The child whistles through her teeth and the raven caws and lands gently on her shoulder. Its black body is bigger than the girl’s head. Should it wish to peck, it could easily blind her. She reaches to a bush at her side and picks a White Baneberry and feeds it to the silent tame bird.
‘No.’ Panicked, I rush to the girl. At my approach the raven sweeps back its black wings and beats down thrashing feathers, taking to the air above us. The child’s face is moved in fear. ‘That’s poison, girl. Dangerous to living things!’ My head is so uncommonly foggy. I’m shocked at my negligence. I will never forgive myself if the raven has pecked through her skin. White Baneberry in small amounts is a sedative but can kill a child in even very tiny doses.
Then I think of Malina. The child is her charge and I have endangered her. I am filled with fear that Malina will be displeased with me, will never let me touch her again. I look to my lover but she stands composed at the margins of the garden. ‘Don’t be afraid; give me your hand.’ The child holds her hand up to my face; her skin is unbroken. I sniff her fingers and see the deadly juice is all over them. Without thinking I kiss the thick, noxious liquor from her fingers.
I stare down at the girl but she only smiles and points to the bright yellow Forsythia bush growing in the corner of the garden. She jumps up and runs to the expanse of yellow flowers and gathers several capsules before returning proudly to me. She presents me with this gift. ‘But how could you know that Forsythia is an antidote?’ I am confused but I smile back at her, touched at the kind gesture. ‘Don’t worry, child. Poisons don’t have the same effect on me that they have on other people. Come, let’s get you away from these heady shrubs.’ I return the child to Malina, who takes her hand, utterly unmoved. ‘She is no dullard indeed. She seems to know something of plant lore.’
‘She’s a fast learner. She clearly likes you, Weed. Perhaps you can show her something of your knowledge. That is, if you do not wish to send us away.’ She looks up at me and a fugue claims my senses once more.
‘I do not wish you to go. It has been long since I spoke with walking company. I should like it if you stayed here with me.’ I half-listen to myself in shock. Only yesterday I would have chased away any who came here to disturb my happy rapport with the plants. I want this woman to stay. In fact the thought of losing her distresses me in a way I can hardly believe possible. I feel as if I am drunk on that same thick beer of Fala once more. ‘Does the child have a name?’
‘Yes. She does. She’s called Ruth.’
‘Then we must find a place for her to sleep. And food. I’m afraid I don’t eat much but I can get some from Fala… if I get some money. I can sell some medicine perhaps.’
Malina smiles at me with a mouthful of bright white teeth. ‘Don’t worry so much, Weed. She can sleep in the stone house with me. As for food, we can call our prey into our hands. After that all one need do is twist a neck quickly.’ Before she finishes I am already nodding in agreement. I want to make her happy. Whatever she says I’ll agree to and we’ll stay here. Blood rushes in my ears and I barely notice that all around me the garden stays strangely quiet.
Chapter 10
There is water all around me yet I fear not to breathe. The water is warm and salty and I swim, carried in a great current. Large red seeds, the size of a man, are swept along with me. As they drift by I touch them, feeling their soft heat beneath my fingers, and then they are gone. We are travelling together on a mighty course, bound, inescapable and yet comforting. We round a sharp bend and it seems as though I am gliding through a long tunnel. I feel embraced by the current, the tunnel, and a sense of ease suffuses me.
Rocked in the steady flow I am sleepy and calm but just as I feel myself relax into a dream, the tempo changes violently. The tunnel seems to be closing in and now the current is rushing fast. The red seeds are buffeting me. I’m being sucked onwards in the hastening flood and fear grips me. I feel pulled, extruded, altered. The harsh taste of panic rises in the back of my throat with the speed and pressure, until I’m ejected into sudden quiet stillness.
Clear sunlight dapples through the water, which is sweet and cool. I’m motionlessly suspended, floating naked within it. In silence, I watch the light refract just beyond my fingers’ reach, passing from air into the sweet liquid that holds me. Behind me there is a white silky soft membrane. As I touch it I recognise the sensation of a flower petal and realise where I am. I taste the sweetness all around me and I know that I am held within a drop of nectar clinging to the side of a flower open in spring sunshine.
I raise my hands to my face and see the blue veins at my wrist. I feel my pulse and know that I swam in the hot salty blood of a living artery only to emerge in bloom. My name is Weed and I tread the line between the Green and the Red. In my life I have come to regard myself as a hybrid, a part of sap and blood mixed together but belonging to neither. Yet as I feel kind fingers stroke my face I comprehend for the first time the sensation of belonging; I have a unique place in nature, nurtured and protected by both.
I wake up to Malina’s touch on my lips. We are sleeping under the stars together, wrapped up in each other’s warmth. The child sleeps in the shelter of the chapel and we have the privacy of nature as our bed. I have never been able to share the wonders of the Green garden with another body and I am pleased. Although we do not sleep near the medicine bed: I do not wish to be disturbed by any distracting chatter. When I am with Malina I just want her. Her warmth. Her body. Her company.
Like me, she doesn’t seem to feel the cold but I cover her shape with my own anyway. Her silver hair glows in the moonlight and her eyes reflect the same brilliance. Malina looks at me deeply and smirks as if a fine thought has occurred. I watch the features of her delicate pale face as she rolls out of her white dress and sits proudly on top of me. Her figure shimmers and she throws her head up to the stars. The rise of her breasts and the arch of her back are a pale outline against the velvet black of night.
Just then she looks unreal and ghostly; only her mouth, baying silently at the moon, seems real and red. Her hair drifts over her shoulders as her eyes languidly find mine again. I smile up at her, but Malina’s face conveys no recognition of me as Weed, the man, her lover. A glint of the predator betrays her and she surprises me suddenly and passionately with her mouth and lips. Ignoring my face, she kisses and bites my neck, lost in her own desire. I’m inflamed as she finds my clavicle and hard pale shoulder. She’s rocking on me, using her teeth on the flesh of my broad chest. I move my hands to her neck as it gulps and sighs down my body but when I touch her hair she stops and looks at me, cocking her head to one side. She smiles and grabs both my hands, forcing them over my eyes and mouth before assailing me again.
Her lips seize on the ridges of my torso and she gently kisses my navel. The muscles of my belly flex uncontrollably. She renders the last of my tattered trousers into pieces of broken linen as she continues down on me.
‘Malina. What are you doing?’ My voice is hoarse. She doesn’t answer me. Soon I’m drinking down air in huge gulps, shocked and in the grip of ecstasy. ‘Be careful!’ I utter but she doesn’t hear me. In the tawny glow of the pre-dawn the grasses where we lie bloom in a unison of white flowers. When the light shadow of the dawn rounds the horizon, it makes the moon insubstantial and I roar to the heavens, long and loud, adrift in drunken delight. Afterwards Malina returns to my embrace, allowing me to put my arms around her. An efflorescence of pollen swirls over us and under the grey light of her eyes I drift away.
By the time I wake again the sun has risen high in the sky and I am alone. I look for Malina, but neither she nor the child is anywhere to be seen. In my life I have been used to being alone and so the longing I feel for her puzzles me. I speak to the growing plants around me. I ask if they know of where she went but they are distracted, silent and obtuse to my questioning. I am disquieted by both my yearning for this woman and by the dullness of the Green grasses.
I have no clothing of any use any longer
and if I have nothing better to do then I may at least remedy this. In the short remnants of my trousers I walk to the medicinal gardens and find there Poppy swaying in the breeze. Its pods are already fat in the fullness of its sweet sap. I scoop some of the overflowing white milk into my hand and bring it to my mouth. Immediately I feel a sense of calmness settle on my mind and with a clearing head I look among the garden for bushes of Hemp.
‘Hemp, do you hear me?’
‘Aye, Weed. You are here now.’
‘Clothe me. Grow matter.’
Hemp unfurls its great stalks in all directions, a plethora of stems with many pointed leaves rounding out their tips. I strip bunches of the green stalks and roll them between my fingers. They separate into strands of strong fibrous material under my touch. I knot several of the rough cords together and begin weaving them into tissue by hand. I am skilled at working with natural fibres and the filaments construct and braid themselves into place almost at the suggestion of my fingertips.
I work for an hour but as mid-morning approaches I call out to my old friends. ‘Rose, do you hear me?’
‘Yes, Weed. We all hear you. What do you want?’
‘Just to pass the time of day.’
‘Your command to Hemp was heard by all. Call on us if you want something. How can we resist after all? We are all your servants now.’
‘Hemp, like all things Green, just wishes to be used after its fashion.’
‘Don’t presume to tell us what we want or do not want.’ It is Strychnine’s cruel voice that echoes in my head. ‘Seedless fruit. Born to die.’
‘Strychnine, are you still posturing? You will tire the other plants out with your baleful threats.’
‘At least Strychnine is one of us.’ Narcissus speaks.
‘But come now. We are friends, all of us together.’ My fingers work the threads into line and I am happy with the product. I will have a shirt by the afternoon.
‘We tried to warn you as you stumbled through the night. When you were filled with rotten hop juice. We warned you not to go to her.’ The meek voice of Feverfew frets in my mind.
‘There is unnatural blood in the earth, Weed. It is tainted, charged and full of vapours. The worms have eaten spilled warm wetness. They are speaking to us now. It poisons the green honesty of our roots.’
‘Strychnine, to hear you speak of honest green roots! Have you grown fond of your bedmates?’
‘You talk foolishly like men who gulp air and fester with each breath. All the Green are one. We sup on the earth and drink from the sun and seed ourselves into the ground. We take our life from Mab’s everlasting root. Mab’s way is the law of our garden. But you have been playing in gardens beyond her boundaries. We cannot help you where you are going.’
‘And where am I going, Strychnine?’
‘With her. You look for her even now. She has cast a spell on you.’ I am in fact looking for Malina, but as I watch, I see Ruth instead. She is walking calmly towards the medicine garden. ‘Here comes her bratling. That one has secrets of her own.’
I am anxious to see Ruth but only, I realise, because she may know where my love is. As the girl advances I ask her: ‘Hello Ruth. Where is Malina?’ But of course Ruth cannot answer and just stares back at me with her wide eyes. I suppose I must look strange to her, almost naked but for a ragged tatter of shorts. I motion to the ground in front of where I work and she sits across from me. Without my asking she takes the half-made shirt from my hand and begins to weave the hemp cloth. Her fingers move even more deftly than my own and, pleased to share the labour, I begin making a pair of trousers.
With the Green things in an unsociable mood, I am glad for the company of Ruth. Another hour passes between us in peace until she looks up at me expectantly before gazing out at the garden. ‘Do you want me to tell you about the plants and herbs?’ Her look sharpens. ‘Alright, here we knit with Hemp and over there is Cannabis, related to it. Best for pain and stimulating the appetite. Poppy that grows tall will calm the body and St John’s Wort, next to Rose, will calm the mind. Beside that is Khat, which is a stimulant like Tea, Coca and Ginseng behind it. Arnica there, with the yellow petals, can heal the skin.’
The child is listening with focussed attention and I see her following my finger as I point, missing nothing. ‘Quinine will cure diseases of the blood. Feverfew, Echinacea and Balm of Gilead that grow together all in a row will halt an infection. Forsythia, White Baneberry, Asafoetida can help cure poisons working in the stomach.’ At this, Ruth ceases working on the shirt and she gestures at the White Baneberry before looking at her fingers. ‘Yes. You picked that one for the raven and I stopped you. Many of these herbs are very dangerous unless mixed in just the right proportions. Ruth, you must never eat the fruits of this garden unless I am here to show you.’
She goes back to weaving, her hands a blur of industry, but she motions to another plant, this time to Tansy. ‘Yes. Tansy is used for pregnant women to induce labour; Motherwort and Cramp Bark do the same. You see, child, all these plants in the garden, and those growing in the woods and fields abroad, contain secrets to heal and to harm. If you listen to them very closely they will speak to you and reveal their mysteries.’
A little while later and to my amazement Ruth finishes her work. She gets up from the grass, walks over to Strychnine and points at it decisively. ‘Yes, that is poisonous Strychnine; it slows the heart and is the most deadly in the garden. Next to it is Mandrake, which speeds the heart up. It is proper that they should grow together, don’t you think?’ I reach for the shirt that lies on the ground before me and try it on. It’s a fine fit and completed at an extraordinary pace. The simple pair of trousers that I have been working on since her arrival looks poor by comparison. This child is indeed interesting and bears watching closely.
After Ruth’s encounter with White Baneberry yesterday I am troubled seeing her walking among the killing poisons. I rise to lead her away from the medicine bed when I hear an anguished cry coming from the chapel. Immediately I’m terrified that it is Malina come to some kind of harm.
‘HELLO! IS ANYBODY HERE?’ My relief is overwhelming. The voice is not Malina’s. Nevertheless Ruth rushes towards it and I follow behind. At the chapel, I’m surprised to see that the women from Fala have come on foot: Hannah and Agatha are straining hard to support Polly between them. They were her cries that rang out a moment ago.
‘What’s the matter with you?’ I am hardly pleased to bear the intrusion of these folk at Soutra Aisle. Agatha and Hannah gently lay Polly on the ground. The pregnant woman clutches her belly; her eyes are rolling wildly in the back of her head.
‘It’s Pol. Something’s gone wrong. She is due to give birth and this morning her waters broke but just look at her, Weed! Can’t you see she’s in agony?’ Hannah looks desperate in the afternoon light. All of her playfulness has gone and in its stead are urgency and grief.
Agatha tries to cradle Polly’s head as it lolls to the side. ‘I’ve tried to deliver her but the bairn won’t come. Poor Polly is bleeding so much! I’ve seen this before. We can’t let her die! Polly! Polly! Keep awake, my love. We’re at Soutra Aisle! We’ve made it, girl.’ Agatha’s eyes are wide and she looks pleadingly at me. ‘Weed! Women have always come here to Soutra Aisle in desperate straits. If I can go into that garden you’ve got growing here, I’ll find some Motherwort. It could help to bring her off.’
Hannah takes my hand in her own, a look of wretchedness on her face. ‘We prayed that with you here as well, Polly might have a chance. Can you help her?’
There’s real fear in the air and my blood pumps with adrenaline. I want to help but until so recently I’d barely spoken to a woman let alone helped one through labour. ‘I’ve never delivered a baby before. I don’t know how to.’
‘I’m afraid the baby’s lost to us. It’s Polly that we need to think of now. Her husband’s in despair for her life.’ At the mention of her name, Polly stirs, and her woeful groans fill my ears.
‘Ruth, quickly, go and pick some Tansy, Cramp Bark and some Motherwort too. Hurry!’ She runs to the garden. If there’s anything I can do I resolve to try. ‘Quickly Hannah, help me stand Polly up.’ Hannah and I lift with all our strength until Polly sways woozy between us.
Agatha takes out a flask of water and tries to get her friend to drink something. ‘Whiskey would help her to relax but we didn’t bring any! Oh poor Polly, you’ll be alright if you can only push!’
‘I can’t. It hurts too much.’ Her voice is weak. Her legs show blood but there is no sign of the baby.
Quick on young legs, Ruth rushes back to us, carrying bunches of different herbs. She hands me Tansy, Cramp Bark and the Motherwort just as I had asked. In the right proportions I chew them into a paste before spitting them into my palm and feeding them to the pregnant woman. ‘These are powerful herbs and it’s a great dose. They should relax her and bring the baby. Just pray they aren’t too strong or Polly won’t survive it.’
‘We must deliver her. Only then will we see if Polly can be saved.’ Agatha kneels beneath the woman. The veins throb in Polly’s head and she screams as she pushes with all of her might. ‘The herbs are doing their work, Polly. Push! Push again!’
She strains desperately, her body spasming, and moments later the still baby falls into Agatha’s hands. It is blue and unmoving. The midwife passes the poor, tiny creature to Ruth, who lays it gently on the grass beside us. ‘Now lay Polly on the ground.’ I shout.
‘What can you do for her, good Weed?’ Begs Hannah.
‘She needs a poultice to stop the bleeding cleanly. I need more herbs: several different kinds.’ When Ruth hands me Balm of Gilead, Echinacea and Feverfew I’m amazed. If applied topically and not ingested, this is the perfect combination of herbs to bind a wound and ward off infection. What is more she has bought them in just the right quantities. I take a half measure of each and hand them to Agatha. She knows what to do and chews them into a paste before applying them.
Weed: The Poison Diaries Page 6