Chapter 14
Jules sat up in bed with a mug of cocoa and the pages spread on her lap. There were more remedies with vaguely sensible science
behind them and then the more superstitious stuff, the spells—or “speeles,” as Biddy called them—which were rather sweet and
harmless. It was clear she was also a midwife, caring for the women and babies, as there was quite a bit on food and herbs
for the mother in pregnancy, along with herbal remedies for everything from encouraging delivery of the afterbirth to bringing
in a good supply of breast milk.
Biddy really must have been a key person in the community, Jules mused. She was probably the only source of health care for
ordinary people at a time when life was typically “nasty, brutish, and short.” There was no mention of a husband or children,
so there would also have been pressure for her to earn a living. Unless there was family money—after all, less than two hundred
years later, the Capelthornes were considered members of the local aristocracy, a highborn family in favor with the monarch.
Clearly the children in Biddy’s family managed to marry up at some point.
Being a woman of importance in the community must have made Biddy unpopular in some patriarchal circles, though, Jules thought.
Charlie had refused to tell her much in advance, his dark eyes bright with pent-up knowledge, but Jules could see, from the occasional recorded date, that the book spanned some fifty years or more.
Assuming Bridget started writing it as a young woman, she would have been in at least her sixties when it ended.
So, why did it end? Did she die of old age?
Surely she wouldn’t have been old old, but, she supposed, life expectancy was different then, even if you did have access to some basic health care.
Physician, heal thyself, Jules thought with a little smile.
She had started to feel close to this woman, her ancestor. All these thoughts and impressions
were scrolling through her head as she read, making the occasional note in the margin about things she wanted to ask Charlie
or Flo about, but then, as she got closer to the end, a different and disturbing narrative began to emerge.
Jules sat up straighter and put down her empty mug. Even the earlier parts of the book were disorganized, with no real order
to the entries, but by about three-quarters of the way through, the order had become even more chaotic and the writing fragmented.
Charlie had clearly done his best, but increasingly Jules was encountering passages where he had resorted to saying “indecipherable”
or “page missing?” In other parts, Charlie had simply commented “incomplete” at a point that was clearly halfway through a
remedy. Of course, it was perfectly plausible there were actual missing pages, Jules told herself. Charlie had studied the
original more closely than Jules had, and she was under no illusions about the condition of the book.
Also, there was something else... Jules put down the transcript for a moment and took a deep breath. What was it? She was
safely tucked up in her familiar little bed, in her favorite bedroom, with the hot, heavy weight of Merlin, who was curled
up on her knees, purring. She shook her head, as if to physically clear it of negative thoughts.
It was late. Through the open curtains she could see the night sky, deep navy and studded with stars.
It would be cool tonight, with the air so clear.
If it stayed cloudless, the sun would be wonderful for Freya and Finn’s wedding tomorrow, she told herself, wanting, somehow, to ground herself in the present.
The disquieting chaos of the manuscript tugged at her consciousness, nagging at her well-being with a malign oppression.
She should be going to sleep, but, no, she would never sleep now, not knowing the end.
Jules decided to read it all. Maybe that would make it easier to clear her head of it, parking it and her notes to be dealt with after the wedding.
As soon as she resumed reading, it was there again, the creeping sense of unease. It was almost as if she felt haunted by
the spirit of this long-dead woman, her relative, whom she felt so close to. Where rudimentary science and charming superstition
had been blended in the earlier parts of the book, now it had turned much, much darker. There were strange incantations to
quiet the dead; there was a hex to protect her against attempts to poison her, a cursing rant about another woman in the village
stealing her thoughts. Stealing her thoughts? Jules paused, staring out the window, unseeing, her brow knitted. This was more than ignorance and superstition, she realized.
This was even more than the thoughts of a woman who might well have styled herself as a witch. Through the pages of this diary-cum-recipe-book-cum-memoir,
she was witnessing the unraveling of the poor woman’s mind! Was she seeing ghosts? Hearing voices? Could it be that she had
actually been poisoned? Haunted? Could her standing in the community be attracting the evil interventions of some unknown enemy?
Whether it was true or not—and how could it be?
—Biddy clearly considered herself to be immersed in the dark arts now.
The transcript ended shortly after the statement about being poisoned.
The last passage—filled with bracketed confessions from Charlie that the text was “indecipherable”—ended abruptly, halfway through a sentence.
Had Biddy simply died at this point? Jules wondered, her eyes unexpectedly glazing with tears.
There was something absolutely terrified and bereft about this poor woman who had lived more than three hundred years ago.
Jules put the transcript on the bedside table thoughtfully. She must give it to Aunt Flo tomorrow—perhaps her aunt could share
some insight—but there was a bit of her who wanted to spare the older woman, the content was so disturbing. This was Flo’s—and
Jules’s—kith and kin, after all.
Turning out the light, with a slightly tremulous sigh, Jules snuggled down to sleep, careful not to disturb Merlin, in the
hope he would stay to comfort her.
Jules slept fitfully. She was too hot, then she was too cold. Her head ached. Her throat was parched. Her dreams, weaving
a path through her sleep, were disturbing too. In them, she was Bridget Capelthorne—ill, confused, trusting no one, casting
wilder and wilder spells and curses, scared of the dark, disappearing into chaos. Time and time again she woke up with a violent
jerk, panting in terror, and eventually, when morning came, she got up, exhausted, her head pounding. The day of Freya’s wedding
had arrived, and it was the last thing she felt like doing.
“You look terrible,” Flo told her.
“Thanks,” said Jules, beginning to wish her great-aunt was not quite so free with her opinions. “I’ll be fine, but I feel
bad, leaving you on your own to run the shop.”
“Don’t be,” said Flo. “It’s not as if I haven’t been doing exactly that for decades. I think I can manage a May Bank Holiday
weekend.”
“I’m sorry you’re missing the wedding, though.”
Flo shrugged. “Bless them both, it’s so lovely to see youngsters setting out on life together. Makes me wonder when...” She looked at Jules pointedly. “Weddings can be great places for hooking up, you know. Lots of single young people, love is in the air... Anything could happen.”
“It won’t,” Jules told her repressively, getting up to clear the breakfast things away.
The yellow dress had not improved, she noted, staring dispassionately at herself in the mirror. The color was tough to pull
off at the best of times, but it combined particularly unfavorably with today’s tired eyes and pasty skin. Flo’s suggestion
she might attract attention from a man seemed wildly optimistic. And that was if Jules was remotely interested in the idea,
which she definitely was not.
She did her best to paint out the circles under her eyes and then swirled livid pink blush onto her cheeks but it just made
her look as if she were sickening for something. She wiped it off. Finally, she attempted to open up her eyes—piggy after
her disturbed night—with a couple of coats of mascara, which clumped and flaked immediately. It was not going to look great
after Jules cried. She always cried at weddings.
She turned to see the dress from the back, craning her neck. Not an improvement, but that was just too bad. Looking at her
watch, Jules hurriedly stuffed a tissue, a lipstick, and her debit card in the little clutch bag she had found in her childhood
wardrobe, thanking her lucky stars the little gray sparkly one had turned up, or she would have been forced to consider the
My Little Pony fanny pack, complete with furry tail. She should really go clothes shopping if she was going to stay in Portneath
much longer, although, not drawing a salary from working at the shop, she wasn’t sure her bank balance would stand it.
There was a thin and vicious wind. Jules had to clench her teeth against it, hurrying up the hill to the florist. The sweet lady who had run the shop for as long as Jules could remember had the large white cardboard box sitting waiting on the counter.
Lifting the lid, she gave Jules a peek at the contents: “Bouquet for the bride, obviously,” she related, “and then corsages
for you and the mother of the groom. The rest are the buttonholes for the men. Okay?”
The entire collection was made up of scented narcissi: tiny acid-yellow pied-à-terre contrasting with two types of blowsy,
peachy double flowers, alongside the pure white star-shaped blooms of the paperwhites with their tiny, fluted orange centers.
They all looked and smelled glorious.
“Give Freya my best wishes for today, won’t you?” said the lady, whose name Jules felt she should be able to recall. Vanessa?
Serena? “I remember her as a tiny little thing,” she reminisced dreamily.