The Witch of Willow Hall

by Hester Fox

I feel like a guilty child, caught sneaking sweets from the kitchen. But John’s grip on my waist only tightens when I move to take a step back.

  “Well this is a fine welcome for your betrothed,” Cyrus slurs. “Made the bloody journey in the snow all the way from Boston to find you in the arms of... Who is this fellow anyway? Knowing the Montrose family it’s probably some long lost brother.” I shrink away from his leering face. He looks to Ada with a sloppy grin and she steps back.

  “Cyrus—” I start, but John swiftly moves me behind him with a firm hand.

  “Mr. Thompson,” he says coolly. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

  “I’ll ask again, who the hell are you?” He doesn’t wait for an answer. Cyrus’s unfocused gaze wanders about the room. “Damn, but I forgot what good style your family lives in. You must pass my compliments on to your mother on her very fine housekeeping.”

  My blood is boiling and I want to wipe that smirk off Cyrus’s face. But John grips me by the arm, slanting me a warning look.

  “Look, Lyd, you flew off from Boston in such a rush we didn’t have time to settle any of the arrangements. The thing of it is, I’ve had some dreadful bad luck at the club, and owe a bit to some of the other fellows for cards.”

  I ignore Cyrus’s lament. “Ada, go upstairs and make sure Catherine stays with Mother.” I don’t need Catherine to come down and get involved, giving Cyrus more fodder for his accusations. And I certainly don’t need Mother knowing that he’s in the house, agitating her and risking a relapse. Ada shoots me a grateful look and then flees.

  I’ve never seen John angry before. Outwardly he’s calm and composed as ever, but the slight quiver of his jaw belies the fury simmering just beneath the surface. His nostrils flare as he turns the full intensity of his gaze on Cyrus. Cyrus swallows, taking a wobbly step back.

  “Miss Montrose has nothing to say to you.” John’s eyes are hard as they meet Cyrus’s bloodshot gaze. “You can consider the engagement null, and if you find your eye even so much as landing on her in the street, I’ll know about it. I have rich friends who would be most interested in a piece of your debts.”

  “Rich friends, oh my.” He swaggers up to John. Side by side they’re a study in contrast; one dark, the other light, one disheveled and clumsy, the other neat and cool. “I’m afraid you don’t understand the particulars of the situation, my good fellow.” Cyrus slaps him on the shoulder, leaning in conspiratorially. “You see, Lydia and I have so much more than just an ordinary engagement. We have an...understanding.” He looks over John’s shoulder at me and winks. “Isn’t that right, Lyd?”

  Oh God, please don’t let him tell John about Tommy Bishop, or my ancestry. Don’t let him tell John about what happened in Aunt Phillips’s parlor. Those are my secrets, and I’ll share them with John someday, but not today. Not like this.

  John removes Cyrus’s hand with a contemptuous curl of his lip. “I assure you, you’re mistaken. There is no understanding, and she owes you nothing.”

  My temple is throbbing, John’s and Cyrus’s voices fuzzy and far away. Does it really matter anymore? Emeline is dead. Mother is clinging to life. Catherine and Father are shadows of their former selves. What’s left to hold together? But they’re still arguing, John’s voice rising.

  Let Cyrus spread whatever story he wants. Let him rant and rail over what he no doubt sees as an injustice in our broken engagement. I don’t care. His words can’t hurt me or my family anymore. Let him feed the flames of rumor, maybe it will assuage him enough from divulging my secrets.

  “Please, John, you don’t need to save us. Just send him away. Let him say what he wants back in Boston, only don’t let him draw you into anything foolish.” I just want this to be over, and for John not to have to be wound up in our family’s sticky web of deceits and dramas.

  Cyrus sneers, turning his attention back to me. There is little that I recognize anymore in his dark eyes. They are wild and mad. Hungry. But when he speaks is voice is cocky and imperturbable. “Are you sure that’s what you want, Lyd? Don’t forget, I have more than one Montrose story to peddle.”

  “You wouldn’t,” I whisper. John might forgive Catherine her sins, but he would never want me if he knew what was inside of me, what I’m truly capable of.

  “I don’t want to,” Cyrus says like a petulant child, throwing himself down in a chair and crossing his arms. “But what choice do you leave me? You really are the most capricious of women. One moment you’re in my arms, agreeing that you want nothing so much as to be my wife, and the next you’re running off in a flutter back to New Oldbury. If it’s a case of the nerves, then I assure you nothing will snap you out of it like a good dose of the truth.”

  My jaw is set so tight that it aches. “Cyrus...”

  “Whatever it is, we don’t want to hear it,” John snaps. “Lydia,” he says, turning to me, “go upstairs while I settle this.”

  “I will not!” He must be mad if he thinks I’m going to leave the two of them alone down here, snapping and snarling like a pair of dogs fighting over a bone, possible coming to blows.

  With a fatigued sigh, John rakes his hair back, clearly vexed that I won’t listen to him, but unwilling to try again. Cyrus looks on with unmasked amusement. He has John right where he wants him: flustered and roused.

  “Oh yes,” Cyrus says, picking up where he left off. “Lydia and I shared something quite unusual, quite...special, in her aunt’s parlor when she was in Boston.”

  Misgiving flickers across John’s face and he goes white. “What are you talking about?” he asks roughly. His gaze swings back to me, his voice lowering to a hoarse whisper. “Did he force himself on you? Because I’ll kill him if he so much as laid a finger on—”

  “What? No, but...what I mean is, it was nothing like that. I...” But I can’t bring myself to tell John what I did, even if it means leaving him with the wrong impression.

  Cyrus feigns surprise, sitting up in the chair and looking between John’s bewildered face and my red one. “Oh, did she not tell you? Lydia has the most unique talent, and she was gracious enough to give me a demonstration. In fact, she—”

  I close my eyes, bracing for the damning words to fall from his lips. But they don’t come. Instead there’s a crash and a scuffling, and I open my eyes to see John throwing himself at Cyrus, lifting him by the collar and slamming him up against the wall. I jump as a picture falls to the floor, the glass shattering.

  “Goddamn you!” John’s face is aflame, just inches from Cyrus’s nose. Cyrus’s eyes bulge as he gasps for air. “I won’t listen to this slander for a moment longer!”

  Cyrus struggles in vain to free himself, but his toes barely graze the floor, and his thrashing doesn’t budge John. I hover behind them, wringing my hands uselessly. “John, stop it! Put him down!”

  “My God, what is this?” All heads swing toward the door where Father has been standing for I don’t know how long. Hands on hips he glares at us, taking in John’s hands at Cyrus’s neck and my useless efforts at pulling John away. Then he raises an accusing finger at Cyrus. “My wife is ill upstairs! How dare you come here with your threats and accusations?”

  John abruptly lets go of Cyrus, who yanks away and straightens his collar. Cyrus doubles over, hands on knees as he struggles to catch his breath. “Is she, now?” he gasps. “You would never know by the way these two were carrying on when I came in.”

  That was the wrong thing to say. Although Cyrus is a full head taller, Father strides up to him, grabs him by his newly straightened collar and pulls him down to eye level. “Get out,” he growls.

  Cyrus’s eyes flicker with uncertainty, but then he pulls back, laughing. As always it seems that nothing ruffles Cyrus; he is impervious to shame. “No need to get your trousers in a knot. I wouldn’t dream of intruding on such a happy family gathering.” He turns to me, executing an exaggerated, wobbly bow. “Lydi
a, the least you can do is do me the courtesy of sitting down and supping with me, especially after the monstrous way your friend here has treated me.” He glares at John and makes a show of rubbing the back of his neck. “You owe me that much.”

  “She doesn’t owe you a thing,” John growls, stepping in between us.

  Cyrus shrugs as if he hadn’t actually expected this demand to be met. “I’m staying at The Black Mare the next town over if you change your mind. Or perhaps Mr....Barry, was it? You’d like to join me? We can engage in a more civilized discourse and see if we can’t settle this like gentlemen.”

  “We have nothing to talk about,” John says with venom. “You’ve shown yourself to be a slanderous meddler and nothing more.”

  Cyrus glances to me and then back to John. “Or we can talk in front of Lydia and her father, I’m sure they would be interested in what I have to say.”

  Father can’t stand it anymore. “Get out!” he roars. “I don’t care what you have to say. Make your dinner plans somewhere besides my parlor!”

  “Oh, I was just going anyway,” Cyrus says with an irritated hiccup. He turns back to me. “Lydia, I do hope you help your friend come to his senses and explain to him why he ought to keep out of this. If you don’t, I will.”

  I keep my lips pressed tight, and watch in icy silence as Cyrus levels one last suspicious look at John before making his exit.

  When the front door slams shut, John closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “I’m sorry you had to see that, both of you. I shouldn’t have lost my composure. I’d better go,” he says, gathering up his hat and overcoat.

  Father slumps down in a chair, hand over his face. “You’re a good fellow, Barrett. No need to apologize. If Martha were well, I’d ask you to stay, and she’d see a nice luncheon laid out for you.”

  John doesn’t say anything, just gives him a short nod of his head that Father doesn’t see, and then moves for the door.

  “John, wait.” There’s something wild in his eye that makes my stomach uneasy. For all his faults and ugliness, Cyrus was always masterful at keeping his composure. Cold and calculating Cyrus scares me, but unpredictable and erratic Cyrus terrifies me. I put my hand on John’s arm, and he looks down at me as if he’d forgotten I was here. “You won’t go meet him, will you? Promise me you won’t do anything rash.” I can’t bear the thought that a good man has been dragged into our family’s mess, that our sins might be the ruin of him.

  John drops a distracted kiss on my head. “You have no need to worry. I promise you Cyrus won’t bother you again.”

  Before I can tell him that’s not what I asked, he’s out the door, leaving me alone with my roiling stomach.

  * * *

  My sleep that night is fitful and tortured. I dream that Willow Hall is ablaze, the smoke so thick in my room that I can’t see my hand in front of my face. The laughter of a small boy echoes as beams and walls come crashing down around me. Just as my flaming bed is about to collapse in on itself, I awake drenched in sweat.

  Unable to fall back asleep, my mind races, full of everything that has happened these past few days. My heart beats faster when I think about John, about all the bright promises the future holds with him, then plummets as I remember Cyrus’s threats. John is a proud man, bound by honor, and though I admire this about him, I also fear his desire to protect me could blind him to reason.

  Lighting a candle, I reach for the book Mother gave me and begin to read. I need something to distract me. It’s not like the book that I bought from Mr. Brown, with its sensational stories of animal familiars and dark magic. This book describes a quieter kind of witchcraft. It speaks of spells whispered into cups of tea, herbs sprinkled on thresholds, protective sigils stitched into hems. Little rituals that exist outside the spheres of men and belong to women alone. It speaks of healing with plants, doing good. It’s a revelation.

  But the book also speaks to a well of energy inside every witch, a spark, that when harnessed can be a powerful force. I read every page, poring over the printed text and marginalia alike, ferociously hungry for information. The candle burns down to a nub and I fetch another. I want to understand what I am. I want to embrace the legacy my ancestors left me, as well as my mother even if she is not a witch herself.

  In the yellowed pages I learn not only what I am capable of, but I begin to see patterns in my life. That day in the street with Tommy Bishop, when my eyes filled with red and my fingers trembled with energy like lightning, or when I sent Cyrus flying backward through the air, I didn’t know what was happening; it was just my natural response to what I saw as terrible wrongs in the world. But the book explains and shows me how I can tame and channel my anger. And when I put a dark mark on Tommy Bishop with my mind, envisioned the ill luck that would plague him for the rest of his life, I can do that again too. I don’t want to bring more pain, but a deep resolve builds inside me; if it means saving John from a terrible situation, then I would do everything in my power to save him. I don’t know if there’s anything I wouldn’t do.

  I read the other book again too. Fairy stories they might be, but every story starts from a seed of truth; if not, why would we be drawn to them as we are? I might not be able to turn myself into a bird, or make a plague of toads rain down, but perhaps there are lessons to be drawn from such lore. Knowledge is a powerful tool, as Mary Preston said, and I want to be as prepared as possible for what lies ahead.

  Yet for the bounty of knowledge that rests between the books’ covers, there is not so much as a clue as to what to do for Emeline. I had thought to find a spell, a ritual...something that would lay out the steps to reverse the terrible events I put in motion. Wait for a full moon and mumble some ancient words? Burn the hair? But there is nothing, and so after all my selfishness, I am no closer to helping her than I was before.

  I must have dozed off at some point, because I awaken to a room so cold that I can see my breath. When a movement in the darkness catches my eye, I do not start in surprise. I am used to her suddenly appearing like this. Yet her presence still fills me with an intangible sort of dread.

  I clutch the covers closer to my chin, darting my tongue over my dry lips. “What are you doing here?”

  Mary Preston moves into the dim circle of the remaining candleflame, her flowing veil blacker even than the night.

  “You’ve read the book,” she says, ignoring my question. “Good. You will need it.”

  I have learned by now that there is no use trying to follow her roundabout way of speaking, that I need to be direct with her and hold my ground. “Emeline,” I say. “The book didn’t tell me what I need to do to help Emeline.”

  “So, you are ready then.”

  I bristle at her implication that I wouldn’t help my own sister in her time of need. “I would not have her wander for eternity, not when I have the power to help her.”

  “And yet that was not always the case.”

  My cheeks burn and she doesn’t give me the opportunity to respond before asking, “What went through your mind as you placed your hair in her coffin?”

  “I... I suppose I was thinking that I never wanted to be without her. That I wanted some way to be with her again, even if only for a moment.” Her meaning dawns on me. “But...it was enough just to think it?”

  The dark eye sockets dance. “Was it enough when you thought of Tommy Bishop’s leg snapping?”

  Surely it could not be so simple? What a terrible power, to be able to think something and have it be so. I open my mouth, but she stops me.

  “You will learn to control such thoughts in time. For a witch to think something with intent is quite enough, though it takes skill to channel the necessary energy. The fact that you were able to with no training speaks to the power in you. You very nearly called up a storm over the pond in your grief after all,” she says, a hint of admiration in her voice. “In
Emeline’s case, you added in a powerful talisman, binding the intent.” She gives a bony shrug. “Though Willow Hall is a strange place, and Emeline had powers of her own.”

  “And you?” I ask. “Are you tethered to this world through some talisman also?” Will that be my fate as a witch, once I die? I shudder at the thought.

  “I? Tethered?” Her skull tilts back and a rattling laugh comes from somewhere deep inside her. “I am old. I died old, and despite my demise, I died powerful. I come and go through the veil as I please. Emeline was but a child. Children are not meant for this in-between world.”

  I bite my lip, considering these revelations. “What about the others who roam the land here?”

  “They are not your concern. They belong to Willow Hall now, bound to each other and the land by tragedy, unable to move on. You cannot help them. But you can help Emeline.”

  I touch the locket at my throat, Emeline’s hair braided and coiled inside.

  Mary Preston watches me as my thoughts race. “You already know what to do, Lydia. You’ve always known. Now you must simply do it.”

  I nod. It is one thing to know what to do, but another to find the strength and courage to do it. It is what Emeline wants though, and it is what’s right. Perhaps with Mary Preston by my side it will not be so daunting. Perhaps she will leave me to my thoughts for now, and then reappear when the time comes to make certain that I am up to the task.

  But still she hovers there. For the first time, Mary Preston lingers past the message she came to deliver. Her creaking jaw opens and closes as if she wants to tell me something more.

  “What? What is it?”

  She lets out a weary sigh. “Your young man,” she says, her tone implying just what she thinks of young men, “is about to do something very rash, very foolish.”

  My heart stops in my chest as her words sink in, but in an instant I’m up, scrambling to find my boots. “John? Where he is? What is he doing?” But I don’t need to ask to know what John has taken upon himself to do, and when I look up, Mary Preston is gone.