Daughters of the Witching Hill Page 12

  "Taken a spill, have you, sir?" I hid my smile. So Tibb had sorted this for me and I'd not have to reach for the clay. "Anything broken? Now, a snapped tailbone is a painful thing. Takes a long time mending, that does. If you don't mind my saying, sir, it's not very canny to ride a green stallion you can scarce master."

  My sides ached from the struggle not to laugh as I reached out my arm, making a great show of offering to help him to his feet, but the lad slapped my hand away.

  "Keep your paws off me, old bitch. If I see that dog of yours again, I'll take my musket to it." Nowt injured but his sullen pride.

  "Dog, sir?" Eyes innocent, I looked round. "There's no dog about. You'd best rest a spell and wait for your head to clear."

  Red-faced and swearing, he made to stand up, only to slip in the mud and fall back upon his bum.

  "Good day to you, sir." Singing loud enough to drown out his curses, I carried on my way. For a sixty-three-year-old woman, I could move right fast and soon left him behind.

  A while later I came to a gap in the fence with the top board hanging loose. Looking into the field, I saw the stallion with his nose down in the long grass, munching away and fair content to be shot of his rider. Bending down, I found the stirrup and stirrup leather the horse had succeeded in scraping off his saddle before leaping through the broken fence. Clever beast. I flung the stirrup over the hedge and out of sight, then scurried off, cackling like a mad thing. Not such a bad morning after all.

  When I reached Anne's cottage, it looked abandoned, its door and shutters closed, as though Robert had been true to his threat and banished my friends from their home. I tried the door handle only to find it barred from the inside.

  "Our Anne!" I called through a chink in the wood. "It's me."

  Her eye appeared in a crack, then the door opened. She drew me inside before barring it again.

  In the weak light trickling through the holes in the thatch, Annie Redfearn was sat spinning her landlord's wool with a drop spindle. She hardly lifted her head when I came in. Betty was hunched over her mending, her needle dipping in and out of the mud-coloured stuff. So it had come to this—three grown women hiding behind closed shutters and a bolted door, working in near darkness on a fine spring morning, hiding themselves from the world in case young Robert happened by.

  "Our Annie," I said, "I've brought salve for you."

  The young woman murmured her thanks but her smile was more like a grimace. She flinched beneath my touch as I rubbed the ointment into her tender skin.

  "I'll help you, so I swear," I told Annie, "by any means I can."

  Her mother came to me from behind, wrapping her arms round my waist.

  "I knew you wouldn't let us down!" Anne cried.

  "Hush!" young Annie said in a harsh whisper, shocking us with her temper. "My Tom pried those nails loose from Assheton's fence posts so he could make that door bolt, but fat good it will do with the racket you two are making. Anybody could hear you a mile off."

  Before her mother or I could say another word, a furious barking outside the door made my nape go cold as clay.

  Anne peeked through the chink, then leaned her full weight against the door as if to block it forevermore. "It's him."

  Silent but swift, young Annie seized a knife with a long, glinting blade. Betty grabbed an iron fire poker. Putting my eye to a crack in the door, I watched the mud-spattered boy stalk toward the cottage. Being thrown from his horse hadn't made him give over, not in the least. Angry, he looked, and itching to make Annie pay. Soon enough his fists battered the door. From far away, I heard a howling dog.

  "Open up!" young Robert yelled. "I know you're in there."

  My friend gripped the bolt and held fast.

  "The lot of you are nothing but beggars and squatters," the boy taunted. "Don't pay a penny's worth of rent. And you, Betty Whittle, are a thief! I'll turn the lot of you out."

  He beat against the door till the purloined nails holding the bolt in place began to give. But before he could force his way into the cottage, I shoved Anne aside, lifted the bolt, and yanked the door open so suddenly that the young man tumbled into me.

  "Our Robert, we meet again. Was falling off your horse not humiliation enough?"

  "It's you," he said, although he didn't seem to know me from a dead fly. He lifted his arm to wrest me out of his way, but I, quicker and stronger than any old woman has any right to be, jumped on both his feet, forcing him backward.

  "If I were you, young master, I'd watch my step. Leave these folk in peace, never to trouble them again, or you'll rue it."

  He laughed and made to push me aside, but I blocked his path, stepping close enough to breathe into his nostrils. "Now, now, my boy, don't make me go whistle for my dog."

  Soon as I spoke, the brown dog appeared, taking his place beside me. The beast growled low, the fur on his scruff raised, his haunches tensed to spring for the boy's throat at my command. First time I ever saw a man's face go green with fear.

  Still the whelp had to make a show of his might. He craned his neck to see past me and shouted at Annie. "You can't hide from me. One day this land will be mine, and I'll tear down this cursed cottage."

  My fists took hold of young Robert's jerkin. "This land will never come to you," I sang out, a cold river streaming through me.

  The far-seeing held me in its grip, and I knew that I spoke the truth. So bold was I then that I turned my backside to the brat and farted.

  "Nothing like pea pottage for getting rid of bad wind," I said, winking at Anne.

  A snarl ripped the silence that followed. I heard teeth tearing cloth, heard the young man yelp in his terror, the dog bark and snap, heard the lad scrambling away. When I finally turned round again, all I saw of young Robert was his filthy arse as he scuttled off home, the dog furious at his heels.

  My Anne embraced me. "Thank you, thank you, till the end of my days. If only I could protect her the way you did."

  "It's all right," I told her. "It's all over now."

  "All over till he returns, twice as vexed as before, with you not here," young Annie said. None of her fear or pain had lessened. "Mother Demdike, I beg you, how did you do that? How did you call that dog from out of nowhere? You don't even keep a dog."

  Sheepish, I turned to Anne. "Will you let me speak to your girl in private?"

  I touched her shoulder, and then my old friend pressed my hand and nodded. Her daughter followed me out the door. Nervous, Annie was, looking round to make sure young Robert wasn't lurking about. I led her to the beck behind the cottage, its banks red with clay.

  "What I'm about to tell you is secret," I said. "And forbidden. If you care for your mam and your sister, you'll conceal it even from them, for this kind of knowledge can get a woman hanged. Do you understand my meaning, our Annie?"

  "I can keep a secret if I must."

  Hunkering right down, I scooped up a handful of clay and placed the stuff in her palm. Right maffled was the look she gave me.

  "Some women in your place, if they were troubled by one such as Robert Assheton and they'd no other way to help themselves, would resort to desperate means." Here I stopped to draw breath. "Annie, that's clay in your hand. If you'd a mind to, you might model it in the shape of him that torments you, as close a likeness as you can manage. Then you might have a mind to stick a thorn in the clay where his private parts would be, to stay him and bind him. Or you might crumble a bit of his legs to lame him; or his backside to give him an awful case of piles; or his eyes, to dim his sight; or his head to befuddle his thoughts. A truly wicked sort might stick the clay doll in the fire and let him roast like the souls in hell. Of course, such things are sinful and no God-fearing Christian would ever consider doing them."

  Annie blinked at me. "Are you saying that anyone who moulds clay might work witchcraft, Mother Demdike? Then there'd hardly be a landlord left alive."

  Bright girl was Annie. There was no talking down to her, no hiding the facts.

  "No, Annie.
The spirits ... or a spirit must be there for the spell to work."

  "How am I to get one?" she asked, her face white as birch bark.

  "Peace. I'll lend you my Tibb. He'll see to it that it works."

  I kept my eyes upon Annie whilst she gazed steadfast at the clay in her hand.

  As I cut across a field on my way homeward, Tibb appeared at my side.

  "Have I done wrong?" I asked him. After telling Annie of the clay, I was beginning to have second thoughts. A bundle of rattling bones, I was, half-fearing the hounds of hell would chase me down and tear me to pieces for my wicked deed, passing on such unholy knowledge to one as innocent as Annie. But I found no reproach in Tibb's eyes.

  "You've kept your word," he said. "You're true to your loved ones."

  Yet I quaked to think of Annie stabbing the clay picture with thorns, then crumbling it, bit by bit, as it pleased her. Grim stuff, this was. But Robert had left her little enough choice.

  "Tibb, what have I unleashed?"

  "Rough justice."

  Next Sunday in church, Annie Redfearn seemed a new woman. The marks on her face had faded some, and she held up her head instead of shrinking inside her kirtle. According to the gossip going round, young Robert had left early for Chester, riding his sister's fat old gelding since his own stallion kicked and reared whenever he came near the animal. Hearing that the lad wouldn't show his face in these parts again before December, I was well pleased.

  After the service, as I headed out the door, who hailed me but Tom Redfearn. How I blushed to see that tall young man bowing to me.

  "I am much obliged." He didn't need to say what for.

  Liza and John cast uneasy looks as I said my farewells to Tom and the rest of Anne's family, but on our walk home we spoke not a word of it. Easier to keep our silence than break into a quarrel, for they knew I'd not suffer their speaking ill of my friend. If John mentioned Anne at all, he called her Chattox, her hated nickname that made her sound like a poisonous toad.

  Liza, loath to leave her husband to his brooding, nattered on about cheese-making till our John came back to himself, mild-faced and content. Marching along in their wake, I only half-listened. So many thoughts chased through my head. I asked myself if I felt any different now that I'd done what I thought I could never do: harness dark magic. When I weighed my soul, it felt no heavier than before. After seeing Annie's head held high in church today, her peace restored, I could not summon a sliver of regret for what I'd done. No divine hand swept down from heaven to smite me. I imagined Tibb hidden just behind the hedge, a smile upon his lips, his hand raised in blessing.

  That summer our cattle grew fat and sleek, giving us so much cream that even our John began to look a little less scrawny. Jamie grew strong and tall, if no cannier than before, and my Liza flowered. Her skin had a glow about it, her hair a rare sheen as her belly ripened and swelled. Our John said he'd never seen her looking finer, even in the bloom of her youth when he first courted her. As she grew heavier with child, I caught her stroking the babe through the wall of her own flesh and singing cradle songs to her yet unborn daughter. She was in love with her already.

  In October our John and his Master Holden drove the fat of the herd to Colne Market and turned a profit. God smiled upon us, so Anthony Holden said, well pleased at the end of such a good year. Sarah Holden then prepared such a Harvest Home feast as never seen before. She welcomed folk from near and far, inviting them to spend the night if the celebration carried on too late. Though I was invited, someone had to stay behind at Malkin Tower to mind the remaining cattle. So I let my family go without me and waved to them as they took to the road. Once I'd lost sight of them, I went to sit under the old elder tree. We'd already stripped the tree of its violet berries. The vat of elderberry wine was steeping and bubbling in a dark corner of the firehouse. With only a few limp leaves still clinging to its gnarled branches, the tree looked tired and used up. Likewise, I was beginning to feel the burden of my sixty-three years.

  A strange humour I was in, both restless and melancholy at once. I'd sent my family off to the feast because I craved solitude. Yet my loneliness gnawed at me. If my body wasn't getting any younger, my mind was sharper than it had ever been, my powers rising and stirring, all the mightier after I had risked everything to help Annie Redfearn, and I scarce knew what to do with them. Liza, my one-time apprentice, had forsaken her own gift. I'd no one to confide in, no one who would understand what was brewing within me.

  Circling round the foot of Malkin Tower, I listened to the faraway piping and singing. Bonfires crowned every hill, for it was not just the Holdens having a merry Harvest Home. Though the new religion had banished most other festivals, even the Curate agreed that it would be an insult to Providence if we didn't offer thanks for a bountiful harvest. This one night it almost seemed as though the old ways had returned. Children bore their flickering rush lights up Blacko Hill. A game, it was, to see if a person could reach the hilltop without the wind blowing out the light. Every soul in Pendle Forest was off revelling, apart from me. What was I but a lonely old woman in my tower? Everything I had learned, every secret Tibb had whispered in my ear, would die with me. As the cold wind blustered, I imagined my flesh and bones wasting away till I became a boggart floating off in the night to scare decent folk. Seven for a witch.

  About to go inside, I was, and retire to my pallet when out of the darkness a figure appeared to block my path. Her eyes shone in the moonlight, and she held a pie in her outstretched arms.

  "Happy Harvest Home, our Bess," said Anne.

  The sweet scent of apple pie reminded me that I'd eaten next to nowt that day, my appetite having failed me till this moment.

  "You walked all the way from West Close to bring me a pie?" Wondered how she even baked it, having no oven. I grinned to think of Betty snatching it from the Greenhead kitchen.

  "My feet are well sore," my friend complained. "Are you going to let me stand out here till the moon goes down?"

  So I invited her inside and built a hearthfire as grand as any of the bonfires on the high hills. Later our John would scold me for wasting so much peat, but it was Harvest Home and I was finally in the mood to make merry. I cut the pie to share and filled two cups to the brim with last year's elderberry wine, potent enough to make the stars spin in the sky.

  "How are your girls?" I asked her.

  "Off dancing the harvest in, them two." Anne raised her cup to me.

  "Wouldn't it be something to be young again?"

  In truth, the heady wine almost made it seem within my grasp to travel back through time.

  "You were such a shameless one," Anne teased. "Even when you were married. Your husband didn't stand a chance. You were pretty enough to make the Curate forget half of what he was meant to be preaching."

  I laughed myself legless at the memory. "And you! With your golden hair. They all said there was no greater beauty in Pendle Forest."

  We fell silent then, mourning what was gone and would never return. Seemed unjust, the way the years had slipped away, robbing us of our pleasures, the love and the lust that had seared us.

  "God's foot," I said, "doesn't the world grow drearier each year? Times were never so good as when we were young. Remember when the Lord of Misrule bared his bottom to the Church Warden?"

  Anne roared, her hand grasping mine. When her laughter died down, she cast her eyes to the ashes in the hearth.

  "What's left for us now?" she asked.

  "Our children and grandchildren," I said, then regretted my slip of tongue, for Anne was not yet blessed with grandchildren.

  "Even our children grow older," she said after a spell. "Least you have your powers. Must be a comfort, knowing you're not just a useless old woman like me."

  "Hardly useless! What would Annie do without you?"

  "What would she do without you, more like." Anne turned to me. "You taught her about them clay pictures—that's the only thing that saved her."

  A draught stole in be
neath the door, raising my flesh. "She told you?"

  "Did you think she'd keep it secret from her own mam? Does your Liza keep secrets from you?"

  I sighed, wondering. My own daughter had washed her hands clean of all I'd tried to teach her.

  "At least young Assheton is gone to Chester," I said. "God willing, he'll trouble her no more."

  "There's the rub, our Bess." The defeat in Anne's voice undid me. "He'll return for Christmas. Only a matter of weeks. Hangs over us, this does. Already Annie's gone off her food. Tom said he'd murder him if he comes round again—what good would that do if Tom gets himself hanged? I'd give anything to be able to protect her the way you did."

  The wind carried the sound of a dog baying to the moon.

  "What are you saying?" I asked her.

  She leaned close. "You taught my girl. Could you not teach me?"

  "Anne." My head swam with wine and my own bewilderment. "You never believed in such things." Looking into the depths of her green eyes, I prayed to see her old doubts arise. But she gazed back at me with the zeal of a convert.

  "It's true that I don't believe in saints or miracles or any of that gobbledygook. Don't even know if I believe in God. But you were stood right in my cottage when you summoned that dog. It's not a matter of believing—I saw it happen."

  "It's no easy path. Remember, you warned me yourself of the dangers, the price to be paid." Anxious, I was, to talk her out of this, for I'd no desire for my best friend to hang for what she was begging me to teach her. What a fuss Liza would raise if Anne became my new apprentice. John would declare that he'd been right all along about Anne having the power to twist me to her will, that she was a witch, that our doom was sealed.

  "You know I'd never ask you for anything trifling," Anne said. "I swear I'd pay any price to keep my family safe from young Assheton."

  "Our Anne, I'd roast in the worst fires of hell before I'd let that wretch meddle with you and yours."