After The Witch

Cornwall, 1651

Morwenna

Morwenna realised she had killed the witch the morning after the storm. The body had remained on the branch of an old willow that shaded the path she took to parish every day. The witch swung, long and limp, the toes of her boots pointed to the pool of crocuses that blossomed between the tortured roots. She waved, lazy as wind-chimes, as a ward against the unwelcome and undesirable.

Morwenna could not look at her face.

She instead observed how the morning after a hanging saw a sudden restoration of faith across the cliffside town, from those that lived in the cliff’s shadow, to those that populated markets and stately homes. Morwenna remembered a time when the woman she paused to watch now, stuck in a solitary waltz, had sat not far from her family pew.

How innocent she was then.

She startled when her arm was seized, and snapped around to see her daughter, with her own baby on her hip, in the willow’s shade.

“Slept at all?” asked Meg, her own eyes circled by dark purple wells. She managed a smile even as her grip tightened on Morwenna’s arm. She smiled enough for two, but neither her nor the sun could brighten the mood when they made their way, arm-in-arm, into the little parish.

The face of a newborn was always cause for cheer in the church. Morwenna blamed the foulness on the circumstances, last night having hosted both a hanging and the worst storm in years.

“Let us give thanks,” began the old priest, carving out a silence. The willow’s branch creaked with the weight of its burdens. “The worst is over.”

The little Anglican parish was the only building this side of town made out of stone. The priest, like his parish, had withstood many storms together, but when he spoke that morning he looked ready to topple over in the next breeze.

The congregation packed the pews, and the cold and hungry crammed the aisle. Wives of fishermen who didn’t come home knelt upright, vigilant and hopeful. Their mouths engaged in rapid prayer as their babes scuttled about like crabs between pale, pious rocks.

The priest first delegated some tasks among the men. He held up a letter from the mayor, whose ‘responsibilities detained him from attending today’s service.’ Morwenna added ‘and every other service’ under her breath, but masked her bitterness. One by one, those men whose homes withstood the storm made a company to chop wood from the forest that separated the village from the clifftop.

From the witch’s house.

Meg’s husband joined them of his own accord. Thus the pews emptied and the only ones left kneeling were those still deep in prayer.

Next, women were left to offer their homes and hearths. Morwenna’s hand ached to shoot up, but her husband’s mayoral voice in her head sounded above that of the priest, reminding her that she indulged her charity to her own detriment. The mayor’s company had no place in church, anyway. He was “a man about town and it was better to remain thus.”

But when her daughter’s hand remained in her lap, Morwenna’s judgement found a new target. Meg hid her eyes by tending to the cooing baby, and a rosiness blossomed in her cheeks to match Bess’s persistent fever.

At last, the service began, and Morwenna made up for her failings by leading the congregation in the hymn. She hoped it would be enough with God. But the pious lyrics didn’t settle the storm in her gut. By the time the midday sun blared down and deepened the shadow of the willow, she couldn’t force another line. She felt choked, and all she could imagine was the witch’s downcast, dead face, her bulging eyes locked on the flowers she will never smell again.

Morwenna blinked away tears and rushed out of the chapel when the bell tolled, drawing some odd looks. The air after the storm was always crisp and full of resolution, and she took three deep mouthfuls of it as she walked down the path. It settled her racing heart a little.

When she opened her eyes again, she was face-to-face with the witch. 

Meg

Meg knew, as the mayor’s daughter—and more so, as her mother’s daughter—the importance of marrying well. It was a surprise to all, even herself, when a lowly field hand turned her head. Her mother’s respectful reputation protected her from the worst of gossip: the remarks about the shortness of her engagement, her swelling belly… She dismissed them all.

But nothing could protect her from what happened behind closed doors.

Everything changed after the wedding. He was idle in the colder months, restless without work and, she imagined, envious of her business around down, at her mother’s side. She suspected now, after the birth, his pride had had more to gain from her bedrest than she did.

But even before the birth, he would follow his feet to the docks to help haul in the catch early in the morning. The ocean spattered a pale rind around his features, turning his smooth face brittle and mocking. Worst of all, it froze the grins and sneers he wore out of earshot, leaving Meg to wonder what cruel gossip he reeled in with the fish.

Morwenna had taught her about men. They were worse than women when the ocean and rain drowned their voices out. They were untouchable, but the cruelty on their faces was there for all to see.

It would be the same later, Meg thought, when he returned from the woods. Sawdust would fill the creases by his eyes, smile lines and dimples deepened by laughter. She knew better than to complain. Since the baby was born, there was a drought of laughter inside the house. She only wished he would be careful. Outside, rumours were wielded like pitchforks, and nobody could protect them then. In other towns, even in this one, ears had been growing sharp, honing in on abnormalities.

She knew her fall would be the steepest.

Meg stayed by the door and greeted everyone as they left, making sure her hospitality was felt even if her door remained closed. The beds in the empty rooms ached for occupants, the hearths for warmth. Blessed with such a large house, she found it so empty even with the baby. Meg would have stayed longer, asked the wives what else she could do, but Bess woke up and stirred out of her wrappings, and they had to leave before the other children raised a choir.

The sun was bright but no less chilling than the stale air inside, and Meg searched down the path for her mother. She had to get to the market as quick as possible, and Morwenna had promised to go with her. In the days since the trial, going out alone was risky even in the daytime. Suspicion in this town left no survivors.

Who knew when someone would bring up those visits the witch had made to Meg’s door? Perhaps nobody had seen her. It was always at midnight, after all, and hers was the house furthest from the woods. The witch could have been going anywhere, anywhere at all. But if someone had seen, they wouldn’t speak of it when Morwenna was around.

Meg hadn’t attended the hanging, even more reason to keep up appearances now. The baby would soon cease to be an excuse.

“Mother?” she called, parting the willow’s drapes. Morwenna shushed as she pulled her in, nearer to the body. She crept around it but Meg kept her eyes low, and her hand over Bess’s face. “Do you have to get so close?”

“Look here,” said Morwenna, pointing at her chin—no, her neck. The rope.

“What is it?”

A twig snapped on the other side of the path and two men invaded their company, but Morwenna was quick and ushered them to spy behind the thick trunk. Her mother stood tall, her back to the wood, and she looked younger, just how Meg knew her. The men drew nearer, and they froze.

“It’s a miracle the rope held through the storm,” said one of them. Meg hardly recognised the priest when he wasn’t drawing out a dry sermon. “She’ll probably come down before the ground freezes. We have a plot on the edge of town.”

“Waste of earth,” the Mayor complained. “Throw her off the side, I say.”

“That would be a little uncouth,” said the priest. “We wouldn’t want it—her—to wash up on the rocks. Even this disturbs the children.”

“Let it. They need to see what happens when you deal with demons. They need to know we don’t tolerate it. If they see the birds pick at her eyes, they’ll keep their own down. To the books—to the Bible.”

The priest couldn’t disagree now. The mayor always knew how to steer someone to get his way, no matter how long and uneasy the road. Sometimes Meg wondered how her mother, a woman with an iron will, ever gave in to him. She turned docile in his presence, but hidden in the shadow of this willow, she was a different woman.

The same woman who had first opened the door for the witch.

“Yes, the rope,” her father said, changing the subject swift enough. “My wife braided it herself. Fine rope.” He led the priest away, boasting on behalf of “the finest woman in this whole town.”

Morwenna was pale when the men left, the leaves scattered blotches of sunlight over her face.

“Would he really do that?” Meg asked, knowing the answer already.

“I knew I recognised that rope. I told him I wanted nothing to do with...” She undid her shawl, putting herself at the mercy of early winter winds. “I must pray.” Without another word she left the sanctuary and retraced her steps into the parish.

Meg was alone, just as Bess began to cry.

 Ewan

Forgive me, Lord, for I have sinned.

The blade, sharpened daily to a point, cut into the soft, wet wood like a spade through sand.

I have failed in my duties…

Muscles tore back, his teeth clenched around the confession.

…as a father…

The blade came loose, toured the chilly air, and fell back into the gash.

…as a husband…

The breath from his lungs rose up like incense, stinging his red nose.

…and as a soldier in your army.

Sun dappled through the canopies as they collapsed all around him, the snapping joints of lumber splattering his face with splinters. He embraced the sting, his penitence—his punishment. He kissed his teeth and spat on the soft, pine-riddled ground.

I have allowed the devil to cross my threshold. I abandoned my wife in her most vulnerable state. The child she gave me, born without breath, now cries in the night.

Someone came up behind him as he ripped the axe back, knuckles white on the handle.

“Ewan,” said Will with a jovial grin. He eyed the axe but made no comment. The canopy that once sheltered them was carved away, and sun streamed with no obstruction down to their faces. Ewan saw that the rest of the men were still, their own tools hanging from their hands, blades trailing on the ground. His face burned.

“I think we have enough for today,” said Will, the rest of them lingering around, picking up the smaller branches and putting them in a pile. “We might stay here for the night. Are you joining us?”

It warmed his chest to be welcomed, the way a church threshold warms a cold body when it’s crossed. He cast his eyes down the hill, towards the village. His home was on the other end of it, a longer walk than he was prepared for. As he pondered the offer, his knees threatened to buckle under him.

“Alright,” he said, trying to gauge if his company was wanted by the other men. Will, his brother, was always the one to reach out. He got the feeling it was nothing more than their blood relation keeping them together. When he was here, he felt like one of them, a real man, blood pumping and arms swinging. It was only when he went home that it all washed away with the sawdust and the sea-salt.

They made a small camp before the sun had even set.

“How’s your lady?” asked Will, unwrapping the bread and meat he packed for himself. Will was the only unmarried man among them, there was no reason for him to stay out tonight. Ewan worried about him sometimes.  

“Quiet,” he replied.

“And my niece?”

“The same. Except in the night. Doesn’t eat much.”

“You’re not much better, brother.” He tore a chunk of bread off and handed it over to Ewan, who had come empty-handed from church. “I don’t know a thing about babies, but… When do they stop crying?” Ewan shrugged. “At least we know she’s got healthy lungs. I can hear her from my house.” Will laughed, but it sounded pitiful. His round, pink face boasted a good night’s sleep. Ewan didn’t know how we could sleep knowing what was swinging just across the street from him. He lived by the church. If he wanted, he could sleep in his own bed tonight, but he stayed.

Now, Ewan had been at the hanging, even if Meg had forbidden it. He had to, all the men were going. He closed his eyes when the witch fell, but that was somehow worse. She made no sound at all, not a single breath left her lungs. It was like she was dead already.

The sky darkened as they ate, the fire building higher and higher. Smoke fell down by the broken canopies and settled on their skin, damp with cooling sweat. Will pat Ewan on the shoulder, then glanced at the men, urging him on.

“I was wondering, well—we were wondering if you would weigh in on something?” Will rolled up his sleeves.

Ewan looked up at the others. Out of habit, he never gave his opinion on things.

“Do you remember that storm two years ago? Caused a shipwreck, the hull snapped down the middle and the pieces washed up on opposite shores.”

How could he forget? Every man had grieved the most beautiful ship that graced these docks, even if it belonged to a pirate.

“That was the witch’s son,” said Will. “It was his ship. Now—” he shuffled closer, “—do you think she did it?”

“What?”

“Crashed the boat. George thinks so, and Hal. I’m not unconvinced. See, that was when people started wondering if it was her causing all these storms. We lost so many ships but her son’s always went out the night before and returned without a scratch. It would make sense, you see, nobody could blame her if her lad died. She was in the jail that night but they let her go before the trial. We wanted to ask Father about it this morning, but… He didn’t look up for it.” He waited for Ewan’s input.

“I think you’re mad,” said Ewan, but the thought did strike him deep. Would—could—a woman kill her own son to save herself?

“The guys think she stole his gold, too. None of the goods he ever showed off washed up. I looked all over both beaches, and not a coin.”

“Maybe he spent it all.”

Will dismissed him. “We’re going over there tonight,” he said. “Whatever the hag was hiding up on that cliff, we’re going to find it, even if we have to tear the place apart.”

The pale, broken eyes of the witch followed them as they passed back into town, as if she knew—really knew—what they had done. Like they had killed her over again.

Covered in blisters and shame, Ewan walked far in front of the group, feeling their eyes claw at him. Even Will didn’t say goodnight. The air was still and observant when he opened his door, and the fire in the hearth didn’t melt the guilt from his skin. 

Meg

It was quiet on the edge of town. The fire crackled, comfort ran over the empty house. Large and imposing, it had acted as a fortress in the early days, a vantage point from which warring clans could watch each-other from afar. Little did they know the real evil came from the other side of the cliff. But the wind was merciful and Meg wondered if it could be true, that the witch had been the cause of the storms after all.

Perhaps the worst could be over, she thought, for everyone except her. Bess wasn’t getting better anymore.

“Don’t you know there’s none left?” she sobbed, but her voice hardly rose above the baby’s retching. She wouldn’t take any milk since the herb ran out. It spilled out of her mouth like acid, and she sputtered until she turned beet red. Her screams rattled Meg’s heart.

The trip to the market had been fruitless. Every shopkeeper dismissed her when she showed them the herb, still fresh in her palm, telling her it was out of season by months. She persisted, saying that she bought it just last week, but left infuriated and put down by terror when she saw how they looked at her. It was the same look they passed between them when the witch was still coming to church. They seemed to remember the times she had sat beside Meg. Was that enough for an accusation? She came home empty-handed and more afraid than when life was bleeding out of her.

She didn’t have months. By the look of her baby, she didn’t even have days.

The door opened, and Ewan drew himself by the fire. His shoulders shook with some invisible weight as he sat down, eyeing Meg with suspicion. She dried her face of tears and swaddled Bess close, rocking her as if her hunger was a misfortune only on her husband’s ears.

“Any better today?”

“Where have you been?” she asked. “You missed dinner.”

“You know where I was,” he said, toeing off his boots. He didn’t look at her again. He sighed when they were off, facing the fire. “I’m going to talk with the priest tomorrow morning.”

“I told you… we can’t bring anyone to the house anymore.” It hurt her throat to say it again. It hurt her to deny his good heart what it wanted, and what she wanted, too.

“It’s for you,” he said. “You’re not well.”

“I’m fine,” she insisted. “It’s just Bess, once she starts sleeping better, I’ll be right back to work. We can open the house to as many people as you like. I do wish I could have a guest or two sometimes, but it’s inhospitable—”

“This isn’t about guests, Meg. It’s not about the house, or what I want. We both know there is more wrong with the baby than you let on.”

“No,” she argued, “how could you say that?”

“Do you think I didn’t hear when you got up in the night, when I woke to an empty bed and neither you nor the baby anywhere to be found? Do you think I don’t know who comes in and out of my house?” He rose to his feet, put his hands on his hips and stepped towards the flame. “How many times did the witch walk through that door?”

“Only once,” Meg insisted, a fresh stream of tears stinging her cheeks. “Only on that night.”

“Liar,” he barked, and spun around. “Those herbs… what have you been feeding our child?”

“Medicine—Just that. I swear on my life.”

Ewan wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. Only then did she see the blood on them, the gashes ripped into his palms, deep and black in the firelight. She rose to him. “You’re hurt.”

He clenched his fists. Bess’s cries dissolved into hungry warbling. She was too weak to insist, too hungry to fall asleep.

“Where did you go tonight?” Meg pleaded. “I have a right to know.”

He gave no answer, just kicked the boots across the floor.

“I’m going to bed,” he said. “Clean those for me tonight. Tomorrow, we’ll talk to Father. He’ll help us.”

“There’s nothing he can do—don’t you see?”

“I told you to clean them,” he snapped, and slammed the door behind him. It shook the whole grand house. The furniture in the empty chambers rattled like even they were afraid.

Bess fell silent.

Meg complied, now understanding how her mother could shrink in her father’s presence. She put Bess down in her crib, found it in herself to ignore the gummy complaints of the child. Her chest was still heavy as she fell to her knees and picked up the boots, removing the caked mud with a wire brush. Among the filth were trapped crumbs of plaster and thatch, and a familiar smell, a familiar green.

Her muddy fingers trembled as she extracted from between the sole and heel an intact sprig.

She dropped the boot on the doorstep, wiped her hands on her apron and snatched her child from the crib, then raced upstairs to where her husband had laid down. He nursed a headache, his hands still riddled with red.

“Where did you go?” she insisted, her voice like a thunderclap. He sprung upright.

“What, woman?”

“What did you and those brutes do? Where did you go?”

His lips were pursed but she prodded him. Her blood raced to her head. She felt dizzy, hungry and full of fire. She put the herb in front of his eyes. “Where did you get this? This house is my mother’s, not yours. Tell me,” she snapped, “or you will never be allowed through the door again.”

He squinted as his lips parted. “That witch’s garden,” he admitted through gritted teeth. “We… I destroyed it. The garden… the house… She can’t hurt you anymore.”

Her heart sank. An iciness set in where there had been flames, spurring her to turn on her heels. She obeyed the impulse and dropped Bess into Ewan’s lap.

“What are you doing?”

“Stay here,” she commanded, “and pray.” 

The Witch

The man looked meekly up to his wife, cradling his child for the first time in his bloody hands, and felt then just how weak she was. He began to regret. He began to cry. He held the child close to his raging heart and did just what he was told to do.

And a storm brewed on his doorstep.

Rain blasted Meg’s face when she threw the door open. A pool had formed in the street where her house lay, right in the lap of the hill. The upward trek to the clifftop spread out before her like a stairway to heaven. Ghostly clouds that descended closer and closer blocked any view of the summit, and so she took the first step blind.

Already she was becoming a memory, fading into the gray, her body and soul separating. She knew what she must do. This town was a stagnant prayer, but her child’s life was wilting too fast for prayer to solve. She shielded her eyes and trusted her feet to retrace the steps the witch had made to her home that wild night. She held her breath and walked with the courage of her mother who had seen her own child dying, and done the very same.

Such are mothers.

Eyes followed her from between closed curtains. For a moment they thought they were being haunted.

Not yet.

The wild ocean churned in the distance, clapping on the jagged cliff, abusing the shoreline. For centuries storms had beat the earth into submission, spitting its salty froth from tempest to tempest, bleeding through cracks in the stones and tearing them apart. Every fissure was a scarred-over arrow-wound, and Meg crossed the fragile earth into the storm’s beastly gut.

She passed right by her mother’s house and was none the wiser. Morwenna’s instinct had led her to the church hours before. An army of the hungry and cold followed her, and filled her rooms with warmth and comfort. Her home was as she felt it should be: a sanctuary from the elements and fear. The mayor took shelter in his office and wouldn’t reappear until the storm was over, but he would emerge missing so much more than his privacy.

The witch overlooked the journey from her breathless ledge. She rocked back and forth like a pendulum over the crocuses. Their colours screamed through the clouds and when Meg looked up, they led her like a blaze past the church. Within, the priest was deep in penitence. Even he knew—he must have known—that more than one soul would be exchanged tonight. The heavy bell denied the tumult. It didn’t sing a single note that night. But the priest confessed for his own sins, for the terror of a man he had taken for granted, the comfort he’d given through the death of an innocent woman.

It had only lasted one day.

It was almost midnight when Morwenna was awakened from her sleepy perch. She’d been rocking a toddler by the fire, giving his mother a well-needed rest. The house was almost silent, stirring only with the gentle breath of the sleepless. The storm felt so far away though it still battered the sturdy roof.

She was not worried. She had made up for her sin.

The only ones who hadn’t left the church with her were the priest himself, and Will. Both of them were on their knees on the cold floor and would not move. When she heard a banging at her door she thought they had changed their minds. She had no ill will. The fire was not selfish. It warmed whoever sat by it.

She laid the child by his mother and followed the sound.

Then she heard a baby’s familiar cry. It took her back to a night when she almost lost her own child. Her hand froze on the door. She didn’t want to invite this evil memory in. Not tonight.

But her heart was against her. It couldn’t leave a child out in the storm.

What kind of mother was she?

She opened the door.

Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.

Ewan didn’t know if by covering her face, he protected Bess from the storm, or the storm from her piercing cries.

I let my fear rule me.

He banged his bleeding fist on the door again.

Now I am losing everything.

He raised his fist, but the door opened, and a sliver of golden light flashed in his eyes.

“Ewan?”

He pushed his way in, eyes scanning the entryway. Every seat and surface was covered in blankets, pillows, and people who had been asleep mere seconds ago now roused by the disturbance. He felt shame rise in his cheeks.

“Where is she?” he asked. “Did she come to you?”

“Who?”

“Meg,” he said. “She disappeared and—and Bess is getting worse.” He uncovered the child. Morwenna flinched as he did so, but forced herself to look. Bess’s face was grey but her eyes were bloodshot and desperate. She looked at the same time dead and alive.

Morwenna gasped. “No,” she said. “I haven’t seen her since this morning.” She noticed the blood smeared on the baby’s wrappings, the same shawl Meg had been wearing that morning. “What did you do?”

“We fought,” he explained, “and she ran away. I—I thought she was going to the witch’s house, but I didn’t believe it. Please tell me she’s here. I can’t lose both of them in one night.”

Morwenna watched the husband’s face shift from anger to fear. The sawdust had washed off his cheeks, now pale and trembling. She knew as well as he did that truth that all mothers are tested against: if there was a way to save her child, no storm—whether water, wind, or fire—could have stopped her from trying.

She took Bess from the father’s arms and wiped Ewan’s tears.

“Go find her,” she said, “and help her. She knows what to do.”

Her eyes were alive. Her arms were flailing—reaching out, grasping the air. She struggled against the rope, but her blood was silent.

So close.

My son.

The witch felt the ground with the tips of her boots. Even in this storm the perfume of spring flowers mocked her. If she could only—

The father had seen her. She looked past him, past the willow’s drapes that offered her only brief glances of the scene beyond the cliff’s edge. Even this was a taunt.

He had seen her and stopped. She reached out, not to him but to the water, to what was tossing on its surface. In the next flash of lightning he was gone.

She struggled for breath, her vision swimming and yet her eyes locked in on that place where the vessel tossed, sails escaping their bounds and betraying their master. Such a beautiful ship, turned against him.

Had I known, I would have helped.

Even if it killed me.

Another flash of lightning, and a blade, heavy and sharp and made for the woods, cut above her head. The rope split, her feet fell flat on the ground, crushing some of the flowers.

She didn’t thank him, and hardly loosened the noose enough to breathe. The angry wind whipped her hair in her eyes but she could have walked that path blind. It had been walked by mothers since the beginning of time.

Up to the cliff.

The edge of the cliff.

The father followed her because he didn’t know this path.

There was no house nor garden anymore, only a ship, lost in the storm, looking for home. Like many things she knew how this ended.

Her boots were so worn that every rock impaled her tender heels. Still she climbed. Roots had come loose in the heavy, wet soil, and seemed to walk over her path. When they reached the clifftop the soil was dug up, the soft earth shattered. The fissures in the stones yawned, revealing their chalky underground, like deep-set teeth.

“Meg!”

The husband ran to his wife when he saw her, huddled against the broken wall of the witch’s home. To her heart she held the remains of a medicinal herb, just a handful of sprigs. Her knees were brown and bloodied, dress torn like her skin.

The witch walked on.

She fell to her knees at the edge of the cliff.

The husband lifted the wife to standing just as the final wave welled, holding the ship by the hull. It turned it sideways as if to show the witch what she missed the first time.

“Meg, I’m so sorry,” said the husband. She couldn’t hear him above the wind but she knew. They always know.

He stepped over one of the fissures first, over the snapping white teeth of the cliff. The witch kept her eyes open as the ship approached. A beautiful ship, but now just its ghost. She held her breath when the hull impacted the cliff. Wood grated on stone and the hull split in half.

The ground shook. Neither husband nor wife had seen the ship. Of course, it was not their punishment. All they saw was the wave washing away what was left of the house and the shattered end of the cliff.

The witch was gone.

Ewan felt Meg’s hand tighten around his. He turned. Her face was desperate and she pulled away from him.

Down, down, down.

When he looked up from her face he saw only he sea, snapping and grabbing at her. Into his hand she slid a warm bunch of herbs. He looked into her eyes and knew this was goodbye.

“Forgive me,” he said.

She smiled even as the rain flooded her eyes, and let go.

The fishing boats came in the next morning. The winds had stopped the second Meg’s body reached the water and now the waves returned it, washed clean of worry, to dry land. The birds circled around her but only to show the fishermen where she was. They did not dare touch her.