Chapter 13
THEN
The day after Alice had come to Meggie, the snow lay thick on the path that led to Meg’s cottage.
The field in front of her that met the Burn was desolate, with not a footprint to be seen.
Meg opened the door to bring some firewood in, and inhaled deeply.
The air was cold and fresh, but the faint scent of woodsmoke drifted up from the village.
Meg looked down to her left and felt uneasy.
She wondered if Alice had taken the draught, and whether she had been sensible about it, as she had promised.
Meg could not shake the feeling that something was wrong. The image of the scattered flower heads and the apparent lack of mugwort remaining in her basket worried her, and she determined that she would go and see Alice today.
Once she had set the fire and tidied her small cottage, brushing the remains of herbs and plants off the table and throwing them into the fire, checking the bunches of dried flowers she had hanging up to dry and decanting what she needed to into smaller pots, she put her shawl on and pulled it across her body.
It was still snowing and the sky was grey as she set off towards Newbrough.
She hurried as best she could through the dirty, snow-clad track, trying not to slip on the muddy slush, which was the main street of the village; she couldn’t stop feeling more and more uneasy as she got closer to Alice’s cottage, where she lived with her mother.
Meg pushed her way past a crowd of farmers who were arguing about something and wove her way through the buildings until she came to Alice’s house. Before she even reached the door, she heard howls and crying coming from the building, and she knew something was terribly wrong.
Meg hesitated outside, not knowing if she should go inside or not. ‘Alice?’ Her stomach turned over. This sounded bad.
Then Meggie heard a woman shouting: ‘My bairn! My Alice. Oh dear God, what has happened? What has she done to you? What did that witch give you? I always knew – I always knew she was bad.’
That was enough. Meggie burst into the small living quarters, her cheeks flaming at the words Cecily Scott was shouting, and she hurried towards a bed in the corner of the room, even as Cecily began to shriek and scream even more.
Alice lay on the bed white and cold, her black hair fanned out around her pale face. Her eyes were closed and her lips were bloodless. Dark smudges stained the skin beneath her eyes, as if thumbs had been pressed into the hollows and dragged out ugly marks.
‘Alice! What did you do? You promised.’ Meggie threw herself onto her knees by the bed.
She grasped hold of Alice’s limp hand and tried uselessly to rub some life into it.
‘You promised…’ Her voice caught on a sob.
There was nothing she could do for her friend – it was horribly, horribly obvious that Alice was dead.
Cecily cried out and pulled Meggie away from her. ‘It is your fault, you witch. You did this to her. You and your poisons. You killed her. She said she had a potion from you to drink, to rid her of his bastard. And look what it has done to her.’
Meggie stared at Alice’s mother, devastated that Cecily could think that about her. ‘I told her not to take it all together. I said I would come down and give it to her safely—’
‘Safely!’ Cecily swept a handful of roughly chopped leaves from the table and brandished them.
‘I found this afterwards. I did not bring it into the house. You must have given it to her and told her to take it. I can recognise mugwort, Meg Noble. The plant is evil; it does the Devil’s work.
I am not a fool; I knew of the spells and charms your mother and grandmother did. ’
‘They did not do spells—’
‘But I said nothing then, as it was not my business,’ went on Cecily. ‘But this goes against the Lord’s word, and you are a murderer. And a witch.’ Cecily broke down into tears again, then turned her attention to her daughter again, effectively dismissing Meg.
‘Cecily. I swear, I did not give her it. She must have taken the mugwort from my basket when she came to me. All I made for her was—’ But Meggie couldn’t continue.
She had made a potion with mugwort in. And Alice had taken it – and more – despite her promises.
But Meggie was, to all intents and purposes, responsible.
Alice would not have had access to the mugwort, or known what it did, had Meggie not told her…
Two more women appeared from somewhere in the shadow alcoves by the fireplace and stood glaring at Meggie, arms folded and heads shaking.
‘She asked me to help her. I did what she wanted…’ The words were meaningless.
Whatever Alice had wanted, Meggie was sure that she would not have wanted to die.
Meggie looked at all three women. She raised her arms before her and turned her hands palm upwards in the age-old gesture of pleading for one’s innocence.
‘A hex! A curse! She is cursing us!’ screeched one of the women.
‘I am not—’ Meggie began.
But: ‘You killed her!’ cried Alice’s mother. ‘Look at her. Look at her and tell me you were not responsible…’ She howled pitifully and crumpled onto a stool, sobbing pathetically. ‘My child is dead, and it is all your fault. She is dead.’
Meggie ran back to the bed and hung over her friend, searching desperately for some hope, some faint breath or heartbeat that would tell her all this was a mistake. It could not be happening. Not to Alice. Not because of what she, Meggie, had done. But it was.
Meggie had known Alice had been violently sick, she had confessed that to Meg. She had been too weak to take the full-strength potion, but she still let her grab the bottle. And then, even worse, Meg had taken her attention off the plant in her basket. Why had she not thought ahead?
Because she trusted her friend, that was why.
Not only could the mugwort do what Meggie had prepared it for, but it could make you fall asleep. Too much of it – or if the person taking it was too weak – and the drug would numb your senses. It might even lead you into a sleep from which you would never wake.
Alice was dead.
And it was because Meggie had tried to help her.
Yet she had warned her. She had told her.
‘No!’ Meggie suddenly shouted. ‘Alice knew about the risks. I told her. She said she would never blame me—’
‘Enough!’ screamed Alice’s mother. ‘Enough of your evil and your lies. It is your fault and I blame you.’ She pointed at Meggie. ‘Get her out of here. Get her and her sinful ways out of my house. She killed my daughter. She killed her.’ Cecily broke into a fresh onslaught of sobbing.
One of the women in the house pushed Meggie roughly out into the street.
It was Ellen, another childhood friend of Meg and Emory’s, and the widow of a farm labourer killed in an accident last year.
She had two sons and a daughter of her own.
Three children, all under five years old, and barely twenty-two herself.
Meggie had delivered the middle and the last child, her grandmother the first. Meggie had saved the oldest boy from a fever just a few weeks after his father had died, Ellen throwing herself at Meggie’s feet, crying, telling her she would never forget her kindness.
‘And after he threw stones at your door,’ Ellen had sobbed, her friend Mary patting her back as she cried.
‘You are an angel – many would have scolded him, told him he would be sorry, but you helped him.’
‘Many of them would be sorry,’ Mary had added, ‘no more than they deserved, playing tricks like that. He’s a lucky bairn, for sure.’
‘Ellen, you have to believe me…’ It was Meggie’s turn to sob and plead today, her defences crumbling.
‘Do not dare to come back,’ Ellen hissed. ‘Do not dare turn up at the funeral. You have caused enough harm.’ She looked terrified. And with good reason. Meggie’s eyes widened in disbelief. Ellen had received the same service from Meggie only three months ago.
‘You!’ whispered Meggie. ‘You. How can you do this, Ellen? How can you believe all this? You know that I—’
‘Just leave,’ said Ellen. ‘Just go.’
Ellen slammed the wooden door in Meggie’s face. Meggie was left standing in the street, alone.
* * *
Hidden away in the alley across the street, Charles Milburn watched the proceedings with no particular emotion.
It was not his fault. The girl, Alice, had obviously been weak and sickly anyway.
He turned his back on the cottage and mounted his horse.
Flicking his crop against its flanks, he trotted away from the village towards the old pack horse route across the moors.
These tragic incidents happened every now and again. He didn’t need to worry about it all. Nobody would ever hold him to account.
Once clear of the village, he whipped the horse harder and he felt its muscles contract beneath him. He clung on tight as it cantered away, and the fresh Northumbrian air blew all thoughts of Alice from his mind.