Juliet Dark - The Angel Stone

My fingers snared in the wool and the thread broke. Nan clucked her tongue, whether over my clumsiness or Mordag’s confession I wasn’t sure, and showed me how to twist a new thread onto the old. When the wheel was spinning again, I asked Nan how Mordag came to be accused.

“Are you asking me if she is a witch?” Nan asked.

“It doesn’t matter to me. Even if she is a witch, she doesn’t deserve to be locked away in a dungeon and tortured.”

“Nay,” Nan said, dropping her spindle from her hand to pull out a long thread of yarn. “That’s true enough. But Mordag’s no witch. She’s only a wisewoman who uses her plants to heal folks and animals alike. She has a deft hand with the wee beasties. Three years ago, when the blight wiped out most of the local flocks, Mordag kept her own flock alive. She offered to tend the MacDougal flocks, as weel, but Hamish MacDougal was too proud to consult a wisewoman. All the MacDougal sheep perished, which drove up the price of wool next season. It made Mordag a rich woman—but a hated one. I told her she ought to leave off healing, but she wouldna say no to anyone in need.” Nan shook her head and wrapped a skein of yarn around her arm, twisting it into a knot and dropping it into a basket. She’d woven twice as much with her hand spindle as I had with the wheel. “She brewed a special dip for Fergus MacIntire’s sheep last spring, and a few of them died. Fergus accused her of hexing them. Mmppff . Like as not the creatures died from Fergus skimping on their feed.”

“But why has she confessed?”

“Why do ye think? That man ye saw on the cart? The one who wears the moonstone pinned to his cloak? That’s Endymion Endicott. He’s a famous witch finder. Any man or woman he interrogates ends by confessing. By the time he’s done with them, they confess to crimes committed in their dreams. They confess to all the petty acts we each think of doing but don’t. Mordag admitted that she had seen the auld folk riding in the moonlight on All Hallows’ Eve. Same as we all have in these parts. Mordag didna know that the judges didn’t see any difference between the devil and the fey, but the real devil was that monster Endicott, who tortured her into confessing. By the end, he had her sayin’ that she’d kissed the devil’s arse. But she wouldna name any members of her circle, so she will not be given the mercy of a quick death. She’s to be burned alive three days before Christmas Eve.”

I shuddered but somehow kept the thread moving through my fingers—as though I had to do something to keep the horror of Mordag’s fate at bay. Nor did I want to look at Nan when I asked her my next question.

“Not that it really matters,” I said, trying to keep my voice casual, “because where I come from it’s not a crime … even if anyone believed in it … so I just wondered …”

“If I’m a witch?” Nan asked, looking up from her spindle.

The thread broke in my hand and I met Nan’s gaze. “Well, you see, I am , so if you are …”

“Aye, I suppose you could call me a witch. My gram said we were wisewomen and buidseach . I wouldna ever do harm to anyone. That is one of the verra first rules I learned at my gram’s knee.”

“An’ it harm none, do what ye will,” I quoted the Wiccan credo from one of Moondance’s bumper stickers. “Although I’m not sure all the witches I know abide by that rule.” I thought of my grandmother and the curse her grandfather had put on Nicky Ballard’s family.

“Nay, not all do, but the harm they do always comes back on them.”

“Thricefold,” I said. “Yes, I’ve heard that, too. I wonder how many of those convicted and killed by Endicott are actual witches.”

“I do not know for sure. Some of the accused belonged to our circle and some did not.”

“Your circle?”

“Aye, our spinning circle, ye ken. Perhaps you’ll join us when ye’ve gotten your strength back.”

“And this witch finder—Endicott—do you think he’s a nephilim?”

“I dinna ken what he is, except he must be some kind of monster to do what he does to the poor souls he questions. It’s like he breaks something inside them.”

“It’s the angel stone,” I said, stealing a look at Nan. She was watching me, but her eyes were on my hands, not my face. I had somehow gotten the hang of the spinning now, and the repetitive motion of feeding the wool into the wheel made it easier to go on. “The stone makes every transgression seem far worse. The story I heard from my colleagues was that the nephilim were elves that were thrown out of Faerie because of how they abused human women—although, now that I think of it, I don’t see how what they did was any worse than what the Fairy Queen did to William.” The spinning wheel whirred faster as I thought about the abuse William had suffered. “Anyway, when they came here to our world, they bred with humans, and their offspring were born … deformed somehow— monsters . They were so horrified that they disowned their children, and the children in turn were so ashamed of their fathers’ horror that they killed them. The last of their fathers shed a tear that became a stone—the angel stone. It’s supposed to be the one thing that can destroy a nephilim. It’s what I came here to Ballydoon to find.”

“And that’s the stone Endicott was wearing?”

“Yes, and he’s using it to force witches to confess. But if we can get the stone, I think we can use it against the witch hunters.”

“That’s a mighty big if . How do you figure you can get the stone from Endicott? He always wears it, and he’s not likely to hand it over to you.”

“No, but there is one thing that can break the stone’s power. Look there on the settle …” I pointed with my chin to the china saucer I’d put out on the bench in front of the fireplace. I didn’t want to break the rhythm I’d fallen into. Nan was right: the spinning was not only relaxing me, it helped me think. Nan gave me a curious look, then put down her spindle and picked up the two halves of the Luckenbooth brooch I’d left in the saucer.

“While I was in my trance, William put my half of the brooch in my hand and it appeared in my hand in the vision. The inquisitor—Endymion Endicott—was scared when he saw it. I was able to break the stone’s spell with it and escape from him.”

“Aye, but only in a dream …”

“If it was that powerful in a dream, it will be more powerful in reality—and twice as powerful when the two halves of the brooch are fit together. There’s a space between the halves that’s just the right shape and size for the angel stone. If we can fit the angel stone into the brooch, it will become a weapon to use against them. And if we can figure out how to use the plaid, too, we can destroy the bastards.”

Nan looked up from the brooches to me and grinned. “Aye,” she said, “I think ye may be right. And I’ve got an idea about that magic plaid you’ve been nattering on about.” She lowered her eyes to the bobbin on my wheel. I followed her gaze … and gasped, breaking off the thread. The undyed wool I’d been spinning had turned fiery red on the wheel and was glowing.

That evening, when William came home, I had the table set for his supper. I’d made bannocks and a stew from some mutton and carrots Nan had brought. I’d swept the hearth and scrubbed the wide-planked floor and arranged some dried heather in an earthenware jug—although I supposed since William spent his days in the heather he might be tired of looking at it. But I wanted the house to look and smell nice.

“What’s all this?” he asked, his cheeks ruddy from the cold, his dark hair dusted with a sprinkling of snow. He reminded me of Liam when he would come in from his walks in the woods, and I found myself leaning toward him to catch the scent of pine and wood smoke that had clung to Liam’s clothes. But William smelled of heather and peat and sheep.