Daughters of the Witching Hill Page 13

  With a shaking hand, I filled our cups again.

  "Even if I were to teach you everything I know, you'll still not be a cunning woman till a spirit comes to you and that can't be hurried or forced, our Anne. It's the spirits who choose, not us. But please let's speak no more of this tonight."

  Setting sombre thoughts aside, we emptied the wine flask, finished the apple pie, and reminisced about our youth till our flanks ached from laughter. Anne sang one old song after another, and what did we do then but rush outside to dance in the moonlight like two silly girls. Jig after jig we danced, spinning and swirling till we were dizzy, and then we threw ourselves upon the grass to gaze up at the wheeling stars. Her loosened hair touched mine and our fingers twined together.

  With the harvest moon pouring down upon our faces, I gave Anne my word. I promised to teach her of cunning craft and familiars, of blessing and binding. By and by, a spirit might well come to her. My friend and I had shared so many things in our long lives. Why shouldn't we share this?

  8

  EVEN GIVEN EVERYTHING that came afterward, Anne and I would both treasure that night for the rest of our days. At the ragged end of her life, my Anne would cling to our secret feast like a silk handkerchief, and she would embroider it something fierce to make it even more fantastic. She'd say that we'd shared a magnificent feast at Malkin Tower with sweet butter, cheese and bread, roasted meats, and plentiful wine and beer, all served to us by our familiars, my Tibb and her Fancy, though he had yet to appear to her that night. She would first encounter her spirit toward the end of November when he came in the guise of a black-haired young man.

  Speaking of our banquet, she'd say that we'd no fire or even a single candle for light, but that the imps themselves lent us their magical glow, not only Tibb and Fancy, but a host of she-spirits besides. She'd say that some creature that took the shape of a spotted bitch told me, within her own hearing, that she would be granted silver, gold, and great wealth. This was the tale she would live to tell whilst I lay dead. But I am leaping ahead.

  During that waning year of 1595, I was careful to keep my meetings with Anne privy, for I'd no wish to upset Liza with her time being so near or to give our John any excuse to fret and moan. Anne and I took to meeting in a copse of trees on Slipper Hill, not far from Malkin Tower, or else I walked to West Close.

  In early December I came by Anne's cottage and, finding it empty, walked in the direction of the voices I heard behind the willows and rushes. Anne and Annie were sat on either side of the beck, both of them making clay pictures, for young Assheton was expected back from Chester any day. Mother and daughter jerked their heads in alarm as my shadow fell across them, but then they smiled in their relief to see that it was only me.

  Young Annie seemed well jittery as she shaped the clay, but her mam's hands were steady. I thought to myself that it was a good thing Annie didn't have to wrestle with this on her own—she could lose her courage, after all, then it might be too late to save herself.

  As the winter sun glinted on the angel-bright hair spilling from her coif, her beauty was enough to dazzle, even whilst she was sat at her grisly task. A married woman of twenty-four, she could pass as a maid of sixteen, she was still so lithe and graceful. I could well understand why Annie was her mother's joy, the shining star of her old age—she was like a mirror in which my Anne could see her own lost youth reflected. Such a fond and fierce look Anne gave her daughter when she reached across the beck to take the half-finished clay manikin from Annie's faltering hands. My friend's brow furrowed, full-determined, as she put on the finishing touches.

  For the life of me, I hadn't the nerve to ask them why they were making two clay figures instead of one.

  Returning to Malkin Tower, I found John busy lining Jamie's old cradle with sweet-smelling new straw. Our Liza's baby was due this month. Banishing all thought of clay pictures, I gathered clean rags to sew a poppet, no instrument of magic, but a child's blameless toy, with combed flax for hair.

  Soon enough Yuletide was upon us and gossip spread like the pox. Robert Assheton had returned to Greenhead feeling miserable and unwell, swearing that Annie Redfearn had bewitched him.

  "You swore that Chattox has no powers," our John told me. "Is her daughter now a witch?"

  "You promised you wouldn't go on about that anymore," Liza said to him, her hands clutching her pregnant belly. "Please, love, just throw some salt over your shoulder and be done with it."

  "This is well serious," John insisted. "That young Assheton told his father to have Chattox and Annie laid in Lancaster Gaol. He wanted them locked up in a place where they'd be glad to bite lice in two with their teeth."

  Listening to those words, I could almost see Robert's hate-twisted face. We were in real danger, Anne, Annie, and me. No telling what could happen to us now that young Assheton was spouting on about witchcraft. I seized my wits, picking each word with care.

  "Master Robert's nowt but a moonstruck fool," I told John. "The boy should be ashamed of himself, slandering poor folk and all because he tried to have his way with a married woman who can't stand the sight of him."

  John shook his head in disbelief. "You still say Chattox is harmless? I saw young Master Assheton's face and if ever there was a hag-ridden soul, it was him. Where would Annie learn witchcraft if not from her mother?"

  My skin began to burn with the many secrets I'd kept hidden from my own family. If my son-in-law knew that I had taught both Anne and Annie, would he run to the Constable? Would Liza herself shun me? A tightness closed round my throat as though a collar of cold iron were choking me.

  In my silence, Liza spoke. "Our John's right that Chattox and her lot are never up to any good. If she's not a witch, her oldest girl's a thief. It's only folk's goodwill and charity that kept Betty from being dragged off to Lancaster ages ago."

  "Enough," I pleaded. "I'll go to West Close and talk to them myself. Find out what this is about."

  I rushed past fallow barley fields haunted by crows. St. Stephen's, it was, the day after Christmas, yet bleak as death. When I reached the cottage, I found Tom Redfearn digging out the clogged ditch that ran alongside the road.

  "You'll find the women inside," he told me, his face etched with worry.

  Anne and her two daughters were knelt round the fire. Eyes streaming, Betty cut onions whilst my friend stirred a pot of thin broth into which the onions would go. Young Annie was slapping down wet clapbread dough on the steaming-hot stones that girded the fire.

  "Happy Christmas, Bess." Anne rose to kiss me. "You're just in time to eat with us. When the soup's ready, we'll call Tom inside."

  Doting and tender, she turned to smile at Annie who looked anxious as her husband, her skin drained and bloodless. Betty swiped at her onion tears and pulled a face. In a foul mood, she seemed, as though resentful her mother was making it so clear that Annie was the favoured daughter.

  "Don't just sit there like a clod, our Betty," came her mother's voice. "Go out and fetch another turve for the fire."

  Soon as Betty had tramped out the door, Anne sidled close and spoke low and fast. "Ill talk going round about us, Bess."

  "Ill talk indeed," I said, a catch in my throat. "The clay pictures—did anyone see you making them? Just the other day I stumbled by and saw you. Oh, be careful, our Anne."

  "He says he won't stop till his father has us arrested." Young Annie spoke in a cold, tight voice. Her hands slammed the sizzling clapbread on the stone till the steam rose, obscuring her face.

  "That boy is running round like a madman," said her mother. "We haven't had a moment's peace."

  Betty trundled in with the peat, which she dumped in the fire, sending sparks flying over her sister. She looked from Annie to her mother to me, the three of us guilty-faced and silent, gagging on our terror of what lay ahead.

  "You were talking about young Assheton." Betty sounded well weary of the things that had been kept from her. She turned to her sister. "Wouldn't it be easier to just give him
what he wants so he'll leave the rest of us alone?"

  My Anne went dark red as if spoiling to give Betty a right good clouting, when Annie staggered to her feet and threw herself between them. Her young face sagged.

  "Speak of the Devil," Annie said.

  The four of us listened to the noise of hooves splattering through the mud.

  Anne took hold of the fire poker. "You stay inside," she told young Annie. "Never fear. This time we have Tom on hand."

  Annie clutched herself. "What if he picks a fight with Tom and Tom gets hauled off for decking him?"

  Her mother, Betty, and I rushed out the door, leaving Annie to bolt it behind us.

  Astride a fat grey gelding, young Robert was sat, dressed in a cloak of new wool with gold and silver braid. His sword hung from his belt and he'd a tall plumed hat. Not the bedraggled boy I remembered. A sparse beard grew at his chin and his eyes glinted with lunacy. Gaunt, he looked, and haunted, too, as though he'd known no sleep or rest since I'd seen him last. Couldn't sit still in his saddle but rocked back and forth like Jamie at his worst. Even his placid gelding danced sideways, full skittish. I could imagine Annie with the clay doll in her hands. Her hidden away in the cottage this very moment and crumbling away at the head.

  "Bring out Annie Redfearn," he commanded as bold as though he were the Chief Justice himself. "I must speak to her at once."

  "If you have anything to say, you'll be talking to me, Master Robert," Tom Redfearn said.

  Tom stood nearly six feet tall. In spite of the cold, he'd rolled up his sleeves so that the young master could see his muscles flexing as he wielded the shovel. The boy trembled in his rage at being told off by a poor tenant. Yet lowborn as Tom might be, armed with only a shovel instead of a sword, he was twice the man in size and strength. If Tom chose, he could fell Robert with one blow.

  Thrashing in the saddle, the boy jerked at the reins, forcing the gelding to pace a tight circle. He pointed his riding crop at Tom. "I'll have my father put you out of this house."

  "And if he doesn't?" Well angry, Tom was, his every muscle tensed. Reminded me of a bull set to charge.

  "Then I'll pull the cottage down myself."

  Tom's reply came stern and strong. "When you come back again, you'll be in a better mind."

  Young Robert brandished the whip at Tom, intent on striking his face, when a sooty crow swooping overhead sent the horse spinning, then the beast shied at the whip. Without another word, the landlord's son dug in his spurs, sending the old gelding into a swift, jerky trot.

  "One day I swear I'll murder that milksop," said Tom.

  "Peace," Anne said in a voice that made every part of me shrink. "You won't have to."

  Her eyes hardened as they followed the crow winging away in the direction Robert had fled. The bird could only be Fancy, I thought: Anne's familiar rushing off to do her grisly bidding. A storm was rising inside my friend, the power, raw and new, potent enough to knock me sideways. Anne was so much more than my apprentice. She had it in her to outshine me, to charge ahead where I would never dare go. Like a knife in the gut came the unwelcome knowing that I was afraid of her, afraid of my oldest friend. It was not enough for her to protect her daughter from young Assheton, I realised. She wanted to be even with him. Wanted to destroy him. My own Anne Whittle, who had nothing left to lose.

  "Have a care, our Anne," I begged her before I left. "Go too far and you'll get us hanged."

  We'd best keep our heads down, I warned her. Make like the meekest souls in Pendle Forest. Pray that Robert would leave for Chester soon and not show his face again for a good long while.

  Anne shook her head at me, her patience worn thin. Assheton was the menace looming over her every waking hour. It was her daughter and her home under threat, not mine. She didn't have the luxury of walking away from this.

  "We've the powers," she said. "Why should we not use them? We're damned if we don't."

  An awful pall clung to me when I walked home that foggy evening. Anne had been chosen by her spirit, that was true, her desperation drawing a familiar altogether different from Tibb. If Tibb was a creature of earth, sun, and starry skies, Anne's Fancy seemed a son of coldest Saturn, of shadowy places and slithery creatures who hid down dank holes. His was the might concealed in the tiny purple flowers of nightshade. Under Fancy's thrall, my Anne was becoming another woman, one I didn't know if I could trust.

  She was her own mistress. She alone chose the path she walked, and there was no pulling her back, for her actions were borne of dire need.

  Right late, it was, by the time I reached Malkin Tower. A rush light still burned behind the window. Stepping in the door, I girded myself, thinking that Liza and John would welter me with questions concerning Anne and her deeds. What would I tell them now when they spoke of the rumours of vile witchcraft?

  My son-in-law only cried out in his relief that I had returned. He pointed to the pile of fresh straw where Liza huddled, clad in her shift with a blanket wrapped round her. Her time had come, at least a fortnight earlier than I'd reckoned.

  "She's been having the pains for hours already," John said before leaving me to my business.

  "I thought you'd never come," Liza panted. "You were with her. She kept you out so late on purpose."

  My daughter's white lips clamped in dread. It appeared that her old fears of bearing another afflicted child had arisen, along with her memories of Jamie's brutal, tearing birth, and the talk of black magic had done her no good at all. Trying to put her mind at ease, I brewed her motherwort and raspberry leaf. I prayed aloud to St. Margaret and St. Anne, but my daughter flinched even to hear that name.

  "What if she's cursed me again?" Liza asked as I mopped the cold sweat from her face.

  "Anne Whittle never cursed you, love." Once I would have said that she was blameless and had never cursed anybody, but thanks to my own meddling, that was no longer true. "She never wished the least ill on you. Now take a deep breath and stop clenching up."

  Her pains were coming fast. If she could bring herself to breathe in time with them, she would spare herself some agony.

  "She kissed John at our wedding and things were never right after that. She cursed Jamie in the womb and he was born an idiot."

  Raving, my girl was. Women swept away in the dolour of childbirth would yell out the most outrageous things. Some of it was purest nonsense, and some of it was the hostility and regrets they'd bottled up inside and never given voice to before the pain wrenched it out of them. The midwife who helped me when I birthed Liza told me how I'd cursed the whole night through, wishing every possible calamity to befall my husband. The next morning I hadn't been able to remember a word of it. God willing, it would be just the same for my daughter. Between her pangs, I sang bawdy songs to make her laugh, but she would not allow herself to be comforted.

  "Only thing stronger than witchcraft is cunning craft. Keep my baby safe from her. Promise me you won't let that woman near us again."

  "Hush, love. You're doing the baby no good, carrying on like that."

  But she clung to me and pleaded, gripping my hand hard enough to crack the bones. Her eyes gleamed with real horror. Her legs knifed, her whole frame cramping up. As the pain wracked her, she began to sob. To think I had promised her an easy birth. John's worst imaginings had infected her, and now these travails had pushed her to the brink of hysteria. She was convinced that Anne meant to damage her child. Worse still, her dread awakened my own. What I had witnessed that very day in Anne Whittle's face left me floored—the raging powers inside her rising like floodwater. She was in over her head and there was nowt I could do about it.

  "She's not your friend, Mam, she can't be. She's using you. Promise me you'll not keep her company."

  If Liza kept on flailing, neither she nor the baby would survive. And if I did nothing to ease her panic, I'd lose them both.

  Tibb had admonished me to be careful which road I walked, but in truth no road was simple, straightforward, or, indeed, wha
t it appeared to be at first glimpse. Every path was tricksy, full of turns and twists and blind corners with God-only-knew-what dangers lurking round the bend. If Anne had made herself into the witch that folk had long feared her to be, she'd done it to defend Annie. To save my own daughter, I had to make this vow.

  "I promise you, love. Now push when I tell you."

  Murmuring too low for Liza to hear, I called out to Tibb to preserve my daughter. A rare light began to flicker and pulse in our dim chamber. Though it seemed that only my eyes saw the glow, it touched us both and in that moment the terror drained from Liza's face. Gasping, she bore down.

  At daybreak, when the first rays of sun pierced the mist, the baby came, whole and hale, slipping out easy for me to catch.

  "Just look at her," I said to Liza, holding up her daughter before I'd even cut the cord. "Look at your girlchild. She's perfect."

  Liza cradled and kissed her, her face lit up in wonder.

  After I'd washed my granddaughter and wrapped her in swaddling, I sat a spell with Liza, my arms round her, drinking in her joy.

  "In God's name, she's a beauty," my daughter said, stroking the chestnut curls already sprouting from the infant's head. Our child of promise.

  "Girl's not like her brother," I told her. "You can see that straight off."

  Liza nodded. "A canny one, she'll be. You called on Tibb last night, didn't you?" My daughter took my hand. "Your magic's much stronger than hers."

  So she'd not forgotten her ranting about Anne or the promise she had begged me to make. Now she'd hold me to that vow. She would expect me to see Anne as our enemy. Could I really go through with such an awful bargain?

  "Let me fetch John," I said, turning away so she wouldn't see my sadness.

  But when I saw how our John, full tender, wept over his daughter, just as his wife did, my dark thoughts faded. A voice inside me that was mine, not Tibb's, said family first. What was stronger than blood?