Cunning Women

by Elizabeth Lee

  Only now do I see that this encounter I had with him has sheltered us. And it is swept away with his leaving, our safety no more robust than a dwelling built of sand against the sea, licked away by a wave in a moment. We are exposed.

  Without protection from a law which fears and seeks to extinguish us, without protection from the violence and hatred brewing in the village. I feel for the first time a sense of immediate ruin upon us. Tomorrow. Tonight.

  I rest my head in my hands. Feel as though I’m falling and there will be no end to it.

  ‘John,’ Mam says, kneeling at his feet. ‘Tell me all, think and tell it slow, all you know of this new man.’

  John glances at me. I nod. We must know the worst of it now.

  ‘He’s come from different parts, they say, and stands by every word of law. He’s a big church man and they say he sent a woman to the rope for – godless acts.’ He shifts in the seat, looks again at me, expression uneasy. I press my hand to my chest, where my heart gallops.

  Mam dips her head, breathes deep. When she looks up again she has almost steadied the tremble in her voice. ‘Godless acts? Like those of us cunning folk?’

  ‘No, just – witchcraft, is what they said. Spells and …’ John’s voice trails off. ‘Not what we do, Mam, they meant – something different.’

  Mam stands, stiffly, back straight and head high. Pale, as I have never seen her before.

  Meddling

  Bett rolled her eyes as Daniel bumped into the doorway helping her carry the table out. The day of the spring clean, and he was grateful to have his hands busy and his mind taxed only as far as following Bett’s instructions.

  She was the beating heart of the farmhouse, her solid presence replacing that of the sour-faced nursemaid Daniel grew up with when he was nine and Bett only thirteen. She left a swathe of gleaming floors and scrubbed surfaces in her wake, filling the hall with the smell of baking bread and stewing meat.

  She had brought order to the chaos that reigned their lives and yet theirs remained a household that defied convention, and not just for the lack of a milkmaid. Father often grumbled that in those other village families that had housemaids, the servant knew her place, worked in silence, greeted her master with no more than a bobbed curtsey. He had found the only one that confused service with advice, never fearing to express an opinion.

  ‘Catch hold of yourself, can’t you?’ she said. ‘Head in the clouds today.’

  Not quite in the clouds, perhaps, but halfway there at least. As far as the cursed hill. He had risen early that morning and left the stone by the river, hoping Sarah had forgiven him, and would come.

  He placed the table down in the yard and glanced past Bett to see Father atop the ladder Gabriel held, dropping the rope that held a holly branch down the chimney. Daniel was not needed.

  ‘Have you – what do you think of the new magistrate that’s come?’ he asked.

  Bett stopped and rubbed her back. ‘I’m glad to see the back of the old one.’ An unfortunate turn of phrase that took Daniel to the vivid memory of what he had witnessed that night in the woods. She shook her head. ‘That poor child.’

  She led the way into the hall to begin removing chairs. ‘Though what happened at the market …’

  She lifted a chair in each hand, and Daniel did the same, following her once more into the bright yard. ‘Thank God you were there and had backbone to step in.’

  ‘Come along then, whelp,’ Gabriel said, as Bett replaced him to secure the ladder while Father climbed down. ‘Come join the men awhile.’

  He slapped Daniel on the back, too hard so that it was all Daniel could do to keep his footing, and together they went into the hall and knelt before the fireplace. They had the job of pulling the rope until the branch came down the chimney, bringing the year’s ash. Daniel tugged with all his strength, his two hands to Gabriel’s one as he scratched the ghost of his pox with the other, and yet they were equal in strength. At last the holly scraped through, and a gritty cloud of soot with it.

  ‘Have a care, lads, the whole place is filthy now,’ Father barked. The spring clean always curdled his mood. ‘Your mother always ran this thing so smooth. And in such good cheer.’

  They stood silent, all eyes on Father. Blood trickled from his nose and he wiped it with the back of his hand, staring at the stain it left. Daniel tried to keep the pity from his eyes, for he knew Father could not abide it.

  Father glared back. ‘And stop scratching, Gabriel. Have you shook off this little girl’s feeble curse or not?’

  Gabriel removed his hand from his head, flushing. ‘Aye, I’ve shook it off, ’tis a different itch that ails me now.’

  Father snorted. Gabriel’s colour deepened.

  ‘But it vexes me, for she might pick a softer soul next time.’

  Daniel shifted. Afraid now of where Gabriel’s thoughts were leading. Afraid that there was truth to what he spoke.

  ‘And that Haworth lad, he’s more demon than boy anyhow. And still unpunished for what he did to Sam, and all because of your meddling.’ He turned, shoving his angry face so close that Daniel flinched.

  Pointedly, Bett swept at the pile of soot by Father’s feet.

  ‘Watch yourself, woman,’ Father said.

  The broom beat the floor with greater force, lifting clouds of soot.

  ‘I’ve a mind to call some folks together, in the tavern tonight,’ Gabriel said. ‘And we’ll end the job you stopped us from finishing last time.’

  Daniel’s soot-coated throat parched further. He could not speak, and yet he must, had to find a way to stop Gabriel and his vengeance on Sarah and her family. He opened his mouth. Nothing.

  ‘Keep your head, fool,’ Father said. ‘Now is not the time to go causing trouble for yourself with a new magistrate looking to make his mark.’

  Relief spilled through Daniel. This was an argument Gabriel would listen to.

  ‘And you’ll need to mind yourself. All this brawling in the tavern might draw his eye to you. That will be when you remember the Haworths, eh?’ Father tapped his nose. ‘You might need them around, so if attention’s drawn to you then you can tell you’ve been cursed and can’t be helped. New magistrate might surely want to find out more about their doings and forget yours. Eh?’

  Gabriel tipped his head back and smiled. Daniel looked from one to the other, unable to believe what he heard, so strong was his horror at this plan. So strong his rage. Despite Father’s temper, Daniel had always thought of him as honourable, in his way. But this. This was—

  ‘Despicable,’ he said, before realising he had spoken aloud. All three heads turned sharply to him. The scrape of the broom silenced.

  ‘What?’ Father asked. The quietness of his voice spoke of more anger than his previous shouting.

  Daniel opened his mouth to apologise. And then thought again of the crowds and their flames marching to Sarah’s house.

  ‘Despicable,’ he said, clearer now. ‘To cover your own sins by blaming another? To shield yourself by offering up those without protection? And to scheme to do it?’

  ‘They has protection, and it’s of their own witchly making,’ Gabriel said.

  Daniel watched the pallor spread over Father’s face, saw the set of his jaw and willed himself to stop. ‘You should look to better yourself, not turn blame to another.’

  It was accidental, surely, that he met Father’s eyes as these last left his lips. Father’s mouth gaped, his fists curled and, Daniel was sure, tears gathered as he blinked. Behind him, Bett stared, making no pretence at work now.

  Before anyone could stop him, he barged past Father and out into the daylight, aware that punishment would await his return. For now, he simply needed to be away.

  He made for the river, running fast. The stone still hung in the tree.

  He waited anyway. She did not come.

  When at last he returned, the fist caught his chin as he stepped in, spinning him so that the edge of the door cracked his cheek. Even as he sa
nk to the ground, dizzy and sick, Daniel cursed himself. He should have been expecting this. His mind had been lost in Sarah and he had forgotten the argument waiting for him at home.

  Father’s breath was sour with alcohol. ‘Thought you’d got away with it, did you?’

  Daniel pressed his head to the cool wall, eyes squeezed shut until the room settled. Responses flashed through his mind. Sorry was the correct one.

  ‘With what?’ he asked, wiping away the blood bubbling at the corner of his mouth and drawing himself upright.

  ‘Showing me up in front of Gabriel and Bett, insulting me and walking off. Thought you were clever, did you? Thought you’d get away with it because they were there?’

  As Father bunched a fist and leaned his weight back to throw, Daniel straightened up. Standing eye to eye now.

  ‘Do not raise your hand to me,’ he said, clear and steady, as surprised as Father was by the fury rising inside him.

  The moment of shock and doubt this caused in Father was enough for Daniel to step forward and push the fist to his side. Daniel leaned in until he could see the yellowed film in Father’s eyes. ‘Ever,’ he said.

  When the door swung closed behind him, Father still stood, arms hanging limp, head bowed.

  A Trail in the Night

  I have come at last to the beck, unable to keep away, wondering whether I will find the hag stone hanging in the tree, promising myself I will leave again either way.

  It is here, and I wonder how long ago Daniel left it, whether he will still seek me out after I ran from him. I hold it now, feel it grow warm in my hand as I look out over the water.

  There are footsteps behind me, too fast and light to be Daniel’s, and I spin around, ready to flee. The little figure runs towards me, giggling, hair flying.

  ‘Annie, what are you doing?’

  ‘I followed you.’

  I glance around. No sign of Daniel. ‘You can’t be here, go home.’

  Her mouth droops and she hangs her head. ‘But I want to be with you.’

  I sigh. He will probably not come anyway. ‘We’ll go together. But don’t follow—’

  ‘Oh,’ Daniel says, appearing from the trees. ‘You’re both here.’ There is a bruise on his face. I can’t ask what happened in front of Annie. He carries the neckerchief again. Bold.

  ‘I – she just …’ I shrug. Curse Annie and her sneaking.

  ‘No matter,’ he says.

  ‘Can we find a moon fish?’ Annie asks.

  I pass Daniel the stone. ‘No,’ I say.

  ‘A whispering shell? Please?’ Knowing I am a lost cause she runs up to Daniel, tugging on his clothes and badgering about the shell. I’ve only ever seen her like this with John.

  ‘She seems to think you’re her brother,’ I say, before I realise what meaning he might take from it. His smile caves in and he shoots me a look I cannot fathom, then turns to Annie.

  ‘Do you know, I’ve made a mistake?’ he says, glancing along the riverbank while she bunches his tunic in her fists and swings around. A mistake in coming, then. My stomach sickens. I’m about to yank Annie from him and take her home when he says, ‘We won’t find a whispering shell here, we need to go to the sea for that.’

  I still myself. Annie stops swinging, keeping hold of him, biting her lip and frowning. ‘I don’t like the sea.’

  ‘Then I will fetch one and bring it to you another day.’

  I watch as he ruffles her hair and she stares up as though he is an angel.

  ‘I like the woods,’ she says. ‘Because I was growed there.’

  He glances at me. ‘Grown?’

  The story of how Annie came about is as much a part of the cloth that our family is stitched from as the story of how our father was taken. It has spilled from each of our mouths a hundred times and yet, as I look at the question in Daniel’s eyes, I cannot speak it.

  Annie has no such hesitation. She repeats the story as she’s heard it, from memory and a little too fast. ‘Mammy was walking in the woods one night collecting sticks for the fire and she heard a sound like a bird singing but she knew it couldn’t be that because it was night so she went to the sound and she wasn’t scared because it was the sweetest sound she’d ever heared and then she saw a babby and it was me. And I was lying all on the ground with the ferns under me like a mat and moss covering me like a soft green blanket and the roots of the biggest ash around me like the arms of a mammy.’

  The telling of Annie’s story here, away from the cocoon of our house, our family who accept it, awakens something in me. A memory, pushing at the wall of my thoughts. I look to see how Daniel is responding, but he crouches in front of Annie, face turned to hers, all solemn attention.

  We have reached her favourite part and she tells it exactly as I know she will, as I’ve seen her do many times. She claps her hands over her mouth and laughter shoots through her fingers. ‘And I was completely bare, with not even a tiniest single piece of cloth on me.’

  Daniel responds as he knows he’s expected to, with a grin and a widening of the eyes at this naughtiest part of her tale.

  ‘So Mammy asked the ash if she could have me and the roots that holded me slithered right away so she knew she was allowed to and when she picked me up there was earth all in my mouth and ears from where I’d growed up from the ground like a tree does.’

  The story is done. Annie beams and throws her hands down as though she has crafted and bestowed a great gift.

  ‘What a special beginning you had,’ Daniel says, his voice soft.

  Annie’s expression is glum. ‘I know but it would’ve been better if I’d been growed a boy.’

  I’m fighting thoughts I do not want, memories better forgotten, and I cannot respond. Daniel laughs. ‘I think you were grown perfect just as you are.’

  ‘That’s what Sarah says.’

  ‘Annie, we’ve to go,’ I say.

  Daniel stands up, looks at me quickly. There is a darkness coming over me, creeping from the very edges of my vision and laying its great, cold weight upon me. I wonder if this is how Father felt when he drowned.

  ‘Here,’ he says, holding out the neckerchief. ‘You fold it like this, see?’ He shows me and places it over my shoulders, pulling it tight at the front. I am aware, just, of the warmth of it against me, but too weighed by other thoughts to protest.

  ‘But I want to stay here,’ Annie says.

  The memories grow stronger and I do not want to think about what they mean. Footprint of blood. Cries like a trail in the night. I wish Annie had not told the story. ‘We’ve to go,’ I say again.

  Annie scowls. ‘I don’t want to. And you sound funny.’

  In my head I hear Mam, the words she spoke that night as clear as if she stands here now, her voice sharp as the edge of John’s knife.

  Daniel watches me. I want to smile, but I cannot. He takes a step back. Holds himself with a deliberate steadiness that masks fear. He’s waiting to see which I am, the lass who gathered wood and ate with him, or the witch with the power to curse. At this moment, I do not know.

  ‘It’s time for me to go too,’ he says. Annie slumps at the shoulders and turns her big brown eyes to him. ‘But next time I’ll bring you a shell. Go with Sarah now.’

  She trudges to me and I take her hand, pull her away. ‘And tell no one of this,’ I hiss. ‘You should not have come. Bad girl.’

  I barely hear her wails and sobs at my angry words. All I hear is Mam, those years ago. Get back to sleep, she said.

  But I didn’t.

  Misery

  Daniel had to wait until his free hours on Sunday to act on the decision he had made. He walked quickly, driven by a welcome feeling of strength. There was a storm inside him, Sarah’s storm, that had come crashing through her eyes and somehow into him, changing his very make-up. Showing him that the course of events could be turned as he chose, if only he had courage enough.

  He marched down the lane and across to where the blacksmith’s lay, between the gree
n and the shore. His fist on the door was firm. Molly’s mother opened it, a woman with the same soft curls, now grey, escaping her coif and framing a plump, pink face. Her focus only faltered slightly on his grazed face.

  ‘Master Taylor. How lovely to see you, come in,’ she said, standing aside. This respect she showed was for his position, but not him, he knew.

  Daniel forced a lightness into his voice. ‘I won’t, thank you, Mrs Matthews. If I could speak with Molly?’

  She was already at the door, elbowing her mother out of the way. ‘Daniel, I wondered when you’d call on me,’ she said, giggling. She stepped out, forcing Mrs Matthews back as she shut the door on her. ‘Goodbye, Mother.’

  Her expression was alight with expectation and it took all Daniel’s determination to hold on to the barrier of strength that allowed him to hurt her so.

  ‘What happened to your face?’ she asked.

  ‘My father hit me.’

  She blinked twice. ‘Where are we going?’

  He had not thought this far. His usual choice would be the river, but he could not take Molly to the place he shared with Sarah. That was part of a different life.

  ‘The green?’

  She fell into step beside him. ‘My father was pleased, although of course he doesn’t think that I should be the one to do the courting, he says it’s not fitting. But it is the tradition, isn’t it? I can’t help being chosen as May Queen, can I?’

  Molly stopped and looked up at him, but Daniel barely glanced at her and kept walking, nodding a greeting to the parson as he passed. She ran a few steps to catch up, linking her arm through Daniel’s.

  ‘Hello, parson,’ she said. He lifted his hat and walked on.

  ‘Of course,’ Molly said, ‘no wonder the magistrate chose me, he obviously has a liking for a pretty girl. Lucky I was not alone, else it would be me taken into the woods.’ She shuddered, though her face was lit up. ‘At least Magistrate Wright shall not allow such things.’