by Jeff Wheeler
“The first person who comes through that door will have the same initial as your future sweetheart,” advised Mary, “or maybe your future husband—I forget which.”
“Heaven’s above, Mary—isn’t it the same thing?”
Mary shook her head sagely. “When you get to my age, you’ll understand, me darlin’, that love and marriage do not always go hand in hand.”
The garden gate squeaked on its hinges. Katherine and Lizzie came running up the path and squeezed through the door simultaneously—breathless, giggling, and jostling each other in their efforts to be first. Under normal circumstances, Rose would have laughed at their antics, but with so much depending on the prophecy of the peas, her brow creased with annoyance.
“Well, ’tis either a K or an E,” she said to Mary. “Those feckless girls have made a right mess of our charm. But I think it was Katherine who was a little bit first, don’t you?”
“Maybe,” said Mary uncertainly.
“What’s the matter, Rose?” asked Lizzie.
“Nothing.”
“Oh, so it’s peas, is it?” said Katherine, eying the bowl full of jade beads on the table. “That’ll make a grand change from sloke and watercress and buttered nettles. You’re not doing the cosh charm are you, Rose? Sure, I did that once, and who should be first through the door but Father Joseph.” She shuddered.
“I brought you a stalk of rye grass,” said Lizzie proudly. She held out a slim stem, heavy with seeds.
Rose gazed dubiously at the offering.
“Am I supposed to dance the Pride of Erin? What’s so great about a bit of grass?”
Lizzie’s face fell. “At this season, ’tis hard to find a stem with seeds still on it,” she explained, “and you can use it to find out what line of work he follows.”
“Oh yes, of course,” Rose said with renewed enthusiasm. Eagerly she took the stalk from Lizzie’s hand. Together they went outside and sat on the front doorstep.
“Tinker, tailor,” enunciated Rose, plucking off the seeds in turn as she spoke the words, “Soldier, sailor, rich man, poor man—I hope he’s not a soldier—ploughboy, thief. Saints in heaven, Lizzie, this thing has a sackful of seeds on it.”
“That should be beggarman, not ploughboy,” Katherine called out. Her sisters ignored her.
“Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, rich man—”
Katherine peered over their shoulders. “Devil take it,” she interrupted, “he’s a poor man!”
“I could have told you that,” said Rose, rising to her feet and scattering seeds.
“You ought to do the apple-pip trick,” advised Katherine, “to find out the direction where he’s living. Every time I do it, the pip flies towards England. I think ’tis a good sign—it probably means some baron or earl.”
“Or a beggar on the streets of London,” said Mary.
“Sure, wouldn’t you rather have an Irish peer?” asked Rose.
Katherine shrugged. “Of course, if one was available. But it seems to me that over in Sasuna the gentry are a lot more numerous to share around.”
“Ooh, imagine Kitty married to a Sasanach!” squealed Lizzie, enjoying the sheer ridiculousness of the idea.
“I don’t care if he’s Old Nick himself, as long as he’s got plenty of money,” said Katherine with relish.
“You mind your heathen tongue or the Old Boy’ll carry you off one day,” Mary scolded. “Go and say your rosary,” she added automatically, with no confidence at all that her command would be heeded.
* * *
On Saint Valentine’s Eve, after the rest of the household was asleep in bed, Rose went out of the house and climbed the hill to where the Catholic church stood in its grove of yew trees. It was close to midnight. High overhead, the moon was a polished sickle. Ragged clouds blew across its face, but there was enough light to see by as Rose entered the churchyard. She knelt beside the grave of a young man who had died ten years earlier, and her lips began to move in silent prayer. The wind was in the north, blowing from the direction of Charter Hall. It carried with it the faint sound of a clock striking twelve—the old standing clock that had once belonged to Rose’s family and now belonged to the Westbournes. As the chimes rang, Rose plucked nine leaves of yarrow that were growing on the grave, and as she picked, she said,
“Yarrow, yarrow, I seek thee yarrow,
And now thee I have found.
I pray to the good Lord Jesus
As I pluck thee from the ground.”
Hastily tucking the leaves inside her shawl, she turned and hurried home.
When she entered the bedchamber she shared with Lizzie, she put seven of the yarrow leaves in her right stocking and tied it to her left leg, but saved two leaves, one of which she put under her pillow. The other, she folded and placed inside the small curled shell of her left nostril. Then she whispered, without waking her sister,
“Green yarrow, green yarrow, you wear a white flower,
If my love lives, my nose will bleed sure;
If my love don’t live, it won’t bleed a drop,
If my love do live, ’twill bleed every drop.”
And as she laid her head on the pillow, she murmured,
“Good night, pretty yarrow,
I pray thee sweet yarrow,
Tell me by the morrow,
If my true love lives.”
As Rose began to fall asleep, she found herself reflecting that Ma McGinty’s spells and potions did not always work; a fact the wisewoman fiercely contended. The thought presently evaporated and her mind drifted. Beyond the walls, the west wind carried on its back the crashing roar of the surf at the foot of Madigan’s Leap, and the cry of a bittern winging through the night.
* * *
At the dawning of Saint Valentine’s Day, the rising sun peeped through a long rent in the clouds over the back hills, edging them with gilt. Its rays streamed out like long fingers, reaching to caress first the eaves of Charter Hall and the tops of the hedges lining the driveway. They wandered across the buttresses of Saint George’s, the Protestant church, making the stone glow like honey. Down the steeple of Saint Finbar’s they bled, limning the black boughs of the ancient yews, lightly brushing the ancient mossy roof over the village well. Then they pulled back the shadow of Whitethorn Hill to tinge with gold the thatched bothies of the village, upon whose rooves grew clumps of stonecrop, reputed to ward off thunder.
From one of the outermost houses arose a scream.
The scream went on and on, punctuated with almost unintelligible outbursts of “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” and “Lord save us!”
John Delacey leapt from his bed. Rushing into the kitchen, he found Lizzie running in circles, sobbing. Margaret, Katherine, and Mary discovered her at the same time.
“Oh Jesus,” shrieked Lizzie, “she’s all a’blood. She’s killed herself, by God. She’s murdered.”
Still dressed in their nightshirts, everyone hastened into Rose’s bedchamber. There on the bed she lay, but the pillow and the linen all around her was soaked with crimson ichor. Bearded with a sticky, red viscosity, her face was almost unrecognisable.
“Mother of God!” exclaimed Margaret, clapping her hands to her mouth.
Her father looked stricken. “Where’s all the blood coming from?” he cried, kneeling beside her. “Where are you hurt?”
“It’s nothing,” murmured Rose, opening her eyes to prove she was still alive. “’Tis only a nosebleed.”
Her father flinched. At that moment he had caught a strange look in his daughter’s eyes, and the phantom of a smile on her face, a smile almost of beatific joy.
Cecilia Dart-Thornton
Cecilia Dart-Thornton was born and raised in Melbourne, Australia, graduating from Monash University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in sociology. She became a schoolteacher before working as an editor, bookseller, illustrator and book designer. She started and ran her own business, but became a full-time writer in 2000 after her work was “discovered” on the Inter
net and published by Time Warner (New York).
The Apothecant
By Brendon Taylor | 18,800 words
Danai Walders had climbed every peak in the mountains surrounding the Brasin valley by the time she was twelve. Now seventeen, she continued to climb almost daily. Her strong fingers and nimble feet had earned her a reputation for being part mountain goat, while her stubborn mind and disregard for rules or parental commands earned her a reputation for being part ox. Both were well deserved. All of her nicknames, which were admittedly terrible, played on one or both of these traits, and all came from her father: she-goat, nanny ox, and the mule spider. Danai’s favorite nickname was the one he had begun calling her the summer before everything in her life changed: Pugnox. Her father, who had a love of words and language, explained that it was derived from an old tongue, and referenced someone who was stubborn and liked to fight.
Danai counted it as good fortune that no one but her father had ever called her Pugnox, and she had not heard the name since her mother died five years earlier. She would walk a path of burning embers to hear her father call her any of those ridiculous nicknames once more. Losing her mother to the blue moth plague was devastating. That tragedy alone would have been more than a young woman should have to bear, but it was also that summer when her father contracted the same illness. She went from having two loving, attentive parents to having one ill father in constant need of medication and bed rest. Yet, she also learned to be strong and to be content with little, and she was still able to find happiness in the world inside and out of her shanty of a home.
She had even found a job that provided enough income to cover their needs and that was actually the perfect job for her. She worked for the apothecant, Merdrid Knaevel, who knew more about herbs, poultices, and healing than the physicians from the big city. Thanks to Merdrid, Danai’s father received medication each month that kept the plague at bay and allowed him a brief respite from the pain.
It was her father’s poultice, the poultice that would treat him and seven other members of the valley who likewise suffered from the blue moth plague, that put Danai on the tallest peak over the Brasin valley on a late spring morning. Little purple flowers from the elusive pintiach tree were an essential ingredient. This time of year, only the most adept climber could retrieve them. Hence, Danai’s value to Merdrid was realized. The elderly, portly Merdrid huffed when walking up the short flight of stairs from the cellar. Climbing a mountain was unthinkable. Not only was Danai able to climb any mountain around, but her mind stayed focused on the specific flower, root, or berry Merdrid required, and she nearly always returned with the correct item and amount. If she did not find what Merdrid wanted, it was because it was not there to be found.
Notwithstanding the cool of the morning leaving tendrils of fog around the tall evergreen trees in the valley below, Danai felt rivulets of sweat roll down her back between her shoulder blades. Her muscles strained to pull her body up the vertical face of granite. She felt a sharp shift followed by a terrifying crumble as her left handhold gave way. Her body swayed as she sought purchase with her right foot, and the fingers on her right hand gripped their hold more tightly. A few whispered counts helped calm her nerves. She felt the gentle breeze and warmth of the sun, and forced thoughts of aching arms and shoulders out of mind. Focusing on each place to put a hand or foot, she continued her ascent. A short while later, she reached the ledge where a large cropping of pintiach bloomed beautifully.
Danai filled her belt pouch with purple flowers before she gathered a handful of heather berries and sat in the sun with her waterskin to relax. The pintiach flower was the last ingredient Merdrid needed for the poultice that would relieve her father’s pain, and even enable him to wake and speak for a few precious moments. His disease left him with little energy and almost no ability to communicate. The windows of clarity the poultice brought when first applied were the only golden treasures Danai had. She loved Merdrid for giving those to her.
The tartness of the berries lingered on her tongue, and the red from their juices stained her fingers. They were some of her favorites. She thought about gathering enough for a pie, but decided against wasting the time it would take to gather that many. Besides, she had no bag or sack to hold them. And her pockets would be a soggy red mess if she tried to climb down with berries inside. Ultimately, thoughts of hearing her father speak that evening pushed all other ideas out of her mind. As soon as her limbs regained their strength, Danai slipped over the edge of the rock wall and methodically descended.
The ancient brass bell that dangled from a wire hook above Merdrid’s door clanged as Danai entered the apothecary. Danai had mentioned to Merdrid several times in the years she had been her assistant that the bell looked worn and dirty. Merdrid always defended the bell with a smile, declaring the age and wear were called patina, and that it made the bell even more valuable than a new one. Danai liked the bell, but the smell of the shop was what made it her second home. It was like freshly turned soil, harvested vegetables, ripe fruit, and a flower garden in bloom. At least, in Danai’s mind that was how it smelled. If she was honest, she would also admit it smelled a bit like a burlap bag of moldy mushrooms and mud from a barnyard.
“I’m in the back, Sis.” Merdrid’s voice cracked.
“Coming.” Danai hustled down a root-crowded aisle.
Merdrid scraped the underbark from a section of kiltenmoss brush with a short, stout bone-handled knife. Her favorite. “You look a shabby mess! Sweaty face, hair mussed, and blouse untucked.” The older woman chuckled without moving her eyes from the section of bark. It was one of several odd things about Merdrid. She always seemed to see Danai without needing to bother herself with actually looking.
Danai glanced up and saw strands of her blond hair dangling in front of her eyes as she unconsciously tucked in the loose tail of her shirt. “You didn’t even see me, Merdrid. That was a lucky guess.”
“It is my business to know everything that happens in my shop. Of course I saw you.” Merdrid put the knife and bark down on the table and smiled with a nod as her eyes confirmed what she had said. “Just be glad that I was too courteous to mention your smell.” The older woman waved a short-fingered hand in front of her nose as if to ward away the smell and squinted.
Danai’s own nose dipped toward her right armpit, and she took a half step back. The older woman was right. “Perhaps I should take a quick bath before working in the shop.”
“Perhaps you should. But if you leave the pintiach flowers on the table, I can prepare them for the poultice while you bathe.” Merdrid pulled her heavy stone mortar from the shelf under the table and gathered the bark shavings into its bowl.
Danai chided herself for momentarily forgetting the importance of the day. “What makes you so sure I found the flowers?”
“Sis, I already told you. I know what happens in my shop.” Merdrid looked serious for a moment, with her stone-gray hair carefully pulled into a bun secured by two mixing rods. “Besides, you would not have been smiling so much had you not found them.”
Danai could not argue with that. She loosened her belt pouch and placed the flowers gently on a clean section of the table near the bark. “When will the poultice be ready?”
“By nightfall if we stop yapping and you clean yourself enough to get some work done.” Merdrid winked as her hands worked the pestle in the mortar. “Danai, let me give you two compliments before you go. You have earned them.”
Danai had started turning toward the front door, but stopped. Compliments were rare from Merdrid, and always sincere.
“First, I have never seen a young woman who stays as consistently cheerful as you, when life gives you few reasons to be so.” Merdrid’s look was serious.
“Well, I get to climb all over the valley and am blessed to work with . . .”
“Hush!” Merdrid stopped her. “I’m giving you a compliment. Let me give you the second one.” Merdrid paused long enough that Danai began to feel the urge to fi
ll the silence, but she forced herself to stand still. Seemingly satisfied, Merdrid continued. “Second, I have never seen a young woman willing to sacrifice so much of herself for her family. What you do for your father is truly remarkable, Danai. These two things make you very rare, not unlike the pintiach flowers from your pouch.”
“Thank you.” Danai remembered the way her mother taught her to receive a compliment when she was a little girl. This seemed to please Merdrid.
“Am I correct to believe that you would do most anything to help your father?”
“Of course!” Danai nodded.
Merdrid paused for a moment, and Danai made herself stay still. “Sis, what if I told you I have been working out a way to heal your father completely from his illness, but it would take a bit of a sacrifice from you?” The look in Merdrid’s eye was a mix of sparkle and something else.
Danai’s stomach clenched with ice. She had long beaten down any hope that her father might recover, since Merdrid and everyone else in the valley assured her that was not possible. Yet, Danai knew that Merdrid would not mention a possible cure unless she had found one. Merdrid would never hurt her like that; she was certain. Still, she did not want to open herself to that level of pain, and let hope creep in where she had safely locked out emotion for so many years. “You are serious, aren’t you?” Danai’s voice was a whisper.
Merdrid’s mouth turned into a small smile. “You know I would not say such a thing unless I thought it was possible. Only possible, mind you.”
The front door bell clanged as a customer walked into the shop. Danai clenched her hands into fists at her sides, angry that they might be interrupted right then. She glanced over her shoulder and saw the most handsome face she had ever seen. A dark-haired, tall man, about twenty years old, in a crisp gray uniform with green-and-gold trim walked toward them with an older well-dressed man behind him. Her nose dipped once more toward her armpit, and she frowned.