The late afternoon was hot and weighted with tension. This weather bred discontent and Pippa stretched her back before setting off down the hill with the rooster in his basket tucked beneath her arm. She walked through a frenetic cloud of tiny insects and one got stuck in her eye. Sighing, she paused to pluck it out.
Never had she been so bored.
Then, she heard the pounding of steps behind her. It was Alice, intercepting her from the direction of the Baxters’ house.
Alice couldn’t speak for several seconds, instead making frustrated noises. “I-I-I-S-s-s-F-f-f-G-go!” Alice’s normally neat hair was in disarray and there was something approaching terror on her face.
“What is it? For God’s sake, Alice! Tell me! Is it Lillibet?”
“N-n-no. ’T-t-tis Sybil. She’s—she’s fainted and d-d-deadly ill.”
“What!?” Pippa was already tearing down the lane, Alice catching up a few seconds later. The rooster gave a terrified squawk from inside his container. A prayer escaped Pippa with the sparest of spare breaths: “Oh, Lord, keep her and heal her, let her be all right.”
A mere faint would not have been so worrisome. Sensitive Alice was known to have them during her monthlies. Sybil, however, had been very ill once when she was a girl. She was frail in body—it was a thin thread indeed that kept Sybil’s roving spirit tied to the earth.
“Is Lillibet with her?” Pippa shouted over her shoulder at Alice.
A shake of the head.
The dust scattered as Pippa ground her heels to a halt outside the Yates house. A curtain flapped in an open upstairs window. She dropped the rooster on the front stoop and knocked. They were admitted by Martha, the servant. “She not be havin’ any visitors,” said Martha. “Miss Radcliff is already helping.”
“Miss Radcliff? Winifred?” Pippa was puzzled. What could she be doing here, nursing? Sybil needed her dear friends about her, not her mean sister’s mean friend. Annoyed, she said, “Well, if Winifred Radcliff is here, then we can assist her.”
“Well …”
“Thank you, Martha.” Pippa pushed past the servant and up the stairs.
Alice hissed, “Pippa!” but Pippa paid no heed.
Sybil’s door was closed and Pippa knocked twice, softly. Winifred Radcliff opened it.
“Yes?”
“We’ve come to see our friend,” said Pippa. “We’ve come to heal her.”
“Only God can do that,” said Winifred. Her eyes were narrowed in dislike at Pippa and Alice, yet a wrinkle of worry split her smooth forehead.
Pippa peered over Winifred’s shoulder and saw the vague shape of Sybil beneath white bedclothes. “Why are you here?”
Winifred’s brown eyes widened, then blinked. “Elizabeth is my friend,” she said, “and Sybil is her sister. As a dear friend of the family, I have as much Christian duty to help as I can. She needs godliness and cleanliness. I rather think you two don’t qualify.”
Pippa almost snarled with anger. This was ridiculous. Stupid Winifred with her bejeweled head cap knew nothing of Sybil and her needs. Pippa was about to knock the girl aside with a firm arm when Alice spoke.
“W-W-Where is the R-R-Reverend?” Alice asked Winifred kindly.
“At the church, praying for her until the doctor arrives.” Winifred’s voice was low, throaty, cool.
“And h-her sisters?”
“Keeping vigil in their father’s study, reading from the Good Book. They were told not to come in the room lest it be catching.”
“But you’re here,” said Pippa.
“I’ve never had a fever in my life,” said Winifred with a touch of haughtiness. “I don’t intend to now.”
“Fever, you say? We’ll see,” said Pippa, suspicious of a laywoman’s diagnosis. She would only trust whatever Lillibet said about Sybil’s condition. Losing all patience, she pushed past Winifred only to stop short inside the room.
Sybil was pale and the color of her lips had leeched out to pure white, as though stained by the horseman of death. Cold dread slithered into the pit of Pippa’s stomach. “Oh, Sybil,” Pippa whispered.
“When the doctor arrives, he will bleed the bad humors away,” said Winifred.
“Bleed her?” This sounded like the wrong idea to Pippa. Sybil already seemed bloodless as a ghost. “She doesn’t look like she has any blood left in her!” With a steady hand she felt Sybil’s forehead. The skin was hot—the fever consumed her. Winifred had been correct. “We must get Lillibet.” Pippa looked out the window and groaned in frustration: Lillibet’s slightly hunched figure was on the slow climb up Pye’s hill to find her.
“What h-h-h-happened at P-Pye’s?” Alice asked. “F-f-for them to p-pay the rooster?”
“I’ll not say here,” said Pippa. To speak of hexes might bring similar onto Sybil and push her over the edge. “I must fetch Lillibet. I’ll be back soon.” She ran out the door and snatched up the basket with their rooster.
Then, it was more running, more pounding through the dirt. Sweat soaked her collar and ran down her legs. The bird hindered her progress. “Lillibet, Lillibet!” she shouted. “Lillibet!”
A few seconds later she reached her mother and gasped out the emergency.
“But, child, did the Pyes receive their tonic —”
“Sorted,” panted Pippa, holding up the rooster. “Walk with me to Sybil, and I’ll tell you what happened.” They turned back at a slower pace, for it had been many years since Lillibet could race around like Pippa. “Sybil has the fever. I felt it burning in her blood.”
“She’s in a sickroom?”
“She’s in her bed, windows closed to this bad air.”
The rooster was left on the Yates’s front porch once again, and Lillibet was hurried into the house by Martha, who whispered, “The Reverend don’t want you here. He don’t believe in cunning-ness. But he be at the church, so it waren’t me who let you in, if’n anyone asks.”
Lillibet muttered, “Cunning-ness do better than doctors,” and followed Pippa up the stairs to where Alice and Winifred sat on the narrow bench at the end of Sybil’s bed. Inside that bench was where Sybil kept her embroidery and needles.
Lillibet pushed at Sybil’s eyelid with a gentle finger. Pippa noticed a yellowish stain on the thin skin below the eyes.
Sybil had a tiny bout of shaking that made her bedclothes ripple like a cloud.
“Talk to her,” said Lillibet.
“Sybil?” Pippa said. “Sybil, darling, we’re here. Can you speak?” She held Sybil’s hand with loose fingers.
Sybil’s pink tongue darted out to wet her parched lips. “Water,” she managed.
An instant later Alice was there with a spoonful of water that she edged between Sybil’s lips.
Lillibet asked, “Is thy neck stiff, child? Does it hurt to look down?”
“No. Just … my … my head,” said Sybil. The pain was in her eyes, for she was too weak to make a facial expression.
Lillibet nodded and stepped away. Speaking in an undertone to the girls, she said, “Ague. I’m certain of it now, with the headache.”
Ague. A hammer had descended on them. It was middling-to-common in this hot, moist weather—the ague, the intermittent “marsh fever.” It was what Sybil had contracted as a child, for it was known to come back later in life. In those of weak constitution, it killed.
“Oh, no,” said Winifred. “Oh, Father of mercies, God of all comfort! Oh, Lord help her!”
Pippa glanced at the interloper. She didn’t think Sybil needed to hear dramatic religious declarations.
“The Lord can help. We must pray to Him,” said Lillibet. “But in the meantime there is something else to be done. Move that rug.” She pointed down at the knotted rug covering the wood floor. A small piece of chalk appeared in Lillibet’s wrinkled hand.
Bending to the floor, she scribbled a protection square underneath the bed, nonsense letters that would confuse the fever spirits that tormented Sybil:
From the corner, Winifred wa
tched, eyes wide. Sybil’s condition must be serious for Lillibet to cast so openly in front of a stranger.
“Winifred Radcliff, can you fetch me a paper?” Lillibet whispered.
Winifred paused, disapproval written on her face.
“Do you want to heal her, or not?”
“Yes, yes, of course.” Nodding once, seemingly to herself, Winifred darted from the room and returned with a pencil and a scrap of paper. The paper was printed on one side, an old news pamphlet about the movement of the royal army. “This?” Winifred asked, holding it out.
“Thank you, dear,” said Lillibet. She scribbled on the paper and Pippa saw it was another protection cipher, the most powerful of them all, a triangle of letters that read the same in every direction:
Lillibet folded the charm and tucked it against Sybil’s chest, beneath her nightgown. Then she held Sybil’s hand and murmured prayers, reciting from the Book of John.
The air in the room was heavy, like a tomb. Alice and Winifred fell to their knees beside the bed and prayed. Feeling helpless, Pippa put aside her resentment at Winifred’s presence and joined them.
When the casting was done, Lillibet bade Pippa to leave with her. “There are further workings,” she said.
They waited until the half-moon had gone to sleep over the western horizon in the small hours of the morning, then fired up the cauldron. They said a prayer and decocted a powerful liquid opiate from Lillibet’s store of poppy seeds. The poppies grew wild in the fens and were cultivated by some. “’Tis fitting,” said Pippa, “that the cheerful bright poppy flower should restore Sybil to health. The flower is like her.”
“’Tis,” Lillibet agreed. “Here, the stopper. Don’t you lose a drop of that.”
“Will she be all right?”
“If God wills it. But God be more willing to aid those who would use his natural blessings toward the healing. In some places, brewers add these seeds to the ale, in the marshes and near the still waters.” Lillibet sighed. “But, the moon’s growing, and ’tis not a fortunate time to banish a fever. Instead we focus on restoring health.”
The next morning Sybil was unimproved, or so said Martha at the door. “The Reverend’s in with her,” she said. “Ye’ll have to wait.”
“How long?” Pippa danced from one foot to the other, clutching the vial of medicine wrapped in cloth.
Martha just shook her head.
Discouraged, Pippa set off to wait at the village common. She sat next to the pond, took off her shoes, and dipped her feet into the water, watching the ripples, one eye on the Yateses’ front door. The pond water was warm, just like the sticky summer air. Pippa watched the lazy paths of minnows and mosquitoes through the reeds. Sybil lived so near to this deep, still water … perhaps it was a danger to her health? It was said that stagnant waters led to illness. Pippa kicked her bare feet harder, trying to dislodge the sluggish pond, and watched as the ripples sped across and hit the reeds on the opposite side.
Some while later the Reverend Yates emerged from his house, looking serious in black and wearing his slouched hat. Pippa waited until he was gone, then made her move, pulling her shoes over her wet feet and dashing back across the road. Martha let her in and informed her that the doctor was unable to come for two days. “There’s outbreak of the cholera at that school in Lavenham, ’e’s hemmed down by it. That doctor canno’ make no special allowance when so many young ones are taken ill.”
In Pippa’s opinion, the longer Sybil went without being bled by the doctor’s leeches, the better. But it also meant the burden of their friend’s health was square on their shoulders, or so it felt.
“Sybil?” Pippa pushed open the door. Catherine Yates sat on the bed, dabbing Sybil’s forehead with a wet cloth. Elder sister Elizabeth sat in the chair, knitting. And there was Winifred Radcliff again, murmuring verses aloud from an open Bible.
Pippa felt a twinge of unease at so many people in the room, especially judgmental Elizabeth. It couldn’t be restful for Sybil. She glanced from one to the other and finally met eyes with Winifred. It could have been her imagination, but she thought she saw the same worry in the rich girl’s earnest brown eyes. She hadn’t expected to find anything in common with such a snooty person. I’m imagining things, she decided.
“It’s the ague,” said Catherine in a quiet mumble, hard to hear even in the stillness of the sickroom, “so we’ve been minding her. Ague is not catching.”
Pippa wondered if Sybil had been cursed, and the fever brought by someone who wished to do her harm. She exchanged another look with Winifred, who surprised Pippa further by saying to the Yates sisters, “Bless you both. Would you give us a moment so that we may pray over her?”
Elizabeth nodded reluctantly, and beckoned Catherine to come with her. With them gone, the atmosphere lightened just a little. Sybil’s eyes flickered open.
“Have something for you,” said Pippa. “This’ll make you all better.” The opiate potion was poured into a large silver spoon. “Drink up, now.” She nudged Sybil’s lips open.
“There’s a good girl,” added Winifred as Sybil swallowed the first spoonful. It tasted terrible but in such a state, it was unlikely Sybil noticed or cared.
Another spoonful. Then another.
To Pippa, the common purpose with Winifred felt awkward. Why did Winifred care so much about Sybil all of a sudden? She must be true friends with Elizabeth to take such care of her under-loved sibling. Pippa wasn’t sure she trusted Winifred with the potion, or to overhear the charm she wanted to say over Sybil.
Winifred’s hands were steady as she measured the potion into the spoon that Pippa held. “I don’t pretend to know what you do, but I know your mother’s methods work,” she said.
“Oh?”
“Once, my younger sister Jane was taken very ill. She was five years old, you might not remember, but your Lillibet did heal her. Whatever it is you need to do for my neighbor—for Sybil—I shall help you.”
Pippa turned to stare at Winifred. There was no lie in her frank declaration, but Pippa thought she did see a trace of something approaching guilt. How odd. Perhaps Winifred felt responsible for the cruelty of Elizabeth and herself. Everyone knew that ill thoughts and ill words could be considered a curse.
“She is my friend’s sister,” Winifred explained. “If you are truly Sybil’s friend, you know about that sort of bond.”
“I do know,” said Pippa, although she could not pretend that she would tend Elizabeth Yates with such care, were Elizabeth to fall ill. “Thank you, then. If you be true.”
“Of course I am,” said Winifred.
Sybil shook her head weakly against another spoonful of potion.
“How do we make sure she takes the rest?” Winifred whispered to Pippa.
“We’ll pour it into her drinking water, here,” said Pippa. She poured the remaining liquid into the jug of water on Sybil’s bedside table. “Then her sisters will feed it to her without knowing.”
“The water won’t dilute it?”
“Nah. ’Tis a strong potion.” Pippa held Sybil’s hand through another bout of shaking. She would have no choice but to share a touch of Lillibet’s method with Winifred. Taking a deep breath, she said, “Lillibet gave me a charm for her. Now we say it three times over. Like this: God’s Son climbed over the hill. God’s Son rose under the hill. Vein to vein, banish heat and pain, we pray God will make thee well again.”
Winifred joined in after listening to Pippa once through. “God’s son climbed over the hill …”
THE LIGHT HAD GONE from the sky and the candle flickered in the corner. The light was the color of flesh. It lived in the corner. The shadows chased it, approached it, retreated. They were the loam, the black of earth and of throats. Her sisters were gone … what were their names? Pippa and Alice and Winnie. The door opened and Sybil was helpless to who entered … in this case, Elizabeth. She looked frightened, although Sybil sensed it was not because of the illness, but rather something else. She tried to
speak her gratitude when Elizabeth spooned some water into her mouth, but her throat was too dry and hot.
Her head throbbed. Her skull was swollen. Every breath was an endless expansion. Every breath a crushing contraction. Her head was not supposed to do that.
Sybil knew she was very, very sick. She knew it was the ague, for she remembered Lillibet coming in and touching her and saying it aloud. That made things better, for to name a thing was to reduce its power over her. Ague. Ague. She’d had it once before. She would come through this, too. If only her head would stop crushing her.
Elizabeth left and her father entered, and he murmured prayers over her, his Bible open in his hands. Sybil knew the words, and did not know them. Those words were alien in this land. They were bumblebees that were lazy and low and droning. They stuck to the wall that melted like hot treacle.
Cotton wool in her eyes. Cotton wool in her ears.
Christ climbed over the hill, Christ rose under the hill.
“When will the doctor come?” Was that Cathy? Or had the door creaked?
“Day after tomorrow. ’Tis an ill time. Those children in Lavenham.”
It was the door talking. “Father, I must speak to you about something. Not in front of her.”
The weight of the sheet on her skin was a stone, a miller’s stone, the kind that crushed grain. She was a grain, a shaft of wheat with rough arms and legs branching outward, about to be crushed, about to be harvested. She was a hand-stuffed doll made of wheat, made of grain. The cotton rubbed her like a thousand tiny knives. Breathe in, breathe out. Good girl. Take your medicine.
Sybil watched the candle in the corner. She was comforted by its steadfast light. A halo surrounded its flame, its flesh. A circle of candle in a square room. A circle of Sybil in a square bed. She could see a star through the wavy glass of her window. It was unmoving and cold. She was in her bedroom and everything was all right. Martha popped her head in to check on her but did not linger. Like an animal, Sybil needed to be alone so she could find her way through the hot, sticky darkness. Or, she wanted her sisters. Pippa and Winnie.
Suffer a Witch Page 11