Hester Fox - The Witch Of Willow Hall

Before Mr. Barrett disappears through the door, he turns and gives us a nod. Father would have to be blind not to see the way Catherine looks at Mr. Barrett now. “Thank you, ladies, and again, I hope I haven’t taken up too much of your time.”

I’m too flustered to say anything, but Catherine has no problem assuring him again that it wasn’t the case. She gives him a breezy smile, and as he turns to leave, that’s when I see it. I don’t know why a sour lump in my throat rises, or why I suddenly want to flee the room, but when I see the single white rose bloom tucked into his buttonhole, I feel sick.

* * *

“I hate baths.”

Emeline is standing wrapped in a towel, glaring at the tub that Ada has filled with steaming water. She’s still mad at me about being sent away this morning when Mr. Barrett was here.

“I know you do,” I say, “but you’re filthy and haven’t had a proper bath in too long.” The longer she stalls, the cooler it will become, and by the time it’s my turn I’ll be bathing in tepid water.

Emeline is unmoved, refusing even to look at the tub.

“You can pretend you’re a mermaid,” I offer, my voice rising in desperation.

She considers this, and, finding it acceptable, puts out her hand so that I may help her in. She’s just settling into the water and complaining that it’s too hot when Catherine pauses at the doorway to frown in at us.

I’ve successfully avoided Catherine since Mr. Barrett left, unable to look her in the eye after her triumph. But as the day has worn on, the effort at being mad at her has become too much, and I’m willing to extend an olive branch. “Do you want a bath? If you go change, you can go after me.” Good graces or not, I’m not giving up position as second in line for the hot water.

Catherine crosses her arms. “I’m not sharing water with you two. If I want a bath I’ll have Ada draw one for me later.”

I give her a dubious look. With this unbearably hot and humid weather, we would all benefit from a bath, her included. Catherine is usually the first among us to whine that Mother doesn’t let us have enough water for hot baths, and demand that a tub be filled whenever the whim strikes her.

“You’d make Ada heat more water and carry it all the way upstairs again? Don’t be silly, just wait a few minutes and have one now.”

Something like fear flickers across Catherine’s face. But in the time it takes me to blink, she’s scowling again, and turning on her heel back to her room.

I don’t have the energy or the inclination to persuade her, so after Emeline is done with her bath and tucked upstairs in bed, I slip into the tub and luxuriate, taking as much time as I want.

I close my eyes, letting the warm water loosen my knotted muscles and wash away my tension from the past few days.

But just as my shoulders are starting to sink beneath the surface, the air around me turns frigid. I shiver, my teeth chattering despite the warm bath. The lamp gutters as a gusty breeze kicks through the window.

Cursing the sudden change in the weather, I hoist myself out of the tub and reach for the towel I left draped on my vanity. That’s when I see it.

My heart stops in my chest and my arms break into gooseflesh.

“Catherine?” I yell over my shoulder, unable to tear my gaze from the mirror on my vanity. “Catherine, get in here!”

Catherine appears in the doorway, brow puckered and lips in a pout. “What do you want? You can’t just call me from across the house like a dog and—”

I don’t let her finish. “Did you do this?” My voice is shaking.

She heaves a sigh, but comes into the room and looks around. “Did I do what? What are you talking about?”

I gesture to the mirror, my throat too narrow to choke out even a word.

Catherine cranes her neck past me to see the mirror and gives an impatient huff. “Is this some sort of game? Don’t you think I have better things to do than drop everything and come look at your mirror for some whim of yours?”

Angry, I spin around and point at the mirror, ready to chastise Catherine for being willfully obtuse. But I drop my hand. The words that were just there, written as clear as day in the steam, are gone.

My mouth opens and closes, unable to produce any words while my mind sluggishly works to comprehend what I’m seeing. Then, “No! I don’t understand. I... There was writing on the fog on the mirror. It was just here...”

Catherine flicks her glance to the tub. “The water isn’t even steaming...how on earth could the mirror be fogged?” She shakes her head. “You need to get some sleep. You’re seeing things.”

But I know what I saw. The only thing I don’t know is what it meant.

With one last suspicious look at me, Catherine leaves me dripping there, the image of the fogged words burned into my mind.

You attract them. Some mean you harm. Prepare for what lies ahead.

7

MY HANDS ARE stained and scratched, my back aching, but when I stand to stretch from weeding I feel better than I have in a long time about our new life in the middle of nowhere. The garden at Willow Hall is small, a scorched vegetable patch that hasn’t yielded much except a handful of misshapen tomatoes and some resilient squashes, but I’m determined to see it productive and beautiful. I wonder if my dream about the pale lady the other night wasn’t my mind’s way of telling me that I ought to pay more attention to the garden. I haven’t dared breathe a word about it to Emeline because I don’t want to scare her, or to Catherine because she would just laugh at me. It’s bad enough that Catherine saw me flustered and in a panic about the words in the mirror. The more I thought about it as I lay in bed last night, the more I’m convinced that, like the pale lady who has not reappeared, the words were nothing more than a figment of my imagination. Otherwise, how do I explain it?

Our flower garden with the lilacs used to be Mother’s pride and joy, but here she hasn’t shown any interest in the plot behind the house. When I told her I wanted to clean it up and start an herb garden—something she had forbidden in Boston—she had looked pained and told me she didn’t think it was a good idea, but in the end, she had not fought it.

I never understood Mother’s aversion to having a nice herb garden. I have vague memories of my grandmother’s house in Cambridge with an ambling garden behind it, full of every herb and healing plant imaginable. When I was little I used to love to rub my fingers into the bergamot flowers, releasing their spicy scent, and chewing on the leaves of lemon balm. But one day when I had brought Mother a remedy I’d concocted from some of the herbs for her chronic headaches, she had blanched and recoiled from me, telling me that I must never dabble with herbs. Apparently it wasn’t ladylike, or proper for young girls. I can’t remember now.

But now Mother has given up on that, I suppose, not having the energy or inclination to ensure that I’m a proper lady. My hands move automatically, pruning back the plants like mint and chamomile that like to spread, and encouraging the shier plants like hyssop and parsley. For all that I am lousy at arranging flowers and don’t know the first thing about wildlife, it’s almost as if herbs speak to me, telling me what they need. I wipe the sweat from my eyes and survey my progress with pride. Despite the scorching weather, the plot is lush and already teeming with eager plants. It’s miraculous really, like they sprang up overnight. I wonder that the vegetable patch and the flower garden are so withered and decayed, while my little herbs have grown and thrived so quickly.

The back door bangs open, shattering the peace. Emeline cuts directly toward me, little fists balled at her side, brow furrowed in distress. Snip bounds at her heels, wagging his tail furiously as she barrels on.