Daughters of the Witching Hill

by Mary Sharratt

  "Should have seen it coming," she said. "Tibb tried to warn me."

  I longed to be in the Holdens' warm kitchen, safe and well-ordered, where nobody spoke of spirits or clay pictures. But then Gran left off weeping and drew herself upright. Before me I saw the cunning woman folk held in awe, my own grandmother whose mere words could send Baldwin wobbling away like a milk-faced coward. My gran whom Baldwin called witch. A steely look flashed in her blind eyes. Her powers seemed to charge the very air I breathed.

  "Alizon, before your brother gets home, look about the ground for any loose earth where he might have buried a clay picture."

  "Gran, it's well dark. If I go out there now, I'll not see my hand in front of my face."

  Defeated, Gran nodded. She looked like an old woman again, knit with worry that the others were out so late.

  A while later Mam and Jennet stumbled in.

  "Our Alizon," Gran said. "Take your sister up the tower for a spell. I need to speak to your mam."

  Jennet was tearing a chunk off the bread I'd brought back from market and cramming it in her mouth when I took her hand.

  "Come with me, poppet."

  Carrying a rush light in my free hand, I pulled her along up the stairs to the top chamber that was now mine. Setting the rush light down, I hoisted her so she could look out the window slits.

  "There's a falling star! Make a wish."

  Jennet was having none of it.

  "You all lie to me," she said with a scowl fit to singe off my eyebrows. "You and Gran and Mam. Just because I'm little doesn't mean I'm an idiot like Jamie."

  "Don't you dare say such hateful things about your brother."

  "But he is! And he's been bad. I know he has."

  "You know nothing about it."

  She laughed, full scornful, as though she were the big sister and I the seven year old.

  "That's what you think, our Alizon."

  Down below, Mam's anger rose like a tempest, loud enough to stop my heart.

  "What, bind Jamie?" she cried. "Oh aye. Some work that would be!"

  Had Gran asked Mam's help, even though Mam had renounced her powers? Perhaps this fix was so great that even Gran couldn't mend it on her own. I felt so feeble then, the wind knocked out of me.

  Mam started in on Baldwin. That snake, she called him. To think he dared accuse us when he refused to provide so much as a heel of bread to feed his own natural daughter. If it was down to him, our Jennet would starve.

  My sister looked at me, tears shining in her eyes. She knew. How could she not? She was cannier than her years, our Jennet, and had probably picked up the gossip. Poor girl trembled from crown to toe as Mam began to curse Baldwin out, wishing every manner of woe upon him. Our mother's rage shook the very walls of the tower.

  "Witches, he calls us! I'll show him the measure of his words."

  Jennet let out a whimper and launched herself into my arms, hugging me tight as she'd never done before. All that night my sister huddled by my side, not letting go of me, and crying out each time she heard an owl or the wind rustling the thatch.

  When I led Jennet downstairs in the morning, she seemed terrified of our mam. Shrank behind me, did Jennet, hiding herself behind my skirts, and I confess that I, too, was a sight skittish round our mother after listening to her fury the night before. But when I saw her fussing over Gran, combing through her hair and coaxing her to eat some bread, I understood that behind Mam's fearsome temper was an even fiercer love. She would stop at nothing to protect us.

  After Mam and Jennet had left to work at the Sellars', I searched the ground skirting Malkin Tower for where our Jamie might have buried his clay pictures. When it came to hiding things, my brother was cannier than anyone I knew. I poked my head under every bush and was busy digging at the west side of the tower when a horse trotted up to the gate.

  Matthew Holden hailed me. "Our Alizon, what are you digging?"

  Must have looked right odd to him, for he'd caught me hacking away at the frost-bitten earth on a steep slope full of thistle and bulrushes. A fair maddle I was in, trying to explain my way out of this.

  "These moles!" I laughed as the tale came to my tongue. "Gran asked me to dig them up in winter whilst they're sleeping."

  Bemused, Matthew Holden sat back in his saddle. "A lot of labour, that. And they're harmless creatures, you know." He seemed to think it strange that folk common as us would be bothered by moles, and indeed we weren't, but I could hardly tell him the true purpose of my digging.

  "I brought the honey for your grandmother," he said, springing off his horse. "My mother sent along a bottle of elderberry wine as well."

  "Bless you, Matthew Holden!" Dropping my spade, I ran to open the gate for him. "My gran loves elderberry wine. Come inside and let her thank you herself."

  But Matthew swung round with a start. Creeping up behind his horse came Jamie, looking half-starved, his breeches marked with wet clay. Matthew handed me the crock of honey and flask of wine before backing away, a careful hand on his horse's bridle. My mouth went dry to see him go so pale. Dear Mother of God, Matthew Holden was afraid of our Jamie.

  "Come, love," I called as my brother stretched out his long arm to stroke Matthew's horse. The animal snorted and pranced sideways. "No foolishness, Jamie," I spoke up. "Come stand behind me and let Matthew be on his way."

  A light inside me died when I saw Matthew leap upon his horse and canter off without a backward glance.

  "He's a false one," said my brother. "He'll let you down, our Alizon."

  One careful step at a time, I led Jamie behind the tower where we would not be seen or heard from the road. Wanted to talk to him in private before leading him in to Gran. I took his face in my hands.

  "Our Jamie, you're my only brother. I'd give my life for you, you know I would. But you must stop whatever wickedness you've been up to behind our backs. Tell me, love, what did you do with that clay doll I saw you bury?"

  Jamie set his jaw. "I dried it out in a fire up Stang Top Moor, didn't I. Then I hid it there." Defiant and proud, my brother was. He wanted to get his own back on the folk who had mocked him and made him their fool. "After a spell I went back to crumple it a little each day till it was in pieces, and two days later Mistress Towneley was dead."

  My gorge rose to hear my brother confess murder and witchcraft plain as day.

  "You know what you did was evil, our Jamie. Don't you want to go to heaven? You can't unless you repent deep in your heart. Beg God's forgiveness and never do such a thing again."

  "It was never me. I didn't make the clay picture." He toed the hard ground beneath his foot. "Dandy told me to do it. He made the clay picture. He promised to give me power over folk as do me wrong, if only I gave him my soul. But I wouldn't because my soul belongs to Jesus Christ."

  "Jamie." I fought tears, wondering how I could make him face the true weight of what he had done. "You keep this up, you'll hang."

  "No one can touch me," he said, aloof now.

  "Did Dandy tell you to make clay pictures of Henry Mitton and John Duckworth?"

  "Never Henry Mitton!" Jamie seemed scandalised by my very suggestion. "Last night I slept in the Mittons' byre and a thing coloured black, about the bigness of a hare, lay heavy upon me in the night."

  "That would be a byre cat, our Jamie. Tell me the truth. Did you or Dandy make a clay picture of John Duckworth? You were right vexed with him, weren't you, when he wouldn't give you that shirt like he promised he would."

  "I only touched his arm, our Alizon. Dandy did the rest. There was never a clay picture. Dandy could kill him on account of my touching him."

  Leaning against the cold stone wall of Malkin Tower, I slid to the ground. My brother was beyond saving.

  Jamie hunched down beside me. "After daybreak this morning I was walking over White Moor when I heard such a foul yowling, like a great number of cats, then voices like children skriking and crying. It was so pitiful, our Alizon."

  I seized his hand. "That
was your own soul crying out for mercy. You must strive to be a good man and not harm folk anymore, or let Dandy harm them for you."

  My brother was silent, his face flushed as though in shame.

  "Do you love me, our Jamie? Do you love our gran?" I knew better than to ask him if he loved our mam, since her temper alarmed him, or our Jennet, because she'd never been tender toward him.

  "I do," he said, breaking down into long, shuddering sobs.

  "Then promise me not to work evil again. Promise me, Jamie, or we'll hang for your mischief. Me and Gran will die."

  My brother made his promise, and I held him and rubbed his uncombed hair. My heart beat away like mad, for I didn't know anymore whether I could trust him to keep his word. But when I led him inside to face Gran, he fell to his knees and swore how sorry he was.

  Jamie was right chastened to see how his misdeeds undid Gran. She seemed to age ten years before our eyes, her breath laboured, her fingers stiffening to claws. Least there was no more talk from Jamie about clay pictures after that.

  Our life at Malkin Tower went on, same as always—Mam and Jennet working at the Sellars', Jamie and I finding what work we could, and me leading Gran out to perform a blessing now and again.

  To my joy, the Holdens rented the lands near Malkin Tower once more to graze their young stock. Reminded me of the happy bygone days when my father had been Anthony Holden's cowman. Lovely, it was, to watch the heifers and bullocks growing fat and sleek on the rich May grass.

  Round about Whitsuntide, Anthony Holden called upon Gran to mend one of his heifers that had taken ill. Jennet led Gran out to the field whilst I looked on from the doorway. Gran held on to our Jennet with one hand and in the other she wielded her birchwood cane. Her limp was getting worse, her bad leg dragging behind her good one. After leading Gran to the tethered heifer, Jennet legged it home. Flew into the kitchen, my sister did, whey-faced and spooked, and helped Mam clear away the stale rushes without being asked. Anything to put Gran's cunning craft out of her mind.

  I hoed for a spell in the garden before going to fetch Gran home. Weather was capricious that day, heavy clouds sending down bursts of rain, then moving on to let the sun shine and set the wet grass a-glitter. A double rainbow arched from Pendle Hill to White Moor. All seemed right and good till I found Gran doubled over her cane as though her insides were twisted up. The heifer heaved and limped in a circle whilst Gran's tears washed her cheeks. The look she gave me was so bleak.

  "Alizon, I've fair lost my powers."

  "No, Gran." I pulled her close.

  She gripped my hand. "It's become too much for me. Time a new blesser came to take my place. You're sixteen, love. Not a child anymore."

  I shivered in the full sunlight as her cauled eyes rested on mine.

  "If I tell you the blessings, will you say them after me?" She was pleading. "Just try, our Alizon."

  So what could I do but murmur back the words she chanted? Sinking to my knees in the sodden grass, I prayed over Anthony Holden's heifer with its swollen tongue and rolling eyes. Somewhere at the back of my head was that black dog, but I shut it out, cast it away. No light shone about me. I was empty as a shattered vessel.

  When Matthew Holden rode over, he found the heifer dead and Gran weeping over its body as though it were a child that had perished on her watch. Being kind of heart, Matthew paid Gran just the same. But by and by, word travelled round that Old Demdike had failed. Folk muttered that she had grown too old and lost her touch. I wondered if it came down to her broken heart, for we, her family, had let her down. Jamie by his treachery and his ill use of the powers. Mam and I by renouncing the cunning craft. Jennet by her coldness and dearth of love. All this had ground Gran right down.

  After the Holdens' heifer died, nobody called out Gran to perform a blessing again. Her cunning craft was the only thing that had raised us up above plain poverty and begging. With her no longer working, we were nowt but poor folk with nothing to show for ourselves. As if that were not enough, Richard Baldwin's lawful daughter died round about the same time as the Holdens' heifer. Baldwin had quarrelled with us, driving us off his land and calling us whores and witches, then a year on, his Ellen lost her life.

  ***

  Round Maudlintide, I walked to the Holdens' farm in hope of a day's honest work. Much as it saddened me, I'd left Jamie behind because I knew the Holdens had no liking for him. Yet they'd always been so good to me. Striding up to their gate, I wrapped myself in the best memories I could conjure. How sheltered I'd felt in their home, how my heart used to leap when Nancy came darting out the door, overjoyed to see me. How, even in these dire days, I could count on Mistress Holden to load my trencher with good food and on Matthew to welcome me with kind words.

  When I reached the gate, I found it barred. Thinking it must be some mistake, I called out, bright and bold as I always had.

  "It's me! Alizon Device!"

  I saw no one about. Perhaps the men were off somewhere, down the other side of the shippon, out of sight and earshot. I couldn't even catch a glimpse of any of the children and it was too fine a day for them to be penned up inside. Any other morning balmy as this, Mistress Holden would have them weeding the garden and carrying out the slop buckets to the chickens and geese. I thought I might clamber over the gate and go knock on their door when I saw Mistress Holden come out. With slow, steady steps she made her way toward me, a basket in her hand.

  "Mistress Holden!" I waved happily. "Have you any spinning or carding for me?"

  My stomach tightened to see her unsmiling face.

  "We've no work for you, Alizon," she said, thrusting the basket over the gate at me. "But take this."

  Not believing what I'd just heard, I laughed and tried to grasp her hand, but she shrank away out of my reach.

  "I'm no beggar, Mistress Holden." My voice stretched thin and high. "It's honest work I'm after. I'd muck out your byre if you asked me."

  "I'm sorry, love," she said, speaking too fast for me to cut in. "I know you're a good girl and you mean no harm, but bad luck follows you and yours, and we've had enough bad luck already. If ever you have need, come to us and we'll see to it that you don't go hungry. But we've no work for you anymore."

  Turning round, she hurried back to her house, leaving me crying outside her gate, cast out and forsaken as Chattox herself.

  In truth, I couldn't say whether I was more wounded or furious. Who were the Holdens to palm me off with a basket of victuals as though I were some leper? The basket Mistress Holden had hurled at me was packed with cheese and curds, oatcake and bread, berrycake and sliced beef tongue, and yet I'd a mind to chuck it down the nearest ditch. But I could scarce let my family clem to save my own pride. Weighed down by my shame and our need, I dragged Mistress Holden's basket home.

  After the Holdens shunned me, others followed suit. Though I was healthy and young, strong and canny enough to earn my own living and do for my family besides, I was reduced to proper begging. I learned to gird myself against the rat-faced children who chanted witch and beggar whilst pelting me with stones. Fair tempted I was to run off to some distant town like Halifax or even Lancaster itself and start over again where no one knew my reputation. But if I took myself off like that, I'd leave my family in the lurch, so for their sake I stuck fast to Malkin Tower and endured the mockery and jibes.

  Those days we struggled from day to day. My long-lost uncle Kit gave us what he could, a sack of oats or some turnips when he could spare them, but he'd nine children of his own to feed. If ever we'd meat to roast in our hearth, it was on account of Jamie's poaching. I'll confess he was not above rustling the odd sheep, butchering the unfortunate beast behind Malkin Tower, then burying its bones in our garden between the rows of cabbages and onions.

  In times such as these, my family at Malkin Tower came to learn who our true friends were. The Bulcocks hated to see us so ill-done to. When I walked by Moss End Farm, Issy or her brother John came out and invited me into the kitchen where th
eir mam made much of me and gave me a trencher full of whatever she had simmering in her pot. Kate Mouldheels, now a widow, welcomed us like family and was soft as butter with our Jamie, trusting that he was a good soul no matter what folk said of him.

  Most generous of our well-wishers was Alice Nutter. Just like Mam, she was getting on in her years, her grey hair dressed high and her collars stiff with lace, but she always welcomed me to sit a spell beside her fire and even gave me some simple chore to do so I could pretend I'd earned the plate of steaming lamb pie and the mug of mulled wine she offered me. If she hadn't been hiding the priest inside her house, I think she would have even taken me on as a servant. As it was, she was already risking so much. If she'd been bold enough to hire me, she'd only draw more suspicion upon herself.

  In truth, I couldn't fault her, for she was generous as a soul could be. If a week went by without one of us calling by Roughlee Hall, our Alice Nutter would ride out to Malkin Tower, her saddle bags bursting with provisions. She took special care to bring food and drink that were easy for Gran to get down: soft wheaten bread, sweet elderflower cordial, stewed plums, and egg custard.

  So our days passed till the spring of 1612, when I turned seventeen.

  16

  OF A WEDNESDAY MORNING in March, I set out to try my luck in Trawden Forest, on the other side of Colne, in hope that some householder there might have work for me. If all else failed, I could call by Mouldheels's house on the way home and share a good natter and some pottage with her, for she was lonely and seemed to cheer right up whenever I came by.

  I cut across Slipper Hill, then skirted Colne, crossing Colne Field, still littered with droppings from the horse fair last market day. Whistling a jig, I was contented enough and up to no mischief when I saw the pedlar come plodding my way, his great pack strapped to his back. The man seemed a bit long in the tooth to be bearing such a load—he wasn't young by any stretch. Round of belly and red of face, he was, a man who loved his ale, to be sure. He looked to be heading for the Greyhound Inn.