Daughters of the Witching Hill (10 page)

Mouldheels was careful to inspect her spinning wheel for damage before she agreed to forgive Betty the stolen plate. Just as I was about to faint away in hunger, she invited me to her table for a bowl of steaming pottage and mulled ale. Her good man gave me two lengths of woollen cloth and two brass clasps to make cloaks for Liza and me. I wore them both home, one over the other, and they kept me warm, but, in God's name, it was a ghost-ridden night. Wind blasted though the hedges to send me skittering and crossing myself and crying out to Saint Anne, the Virgin's own mother. The sheep in the fields took the shapes of spectres. I remembered the tales I'd heard from my mam of the Wild Hunter who swept through the sky with his furious horde, the souls of the unchristened dead.

When I finally reached my door, it was barred against me and before I could even knock and shout for Liza, I heard such noises from within, such savage cries and squeals, that I thought the hosts of hell had taken over Malkin Tower. From within my firehouse, the floorboards thumped as though a ring of demons were reeling round. Had the Devil himself come to punish me for dallying in magic?

Help me, Tibb.
I breathed his name and attempted to pray, but no words would come, so great was the terror that seized me. Off in the distance a cat yowled—or was it something other than a cat? I swore I would die of cold and fright outside my own door. My skin juddered so hard, it felt as though somebody had poured a bucket of eels down my smock. Unearthly laughter shook the door and shutters, and then singing, and such singing it was. With a start I recognised Liza's voice.

"Get up and bar the door," she sang, her words slurring together. She was either hag-ridden or stone drunk.

Up spoke a young man. "Our Liza, you fair take my breath away. None of the other girls ever let me."

My daughter giggled like a mad thing. "Well, I'm not like other girls, am I?"

At that I pounded on the door hard enough to bruise my fist. "Unbar this door, Liza, or you'll have hell to pay."

Inside there was much shouting and banging about. When at last my girl let me in from the cold, I saw that her coif was askew and her kirtle was laced crooked, as if she'd done it up in a hurry. She smelled like a tavern. In the shadows near the smoking hearth cowered young John Device, that shy hired boy from Bull Hole Farm.

Liza straightened herself and put on a smile. "Right worried, we were, Mam, with you out so late! Did you find Mouldheels's spinning wheel?"

I did not grace that with a reply, but stalked past her, sat myself down on the stool by the fire, and rubbed my hands over the flames till I stopped shivering. An empty cider flask lay upon the floor. So thin those two were from our winter of hunger, the single bottle had gone straight to their foolish heads.

"Not a drop left over for me?" I asked just the same.

Liza hung her head.

I turned to the boy. "Come step up so I can see your face. If you're courting my girl, I'd like to have a good look at you."

The lad trembled like a sapling in a gale.

"When's the wedding to be?" I demanded. Couldn't put him at his ease till I had his intentions sorted out.

"C-c-c-c-come spring," the lad stammered. "M-my ap-p-p-prenticeship will be done." Taken a right fright of me, had John Device, which only made his stutter worse.

"And was that your master's cider you filched?" I asked, full severe.

"G-g-got it given," he said, his face bright pink, and I knew at once he was too bashful to lie. This lad didn't have a deceitful bone in his long, skinny body.

"What will you do when your apprenticeship's over?" I looked from him to my daughter. "After what the two of you have been up to this night, it won't be long before the babies start coming."

"Mam!" Liza tried to cut me off, but I silenced her with a glare.

"A family has to live on something." I held the boy with my eyes.

"M-m-master Holden's sons are too young to care for his herd. I'm a good cowman. Best he's ever had, so he says." Talking about cows took his stutter away. "Master will pay proper wages."

Like a fortune-teller, I scryed deep into that boy's startled eyes. "Do you love and cherish my only daughter, John Device?"

"Aye, Mother Demdike, I do." He spoke with such a rush of feeling that I knew right then he was no rogue like the other one whose name I didn't even know—the one who had left Liza pregnant and weeping, with no choice except to swallow the tansy or endure a life of shame. But young John Device was aglow to the tips of his jug-handle ears with new love. My girl, the only one who had ever
let
him, had swept him off his feet. He'd be hers forever. This tow-headed cowherd adored her, squint and all.

Still I didn't leave off looking him over till I was well satisfied. A gangling thing, he was, but straight and strong. If he was timid, he was true-hearted. He'd be good to my girl, gentle to their children.

"Well, I'd best t-t-t-take my leave," the boy said, backing away to the door.

"Don't be daft, our John," I told him. "It's a terrible cold night. You're welcome to bide here. Best leave just before dawn, so you're back at the farm in time to feed the cattle."

Liza flashed me a trembling smile. When she turned to John, her face went so soft I had to look away. So I hoisted myself off my stool and made my way up to my cold, draughty tower room, leaving the lovers to their privacy.

Liza and John tried to be quiet, but echoes of their endearments reached me as I huddled in my pallet and breathed in my hands to warm myself. Tibb had spoken true: My daughter had found the love of a decent, honest man. Soon she would become a wife and then a mother. Off in the future was the granddaughter Tibb had promised me, the one he said I would love like no other. Liza, bless her, had found true joy.

Though my heart was full of thanksgiving, I hardly slept that night. It wasn't the tempest or the cold that kept me awake. Anne filled my thoughts. She must be despairing. Betty was a grown woman, beyond Anne's control. Though she loved her daughter dearly, Anne couldn't save Betty from herself. That girl's lot had been unlucky from the beginning. Unlike Annie, Betty was plain and graceless, dour of face. If Annie had inherited her mam's beauty, Betty was heir to her temper and unquenchable spirit. Ever wilful, Betty would not be one to know her place and obey the law just because it was expected of her. She'd blaze her own trail, even if it destroyed her, and her mam could only look on in grief.

What would Anne think of me if she knew that my magic had revealed Betty's crime?

At church the next Sunday, we poor folk were thin on the ground. The hunger had killed off more than a few of us, mostly children and old folk. Two families had stopped coming to church altogether on account of having no decent clothes left to wear; they'd traded every last garment save their undersmocks for food. Even those of us who still had clothes on our backs were a pitiful lot. How thin we were, skeletons with a bit of skin attached. Nowt but crow feed. A tremor gripped me as the knowledge came, unbidden, that this coming year would be better. A year of plenty with a good harvest. A year of fat and new babies. But too late for some.

At the very last moment Anne trudged in, her daughters behind her. Always the last to arrive and the first to leave was Anne. Didn't like to linger in the church a second longer than she had to. Sick with nerves, I couldn't keep myself from gawping at her. She gazed back at me, her eyes full of a sad knowing that tore at my heart.

Betty was looking bitter as bile, keeping her distance and not deigning to look my way. But her mother, much to Liza's consternation, sidled up to me. Anne was well gaunt—probably gave what little food she had to her daughters and took nothing for herself. At least young Annie appeared much improved since I saw her last. Over on the men's side of the church, Tom Redfearn stared at her, his face blazing with devotion, whilst she lowered her eyes and blushed. Liza, meanwhile, winked at John Device.

Anne and I traded smiles to witness our daughters in the grip of new love, the only light in this time of hardship. I ached to take Anne's hand, tell her I'd only interfered out of sore concern for her. Whilst the sermon dragged on, Anne began to murmur beneath her breath, the way she sometimes did, but this time, she had her eyes locked with mine. Beside me, Liza bristled. Others looked our way, too, their faces pale and strained. My spine prickled at the memory of how Alice Nutter's noisy cow of a mother had suspected my Anne of muttering incantations. But soon enough my memory unlocked the mystery behind Anne's words. An old song, she was singing, so soft that only I could hear it—the song I used to sing to her when I teased her.

Will you go to the rolling of the stone,
The tossing of the ball?
Or will you go and see pretty Annie
And dance amongst them all?

Once upon a time the song was about her, when she and the boys round her had first awakened to her youthful beauty. Now she sang it in honour of her daughter's awakening. Even if our future seemed bleak as bone-dust, the threads of our past bound Anne and me as one.

When the service had ended, Anne didn't tear out the door as though her bum were on fire as was her habit, but stayed close by my side.

Upon the shelf in the back of the church, our Alice Nutter had left out bread for the poor. Betty grabbed a loaf on her way out as did my Liza, whilst Anne and I followed in their wake, walking side by side.

In my anxiousness I couldn't wait till we were alone, but blurted out my words. "Please don't think less of me, our Anne. I never meant to trouble you."

"Bess," she said, her voice breaking. "You're my dearest friend in all the world. But don't go behind my back again."

"Mam?" Liza swung round. "Is she worrying you?" She glared at Anne.

Stood behind her, John looked full bewildered and not a little frightened of Anne, who laughed under her breath even now.

"This is a private matter," I told Liza.

Anne and I strode off together, neither of us uttering a word till we'd left the crowd behind.

"I'm not your foe," I told her when we'd reached the birch wood near Pendle Water. "I acted out of friendship."

No doubt needing to rest her bones after the hours of standing in church, my friend sank to the cold, mossy ground.

"Betty's not a bad girl." Anne looked so thin and frail that I almost feared the stinging wind could blow her away. "We were down to eating acorns and grass, and Annie too fevered to leave her bed. I begged Betty to stay out of mischief, but there's no stopping that girl when she has her mind set. In truth, she did about the only thing she could do. And Mouldheels is fretting about her plate?" Anne let out a ragged laugh. "Dear me! Remember them Robin Hood plays they used to put on before the Magistrate outlawed them? Stealing from the rich and giving to the poor?"

"Why didn't you come to
me?
" I sat down beside her. "I would have given you anything."

"I did, love. I called by Malkin Tower. You were out and your Liza was entertaining that young man of hers. They didn't see me, but I got a good look at them, at how the two of them are half-starved as it is, so how could I ask any food off you and yours?"

It didn't used to be like this, I wanted to cry out, having to steal just to stay alive. But Anne knew as much, her memories reaching back as far as mine.

"Our Anne," I said, my heart breaking. "How did we get to be so old?"

"I'm so worried about that girl. She could hang." My friend touched my face. "As could you, love, for the spell you performed for Mouldheels."

In the eyes of the Constable and the Magistrate, I knew I was damned as Betty. If thieving was a hanging crime, then so was sorcery. But, like Betty, I'd put my need to feed my family and do for my friends above the law.

"I never meant to betray," I swore to her. "I'd no clue it was Betty. Never even suspected."

For a long while we were sat there, too shattered to say anything, our heads bowed under the weight of our burdens, our hands knit together.

"Anne," I said when I could bear the silence no longer. "Promise you'll come to me next time you're in any sort of fix."

Heading home, I reached a bend in the road to find Liza and John sat upon a stone. John's face was white as chalk. His boot, polished for Sunday, was flung upon the ground whilst his bare foot rested in Liza's lap. I caught my breath at the sight of his ankle, swollen to the size of a cabbage.

"Dear God, lad," I said. "That looks a nasty sprain."

He flinched as I touched his puffy skin.

"Twisted it coming down the track," he said between grit teeth, but I could tell straight off that something graver than the pain was eating him.

Liza, being her practical self, ripped strips of cloth from the hem of her smock. "I'll bind it tight for you, love. You'll soon be right again."

"Aye, if I can stay away from those who mutter bewitchments within the very walls of our church," he said, his voice full of cold anger.

"Bewitchments?" Unable to understand his meaning, I looked to my daughter.

Liza cupped her hands round her beloved's ankle as though to charm away the soreness. "Our John is of the mind that this is Anne Whittle's handiwork."

An icy gust blasting down Stang Top Moor robbed my body of its last warmth. So my friend had stood beside me during the service and sung a song just for my ears—to think that her goodwill could be so misunderstood. Bewitchments, indeed.