The Winter Witch

Chapter 1

They should not have come down to the water’s edge. The sea snarled and rushed for their feet with its white teeth, the north wind howling at its back. élisabeth stumbled backwards, squeezing her rosary in her palm to steady herself.

The captain had said all the brides must stay on the quayside until they were ready to board the ship.

But Marthe had insisted she was not going to come all the way to the coast without touching the ocean with her fingertips, and so the two sisters had slipped away from the crowd and down onto the pebble beach.

élisabeth wondered if a sea serpent writhed and coiled within the rough water, while her younger sister bent down to dip her hands into its foam.

Marthe touched her wet fingers to her lips.

“It’s salty. Like tears.”

élisabeth knelt, slipping the rosary into her pocket. She did not need to taste the sea to know it was made of tears. Every part of this journey was cloaked in sorrow. Still, it is said that a touch of sea-foam on a cloudy day can ease a sea voyage, and so she stretched out her hand.

She felt a thrust in her gut—sharp, urgent—and slowed her reach. Then again, she thought, I would not want to rile a sea serpent, or work a charm I could not control.

She plunged her hand into her pocket for her wooden beads and stood up. “We should go back.”

Marthe gave her a dark look, her usually sunny dimples eclipsed by her scowl. Without waiting for élisabeth, she marched to the river-stairs that led back towards the harbour. She took them two at a time, forcing élisabeth to scramble behind her to keep pace.

They passed a row of half-timbered houses that had seen a thousand vessels come and go along the sleeve-shaped channel that separated France from England. The buildings sagged together, windows glinting after the sisters as they rushed towards the quayside.

Ahead of them an old priest in a cassock spoke to a sailor on the main deck of the ship, his finger punctuating the air in short, angry jabs.

A blackbird flew past, as sure a sign that the Devil had come to tempt them as if Lucifer himself were setting foot on the ship, with a red apple in his open palm.

élisabeth bowed her head, as if that alone could help her evade Satan’s notice, and kept moving towards the ship.

Scattered around the wharf were dozens of small groups of nervous brides.

“Parisians?” Marthe craned to hear the unfamiliar dialects and bumped into a girl with an elaborate coif tied in a bow under her chin.

“Mind yourself.” élisabeth pulled Marthe close, lacing her sister’s fingers through her own. She lowered her voice. “At least we can understand them well enough. Father Paul said there could be women from as far as Poitiers on board.”

“Poitiers!” Marthe scoffed, shaking her hand free from élisabeth’s grasp.

“Why spend the better part of a week in a coach to get here from Poitiers? Surely girls from Poitiers would find passage on the west coast. Honestly, Lili, that priest was as simple as a sock. I’ll be glad never to set eyes on him again. ”

Marthe turned and strode towards a group of young women gathering near the gangplank.

élisabeth bit her lip. Moods came on like summer storms for girls Marthe’s age; her sister’s ill humour usually passed after a short, violent squall.

But this time was different. Marthe had been threatening thunder from the moment they had locked the door to their home in Saint-Philbert and handed over the key.

“Stay close,” élisabeth said as she caught up. Marthe glowered back; the frown did her face no favours. élisabeth felt the colour rise on her cheeks and looked away.

She studied the women around her, wondering if she could tell which ones came from Poitiers just by their headdresses. On her left was a girl with plump cheeks trying to block a taller one’s path. She wore a white linen hood like élisabeth’s own, gathered at the back of her neck.

“Hang back, we don’t want to be first,” the girl told her friend. Her sharp Parisian accent contrasted with her soft features.

The taller girl put her hand on her companion’s shoulder and grimaced, revealing a front tooth so crooked it looked as though it were trying to hide behind its neighbour. “If we’re last, we’ll get the worst bunk.”

“But remember: First aboard, soon meet the Lord.”

“We can’t put it off anymore,” the tall one said, steering her friend by the shoulders towards the Saint-Jean-Baptiste.

The women on the wharf started to grow restless.

Some, like the first two Parisians, pushed towards the ship, anxious to finally be getting going, done with fretting about where they would sleep and what they might eat and if their meagre belongings would be orphaned on the quayside, just as they themselves were.

These girls had no strength left to wonder if they had said the correct prayers to protect against fever, or if it were too much to add a plea to Saint Anne not to be packed into the hold like salted cod in a barrel with the lid nailed shut, but be allowed to see the sky and breathe the sea air.

They were done with worries and wishes; like Marthe, they were resigned to their fate.

“Please,” élisabeth begged her sister, who plowed ahead. “I don’t want to lose you.”

The firm tilt of Marthe’s jaw wavered and she stopped. She looked at the throng of girls around them and slowly exhaled. Then she took élisabeth’s hand, and together they bobbed up the gangplank and onto the three-masted ship.

“Keep going down. Then along the lowest deck. Fill the aft bunks first,” a gruff voice barked as they were swept down a small staircase into the darkness.

élisabeth blinked. A stocky sailor stood in the passageway with an oil lamp, the shadows thrown by its light twisted and grotesque. He was arguing with the two Parisians.

“There ain’t time for chatter, keep movin’.”

“But we want to stay here, close to the hatch.”

“Get along, you daft whores!”

There was a rush of movement and the two Parisians scattered. The sailor turned towards élisabeth and Marthe. “Down the passageway to the stern. Two to a bunk.”

“Who will bring our trunks on board?” élisabeth asked, but Marthe pulled her forward, and if there was a reply, she didn’t hear it.

She had to stoop not to hit her head on the low beams spanning the width of the ship.

A grating in the ceiling gave the lower deck just enough light for élisabeth to see the rough wooden bunks lining the walls, providing two layers of sleeping quarters along the sides of the ship.

A few coarse blankets were laid in each bunk.

The air was already thick with the smell of goats and sheep; nearby élisabeth could hear the animals’ terrified bleating.

She closed her eyes and clutched her rosary. What in God’s name have you done?

Marthe let go of her hand. “We’ll sleep here,” she declared, placing her foot on a bottom bunk. She ducked her head and stepped into the coarse wooden box.

élisabeth had a sudden premonition of her sister climbing into her own grave: wrapped in a death shroud, her feet pointing to the east, a beaded rosary looped around her fingers, the crucifix pressed into her palm.

She could not tell how she’d died. Had she bellowed with pain, like Maman?

Or had the life slowly drained from her eyes like Papa?

élisabeth shuddered, then crossed herself.

Her parents’ ghosts melted into the dark corners of the ship.

Marthe pulled her knees to her chest. “Come sit. You’re in the way.”

“The man said to find bunks at the back.” élisabeth peered towards the end of the deck.

“Don’t be a goose,” Marthe said.

élisabeth pressed her lips together. She knew her sister would not budge, so she joined her in the bunk under the light well.

She wished she had her holy water vessel with her.

The little clay pot would help ease the strange feeling in her stomach, but it was packed deep in her trunk, and so élisabeth clasped her hands instead, squeezing her palms together as if she were the most contrite sinner on earth.

After a moment she released her grasp, letting her fingers glide until they touched in prayer, before her right hand fell into a reverse grip and she squeezed again.

She repeated the movement over and over, squeezing tighter and tighter until the friction from her calloused palms worked a spell that allowed her mind to drift.

Take more care, or the Devil will come for you, wayward girl.

She opened her eyes and rubbed her palms back and forth.

The floating coffin was stifling. When she tried to draw breath, brambles twisted around her heart.

She stopped the squeeze and prayer motion long enough to grab the ribbon in her stays and jerk the knot loose.

She closed her eyes as her corset eased its grip, and all of a sudden, she was in the apple orchard where Rémy first touched her hand.

When the scent of blossom on the wind—white lilac for innocence, honeysuckle for binding love—foretold a happy marriage.

A clash of voices near the stairwell interrupted her thoughts.

Murky light filled the deck as a lady carrying a lamp appeared, a silver cross glinting at her throat; on her heels a pair of sailors followed with more lamps.

For the first time since they’d boarded, the full deck was visible.

Every bunk, top and bottom on both sides of the cabin, was filled with young women, and in each bed two or three pairs of blinking eyes were fixed on the lady with the lamp.

The chaperone they were promised, possibly.

She pressed her lips tightly together for a moment, then her words tumbled out all at once. “We face an obstacle, girls. But there is no reason for fear to overtake us.”

“I was not fearful until she spoke,” Marthe whispered and nudged herself closer. élisabeth nodded.