Witch from the Sea

“My dearest Linnet, we will say no more. I have been too rash. I should have waited, prepared you. I did not realize how little you had understood. We will leave this matter and I will return to it later on. But I have made my feelings known to you. I should have prepared you. I will ask you again soon,” he went on. “And Linnet, will you promise me to think about this?”

“I will think about it.”

“You see, my dearest, you and I could be so happy together. We shall have this wonderful project in common. I remember how it excited you when I first talked of it. Our families will work together. We shall be together. You see how it is.”

“Yes, I see how it is. Fennimore, you are so good and kind. Give me time.”

“You shall have time, my love,” he said.

“I promise you I will think about this, but as yet …”

“Of course,” he said, “as yet it is too soon. I have been foolish, Linnet. I have hurried you. Never mind. Think of what this could mean. I swear that I would do everything in my power to make you happy.”

I stood up. “Please, Fennimore,” I said, “let us now play this game and try to find the treasure.”

He said softly: “Our treasure will be in each other, Linnet.”

I shivered again because I was afraid. I longed to be the girl I had been before I had spent a night at Castle Paling. I wanted to be young and innocent and in love with Fennimore. But I was unsure how to act—unsure of everything, of whether I loved Fennimore, of whether I could marry him, and most of all what happened that night when Colum Casvellyn had half-drugged, half-awakened my senses and made a woman of me while I was still a child.

I tried to think of the treasure; I succeeded a little since I was able to solve some of the clues.

We almost won, but Carlos and Edwina who had chosen to hunt together were the victors.

My mother was watching me intently.

I knew she was disappointed that she could not announce my betrothal on that night.

The next day we took down the decorations, carried them out to the fields and ceremoniously burned them. Christmas and New Year celebrations were over for twelve months. This time next year, I thought, I shall be so far away from the night at Castle Paling that it will be no longer constantly on my mind.

The whole household was present at the burning. It was a custom that everyone should have a part in it for to stay away could bring ill luck. It was when the blaze was dying down that we heard shouting in the distance and one of the servants said: “’Tis old Maggie Enfield. They be hanging her this day.”

I knew Maggie Enfield. She was a poor old woman, almost blind, and her face was disfigured by numerous ugly brown warts. She was known as a witch in the neighbourhood and lived in a tiny cottage which was little more than a hut. We used to take food and leave it outside her door. My mother sent this not because she was afraid of what might happen to her if she did not but because she had real sympathy for the poor old woman.

A few years ago she had been known as a white witch. She grew certain herbs in the patch of land round her cottage and brewed concoctions which had cured many a sickness. She had produced love potions too; and she did what was called the “fast”. If she fasted for several days and sat silent in her cottage she brought all her powers to bear on a certain object. She had been known to discover lost articles. If a sheep or a cow strayed away people went to Mother Enfield and paid for the “fast” and almost always she could discover the spot where the animal could be found.

But witches—be they white or black—lived dangerously, for they could never be sure when people would turn against them. Farmers who suffered a run of ill luck with their stock, parents whose children died unexpected and unexplained deaths, women who were barren, any could be put down to a witch’s actions; and when people raged against their own ill fortune it seemed to soothe them to wreak the anger they felt towards fate against some human victim.

So it had come to this for poor Maggie Enfield. I had heard whispers. Jennet had told me. Somebody’s baby had been born dead; someone else had a disease among his cattle. Maggie Enfield had been seen passing the cottage where the baby had died and had been caught looking at the cattle.

And now they decided that she was a black witch and that she had sold herself to the Devil for these special powers, and Maggie Enfield was being dragged from her cottage by those who were determined on vengeance.

They would hang her on one of the trees.

I shivered. I would not go down Gibbet Lane for a long time. I remembered vividly the first time I had ridden down that grim thoroughfare. There were two trees there suitably shaped to form a scaffold. There could scarcely be a more terrifying sight than a body hanging helpless, lifeless, swaying on a tree.

And now the celebration of burning the Christmas decorations had been spoilt by the thought of old Maggie Enfield in the hands of her executioners.