Suffer a Witch

by Morgana Gallaway

  “I don’t believe you,” said Anne Buckett. “We ain’t never gettin’ out of here.”

  Pippa kept her distance from the Buckett women, for every time she looked at Joan Buckett, she thought of her own mistakes. She knew she was not responsible for Joan—the hag was bound to have been accused. Still, Pippa couldn’t help but wonder if she herself was being punished by God for misusing the cunning ways. She wished she could go back in time to wield herself with utmost care and wisdom and to act as Lillibet had done. No ridiculous quests to find illicit treasure for drunken old soldiers.

  I wonder where he is, she thought of Old Ash. He’d been taken to a different cell for men. He could be on the other side of the wall that had eighty-two stone bricks, for Pippa had counted them many times.

  “Anything to get out of here,” said a woman, speaking of the trials.

  “Straight to the gallows, you’ll go,” said someone else.

  “Worry not,” Pippa whispered to Sybil, and they retreated against the wall. She curled up and closed her eyes and imagined that she was in Lillibet’s cave in the forest. She could feel the darkness around her like she was a rabbit in its burrow. She could see the warm flickering of a fire and could smell the dust of the books, the dried green of the herbs, the clear mineral water that dripped from the seam in the rock. There were rubies in the cave.

  ONE OF THE GUARDS announced when it was Sunday, so that they might spend their time in prayer. Pippa could not pray and could not care anymore. She just lay in one place and arose once for the cold slop of food in her bowl, and Sybil’s. They took turns fetching it for one another.

  Pippa could feel the poisons of this place in her body. She had not had her monthly cycle, and her digestive processes seemed to have ceased as well. Hunger had congealed into a dull ache in her stomach. Where once she would have gulped down the gruel and stale bread straight away, now she was indifferent and often waited hours before bothering to eat.

  Sybil looked more like a skeleton than a person. Her eyes were huge in her face, and her skin was almost translucent. Her blond hair hung as a matted curtain down her back. There was bone but no flesh.

  The numb silence was broken when Bucktooth called for her by name.

  “Pippa, don’t go!”

  “I care not,” she told Sybil, and lifted herself off the floor. If the guard wanted to force her, nothing would stop him, and it was no difference to her.

  Bucktooth leered at her, but did not open the door. Instead he said, “I been told to give this to ye.” He passed her a parcel wrapped in cloth.

  Pippa looked down at the solid thing in her hands. “Who sent this?”

  Bucktooth didn’t answer, but gave her gap-toothed grin before sauntering away.

  Tiptoeing back across the women, Pippa reached Sybil and they unwrapped the package together. Pippa’s fingers were her eyes in the dark, and she knew she felt the soft hairs on a strawberry.

  “We’re saved,” said Sybil, biting down onto a berry with a small moan.

  Their unknown benefactor had packed a dozen fresh strawberries, two meat pies, a loaf of rich white bread, a chilled roll of butter with cress, and even a few ripe lemons. The girls huddled over the treasure so it wouldn’t be discovered by the others. It would cause a riot.

  “It must be Winifred,” said Sybil. “She grows strawberries in her garden.”

  “Bless her,” said Pippa, taking a small bite of meat pie. Every night she had dreams about food, only for her appetite to vanish upon waking. This is real, she told herself, and took her second bite with a renewed hunger.

  Slowly and quietly they ate the pies. Sybil offered the last third of hers to Anne Alderman. Anne said, “I used to bring me husband things when he was here. God bless you, Sybil Yates. And your friend.”

  Pippa’s stomach protested at the sudden riches. She knew to save the rest for later, but she could not resist a ripe strawberry. She held it in her hand as though it were that ruby in the cave. The taste of its red juice on her tongue was more than delicious; it was a smuggled piece of home. But who had sent the gift? Most likely it was Winifred … but Pippa dared to wonder if it had been Hugh Felton. Either way, she wasn’t forgotten. Someone was thinking of her.

  She and Sybil ate half a lemon each, and Pippa used the rind to scrub the skin of her face, sighing at the fresh scent and feel of it.

  “Philippa Wylde!”

  It was Bucktooth again. Pippa gave Sybil’s hand a squeeze and stood up. “Perhaps we’re being released.”

  “It cannot be long now,” said Sybil with a tremor.

  Pippa went to the guard, and to her surprise he unlocked the cell and yanked her out. “Ye’ve got a visitor. An important man.” Bucktooth eyed her speculatively.

  Hugh. Pippa reached up and smoothed her hair. There was nothing to be done about the way she smelled, but she hoped Hugh would forgive that. She was led down the row of packed cells, up the narrow stairs, then ushered into a tiny office.

  At first Pippa was caught by a square of sunlight. It came from a small window that pierced the regular stone of the wall. It had been weeks since she’d seen such a bright, beautiful thing. The tantalizing smell of clean outside air made her lean forward.

  As her sight adjusted, she noticed the figure of a tall man, his back to her. There was no hint of the gold of Hugh Felton’s hair or the summer’s brown of his hands.

  Pippa turned to flee but the door was closed and locked behind her.

  “Miss Wylde,” said Matthew Hopkins. He spun on his heel. There was a flash of white at his throat, an expensive collar. There was a different kind of gleam in his eyes.

  Pippa backed up until she hit the desk behind her. Bitter disappointment filled her eyes with tears. “What do you want?” she croaked.

  “Did you receive the parcel I sent to you?”

  Pippa gaped, unable to believe it.

  “I trust it was adequate to renew your strength. The gaol is too conservative with rations, I think.”

  Pippa felt a lump in her stomach. A part of her wished she hadn’t eaten that food, not after learning its source. Incredulous, she said, “’Tis your fault I’m here!”

  “That’s not true,” Hopkins said. “Your own sin brought you here. But believe me, I have no wish to see you die without a fair trial.”

  Pippa sputtered—for herself, for Lillibet already dead, for the absurd notion of fairness in the world. “Oh,” she said sarcastically, “I suppose you wish to see us all properly convicted! Hanged by our little throats until dead!”

  Hopkins let out his breath and averted his gaze.

  Pippa stared. She’d been right. He liked it. Something in the base of her mind tightened in fear. “What do you want?” she asked again in a low voice.

  He approached her and Pippa drew back further, but he moved past to sit in the chair next to the desk. He placed his hands firmly on his knees. They were trembling.

  “Sit,” said Hopkins, nodding at the floor in front of him.

  “I’ll stand.”

  There was a long moment, the space between them drawn out like the awkward quiver of an off-key note.

  “I need you to confess,” Hopkins blurted.

  “To what?”

  “To being a witch. I need you to admit to it.” There was something almost plaintive in his voice.

  Pippa couldn’t believe he was back for this. She was incarcerated already. Had he not done enough? The thought bubbled up quick and certain: He’s not close to being finished. He wants you dead.

  She stared at his hands. They were beefy, strong-looking. It occurred to her that she might be in real physical danger from him—and for the first time in weeks, she was glad there was an armed guard on the other side of the door.

  Pippa felt Hopkins’s hungry eyes fixed on her. It made her feel like an animal caught in a trap, and he was the hunter. Not only did he want her accused and hanged as a witch … he wanted her to declare it, to admit it. There was some role he wanted her to play
.

  She wouldn’t do it. “I told you before. I am no witch.”

  Hopkins clutched his knees. “I have a—an idea—a notion to—free you. And your mother, and your friends from the Vale.”

  Pippa almost cried out that her mother was dead, but thought better of it. Hopkins was afraid of Lillibet. It was better if he thought she was alive. “Free us?”

  “Only if you confess.”

  “You make no sense.”

  Hopkins’s jaw moved in frustration. “God allows forgiveness of even the worst sins. Does He not?”

  “I know not about God, but I shall never forgive you.”

  “Forgive me? My dear girl, you are the—”

  “Witch, yes, I know.”

  Hopkins leaned forward. “So you admit it?”

  Pippa couldn’t understand why he was so ardent about wanting her particular confession, but the hair on the back of her neck prickled. She looked at the floor. “What if I did? Why must you hear it from my own mouth?”

  “Confession is part of the Lord’s plan. It would cleanse your soul. When you do, we can leave this place—”

  “We?”

  “—and go to the Americas. Your mother would have to stay here, of course.”

  Pippa, weakened by fear and grief, didn’t quite understand what he was proposing except that he wanted to control her again. Steal her from her own life and into whatever sickness played inside his mind. To the Americas? Naked savages, she thought, and a laugh of hysterical fear hovered at the back of her throat.

  “You know,” said Hopkins, looking past her shoulder into some reverie of his own, voice growing soft and almost seductive, “just because the mother is a witch … we can overcome the stain. We can purge it. Wring it out of our souls.”

  All Pippa could think of was Lillibet, ravaged by the lockjaw. Rotting now in a mass grave.

  Hopkins had done it.

  “My mother is dead!” Pippa cried. “Bastard! Thief!”

  She almost lunged for Hopkins’s throat but she saw something in his eyes that frightened her back. It was shining and wanting.

  It told her that if she continued, things would turn ugly for her.

  Shaking, she turned instead, pounded on the door, and yelled for the guard. The door opened.

  “We’re done here,” said Hopkins, standing and brushing his trousers straight. “For now.” He walked out without another look at Pippa.

  WALKING THE STREETS OF Bury St. Edmunds, Hopkins felt dissatisfaction with the way things had gone with Philippa. She hadn’t understood him. All she’d done, the dirty creature, was cry about her mother. Didn’t she know that she was claimed by the Devil? Unsettled, he walked hard toward the inn where he’d secured rooms for himself and John Stearne.

  Already the festival atmosphere was beginning in the city. There were hordes of people eating and drinking outside of the pubs. Farmers were arriving in carts with their families, ready to go to court and sue their neighbors over boundaries or bull rights.

  Hopkins arrived at the inn, a three-story building with expensive glass windows. In this busy time he was fortunate to have a private chamber in one of the nicer establishments. In no mood for socializing, he ordered his dinner to be taken in his room.

  Upstairs, he pulled off his boots. The miserable smell of the gaol had affected him, a headache creeping at his temples. He went to the window to close the curtains and his fingers brushed the rope tie.

  If only Philippa had known what he wanted of her. He was tired, so tired. He wanted to stop, but he needed Philippa to admit they were disgusting, that they needed to be punished by each other, and so turn to the Lord’s straight true way. As it was, she was still trying to trick him with protests of innocence. He clenched the rope in his fist.

  A knock on the door interrupted. “Your dinner, sir.”

  “Come in.”

  The serving woman smiled at him. Her eyes were clear, sparkling brown. Like hers, the maid, the harlot, the pitiful excuse for a woman who had birthed him. Deborah. Memories clawed their way up and his head throbbed in one great spasm.

  Hopkins started backward. “Leave me,” he stammered.

  The woman dipped and exited, leaving the tray of food. Hopkins approached it … and could not help remembering.

  “‘HOW CAN THERE BE PEACE,’ Jehu replied, ‘as long as all the idolatry and witchcraft of your mother Jezebel abound?’” Matthew Hopkins, fifteen, sat on the stone wall and murmured aloud from the thick Bible. His hands clutched the top of the book and his eyes darted upward to glare at his house. Through the open kitchen door, he could see the generous outline of Deborah as she prepared the evening meal.

  Behind him, the sun grew dim and pale, slipping closer to the edge of the sky. The light was not enough to read by and so Matthew hopped off the ledge, closed the Bible, and walked across the yard.

  “Matthew,” said Deborah, popping her head out, her eyebrows in a lovely arch over her brown eyes. “Be a darling and toss me that basket of carrots.” She pointed at the lean-to shelter. Inside was a small bunch of fresh-picked carrots, a shock of orange against black.

  He stared at her from the gloom. How he wanted to make her pay for everything she’d done, her warped love that broke his father, that broke him. As he looked at her pale outstretched hand, other memories surfaced of their special times together. How those hands had been so pleasing to him, bathing him, holding him, and then …

  “Matty, the carrots,” said Deborah again. “Are you a’right?”

  He reached over, seized the handle of the basket, and thrust it at her.

  “Get washed up,” she said, turning away and shaking her head. “That boy’s got so odd,” she murmured, but he heard her.

  He knew her whisperings and charms.

  In the hour before dinner, he thought of something he could do. Deborah had a special chest in her small servant’s room. She kept the chest locked at all times.

  Matthew crept into the kitchen, and while Deborah’s back was turned to him as she peeled the carrots, he plucked a small knife from its hanging-place. He slipped it into the cuff of his sleeve and backed out, then climbed to the third floor attic where Deborah kept her quarters.

  The chest was a pretty object, painted with flowers and animals, the colors fading. Its lock was sturdy. At first Matthew tried to pick it with the knife, but it wouldn’t budge. He glared at the box—this is where she keeps the tools of her craft, he thought—and stabbed the wood with the knife. It left a tiny mark.

  He smiled. He began scoring the chest, slashing at the flowers, drawing x’s through the eyes of the animals, taking his revenge.

  “Matty! What are you about?”

  Deborah was at the door, red mouth open in surprise.

  Matthew dropped the knife and it clattered to the floor. She was going to curse him now. His life was over. He would die in a shaking fit as she lifted her finger to point at him.

  “You’re a witch!” he blurted.

  Deborah strode across the room and made to grab him. “Ye’re a little hellion to say and do such things! That’s me family chest!”

  Matthew flailed at her approach, his awkward young arms hitting her as best he could—in the face, across her breasts, her upper arms.

  “Stop that!” she shrieked. “Stop it!”

  He kept hitting her. He was still small for his age, but what he lacked in strength he made up for with passion. “Jezebel,” he gasped.

  Deborah was powerful. She put her arms up to block his blows. Somehow, her hands ended up around his neck.

  “I ought to throttle ye,” she hissed, and began to squeeze.

  It wasn’t painful, but rather firm. Matthew had slight trouble breathing, but then came a giddy rush of mischief and excitement. And something else … down there. Thrilling and peculiar feelings twisted through his gut. She is a witch, Father said so, she knows Satan’s tricks to bind us, to tie us up—and he knew that she rode the Devil’s human form, lay with him, went to him in th
e night.

  Deborah released him. “You’re a bad boy, Matthew.” She placed those sweet white cloying choking hands on her hips. “Get out before I take a switch to ye. And don’t think I won’t tell your father what you’ve done.”

  Matthew swallowed against the rising force inside him. This was his birth mother—his mother!—and she was evil to make him feel such things. He felt sick at himself, just as he had when he’d learned he was born of a witch.

  That evening, as his family sat together and his father said the blessing, Matthew clung to the prayer with all his force, his forehead creased in concentration. “Lord bless us and keep us …” Keep me, oh Lord, keep her away from us … the prayer turned into something else … Flat on my back, Satan is a woman, I am helpless, she rides me until I die, her hands around my throat … He choked aloud, his face burning, and he was grateful for the low candlelight as his elder brother sent him an acerbic look.

  Matthew was terrified to take a bite of the ham, glazed as it was in Deborah’s honey and herbs. He watched as his father’s wife cut a delicate piece and raised it to her lips, chewed, and swallowed. He waited. When the rest of the family was halfway through their meal he finally mustered the courage to cut, and chew, and swallow.

  The meat was pink and sweet.

  THE MEAL HOPKINS HAD BEEN served at the inn was ham, of course. He didn’t touch it. Instead he went to his bed and laid back, placing a pillow over his face, enjoying the cool heaviness of the cloth against his skin.

  Images flashed across his mind’s eye, of Deborah and their special time, of Philippa bathing in the forest pool, and that same witch this afternoon in the gaol, decrepit and dirty inside and out. The embarrassed blood in his cheeks tingled; he thought they might stain permanently.

  How had he ever thought a woman innocent? How had he ever thought one could be redeemed?

  He had almost succumbed to Satan’s temptation—to quit, to free the witches, to unleash the lustful, shameful part of himself. If they go free, I will never be. Shaking, Hopkins resolved to never question his path again. Too close.