The Winter Witch

by Paula Brackston

  For a moment I wonder if she will spur on my persecutors. Will she openly side with them and reveal her hostility toward me? At this moment she would surely find support for any theory she might put forward which was in agreement with their own misplaced fears.

  Oh, Morgana—her voice is inside my head again!—do you think I would be so stupid, so clumsy?

  She hurries forward.

  “Why, Mrs. Jenkins!” she cries, her hands to her mouth, her face the very picture of genuine concern. “You are hurt!” She rushes through the crowd who step back, deferential, more than a little confused. “Come, child,” says she, putting a hand on Prince’s bridle, standing in front of me so that I would have to ride over her to make my escape. “Come into my home and let me dress your wound. You are in no condition to ride.”

  I shake my head, digging my heels into Prince’s flanks to push him forward. But the hold she has over him is more than merely physical and he does not so much as lift a hoof, instead standing stock-still, as if in terror. What manner of horror has she laid before his bright eyes to affect such a state?

  One of the women in the crowd finds her voice.

  “Have a care, Mrs. Bowen,” says she. “That girl is wicked! To be near her is to risk harm!”

  “Surely not.” Isolda is a fine actress!

  “’Tis true, missus,” adds a toothless man. “She cursed the drove. She’s cursed this town. Duw, she’s even cursed her own husband!”

  All of a sudden, Prince comes to his senses, but with such a fright, with such anguish driving him, that he rears up on his hind legs, so that I am forced to lean forward and cling to his mane to stop myself from sliding off. He bounds ahead as if I have whipped him, and in doing so knocks Isolda to the ground. She falls with a cry to drag pity from a heart of stone. Prince plunges on. Glancing back I see the terrible woman being assisted by the onlookers. Fists are waved at me, oaths sworn, and further stones thrown. I give Prince his head, and he needs no further bidding to gallop from the town square. Even Honey is startled into action and soon catches up as we hasten toward home.

  * * *

  Cai has rarely in his life felt such fury as he does now. The sight of Morgana returning, bruised and bleeding, and the tale his questioning revealed has enraged him to the point of senselessness. There are gaps in the story which even Mrs. Jones’s more careful inquiries could not provide answers to, but they have gleaned sufficient information to paint a dark and ugly picture of events. As Morgana goes upstairs to change into dry clothes he paces unevenly about the kitchen, his face contorted with impotent anger.

  “How could they? How could they turn on her like that? What madness drives them?” he demands.

  Mrs. Jones shakes her head slowly. “They are afraid, bachgen. They are in despair,” she tells him.

  “That does not give them the right to set upon a defenseless girl.”

  “They do not see Morgana as defenseless. They see her as dangerous.”

  “What? What nonsense is this?”

  “Many are sick, cariad. There is fever in the town and many have died. They believe it comes from here. From Ffynnon Las.”

  “But, I do not have a fever. Why would they think that?”

  “People do say Morgana is responsible.”

  “For the sickness in Tregaron? Morgana? This is insanity!” He looks at her now. “And you, Mrs. Jones? Is that what you believe?”

  Mrs. Jones tugs at her apron and shakes her head again. “Of course I do not! ’Tis cruel unfair, bach. That girl of yours is more godly than half of them as attends chapel. But Edwyn Nails has spread his poison. And that creature, Isolda Bowen…”

  “Isolda? What part has she to play in this?”

  “In my opinion folk would do better to look to her if they wish to rid their town of evil.”

  Cai runs a hand through his hair. He cannot make sense of any of it.

  “Mrs. Bowen has good standing in Tregaron. She is respected. Well thought of.”

  “But what does anyone know of her? What do you really know of her, Mr. Jenkins? You do see a wealthy widow, proper and God-fearing. But who ever met her husband? Did he even exist? How did she come by her fortune? Why has she no family as she ever makes mention of, or do ever visit?”

  “But why would she hate Morgana so? What has she to gain by setting people against her?”

  “Morgana sees her for what she truly is.”

  “The two dislike each other, I know.” He hesitates, then goes on. “Such rivalries between women are not uncommon. Isolda and I were … friends.”

  “Oh yes, Morgana has something that Isolda wants. But it is not you, bachgen.”

  “What then?” He throws up his hands against her answer. “No. Do not tell me more on the subject. I have neither time nor strength to deal with such squabbles.”

  “Squabbles!” Mrs. Jones is pushed into snapping at him. “Duw, bachgen, we are not talking of two silly women making fools because they are pitched against each other in love. Lord save us from the vanity of men!”

  “I only meant…”

  “’Tis true if anything can save you it will be Morgana’s love.”

  “Save me?”

  “Open your eyes, Mr. Jenkins, and look at that wicked woman you hold in such high esteem. She is not as she appears. She is not what she pretends to be. She is not what you and every other shortsighted person in the village believes her to be. Every one except your wife.” Seeing his confusion Mrs. Jones stops.

  Cai senses there is still something she is not telling him, but he is too tired, too weary, too angry to stuggle to understand more.

  “Maybe I do not know the woman at all. If you say so, I believe you, Mrs. Jones, but, to be honest, I do not have it in me to worry further about her. Not now. What truly concerns me is the way the people of this parish have turned against Morgana. That they could believe she is somehow responsible for their sickness, for their loss … it is inconceivable. How do they think her capable of such a thing?”

  Mrs. Jones takes a deep, slow breath and meets his eye levelly.

  “They believe she has the skill of cursing. They think she has visited sickness upon them because she is evil and can do so. They even believe she has brought about this terrible weather.”

  “The weather!”

  “Aye, they have convinced themselves of it, bach. So much so, that they have given her a name. I’ve heard it whispered, though most are careful what they say in my presence.” She pauses, but forces herself to continue, “They do call her the Winter Witch.”

  18.

  I am astonished, the next morning, to be woken by sharp shards of sunlight slicing between the cracks in the curtains. I slip from the bed, being careful not to disturb Cai. The laudanum brought merciful relief from his pains, and though it took a deal of persuasion before he would drink it, he knows, as we all do, the restorative powers of sleep. He looks so peaceful, his features so untroubled. It is rare to see him thus nowadays.

  I dress and hurry downstairs, quelling a shudder when unseen fingers, every bit as cold as the ice daggers that hang from the window ledges outside, scratch at my back as I pass the door to Cai’s room.

  Mrs. Jones is already risen, and reassuring smells of baking drift out from the kitchen.

  “Well, you look a little better this morning, cariad,” she tells me, dusting flour from her hands and frowning at the bruise on my cheek. “And Mr. Jenkins still sleeping, is he?”

  I nod and peer round her at the griddle on the stove. Half a dozen picau ar y maen bubble and steam, the sweet aroma of the traditional Welsh cakes making my mouth water. Mrs. Jones laughs at me.

  “Two more minutes and they’ll be ready. Got to give them a good dusting of sugar yet, mind. I’ve mix for another batch. And I’ve bara brith in the oven. Put that dried fruit you fetched to good use. We do have to tempt that man of yours into eating, see? I always used to set to baking when my little Maldwyn was poorly. Now then, merched. You sit down and I’ll fetch
you something to eat. Can’t go out feeding the stock with your own stomach rumbling fit to scare the sheep.”

  But I shake my head. It is many days since I have seen the sun and I am anxious to be out in it. Anxious to be doing rather than thinking, for I am weary of worry. I dart past her and steal a sizzling cake, using my sleeve to stop it burning my fingers. She squawks and swats at me with her cloth but I am quickly out of the room, snatching up my hat and coat as I go, Bracken at my heels.

  She calls after me, “Don’t be too long, mind. We do have work to do, later.”

  I pause and turn.

  She nods, knowing that I understand, and adds in a whisper, “Time is short, Morgana. We must turn to the Grimoire for help.”

  A mixture of fear and excitement speeds the blood through my veins.

  Outside, the morning is glorious, the countryside splendid, and it is easy, just for now, to put from my mind the frightening events of the day before. My cheek still smarts where the stone struck it, and has developed a vivid purple hue. Was there ever a color more suited to hatred? I take up a handful of snow and press it to my skin. Within a moment all pain has vanished. The horses have heard my boots scrunching through the snow and Honey begins to bang her stable door, eager for her freedom and her hay. It is a joy to feel the sunshine and I pause to turn my face up to it. There are no clouds today. I have not seen such a blue sky for weeks. The landscape glitters beneath it, transformed from something lifeless and forlorn to something beautiful and blessed. I open the stable doors so that the horses may stretch their legs in the yard, then fetch them hay from the barn, which I share out in piles. Honey settles to eat straightaway. Prince makes a show of bossing about his mares for a minute or two before they are allowed their breakfast. Next I take a lump hammer from the woodshed. The spring is so furred with ice now that it is reduced to a trickle. Raising the hammer above my head I bring it down with as much force as I can muster onto the frost-covered ice which glazes the pool. With a loud crack which reverberates around the yard the ice breaks and splits, so that the black water laps over it. I do the same to the adjacent trough so that the ponies may drink. Leaving the hammer, I return to the hay barn and move the hurdles which separate the cattle from their feed. The herd is so small they have been comfortably accommodated in half the barn. There is nothing to be gained by keeping them out of doors in such weather, for, unlike the sheep, they cannot find any suitable food, and will lose condition. They shuffle forward with a deal of pushing and shoving until each locates a place where they can reach the hay. Sunshine slants into the bay of the barn, and even the beasts in their thick winter coats seem cheered by it. The sheep are in the meadow behind the yard. I take a pitchfork, jab it in the hay, then heave it to rest on my shoulder and slip through the gate into the field. There is a low, lean-to shelter against the wall, and the ewes mill about as I scatter the hay in it. I count carefully. Twice. Three are missing. I scan the field, shielding my eyes against the bright glare of the sun as it bounces off the frozen snow. The wretched sheep are not in sight. I must go and find them while the weather is benign. Bracken bounds ahead as I make my way across the field. It is not long before I spot a new gap in the hedge. Yet again, it seems, the silly animals have decided there is a better living to be had elsewhere. I stoop down to pass through the low passageway they have created. In the sloping hill field I can clearly discern their tracks, and set off to follow them.

  As I slog up the steep incline somber thoughts begin to invade my mind, until the sunshine and prettiness through which I move is no longer sufficient to sustain my mood. There was something most dreadfully ugly in the way the people of Tregaron hounded me yesterday. I know they are scared. I know, too, they are many of them grieving. Yesterday, when, I suspect, they considered me out of earshot, I overheard Mrs. Jones laying some hard truths before Cai. Truths regarding Isolda, though he seemed not ready to hear these. And truths about the way I am thought of in the town. How it pained me to hear his shock, his horror—his disgust, could it be?—at their use of the word witch. I had thought him able to bear my singular talents, to accept that I have, as Dada would put it, the magic blood running in my veins. But how can he be at ease with these aspects of me when others around him view me as something dangerous, something wicked, something evil? He loves me, of this I am certain, and I hold the thought to my heart and hear it sing. But this is his home. These are the people he grew up with. The people who call him porthmon now. It must matter to him what they think of me. Of him. I remember now, his words to Mam on our wedding day: She will be well regarded at Ffynnon Las. How far from true that promise has proved to be. Yet I have more pressing matters with which to concern myself. Cai’s health continues to falter. Whilst the laudanum brought brief respite, it will not effect a cure. It cannot lift the curse. Nothing, I fear, will do so until I have confronted Isolda direct. Confronted, and emerged triumphant. For I know, in my heart, this will not stop until one of us is dead. And before that she will take Cai from me. For a second the breath is knocked from me by the thought that he might very well die soon if I do not act. Why must it be that everyone I love is snatched away by death’s hungry jaws? Must I always pay for love with the agony of grief? My head begins to pound with too much thinking. I have been foolish to allow myself to be seduced by the mountain, by the white wilderness, by the comfort of Mrs. Jones’s cooking and the freedom of walking the hill alone, away from critical eyes. I must hold my attention on what I am doing. Indeed, I have been so lost in thought I have scarcely noticed the change in the weather. Bracken and I have climbed more than a hundred feet, and the sky that was empty and bright such a short time ago is now sullied with dense cloud which descends about me as I watch. Bracken’s ears prick; he has seen a hare. I catch movement out of the corner of my eye, and in a heartbeat he is away, after it, lost into the thickening gloom. Within moments the horizon has shortened to but a stride from where I stand. And now the snow begins again, in earnest. There is no wind, and the day is not as cold as some have been recently, but there is something frightening in the nature of this snowfall. The flakes are unusually large, some as big as daisy heads, others fat as dandelion puffs. They fall with such speed and such relentlessness that it is hard not to breathe them in, and I wonder, is it possible a person might drown in snow? All sound has ceased. Not in the ordinary way in which winter weather can stop echoes and muffle noises, but completely ceased, as if the whole world has been struck as mute as I. The only thing that tells me I have not become deaf is the rasping of my own labored breathing as I struggle to walk through the rapidly deepening snow. I try to retrace my steps, but my tracks are being filled quicker than I can follow them. Of Bracken there is no sign. I clap my gloved hands in an attempt to summon him, but such soft noise as they make is sucked into the dizzying downpour of flakes and hushed in an instant.

  It is now that I sense rather than hear the whispering voices. At first they are distant, as if someone else has ventured abroad and we have stumbled upon one another. But no. I quickly realize, as the words become clearer and louder, that they are not emanating from anyone present. At least, not anyone present in body. A stirring of the thick, wet air around me, an irregular pattern in the fall of the snow, alerts me to the fact that I am not alone in this white nightmare, and yet whoever is with me is here in spirit only. And those spirits are not friendly. As they whip past me, back and fore, and around me, causing me to turn this way and that, searching the whirling snowfall, I feel hot breath upon me. There is more than one. I detect a presence to my right and my left, and now another behind me. It is impossible to count them. All I know is I am surrounded by these dark, invisible entities, and I am in grave danger. I must get away, must descend the hill. But which way should I go? Such is the obliteration of any landmarks, of even the ground farther than a few short feet ahead or behind, that I can barely tell which way is down, let alone in which direction home lies. My tracks, all tracks, have been obliterated. A force rushes by close to my face, strik
ing me with real power, even though there is nothing to see, so that the cut on my cheekbone opens afresh and begins to bleed again. I must hold my nerve. This is Isolda’s doing, I am sure of it. Now I can detect her rancid, sulphurous odor. The voices increase in strength and number. They call my name. They scream at me. They laugh at me. They wail and plead and badger me in all ways possible. At one point I think I hear the voice of my father, but I quickly understand it is but a trick. I must not falter. Cai will die without me. That is the truth of it. I will not meet my end here on this colorless, lifeless mountain, and leave him to his fate.

  It will not do. Really, it will not.

  I stand still and steady my breathing. Drawing in as deep a breath as I am able in the suffocating snow I clench my teeth and summon my will. I feel blood dripping thickly from the freshly opened wound on my face. The more I call on the force of my inner strength, the more it flows, splashing onto the bleached ground, spreading scarlet, staining the snow about me, the patch of redness growing and widening until I stand in a bright pool of my own making. I feel the voices recede, fading, growing more distant and less torturous. Even the snowflakes yield to the invisible bubble that surrounds me. I must seize the moment, I must make my escape. Still there is no sign of Bracken. I cannot leave him up here in such weather, alone, distracted by hunting. If only I could call him to me. My whistle! My heart races as I fumble beneath my clothes and pull out the lovespoon. The wood is warm from being next my skin. I put my numb lips to it and try to blow, but can muster nothing by way of sound. I try again, and it emits a damp splutter. Again—this time it works, a shrill noise cutting through the miasma and reaching far beyond what is visible. There is no response. I blow into the wooden mouthpiece once more. For a moment, nothing, and now, bowling into view, comes the snow-covered dog, his fur wet with icy water, his tongue hanging low as he pants and grins at me. I crouch down, holding his head still, making him look into my eyes. In my head I clearly picture home. Home and Cai. Home, Bracken, I tell him in my mind, willing the silent words to reach him. Home.