The little girl looked more ghost than child, standing there in the moonlight that poured through the big front window in her gauzy, white nightgown.

  “That day on the lane, when you were a little girl, you saw my father, and you saw me, and you saw how he would die. But what else did you see?” The little girl’s voice had lost all childishness; it was smooth and velvet, like a chant.

  “I didn’t understand the other things I saw that day,” Alice answered honestly. “I still don’t. I only knew that it was the conclusion to a long story—that it was everything that Ingwaz represents, the certainty of a conclusion, a bringing of peace and a healing of the past with the present.”

  “Yes, but what did you see?” Coira turned to face her mother. Her eyes caught the light of the candle on the wall sconce, and they glowed amber, luminescent in the light. “Tell me the things you saw.”

  Alice felt the numbness tingling in her fingertips again. “I saw shapes of people, shadows half-formed, the light bleeding through them. I saw them everywhere: they stood on corners and streets; they looked out the windows of the lane where I lived. They were children and women and men; they were lost. I saw you, as you are right now, and I knew it was near the solstice. I saw them all coming home.”

  Coira paused, considering all this. Then she turned and continued to stare out the window at the street below. “Yes,” she said quietly. “That is what I saw too.”

  That night, after Coira had finally consented to sleep, Alice lay in her bed, her head pulsing. The solstice would be here soon, only days away, and it would bring the wave she had seen in her dream, the wave that washed away what was and cleansed the shore. She felt sleep tugging her under, and soon she was drifting on the inky black starlit sky.

  She stood high on the sea cliff. Below, the ocean crashed and raged; the rough field grass bit and cut her feet as she walked to a tiny cabin with a trail of smoke emanating from the chimney. As she stepped closer to the cabin, she felt as though she had passed through a wall of water although her hair and skin were dry. Her breath was caught in her throat for a moment and she gasped for air. Once through, she walked on to the door, which swung open as she approached.

  A woman sat at a dark wood table in front of the crackling hearth. Alice was suddenly shivering violently. With an effortless wave of her long, delicate fingers, the woman beckoned her in. Alice entered and sat next to the creature. It was not a woman in the human sense, though she was undeniably beautiful. Her raven hair fell around her face, which, while unlined and olive-toned, was not quite mortal. Her features were too sharp; her night-black eyes reflected the starry night sky. She held out her left wrist, showing the mark of Ingwaz. Alice stared at her, mesmerized.

  In front of the woman was a small stack of squares of muslin cloth; beside them, a bottle of indigo ink. Alice had seen her mother try to recreate the image for Coira, but now she knew why she had said it was not enough: the air around the cloth and ink sparked and crackled. Wordlessly, the woman dropped a pinpoint of indigo ink onto the stack of cloth, and it sank down layer after layer after layer. Alice reeled back, the truth overwhelming her and knocking her to the floor. The woman pushed back her chair and lay down next to her, her hand on Alice’s heart, the fire warm and comforting, and Alice remembered.

  She walked across the heath that the daughter of Cailleach had crossed. She felt the rough field grass shredding her feet and legs. She walked on although her body ached and her heart was in pieces. She felt the cruelty of the children, the sharp blows of the stones, the lick of the flames. She felt a desperate and deep longing for her mother, and Ingwaz pulsed and sang in tune with her grief. Alice walked and the stars swirled above her. Time did not exist here; she was crossing between the layers of the cloth, she was the pinpoint of indigo ink, she knew all things and was equally present in all times. The entrance to the cave glowed in the night, Ingwaz carved on the stones that were pulled back from the entrance.

  She entered the pure blackness without fear. Fear was far beyond her now. She was one of an ancient line of hags who had once ruled this land; there was nothing she feared. Down, down, down she went, one foot in front of the other, waiting to feel her mother’s arms around her, waiting to feel the comfort of home.

  The waters of the black lake far beneath the surface of the lowland crags rippled, and the motion sent gentle waves to lap the shore. The Cailleach turned to see her daughter, her face not mortal and not human; she appeared as she had appeared to the villagers and farmers back in the beginning, as she had to the men she took to amuse herself. Her fire-red hair swirled around her, and her amber dark eyes glowed. She opened her arms to the girl who stood at the door to her home and folded her in. Alice watched all this from the comfort of the inky black sky that had absorbed her as she entered the cavern. It was not she who the Cailleach was folding into her embrace, it was a little girl with raven-fire hair and honey eyes. A little girl whose path Alice had seen all those years ago standing on High Street. A little girl who would bring the certainty of a conclusion, the unity of Ingwaz, and a time of infinite peace to the world of man.

  THE LAST LETTER CATHERINE’S hazel-eyed husband wrote was brief and nonsensical. There was no accompanying explanation for its brevity or oddness, but she imagined that he had had very little time to write it and a certainty that he would not live through the night. It had been found on his body and sent on later; hence, it arrived a week after she received the telegram stating that he had been killed in a bombing raid in London. The telegram did not tell Catherine what she found out later, which was that he had been crushed under the wall of a tenement building where his unit had been rescuing
survivors of the Blitz. He died alongside three others from his unit and was hailed as a hero for his bravery. His last note, handwritten in faint pencil and stained with sweat and grease, said nothing of bravery; it spoke of fear, which, Catherine mused, is a sort of bravery in itself, the inception of bravery, a seed that must grow if it is to become useful. And maybe, in time, that fear would have sprung wings and evolved into a much greater thing. But, as it was, the note was scared and sad and lonely, and Catherine could only stand to read it once, folding it tightly and fitting it into a locket she wore around her neck, a grainy photo of her hazel-eyed husband accompanying it.

  They were still staying with Mum and Dad. High Street had escaped the raids thus far, but the threat was always looming. On this day, Catherine had left the children with Mum and made a trip back to her shop with the flat overhead, which was largely untouched but for some broken glass as jars had been shaken from their shelves. No one had broken in, and she hadn’t expected they would. Most of High and Bell streets were abandoned, and anyone who had the option had left after the destruction at Clydebank. Mum and Dad had been some of the first doctors to arrive with the Red Cross Brigade, and Mum still wouldn’t talk of what she had seen. Dad had sat quietly, chewing on an unlit pipe and staring. Catherine knew better than to ask, but from the stories that swirled, hundreds had died, countless more left homeless. The only detail of that night that Mum would tell Catherine was the body of a small girl who was pulled from the destruction. The bombers were still raging overhead, aiming for the munitions plant and not caring what they brought down in their wake. The girl, even in death, had a fierce grip on a plush tiger—a nervous response, Mum had muttered, the muscles lock into place at the time of death. She was missing a leg and the back of her head was crushed, but her hand was still locked on the tiger. The bodies were piled and the survivors evacuated. Mum had been working around the clock at Queen Margaret’s, and her face was gaunt and drawn.

  Catherine had walked around the shop, eventually going upstairs and gathering a few things: a doll that Alice had left behind, a blanket, some clothes left in the closet. Her hazel-eyed husband’s presence in the flat was still strong. His tea mug still sat on the shelf, ready to be filled; his shirts hung neatly side by side, waiting to be worn. A pair of work boots was lined up by the door, where they had been on the day he left in his clean and pressed uniform. He hadn’t said goodbye on that last day; he made a foolish joke, and Catherine had felt nonplussed. It was as though he were off for a holiday at the shore; he refused to talk about the possibility that he might not return. Catherine stood in the doorway to their bedroom and could still see him standing in front of the wooden vanity, straightening his tie and smoothing the wrinkles out of his uniform. He had spent all of his working life in the iron works factory, and the British Army uniform was the first set of dress clothes he’d ever owned. He’d looked so handsome; it had made Catherine’s heart flutter.

  Alice was now old enough for Primary School—if it had still been open. The war had meant the end of so many things, so Alice was home with her Grandmum and Granddad reading from an aged copy of Gray’s and being forced to memorize the periodic table. She had read early; in fact, Catherine couldn’t remember when Alice couldn’t read. No one had ever taught her that Catherine could remember; it was as though she’d always known, born with the knowledge and practice. When Catherine bent down to tell her the news about her father, her tiny perfect face was grave. She had nodded and not cried, and then turned and crossed to Mum’s courtyard, where she sat under the eaves for the rest of the afternoon. Storm clouds rolled in, and it rained for three solid days even though it was the dry season. The neighbors all exclaimed about the odd weather, but Catherine was far from surprised.

  Arthur would have no working memories of his father. He had never met him and would have to learn about him through photographs and stories. A ghost before he developed a working memory; Catherine wondered what sort of man that would make him. She wondered how he existed at all. It wasn’t unheard of for her line to have sons. Mum had talked of Many-Greats Grandmum Moira and her brothers, and there were male names scratched into the sides of the family Bible who had fallen even before that. It was rare, though, and had not occurred for quite some time. Little Arthur was small for his age. He was one year old and should have been pulling himself up on everything and getting into a grand mess, as Alice had at that age, but he barely crawled. Instead, he rolled and wiggled to where he wanted to be, and when he arrived, wheezed and panted to catch his breath. Mum had taken him to the hospital, where they’d attached the little boy to all manner of breathing machines to measure his lung capacity and tried nebulizers to control his shortness of breath. There was no formal diagnosis that the doctors could make for Arthur’s condition. Both Mum and Catherine knew the cause and knew just as well that there was no cure. He had never been meant for this world; an ancient magic had brought him back, and that came with a price.

  Polly, the other baby who was never meant to be, had paid her own price. She was safe from the bombings and violence of Britain, but her husband with the ridiculous mustache had enlisted with the American Air Force and been shot down over Germany. There was no confirmation of his death and no reason to believe he was alive. Polly wrote often; she wanted Catherine to come to Colorado, United States, and join her. It was peaceful here, she wrote. No bombings; children played in the street; they rode bicycles and climbed trees without the threat of death. Catherine could read the subtext, however; Polly was alone and scared. Her heart was broken, and she was far from everything she had ever known. Catherine ached for her—her little sister whom she had protected like a lion throughout their youth. Polly had been small like Arthur; the caul had taken its pound of flesh for her revival. She didn’t even quite reach five feet tall and was thin as a wisp. No one believed she was grown, and it had been Catherine’s job, all the way up until the time when her man with the ridiculous mustache had swept in, to make sure that her little sister, never meant for this world, was safe from the darkness of it.

  Catherine left the little shop with the flat overhead, locking the door. Her heart was in pieces. She longed for the simple days so long ago when she’d shared this sacred space with Grandmum Muriel, the licorice smell of the old woman’s hair, and her tea that would hold a spoon upright in its cup. She remembered the sweet days when she’d lived here alone, the space entirely hers—hers and the spirits of Grandmum Muriel and Great-Grandmum Catriona. She felt them every day at that time, but they never intruded. They watched and listened and waited. She remembered her hazel-eyed husband, so gobsmacked that a woman could have her own business and live alone. The first time he’d sat at her table for a meal, his face smeared with grease from the iron works, it was as if he’d entered a chapel and seen Jesus himself when she served him a fresh meat pie from the oven. She remembered the way his lips had lingered on hers and the confounding smell of cinnamon and cloves that saturated his skin. She remembered the way his hands moved over her body and how she had moved in rhythm with him. Catherine stood on the cobblestone of High Street and looked up at the second-floor window and remembered Alice, learning to walk, grabbing everything in sight, knocking over more than she captured. They had laughed. She’d been happy here, but she sensed the time for this place was ending. The ink on her left wrist pulsed, and she felt a shift in the wind.

  Far across the lowland crags, the Cailleach blew a gentle breeze from her fingertips. In the darkness of the cave, she saw a voyage for her many-greats granddaughter, a trip that would take her farther than any of their line had gone before. She felt the movement of the ocean beneath her and the spirits of her many granddaughters swirl around her in preparation. She would leave this place to discover what she had already known: the promise of completion, the intertwining of the jagged lines, and a whole made from the collected parts of the many. She closed her eyes and rested. The Lethe would be crossed soon, but for now she slept and waited.

  ON THAT FIRST DAY
of summer, a light rain was falling and the three hags, the many-greats granddaughters of Cailleach, sat huddled in the parlor of the great manor house watching the grey sky and waiting. Alice knew only what she had seen in her dream, and Coira hadn’t spoken in days. She drew with her charcoal pencils; once an image was finished, she put it aside and started another. They were images of Glasgow, the inconsistent and ghostly beings that Alice had seen in her vision so very long ago. They stood on street corners waiting for a carriage to pass; they stared at the viewer as though they knew it was almost time. A woman, her hair catching the light and disappearing into the shadows, leaned from a window on the narrow lane off High Street, her face impassive. She had been waiting a long time to come home.

  Coira sat on the floor between the two women drawing the domed headstones and granite crosses of the Necropolis. Alice and Mum hadn’t moved except to fill the three tea mugs and collect more blankets. A cold draft filled the house, and Alice knew it had nothing to do with the dank weather outside. The wave was rearing up, collecting weight and speed; soon it would crash, and this life they had fought for and nearly accepted as their own would soon be past. The certainty of a conclusion; the end of a line.

  Alice felt a strange sort of melancholy. She remembered her little girl, just a year or so ago, giggling over a book of corgis of the Royal Family. She remembered how she would slowly and deliberately climb the stairs at Miss Lettie’s; too young to accomplish the task on her own, she did anyway, one tiny foot at a time, Alice holding her breath with each movement the little girl made, her worry all for naught as the child had always been beyond her protection. Alice remembered the day she’d been born; the cramps and pain had started in the early morning hours, and Miss Lettie had set about getting the hospital bag in the car, and Paul had fretted and fussed, pacing back and forth, trying to offer her an arm to hold while going down the stairs.