by H C Turk
“Please speak of the child’s potentially transferring the corrupt force that previously influenced her.”
“Never in my experience have I known of such demonic transference. Do not misconstrue: Alba did live with witches. She did not, however, become one from this proximity. Neither did the exposure confer to her any witches’ power. Either one is a witch or is not. And no one dispenses Satan like a beverage.”
“From my own experience, Amanda, I know demonic folk to transmit evil through every physical medium.”
“Demonic humans accomplish the same, Jacob, through physical mediums, such as poisons and knives, and intangible mediums, such as lying and graft. But Satan is not corporeal on this Earth. Instead, he exists as malice. The black lord uses the witch as a means, not an equal.”
“The means for my own worst experience of evil—my father’s death, a sinister demise which well you’ve heard.”
“True, Jacob, the Plague is the most wicked of illnesses.”
“Most wicked exactly, and though some fools say it was brought by rats from the Continent, I know it was brought by witches from Hell. If rodents carried the disease, it was given them by witches. But here we disagree.”
“I doubt that witches have the power to kill such a multiplicity.”
“My own parent is the singular of my concern. As for doubts, I remain disappointed that you will not allay my own by enlightening me with your expertise in witches.”
“For a cause well depicted, Jacob. Witches would have my life through a charm long established if I ever I reveal their truths. But that past will change no more than the place of your father in Heaven. In our immediacy, however, is a current evil. You have come about Mr. Denton’s accusations, which I would dispose of. Are we ended with his comments as to my daughter’s transmitting evil, perhaps the Plague?”
“Denton’s comment is that you brought your daughter into his home to torment the boy, Eric.”
“I brought Alba to the Denton household to boast of my enviable state in having so felicitous a daughter, and to help mend the discomfort our families share. The failure in the latter was not from the Rathels. Need ye further assurance, Jacob, further reply?”
“The architect has been specific in maintaining that the girl aroused his son as only persons married under God should become.”
“Does he lie so daringly as to assert that my daughter lured his boy? That she made toward him either bodily revelation or a taunting with words?”
Rathel’s last speaking was so intense it caused a change in my own facial cast, as though she were speaking to me. The magistrate of London remained undisturbed.
“He did not,” Naylor stated. “Mr. Denton alleged that the girl projected her gender via some evil emanation.”
After a loud scoff, Rathel replied, “In fact, Jacob, evil was emanated there. Evil was the wicked Eric boy who brandished the lust of his manhood to all present. My daughter emanated only a beauty of person that she has scant idea of. Alba revealed nothing but a lovely face. The ill-bred Denton scoundrel revealed the wickedness of his body. Does the architect deny this?”
“He suggests that some evil flow from the girl caused the lad’s maleness to be…evident…when it never had been before.”
“If a beauteous face be wicked, then Alba is evil. But since Lord God created lovely girls to make all our lives pleasant, the wickedness is not from my household, but from the Denton boy’s lust. As well, God was so gracious as to give the girl no understanding of beauty’s power. Should I thus correct her deficiency by having lurid folk such as the Denton wretch teach her seduction? Should I scar her face to avoid the evil in wicked males? I say not, sir. I say leave her exquisite as God intended. I say speak with His ministers to correct the corruption in this situation, for it lay in the lewd Denton youth.”
“Enough of this bother,” the magistrate declared, and I heard him rise. “Enough of Denton’s anxieties. And enough of my efforts’ being wasted when I have true concerns of evil in this city. I thus take my leave, Amanda, and thank you for your forthright replies.”
After the sinners parted, I withdrew to my chamber for acceptable dressing and to suffer a distress worse than Rathel’s. She had referred to me as her daughter before, but now I was sickened. Ah, what a fool that Vidgeon woman to have desired me legally while possessing none of Rathel’s resources—and what of her hair, her mentality? Had she cured as well—or as poorly—as Amanda? Lord God, make Vidgeon average again, I prayed, not wishing known people to suffer further. And what a fool I had been, for if now an adopted Vidgeon, my station would be superior in not being subject to familial revenge. Sarah Vidgeon would yet be mindful and hirsute, and my mother would be alive. In that situation, could I not have secretly met with my true family on occasion? Later, could not Mother and our friends have designed a less dangerous plan for a full reunion? But now, with Lady Amanda, I was a sea removed from my home, and an eternity removed from my mother.
Typical of the sinners’ outlandish affairs, my torment was not alone. Though resembling Jonsway’s alderman in attire, this magistrate was more akin to the bishop in nature, even as Amanda was a more dangerous version of Sarah. Pure was Naylor’s danger, for whereas Rathel sought a sinner’s death, the magistrate threatened only witches. The true source of my melancholy was Naylor himself, an official akin to the former in seeking the demise of witches for the sake of God and England. And I was certain that unlike the bishop, this male I would meet again.
• • •
Less tidy in its artifice was that section of the grounds outside the kitchen. Here was soil made raw from traversal, not gardening, a path where servants walked to an unkempt mound for burying the household dung. The path’s opposing course led servants through a thick gate to the depths of London for tasks of marketing, the home’s lesser members having an exit from the grounds separate from the lofty females’ route. And which of my opposing parts would I emphasize if ever again I achieved escape: the simple rear exit fit the witch in me, or the elaborate front metalwork appropriate for the lady I deigned to become not for social status but survival? But how would I ever quit this sinning world now that release via cooperation was shown to be false? False and failed, I knew, ever since meeting the passion of the victim’s father, the incarnate architect, meeting the ambitions of another lawman seeking witches as though a lode of precious metal. And though Rathel only demanded that I attempt her plan, I knew that a relationship to directly involve the source of man smell would be impossible considering the strain of simply visiting the family. I thought of Gosdale, whose advances seemed fetid, thought of the boy growing a bit and changing from a person to a heinous male due only to the fundamental lechery of men. No, no, I would require a new means for achieving a true life. Therefore, I sought the support of an army, which I would recruit in the guise of Miss Elsie.
“And now it’s plain water that’s distressing you, I’m hearing? The simple well which is bringing you water makes your poor self ill?”
“My meaning, stern and literal Miss Elsie, is that the bucket induces a metal taste and smell in the water due to its iron strips.”
“Aye, and it could be worse, lass, by having a lesser bucket, one only of wood, and thus splitting soon after you’re using it.”
Elsie carried the bucket. I had wielded the rope.
“And I’m telling you, lass, that the mistress is not having you at servants’ tasks, and if I’m to be chided, then the fault and shame both be yours.”
We progressed to a bench where average servant and improper, learning lady sat to shell peas. We might have been in the natural world, nearby buildings hidden behind leafy trees to shade us, shelter us from housed witches seeking a view of space but finding only humans concerned with future eating.
“Would vegetable preparation on my part also distress the mistress?” I asked.
“Aye, it would,” she confessed, “but it’s one I’m enjoying, in that your companionship improves as you learn to be
less of the wild creature.”
“I also find your presence increasingly adequate, Elsie, a satisfaction stemming from your personality, not merely your physical presence, which nevertheless is compatible, since you’ve neither periwig nor paint to obscure your natural appearance.”
“Ah, yes, lass, and what a terror I’d be to seem the lady,” Elsie huffed, pods flying from her now-violent fingers.
Refraining to mention that no local witch was as sensitive as she, I continued to seduce this servant into my ranks.
“With whom did you share such activities before I entered the household?” I wondered.
“Ah, but the chores I’m finding different are not the small ones of skinning, but the heavy ones of toting. That’s where the persons are different, for once an older but everworking man was here for the massive things. It’s the mistress, then, who’s having him leave lest the young girl coming be influenced toward menfolk too soon, though that’s hard to figure with his age. The more important man leaving was Master Franklin, God keep him. But even with him, there was no true family, which the mistress was ever lacking.” Elsie then paused, her face displaying an odd visage. “Before you, Alba.”
“I must beg your pardon, miss,” I replied with true offense, “in that your meaning hopefully eludes me.”
“What I’m saying, girl, is that since the mistress is never having a child from her body, at least she’s having one now for her heart. And no daughter from a person’s own womb will be better kept than you, lass, I’m assuring you that.”
Elsie’s manner of warm generosity was not that aspect of her presentation to move me. The power here was in content, her striking interpretation of my place within the household.
“I must say, Miss Elsie, that to become the child of a sinner is not merely an unpleasant thought, but one utterly revolting to any witch; for despite the rare individual’s curse of seeming the sinner, we all are sisters in spirit. To inform you accurately, know that the purpose of Rathel’s bringing me here is to achieve not family, but vengeance. Though knowledgeable in the ways of witches, she revels in a particular delusion, believing that I, as a witch, am physically capable of destroying a male—this Eric person—in order to punish his father for that previous romantic dissent. As for family, having a sinner as a mentor is excruciating; having one as a mother would be perverse. I will ever have but one true mother, a soulless crone who although dead for God’s eternity will live forever in my thoughts.”
Elsie dropped her peas as though unable to support their mass, so weak she became.
“Girl, I would be struck deaf from what I’m hearing!” she loudly declared. “The mistress is telling of your delusions from that old life, but to be calling not only yourself but your poor dead mother a witch and a crone and soulless! Praise God, child, that even as He gave your resting mother a soul, may He soon be giving you a true understanding of yourself so that these fantastical things you’re saying be ended, along with the pain you’re now causing your true friend, this Elsie.”
Having ejected her entire energy, Elsie was exhausted as she turned from me and regained her vegetables. I, however, remained calm and strong in my speaking.
“Elsie, you are nearly acceptable as a person in that you have less the smell of the powdered lady and more of an animal’s odor, but—”
“And thank you everso for calling me stinking!” she interrupted.
“Therefore,” I pronounced firmly, “in order for our compatibility to continue, I shall display my true nature in evident proof and thus convince you of God’s truth and mine.”
“So, what is it you’ll be doing, girl, since proving false things is not possible? You’ll be showing how you’re harming the boy or how your family is a pack of soulless fiends?”
“My own most gracious thanks to you, Miss Elsie, for deeming me the fiend,” I scolded. “With this basic tenet I shall begin: that although a witch, I am no more demonic than you, though somewhat less than Rathel. To provide you with this proof, however, you must first provide me your promised word.”
“And if I’m promising to believe false things, child, then no proof at all will be coming.”
“The vow you must give me in speech and God in prayer is to never reveal the scenes I shall display; for as you are well aware, witches in your sinners’ semi-moral society are due grisly execution.”
“And rightfully so,” she declared, “considering the evil they’re bringing to God’s world.”
Now I was the one affronted. No longer was I chatting with a friend, but had found the need to defend myself, defend my kind.
“No more outlandish delusion could exist than that my mother and her similars are heinous and worthy of a torturer’s fire. I will cure your ignorance, Miss Elsie, by revealing myself a witch and yet worthy of your friendship. I shall also prove myself superior as a person to your opinion of me; for by demonstrating myself a witch, I prove myself honest and not the liar you believe. Thereby you will understand that my uncomfortable attitude in London must be considered in light of the truth of my life, not the prejudice of any person’s fantasies.”
Elsie’s tightened breath revealed new tension. Though skeptical, the woman was also frightened by truth’s potentials. And, as was common with sinners, she was curious.
“Girl, if you’re to be proving yourself a dark spirit, it would not be done with a palsy on me hands, eh?”
“Even as I verify myself a witch, I shall prove these additional assertions: that witches cause neither illness nor disease, never harm crops and livestock, nor transmit plagues as though letters sent from Europe. If a reasonable person, you will then comprehend the facts of my life that I’ve often mentioned but you’ve never accepted. In fact, witches are repulsed by the eating of our fellow animals, and rightfully fear manipulation by sinners who would kill us. The former is my cause for stressing crops, not creatures, in my diet. The latter is the source of my opposing Lady Amanda.”
“And how is it, young Alba, that you’re proving yourself the witch in some way that an unbeliever might believe? It’s no coldness of skin that’s making a person the witch,” Elsie added. “Perhaps you’ll be showing some magic.”
“I will display magic if thereafter you bear a child to demonstrate procreation,” I retorted.
“Girl, and you’re old enough to be knowing that making babes is not a thing done on one’s own or within the span of a moment.”
“Yes, miss, I do understand, and hope that henceforth you comprehend that magic is no less involved or difficult, an activity I care to undertake as much as you would bear a child for my enlightenment.”
“Aye, and it’s for the best, girl, that you’re not proving yourself wicked,” Elsie sighed, “for I would have you as you are: often deluded but occasionally sweet.”
Moments before, Elsie and I had abandoned our shelling as though waiting for a brilliant method for confirming the lass either a genuine witch or a true fool. Then I was struck with an easy proof of witches that in my current era had mutated toward fear.
“Not from my rare felicity but a sought objectivity, I shall prove myself the witch by swimming for you.”
“Ah, but it’s known even commonly, lass, that no witch can be swimming,” she submitted.
“True enough, but my reference is not to paddling like a coot, but remaining beneath the water’s surface for a duration certain to convince even those uncommon.”
“But the nearest water, I’m saying, is the River Thames, unless you’re to be ducking yourself in a rain barrel.”
“I would not presume to impress you by immersing my head in a bucket as though promulgating a lark or washing my hair.”
“And a fine offer that would be, considering how filthy you allow your hair to become.”
“I require no further deprecation, miss. I have now decided that, yes, with this river you have suggested an acceptable example.”
I saw myself there. At the river’s edge with Hershford Bridge in the distance, vis
ible through the haze as though a painting on the sky, a harmless depiction akin to one on Rathel’s wall. I saw myself there, not drowning in the depths as the bridge implied, but standing apart from the unsupportive structure, at the water’s own level, not an intimate locale but one less dangerous than my dreams. I envisioned entering the water, not being hurled toward execution, but slipping at my will beneath the calm surface. My best wish and greatest reinforcement for my plan of proof was my following imagination, that my dreams of drowning would disappear along with the bridge’s sight, vanish from my mind’s night creations congruently with the sinners’ span disappearing from my eyes.
Proving myself soulless to Elsie might be dangerous, but since Rathel could have me executed as a witch any moment, what greater harm could this servant bring? But her confidence seemed valuable, for I was beyond presuming that I would ever fulfill Rathel’s plans, despite my cooperation. That first close association with the architect and his victim son augured a stress the young witch would not readily survive. Not without a cohort.
Elsie and I departed at once, careful to exit the grounds without being espied by its populace, whose mistress was away on business. Traveling that worn path to the lesser exit, we entered an alley, then proceeded to verify Satan within me.
Our secretive retreat was tainted by Elsie’s visions of doom. With every step, she moaned about losing her employ should the mistress learn of this journey. I was therefore made to vow convincingly and often that I would not attempt to flee, as though I had some reasonable goal, Elsie mentioning that this ignorance had not stopped me before.
To achieve the river where I might gain an aide and rectify my sleeping, we unfortunately traversed what seemed a huge expanse of London. Elsie at my side was superior as a guide to Mother in Jonsway, for being a denizen here, the servant found no surprises in our travel. Nevertheless, she insisted upon remaining unobserved, as though a witch concealing her identity for survival’s sake. Elsie felt that any person recognizing her would inform Rathel of her servant’s being out with the new lass in tow for criminal purposes, a ludicrous fear, for in fact our purpose was evil.