Magus of Stonewylde Book One (21 page)

As Yul approached, the crow shuffled and fussed, flexing out its wings and opening its beak in a silent squawk. He stopped and stared at it, wishing he’d never been sent on this errand. The crow seemed hostile – malignant almost – as if it didn’t want him to pass.

‘I’ve come to see Mother Heggy,’ said Yul, glad no one was about to hear him addressing a bird. ‘I bring a message from Old Greenbough.’

The crow let out a noisy
caw
and, in a messy fashion, launched
itself from the branch. It flapped off along the path which Yul must now follow, disappearing from sight around a bend. Yul duly followed it and finally reached the place that he’d been told never to visit. Mother Heggy’s home was strictly off limits to every child in the Village and most adults too. Yul swallowed hard.

The tiny cottage was ancient, its thatch green and rotten and the cob walls tumbling apart in places. It spoke of neglect, which was unusual at Stonewylde. A thin wisp of smoke rose from the chimney so Yul knew Mother Heggy was in. He certainly couldn’t have told from looking in the windows, which were very small and so thick with grime as to be opaque. He forced himself to knock on the bleached wood of the old door, hoping she wouldn’t hear him so he could leave without seeing her.

‘Lift the latch and come inside!’ called a high, creaky voice.

The cottage smelled musty and strange. It was dark and at first Yul could see nothing other than the dull glimmer of copper pots on the walls and a meagre fire smouldering in an inglenook. He blinked, looking around for her.

Mother Heggy sat hunched in a rocking chair. She wore a shapeless sack of a dress that almost reached her cracked ankle boots, with a ragged grey shawl pulled around her and a battered hat on her head. She was very old and very ugly. She had a broken clay pipe clamped in her shrivelled mouth, from which came a ribbon of foul-smelling smoke. She sat in the corner like a baleful spider waiting in her web, and Yul’s skin prickled with apprehension. She gestured with a claw for him to sit in the wooden chair opposite her, where a little light fell from the window.

‘Bright blessings, Mother Heggy,’ he began politely.

‘Blessings to you, Yul of the Winter Solstice.’

‘You know who I am?’ he asked in surprise.

She cackled and sucked noisily on her pipe.

‘I should do! I were the first person on this Earth to set eyes on you, son o’ Maizie.’

‘What? You know my mother too, Mother Heggy?’

‘Aye, I knew Maizie right enough, and a fine young girl she was. A fine woman too, so as I’ve heard. Too fine for her own good, that one. Especially in the spring time when the hares are leaping and the moon is ripe.’

Yul thought her mind must be wandering.

‘Is the little sister growing well?’

‘Er, yes, she’s fine. She works at the dairy.’

‘Not her! The tiny one, born at Imbolc. Little maiden.’

Yul frowned. She must mean Leveret, the youngest in the family.

‘She’s very well thank you. She’s two years old now.’

‘Aye, she would be. Two years at Imbolc. And you’re coming up to sixteen this Winter Solstice. Who’d o’ thought it? Nearly sixteen and I remember the night you were born.’

She spat into the corner and rocked a little, peering at Yul. He felt awkward and decided to deliver his message and get out as quickly as possible.

‘Mother Heggy, I’ve come to—’

She interrupted him with a horrible cackle.

‘You don’t know why you’ve come, boy! You have no idea what’s truly going on. Only Mother Heggy knows that. Now sit still and let me get an eyeful of you. Waited nigh on sixteen years for this visit, I have.’

She surveyed him carefully, her milky eyes roaming his face and body.

‘You’re a moon-blessed boy, for all you were solstice-born,’ she said at last, her voice as dry and crackly as autumn leaves on the ground. ‘You have the moon in your eyes. Red Moon too, I recall. Maizie was surprised. But they come when they’re ready, I told her, especially the ones destined for magic.’

Yul swallowed and kept quiet.

‘You were the last one I brought into the world. The last babe of so many. I remember it clear. Who could forget that night? Too many now, babies all over the place, and where will it lead? Sol has grand ideas, too grand. ‘Twill all fall about him. He’s
sown the seeds of his own destiny. Told him that years ago, but he didn’t thank me for it. Oh no, not him.’

She spat into the corner again, her face grimacing even further into its wrinkles. Yul had no idea what she was on about.

‘And how is Maizie? She were a pretty maiden. Brung her into the world too. Dark hair, grey eyes, used to be a lot o’ that around but it’s died out now. You’re like her, young Yul. I can see you’re a spirited one too, and you suffer for it, don’t you?’

Yul nodded. His strong spirit was always his downfall with practically every person with any authority over him. Mother Heggy cackled again and rose creakily from her rocking chair. She was tiny and almost bent double. She shuffled over to the range and started fiddling with a pot whose contents bubbled gently. She ladled some into a stone mug and added a pinch of something, giving it a good stir. Then she shuffled back and handed it to Yul. He took it reluctantly, for the mug looked filthy.

‘Drink, drink,’ she said impatiently, settling down again painfully in her rocking chair.

The concoction tasted strange. There was a bitter aftertaste and it burned on the way down like the ceremony mead. Yul felt his body start to relax and knew with sinking certainty that he’d been drugged. His legs felt indescribably heavy; he could no more have stood up than flown to the moon. His head was thick and muzzy and his tongue far too big for his mouth. He grinned weakly at the crone, who rocked slowly and clicked her tongue at him.

‘That’s better, my boy. Now you’re mine for a while. I need to get inside you, Yul. I need to see if I were right. I’m old and worn out, but I been holding on for this time to come round. And after all these years o’ waiting, here we are at last.’

She dragged her chair closer and, leaning over, took his lifeless hands in hers. He could smell her, a disgusting smell of old woman and mould. She stared into his dilated pupils and he felt something tugging at him, as if part of him was being dragged out. Her own eyes were rheumy with age, the irises blurred, and he wondered blearily if she could see at all. She reached out a
filthy claw to trace his sharp cheekbone and the deep hollow underneath. He couldn’t move but had to endure her touching him, all the while locked in her gaze.

Mother Heggy pinched his dark curls, wrapping them around her gnarled fingers. Her hand slid down, feeling the angular jaw bone, over his neck and into the hollow beneath his throat. Everything inside him screamed; he couldn’t bear it. Nobody ever touched him. His eyes pleaded for her to stop. Her shrivelled mouth broke into a toothless leer and she raised her hand from his neck to run a clawed forefinger across his lips. Then she let him go and sat back in her chair, rocking gently and surveying him.

‘You’ve no need to be scared o’ me, Yul. I ain’t against you. Old Mother Heggy’s on your side. Always have been, right from the very start. You’ve enough folk crying for your blood without setting against me. You’ll be needing my magic afore this thing is finished, for all that you have so much of your own.’

She picked up the mug from which he’d drunk, swilled it around and threw the remains on the floor. Then she stared into the dregs left behind. All the while Yul sat transfixed, unable to move and barely to blink. She nodded slowly, turning the mug this way and that.

‘Everywhere I look the story is foretold. Blue and red, red and blue, just as I told him all those years back. Black and silver too, and the silver is come now. You must beware, Yul. You think ‘tis that man Alwyn is the danger. You think ‘tis them boys from the Hall are the enemy. Aye, all o’ them will hurt you when they can. But the true danger is not from them. Oh no. The one you must heed, the one who has the real power to harm you, is Magus. Beware of him, Yul. Beware of Magus for he is out to destroy you.’

Yul heard her words, although they meant nothing to him. His eyelids were growing heavy. They began to droop and his head fell forward, chin resting on his chest. He slept, oblivious of the crone in the room with him. He slept all afternoon and when he awoke it was even gloomier in the dirty cottage, for the
sun had moved right round. He sat up with a start, his heart pounding. How long had he been asleep? What had she done to him whilst he slept? Muzzily he scanned the room. She was over in a corner turned away from him. A great black crow sat on the back of her empty rocking chair fixing him with its jewel-bright eye. It let out a loud
caw
and she turned and shuffled over, clutching another mug. He shook his head but she pressed it into his hand.

‘No, drink it. ‘Twill clear your head. Trust me, boy. Drink.’

He did, and found the concoction refreshing and delicious.

‘Please, Mother Heggy, I must go now,’ he mumbled, his tongue still feeling strange.

‘Aye, I’ve learnt all I needed. Forgive me for tricking you, but I had to find the truth. You’ll come to see me many a time after the Summer Solstice, but you’ll come afore then too. Now you’ve found old Mother Heggy, you’ll seek her help.’

He nodded obediently, still looking into her eyes.

‘And I want to meet the girl, the newcomer. Bring her to visit me.’

He nodded again.

‘There was a message for me?’

‘Yes, there’s a fine crop of Beechwood Sickener in the woods. Old Greenbough said we can pick them now if you want, or wait till you say the time is right.’

She scrunched her ancient wrinkled skin into something resembling a smile.

‘Aye, good. Beechwood Sickener. ‘Tis a long time since I worked with them. Slow and sure they do the job, right enough. This is as it should be, all falling into place as I always foretold. The only one to touch ’em must be you. You will pick them on the night of the next Dark Moon, at sunset. Put them in a flaxen bag and tie it with a string of ivy. Leave them on my doorstep.’

‘Yes, I will. Blessings, Mother Heggy’

Walking down the track in the evening sunlight, with gulls from the nearby cliff screaming overhead, Yul thought ruefully of his wasted afternoon. He could’ve gone up into the hills or
down to the beach. Instead he’d sat in a drugged stupor inside the crone’s filthy home while she pawed at him and filled his head with strange talk that meant nothing to him. He was annoyed, and didn’t relish the prospect of a return visit. He certainly didn’t intend to take Sylvie there. Maybe he’d manage to avoid Mother Heggy when he brought her the mushrooms, and could then forget all about her.

He thought of some of the strange things she’d said to him, and couldn’t see how he’d ever need her help. She was far too old and immobile to be of any use to anyone. It was she who needed help. He wondered how she’d known straight away who he was. And why was she so interested in Maizie? Strange that his mother never talked about her, when clearly she’d known the crone well in her younger days. Yul entered the Village, greeting people on their way home from work, and visited the bath house for a shower. The griminess of the cottage still clung to him and he wanted to wash away the lingering, fusty smell.

That evening after Alwyn had left for the pub, Maizie and Rosie washed the dishes, tidied up, and then settled down in the parlour with their sewing. Yul was still bringing in logs for the range, and then had water containers to fill from the cart outside. He was helped by one of the younger boys, Geoffrey, while the other, Gregory, fed the slops to the pig. The three youngest children were already asleep upstairs. Maizie called for the two middle boys to put the chickens down for the night and mind the hen-house door was tightly fastened, then go to bed. Eventually, his jobs done, Yul fetched his wood and knife and sat with his mother and sister. He had a fine piece of holly and was carving an owl.

‘I went to Mother Heggy’s cottage this afternoon,’ he began, hoping his mother would explain some of the things the old woman had told him. He hadn’t dared mention it earlier when his father was around. When Alwyn was in the house, Yul was silent unless asked a direct question. He didn’t speak to his mother or brothers or sisters either, but tried to shrink into himself and not be noticed. He’d learnt how to make himself
almost invisible when Alwyn was around. Sometimes it worked.

Maizie looked up from her sewing and stared at him.

‘Did you now? And what was that in aid of?’

‘Message for her from Old Greenbough. But she said some strange things, Mother, and I didn’t understand most of it.’

‘Well, she’s a strange one herself, Yul. You mustn’t set any store by what she says. She’s very old and rambling in her mind.’

‘The weird thing was, she knew who I was even though I’ve never seen her before. She called me “son of Maizie” and she spoke like she knew you well, Mother. She asked after you – and Leveret too. Why only Leveret and not the others? I thought that was very odd.’

Maizie glanced at him sharply.

‘Like I said, she’s rambling in her mind. ‘Tis a wonder she’s still alive. She were so important here in the old days but now she’s almost forgotten. ‘Tis what comes of having no family to look after you in your old age.’