Her teeth were chattering and I could see her eyes were glassy. I placed a hand on her bare arm, frail as a twig. I realized she must have been the child I’d spotted in the Longing. That child had this same white-blonde hair to her shoulders. But that was weeks ago. My mouth ran dry at the thought of her being out here alone all this time.
She spotted the fire and lunged toward it, holding her hands close to the flame. The rag that was wrapped around her waist loosened and fell to the ground, and I saw something between her legs. A penis. She was a boy.
I tore the throw off the sofa and wrapped it quickly around him.
“Where do you live?” I said. “Are your parents nearby? Did you get lost?”
He answered me at length, but it was in a language I didn’t know. German, or perhaps Dutch. Slowly, understanding crept upon me. The boy was from overseas. Perhaps he’d fallen off a boat, or escaped from traffickers.
He sat down on the floor then, the flames bringing color back to his pale skin. I knelt by him and swallowed back a gasp at the smell. For such a delicate child, he smelled revolting.
“Your mum and dad must be very worried about you,” I said, crouching down beside him. He flinched, and I moved back a little to reassure him I wasn’t going to harm him. “I’m going to call the police to let them know you’re here. And I’ll get you some hot tea and a sandwich.”
He didn’t answer, and I decided he must not speak English. I was at once alarmed and relieved. For a while, I’d thought I was going out of my mind. And yet here he was, in the cottage. Proof that I had seen a child.
I rose and moved to the kitchen, pouring a glass of water and making him a sandwich. Then I brought it through, intent on calling the police while he ate.
But the boy was gone. The rag that had been wrapped around his waist lay on the floor, and the front door was ajar. I raced out, calling “Come back! Come back!”
But there was nothing but a long strip of moonlight where he had stood only minutes before, the navy sea blinking out the causeway.
III
My mother, along with Jenny, Finwell, and the nine others, were walked in chains back to the broch, where they had been imprisoned for two months before standing trial. The judge explained that the stake should be placed in the grounds of the church, as per the wishes of the Royal Inquiry. But as the ashes of the witches would possibly be carried by the wind across the home of the man whose life they had taken, it was inappropriate. So they would be burned by the broch, where naught but the sea may be touched by the ashes.
The day was bright, the sky clear of clouds and the blue sea gently swaying. Four stakes had been erected in front of the stone broch. I’d seen some villagers hauling the trees from the forest a few days before—it was good-quality wood, tall lengths of it forming the spine of the stakes and thick branches propped up at angles against it to catch the flames. I wanted a storm to rise and send lightning forking down, or the sea to rear up over the rocks and sweep away the stakes. Surely if the women really were witches, the Devil wouldn’t let them be burned?
The guards from the Privy Council led the women and girls close to the stakes and began to remove their chains. The whole island had turned out for this terrible scene and I hated every one of them. Familiar faces greeted me at every turn; the women whose babies Finwell had delivered, who had sung her praises every day since; the men my father had worked with, and the children I played with often. They knew my family, and they knew my mother to be the sort of person who would never do the kinds of things she confessed to. I saw Duncan’s sons and his wife, who must have known what a blackhearted bastard he was. What cowards they were, to watch on as the accused were pulled by ropes around their neck to the stake, bony and obedient as mules.
My mother was innocent, as were Jenny and Finwell. I knew she had only confessed to those things because she was scared.
Father Skuddie stepped forward toward the women, and I thought for a moment he might announce that God had forgiven them and they were to be set free. But he simply crossed himself and prayed that their souls wouldn’t be left to linger in Hell.