Daughters of the Witching Hill (24 page)

Gran was a cunning woman. She worked for good and her every charm was a prayer of the old religion. Yet her many hardships went to show that there was no way you could win at this game. Once you let folk know you'd the powers to bend and twist, you became a witch in their eyes, even if you sought only to help others. Neighbours would turn to you, all right, call on you if they'd need of you, except you'd never be one of them again, but forever on the outside looking in. A lonely path Gran had chosen. She had us, of course, and I loved her more than anyone, but she'd not a single friend to confide in the way I could confide in Nancy. What kind of life was that? Only a woman as strong as Gran could bear it.

Even my mam, who had renounced the cunning craft, couldn't rid herself of the taint that clung to her like a mantle she could never shake off. Overwhelmed me, it did, to consider what Mam had suffered, throwing herself at Baldwin of all men to purify herself, but the stain remained. If we had been ordinary people and not a family of cunning folk, would Chattox have cursed us with such force? If we had been regular folk, my father might have lived.

With my every step homeward, I prayed to the Mother of God to deliver me from this. May I never again set eyes on that black dog.

When I reached Malkin Tower and unpacked the heavy bundle of bread and honeycake that Mistress Holden had given me, Jennet danced in a circle.

"Cake!" she cried.

But there was no hiding my distress from Mam.

"What's the matter, love? You look ill-done-to."

Up spoke Jamie before I could even open my mouth. "She'd words with Chattox."

Mam bristled to hear that name. From her stool by the hearth, Gran stared with her clouded eyes. She would not let it rest till I'd spilled the story.

"Chattox carried a clay figure in her basket, I'll swear to it." After the long walk in the hot sun, my head was throbbing. When I closed my eyes, I saw blobs of light. I'd tell my family about every last thing—except the dog. That would stay hidden inside me, buried like the skull underneath the manure heap out back. "When I asked her what it was, she said she planned to eat it because she'd nothing else. She was lying, wasn't she, Gran?"

More than anything, I longed for Gran to absolve me of this. Tell me I'd done right to defend Nancy and the Holdens. But when Gran finally spoke, her voice was full of heartbreak.

"May God have mercy upon Anne Whittle."

Next morning I awoke to the racket of hooves and creaking wagon wheels, then somebody pounding on our door. I laced my kirtle and ran, my uncombed hair flying, to find Matthew Holden, his face drawn like death.

"Alizon, will you wake your gran? Our Nancy's taken ill."

Though Gran had barely recovered from the strain of her journey out to the Bulcocks', she rose from her pallet at once and bade me pack her bundle of herbs. Full determined was Gran to do everything she could, for we'd a debt to the Holdens. She'd go if it crippled her. At least this time we didn't have to walk. Matthew, bless him, had lined the wagon bed with straw and blankets to make Gran comfortable. Sat beside Matthew on the driver's plank, I fair wished the horses could gallop all the way, so worried I was for Nancy.

Once we reached Bull Hole Farm, I made Gran take a bowl of porridge and cream to keep up her strength. Blessing the sick was taxing on one as old as her. Whilst she ate, I filled the kettle and brewed the same herbs that had mended Issy Bulcock. Rushing to my friend's bedside, I touched her forehead, clammy from the low fever that left her too weak and dizzy to leave her bed.

"Here." I held the potion to her mouth. "This will make you right again."

"Alizon." She reached for my hand. "Last night I hardly slept for my nightmares. I dreamt you were in danger, darkness and stench everywhere. I tried to help you but I couldn't reach you." Her eyes glistened in fear, not for herself but for me.

"Hush now," I begged her. "Put that woman's evil out of your mind, love."

Mouthful by mouthful, I coaxed my friend to swallow the brew.

When Gran began her blessings, Nancy's parents and brother knelt round and prayed, whilst I stood there, hands folded, not daring to say the old prayers for fear of offending the Holdens who were staunch in their devotion to the new religion.

But Mistress Holden gazed up at me and said, "Please, Alizon, go on and say your Roman prayers if it will take this evil from my child."

So I dropped to my knees and chanted ten Pater Nosters, ten Aves, and the Creed. In the midst of our prayers, Gran took my friend's limp body in her arms, striving to draw the harm out of Nancy and into herself. Looking on, I wept for them both. Gran rocked the girl in her embrace till Nancy's cold sweat turned to warm dew and the colour returned to her cheeks. Then Gran went slack and grey. I caught her before she could hit the floor.

Master Holden bore Gran away to his and his wife's own four-poster and there she lay full spent beneath the embroidered counterpane. Nancy's mother brought Gran ale posset, hot broth, and bread soaked in milk and honey. Afterward, when Gran nodded off, I knew she wouldn't rise for many hours yet. We would have to stay the night.

"My husband shall sleep in Matthew's room," said Mistress Holden. "I shall sleep in the truckle bed in Nancy's chamber. But you, Alizon, shall sleep with your grandmother in the big bed."

Her hand on my arm, she showed me into the master bedroom as though I were a guest of honour. We both smiled to see Gran fast asleep, her head nestled in the plump bolster.

"She must be so proud of you." Mistress Holden rubbed my hair. "You're every inch the blesser, Alizon Device."

How it floored me to hear my dearest friend's mother calling me what I least wanted to be. Too discomfited to speak, I lowered my head. Mistress Holden kissed my brow and wished me good night.

The linens, soft and soothing against my skin, allowed me to forget her words. Such comfort—the likes of which I'd never known. The feather mattress cushioned my hip and shoulder where the bones stuck out. So this was what it was like to lie upon a proper featherbed. The embroidered canopy kept the spiders and beetles living in the thatch from dropping upon our faces in the night. So blessed quiet here, too. Jennet wriggled and squirmed and muttered in her sleep, but Gran slumbered so still that I almost feared she would never awaken. My palm on her flank, I waited to feel the rise and fall of her breath before I allowed myself to drift off.

My dreams were as comforting as the mattress. Before me I saw Nancy, restored to health. We walked along, laughing and sharing secrets. Blushing like mad, she confessed that she was sweet on Miles Nutter, Alice Nutter's eldest son and heir to Roughlee Hall. I swung Nancy round and teased her that she'd be a grand lady indeed if she married him: mistress of that manor house with its arched windows. She'd wear velvet and silk and lace, and a maidservant would dress her hair each morning. My lips to her ear, I whispered what I knew to be true:
If you marry Miles Nutter, you'll have to accept the old religion. Don't you know they've a priest hidden in their very walls?

With a start, I awakened to Gran's sobbing.

"Anne," she choked. "My Anne, oh why?"

"Gran, you're only dreaming."

Still she cried out for Anne who could be none other than Chattox. How dare that witch invade my gran's dreams—but wasn't that just what she'd done to Nancy, sending her the night terrors? What bewildered me was that Nancy's nightmare had not revealed her own doom but mine, which proved how vile Chattox was. If it was me she desired to torment, could she not at least be decent enough to leave my friend alone? What game did that woman play with us, and where would any of us be without Gran's charms, the only thing mighty enough to counter Chattox's curses? Yet, in their younger days, Gran and Chattox had been as close as Nancy and I were. There was a time when Chattox had been a girl like any other—a girl no different than I was. That thought made me writhe, the linens twisting round my legs.

"Gran, wake up." I gave her shoulder a shake.

"Tibb," she raved. "The light fair blinds me. The light, how it shines. Tibb, my love, come back."

After that, she quietened down and slept in peace. Then I couldn't rest, for I was too haunted by what I'd heard: her crying out to Tibb with such longing, as though to a husband. In the depth of night I was forced to remember the black dog that had come for me, its eyes locking into mine as though summoning me away to that realm of spirits and visions where the animal would reveal its true shape, appearing, for all I knew, as a man, a lover. Chilled me to the core, that notion did. These were my grandmother's powers and this was what she wished for me.

***

In the morning I led Gran into Nancy's chamber. My friend was sat up in bed, eating porridge, just like her old self. Gran looked better, too, her skin bright and flushed as though she had indeed slept in the arms of her invisible husband, but I quickly chased such thoughts out of my mind, fair distracted by the feast of a breakfast that Mistress Holden dished up. Fried eggs, there were, black pudding and griddle cakes, tripe and onion, and the good ale that Mistress Holden saved for special occasions. Sarah Holden sat Gran in their best carved chair and after she'd eaten as much as her fickle appetite allowed, they let her doze for a spell by the fire, which they'd built high and roaring hot even though it was summer. Finally Matthew hitched up his team to take us back to Malkin Tower. Master Holden loaded the wagon with his payment to Gran: a sack of oats, a cask of cider, a side of bacon, and two laying hens.

On the journey back I mulled over my dream of Nancy marrying Miles and living at Roughlee Hall. She'd have servants to do her washing and spinning. Would she be too proud to be my friend then? In truth, there were some mean-spirited folk who said I was too lowly to share her company even now. But I reminded myself that it had been only a dream and nothing more.

As we trundled up and down the hills, the horses straining and flicking flies with their tails, clouds moved in to smudge the perfect blue sky. The sight cheered Matthew, for we'd had a month of drought.

"Looks like the weather's turning, eh, Mother Demdike?" He turned round in the driver's seat to look at Gran where she was nestled in the straw and cushions. "Didn't you predict we'd get rain round the full moon?"

"Weather always changes round about the full moon," Gran said. "Crops will be wanting a spot of rain." But she sounded as though she were a hundred miles away. Was she still spent from blessing Nancy, or was she brooding on Chattox and Tibb?

Clouds kept rolling in from of the west and the air hung heavier and heavier till I fancied I could cut it with a knife and eat it.

When we reached Malkin Tower, Matthew handed Gran down from the wagon.

"Now get yourself home with God's speed," she said, patting his shoulder, "before this storm breaks."

First he let his horses have a rest whilst he hauled in the oats, bacon, and cider. Then he carried the wicker cage, following me as I led the way to the chicken run. Jennet rushed out to watch as we released the hens. Up and down they raced, squawking and indignant. It had been ages since we'd had laying hens.

"Remember to save the slops for them," I told Jennet. So happy I was at the thought of fresh eggs that I dared to ruffle her hair.

"Ugh, don't touch me with your dirty chicken hands!"

Ignoring her pettishness, I ran to fetch water for the horses and wiped the sweat from their necks with a cool, wet rag. A short while later, when Matthew drove away, I was stood at the gate waving.

"Give Nancy our love!" I called out.

Jennet took her place beside me. I tried to be kind, to pretend that I was as tender-hearted as Nancy and that Jennet was one of her little nieces that loved to jump into my lap for a cuddle.

"Matthew Holden's the boy Gran saved and now he's a man with five children of his own," I told her. "Yesterday Gran mended Nancy. Our gran will be needing her rest now, all right." I couldn't keep the pride out of my voice. As much as Gran's powers terrified me, wasn't she the best charmer Pendle Forest had ever known?

Jennet threw me a sly look. "When Gran dies,
you'll
be the witch!"

That made me boil. "Gran was never a witch and you know it."

But Jennet had already scarpered.

O
NE JULY DAWN
Jamie and I set off for Bull Hole Farm to help with the hay harvest. Though my mood was as bright as the morning, our Jamie was in a foul humour. The day before he'd quarrelled with Mistress Towneley of Carr Hall.

"She'll rue it," he said as we walked beside Pendle Water. The birds piped and the stream gurgled, but my brother's face was clenched in vehemence.

I strove to soothe him. "Go on, tell us what she said to you, love."

Pained me like a blade in the side to see him suffer like this. Folk were too quick to mock and ill-treat him, for they saw only his affliction and lacked the grace to look beyond it to discover what a good soul he truly was.

"She called me a thief." He kicked at the loose stones in his path, sending them skittering away from his huge feet.

"Oh, Jamie."

At a loss, I was. As Gran had said, he risked enough with his poaching. If one such as Mistress Towneley had evidence of him stealing from her, he was done for. I counted to ten, trying to keep my patience, for I'd never get the truth out of Jamie if I lost my temper.