Imogen Robertson - Island of Bones

Crowther was no believer in witches, cards, Lucks or the rest — but he had the grace to wonder if some of those who called themselves his colleagues in science and medicine had anything more valuable to offer than rowan twigs. And Ruben and his son knew herbs. He thought of Ruben standing in the shade of that tree. He had seemed as much a part of the landscape as the stones and water. Where that man had decided to set his foot he would not be moved, whatever blustering winds ripped round him. There must have been bad blood between Ruben and Sir William by that point, or he would have come into the churchyard to pay his respects to Crowther’s mother.

Crowther seemed to feel the thrum of the rain by the grave again, his hands cramping with cold, his own sense of being cut off from everything around him. He could even hear his sister weeping damply into the housekeeper’s cloak as the vicar let the words of Scripture fall from his lips and into the slippery grave. He blinked, and found himself with the grave grown over under his feet and the gasping sun on his back. He picked up his cane and readied himself for the walk to the cottage of Lottie Tyers.

As Kerrick crossed the field towards the stones, the black witch started to chatter at Casper.

‘You know in your bones, what he has to say. He’s come to say Agnes is not home. Sent her out in the storm, girl like that, and nice and close to where you took your beating.’

Casper had clenched his teeth, but Grice continued spitting at him. ‘Maybe she saw you kill that man. Like you, that would be — murder a man in your madness then lecture his daughter about life the next morning! Oh, that makes me laugh! Maybe you killed Agnes too, and buried her better.’

Casper could remember very clearly when the first voice had begun to speak to him. It had been just after the funeral of his father. Funerals had been poor affairs in ’54, the village had seen so many of them, but his aunt had baked the funeral bread and every household in the village was represented by the graveside. Ruben had died helping them through the pox. Then, as they walked away from the church, a young man had touched him on the arm and asked if he might call on him the following day. He wished to marry his girl and wanted to learn the day to do it. He was three years older than Casper, and Casper had always looked on him from the place of a child as they grew. He realised then that the title of cunning-man had fallen over him at his father’s death like a cloak, and could not be given up.

He mumbled some agreement, then went to his aunt’s house to sleep. He could not. He knew something of finding days of fortune in the calendar, but not enough. His father had not planned on leaving him so soon and he was kept awake by the knowledge of his own poor learning. So Casper had risen from his bed and taken his inheritance in his hands, then made his way to the circle of stones. There he had stared into the dark, seeing again the blistered faces of his father and his neighbours till the silence seemed alive with the sounds of their suffering, and under it all he heard the first of the voices. It was a whisper at first, like hearing a conversation through a wall at night. It was soft and friendly, a woman’s voice. It seemed a shape dressed in white; though he could not see it, had come to sit by his side in the darkness and was trying to make itself heard. As the cold night drew on, the voice had become clearer and the shape became a woman dressed in a white gown. She told him he knew all he needed to, and that she would speak to him and guide him when he was in doubt. So she had, through the next day and the ones that followed, and Casper grew to trust her.

There was a price to be paid for her help. The lady had opened some door in his mind and other voices had used to clamber inside: these were the cruel, mocking voices of the bogles and dark witches that liked to tell him when he was foolish or wrong and laughed at him. Then came the affair of Blanche Grice, her death and burying, and she had ruled loudest in his mind for twenty years now. The white lady was still there, but it was hard to catch her whispers. Grice was crowing and flapping her arms now. The young man who had come to find Casper on the day of his father’s funeral was Kerrick himself. Casper watched him now, lumbering across the field to join him.

‘Hast thou seen her, Casper?’ Casper shook his head as he got to his feet. Kerrick gathered up his shirt in handfuls in front of him. ‘She was quiet when you had left, and kissed her mother, then said she had duty to do and set out at dusk.’

Casper put his hand on Kerrick’s shoulder. ‘I’ll find her. Stay close to your place today, in case she makes her own way back.’

Kerrick nodded. Gasped, ‘There was a man killed.’

‘There was. Trust me, old friend.’

Kerrick managed to nod again, then put out his hand and Casper took it, then he turned away and set off back towards Keswick.

‘Trust you? Trust you, when you most like killed the pair of them? Find her? Find where you’ve buried her in your madness, and bring her back all muddy?’ The witch laughed; he could hear her stamp her feet.

Casper came to a stop in the middle of the path and spoke very softly. ‘I shall find her. If she is hurt, I shall punish them that have hurt her. If that were me, I shall drown myself off the Island of Bones, and that’ll be you done with too, hag.’

That stilled her.

The door to the cottage had been opened by a flustered middle-aged woman, who became all the more flustered when she discovered Mr Crowther outside. She tried to curtsey and tidy her hair and brush the flour from her dress all at the same moment. Crowther, unnecessarily, gave his name and asked to see Mrs Tyers. The tongue-tied woman nodded, then beckoned Crowther through the rough earth corridor that divided the living chambers from the down-house and into the rear courtyard. There in the shade, with a rolling view of meadows and the glimmer of Bassenthwaite in the haze, he found an old woman at her spinning wheel. She was dressed in black, and had shrunk with age. Crowther felt he could have placed her into his pocket and walked off with her into the hills.

‘You got my note then, Master Charles?’ she said, glancing up. Crowther felt his memories swirl round him like leaves in a sudden gust. He saw in the old lady the stern housekeeper of his childhood, saw her walking the corridors of Silverside with a set of keys on her belt, a notebook and that tiny black pencil with which she used to jab the maids if she felt they needed encouragement in their work. She had a thin scar running across her face from the corner of her eye-socket to her jaw. Crowther had thought that age would have hidden it, but it was bright on her tanned skin and ran against the natural lines of her face. ‘Fetch a stool for the man, Nancy,’ she continued, nodding to the woman who had opened the door. ‘There’s a good girl.’

Crowther cleared his throat. ‘I did get your note, Mrs Tyers. I am glad to see you in health.’

‘Surprised, I should think!’ She laughed to herself and then continued more softly, ‘Eighty-seven summers I’ve seen now, and I hoped I’d lived through all the excitement I needed to. Dare say you didn’t think when you settled ten pounds a year on me for life you’d be paying out so long?’ She looked up from the wheel with a proud glint in her eye. The eyes were the same, as sharp and seeing as they had ever been.

‘I am happy to pay it, Mrs Tyers.’

Nancy emerged from the house, wrestling a large carved oak chair with her. Crowther helped her place it and she fluttered back into the house again, only to emerge red and sweating with a pint-pot which she handed confusedly to Crowther, then dashed back into the dark once more.