The Lighthouse Witches(26)

On hindsight, I believe this is where the trouble started. Ironically, my father’s newfound success meant that he was away from home more often, and the vines that might have otherwise remained small buds snaked through our house, and the next, and the next, until they strangled us all.

The man’s name was Duncan. He was a church elder and owned a lot of land. I probably played with his younger sons Gordon and Alasdair a couple of times on the fen, where all the kids tended to congregate after the summer solstice nights for games. He had brought milk, eggs, and occasionally meat from his farm to my mother when she was in mourning after losing my sister, but suddenly he was at our door every day, bringing her food or assisting her in her prayers. I believe she had told him that she didn’t need his help to pray—he said she needed to pray for repentance. Even a child as young as I knew my mother had no need to repent for losing my sister—the Angel of Death had simply decided her time was up. But Duncan was persistent. My mother began to hide in the kitchen and send my brother and me to answer the door when he called.

One day he called in the morning and again in the evening. As a child I didn’t fully understand why he should be so anxious to get to my mother. She was pregnant again, and I knew that she was afraid of him, and afraid of telling my father that she was afraid of him, and within this curious quandary I was a cog turning a wheel for her escape.

“She’s not in,” I told him for the second time, and I felt my cheeks flame all the way to my collarbone.

He smiled down at me, then rested his hands on his knees and brought his nose close to mine.

“We both know that’s a lie,” he said. “Do you know what happens to little boys who tell lies?”

I shook my head. I had a horrible feeling in my stomach, and suddenly I was aware that it was late, our neighbors all gone indoors for the night. There was just my mother and my brother in the house. With my father gone, I was the man of the house.

“I’ll tell you what happens,” he continued, so close to me now I could only see that hooked nose and the pores in his skin, like strawberry seeds. “They get their bellies cut.” He drew a long finger across my stomach. “So how about I ask you the question again, and you tell me the truth. Is your mother home or not?”

I gulped and nodded. He straightened, looked past me into the house. I knew he knew my father was away for the night, in another town, fixing someone’s roof.

“Knock knock,” he said, rapping his knuckles on the door. He stepped past me, one foot at a time, across the threshold, then called out in a big booming voice that seemed to shake the walls. “Anyone home?”

Finally, my mother emerged, and although she looked surprised to see him, as though he’d just caught her in the middle of something, I knew her well enough to understand that it was all an act, that she was scared.

She gave Duncan a tight smile. “What brings you here so late?”

He closed the door behind him. “Oh, you know. I reckoned I’d check up on you, see what’s been ailing you of late. You’ve not been around. I’ve been dropping off supplies to your boys. We’ve never discussed payment so I thought, now’s as good a time as any.”

Her smile widened, grew more false, and there was fear in her eyes. “Oh, how very thoughtful. I’m fine, thank you. Just fine.”

“Are you sure?” he said, stepping closer.

She pressed a hand to her pregnant belly, protective. “And my husband should be back soon. He’s always tired, and he’ll be expecting supper. So perhaps you could arrange to return in the morning when he’s refreshed, and happy to discuss any payment you desire.”

He lowered his eyes, gave a heavy sigh. “Send the boy to bed.”

She turned her head stiffly toward me. “Patrick. Bed.”

I nodded and scampered, fast as my legs could carry me. In my room I slammed the door, then slid beneath my bed and stuffed my fist in my mouth.

I don’t know what happened that night. I can guess, but I don’t know.

When I woke, it was light again and I was still under the bed. I raced to the kitchen and found my mother preparing breakfast. I studied her carefully. I was relieved to see her there, and I could tell that Duncan was gone. She seemed unharmed, but there was a cloud in the air and something on the wind that only I could read. She was different. Whatever had happened had changed her, in a different way to how my sister’s death had changed her. The look in her eyes was different.

I said nothing, and she said nothing. I held her gaze as I walked across the kitchen floor, then wrapped my arms around her waist and bawled like into her belly. The baby moved against my cheek, and I was so glad that it was still alive because I’d feared Duncan had harmed it, and if the baby died my mother would collapse into sadness again. I felt her hand cup my head, her arm around my shoulders. We held each other like that for a very long time.

She went to see Finwell, Amy’s mother. I played with Amy in the barn while she visited, and when she emerged she seemed better. Finwell had done a fine job of healing her, she said.

About a week thereafter, Duncan fell ill with some kind of pox that no healer could cure. It was the talk of the village. I heard old Mrs. Dunbar telling a neighbor about it, describing boils the size of sparrows’ eggs filled with smelly green pus, and how his body was absolutely covered in them. Not an inch of flesh to be seen. The boils were inside his body, too, and he vomited hot black fluid day and night. His wife and sons kept vigil by his bed, and he whispered to them that he’d been cursed by witches.