Hour of the Witch(95)
“Then tell me, prithee, what art thou planning? I know there is more.”
“There is. But thou needest not know. ’Tis best.”
“Dost thou want to confront this witch alone? She—”
“Listen to thy self. She! The witch could just as easily be a man!”
“Forgive me.”
She closed her eyes and composed herself. “No. Forgive me. For my anger. We both know the truth. We both suspect my own servant girl. That is whom thou hast in mind, true?”
“Most likely.”
“Sometimes when thou dost fix thine eyes on me, I wonder: dost thou see anything but a barren and venomous wretch?”
He hopped off the desk and stood before her. He took her hands in his and held them, rubbing gently the spot on her right hand between her forefinger and thumb. “I rather applaud thine anger. I do not care that thou might be barren. And if thou art a wretch, thou art one that is rather comely in my eyes.” For a moment, neither of them said anything, and she heard only the seagulls outside the warehouse. “Mary?”
She waited.
“I see but an angel who is much abused by this world.” And when he leaned in to kiss her, she opened her lips, and this time there was no one there to see them or stop them.
* * *
It rained the next two days, chilling showers that fell intermittently, but it wasn’t freezing and even in the night the dooryard didn’t turn to ice and the trees didn’t bow beneath the weight. And so while the rain did not inhibit the work of the city the way snow could, it was ugly and depressing and it affected Thomas’s mood. It caused Catherine to grow sullen. Mary took comfort in the reality that soon, for good or ill, she would have acted.
And at church on the Sabbath she prayed, but no matter how deeply she tried to reach into her soul, she did not feel God’s spirit. Instead she felt the presence of the mortals she detested with a hatred she knew she should reserve only for Lucifer.
But she was also aware of Henry Simmons, and knew that he was profoundly aware of her. He was her future and she was his. At least while she breathed. At least until, as her recompense, she was flung into the fires of Hell.
* * *
She was asleep when Thomas returned from the tavern on Monday night. She awoke when he crawled into bed and started to pull up her shift. The clouds had parted—finally—and the room was flooded with moonlight. He was drink-drunk and rough, and for a moment she was prepared to acquiesce though he had plucked her from a dream, but then she recalled that her time of the month had begun soon after he had left after supper, and she had padding between her legs that would offend him.
“Thomas,” she began, her voice sleepy, “?’tis my course. ’Tis my time.”
He wasn’t listening, however, and already he was reaching there. He felt the rag and pulled away in revulsion. His anger followed quickly, the frustration exacerbated by the ale and the rain.
“Thy barren wife—thy stinking, filthy, dullard of a wife—has a body designed once more to repulse me,” he said, his voice a malevolent whisper. “A dunghill. A walking, bleeding dunghill. Thy course is always and forever, a curse upon thee and a curse upon me.” He sat back on his knees and put his hand across her mouth, and then took her left hand, the one that he had stabbed that autumn, and banged the back of it hard onto the corner of the night table. She started to cry out against the pain that shot up her arm in blistering waves, but he smothered her scream. Catherine likely heard nothing.
“Thou art loathsome, and I am not moved by thy tears. Drown in them, for all I care,” he hissed into her ear. “It would be no loss. No one would mourn thy death.”
Then he released her and swung his feet over the side of the bed. Her side of the bed. His feet were bare and his balance was wobbly. She felt a pang of fear as if she knew what was going to happen next, but there was nothing she could do to stop it. To stop him. It was happening too quickly and, besides, her hand hurt so much there was a ringing in her ears and she felt a little stunned: a bird that has accidentally flown into a window. He stumbled against the wall, against the corner where the floorboard was warped and the nail protruded, and he was stepping upon it with one of his bare feet, and then he was cursing. One long, loud curse, a wounded lion, his shoulders jerking back as he fell into the wall. Catherine certainly had heard that. He bent over to pry the nail from the wood, and she had to stop him. She knew this, she knew this as well as she had ever known anything. And so she fought against the agony in her hand and rolled over, sitting up and climbing from the bed, too. “Thomas,” she said, “my love, it can wait until the morning. Whatever it is—”
“It is a bloody nail!” he snapped, and already he had pulled it from the wood. “That’s what it is!”
He was enraged, and she saw that he was about to rip the board from the floor, and even though it was night, there was sufficient moonlight in the room that he would see something was hidden there. He would see the bottle of poison. She took his shoulders in her hands, even though her left one was throbbing, and said, “Prithee, come to bed. Whatever has so angered thee, it will still be there when the sun has risen and thou hast had a chance to sleep.”
He looked at her and seemed to calm. He sat beside her on the bed and studied the nail between his forefinger and thumb. In the morning, he would fix the board. She thought how she would have to stay awake until he was snoring and then remove the monkshood.