I try not to think of William. I do not think I believed until now how much he fears and hates me. I think a part of me still hoped that he might somehow change his mind. The white-headed crow said it first – War! – and now that she is a white-headed wolf, she says it even more clearly.
I must send her out again. My wedding-ring charm shows me nothing but snow. But I know in my heart that he thinks of me, and shivers, and I smile as I lie in the earth like a corpse, and know that he will lie there soon. This knowledge warms me more than his hearth; more than the taste of blood in my mouth; more than the pounding of my heart. You declared war on me, William: know that I mean to fight to the death. And when you are cold and in the ground, the birds will sing, and the sun will shine, and I shall dance barefoot on your grave with a crown of may blossom in my hair. But not before you have begged me on your knees for forgiveness, and seen everything you cared for vanish into smoke and ash—
War, says my protector. The sound is almost like a purr.
War.
Five
Christmas Day, and the daylight lengthens to the breadth of a gnat’s yawn. From my den, I can hear the bells, and I know that William hears them, too.
My friend in crow’s skin tells me that William’s uncle has come at last from the city, with much commotion, the result of which is that Fiona has been sent home. The scandal of her pregnancy ensures that there will be no wedding. William’s uncle made it clear: the family’s honour is at stake. William may bed as many village girls as he likes – he is, after all, the heir, and he has a right to his wild oats – but his bride must be a virgin. The uncle is immovable.
As for Fiona, she keeps to her bed. Her time cannot be far away. And besides, from there she cannot hear the gossips, or see the raised eyebrows, or hear the harsh words. But she will survive, I think. My war is not with her kind.
The snow persists, although the ice has melted into white lace. My firepit is ready now: three feet deep and two feet wide, and the fire burns low and hot in embers, and the pale smoke filters away through the trees. Even so, I find it hard. I do not leave the island. The wolves bring me food from their hunt, and sleep beside me, and give me strength, but I still miss my freedom. My refuge has become a prison, and I suffer as much from boredom as the fear of being hunted and trapped.
But I am not entirely cut off. Three days after I arrived here, I found a boat on the island. It was a little rowing boat of the kind the Folk sometimes use, and it had been moored in a wooded place where it could not be seen from the bank. In it, I found supplies: wine, food, blankets, firewood.
At first I thought I had discovered a fisherman’s cache. But when no one came to claim the goods, I realised I must have a friend in the village. One of the travelling people, perhaps, living in secret among the Folk? I feel so alone on my spur of rock with only the wolves for company. The thought that someone might care for me is suddenly, achingly, poignant. To aid me – hunted and outcast – is to risk sharing my fate. Whoever it is has already done more for me than William did. I realise now how little he cared. But when one has had so little love, even table scraps may serve.
I dare not use the little boat to leave the island – not yet. Too many folk are searching for me – not least, William. And the white-headed crow is too recognisable. Already there is talk of her being my familiar. All I have is my wedding-ring charm to show me what is happening. And so I spend the short, dark days watching the Folk through its gleaming eye, and marking the passage of time against the silvery bark of a nearby tree, and waiting for my wolves to come home, and thinking of my vengeance.
When Christmas-tide comes in like a bride—
What shall it be. I wonder. A sickness, or an accident? Will he have time to understand that I was the cause of his downfall? Will he have time to beg, and pray, or will it be all in an instant? My wedding-ring charm shows me nothing, and I pace and snarl with impatience on my narrow little spur of land, while in the village, the church bells ring peace and goodwill to the righteous.
Six
Speak not ill of the year, they say, until the year be over. Someone must have forgotten that. To speak of one’s troubles during those days between Christmas and the New Year is to see them multiply like moths, eating up everything in the house.
My spies tell me that Fiona was taken into labour last night. The delivery was painful and strange, and when it came for the child to be born, there was no child, just water, blood and an empty bag of loose skin, as if something had eaten the child away as it lay there in the womb, just as certain predators will suck the meat from a chrysalis.
Of course, the Folk cried witchcraft. Only witchcraft could explain such a thing.
The midwife with the cleft lip blamed Fiona’s appetite for candied figs, for if figs be eaten out of season, then the Devil will claim his own. Fiona, in hysterics, denied that the Devil had anything to do with it, and blamed that day at the market, when I had shown her the evil eye.
William says nothing, but I sense his unease. His uncle’s continued presence means that he dares not see Fiona. In fact, it is almost amusing to see how quickly he has abandoned her. Her pregnancy was bad enough, but the disappearance of the unborn child is more than he can stomach. Now he keeps to his rooms, and will not come out until the year is done. The time between Christmas and the New Year is a dark, uncertain time: a time when dogs howl, witches fly, and the dead watch the living. Perhaps he feels me watching him, and thinks I am dead. I hope so.
Meanwhile, the Folk are uneasy. The omens have been terrible. Strange births, odd sounds, the unusual behaviour of livestock: everything points to witchcraft. I am, of course, the prime suspect. My unexplained disappearance; my sinister words to Fiona. And there have been sightings, too. An old man coming out of the inn after a hard night’s drinking swears he saw me in the sky, riding a broomstick. A second old man contests this, and claims that I was riding a beanpole. Either way, it was witchcraft, and there is a new sighting every day to confirm their suspicions.
From my hideout, I watch and wait. The ice has melted, and I need my boat to go to and from the island. I do not go far. But my friend in the village leaves firewood, bread, cheese and sometimes wine, under a bramble patch by the lake. Every few days, I check the place. So far I have seen no one, not even footprints in the snow.
Who is my friend in the village, and why do they risk their life for my sake? To come to my aid is dangerous, and yet, whoever it is keeps coming. I think of Old Age, in her hawthorn tree. Could she be the one, perhaps? I sit under the trees, by my firepit, trying to read the rising smoke. It would be a comfort to catch even a glimpse of a friendly face. But all I see is the island, with its silver birches under the snow, and the darkness of the pine woods, and the ducks by the lakeside.
January
The Cold Month
Hats full, caps full,
Bushel, bushel, sacks full.
17th-century proverb
One
Now comes the woodcutting time, and I must keep to my place on the island. Every day, around the lake, I hear the Folk cutting firewood. January is the cold month, the month of frost and omens, and a week’s sunshine in January means the worst of weather in May. For myself, I welcome the sunshine. The snow has gone, and during the day I can enjoy the first pale rays of a new year. At night, it freezes but, thanks to my wolves, I will always sleep easy. Thanks to the wood provided by my unknown friend in the village, my firepit burns day and night, and I can cook my food again – a fish from the lake, a rabbit, a duck, a handful of late potatoes. The white-headed crow is back by day, along with a clatter of magpies.
One’s for sorrow, two for mirth;
Three, a wedding, four a birth.
Five for heaven, six for hell –
Of course, I do not believe in such things. Your hell and your Devil mean nothing to me. The Folk are so concerned with sin, and with all the ways to absolve it, that they do not see the way in which the Church has harnessed them. The Church
controls their food, their drink; declares when to feast and when to fast; when to have children, when to abstain, chooses when and whom to love. And in exchange, the Church takes their wealth and builds more monuments to its glory. The Church is there at birth, at death, at every important time in between. Like a cuckoo in the nest, it consumes everything it can, and throws out what it cannot use.
The air is cold and clear today. I can hear the church bells. A pretty sound, those bells, and yet they mean nothing but trouble to me – to me and to the rest of my kind. Today, it means a funeral – and with it, another portion of blame for the monster I have become in their eyes. Nothing happens here now without someone invoking my name. Not the name he gave me, no – for that at least, I am grateful. I have become Mad Moira, the Winter Queen, the Black Witch of the Mountains, and in the dark days of the year, the tales about me have grown and grown, like potatoes in the cellar, until there’s nothing left of me but shoots, and eyes, and tentacles.
Mad Moira eats children. Now go to sleep, or the Witch of the Mountains will take you. Mad Moira sleeps in a virgin’s grave by day, and hunts as a wolf by night. Mad Moira flies on a beanpole, and lines her pockets with shooting stars. Mad Moira’s hair is black as coal; her lips are red as heartsblood. Young men, beware; she’ll steal your soul, and you’ll wander the earth for ever.
The magpies are talkative. They spread the word. Mad Moira. Mad Moira. They scatter the news across the sky, across the woods, across the lake, and I feel myself letting go of the past, becoming nameless once again.
Mad Moira flies in a carriage drawn by Devil’s Coach-Horse beetles. When the wind blows from the west, Mad Moira is hunting. Mad Moira has a black cat. Its name is Willumskillum . . .
Bad news for black cats in the village. From now on, they will be hunted, their pelts hung on the fairy tree. Rowan berries and red thread are suddenly village currency.
I wonder if William hears those tales. I wonder if he spreads them. Or is it Fiona, who longs to make sense of her little tragedy? Fiona has been churched and cleansed, her lapse of virtue forgiven. Any sin she committed was all the fault of Mad Moira.
Mad Moira, the Witch of the Mountains, devourer of all that is wholesome and good. Mad Moira, whose heart is cold as stone, and leads young men astray with her wiles, and never shows any mercy. Mad Moira, who is as old as the hills, and feeds on the souls of children.
Two
St Hilary: the coldest day, and the Folk will light fires in their orchards, and chop logs against the cold, and wassail their fruit trees, to ensure a good and fruitful harvest.
Wassail the trees, that they may bear
Many a plum, and many a pear.
But it has been such long time since I saw one of either. What would I give now, for a plum, a pear, or even a crab apple? The crabs are all gone from the trees now: there is nothing more to find. The offerings of bread and cheese from my friend in the village provide only an occasional change to the monotony of my diet. And of course I am grateful to my wolves for what they bring me, but I long for something more than rabbit, fish or mutton.
For the first time since I arrived here, I went abroad in the woods today. I left my little boat hidden beneath a pile of brush and bracken, and went softly into the woods in search of the ashes of my life.
By the path, the snowdrops are out, clustering like conspirators. The snowdrops give me hope now, even in the darkest month: they speak of new life, and warm blood, and the distant promise of springtime.
Nothing remains of my cabin now. Only a pile of blackened logs, and the scorched earth around the firepit. My loom is gone, and my weaving, and the wedding dress of the April girl. But I did find my cooking pot, half-buried in the soft ground. I dug it out, and cleaned it. I wonder that it was not taken. But a witch’s cooking pot is cursed. Only a fool would have touched it. Who knows what Mad Moira brewed in there – eye of snake, heart of toad, blood of infant? Who knows what incantations she whispered into the rising smoke?
I waited until nightfall before I ventured into the fairy ring. In the village, doors were locked, windows barred against the cold. The moon was young and ringed with white – there would be frost in the morning. I could see the fairy stones standing in the moonlight – some white, some black, like the pieces in a game. The hawthorn tree stood out against the bright sky like a scarecrow. It looked dead, its branches bare, except for its wreath of mistletoe. Even the rags and ribbons hung still, with not a breath to stir them.
I stepped into the fairy ring. My pocket-doll was still in the cleft of the ancient hawthorn tree. Weathered by the frost and snow, it is no longer white but grey, the cloth grown brittle; the stitching torn. When there is nothing left of it, then I will be free again, and run with the deer, and swim with the fish, and blossom with the hawthorn. When there is nothing left of it, then even Mad Moira will be gone, and I will be free of myself, and of him, and of everything human—
I knew you’d be here before long.
The voice was no more than a whisper. Deep in the skin of the hawthorn tree, the old one dreams of springtime.
You thought I was dead. Admit it, she said, and I thought I sensed humour in the voice; a warmth under the frozen bark like the gleam in an old woman’s eye.
‘Admit it: you thought the same of me,’ I said, and the branches shivered with mirth.
Oh, you’re a strong one, said Old Age. I would have known if you were gone.
I believe her, as I believe that she is my friend from the village. Only she could have done these things. Only she could have known where I was. She brought me the firewood; the food; she brought me the rowing boat. She sent the wolves in midwinter; the white-headed crow to bring me news. She is my friend, even though I stole the offerings from her branches.
‘I owe you my life, Old Mother,’ I said, and she laughed.
What’s a life or two, between friends?
‘But what now? What of William? How long before the charm takes hold?’
A shrug, deep under the hawthorn skin. Patience, child. The seeds are sown.
If only I had patience. If only I could sleep till spring. If only I were the hawthorn tree, too old to love, too wise to hate.
Run back to your den, little wolf, she said. Howl at the moon, but silently. And when the Wolf Moon rises, then look to the roads, and listen for horses’ hooves on the highway . . .
‘Why, Old Mother?’ I said eagerly. ‘What’s coming? What do you know?’
But the old tree was asleep again, and would not say another word. And so I waited, and watched the moon, and listened for the sound of horses.
Three
Here comes St Paul’s, and the Folk will pray for snow, for if grass grows green on St Paul’s Day, the summer meadows with famine will pay.
For myself, I watch the hedgehogs, for the hedgehog knows where the wind will blow, and builds its burrow accordingly. Now, she announces winds from the west, which means a month’s troubled weather, but I am safe on my island still, with my wolves to keep me warm.
But this is soon to change, I fear. The farmer has lost too many sheep to wolves over the past few weeks, and now he swears he will hunt them down, and kill their cubs, and take their pelts. Once more, I see the villagers with torches in the forest. Once more I hear raised voices and the barking of dogs from the village. The dogs will not reach the island. But the scent of the wolves excites them. Soon it will bring men to our lair, armed with knives and crossbows.
My friends the wolves know this, of course. I fear for them as well as myself. They must take to the high ground: the snow; the rocky mountains. I have my cave; my firepit. I will survive without them.
In the village, the Folk are at odds. Some believe the power of prayer can free them of their troubles. Some take the opposite view, and claim that Mad Moira is angry with them, and must be placated with offerings. This suits me – or it would, if their gifts were more helpful. But a dish of red berries on a wall, or a scatter of salt on a doorstep is hardly the
kind of help I need.
In any case, I am alone again. Only the white-headed crow stays. Every day, she brings me news. Every day, she speaks to me. And now, from the roads, she brings me the sound of horses’ hooves against the ground, and I know by the quickening of my heart that the Wolf Moon is rising.
February
The Whirling Month
When that six months were overpass’d,
Were gone and overpass’d,
O then my lover, once so bold,
With love was sick at last.
The Child Ballads, 295
One
Now comes the time of ploughing, and the sowing of beans and of oats: St Bridget, and her feast day, and the Wolf Moon rising fair. The wolves have gone over the mountains. I hear them howling from afar. But my friends are still nearby, watching my slow transformation.
The white-headed crow brought news today. William has been taken ill. A chill, perhaps, like his father, although he has not left home this year. His uncle remains to tend to his needs, and to run the castle. Servants left unsupervised are likely to run wild, to steal, to raid the cellars and neglect the livestock and the armoury. Maids grow slovenly, cooks grow fat, and cats sleep by the fireside.
In the village, gossip is rife. Master William’s malady is not the first piece of bad news. A mild winter brings a fat churchyard, and this year has not been propitious. The winter’s death toll is rising among the old ones of the Folk, and no amount of prayer will help. It is Mad Moira, say the Folk; angry at their disrespect. As spring approaches, the Winter Queen grows angry, bringing storms and snow. She rides at night on her black horse; spinning the dark and ragged clouds on her spindle of lightning.
And so now come the offerings: ribbons and rags tied onto the branches of trees; dishes of bread and salt by their doors. The parson preaches abstinence. The Folk pretend to obey him. But the children play in the fairy ring, and look for witch-stones by the lake, and hunt for goblins in the woods, and tell tales of Mad Moira.
A Pocketful of Crows Page 8