The Conjured Woman

by Anne Groß

  “I thought you could use some help,” Thomas explained to Mrs. Southill. He refused to look at Elise as she jogged a circle around the small ring like a caged animal.

  “Why in god’s name would you think that?” the old lady exclaimed.

  “Aren’t you always saying how you could do with some help?”

  “That was almost fifteen years ago, and it was you I wanted. I gladly raised you after your mother died in childbirth. I would have kept you as my own too, but you ran off and got caught by that dreadful kitchen witch Postlethwaite. I don’t want anyone now. Certainly not that one.” The woman pointed to Elise, who had returned to Thomas’s side to grip his arm possessively. “She’s too old.”

  “She’s not old,” Thomas protested. “She still has all her teeth.” He unwound Elise’s fingers from his arm, still without looking at her.

  “Look at those soft hands,” Mrs. Southill countered. “She hasn’t done a day’s work in her life.”

  “Her back is plenty strong and her legs and arms are like iron. I’ve never seen the like on a woman. She knocked a man off his chair last night with just one blow. She’d be a perfect apprentice.”

  “Then she’ll eat too much. I’ll starve myself trying to keep her fed.” Mrs. Southill reached out to give Elise’s upper arm a squeeze, testing the strength of her bicep.

  Elise slapped away the woman’s probing hand and the gesture slightly restored her dwindling sense of control. “This is a joke, right?” she shook her head and looked up at Thomas in amazement. “Apprentice? What the hell do you think I’d learn from this old bat that I don’t already know? How to piss in the woods maybe? How to spit-shine a bone collection?”

  Mrs. Southill pale grey eyes pierced through Elise and she seemed to grow six inches. Elise took a couple hasty steps backwards then noticed Thomas had his hand raised and sidestepped him too. His hand continued back to rake his hair in frustration. “All you’ve done since the day you arrived is stir up trouble,” he said. “Another fight like the one last night and the Ferringtons will lose their publican’s license. I can’t have it anymore.”

  “You’re the one with the perpetual black eye, not me,” Elise said defensively.

  “You’re no good as a barmaid. You’re a slothful chambermaid. Mrs. P. is not herself when you’re in her kitchen. You can’t even stoke a fire without burning your fingers. You’re of no use to anyone.”

  “Then what are you bringing her to me for?” snapped Mrs. Southill. “Just leave her in the streets. I’m sure it wouldn’t be long before someone finds something she can do.”

  “Because,” Thomas said excitedly, “last night she saved Mr. Tilsdale’s life, and it was an amazing thing. I’ve never seen anyone do what she did. She’s got the gift, I’m sure of it. I believe you can further her skills, hone them.”

  “This one has skills?” Mrs. Southill scoffed. “I doubt that very much.” Her eyes narrowed as she studied Elise. “She does have a strangeness about her,” she allowed. “Where did you say she’s from?”

  Thomas straightened up hopefully at the old woman’s interest. “No one knows where she’s from. She says she doesn’t remember, but if you had seen her last night, you wouldn’t doubt that she’s a healer through and through. When Mr. Tilsdale went and got his air pipe crushed last night, Elise stepped in without hesitation.”

  “Mr. Tilsdale’s air pipe got crushed?” the old woman looked shocked. “Poor Mr. Tilsdale.”

  “No, no. He’s quite alright,” Thomas assured. He got in the way of a chair is all. It was Jonas who swung it at Elise’s head. But Elise cut a hole in his neck and inserted the beer engine. Saved his life, she did.”

  The story seemed to puzzle Mrs. Southill. “Why was Jonas swinging a chair at Elsie? Was there a brawl? Mr. Tilsdale should know better than to be brawling. He’s too old for those kinds of activities. Did she really pour beer in his neck-hole?”

  “No, not beer. A pipe. Mr. Tilsdale just got in the way of a chair is all,” Thomas replied.

  There was a long silence while Mrs. Southill seemed to ponder the various threads of the story. “And how is it that she’s a healer?”

  Thomas threw up his hands in exasperation. “She saved his bloody life, I said!”

  “I’m not deaf. I heard you the first time,” the old woman snapped. “Stop pulling at your hair, you’ll make yourself bald.”

  When they had finished glaring at each other, both Thomas and the old woman turned towards Elise. She watched their eyes take her in, starting from her toenails that peeked out from under her gown, to her dirty auburn hair that fell around her shoulders. “She’s no healer,” the old woman finally scoffed. “Mr. Tilsdale is a dead man. Mark my words, this one’s merely turned an easy death into a difficult one.”

  “You might want to get your crystal ball recalibrated,” Elise snarled, “because he’s breathing right now, no thanks to anyone but me. Everyone else was standing around with their hats in their hands looking stupid.”

  “Didn’t you put a bloody hole in his neck and insert a filthy pipe? Isn’t that what Tommy just said? How do you think Mr. Tilsdale will survive that?” Mrs. Southill shook her head sadly, “Poor Mr. Tilsdale. He’s a dead man.”

  It hadn’t escaped Elise that infection was a likely possibility; she was just surprised that the old woman thought so too. She was pretty sure Pasteur hadn’t yet figured out his germ theory. For that matter, he probably wasn’t even born. The idea that saving a life was worse than letting the life go was hard to swallow, so instead of arguing further how she’d done a great thing by saving the Poor Mr. Tilsdale, she kept her mouth shut and ignored Mrs. Southill’s raised eyebrow and sly knowing smile.

  Suddenly, Mrs. Southill clapped her hands together in front of Elise’s nose as though trapping a fly. “Tell me what I’m holding in my hands,” she said with a grin. “Look!”

  The change in demeanor and subject startled Elise and she leaned forward to peer inside. She noted how the cracks and wrinkles on the woman’s cupped hands had become accidental tattoos, inked with black dirt. “There’s nothing in there,” Elise said.

  “You are correct. Isn’t that strange?”

  Elise clenched her jaw. “You can’t leave me here,” she hissed at Thomas. Her eyes rolled towards the sky, and then towards old woman with meaning.

  “Mother Southill, please. Elise can ease your nights with companionship. You shouldn’t be here all alone.”

  “If I were to cup my hands in water,” Mrs. Southill continued, ignoring Thomas’s entreaty, “I would catch the water. But when I cup my hands in sunlight,” she clapped at the air again and then opened her palms. “Nothing. There’s nothing.”

  Elise stared at the woman. Was she serious? She glanced at Thomas and saw that he was looking at the woman’s empty hands with a puzzled expression. “But light is not a thing to be caught,” he countered, finally taking the bait. “You can’t catch light.”

  “And why not? I can trap light inside my house at night when I light a candle and draw the curtains. In the day the curtains keep the light outside. So why can’t I catch it out of the air?”

  “It’s energy,” Elise said, clarifying nothing. Her legs suddenly felt tired. She wondered if she should just go take a seat at the trestle table by herself, since apparently no one was going to offer her any of whatever they’d been smoking.

  “Yes, that is what I thought too. Energy,” Mrs. Southill said, gazing softly into the sky. “I was thinking there might be a way to use it, if only I could somehow trap it.” She tapped her chin with her crooked index finger, thinking. Then her grey eyes lit up as though suddenly remembering something. “There’s something else I’d like to show you, Thomas. I just have to find it,” and she turned to head towards her house.

  “Please don’t trouble yourself.” Thomas called after her receding back. Then he glowered at Elise.

  “Let me go back to the pub with you,” Elise pleaded, ignoring his look. “I’ll be the best w
aitress. I’ll let all the customers grab my ass.”

  “Don’t be silly. There is much Mother Southill can teach you— you’ll be glad for the opportunity. Besides, after last night, no one will want you to serve them. You’ll just be in Mary’s way.”

  “That’s not true. They love me.”

  “You?” Thomas laughed in disbelief. “You’re far too scrawny. You put everyone off their porter just to look at you.”

  “If I’m so ugly, why did you take me in?” Elise demanded as her green eyes filled with tears.

  Thomas looked uncomfortable and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “You’re not ugly,” he mumbled at the ground.

  “Yes, why?” Mrs. Southill returned, holding a large wooden bowl. She smiled strangely at Thomas, her eyes twinkling. “Why did you take in a girl with such an unfortunate nose? Where did you say she comes from?” Elise touched her nose in surprise.

  “I’ve no idea. As far as I know, she was born from the mud in front of the Quiet Woman,” Thomas answered dryly. “She hasn’t seen fit to tell me where she’s from, or anyone else, for that matter. Richard was the one that wanted to keep her.”

  “I’m sure you had nothing to do with it,” Mrs. Southill said sarcastically. “When did you find her?”

  “It’s been nearly a fortnight.”

  Mrs. Southill seemed to take the information very seriously. She nodded slowly. “She does have an interesting manner of speech,” the old lady mused.

  “One can hardly understand her, most times. We might as well be speaking two different languages.”

  “What did you say your family name was, dear?” Mrs. Southill asked.

  “Dubois.”

  “French,” Mrs. Southill noted. They both looked at Elise, silently, pointedly.

  “You’ve got a problem with that?”

  “Of course not. We’re merely making the observation that you’re a frog,” Mrs. Southill said with a smile. Elise was becoming more and more convinced that the old woman’s silliness was an act to cover a shrewd intelligence.

  “I found what I was looking for,” Mrs. Southill said, abruptly changing the subject again as she placed the wooden bowl she’d been holding on the table. Elise breathed out in relief. In the bowl were many small bundles of tied fabric and a single rock, which the old woman removed and placed on the table in front of Thomas. “Take a look at this.” The bottom of the rock was rough granite but quartz crystal formations jutted from the grey stone, one of which was faceted and almost two inches long. Thomas smiled at the rainbows that danced against the wood of the table, passing his hand over them so that the colors moved up his arm. “I knew this would make you happy, Tommy-Boy,” Mrs. Southill said chuckling. “See? I thought at first the stone was reflecting the light to transform it into rainbows, but it’s not. It’s capturing the light and it becomes transformed when it’s released. It captures the light,” she repeated.

  “Are you sure?” asked Thomas with a look of awe on his face.

  “Of course I’m not sure. Who can be sure of anything? What a thing to ask. But think: if a mere rock can capture and transform light, maybe I can find a way to do it myself.”

  “The crystal is splitting white light into its component parts,” Elise said absently, thinking of the rainbows she used to see in Tucson in the early morning when the sun would angle through her bedroom window.

  “Component parts?” Mrs. Southill asked. Both she and Thomas turned to her and stared. “I’ve heard that before. I just wonder how a woman who comes from mud knows such a thing.”

  Elise shrugged. She’d opened her mouth again when she should have kept it shut. “Someone else said that? Really? I was just thinking out loud. Because, you know, wouldn’t it be cool to split things inside rocks?”

  “Cool? Do you mean interesting? Yes, it would be very interesting to split things inside rocks. In this example, you can see that splitting light has an very interesting effect indeed,” Mrs. Southill said, smiling at Thomas who was still playing with the rainbow that bounced happily on his forearm. She paused as though weighing her next words. “What if you could split other intangible things into parts, like time? You can’t catch time in your hands either, can you?” There was a tiny hesitation in Mrs. Southill’s questioning, just long enough for her wrinkled eyes to bore deep into Elise.

  “There are no parts to time,” Elise said quickly. “It just marches forward in one long line.”

  “Do you think so?”

  “What do you know about it?” Elise asked with suspicion. Her heart was pounding and she was sure the old bat could hear it race.

  “Oh, nothing really, only that it’s ‘cool’ to think about.” Mrs. Southill paused over the unfamiliar usage of the new word before she pushed the rock out of the way to end the conversation. She pulled the bowl in front of her. “If you’re going to be cutting into people’s necks, Miss Elsie, you might as well do it correctly. Sit down, I’ve something to show you too.” She pointed to the bench on the opposite side of the table and placed about thirty different pouches in front of Elise. “But you’ll have to remember everything I say. Can you do that?”

  “Probably not,” Elise replied, looking dubiously at all the bundles.

  “You’ll remember. Otherwise you’ll be no better than a farmer who heals their beasts by shoving peeled onions inside them where onions don’t belong.” She spread out a rough tablecloth. “Oh, you wouldn’t believe the things I’ve seen,” she said when she noted Elise’s horrified look. “Onions, turnips, garlic in the nostrils, anything that can go into a stew can also go into the holes in a person’s body.” She nodded to the bowl. “Go on. Take a pinch from one of those bundles and put it here on this cloth. I’ll tell you what it is, and how to use it. Every tradesman has his tools. These will be yours, if you want them.”

  “So you’ll take her on, then.” Thomas looked relieved.

  “I told you already I’ve no use for a neophyte, but I’ll do you the favor of giving her a pinch of knowledge before you take her back to the Quiet Woman. She may be no use to me, but I’ll wager she’ll be of use to you very soon. You’ll see. You’re going to need her more than me.”

  “I can’t take her back. There’s no money to pay her. And she’s horrible, besides.”

  Elise looked up at the barman in surprise. She’d assumed the custom was to pay chambermaids in room and board and thought of the coins on the windowsill. She felt less inclined to give herself a cut off the top now that she knew the pub was struggling.

  “You can take her back, and you will.” Mrs. Southill fixed Thomas with a glare until he sighed in resignation, pulled his pipe out of his pocket, and wandered off.

  “Here, look at this,” Mrs. Southill turned back to Elise and unrolled a bundle. “What do you see?”

  “Dried leaves,” she responded distractedly. A waft of tobacco smoke passed over Elise. She turned to look at Thomas, who was standing next to the fire ring, lighting his pipe with a glowing twig.

  “What color? What shape? What do they smell like, taste like, feel like?”

  Elise turned back to the table and tried to concentrate on the task at hand, her teeth grinding with the effort. She lifted the cord that tied the leaves together at the stems and gently brought the delicate packet to her nose. They smelled like fall weather in the Catalina mountains, and tobacco. Another puff of smoke passed between them. The muscle in her jaw twitched as her teeth clenched. “They’re brown like dead leaves, dry like dead leaves, and I’m not going to taste them.”

  Mrs. Southill’s eyes bored through Elise’s head. “Thomas!” the old woman finally shouted without breaking eye contact. “Come here.” When he arrived, she snatched the pipe out of his hands and gave it to Elise. “I wouldn’t be sneering over the power of those dead brown leaves when you can’t think for yearning to breathe them. Here’s one dead brown leaf as already taken hold of you, I can tell.” She pressed the pipe into Elise’s hands. “Smoke it then and be done with it
so we can continue.”

  Muscles Elise never knew she had been clenching relaxed as the smoke passed into her mouth and filled every neural receptor in her brain. She closed her eyes as tears welled and a sigh broke from her lips.

  “For god’s sake,” Thomas laughed. “Just look at her. She’s obscene.” He snatched the pipe back, took another toke, and then passed it to Mrs. Southill. The pipe made its way back to Elise, and they let her hold on to it as long as she needed to. The sky seemed very blue as she watched the smoke rise.

  The next hours were spent going through every cloth bundle Mrs. Southill had placed in the bowl while Thomas busied himself by chopping and stacking wood. Elise was told to feel and smell everything she unwrapped, some she even allowed herself to be convinced to taste. As she did so, Mrs. Southill described the process to prepare each herb. The inhalants Elise learned quickly because there were only two. The easiest to distinguish was not an herb at all, but a small vial of mercury. It was the ones that were to be steeped or made into poultices that were the most difficult - the ones with multiple possibilities for preparations and multifunctional healing properties. To aid Elise’s memory, Mrs. Southill used personal examples of her own patients to illustrate the use of each herb. Case studies were familiar to Elise, and she listened carefully and tried soak it all in.

  It was an enormous relief to finally return to a topic she loved without fear. For the first time since her fall through time, Elise felt truly engaged and respected. Finally, she wasn’t being handed just a broom or a potato to peel, she was being handed power. Mrs. Southill was a patient and insistent instructor, and drilled her until she could recite the dosages, methods for preparation, route taken, body system affected, ailments healed, possible side effects, combinations, and names of the contents of each pouch in the wooden bowl. It took some hours, but when Mrs. Southill was finally satisfied that her pupil had learned her lessons, she leaned back from the table with a pleased smile. “There,” she said. “A pinch of salt and no more—that’s what I’ve given you. Now that you’ve a taste for it, I’ve no doubt you’ll be wanting salt with every meal.”