He found his father in his study, preparing a sermon for Sunday.
“Matthew, come in,” said Mr. Hopkins. “What troubles you?”
He hesitated around the question, but the agony forced it from his lips before he could word things properly. “Is Deborah my real mother?”
For a few moments, there was only the ticking of the lantern clock on his father’s desk. Then Mr. Hopkins lowered his head. “Who told you that?”
“Thomas.”
“Matthew, you are my son. But it is true, you came from Deborah’s womb as a result of my temptation. My generous wife agreed that we should raise you as our own, for I could not abandon you for a fatherless bastard, and we could not admit my sin of the flesh to the outside world. For these years you have been my cross to bear. You are my reminder that, as a minister, I must stay true to righteous ways. I’ve tried to raise you the same, so that you will not make the mistake that created you.”
“Why have you not gotten rid of her?” Matthew demanded. “Why is she still here?”
A grimace twisted his father’s mouth. At once Matthew saw that Deborah still had some kind of a hold over him. “You must understand,” Mr. Hopkins said, breathless. “She has … powers. I was bewitched by her. I fear she has bound herself to this family, and if I were to release her, she would … retaliate.”
“Retaliate?” Matthew asked.
His father lowered his voice. “She has what is called the cunning. Son, she is a witch. If I were to act against her, she would curse us, or worse! I can only hope that you, my greatest mistake, can redeem yourself of your origins.”
Matthew felt nauseated. The room swam in front of his eyes. He was a mistake. A sin. A reminder of the lust and temptation of Satan. He might as well have been the Devil’s own child. He gazed into his father’s remorseful eyes and discovered that he was furious … not at his father, but at Deborah. She was the whore of Babylon. She had seduced his father out of the holy bonds of marriage and … and … bore him as witness! “A witch?” he whispered, his voice quavering.
“I am weak,” said Mr. Hopkins. “I am afraid of her. It was all her doing, hers and her true master, Satan. It is a plot to destroy our devout family … And yet I cannot break the spell she has cast upon us all.”
“There must be a way to break such a thing!” Matthew said. “Do you not say that prayer is the cure? What am I supposed to do!” He felt something splitting, as though someone had taken an axe to his soul. He felt betrayed by himself, by his very nature, and he suddenly understood the lustful thoughts, the dirty thoughts, that had so tormented his body of late.
“I am sorry for this burden,” said Mr. Hopkins. “But I see the potential for godliness in you, although you are at a disadvantage to your brothers. Perhaps if you work very hard, and remain strict in your heart, you will overcome the stain. Matthew … son … speak not of this to anyone. And worry not about your share of the inheritance—for that intent, you are the child of James and Mary Hopkins.”
There was nothing he could say. He wished his father had abandoned him rather than raise him under such pretenses. Staring at the carpet, Matthew murmured, “Yes, Father.” He backed out of the room and fled the house.
Images flashed in his head as he walked. Deborah, grinning and blinking through heavy lashes. His father, falling into a pit filled with imps. His father and Deborah together, tight in a sweaty embrace, with Satan looming over them with a pointed smile under a hooked nose. He envisioned his birth, a squalling and red child ejected from the corrupt womb-waters of Deborah … Deborah … not Mother. There was poison in his veins. And then he pictured Mother, who was not his mother, her lips moving in the vile lie to hide her husband’s sin … calling Matthew her son.
He hated them all. Father, Mother, and Deborah, a hideous trio who’d conspired to shame him. And his thoughts toward Deborah … she’d bewitched him, just as she had his father.
He was halfway along the lane that led into town, next to the thorn hedge, when Matthew realized he was crying. Never, he vowed, never will I lay with a woman. He didn’t know what precisely that entailed, except that it was what he wanted most of all. They are evil, every last one of them. Never, never, never. He chanted it over and over to himself. He would not hand himself over to their power. They were weak, they were damaged, they were bad, bad, bad, just like him. He was their fault.
HOPKINS GASPED AS HE struggled out of the memory of his father’s revelations. Despite the sermon in the background that should have been a comfort, despite that he was surrounded by people in the whitewashed house of the Lord, he was utterly lost. He knew that his soul was blotched and sinful. He knew, and yet he could not help but remember she who had caused it all. The original witch, the original sin.
“No,” he breathed. “Not here. Not allowed.” If it killed him he would regain control. The only sign of his struggle was the pulsing of a vein on his temple. Gritting his teeth, he focused on the Lord’s Prayer. This was familiar. He knew this. He made his own voice louder in his recitations. “And lead us not into temptation … but deliver us from evil!”
He was perturbed and his suspicions aroused. How could he have been so stricken in the middle of worship? Was there a witch under this roof with him, working her spells, pretending to be of God? Church was meant to be his solace. He wetted his lips with his tongue.
There was some strong evil here in this Vale.
After six hours of worship, the service broke for three hours. There were farm animals to check on, and the stomachs of children were rumbling for their mid-day meal. Hopkins was pleased to learn that there would be a further Bible study from mid-afternoon.
As the villagers dispersed, some to the green where they’d brought picnic lunches and others back to their houses, Hopkins found himself alone on the road. Sweat trickled down his neck and back and under his arms. He coughed once—this air was no good.
A girl tugged on his sleeve. “Excuse me, Master Hopkins.” She was about thirteen, and her accent was not as countrified as the rest.
“Yes?” he said.
“I’m Jane Radcliff. The Reverend said to speak to you. I want to say that there are offensive people round here, that Anne Buckett, she frightens me. And Old Man Ashley swears a terrible lot. Even in church I hear him take the Lord’s name. He has the gout in his one leg, but that’s not a reason, is it? My cousin Jonas is very strict and I want to marry a man like him someday. My sister Winifred says it would be good for me.”
Hopkins had stopped listening. Chattering girls did not interest him, unless they had something useful to tell. He almost turned to her to say that empty, idle speech was sinful, but then she said,
“I know not how my sister Winnie does it. Goes all by herself into the woods! I’d be too scared, especially seeing as there are real witches that might hurt her. What if she got bewitched? But then, those other three girls go there, too. They don’t seem afraid …”
“What other three?” Hopkins asked.
“Why, Alice Baxter, and Sybil Yates—the Reverend’s daughter, I don’t expect a witch would dare with her—and Pippa.”
“They go into the woods? On Fridays?”
Jane thought hard about this. “I don’t know about Fridays,” she said, “But they’ve gone now. Not my sister, but the three strange girls.”
Hopkins turned toward the east. The forest gained the look of a closet, a cellar, a place of hiding. He remembered his initial thought. What a place for witches to meet.
“Where do they go in the forest?” he asked Jane.
“As though I would be allowed!” she said, pouting. “I’d probably be bored of it, for trees never do anything but stand there. Still …”
“You’ve done well, Jane Radcliff,” Hopkins told her. “Be thee my ears. Tell me of anything you hear, from your sister or anyone else. Can you do that?”
“Why, yes,” said Jane, perking up. It was likely the first time anyone had paid serious heed to her.
“How
do I get to the forest?” he asked.
Jane pointed. “That lane’s the fastest way. Follow the brook, it goes all the way through to the other side.”
It occurred to Hopkins to bring Stearne with him, but he wasn’t sure where his colleague was, and he was overcome with curiosity. It was a Sunday and this gave him renewed courage. He had overcome himself already in the church. No matter what lurked out there, he had already brought himself back from the brink. The Lord was with him and he would be fine.
The narrow footpath led past the Charter Inn and away from the main road. He passed what was obviously a brewer’s residence to his left—the smell of ale was strong, and there were a few rows of imported hops growing behind it—and a few other small cottages. The last one before the fields was at a crooked angle and set away from the rest. Its roof needed repairs and there was a piglet guarding the door. The brook ran behind the cottage, just as the girl Jane had described.
Hopkins had to admit that he shrank from the country life. It was so very dirty.
His feet, sweaty inside his boots, took him along the tinkling brook and toward the forest. The trees swayed, their vegetation in full green, and from somewhere he heard the scraping caw of a pheasant.
A part of him wanted to take off his boots and walk barefoot on the soft earth, but that would be unbefitting a lawyer. Instead he left heavy tracks.
When he plunged into the forest, it was like entering a cool room with walls of leaves. All was at peace … all but Hopkins himself, whose mind raced with what might hide in the bushes. Give me towns and churches and streets any day, he thought. This forest was too disordered. It obeyed not the laws laid down by man or, Hopkins felt, even God.
He clasped his hands for a moment to apologize for the blasphemy and for his own fear. I am not to judge what He hath created. Then why did he feel that God was absent from this wildish place? During his walk, which had now exceeded thirty minutes, he contemplated the task ahead.
He was doing a good thing in the Vale. It was isolated. It needed the stiff yoke of pure Biblical law. Otherwise its people might descend into pagan ways.
“Dragon’s head, dragon’s tail!”
Hopkins halted, clutching onto the limb of an oak tree.
“Alpha, omega, head to tail!”
There was the sound of feminine laughter, disembodied, hearty with wickedness.
Heart thudding, Hopkins moved to the beat of his own terror, slowly through the trees and toward the brook.
It was from behind the glossy leaves of a mulberry tree that he glimpsed them: three girls, dressed dark and humble for church, on the banks of the water. It was with utter normality that they ate from a loaf of bread and a broken-off wheel of cheese, and drank from a shared jug of ale. They rested on a grassy slope, and there looked to be a small swimming hole where the brook paused at a rock dam.
He recognized Sybil Yates, the minister’s daughter, who sat plaiting the light brown hair of a second girl, plain and poor.
That left the third, dark-haired and pretty, who stood examining a leaf and eating a bit of cheese. Philippa, her name is Philippa. He remembered meeting her outside the church. His breath grew shallow.
Hopkins remained still as he listened.
“That’s a rhyme Tom taught me,” said Sybil. “He knows Latin from … university.”
“Mmhmm, university,” said Philippa. “Is that what they call the army these days?”
“Dragon’s head, dragon’s tail,” said Sybil. “I wish to see a dragon, like in the old stories.” She closed her eyes as though to find it behind her eyelids.
“Dragons are frightening,” said the one with light brown hair.
“But Alice, they’re exhilarating!” said Philippa. “I would love for Hugh to rescue me from a dragon.”
“I don’t know of any dragons in the Bible. I prefer the tale of Daniel in the den of lions,” said Alice.
Hopkins thought Alice must be the godliest of all these girls.
“I’ve never seen a lion,” said Sybil. “Only drawings of them.”
“’Tis good there are no lions in these woods!” said Alice. “Pippa, you would fight them off for us.”
Pippa laughed. It was her laugh that Hopkins had heard before. It sent a thrill of fear through him, and longing.
“There’s no doubt, ’tis hot as a dragon’s breath right now.” She glanced up at the sun through the trees. “Time for a swim. Who would join me?”
“No, Pippa!” Alice said. “You’ll get all wet, and won’t be allowed into church.”
“I’ll pin up me wet tresses,” said Pippa, and to Hopkins’s alarm, she began to unhook her collar and then her cuffs. Her feet were bare and she skipped over to the edge of the brook and put a white toe in. She giggled. “Cold!” she said, flicking droplets in the direction of her friends.
“Aaah!” Alice shrieked and ducked. “I’ll push you in from behind!”
“Don’t!” said Pippa, laughing. “Lillibet will have me for good if I spoil me church dress.”
With a mouth gone dry, Hopkins watched as Pippa’s fingers opened her collar and then reached behind her to unhook her bodice. Her friends paid her no heed, as though accustomed to such behavior. Immoral, she is immoral, thought Hopkins, but he could not tear his eyes away as the black cloth dropped to the ground, leaving her standing in a pale petticoat and chemise.
“If someone spies you, Pip, ’tis your own fault,” said Sybil.
Hopkins was startled. The girl couldn’t know … but no, Sybil was teasing, for she had a smile on her face.
Pippa said, “But someone is watching me.” She paused in her disrobing and turned to her friends. “You two gillies!”
They laughed.
“And the Green Man,” she said. With deliberate hands she cupped her breasts through the fabric and stuck a playful tongue out at a spot somewhere to the left of where Hopkins lurked.
The brazen, horrible girl unhooked her petticoat and stood in bare legs and loose chemise. Then she grasped the hem and pulled it over her head … a painful rush of blood to places south of his heart made Hopkins dizzy … he could not help the aching lust that overwhelmed his rational thought. The sunlight was dappled over her fair skin. With a graceful leg, a taut body, and breasts that moved freely in the air, she walked into the pool and slipped into the water.
Temptress, thought Hopkins, harlot, Deborah, that fallen woman, she’s not real. She is Satan’s creature. He wrestled with the base self that wanted to touch her, to … Such thoughts should be reserved for a wife within the boundaries of holy matrimony, not stolen by this girl, naked in the wild forest! Hopkins had an acute sense of violation. Would he never escape the sin that had created him? This was his weakness … this yearning so secret he could not face it … how he wanted her, and hated himself for it.
And his breeches were not loose enough, and he was in agony.
Pippa flung her head backwards and wet her hair. It snaked around her shoulders, it writhed, she contorted her body in the water and flipped over and vanished into the mirrored pool with a small splash.
Hopkins remembered to breathe for the moment she was gone, but then she emerged again, laughing and sputtering. “Come, Alice.”
No, thought Hopkins, no!
“No,” said Alice, “I’ll be needing dry clothes for the day, as me others are quite dirty.”
“Sybil? It feels heavenly!”
Hopkins wanted to object. She would never know Heaven. He had found his first witch in the Vale! How could he ever have asked her for help, believed her godly? She had infiltrated the Bible study, made him think she was good, bewitched all in this village with her pretense at piety.
Yet, he could not stop staring at her bare backside, and the curve of her hips under the water, and the way that wet dark hair writhed.
Tie me, bind me, you belong to us! Hopkins’s eye twitched. God, no, not here. The images poured forth, swimming in the water with Pippa. Of himself, naked, back against a tree �
�� hands bound … laughing girls, laughing witches, circling him … and she, the dark-haired one, flying through the air, mounting him, ordering him to please her … and he, obliging … This is our special time, Matty. Show me that you love me.
Sybil raised her petticoats and dipped her feet and lower legs in the pool.
Blinking away the terrors that danced and mingled with reality, Hopkins licked his lips once, gripping onto the smooth leaves of the mulberry that concealed him. Watch, just watch. Don’t think.
It inflamed him to know that these girls watched their friend, saw her as he did. The very way Pippa moved was, to his mind, unnatural—sinuous and joyful and unaffected.
He prayed. Lord, give me strength to face this creature of Satan, this woman. She is the very essence of Deborah … er … Eve. She must be stopped. Lord, Almighty Father, I am your humble servant, I am your lawful enforcer, I am your pure and repentant heart, I am—
“Alpha and omega, head to tail!” the girls chanted, interrupting him.
Pippa dived forward to touch her toes and did a full circle in the water. “Ah,” she said. With a childlike abandon she splashed her way toward the bank and climbed up. Hopkins squeezed his eyes shut. He heard one of the girls say, “Here, dry off with the blanket.”
When he looked again, Pippa had the ground blanket wrapped around her. She pulled her chemise back over her head, then tugged the petticoats over top, and then piece by piece was restored to decency.
Rescued from his temporary torment, Hopkins took a step back, and with great care retreated from his spying-place. Witch. Witch. He knew what they wanted. They wanted him as their suckling imp. This girl—no, this witch, this hag in disguise—wanted to use him for her own lustful purposes.
And in the deep, sticky, salted depths of himself, he wanted it, too.
A familiar shame burned his cheeks. He was a man, not that little boy in the bath with Deborah’s too-sweet hands. It was part of his demonic nature to have these feelings. Taking a deep, quiet breath, he thought, Are we not all sinners? Christ can still redeem me. I must focus, accomplish my task, find the list, find the Register, name the witches.
Suffer a Witch Page 15