Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The wind outside rattles the house and its windows, whistling under the eaves above. The storm rages, shaking the trees surrounding Foxglove so terribly they sound fearful themselves, whispering warnings of what’s to come.
But perhaps that’s not about the storm at all.
Here in the belly of Foxglove, all is still, but I can feel in my bones that all is not well. All is not right. I place my hand against the stones of the hidden door, pressing it there to keep myself from doing something that might make this worse somehow.
I’m taut as a wire as I listen, my body aching with the need to go. To do. To save.
I wish to believe my instincts have deceived me, but there is no mistaking that sound.
The tread of boot, of firm leather sole, upon the wood of the floor above my head, drawing nearer.
I remember the sound well from my days as a young girl, the time my mother descended the stairs of the oak to save me from this very passage when the air became too tight around my lungs.
Except these shoes have not come to do any saving.
His boot comes into view on the stairs, following the light from her candle.
My Anna is just on the other side of this wall, just two arm reaches away, but I cannot get to her. She doesn’t know I am here, but then again…neither does he.
My Anna. My little lamb. Quiet and gentle as she has always been as she plays with her dolls in the cellar, her safe place from the storms. Oblivious to the monster descending.
If I had not gone to the meadow to collect herbs before the rain, she would be with me, and this man would not have found her. This monster would not have found her.
Here in my hiding place, I weigh my options.
His footsteps draw nearer as his figure comes into view, and I watch her pause her play, her face turning away from me and toward the stairs. A wicked smile grows across his terrible face.
No.
“Mama?”
My heart becomes a wild boar, ramming and fighting against the cage of ribs under my skin. My temples pound and my hands shake.
I wait to see what he’ll do. One breath. Then another.
“Your mama is not here to help ya now, child.” His voice is low and thick, dripping with malice and likely the foulest of breath. “I’m here to bring ya a message.”
She stands for the man, trembling but respectful of her elder. I curse the day I ever taught her manners as my darling girl shakes before him in a way I feel deep in my womb, her first home and safest place. How I wish I could tuck her back there, safe and sound and with me always.
“The Lord has seen your evil ways, Anna Wilde.” He wags a dirty, beefy finger at her, and I want to tear it off with nothing but my teeth. “Your father was killed riding horseback, and your mother has taken up with the devil. Taken you with her.”
“S-s-sir?” Her voice is so small. She is so small. Just shy of thirteen and still a baby in every way that matters. She hasn’t grown like her sister did, like I myself did. She doesn’t yet know the dangers of the world.
I’m trapped with very few options. If I reveal myself, I will have to kill him. My mother’s warning rings in my head, and I know Foxglove will accept nothing less.
“Don’t play dumb with me, girl. I watched you in the meadow just last week, with your tokens and devil’s weeds.”
At once, the blood drains from my limbs, though it’s not his words I’m afraid of.
His kind is familiar to me. He’s but an image in a looking glass that reminds me of so many others.
Men who fear what they do not understand.
Godless, terrible men who only care for power and how they can wield it.
Men who name themselves as righteous in church each week, though their hearts are black as night.
No, I do not fear his tongue or the vile words he uses.
I fear his hands only and what they might do to my daughter.
My sweet girl trembles, her voice as feeble as a candle in the strongest wind. “Sir, I wouldn’t. I-I’m afraid you are mistaken. In the meadow, I only gathered herbs like my mother taught me—”
“Herbs?” He looks at her through hardened eyes, as if he’s never heard the word.
He does not wish to know the truth, only to punish.
“It was only herbs, was it? And was it only herbs your mother gave to my daughter, then? I expect you’ll want me to believe that just as well.
Lies spill easily from the lips of witches. ”
My jaw tightens as I realize who this man is, and just how I helped his daughter. How I tried. But by the time she came to me, she was too sick. The bloodletting he’d subjected her to had weakened her body too much.
But Anna knows nothing of that. I have taught Mary the things I know.
How to pull fever from the blood and how to quiet the womb when she aches.
I showed her valerian root and where to find it in the woods, showed her its uses.
I have taught her to heal, never to harm, but dear Anna knows neither yet.
Her only tasks have been to fetch the plants and herbs I need for my tinctures and salves. She knows that I use them, but she does not yet know what for.
This man cares not what she knows. I see it in his eyes. For nothing, for picking flowers and playing in the meadow, they will string her from the gallows tree, should they have their way.
I hear my mother’s voice in my ear, and I am but a child again, needing her so desperately in this moment.
From the second William passed, I have known a day like this might come.
I know what the men in the village must think of me, out here alone and happy to be. I know how they must hate me for it.
He takes a step nearer to Anna, and I hear his weight shift, the leather of his boots straining. Something in my chest ignites like the flame of her candle. I can smell him now, that’s how close he is to me.
I can smell the sweat and smoke and horse that clings to his skin.
“I do not know what you mean, sir. Mama and I are not witches.” Her little voice is so strong, so brave, and I can’t stand here another moment.
I bend down, my fingers grazing the cool, damp earth until I find a stone large enough to do what I need.
I toss it with all my might, down the passage and into the darkness.
The stone clangs against the walls, this way and that, and the man turns. His head lifts as he hears it.
With his back to me, I see my chance. I push against the secret door, and it releases with a sound that feels like a breath, as if Foxglove is breathing with me in this moment.
When he turns back to Anna, he does not see me. Not right away. I am hidden in the shadows of the cellar, in the darkness. I step forward slowly, my body moving with the shadows cast by the candle on the ground.
He lurches back as if I’m a snake, and he is but a horse. I rather like that comparison, though I suspect most horses are much smarter than he.
“What the devil is this? You rise from the shadows like the witch that you are.”
I step forward, unafraid. “I come to my daughter’s rescue, like the mother I am. Standing between my blood and the wolf.”
Anna moves to stand next to me, and I take her hand, holding her close against my side.
His dark eyes flick down to her and back up to me, and his lips curl with something dark and dangerous.
Something that has been carried in the expressions of men since the beginning of time.
Something women have always known to fear.
“And what’s to stop that wolf from killing you both in the name of God?” he asks, his rank breath on my face. “Ridding this village of the witches you are.”
“You know nothing of which you speak.”
“Don’t I?” he asks, but I see it then, a flicker of fear that wasn’t there before.
My body knows what it is, though, that part of him—of men like him—that can’t allow for a woman who does not flinch.
“You are a midwife, a trafficker of potions and unnatural remedies. Remedies men don’t have names for.
I’ve heard whispers of you throughout the village.
I know what you are, and I know what you have done. ”
His words are cruel, but they don’t shock me.
“I am not a witch, but a woman. A healer. I have buried this village’s babes in the earth while their mothers cried out over their bloody bedsheets.
I have returned home to work our fields and harvest food to feed my own daughters, and my hands have been raw from both labors.
I have sat at sick beds and birth beds, holding hands and whispering prayers.
I have washed blood from my skirt and the skirts of others, and prepared soup for weary souls.
I have done all of this because it is what my mother taught me and her mother before her.
If that is what you call the work of a witch, then you should know there are witches all across this land from Windsor to Hartford.
A witch is sure to have brought you into this world, and your family must be mighty grateful for it. ”
I pause, studying his haggard face. “Call me a witch if you must, but I tried to save your daughter,” I whisper, a plea to whatever humanity might still exist in him. “I tried.”
He lifts his hand, his palm coming down over my cheek before I see it coming. Anna whimpers, burying her face against my back. I glance down, squeezing my eyes closed until my tears dry, then look back at him, my cheek burning as hot as the fire in our hearth.
“You are a witch, and you’ll die like a witch,” he says, lips curled up with pleasure.
“And you,” I say, taking a step toward him, “are a coward who creeps into a woman’s home under the cover of darkness. You are not wanted here, nor are you welcome.”
He lifts his hand as if to slap me again, but the secret door behind me is caught by a sudden wind.
THUD.
It slams shut with a powerful gust that blows from me toward him—a gust so strong it pushes me forward.
“Black magic…” he mutters, stumbling backward, eyes wide.
I know what will come of my refusal to argue, to explain that it was merely the wind, but I can’t. To protect Anna, I will let him believe whatever he must.
His boots are already retreating toward the stairs when he speaks again.
“Your magic won’t save you, witch. Nor your child.
They will come for you. They will burn your house to ash and your name will be but smoke in their mouths, a whispered warning to those tempted to do devil’s magic.
You’ve lain with the devil, and now we shall banish you to hell. ”
I don’t answer him, because I have no answer to offer.
No amount of pleading will save me now. I have made my choice, and I will not beg for understanding, for he has none to give.
He flees up the stairs and the door above us slams shut.
I hear him sliding the old cedar chest on top of it, and I know he thinks he has us trapped down here, but he knows not of the ways Foxglove will provide for us, the secret passages we can take that will set us free.
At last, Anna wraps both arms around my waist, gripping my skirt so tightly her little fingers turn white.
As I hold her, I am struck by the undeniable fact. She is old enough to prepare for a husband, for the life she will have after I am gone. I must start telling her things. I must get her ready.
I press her face to my chest, stroking her silky hair. “Hush now, my darling. He is gone, and he will not be back tonight. We are not broken. He will not break us.”
She cries against me, wetting my dress, and I don’t dare stop her. Not tonight. Weeping in the way she is, releasing so much all at once, is a sort of prayer from your soul to the earth.
I do not know what the morning light will bring, or if I’ll be given even another fortnight with these hearts that walk around outside my body. I do not know if I made the right choice, if I should’ve said or done more. If I should’ve killed him.
All I know is that I faced the darkness tonight. For it is he who is the devil, not I. And I would do it for her again, any number of times.
Foxglove will protect us as she always has, and I will protect my daughters.
Let them come if they must.
We aren’t going anywhere.