by H C Turk
So vivid was the sensation of having smelled Mother that even when awake in bed with blinking eyes as though stung by saltwater I smelled her. Then I sat and understood.
I ran to the window, for outside was a witch. A fresh odor this, and nearby. Not my mother, no, not my dead mother, but a witch as true as I, and here, below, in London. Nearby in the dark was a sister, outside a witch’s window not likely through coincidence.
I pulled a dress over my nightclothes, no shoes—no time for fine dressing, for I was not attending church, but visiting family. I ran to the window, recalling Eric’s vertical journey. Sinners had no special ability for climbing their own buildings, so a spry witch should manage.
After turning and stepping through the window, I learned to look at my feet or the building, but no farther down, for with this view came an unsteady head. Retaining caution and silence, I imagined this structure a tree with square limbs or a clean cliff. Ascending cautiously, I had the faintest thoughts of throwing myself to the ocean floor. Down to the grass, I ran to the gate and through to the street.
My only cause for hurry was desire, for that smell of a witch body had remained constant as I climbed down the Rathel’s house, the odor’s source unmoving as I turned east and continued.
Cautiously I moved through the thin, fresh snow with no shoes needed, my eyes sensitive to the minor light of a partial moon. I saw no one, and according to my nose, no sinner was about to espy me, only two people on this street, both witches.
A narrow space between buildings’ outcroppings held her smell. Nearing the site, I slowed, aware that by then she had sensed my approach. Though I recognized her as my kind, I also discerned that she was no person I knew. Continuing to the niche in the brickwork, my heart loud yet seemingly weak, I turned to my sister with light breathing and apprehensive eyes.
The hag was dressed with much clothing, not only to protect from winter’s cold, but to cover a visage unpleasant to aesthetic sinners. I could sense that her state was the same as mine, both of us aware that neither belonged in a sinners’ city. And though witches hold no danger for one another, the nearer I stepped, the more frightened this sister became; for whereas I discerned her as rich in a witch’s features, she saw me as a stone-smooth sinner. Not the coming together of like humans but the fear of our dissimilarity forced her to speak.
“Great God, now help me—what manner of creature are ye?”
I reached beneath my apparel to my backside. Rubbing my finger against the anus, I spoke to this woman.
“Your senses are God’s gifts, and do not lie,” I told her firmly. “Take my hand and find that I am the same creature as thee,” and I pressed my hand to the stranger’s face. “My appearance may be as odd as the sinners’, but my smell is your smell. I may look like none you know, but, witch, I am your sister.”
She knew, of course, by inhaling my scent, her squinting eyes staring at my featureless face. And though believing the witch, she could not bear to view the sinner; so the woman moved where I could not be seen, reaching to grasp me fully with both arms, her face beside mine as we held each other.
Separating, I led her deeper into the shadows, farther from the street and the hearing of sinners. Then I quickly spoke, my subject more important than our meeting, for the subject was our future lives.
“Woman, why are you here? London is a place to be killing our kind.”
“I know this, girl, in that me friends are killed from our wild home north by sinners, and only I the one left. And I am here not for you, but for a Rathel woman. But upon my coming, I smell you and do not know what to do, such is my confusing.”
“I am held by the Rathel for her purposes,” I explained, “and currently cannot escape. Why do you seek this person, and how are you a pair known to each other?”
“I know of her, but we’re not met. Rathel lived with my people for a time, because women elder than me thought to be friends with the sinners. But I kept away except when a magic thing was needed. Rathel was joyed with this living and learned much of our ways. Then she was gone, and later returned not friendly toward herself, but with a sort of terror inside, the sort of sinners where they must hate. She then had us do a thing for her else be telling our site to men to burn us and thus kill.”
“This occurred long before the present?”
“Before your birth, or near it.”
“Presently she is forcing a similar pact with me wherein my life is threatened. What thing were you to do for her?”
“And we did it, child,” she answered as though surprised, “and to this time the only one alive—this Lucinda—is begging of God to forgive us. But the sinner lady would have them kill us all, was her promise. And it was proven by her doing it later.”
“What exactly was your act?” I repeated.
“She had us do the magic things of which she had heard. This we knew little of, but witches getting together to do this learn of it. We were to do the thing of having her husband die, and she brought clothes and hair and a footnail of a man. These were to guide our work to that one male. But at first we would not do the thing, especially me, for I would remain apart from the sinner, but could not remain apart from needy sisters. No killers we be, so we got together with our lives to make her forget her desire to kill, and that ever she knew us. But we did not do what we wished, though we thought so, for the sinner lady was not soon returned. But later she gained us again and with a fury, for we made her forget nothing, but changed her so sickly that she could not have children, ever. So to keep her from bringing the men to our homes and kill us, we had to do the magic thing again—but now to do the first for true, and to kill the man her husband. And we did, Satan take her soul or God forgive us, girl, we did.”
The last confession was spoken with a sorrow I could smell, but the witch remained controlled. But as remarkable as her revelations were, they existed in the past, this sister’s presence of more import to me.
“Why do you now come to Rathel?”
“I am here because I am driven from my home. All of my friends are dead by sinners from towns which grew too near our wilds. I alone am remaining, and have been moving toward here, with nowhere other to go. I come for the Rathel woman and her aid, in that I and my sisters did her bad deed. So might she owe me, else I tell what I and my friends have done to Rathel’s own people. If I die by that, so be it, for the sinners must find who I am one time or the next.”
“But you are not fully aware of the sinners’ ways, especially Rathel’s,” I declared. “Her greatest act in payment for your deed was in allowing you to live. Woman, I tell you that Rathel will do no more than have a servant point the direction by which you may exit London. Worse, if she fears you would convey your story to others, Rathel would have her friend the magistrate capture and kill you.”
“But what am I to do, girl?” Lucinda begged. “How much longer can I walk in this city without being known? How far beyond it must I go to find a place of peace?”
“For this, I have no answer,” I confessed. “Where have you lived and slept recently?”
“The city has much holes to hide in, and they’re easily found in that the unpeopled areas are my travels.”
“And you eat?”
“Enough for a witch.”
“The cold?”
“Not cold enough for a witch.”
“Then remain where you are safe, Lucinda, and return here the following night in the hour you come now.”
“And I do this, girl, for on you I smell a city you know more than me. But if you live here without harm in that you look it, do not take trouble from me, in that I will not bring you a pain I have and you do not need.”
“You bring no difficulty, but a friend I must love at once, and happily,” I told her. “Return as I ask, Lucinda, and both of us will soon be free of troubles.”
We parted after a grand embrace. Less apprehensive than before, I found with my improved perception that this woman stank. Lucinda was too filthy and had consumed
too much trash for food for me to find her odor pleasant. I knew that witches were not the cleanest animals, not when living after sinners, though I remained uncertain whether my own cleanliness was preferable because I was accustomed to it or because objectively I might prefer the odor. Regardless of preference, I knew that the smell of this witch signifying her type of person amongst God’s variety was always and ever beloved. But another truth that pained me was that the better sinners also had an acceptable smell. This acceptance I might not lose, might not wish to lose, but most of all I wished to regain the fragrance of witches that was their life.
Chapter 17
To Meet And To Save
“Where is the worst place in England, Miss Elsie?”
“Worst is London if you’re having no home, what with the criminals.”
“My meaning differs from your answer, miss. I would ask what unkempt region is not fit for humans.”
“Ah, with all your geography lessons lapped up like a cat at milk you’re asking this of me, child?”
“I do, miss, in that I seek the response of an average person who knows of living, not merely technical facts applied to paper as though, oh, a vow of betrothal, perhaps.”
Elsie’s resulting look was so uncertain that she rejected it, regaining a more common state to approach an old concern.
“And you’re not beginning more talk of running away to the wilds, are you, girl? I’ll not be aiding you there, not in your fantasy and not in your troubled plans of being out in the City again.”
“In fact, miss, I have a witch friend living in the niches of London who requires a remote site free of sinners, and I seek your aid in placing her.”
“And thank you, lass, for your foolishness, which, if it be a virtue, would be making you near a saint.”
“How deeply I appreciate your referring to me as a fool, disloyal servant. Nonetheless, I forgive your unkindness, and shall allow you to describe those unkempt lands known to you, please.”
“Aye, lass, so I’m thinking of a friend who cooks for the Hearthfield family, I am. Some of her homeland she’s describing as most wild yet most beautiful, and that be Scotland.”
“No, miss, too far away.”
“Too far away for what?” Elsie demanded. “I thought you’re telling me that you’d not be running off again, so what are you worrying about a distance?”
“After all, miss, I can only think so far. Have you some nearer knowledge?”
“Very well, Miss Silly, then I’m remaining within your thinking. Aye, yes, and there’s a place you’ve come near to, if the mistress was bringing you here through Liverpool, are you recalling?”
“I recall being dragged from my homeland by the Rathel in so enslaving a manner that I was able to peruse no compatible areas.”
“Ah, and a pity is your life, thankless lass. But this Wales is a place of wild land from bogs to mountains, and any decent witch would surely be finding a happy home there.”
“Oh, and how pleased you are with your own foolish humor according to that tremendous smirk overcoming your face,” I returned. “Thank you for your speaking, then, and when next we meet, I shall certainly consume beforehand the most hearty onions imaginable and then stand upon your nose for conversing.”
We parted friends, one of us satisfied with the uplifting discourse, the other pleased with her wild knowledge.
• • •
No sleeping had I that evening. Waiting for a witch, I remained clothed and shoed. Stepping often to my window, I smelled for Lucinda’s scent, but the breeze was shifting as though the sea currents in my dreams. I would therefore proceed to the meeting place and wait for the witch’s presence, not her smell. Then came concern, for I wondered how time’s sensing might differ between the wild witch and the city sister. Perhaps Lucinda had been waiting long, soon to become frightened and depart. Hurriedly I stepped to the window, one leg over the sill as I looked down for the ledge only to see my betrothed climbing up.
Then I smelled him. After a hesitation stemming from the sinner’s surprising presence, I moved through the window, motioning for Eric to retreat, following him to the ground.
“My lady, how wonderful at clambering you are,” he whispered as I led him away from populated windows. Around the corner to the front privet hedge, that bit of dirt and grass as though the wilds he next mentioned.
“Have you learned skills in the wilderness to surpass those of a dangerous male such as myself?” Eric whispered as we halted.
This sinner was fit for no place of vegetation, in that more than ever did he reek of meat, as though an entire cattle had been his supper. But, no, his breath before me was not especially fleshy. Perhaps he wore leather suspenders recently removed from a cow. But this could not be my concern when a pure eater awaited me.
“In the wilds, I learned loyalty to my friends,” I told him, our faces not so near as betrothed sinners nor speaking witches. “Understand, sir, I have a grave affair on these streets, and you must await my success.”
Having come for less significant discourse, Eric was moved by my blunt speaking.
“I am astonished, Alba, that so true a lady could have business out of doors this hour,” he responded with no wish to condemn. “Do I hold a place with you that allows me to mention my concern and promise my aid?”
“Your concern is accepted. More importantly, I must demand your trust. I say that a poor friend of my true family awaits me now in difficulty. I meet her to describe the path whereby she might exit London. These things are done at night for the same cause as yours, for my friend would suffer greatly if discovered.”
“Well I believe you, miss, and give my sympathies, but I would offer more. Hereupon you must describe how I might aid you and your friend, who would also be mine.”
“Very well, sir, you shall aid me in two manners as you are able. First, I shall accept your assistance in the form of coin, not promising note nor bank draft.”
“How concrete you are, miss, in your requirements. In that I infer a need for money, will you not accept silver ingots, scores of which I coincidentally have on my person?”
“Sir, I am in need of carriage passage, yet you mock me as though a beggar. Very well, then, a beggar I shall be.”
I bent and hunched my entire person, producing a look of desperation and utter need as I whined toward Eric.
“Oh, kindly sir, and I’m starving with no food for weeks and all the fifty children of mine have the croup and require some physician’s fluid else the world and London will end anon without your kindness.”
At once Eric reached into his pocket, removing a purse as he looked to me with pity.
“If ever I saw such a beggar in reality, I would have her run down,” he averred, and handed me the money bag. “Small funds I have, beggar woman, but all of it to spare your million offspring.”
“Sir Eric, but enough for a carriage ride or two, if you’re able,” the true Alba described. “Allow me not to impoverish you and thus bring you into the begging life, if only because a failed cadger you’d be, having so cruel a demeanor as to receive only peach pits or slop from a homeowner’s window. But, no, you are worse, for as you told me before, your monies were received from disgracefully pawning treasures to break your mother’s heart.”
“Wrong again, injurious beggar. To occupy my lax life before school steals me again, I work for my father sweeping and scripting in his offices, and thereby have funds by my own decent efforts.”
I took his money shamelessly, scarcely moved by having metal pieces in my possession. Eric insisted upon giving more than I would likely require. Nonetheless, I did not leave him impoverished.
“If ever possible in life, generous sir, I shall repay you in kind, but not until after I take from you that additional aid mentioned.”
“Yes, miss, I do recall that a diptych of assistance you would eke from me. What, then, is the second request to render me the beggar?”
“We begin the end, sir, with a proviso of tru
st. Before hearing the final aid you might provide me, you must swear on your valued morality to do whatever I ask without interference.”
“You have my vow, Miss Alba, without argument.”
“Excellent, sir. Then understand that the aid you supply is to remain without following until I return. If the duration is too great to abide, you must forgive me and believe that the time lost I would have well passed with you.” Then I turned and walked away.
“Alba, wait!” Eric whispered with excitation, aware that he had been duped. “Alba—what aid to anyone is my remaining? And no carriages for hire are about at this hour.”
“Recall your vow, moral sir, to respond without interference,” I declared from paces away. “The coach I hire will be tomorrow, in full light.” Having concluded, I continued walking. The male did not follow, though his concern was intense enough to smell.
Quickly I moved to the witch, passing a man who ran into the shadows upon sensing my approach, a sinner more frightened than I. And though I found Lucinda via smell, this sense was even more important to her.
“You’ve been with a sinner now,” she asserted fearfully.
“No one to harm us. Sinners are all around me, and through them we might achieve your safety.”
“How so, child?”
“Are you familiar with directions of sky and earth?”
“Well I know them in all ways.”