Dark Hallows II: Tales from the Witching Hour

by Mark Parker

  She shrieked, gasping, but choked.

  Tears streaming from her eyes, she looked back at her mother. Marjorie’s hair was on fire, the skin on her face pitting like spoiled cheese, but still her eyes remained, watching motionlessly from inside the blaze, appraising her daughter as the flames ate her alive.

  The smoke crawled down Hellen’s throat, rushed into her lungs and sank there. Heavy, thick, warm. So warm. Smothering.

  She woke up.

  Two otherworldly green eyes stared into hers from inches away, piercing her soul. They floated in the blackness of her room, and Hellen was still burning, still choking, but she couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe for the terror those eyes filled her with.

  “Mother?” she coughed out, and before the word was finished she hated herself for saying it, for thinking it, for attaching it to the fear.

  The eyes blinked over vertically slit pupils. The cat.

  The eyes stared. The fear lingered.

  Hellen sucked in a deep breath—possible. Harder with Mery’s warm weight on her, but possible. Not the deadly suffocation of smoke.

  “Mery-bell,” Hellen whispered, swallowing another cough. “You frightened me.”

  Hellen’s hand trembled as she worked it from beneath the cover to stroke Mery’s silken fur. The green eyes closed in bliss, a deep purr emanating from her small body. The delicate chin rested beneath her own, balanced on her neck so the rhythmic breath coated her flesh.

  Did Mery sense something was wrong? Did she know Hellen needed comfort? Or did she simply seek the warmth the nightmare brought?

  Closing her eyes, Hellen floated down through the darkness back into sleep, hoping the memory was done for the night. She sought comfort in the cat’s warmth. The last thing she felt was the concentrated lick of Mery’s rough tongue on the soft, sensitive skin of her throat.

  ***

  Hellen woke to the vague sensation of dreams fleeing, feeling a heavy weight on her chest, but when she opened her eyes, Mery was no longer on her. Nothing was on her but the cover.

  The morning was cold. Mery had left her sometime during the night and her father and brothers had never started the fires before leaving for the field. As the woman of the house now, Hellen would be expected to rise the earliest and ready breakfast, but so far her father had said nothing. The men hadn’t touched the cold bread sitting on the table, growing hard with blue-and-green spots. Had her father not lit the fires because he, too, could think only of the flames? Did he dream? Did it still seem better her than him?

  Hellen stared at the leaking thatched roof. Her limbs felt heavy as the cauldron they boiled water in, heavier than the stones that made the walls of this low, squat house, heavy like the weight of her future holding her down.

  She lifted herself wordlessly beneath the covers, sliding her bare feet onto the cool, packed dirt floor, and shuffled toward the dead coals, debating whether the warmth was worth the pain. Her foot landed on something soft and round, pressing into her arch.

  Hellen cringed, closing her eyes and lifting her foot away. Mery often left her hunted treats, anything from mice to birds and once even a hare, some still struggling. At least this felt dead. Bracing herself, Hellen glanced to see what she’d stepped on.

  It was small, pale gray, and doughy, slightly curved. She looked away with revulsion. A slow-worm tail. Mery often caught those snake-like, legless lizards, and they were notorious for dropping their tails as a diversion. She shuddered, hoping the rest of the creature wasn’t sliming around somewhere she might step on it, too.

  Why did Mery bring her such things? Was it an offering? A game, warning, or threat? An attempt at mothering? The disconnect between people and cats had always struck her when she looked into Mery’s nearly featureless black face. Even her whiskers and nose were black. The only color besides her green eyes came when she yawned or hissed and Hellen caught a glimpse of her bright white teeth or long pink tongue. They bonded, aye, but they did not speak the same language. Any communication was subject to misinterpretation.

  Whatever the reason, she couldn’t bear to touch the tail. After slipping on her shoes, Hellen took the broom from its hook and swept the grotesque wee thing toward the open doorway at the front of the dwelling. She shoved it with the stiff bristles, trying to send it far with each swipe but not squish it. Glancing only from the corner of her eye, she got it to the threshold, but it caught on the straw layered there to stiffen the slick mud outside. The smell of the outdoor fire wafted to her, low and smoky beside the midden.

  Hellen swept at the stuck appendage furiously, trying to thrust it up and over the edges of the straw, but it wedged in.

  Feeling eyes on her, she looked up.

  Across the street their neighbor, Euphemia Prat, who her mother had called Old Effy, watched her with a sneer, her pock-ridden nose curled in disdain.

  Confused, Hellen looked down, wondering if her skirt was up, then realized she held her mother’s broom. The very broom Euphemia, Jonet, and the others had claimed her mother rode to the revels. Her cheeks burned. Such lies.

  Hellen lifted her chin. She would not be shamed. “Good morning, Euphemia.”

  “’Tis a good morning, with the village free of evil once again.”

  Hellen held herself still, but her body trembled with rage. “I do not believe sending an innocent woman to burn is a good deed. I should beg the Lord for forgiveness had I been involved in such happenings.”

  Euphemia smiled. She had three teeth left. “Marjorie Urquhart confessed. Only the guilty confess.”

  The heat in Hellen’s cheeks melted down her neck, spreading wide across her chest. “Anyone would confess when put to the rack long enough.”

  “Aye, but she confessed to more than was asked of her, didn’t she? She admitted to seeing the Devil himself traipsing through the woods.”

  Hellen nearly burst forth a reply, but bit her tongue. Finally, she said, “She said she saw him leading others. I should hope none of it was true, for if so our village isn’t free of evil yet.” She hoped Euphemia thought about that. She’d been close with her mother. Marjorie had refused to list names, but should any others be accused, surely Euphemia would be amongst them.

  “Is it not? The mothers and fathers of Fyvie have slept soundly since Marjorie was taken in, knowing their babes are safe. And who can see the Devil?” Euphemia asked, jaw wagging. “Who can see Old Scratch save for witches, eh? I never seen him. I never walked with him. ‘Twas your mother who admitted to what she was by claiming to see others follow.”

  “My mother was a good woman.”

  Euphemia sent a pointed glance to the broom Hellen now grasped like a bludgeon. “If you like. And did you ever see him, Hellen Guthrie? Did your mother introduce you to his pact?”

  It was a threat, as surely as Hellen’s, but far more likely. The village was already suspicious of her, wondering how much mother passed to daughter. She couldn’t afford to play these games. “Of course not,” she demurred, ducking her head. “I have never seen him.” But neither did my mother.

  She leaned the broom against the wall, knelt, and grasped the dead thing between her thumb and forefinger, letting emotion override revulsion. She carried it toward the midden, the dunghill where they piled their refuse.

  Euphemia gave a delighted scoff before retreating into her dwelling. Hellen turned her back, staring at the rotting waste, panting, trying to calm herself. Finally, she raised her hand to toss the thing.

  She paused, drawing it closer to her face instead. She eyed it, freshly calm in her curiosity. It wasn’t smooth enough to be a slow-worm tail as she’d thought. It had two puffy creases in it.

  Hellen cocked her head. There were no scales either. It was smooth gray. Not a lizard part.

  She set it on the flat of her other hand, turning it with a finger. At one end, tiny and delicate and shockingly familiar, she recognized it: a nail. A fingernail.

  It was a finger. Small.

  A baby’s.

&nb
sp; Swallowing a gasp, Hellen studied the opposite end, where it had been detached. Indeed, there was a bone in the center. Her stomach heaved a great lurch. It was an infant’s finger, drained entirely of blood and going gray.

  She hurled it into the fire beside the midden. The flames continued on unhurried, growing slightly at the new tinder. With a glance to be sure Euphemia hadn’t seen, Hellen darted back inside.

  ***

  Over and over she punched the dough’s firm, tacky mass into the use-smoothed wood of the family table, folding it onto itself. Her mind turned endless revolutions with the kneading.

  A baby’s finger. From whence had it come? If anyone but her should have seen it, they’d have thought it damning evidence. But it hadn’t been in their house. Mery had brought it from elsewhere.

  Hellen had no doubt there were those who practiced witchcraft, but not in Fyvie. Theirs was a small village of good people. Maybe in Aberdeen where the market was large and the officials corrupt, but not here. Not her mother.

  Her mother. Those burned at the stake never received proper death rites. Where did her mother’s soul go then?

  “’Twas only because they were babies,” Hellen whispered. As soon as the words left her she felt spied upon. She looked up, searching the dimness. A twitching motion caught her eye. Mery perched in an open window, sitting on the wall. Her tail swayed back and forth, brushing against the stone. With her dark fur and the gray of the day outside only slightly brighter than the gray inside, she was but a silhouette.

  “Oh, Mery-bell,” Hellen sighed, kneading in a gentler rhythm. “I thought someone was here.”

  The cat stayed motionless but for her tail, and though Hellen couldn’t see them, she felt those green eyes on her.

  “You brought the… thing to me.” Hellen always spoke to the cat when she was alone. She had since she was a lass; it eased her loneliness. “You left it for me where you always leave your treats. Where did you find it?”

  Mery turned her head, showing Hellen her delicate feline profile.

  Hellen shifted the dough to spread more flour beneath it. “You ken that’s why they burned her? They accused her of using them in her flying ointment. The midwife is simply the easiest to blame when babies go missing.”

  Mery jumped from the sill in a graceful fall, onyx fur gleaming as she prowled past Hellen’s feet to sprawl between the table and the ashes of the cooking fire. It was unheard of for the Guthrie family to let it go out, but Hellen thought it right. Something should change. It wasn’t right for life to go on as usual, and the quiet coldness of the house seemed better suited than any other change.

  “And those babies didn’t go missing.” Hellen continued, keeping her voice low. “They died. Their parents killed them through neglect or meagerness or bad luck and they felt guilty, grew feart, and they hid them. Buried the bodies so no one would—”

  Hellen stopped, fingers sunk into the dough. That was it! Mery had dug up one of the bodies that could prove her mother’s innocence. If the child were buried in the dirt, it couldn’t have been used in an evil concoction. Hellen turned to the cat. Mery was sitting up, her tail wrapped neatly around her two front paws, and staring at her with those wide green eyes, her head cocked ever so slightly to the side, as if listening. The look on her pointed, alien face was so alert, so alive, so seemingly intelligent, that Hellen froze.

  Mery dipped her head and began cleaning the fur on her chest with great, limber licks of her tongue. Hellen let out a breathless chuckle. She placed the dough in the pan, covering it with a cloth and setting it to rise.

  “That is it, though,” she said. Mery continued her bath. “Maybe I can gain my mother’s death rites and set her soul to rest. Will you lead me to the bodies?”

  Mery’s ear twitched to the side. Goose bumps rose on Hellen’s arms.

  “Tonight when you go out to find your dinner, I will follow you,” Hellen whispered, bending to scratch Mery between her velvety ears. “And see if we can prove them wrong.” A gentle purr rose in the air.

  Hellen leaned over the cat to gather fresh peat blocks to set in the ashes.

  Mery let forth a vicious hiss.

  Hellen jerked back, shocked. “Mery-bell,” she exclaimed. “I didn’t mean to startle you. I just need to start the fire.”

  Mery stood, arching her back, and hissed again, flashing fangs.

  Hellen was so surprised that her feelings were hurt. “What’s gotten into you, lass?”

  When she stepped forward again, Mery swatted at her ankle. This time Hellen brushed past her, letting her skirts force the cat out of the way. Mery meowed, fluffed her fur, and ran out the door, tail standing.

  Hellen piled the peat blocks with a deep sigh. There went her company for the rest of the day. She grabbed the molded bread off the table and tossed it to the far edge of the midden where the goats could pick it off. ‘Twas every man, woman, child, and beast for himself in this world. Hellen was learning that faster than any, but even goats had to eat.

  ***

  Hellen sat at the table with her father and two brothers. She had made a large batch of stew with boiling fowl, leeks, rice, and prunes, seasoned with sugar, pepper, bay leaf, and thyme. The remains still steamed in the bronze cauldron, but the portions in their wooden bowls had already begun to cool. The men dipped bread into the stew and slurped. Behind them, the cooking fire smoldered, the smoke rising in a ghostly column to drift out the hole in the ceiling.

  Her father drank the bottom of his stew and leaned back, the old wooden bench creaking with his shifted weight. “The Meldrum lad has called off the betrothal,” Giles said.

  Hellen dropped her bread into her bowl, pulse quickening. “Richard? Why?” She needed the engagement. She was twenty-five, of the age to marry, and it was the only way she could leave her father’s house.

  Stew glistened on her father’s reddish beard. He sighed. “He’s changed his mind.”

  “You can hardly blame him,” Norman muttered.

  Hellen looked at the elder of her two younger brothers sharply. The beard he’d been trying to grow was patchy and thin. “What does that mean?”

  “It means,” Norman dragged out, “that now the lads are feart you’ll do to them what Mother did to Da.” Giles had testified that his wife had cast a cantrip to render him impotent.

  Her father sighed. “Norman, stay out of this. Hellen, the villagers are nervous. Give them time. I’m sure Richard will come around.”

  But Richard wouldn’t come around. He’d only set to marry her because she was pretty and apprenticed to make money as a midwife. There was no love there. What would she do now? Hellen pushed her bowl away and Norman slid it toward himself, sopping up the remains.

  “Father,” she said, already regretting what the anger would make her say, “Did you ever consider it was your age that stole your manhood, rather than my mother?”

  Giles’s face went from weary to grim. “Watch your tongue, lass. I ken my own wife.”

  Norman chimed in, “The Guthrie men have never faced that struggle. We are a virile line. Only witchcraft could weave such a curse.”

  “Yeah,” Duncan added. “We are a virile line.”

  “Duncan,” Hellen snapped. “You aren’t even old enough to ken what that means.”

  “Mother was a witch,” he hissed. She drew back, struck. His big brown eyes gleamed as he added, “And you might be a witch too!”

  Giles stood, putting a hand on his youngest son’s shoulder. “Now lads, don’t say such things in anger. Hellen is a good lass, a righteous lass, and you mustn’t throw such words about. Especially not now, when the villagers are hot. Do you understand me?”

  Duncan lowered his head. “Aye, Da.”

  Norman echoed, “Aye, Da,” but he smirked.

  “I’m sorry, Father,” Hellen said, standing to clear the table. “In my grief I’ve let my tongue run away with me. Forgive me.”

  “Of course, lassie. ‘Tis a hard time for us all, but it is well th
at the Meldrum lad has broken the betrothal. With your mother gone, we will need you more than ever, here, to tend the home.”

  ***

  Hellen stayed awake after her brothers and father had gone to bed, slowly adding peat blocks to the fire as she waited for Mery to return. She was drowsing with her head on the table when she heard a soft shift. The cat sat in the window, tail swishing. She stood, stretching, and circled herself on the sill, turning as if to lead Hellen away.

  “Finally,” Hellen whispered. She stood and pulled on her cloak, moving toward the door.

  “Hellen,” came a deep voice.

  She whirled, swallowing a gasp. Her father stood in the shadows.

  “What are you doing awake? I thought I heard your mother sneaking late-night bread as she used to.”

  The casualness with which he spoke of the memory pierced Hellen, and she could not breathe, much less answer.

  Then Giles took in her cloak and shoes and stepped closer. “Why are you dressed to go out? Where are you going at this hour?”

  “I… needed some fresh air. I felt stifled. I was going to walk for a bit in the cool.”

  “Tonight? Are you mad?”

  She shook her head, unable to gather what he meant.

  “Have you lost track of the days? The beginning of Allhallowtide is nearly upon us. The morn marks Hallowmass Eve.”

  She’d forgotten. She hadn’t been out of the house in days, hadn’t seen any of the villagers’ traditional preparations. Aye, it was the thirtieth of October tonight. But Mery…

  She looked for the cat, but she was nowhere to be seen.

  “You cannot wander about, Hellen,” he said, taking her by the arm and leading her toward her bed. “If anyone should see you, at a time like this…”

  He didn’t have to finish. All Hallows’ was the time of witches, when they ventured out to dance with the Devil, and it was true she couldn’t risk being seen out, not now.

  “Aye, of course, Father.”

  “Good lass. Get some sleep now,” he said, pulling back her covers for her as if she were a small child.

  She wanted to find where Mery had dug up that thing—see what it might mean for mother, for herself—but now her father would be too watchful, and besides, he was right. It was good of him to look after her.