“What are you talking about?” I said. “What you did to Duncan?”
I saw her cheeks turn red. This only happened when her mother shouted at her. Amy’s mother was keen on the wooden spoon school of discipline and she was the only person alive who commanded Amy’s full respect.
Amy wiped her hands on her dress before sitting down opposite me.
“I cursed Duncan,” she said. “I put a hex on him to make him sick. As payment for what he did. You know this.”
I shook my head. “No, I didn’t.”
She studied me with her huge, feline eyes. “Yes, you do, Patrick. You know what I can do. No one else does. Not except my parents.” She chewed her lip. I wiped my nose on the back of my hand. It had started to bleed. “Morag started a rumor about your mum. She said she heard some commotion from your house. She said she saw him go in and have his way with your mum.”
I felt like she’d slapped me. “She saw?”
Amy nodded. I leaped to my feet, tears burning my eyes, and screamed in her face. “If she saw, why didn’t she do anything?”
“Sit down,” Amy said, unfazed by my outburst. I collapsed into my seat and buried my face in my hands. Amy let me sit there for a long time, not saying anything until I’d managed to calm down.
“Lots of people are saying that your ma caused Duncan’s illness.” Her voice was soft now, and I knew she was worried.
I looked up. I had no idea what this meant but her voice was lined with worry.
“Why are they saying that?”
She looked away. “I don’t know.” She reached out and took my hand. I didn’t even bother to pull away, despite how sticky it was.
When I went home, Mum was sewing by the lantern. She only had to look up for me to know something had happened.
“Where’s Dad?” I asked.
“Gone,” she said, keeping her eyes on her sewing.
“Gone-gone?” I asked.
She nodded.
“Should I dig up his treasure box?” I asked. My father had told me that he had buried his inheritance in the hill near the large oak, and that if anything were to happen to him we were to dig it up. Now that he was gone, I couldn’t see how we would survive.
Mother shook her head. I walked over to her and, very slowly, wrapped my arms around her. I buried my face in her shoulder and cried, and she let me. Then I let go and went to bed without saying a word.
It didn’t happen the next day, or the day after. Dad had taken his ax, so he definitely was gone-gone. I came back from the fields to find church elders at the door, and Mum being taken away. Her wrists were bound and her head bowed. I ran up to her but one of the men pushed me back.
“Mum!” I shouted as they threw her in the carriage. “Mum! Stop! Where are you taking her?”
Some of the neighbors had come out, and I thought they were there to help. But they just stood and watched.
“Witch,” one of them said in a low voice. Then someone else said it, then another. In a moment it was a deafening chant, and it didn’t relent, not even when I cried out for them to stop, when I shouted that she was innocent, that he’d hurt her.
Not even then.
III
It’s late morning. Saffy’s at school, though once again the teacher is forcing them all to have class outdoors in the freezing cold and rain. Saffy has no idea why the woman insists on this, beyond punishment for the sake of it. It’s almost October, and it’s raining again. It always bloody rains here. Saffy has never seen rain like it, nor so many varieties. Rain that’s like a mist, making her blonde hair all frizzy and fat. Rain that bounces up from the ground, rain that blisters the windows and drums the roof of the bothy. Rain that seeps inside your bones and chills you from the inside out. It was blue skies and sunshine when they left England. She didn’t even bring a coat, and now she’s had to borrow some old wax coat that smells of dead fish.