Page 3 of The Changeling

‘Lady Marjorie has asked for me. We’ll go and see what she wants, do what we can in return for some coin.’ I hesitated, then said pleadingly, ‘I have to see Robbie. I’m so afeart …’

I could not say it out loud.

Sorcha reached up and took my hand. I helped her to her feet, then tucked the plaid about her face. A strange pale fuzz covered her neck and cheeks and nose, unlike anything I’d ever seen before. It was dense and soft as fur. She drew the plaid closer, hiding her features, as I doused the fire and drew Nan’s cunning bag out of its hiding place. Spun from the wool of a black lamb, it contained my great-aunt’s handmade book of charms and spells, her hazel dowsing rod, her ritual flint-knapped knife and drinking horn, a pouch of amber, elf-bolts, hag-stones and quartz, a scrying mirror and a small bronze bell. I tucked the pouch of omen staves inside, hid it within my satchel and picked up my stick. Only then did I fold back the hide again, Carlin standing close beside me. She was so tall, her head was level with my waist.

Beatrix led her mare forward. ‘Will you come?’

‘Aye. But I warn you, if you or any of your family betray us, I’ll cast a curse on you and yours that’ll last a thousand years.’

‘We shall not, I promise.’ Furtively she crossed herself. ‘Let us make haste. It will soon be dark and I must be home before then.’

She mounted her pony, and rode down the hill. I followed on foot, leading Sorcha by the hand, my hound at my heel as always. Twilight was closing in, and the wind had risen. Dead leaves scurried before us. We came down through the woods and into the wide valley. Mist lay over the brown furrowed fields, and wreathed the church.

The great crag of the Knock loomed to the west. I kept my gaze averted. Beyond the fast-running burn was a grove of birch trees. The fallen leaves were sodden underfoot, the bare branches a ghostly white. The dark furrows on the trunks looked like eyes, hundreds of eyes, watching me. Was I being spied on? Were these strange enchantments a warning? A trap?

All my life, on the first new moon in spring, Sorcha and I had gathered fallen birch bark and written wishes on them with our blood. One year I wrote ‘I wish Robbie would dance with me’, even though Nan always said we should not ask for the impossible. But my wish had come true, he had danced with me, and now he lay in his bed, unmoving, his boot soles worn into holes. What did it mean?

Nan, tell me what to do, I begged silently. How can I save him?

A whisper spoke deep in my mind. A good beginning makes a good ending …

Shivery tingles all over my body. I stood motionless. Had I really heard my great-aunt’s faint voice, or was it just my longing for her strength and her wisdom?

No sound but the rush of the wind in the birch trees.

If Nan was here, what would she do?

One step at a time, I told myself. Leaning my stick against one of the slender, silvery trees, I bent to gather up some of the fallen bark. My twin stood silently, waiting, her face hidden.

Beatrix looked back at me impatiently. ‘What in heaven’s name are you doing?’

‘Gathering birch bark. It will help ease your mother’s pain. I have no other remedies – we lost everything when the men came.’

She bit her lip and looked away. Spying a patch of nettles growing in a ditch, I wrapped my hand in my skirt and plucked the tips. Then I cut three long sharp barbs from a bent and solitary hawthorn, hoping I would not need them. Each time I bowed my head and thanked the Lady, as I had been taught.

Beatrix watched with fearful eyes, thinking me a witch, when all I did was what any woman would. Use the tools she had at hand to help and protect the ones she loved.

I was leaning heavily on my stick by the time we reached Inchbrakie Castle, a grim tower within a crenelated wall. The drawbridge was down, a guard looking anxiously into the darkness. His torch sent fiery ripples across the moat. Beatrix rode over, her horse’s hooves loud on the wood, and he lifted her down from the saddle, berating her. She said something, and he recoiled, turning to stare once more into the darkness. When he saw Sorcha and me, he grabbed his pike and held it before him.

Iron cold, witches hold …

Sorcha shrank away from the light, drawing the plaid closer about her face. I lifted my head proudly and limped past the guard, past the old yew tree I had once climbed on a dare, through the heavy oaken door and into the great hall where we had feasted so many times. It was Devil’s Night, the evening before All Hallows. Usually the children of the castle would have been playing tricks on each other, putting salt in the sugar bowl and sugar in the salt cellar, sewing shut the sleeves of shirts, hurling rotten cabbages at each other. It was one last outburst of manic energy before the solemn sacredness of the three days of Allhallowtide to come.

But this Devil’s Night all was silent, and the fire in the great hall had sunk low.

‘Sorcha’s no’ well. Can she rest in Mam’s old room?’

‘What’s wrong with her?’ Beatrix asked uneasily.

‘Grief,’ I snapped. ‘Dinna worry, it’s no’ contagious.’

Beatrix showed us to the room our mother had once slept in, when she worked here at Inchbrakie Castle. I knew it well. A tapestry of a green forest hung against the grey stone wall, and a silver bowl and jug stood on a big wooden chest. A quilt was laid over the bed. Mam had made it herself, from childhood dresses that we had outgrown. She had spun and woven and sewn the cloth herself, every stitch an act of love.

Sorcha fell to her knees beside the bed, lifting the quilt to her face. ‘Ma! Ma!’ she whimpered.

I knelt beside her, embracing her fiercely. ‘I ken, I ken, hinny,’ I crooned. ‘We miss her. We miss her so bad. Come on. Let’s get you tucked up in bed. You’re safe here. Lay your sweet head down, that’s my lambkin. I’ll be back just as soon as I can. I promise. Close your eyes now. Sleep a wee while.’

When I rose to my feet again, it was to find Beatrix trying to hide tears. It almost broke me.