I smile.
“Only, you were not the child in her womb. My daughter’s child died in labour.”
My smile fades. “Pardon?”
“You call me Grandmother,” she says gently, and draws away from the cage. “I am, in many ways. I reared you as my own, I clothed and fed and bathed you. I taught you all that I know, dear Ella. But you are not of my blood and flesh. Your mother was not my daughter.”
I have sunk back to the wall where I grip the skirt of my dress so tight my knuckles whiten. “Wh—what? Whose else could I be?”
“You were born an ordinary child.”
Has she slapped me on the face? It feels so. My cheeks burn with flames beneath my skin, and the same fire courses through my veins. I am very hot. I am dizzy. The wall keeps me upright.
Is it her words worsening my health, or was it the green goop?
I am unsure, but it cannot be good, for I must frown at Grandmother just to see her properly.
“There are ways to make a witch out of an ordinary,” she tells me. “But your blood is ordinary, my dear. The magic in you was a gift from me—a mere touch of what I could spare.”
I know the magic she speaks of. It is in the book, not something I have seen, but I have heard of it from Aunt Marge, Grandmother’s sister. A witch can give a piece of her power to an ordinary. It is how we keep the witches alive when our numbers dwindle.
I know of the magic, but I never thought it could have been done to me.
“You lie.” It is all I can manage to say. “You are a liar!”
Grandmother hears not my words. She takes another step toward me, and I shrink further into the wall as though she is the beast. “Ella, I killed Silas to protect you. He knew what you were, and then he caught the smell of magic on you. It was easy enough for him to realise what I had done.”
I wipe the back of my hand over my forehead; it comes away damp. That blasted bile comes up again and burns away any words I had in me.
“You see, Silas bore a son with his wife. Not so long after you were brought to my care by the Priest.”
I snap my gaze to hers, my chest heaving as I ache for breath.
“And Silas,” she says, closing the distance between us, “knew what you were. A made witch. One that would lure in his son with the deceitful scent of magic, but a witch who can never birth a wolf. Silas sought to remove you from his son’s path. He came to this cabin to enact his treachery. And I was waiting for him.”
Through the fog that has settled in my head, I fleetingly remember the garden, the wolf, me at the window. And Grandmother, in this room. The Secret Room.
“I cornered him,” she tells me. “I killed him with a bucket of wolfsbane to protect you, my child. Whether you are a true witch or a made one, you are a child I came to love as my own over time.”
I can barely manage to speak without my breaths catching in my throat; “Why… Why are you telling me this? What…what have you done to me?”
“You were two and three bits when I gifted some of my magic to you,” she says. “Too young to remember the effects. Now, you are old enough.”
I try to focus my sight on her, but she blurs before me. I see only my lashes lowering on a cloudy haze, like the day sky outside.
“You did it…again,” I croak, slipping down the wall. “Didn’t you?”
“I did.” She is not sorry. I need not see her eyes to know that. It is in the strength of her voice and the way her blurred silhouette nears me with determination. “Fret not. Grandmother is here.”
And I slip.
I know not if I hit the floor or if Grandmother catches me.
I only know an agonising darkness.
14.
I wake to Grandmother curved over me.
Her lips are set tight and her brows hang low above her creased eyes. She doesn’t relax as I pry my own eyes open and blink up at her.
“Ella,” she says softly—as soft as she can manage with her voice as rough as rocks. She touches her hand to my cheek a moment, then withdraws. “How do you feel?”
I swallow back a dryness in my throat and fix her with my hooded gaze. It’s an easy answer. “Betrayed.”
Grandmother relaxes and rises from the edge of the couch. With a haughty hum, she turns her back on me to the now-empty soup pot.
“Betrayed,” she mutters, though I hear her just fine. She turns and points a wooden stirring spoon at me. “It would have been betrayal to leave you weak against a beast that lurks near your home. It would have been betrayal to let Silas tear you apart when you were but a child. Betrayal,” she says evenly, “is what the vulnerable feel when those around them do not coddle them. You have not been betrayed, Ella. You have been gifted.”
Weight on the heels of my palms, I try to shift myself back in the couch to lean against the sturdy arm. After many grunts and muttered curses, I recline against a fluffed cushion and eye the back of Grandmother.
“Does it hurt?” I ask. “To give me pieces of your power?”
Her answer follows a pause of thought. “No. It hurts to receive it, which is why I slipped valerian in the concoction, too.”
I nod. Understanding is quick to blossom in me. Really, I should have known. Almost every day, I work with the potent plant, and I am so familiar with its effects that I can recite them at any moment.
Still, the drowsiness was second to the truths Grandmother told me. I had no focus to spare the valerian, I only had focus for what she told me.
I let my eyelids droop. “Why do it again?”
Grandmother moves to the portrait where she retrieves the book. “My magic is dwindling,” she tells me. “A sign of poor health in a witch.”
“A real or a made one?”
Her eyes snap to mine and she whips the book open. “All the power within any witch will fight off sickness and old age for as long as it can. Then comes the day there is no more magic left to use, and only sickness to fill the body.”
“That’s happening to you?” I stir and turn on my side to face her. “Grandmother, are you unwell?”
“Of course I am unwell,” she says with a cackle. “You truly are a silly girl, Ella. The first gift from me to you was to protect you, to offer you a sense of belonging in the world. And now, I give what I can afford. It isn’t much, but you will now have the power of a true witch…on the weaker of sides.”
So, I will be stronger. Still not strong enough to be a true witch, never as strong as Grandmother, but stronger.
“What is your sickness?”
“Oh, I could list for days.” Grandmother waves her hand dismissively. Then her hand comes down on a page and she runs her finger over words I cannot see. “Ah, there.”
Grandmother uses an ink-dipped quill to scratch something onto the page, then sets the quill aside.
“There. Now your name is in the book alongside my own.”
“Did you annotate it?” I sneer, or at least try to, but my muscles are weak. “Made witch, adopted ordinary?”
Grandmother rolls her eyes, but not the same way I do. They lift for a mere second. The gesture passes with a weary sigh.
“The book is yours when I take my last breath.” She places it beside the inkpot on the table. “Not a moment sooner.”
The corners of my lips tuck into my cheeks and I give her a stiff nod. She warns me, here. The hex she has on the book will only fade when her life does. Until then, I cannot touch it without blisters erupting all over my body. Eventually, they should fade, but the pockmarks would forever scar my flesh.
I lean forward and draw a blanket over my legs. As I glance at the curtained window, I see that it is fresh morn outside. My fainting spell must have lasted all day yesterday and through the night. It is Saturday, and tomorrow comes the full moon. I am now left with one day and night to make what the village needs.
“Grandmother,” I say. “If Priest Peter doesn’t think me a witch, why has he ordered me to procure wolfsbane for all the villagers?”
Her
lips twitch into a ghost of a smile. “Did he,” she says, though it is not a question. “Peter has always been one for the theatrics. Oh, when he brought you to me…All that flapping of the robe, the shaking of his precious book.” She rises from the chair and starts to make hot lemon water. “You were inches from death, yet he cared most of how fraught he appeared.”
“Who was my mother?”
The question spilled from my lips so fast I could not stop it.
It takes us both by surprise. Grandmother stilled a mere moment before she set the black kettle on the fire-grill. “Your mother was a prostitute. As my own daughter passed, your mother followed days later.”
“In birth,” I say, my eyes downcast.
“There was no one to look after you. Priest Peter once came to me for a sickness in his leg. The village physician’s treatments were temporary. He put leeches on the wound, the swelling would fade a while, then the sickness would return.”
“Infection.” I pick at a loose thread in the blanket. “Priest Peter had an infection in his leg, didn’t he?”
“Indeed. And physicians … Well, we both know how silly they are.”
“Everyone is silly to you.”
“No, dear. Only the silly are silly to me.”
In answer, I hum and push my finger through a hole in the blanket.
“Back to my tale,” she snips. “The priest came to me when he realised that the physician was failing him. Three visits to my cabin and he never needed to come again. So when you were near strangled by a cord from your mother’s womb and so close to death, Peter brought you to me. He begged that I care for you. It took months before your strength was suitable and by then…”
“You had come to love me,” I say, a touch of hope to my voice.
“Yes.”
A smile twists my lips.
“I love you too, Grandmother.”
Silence slips between us—the kettle’s whistle shatters it.
Grandmother clears her throat and—with her back to me—pours us some hot lemon drinks. It isn’t until I have had a third that my muscles feel strong again and the drowsiness lifts from me.
When I am poorly or unwell, Grandmother insists I do not go wandering through the woods. Our confessions today—of familial love—have hardened her. After she collected the last of the wolfsbane for me, she fills my basket with it and sends me on my way.
Before I leave, I ask her again why Priest Peter relies on me for witchcraft.
Grandmother tells me that he does not. He relies on his own judgement to bring hope to the villagers, for hope is the only emotion that can conquer fear.
15.
The church bell rings four times barely a minute after I unpack the wolfsbane on my worktop.
Never before have I catered to the whole village. The weight of it slumps my shoulders and brews a sweat above my brow. I have lost too much time.
Years of practice speed up the process. That, and I wish to distract myself from the truths Grandmother told me today. Brewing wolfsbane paste demands patience and concentration, and I am all too willing to offer both.
The cauldron hisses in the fireplace, where it boils a fresh batch. At the workbench, I grind wolfsbane stems and petals into a pulp. Then, I switch tasks to spooning the cloudy-pink paste into small phials.
Will Priest Peter reimburse me for these phials? They don’t come free.
The cauldron’s hiss loudens to a rattle. I hurry over and take the cauldron off the grate to let it sit. Before I have my bandage-wraps off, there is a knock at the door.
Visiting hours have begun; I suddenly realise how tired I am.
Wiping my gloved hands on my apron, I approach the door and glance at the window. Through the gap in the shades I see a glimmer of light. Whoever is out there has a lantern, so should be able to read the ‘CLOSED’ sign I have hung out just fine.
“The wolfsbane will be ready tomorrow,” I call to the knocker. “The Priest will have the supply midday!!”
Some phials are ready to be taken now, but I should like to have enough to distribute at once, and I am busy enough tonight without a constant parade of knockers at my door.
I am just about to turn my back on the door when he answers, “It’s Colton. I have your owed trade.”
I unbolt the door and usher him inside.
Colton surprises me. Two hares and a rabbit dangle from the rope in his hand.
He traces my gaze to the prizes he has with him. “I won’t be hunting tomorrow,” he tells me. “And you were not home last night to deliver the trade to.”
“Oh.” I nod numbly, disappointment drifting over me. For a moment, I had thought he meant the other trade. The one that should help me begin the most complex of witchcraft I have ever dabbled in.
I take the rope and lead him to the workbench.
His mud-brown eyes wander the shelves, and I suspect he might be impressed, or at least curious. There is not a mason jar or phial that his gaze doesn’t rest on for a beat.
“Why the third?” I heave the kills onto a small table in the corner, then face him with the workbench between us. “The third catch,” I say. “You owe me for last night and tonight.”
“Tomorrow is a full moon.” His eyes still wander, only now they graze the wolfsbane stems laid out on the workbench and the ground powder that has yet to be brewed. “Even in the hours of sunlight, I shouldn’t think it wise to risk a hunt in the woods.”
“You surprise me.” Hands still gloved, I spoon a lump of powder into a wooden mixing bowl. “You hardly look as wise as you seem.”
He doesn’t react. No sneer, no insults. He just watches me prepare the next batch of wolfsbane for a quiet moment. I almost think he is enchanted, though the thought is sillier than Grandmother would tolerate of me.
From beneath my lashes, I study him. Each flicker of his lanternlight over his shadowed face, the gleam of his rich eyes, the way his pink lips pinch as if to lock away secrets.
“You want wolfsbane, I want a fresh trade,” I say.
Surprise raises his brows as he looks at me. He thinks I have read his mind, but I merely read his face. Colton rests his lantern on the workbench, then unties a leather pouch from his belt.
He hands it to me. “Does this suffice?”
I peel open the pouch, large enough to stuff a small rabbit into. My bunched lips stay at the side of my face as I sift through the contents.
One newt. A shrew, though smaller than I had hoped. Part of a hedgehog (I imagine an animal got to it before Colton did).
I release the pouch and look at him. “And the new-born rabbit?”
“Of that, I had little luck,” he tells me, fingering the edge of his lantern. “I looked, and the closest I found to a new-born rabbit is that.”
He points to the adder in the jar behind me—the pregnant adder he traded some days ago. It isn’t enough. I need a new-born. Not to kill, but to extract blood from. I care not if the new-born hops off with its mother after.
“Is there not another way to get one?” I ask, my voice a huff. “Truly, all I need from it is a phial of blood.”
Colton drums his leather-wrapped fingers on the bench. “The butcher might be in possession of one. We have an understanding.”
“Excellent.” A smile lifts my lips and I hand him a crystal phial no longer than my pinkie. “Fill it two thirds of the way.”
Colton’s blank expression remains as he tucks it into his pocket. Then his eyes meet mine—he holds my stare. I read him easily.
“Fine,” I relent. “Have your wolfsbane now.”
Colton swipes a full phial from the bench.
“Be careful not to touch it,” I tell him. “If a drop of that makes contact with even the hairs on your body, you could very well die. Wolfsbane is most lethal, even from mere contact with the skin.” I raise my brows to emphasise how important this is. He nods once, a brisk tip of the head. “To use it best,” I add, “you shall want to coat a brush with some drops, then paint it around
the entrance to your home. A doorway to most, but you…”
I hesitate and think of the wide gate. Then I hand him a second phial.
“You shall need two. Ensure that every bit of that gate is covered in this. And even after it dries, do not touch it without gloves.”
“What is to stop a patron from touching the gate?”
“The villagers will all know by tomorrow midday. Though, some are blatant imbeciles, so might I suggest a sign to remind them?”
“Like the one on your door?” He jerks his head over his shoulder. “Closed—do not knock or touch.”
“Precisely.” I smile a tight gesture, but it doesn’t reach my eyes. There is no wolfsbane on either of my doors yet. I have been too busy trying to catch up with the demand that I forgot my own need for it.
Colton lingers a moment, and I am taken back to the first night he came to my home. There was a question in his eyes then, and it has returned now, drifting behind the veil.
I arch my brow and study him. Finally, I ask, “What was it you wanted from me the first night you came?”
The veil darkens. “I wanted nothing from you. My intent was to ask a question.”
“Is there a difference between wanting a remedy and wanting an answer to a question?” I lean over the edge of the bench and tuck my arms together. “Not much of a difference that I can see, for sometimes answers are just as medicinal as remedies.”
Perhaps I speak a piece of my own thoughts, of Grandmother’s confessions.
Colton folds his arms over his chest and studies me back. His gaze drops a little, to my bosom, but he’s up and staring at me again with a second.
“You’re a witch,” he tells me.
“Am I?”
Colton rolls his jaw, churning through the wave of thoughts that shimmer behind the darkness of his chestnut eyes. Then, he puts his hands on the bench and leans closer to me. “You are a witch,” he echoes. “An impressive one, to some. Are…are there limits to the medicines you can make?”
I snort, a most unladylike sound. But I am no lady and have never pretended to be. “Of course. Limits apply to all medicines that anyone tries their hand at. There is no cure for most diseases, and there is always the inevitable fate of our deaths. I try to make the journey to death a bit more comfortable, is all.”
Feared Fables Box Set: Dark and Twisted Fairy Tale Retellings, (Feared Fables Box Sets Book 1) Page 7