Magpie, page 4
Standing, her hand to her eyes to shade them, she thought back to the first time she had come here with Old Mary and Agnes and Robert. The sharp green smell of the grass and the fluting birdsong revived a distant childhood memory of gathering wildflowers in the meadow probably at this same time of year. She felt, again, the sun fierce on the back of her neck as she’d reached down to pluck flowers, breathing in their sweet scents. The goodwife had taught them the names: wild orchid and cowslip; garlic and anemone in the nearby shady woods. A woman of a low and poor sort with a keen knowledge of the natural world, she had loved the place and tried to share why. All that had changed when she had been accused of witchcraft and hounded out of town. She had been luckier than most, many had suffered far, far worse. Susanna, Agnes and Robert had continued to play, in innocence, by the stream at the place of the old sacred oak long after Mary disappeared. Now Susanna visited alone, childish games long gone, and Robert and Agnes with their own world in which to play.
Despite, or perhaps because of, the slightly dangerous quality to the clearing, Susanna always felt a deep sense of peace here. It was as if the ancients reached forward through time to protect her. She made herself comfortable on a tussock of grass, dropping her feet onto the pebbly beach, and contemplated removing her shoes and stockings. It was a rare hot day and the sun felt like benediction on her back. Taking off her wide straw hat she pushed her coif back a little and lifted her face to the sky, drinking in the heat. At long last summer had arrived and she needed to welcome its warmth into her bones. She stretched and wiggled her shoulders, the heat penetrating her many layers of clothes, feeling decadent and shocking. Under her linen coif sweat prickled on her scalp. Opening her eyes she darted a glance behind her at the meadow, there was no one to be seen on the track, she could hear nothing moving on the nearby drover’s lane. It was safe. She slipped off her shoes, her stockings followed. Lifting her skirts above her calves she wiggled her toes, feeling saucy. Then, feeling even more daring, she gathered her skirts about her knees and inched over the pebbles, hopping and squealing a little as the stones bit into her soft feet.
The river made her gasp; it was icy. But it felt freeing and cleansing. Once she was acclimatised, she stood, perfectly still, up to her knees in chilly river water, her clothing bunched up in front and looped in a heavy pile over her arms. It was a magical feeling, a forbidden feeling. If any church member saw her, or had word of this, she would be condemned to Hell. It felt so blissful she didn’t care. Susanna giggled, feeling naughty. The ducks, having been scared off, returned and eyed her nosily. One began pecking at the grass bank to her left, her babies bobbing around hopefully and following suit. A stone dislodged creating a great splash. The duck squawked and took off again, flying low over the water and out of sight. The ducklings, paddling frantically, followed, cheeping desperately for their mother. The stone had revealed something sticking out of the bank. Susanna paddled nearer, weeds tugging around her toes which by now were numb with cold. Holding her skirt clear of the water she peered at it curiously. Plucking the object from its hiding hole she held it up to the light and examined it. It was a worn metal knife with an intricately carved bone handle. The metal was unknown to her but was certainly not recently forged. The handle had elaborate circular patterns etched into it, great complicated whirls and curling loops. She sensed it had once been much prized, a precious and useful object. Practical too, with its serrated edge. How long had it lain hidden in the riverbank? Who had it belonged to and to what purpose had it been used?
A horse whinnying in the far distance startled her into action. It would not do to be caught like this. The shame would follow her through town. Flete folk liked to gossip and if a woman’s reputation was at stake, even better. Easing the knife carefully into the pocket hanging from her apron, she waded back to the beach, wetting her skirt hems in her haste. Sinking onto the grassy tussock she tried to rub feeling back into her frozen feet. Panicking, she was trying to drag her stockings over numb, wet flesh when a man on a fine dappled grey cantered along the track through the meadow. The rider reigned the horse in. To her mixed shame and relief – it was still dangerous to a woman’s body and reputation to be found wandering alone in the countryside – she saw it was Robert Lacey.
‘How now, Mistress Susanna. Have you come to revisit our childish places?’ The mare snorted and snatched at the reins, chewing at the bit and foaming at the mouth.
Susanna leapt up, hiding the incriminating evidence of her stockings behind her body. She watched as Robert struggled to gain control of his mount.
When quietened, he slid effortlessly from the saddle and strode towards her. ‘Mary fears this place for some reason.’ He shrugged. ‘I cannot fathom why, she’s usually a placid ride.’ From his vantage point on the edge of the meadow he smiled down at Susanna. ‘We had no fear being here, did we? I always remember such happy and pleasant times, with the three of us playing. I even remember us getting soaked in the river more than once.’ His mouth twisted. ‘It seems, from looking at your skirts, that you have not outgrown the habit.’
‘You named her Mary?’
‘Aye. In remembrance of Old Mary. She was always kind to us.’
‘She was indeed. The town was not as kind. I wonder what happened to her?’
Robert glanced down, deep in thought. ‘I do not know. It was a sad occurrence.’ He returned to gazing at her, his chin lifting in defiance. ‘But maybe she shouldn’t have meddled in ungodly practices. Still, all is in the past now.’
Susanna wondered at the ease with which he dismissed such cruel treatment of an old and vulnerable woman. She remained silent.
‘Are you to tarry here a while? Be advised, it’s still not safe to be abroad and on your own.’ He added self-righteously, ‘And think of your reputation, Susanna.’
Had he always been so priggish? As he had inherited his father’s estates and land and was a married man with a son he could order her about. Once her childhood equal and friend, now he assumed the mantle of master. Prudie’s warning that he could cause them mischief crawled into her mind. For years he had been nothing to them, now the birthing of his son had brought them into each other’s lives again. ‘I will away this moment.’
‘And have you been in the water? Is it not too chill?’
Susanna felt the knife’s cold metal, hard and rigid, in her apron pocket. For some reason, she was loath to reveal the real reason why she had been paddling. ‘I rescued a duckling.’ She stammered out the lie.
‘A duckling?’ Robert looked amused, his top lip curling under his fashionable moustache.
‘Yes, it had become stuck in the reeds there and had been left behind.’
‘Your heart is too soft, Susanna. You should have left it for the fox.’ He squinted at her. ‘Moreover, you lie most unconvincingly,’ he said softly. ‘You always did.’
‘I would rather be thought of as soft-hearted than let a poor creature suffer so,’ she replied, feeling her face heat with anger.
‘What if your clothes had become drenched and you had gone under? You were not bathing in your shift as you used to. You are no longer a chit of eight.’ His gaze swept from the partlet at her neck to the feet revealed white and naked below her skirts, his meaning clear.
The relief that it had only been Robert Lacey who had found her fled. Susanna was alone and defenceless. Should he choose, he could do whatever he wanted, master over her that he now was. Feeling was returning to her toes and the sharp stones prodding into her feet whipped her into action. ‘As you rightly point out, I am no longer eight years old. And I am getting cold. I will be late for my chores, so if you would be so good as to let me put on my shoes in privacy, I will make my way back to town.’
Robert didn’t stir. A muscle clenching and unclenching in his jaw was his only movement. He seemed to be weighing up his choices.
Mary the horse rescued her. She threw up her head, nearly yanking the reins from Robert’s hand. He pulled violently on the bit, forcing the mare to submit. ‘And I must go too. It seems my horse has had enough of this place.’ He nodded briefly. ‘Good day to you, Susanna. Don’t stray so far from town on your own again. Who knows what might happen.’
A warning? Or a threat?
Putting the toe of his boot into the stirrup, he threw himself astride the horse with the easy movement of one who possesses sturdy lithe muscles. Gone were the reedy thin shoulders of childhood, he was in full vigour of manhood, strong and vital. Should he choose to overpower her, she would have no hope of fighting him off.
Survival instinct kicked in and Susanna strived to find her manners to placate him. ‘Good day to you.’ Although the words were polite, her voice was stiff and unyielding. She would not show him her fear.
He jerked the horse around and cantered off, the hooves making the ground thunder.
Collapsing onto the bank, fear – and something else unidentifiable – rippled through her. It made her tremble so violently it was all she could do to pull on her stockings and shove her feet into her shoes. She needed to be careful around Robert Lacey. Very careful. They all did.
CHAPTER 5
JUNE 2018
Beth dusted the soot off the glass bottle found in the chimney and the curious bone handle knife the magpie had dislodged, put them on the mantlepiece over the 1970s gas fire in her sitting room and promptly forgot all about them. A hot bath to rid her of the strained and odd conversation she’d had with Jade and Hugh, another glass of wine and she’d collapsed into bed and slept the sleep of the exhausted.
Ian returned two days later and finished sweeping the chimney, apologising profusely. ‘Someone nicked the catalytic converter off me van. Buggers,’ he grumbled. ‘Can’t leave nothing nowhere.’
Pulling up a stool on the shop floor, he accepted the mug Beth handed him. He was a lugubrious bear of a man in his fifties who liked to chat. Beth, suppressing panic that the shop opening was in two days’ time, and she still had tons to do, accepted she needed a break and joined him.
‘You got that thing I found then?’
She nodded.
‘I’ve found all sorts sweeping chimneys, like. See, folks shoved stuff up there to ward off witches,’ he explained matter-of-factly over his weak-with-three-sugars coffee.
‘Witches?’ Beth choked on hers.
‘Yeah. Quite common hereabouts. I knows of a farmer not far out of town who still sticks a bull’s heart up his chimney, even now.’ Ian tapped the side of his nose with a forefinger. ‘Country folk don’t change their ways as quick as you townies.’
Beth, despite her preoccupation with all she had to do, was grimly fascinated. ‘How do you know all this?’
‘Oh, folklore and stuff is the wife’s hobby. She’s big into it.’
‘And why did they put things in the chimney?’
‘They used to think, way back, that a chimney was a passageway from one world into the next. And witches could travel between the two. So they rammed things up there. Sometimes it’d be a shoe, maybe a flank of bacon stuck with pins.’
‘Bacon stuck with pins?’
‘Oh yes. Stopped her, the witch that is, on her way down, like. Well,’ he continued affably, ‘no one likes an arse stuck full of pins, do they?’
Beth stared at him, nonplussed. Was he having her on? Gazing at the inglenook, which was now clean and free of soot but remained purposeless, she said, ‘I found a handle. I think that came from the chimney too. Once I’d cleaned the soot off it, I could see beautiful patterns carved on it. I think it might be really old. Do you think it was put up there to stop witches?’
‘Now, my lovely, you’ve got me there. I’ve found bottles like that little glass one, the odd shoe, a mummified cat once, but never the handle off something. Weird.’
She had to ask. ‘A mummified cat?’
‘Witches had familiars, like. Imps of the devil. They’d arrest the witch and shove her familiar, and it was often a cat, up the chimney. Any other old hags that were tempted to sprint down the chimney would be stopped by the spirit of the cat.’
Beth shook her head. ‘It’s mad.’
‘Seems so to us but back then, probably when this old place got built, people really believed in witches and that she’d do them harm. A few good luck charms shoved up the chimney wouldn’t go amiss.’
‘She?’
‘Well, a witch is a wicked old woman, in’t she?’ He finished his coffee in one, handed her his mug and began to gather his things. ‘Wash that up, love. And I’ve known a few witches in my time, make no mistake. No offence, like.’
‘None taken,’ Beth replied, her lips twitching.
‘Just glad I met my Sharon. She’ll get the invoice to you in the post, she does all my bills and suchlike.’
Obviously, Ian’s misogyny didn’t extend to not letting his wife handle the paperwork. ‘Yes, that’s fine.’
‘And don’t forget, even if you don’t have plans to use this old chimney, it’s a good idea to have it swept once a year.’ He touched his forelock in an old-fashioned gesture. ‘This time next year, then?’
‘Yes. I suppose so. Ian?’
‘Yes, my lovely.’
‘Was there a bird’s nest up there?’
‘No. Why’d you ask?’
‘I had a bird fly out. That’s when I found the knife handle. Main reason I booked you in to sweep, to be honest. I’m not keen on a repeat.’ She shuddered, remembering how the distraught magpie had flown at her.
‘You’ll get the odd seagull nesting on top. Sometimes the young daft ’uns get themselves stuck.’
‘It was a magpie.’ She saw him blanch. He made no answer.
Eventually he broke the silence. ‘A mock a pie’s not lucky.’ He sniffed and wiped his nose with a grimy hand. ‘I’m sure it’s something and nothing though.’ He looked around at the boxes of stock still unpacked, obviously keen to change the subject. ‘My Sharon loves a bit of soap.’
‘Bring her to the opening on Saturday. She’d be very welcome. Lots of special offers and free Prosecco.’
Ian brightened. ‘We’ll do that. See you then, Beth.’
‘See you.’
When he’d gone, Beth couldn’t help but stare at the chimney. It sat there squat and faintly malevolent. Feeling foolish, she went to it and forced herself to bend to squint up. She could see nothing but blackness and a sort of shelf sticking out. A sudden rapping made her heart start violently.
Ducking back out of the chimney, banging her head in the process, she saw a woman standing at the front door peering in, her breath steaming up the glass.
Beth waved her away. ‘Not open yet. Come back on Saturday.’
‘Can’t you let me in now? I don’t want much.’
Beth went to the door, irritated. ‘No, I’m sorry. We’re opening on Saturday.’ For good measure she pointed at the sign she’d put up.
The woman muttered, put up two fingers and strode off.
Suppressing a jittery giggle, Beth took the mugs into the kitchen and wondered about modern day good luck charms. If that had been an example of the sort of customers she was going to attract, she’d need all the luck she could get for Saturday.
That night, she tossed and turned, sleeping fitfully. The dream, when it came, was urgent, full of hot fear and self-loathing, grief and confusion. Somewhere, smothered, was love, pure and true. A young woman, dressed in full skirts and a tight bodice stood in front of the inglenook in the shop. She was hiding something. Something important. Her movements were snatched and hurried, panicked. From outside came the snort of a horse, an impatient shout, and the flapping of black and white as a bird soared.
Beth reared up, awake and sweating. Fumbling for her tumbler of water she drank deep. The dream had been vivid and real. She’d felt every confused emotion that had run through the young girl. But it was just a dream. A dream.
Lying back down, she tried to quieten her breathing and get back to sleep, but couldn’t switch her brain off. Worries tumbled through her head, mixing surreally with images from the dream. Too hot, she threw the duvet off and was immediately too cold so wrapped it around her again. She became very aware of the empty cobbled street outside, of the echoing space of the shop floor below. Apart from one or two unexplained creaks and groans, which she put down to the old building settling down for the night, she’d not been bothered about being alone here before. The front door of the shop was necessarily secure and alarmed; the side door had a sturdy lock that she bolted at night. Behind the shop was a tiny yard with four solid walls that was only accessible via a gate at the end of the passageway. She was used to living alone, her upbringing had forced her to become tough and self-sufficient but Jade’s comments about how weird the set up was, plus the conversation about witches, had created a film of unease. Perhaps, foolishly, she’d never feared physical attack; she’d always been street savvy. But tonight, for the first time, she was in fear of not the living but the unknown, the inexplicable. Turning over, something caught around her throat. She clawed at it. It tightened, choking her. Terrified, unable to breathe, she felt cold sweat drench her body. Then realised it was just the duvet. Scrabbling at it, she flung it away and lay there, panting, trying to make sense of what had happened. She’d never felt terror like it.
