Cunning Women

by Elizabeth Lee

  Again she stopped, twisting an escaped curl of hair around her finger. They had reached the green and Daniel led the way to the far edge opposite the well, sitting on the grass. He felt the curious glances of a group of women fetching water. A glimpse of the life with Molly that he was about to walk away from; though she had little in the way of dowry, he would have been the envy of every young man in the village. Molly would have been his bridge to acceptance. She pulled her petticoat up and sat beside him.

  ‘Once everyone knows we’re courting, I shall never need to worry about old goats like Magistrate Thompson.’

  She reached out and placed her hand under his, arm stretched awkwardly across them both, and glanced across the green to where a group of her friends stood.

  ‘Hello,’ Molly called. The girls, who were already watching, waved and giggled.

  All this Daniel saw but did not allow himself to take in. He must do this without knowing the consequences. Now.

  ‘Molly.’

  ‘Yes, dearest,’ she said, blushing.

  ‘I don’t wish to cause you pain.’

  A shadow passed over her face, but her smile stayed firm. ‘Then don’t.’

  ‘This cannot be.’

  ‘It can be. It is.’

  Clouds gathered and rolled across the sky. ‘There are plenty others for you to choose.’

  She squeezed his hand. ‘But I chose you.’

  ‘But I do not – choose you.’

  ‘Then why did you agree?’ she asked, snatching her hand from his.

  ‘I didn’t, Molly, I tried to say but you just—’

  ‘But why not? What’s wrong with me?’ Her voice was small and high, like a child’s, tears falling from her pretty eyes, and his strength began to fail.

  ‘Nothing, you’re very sweet. It’s just …’

  There was a reason but he could not give it. Though even in his misery at inflicting misery, he pictured a new and different life for himself.

  ‘Is this why you brought me here for all to see, to parade me?’ Molly asked. ‘So that my humiliation would be witnessed?’

  ‘No, of course not.’ Daniel looked over at the group of girls at the edge of the green huddled together, whispering. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t think about it.’

  Molly’s tears fell more quickly than she could wipe them, but when she turned to him there was a hardness in her eyes that stopped his breath for a moment. ‘I had thought better of you than this. Why did you not have the courage to tell me before, when we were alone? Before I spoke of it to anyone?’

  Daniel shook his head. ‘I’m sorry. Courage is a property I lack.’

  ‘There we agree. I could have my father beat you to mush, you know.’

  He watched a ladybird crawl over the bright petals of a buttercup, envied it the simplicity of its life. ‘Then he can join forces with my own.’

  Molly wiped her face one last time, shook out her shoulders. ‘Take my arm and walk me home. Keeping away from them.’ She nodded towards her friends. ‘And I shall tell everyone that I changed my mind after all, and no one will ever think otherwise.’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘You know, there are plenty waiting to court me, and though none may inherit a farm, all will be more a man than you.’

  Daniel took a breath, blocked the sharpness of her words, which he knew came from her pain. And were nothing he had not heard before.

  As he walked with her soft arm through his, the smell of hot iron rising from her, it occurred to him that courting Molly would have been easy. He would call at her house, bring flowers tied with ribbon and take her to the fallow meadow. Being with Sarah was like winning the trust of a wild animal. She might turn on him at any moment.

  In the doorway Molly unhooked her arm from his. ‘You’ll regret this.’

  ‘I always regret causing hurt.’

  ‘That isn’t what I meant.’

  She was gone, and so was any strength he’d mustered. Daniel walked, blindly, and found himself at the river.

  So this was how it felt to say no to another person. What new man was he becoming? He had faced down his father. He had turned down Molly. All because a girl with wild hair and eyes like the sea had seen strength in him, made him believe in it too.

  Even this unfamiliar, braver self had felt a spark of fear when she spoke of that Devil-incarnated-into-flesh brother of hers last time he saw her alone, when her mood clouded before she left. She was unknowable, a constant shifting of sweetness and shadow. Yet he was drawn to her.

  They were a family unlike any other. Stories were told of the brother’s demon powers, of him running wild in different forms and spreading curses wherever he trod. The sister, sprung magically from the ground, and he could believe that such a sprite as she would begin in that way. A benign magic, though, if magic it was, and not just a pretty tale told to comfort a lostling.

  And Sarah herself. There was a promise of unknowable power about her. He knew he should keep away.

  He hung the stone in the tree, and left.

  A Serpent, Black and Glistening

  I know from the scent of henbane rolling down the path that Seth is in the house.

  ‘Wait here,’ I say to Annie. ‘I’ll bring some food for you to take to the woods.’

  She crosses her arms over her chest. ‘I know Seth’s in there. I want him to swing me.’

  ‘Later.’ I will not have her breathing in the vapours he needs to sweeten his mood when melancholy comes upon him, that if I am near I feel lingering in my throat, worming into my being and coiling a trail of madness into me. Leaving her on the path, I walk into the smoky house.

  Mam sits with Seth on the floor, pressed in between the table legs and the wall, the pan of hot embers and leaves between them. His bare head is bent over it and I hear his deep, slow breathing as he takes in his comfort. Mam talks in a soft voice, soothing and praising as she would a child. I will believe all is as it appears, the stories she has told us are truth and the memories I ignore are figments from my fickle mind.

  On the table lie Seth’s offerings: a bowl of dried field beans and crammings. The blackened lumps scraped from the bottom of the bread oven are not the tastiest of the gifts he brings but Annie will chew on them happily enough. Would I could cover them in the butter Daniel gave me. I add the field beans to the bowl of pottage that steams in the hot ashes, so far containing only water and cabbage, and take the crammings. I pause in the doorway to look back at Mam.

  ‘Isn’t henbane for pain?’ I ask, though I’ve seen Seth breathe it in like this many times and never has he been complaining of toothache or pangs of the joints.

  The glance Mam gives me over the top of his head is a warning. ‘This is pain, just of the being not the body.’

  I want to argue with her. Should Seth speak of what she does there’s no knowing what will become of us now the new magistrate is here He will act on the smallest evidence of witchcraft, if the stories are true.

  Seth has had his fill, groaning out a long loud breath and lying back on the floor, eyes closed, arms spread wide. His sigh is one of contentment and I see his recovery quickens. He is over the worst of the sorrow. She takes the pan, dipping her own head into the fumes and breathing its treacherous scent. I leave, pulling the door closed behind me, for the effect of the vapours unnerves me and I try to keep from taking them in.

  The smoke works on me already, I feel it painting the sky a heavier shade, churning the squeals of laughter I hear coming from Annie into an echoing hunting cry. She is riding on John’s shoulders as he gallops to and fro across the grass. When he sees me he slides Annie to the ground, and she runs to take the crammings I hold out. I swear a serpent, black and glistening, curls itself inside John’s mouth as he smiles. The smoke does its work on me.

  ‘Aren’t you just the one I’m looking for?’ he says, and there is a hardness to his eyes that is a warning. He’s endured some disappointment, then, some cruelty, and now turns it my way. The serpent lies in plac
e of his tongue so I know the words that spill from there will be drops of poison I should not take in. I watch Annie dart towards the trees and wish I could follow, but I am rooted where I stand.

  ‘You’ll be wanting to know the tattle I overheard down the village today, though I’ve a mind not to tell you.’

  ‘Overheard while you were crouched behind a hedge watching the lasses walk by?’

  He is not to be diverted, but waits, and the serpent is a shadow behind his teeth. It mesmerises me so, I barely notice Seth stumble past us, struggling to replace his hat.

  ‘There’s all prattling of your farmer lad today.’

  Mention of Daniel tears my gaze from the serpent to John’s eyes, and I see from the triumph there that I’ve betrayed myself. He rocks back on his heels, hands behind back, chin lifted as he spins out my torment.

  ‘What of him?’ I ask, unable to bear the power of John’s silence any longer. ‘And how do you …?’

  ‘Annie has spake all of moon fish and whispering shells. And you and the farmer’s lad.’ He waits, and every passing moment of silence torments me. ‘He’s only courting that pretty little blacksmith’s daughter.’

  These are not words, but drops of venom that fall from his invaded lips, seeping into my skin until I see nothing but Daniel and the blacksmith lass, hands entwined, heads together, lips touching, and I reach out for a wall that is not there to steady myself. How can this be true, when just the other day he left the hag stone so we might meet, and he listened with such care to Annie?

  John smirks. ‘Aye, thought you might care to know that,’ he says. ‘Only one thing he could want from the likes of you. Didn’t think there was more to it, did you?’

  The smoke has dazed me so, I feel no anger at myself for the tears his words bring. I look into John’s face. The serpent is gone, his eyes clear and confused; regretful.

  ‘Well,’ he says. ‘’Tis perhaps not … I didn’t mean to …’ His voice breaks off and he watches me as his cheeks redden, bites on a nail, then dips his head and hurries into the house.

  I am cold now from knowing and losing the comfort of Daniel’s closeness. The loss weighs upon me. This is why I should not have let my life entwine with his, for that is all gone, as I should have known it would be.

  I’ve no claim on him, have always known this. Wiping away the tears I’ve no right to shed, I follow John into the house, because though he’s enjoyed giving me this pain and though Mam will not countenance it, I need my family now. They’re all I have. I am the cunning woman’s daughter, born to a fate of isolation and dark power. The kindness of a farmer’s lad, and all else I might have hoped he offered, is not for me, nor ever was.

  It is time to embrace my calling now, with all my being, and leave him and his kind to their lives of comfort and courting that I shall never know. There is a stirring within me, a clarity, that allows me to hear the bidding of my master as never before, and this time I do not turn away from it. For what other life is there for me?

  Mam has doused the pan and smoke hangs like an apparition in the corners of the roof. I taste it still. Her eyes are black and bright, her movements heavy and fluid as they always are when she has breathed in its vapour.

  She smiles at John, a serene beatific beam that sweetens and softens her. ‘Oh, son. You’ve done well.’ Her words are slow and thick. She cups his face. ‘These are what I need. His punishment shall be all he deserves.’ Between finger and thumb she picks something from the hand John holds out to her.

  ‘What’s that?’ I ask.

  ‘Hair,’ John says.

  ‘Whose hair?’ I know, but will not accept the knowledge until I hear it from them.

  ‘That netter’s,’ John says, lifting his chin. He’s expecting me to argue.

  Mam carefully carries the strands over to the figure that lies on the floor by the fire. She spits on the clay to soften it, kneading with her thumb, pulling a piece from the top. Looks to the floor at her side and whispers, ‘We shall set you to work, shall we not?’

  ‘Easy to sneak in and pick a few strands from their bed,’ John says.

  Mam hunches over the figure, muttering as she places the hair on the softened clay and moulds the spare lump back on to secure it. The result is a grotesque parody of a person, and not the first I’ve seen in her hands.

  Yesterday I would have shaken her for this, berated her for putting John in danger, for drawing the attention of the village when they were hunting us down only nights ago. Today, I am aligned with her, and all that means. What use is there in appeasing the villagers? They will burn us anyway. I am in no mood to acquiesce.

  I will embrace what I am, accept the power that lies at the heart of this family. Somehow, I shall keep Annie separate, and safe. Keep her free from the mark, from the magistrate. The rope. But I will stand with Mam, true to myself, and burn if I must. I take her hand.

  ‘I want to try the potion.’

  We stand on the hilltop, sky churning, rain droplets lacing the air, and I can taste salt on the breeze. Mam holds the bowl in both hands. The paste inside is thick and murky with a sour scent. I peer at it, heart kicking.

  ‘You don’t have to,’ Mam says.

  ‘I’m ready.’

  ‘It’s not easy. You’ll be changed.’ She shakes her head. ‘’Tis all I have to offer.’

  ‘What do I do?’

  ‘Dip in and spread it on your skin.’

  I reach my hand over the bowl, wavering above it.

  Mam touches my fingers. ‘Thinly,’ she says.

  I scoop a handful. Cold and miry. Last chance to walk away, to fight my fate. ‘Mammy?’

  ‘Aye?’

  ‘Stay with me?’

  She kisses my cheek, mouth soft where teeth once were. I wipe the paste on my arm.

  My heart is untamed, without pace, without rhythm. Breath remains my own. In. Out. Slow. Slow. I feel the air flow into me, through me, to the very tips of hair and skin and nail. Unfurling. It reaches the edges of my body and lifts me. I am light, without weight, without darkness.

  The sky trickles then pours between my fingers. My hands rise of their own accord, lifting. I look up and find raindrops as big as my fist. They glide down, falling like snow, soft and slow. I catch one and it rests in my palm for a moment, smooth and cool and glossy, then bursts and splinters into droplets that sparkle. Laughter streams from me.

  I turn to show Mam. She is close, I see but cannot reach her. See her speak but cannot hear the words. The space between us is small and I stretch out to her, watch my fingers touch her face but I cannot feel her. She is not really here. Nothing I see is really here.

  The ground beneath my feet laps and swells, rolls and spins, gradually at first then faster and faster until the grass and sky and trees turn too quickly for me to see and finally the earth throws me off, into the sky, soaring through the air. Pitching clouds toss me between them, fat round raindrops balance and shatter on my outstretched arms.

  Beyond, past the cloud and rain and sun, with my hair streaming behind and the air blasting through me, I reach night. The sound of my own breath, the beat of my eyelashes, boom and crash of my heart. Outside myself, nothing.

  Then, stars. Bright, sharp specks that flare and soar through my fingers, hard and barbed, burning like an ember fallen from the grate. I open my mouth to cry out and all the searing stars are sucked into me, leaving me alight, and around me is only blackness.

  In the dark I see him. At last. My new master. His eyes flaming, his mouth a depth of emptiness that I could fall into and fall forever. The fire inside me blazes and pierces. I do not want this. Do not want him. I want light and space and freedom. He opens his mouth and breathes out a hurricane of fire and smoke and soot and I am calling, screaming, begging to be delivered but I am covered with his black breath, mouth and eyes filled until I see nothing, hear nothing, not even the pull of my breathing or beat of my heart.

  Splinter

  Day after day Daniel went to the river, ri
sing before dawn or sneaking from the house at night, when they all thought he slept. Still the stone hung where he had left it.

  He could not think why she stayed away. He had insulted her perhaps, unwitting in his clumsiness, as before. Or she had simply changed her mind. Their time together did not mean to her what it did to him.

  His appetite left him and he could not sleep. The small pleasures that had once sustained him – the baby sparrows leaping from their nests, the playful gambolling of lambs – could not touch him.

  He helped Father spread manure and raked behind him as he led the oxen and plough, attached Bonny to the harrow and walked her up and down the field, May heat seeping through his tunic. The greening of the land and call of the song thrushes usually soothed his spirit at this time of year. Yet a fever lay upon him now, an unfamiliar restlessness to have his tasks done and be at the river. Every day he believed she would come. Every night she did not.

  Daniel sat now with Father and Gabriel eating bread and collops under the shade of the largest oak and drinking ale. He listening to the stories Gabriel told of the village, and how all were unsettled. How all looked about with suspicion, for every man had a friend or neighbour that could tell a tale about him to interest the new magistrate.

  ‘It’s law books he recites before bed, not prayers, so they say,’ Gabriel said. ‘Carries that book of the King’s with him like it’s a Bible. There’ll be floggings on the green and worse now.’

  ‘There must be – there are those that live right and have nothing to fear, surely?’ Daniel asked.

  Gabriel shrugged. Flicked away a spider that crawled over his leg.

  ‘At least you’ve kept your temper in check, lad, and free from trouble,’ Father said.

  ‘Aye.’ Gabriel swallowed the last mouthful. ‘I’m not afraid of this Wright anyhow, no matter what’s the stories told about him. Should trouble come my way, I have one ready to take the blame, like you said. Eh?’