Witch Child Page 11

  Martha sits, face closed. If it was not for the native people her sister so despises, Jonah would be in his grave by now. Her eyes flick up, warning us to say nothing. Jonah draws the sprig on the table in front of him. Tobias sits in the corner whittling a doll for Rebekah’s sister. I want to shout, cry out about how little she understands. The Indians go lightly in the world, that is all. They make their homes from living trees, only taking what they need before moving on to let the land replenish itself. But I hold my tongue. Goody Francis is a stupid, narrow-minded, ignorant busybody of a woman, poking her long nose into everything, puffing out her saggy cheeks to make judgements, then pulling her mouth in, like a tightly drawn purse string.

  ‘What is it that you write, child? May I see?’

  My fingers jerked, splaying the nib cut into the quill, turning the ‘g’ I was forming into a crooked blot.

  ‘Mary helps me.’ Jonah handed me a knife to cut a new nib, which I did, though my hand was trembling. ‘With my Herbal.’

  ‘May I see?’

  Goody Francis stretched out her hand.

  Jonah made a show of sorting through the papers in front of him, spreading them out to cover my writing. She clearly meant for me to give her what I was writing, but Jonah gave her his book instead. She took it from him. She opened the pasteboard covers. The pages crackled and buckled as she turned them. She studied what she found there carefully, brows knit, as if she understood what she looked at, but her mouth worked to form the words, and her finger ran under the writing, marking her as almost unlettered.

  ‘What is this?’

  She had stopped at mandrake, mandragora. The drawing of the root looks like a small man, a little homunculus. At the base of the trunk, the root forked, split into three parts. She fairly shrieked at it, shrilling her disgust.

  ‘It looks like a poppet, a waxen image.’ She shuddered. ‘Unclean!’

  Jonah’s eyes twinkled. ‘No more so than carrot or parsnip.’

  Her thin lips pursed and puffed, slowly spelling over the letters describing the plant’s purpose and her putty face paled even more.

  ‘I have heard stories about this root. It grows only under the gallows tree and screams like a human thing when pulled from the ground.’

  ‘All false and untrue. Old wives’ tales. Doltish dreams put about by runnigate surgeons and physick mongers. The root has many virtues. It provokes sleep, eases pain. Have a care what you believe, Mistress.’

  ‘Have a care what you write in your book.’ She snapped the covers shut. ‘Such are kept by magicians and folk of that sort, up to the Devil’s work.’

  ‘I am an apothecary.’ He took the book back from her. ‘It is necessary for me to keep a record of the virtues of plants and different simples and cures.’

  Goody Francis folded her arms across her black bodice and set her mouth in a stubborn line.

  ‘Such stuff smacks of magic.’

  Jonah sighed. ‘Not so, Goody Francis, not so. You did not complain when I dressed your husband’s leg when he cut it on the scythe. This is where I found the herbs to heal the wound and ease the pain. I am the closest thing to a doctor here. I have kept this book all my life. I need it for my practice and will not stop now.’

  Goody Francis did not looked convinced, but she would not better Jonah. She turned on me instead.

  ‘You may say what you please, Master Morse, but inky fingers on a girl are very far from natural. You’ve been making far too free.’ She looked from me over to where her sister sat sewing. ‘You would be better set staying close and helping Martha. Take it from me.’

  She paused and sat up straighter, sucking in her breath and then puffing out her cheeks and chest, so obviously readying herself for some pronouncement that even Tobias looked up.

  ‘I have to tell you, sister,’ she turned to address Martha, ‘that this, this arrangement,’ she waved one hand around to indicate the room, our home, ‘this arrangement has been called into question.’

  ‘Called into question?’ Jonah looked up. ‘How so?’

  ‘Some think that it is not fitting that a young girl should share a house with men who are not related to her.’

  She glanced at Jonah, at the pages in front of him. If he had been suspect before, this made him more so.

  ‘Who says this?’ Martha’s voice trembled. ‘We live as a family here.’

  ‘Just so.’ Goody Francis gave her little pursed smile. ‘And you live in error. It would be much more suitable if this girl,’ she waved her hand towards me, ‘lived with the Rivers. They are a proper family. It has been brought to the attention of the Reverend Johnson.’

  ‘By whom, may I ask?’ Martha’s hands were trembling as she put aside her sewing. I could see her temper rising.

  ‘The Reverend will talk with the Selectmen. You will be told what they decide.’

  At that, she rose to go.

  ‘Wait, Mistress,’ Jonah’s face was creased with concern. ‘Do we not have a say in this?’

  ‘Newcomers have no say as yet.’

  ‘What about the Rivers, do they have no say? It’s his household she’ll be joining.’

  ‘They will abide by the decision. John Rivers is a God-fearing man. How can it be otherwise?’ She spoke with slow drawn-out patience, as if addressing a pack of ignorant children. ‘With the Reverend Johnson’s strength and under his guidance, the meeting always comes to the right decision. God speaks through them, how else could we know of his intention? The will of the meeting is the will of all.’

  Entry 59

  As soon as her sister left, Martha fell to scolding me and Jonah about what we put in our books. Goody Francis cannot read better than an infant, I say, so I hardly see that it matters, but Martha shakes her head and points out that this place doesn’t lack scholars and they could soon be sending those who can.

  Ever the gleeful bearer of bad tidings, Goody Francis has returned to tell us that I am, indeed, to pack my box and move next door. She seems exceedingly pleased about it. Martha is more than a little unhappy, but she thinks that it may be for the best. She does not want more suspicion to fall on me, and thinks I will be safer with Rebekah and her family. For me it is no hardship. Rebekah is as a sister and, if I look on Martha as a mother, then Sarah Rivers is a favourite aunt. John Rivers is a good man, wise and fair-minded. It is no imposition to live with them, but if that is to be my place, I should be free to choose it. I do not like being shifted like a piece on a chess-board.

  Entry 60 (late October? 1659)

  Although it is late autumn, the days stay clear, blue and brilliant. The woods are full of colour. At home the leaves change, here they flame. I long to escape, but there is much to do and I have promised Martha that I will not go beyond the boundaries of the settlement.

  The houses are finished, but there is still work to be done to make them comfortable. They are small, two rooms below and one long one above, but more rooms can be added if need be. The Rivers’ house is slightly larger, which is a good thing as they must find room for me as well now.

  When we are not working in the house, we help our neighbours with their harvest, and there is wood to be cut for the winter to come.

  Entry 61

  The days grow ever shorter. The birds fly south. Great skeins of duck and geese sketch jagged lines in the sky, morning and night, their high drawn-out calls like the cries of lost souls.

  I listen to them and wonder. I have seen nothing of Jaybird for weeks. Perhaps he and his grandfather have left already, perhaps they, too, journey south.

  Entry 62 (November? 1659)

  The mornings still dawn blue and brilliant, but ice glazes the water barrel and the ground is dusted with rime. Winter comes on and we are ready. The crops are harvested, the houses finished, wood stands up to the eaves on either side of the doorway.

  The late autumn weather is fickle. It could snow any day, so John Rivers has been told. After breakfast I took my sack and set out for the forest. It might be my last chance b
efore the snow comes. I know what I have promised Martha, but since I no longer live with her, I convince myself that her prohibition no longer holds. Mist crept up from the hollows. My legs disappeared up to my knees. It was like wading through freshly carded wool. The sun was low, scarce above the horizon. It cast a strange light, catching on scarlet leaves hanging from twigs and branches. It looked as though the trees dripped blood.

  I marked my path in the way I learnt from the wood-cutters and charcoal men, with cuts and notches and bending branches. The woods were very quiet this morning. Unnaturally so. I felt my skin pricking again. I stood quite still for a long time, studying each area, committing it to memory, looking for the slightest change in the way Jaybird has taught me, but when the raucous call erupted from a bush almost in front of me, it still made me jump.

  He came out laughing and the birds cackled back.

  ‘You must look near as well as far. My grandfather wants to see you. Come.’

  We journeyed a long way, and not to any encampment. At noon we stopped and shared the food we had brought with us. I had bread and cheese, he had nuts and strips of dried deer meat.

  We went on up a long narrow valley with steep walls on either side strewn with fallen trees. A stream rushed at our feet, the water white with tumbling over the rocks. We climbed towards a notch in the hills. Here the stream turned to a waterfall, the water cascading down over ledges of rock as smooth and regular as a descending pavement. I looked to Jaybird, wondering what we were to do here. He smiled and pointed up. I was by no means sure that this feat could be accomplished; from the bottom such an ascent seemed sheer. It was not as difficult as I thought, although I was glad to be wearing breeches, as in a skirt such a climb would have been impossible. The ledges afforded a kind of narrow and slippery staircase. Jaybird helped me over the most difficult parts of it, counselling me to take it easily, one bit at a time, and not to look down until we had reached the top. Only once did I glance past my feet to see boulders rendered to pebbles, the stream like a thread of twine.

  I was more worried about what was above.

  Over our heads the ledges of rock jutted out, one above the other, like books stacked in a pile about to topple. The ones at the bottom sloped inwards, but then the angle was reversed. At the top, water fell over a wide overhang. I could not see how we could possibly climb that.

  Jaybird stepped sideways, indicating for me to follow him on to a shelf of rock. The water fell in a crystal curtain. We were behind the waterfall now. The air was dank, the rock wet and slippery but wide enough to walk along easily. The wall was covered in mosses and ferns. We edged along it until we came to a deep recess. Jaybird stepped into the darkness. We had come to a cave.

  The inside was dimly lit. Light filtered through the screening water, playing on the walls, creating shimmering shadows. It was like being in a cavern under the sea. Jaybird went to a niche and brought out a torch, a pine branch topped with a ball of resin. He struck a flint and the torch burned to show the recesses of the cave. The chamber narrowed, branching into several tunnels. Jaybird took my hand and led me into the one on the right. I followed the smoky light, gripping on tight. The tunnels twisted and turned like a maze. I would never find my way out on my own.

  We walked for a long time, until the torch was burnt down and sputtering, then gradually the darkness in front began to lighten and there seemed to be more space around us. The cave was opening out into a lofty chamber and from the centre came the flicker of firelight.

  We had walked right through the mountain. It had been so dark in the tunnels that I had almost persuaded myself that it was night. Now I emerged into afternoon sun striking golden over a broad country, clothed in trees like tapestry. We were very high up. Below me the mountain fell away in a headlong precipice and the land spread out in front of me. Here and there, hills and crags showed, but the blanketing trees seemed to stretch forever, as far as the eye could see, merging into the violet mist smudging the curving horizon.

  ‘This place is special for my people.’

  Indeed, the cave was like a cathedral. The pale grey walls soared in ribbed curtains and delicate vaulted columns that owed nothing to man’s artistry.

  ‘It stays the same here, winter or summer.’ He stirred the fire. ‘We are sheltered from the wind and snow. The cave faces south, so it gets what sun there is, and it is so high up that a fire cannot be seen from below. The smoke rises, escaping up into the chambers where no man can see it. Sometimes a bear blunders in, but once he sees the place is taken, he goes. We have what we need to stay all winter long.’

  I looked around. There were beds made from springy firs and soft mosses overlaid with thick furs. Baskets and clay pots lined the walls. But there seemed to be no one else there. No sign of his grandfather.

  As if my thoughts had called him, the old man stepped out of the shadows.

  He spoke in his own language. And the boy replied, ‘I have brought her.’

  The old man said something. It sounded like a name, but not one I can render on paper.

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘It is his name for you: mahigan shkiizhig. It is what he calls you. Eyes of a Wolf.’

  ‘Why does he call me that?’

  ‘Why? Because just as my laugh is like the jay bird call, and I love to wear bright things, and my grandfather is White Eagle, because of his hair, and the feather he wears, so you have the eyes of a wolf.’

  I frowned, trying to understand his meaning. The only wolves that I had ever seen were heads hammered to the Meeting House and those eyes were glazed with death or eaten out by maggots.

  ‘You have no wolves in your country?’

  ‘Perhaps in the north, in Scotland, but not in England – they have all been killed.’

  Jaybird told his grandfather who shook his head. Jaybird turned back to me.

  ‘He says that is bad.’

  ‘Why?’ I asked. ‘They kill the sheep and lambs, children sometimes, and they can attack a man.’

  The old man shrugged and spoke.

  Jaybird nodded. ‘He says everything has its own place in the world, wolves and men.’

  The old man spoke again.

  ‘You remind him of a young she-wolf he knew once. She was fierce, proud and brave but not fully grown into her strength. She lived on the edge of the pack, rejected by them, but forced to go back, because she was not old enough to survive without them. He feels the same fierce pride in you. You want to bow to no-one, but you are young and life on the edge is uncomfortable.’

  ‘What happened to her, the young she-wolf?’

  The old man replied, but the boy seemed reluctant to translate his grandfather’s words.

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘He wants to know about the hare.’

  ‘Hare? What hare?’

  What was he talking about? Some of the settlers think the Indians mad as moonstruck calves. Perhaps they are right.

  ‘He has seen a hare in the forest, and on the land around your village. It was not there before. It appeared suddenly when you and your people came.’

  ‘Do you not have hares in this country?’ I asked, rather as he had asked me about the wolves.

  ‘Of course we do. And the Great Hare is very important in the stories of our people, that is why my grandfather noticed. He thought it a sign from the Great Hare to him.’

  The old man nodded. He had been following the conversation. He understood English even if he did not speak it.

  ‘This hare,’ the boy went on, ‘is different from the hares who live here. It is smaller, and a different colour.’

  Across the fire, the old man’s eyes caught mine. Twin points of flame flickered red in their black depths. Suddenly, my grandmother came into my mind. She was there completely, as if she was sitting in the cave next to me. I remembered the stories about her, how they said that she could change herself into a hare. She had never spoken of it, never said whether it was true or not. There was much that she had nev
er told me, perhaps she had been waiting until I was older, but that time never came. I remembered her in the bed next to me, eyes shut but not sleeping, lying as still as if dead. How did I know where she went?

  And then there was the story Jack had told me, about the rabbit on the ship. Hare or rabbit. I had laughed, but the sailors feared it ...

  The old man said something to the boy.

  ‘He says you know.’

  ‘But what is my grandmother doing here? Why does she choose a hare?’

  ‘Your grandmother’s spirit takes the form of a hare because it is her animal – just as yours is the wolf, his is the eagle, and mine is the blue jay.’

  ‘Is such a thing possible?’

  The old man looked at me as if I doubted the existence of moonlight or the sunrise. He waved his hands, weaving them above his head. Flames leapt upwards and I saw that the walls of the cave were covered with pictures of animals: some were little more than squares and triangles, others were recognisable as deer with great spreading antlers, bear, wolf, lion, and horned and humpbacked creatures that I could not name. With them were men, hunting, stalking, dancing, some naked, some dressed in skins. Some of the images were drawn in charcoal, others painted in vivid colours, others cut into the rock. The intricate movements of the old man’s arms seemed to bring them to life. Animals and men danced to the flutter of his hands in the firelight’s flicker. They moved across the walls, sometimes animals, sometimes men, sometimes both at the same time.

  ‘This is the place of our ancestors,’ the boy explained. ‘Here we are surrounded by their presence.’

  Again, I had the feeling of being in a great church, a place filled with spirit, like the Temple of the Winds on Salisbury Plain, heavy with the presence of those who had gone before.

  I told them about my grandmother, and what had happened to her.

  The old man spoke again.

  ‘What does he say?’

  ‘Her spirit is restless, because of the great wrong done to her. It has followed you across the ocean.’

  ‘Why? For what purpose?’

  The old man stared into the fire. It was some time before he spoke to the boy, but when he did speak it was at some length. The boy listened carefully, nodding to show that he remembered and would render the old man’s words exactly.