Susan Fletcher - Corrag

So tomorrow, our journey takes us west. Inverlochy must wait.

We are headed, now, for the town of Inverary – a small, Campbell town on the shores of Loch Fyne. The coast has a milder climate, I hear. I also hear the Campbells are a strong and wealthy people – I hope for a warmer bed than this one that Stirling provides. There, we might fatten our horses and ourselves, and rest, and wait for the thaw. It sounds a decent resting place. But I must be wary, Jane – these Campbells are William’s men. They are loyal to him, and support him – they would not take kindly to my cause. They’d call it treachery, or worse. So I must hide my heart, and hold my tongue.

Wretched weather. My cough is thicker and I worry my chilblains might come back. Do you remember how I suffered from them in our first married winter? I would not wish for them again.

I feel far from you. I feel far from Ireland. Also, from like-minded men – I write to them in London, asking for their help, in words or in funds to assist me, but I hear nothing from them. Perhaps this weather slows those letters. Perhaps it slows these letters to you.

Forgive me. I am maudlin tonight. It is hunger that troubles me – for food, for warmth, for a little hope in these hopeless times. For you, too, my love. I think of you reading this by the fire, in Glaslough, and I wish I could be with you. But I must serve God.

Dear Jane. Keep warm and dry.

I will endeavour to do the same, and shall write to you from Inverary. It may be an arduous journey, so do not expect a letter in haste. But have patience, as you have other virtues – for a letter will come.

In God’s love, as always,

Charles

‘The black seed also [helps] such as in their sleep are troubled with the disease called Ephilates or Incubus, but we do commonly call it the Night-mare.’

of Peony

There are ones who wait for me. I know this. I know, too, who they are. They are the ones whose hearts were like my own – wild, unfettered hearts. Cora’s heart was wildest – rushing like clouds can do – and she waits. So does her mother, who I never met, but I know she is tiny and has pondweed in her hair. Mrs Fothers, too – for I once saw her looking at the evening star, and she wept at it, and I thought her heart is like my heart. So I reckon she is waiting.

There is the plum-faced man. It was his heart which killed him in the end, I think, for it was a tired heart when I knew him – and that was years ago. Also, the boy I found crouching, who feared the baying dogs, waits patiently for me. So does our pig. I wish I’d never killed him, with his velvety snout, but I did, and now he waits for me as if he never minded dying. He waits, flaps his ears.

And my mare. My speckled, big-rumped mare who I loved, and loved, and loved. I see her looking at me and I think I love my speckled mare .

And them – of course. The MacDonalds of Glencoe – or the ones I could not save. The newly dead Scots men who wait in a line with their fresh musket wounds sealed up, and their skin uncut, and they will say my name as I cross to them – not witch , not Sassenach .

These are the lives I’ve loved, who are dead now. Their bodies are worms – but their souls are free, and in the other, airy world. The realm , Cora called it – where we all go, one day . Our death is a door we must pass through, and it seemed a good thing by how she spoke of it. Calm, and good. Part of life – which it is.

But I was wrong to think it was calm. Or I was wrong to think it always happened that way. I was a child, with a child’s mind, and I thought all deaths were by lying down, closing our eyes, and a sigh. I thought that sigh would be lifted by the wind, and carried. But no. Only when I killed the pig and it squealed did I think it can hurt. Be bloody, and sad. That was an awful lesson I learnt. After it, I was wiser. Cora said my eyes turned a darker shade of grey.

It can hurt. Yes.

And I have seen more hurtful deaths than I’ve seen gentle ones. There was the nest which fell, and all those little feathered lives were licked up by the cats. In Hexham, a man was put in stocks and had stones thrown at him until he was dead – and for what? Not much, most likely. Also, there was Widow Finton, and I don’t know how she died, but it took a week to know that she was gone – they smelt the smell, and found her. A door we must pass through? I believe that part. I believe it, for I have seen souls lift up and move away. But not all deaths are peaceful. They are lucky, who get those.

We do not get them. Peaceful deaths.

Not us who have hag as a name.

Why should we? When they say we worship the devil and eat dead babes? When we steal milk by wishing it? We have no easy ends. For my mother’s mother, they used the ducking stool. All the town was watching as she bobbed like a holey boat, and then sank under. I imagined it, in my infant days – out in the marshes with the frogs and swaying reeds. I crouched until my nose was in the water and I could not breathe, and I thought she died this way , and would it have been a simple death? A painless one? I doubted it. I coughed reeds up. Cora grabbed me, cursed me and plucked frogspawn from my hair.

Then there are the twirling deaths. Like the ones the Mossmen had. I saw these ones – how they put the rope on you like a crown that is too big, and your hands are double-tied. Like you are King, the crowds hiss or cheer. And then there is the bang , and maybe some go quickly but I’ve seen the heels drumming, and I’ve thought what sadness. What huge sadness there is, in the world.

And pricking. A dreadful word.

That is a fate they save only for us – for witch and whore. I’ve been afraid of the pricking men for all my life, for Cora was. She shook when she spoke of them. She made herself small, and hid. Part of a witch does not bleed, she whispered – or so the church says. So men prod our women with metal pins, seeking it… I asked her how big? Are the pins? And she held out her hands, like this – like how fishermen do, when telling their tales.

A door , Cora said, that we must pass through.

Yes.

But why these ways? Why with such pain in them? I wish we could all find a high-up place with clouds and air, and close our eyes, and find a heavy sleep – and that would be our deaths. No ropes or pins. No crowds, or spit. Just the wind, and a knowing that the ones you love are safe, that you’ll be remembered fondly, and all’s as it should be.

That’s the death I’d choose.

But I cannot choose. It is chosen for me. It has been picked, like fruit.

Why fire?

I asked the gaoler this. I asked the man who came to see my wounds, and staunch them up. I asked the one called Stair who has always hated witch . I said why fire? Why? Please not by fire… And Stair watched me for a while, through the bars. I pleaded with him. I rambled, begged. But he picked at his teeth, turned slowly on his heel and left this room saying, I think fire is best. Such cold weather…It would warm the town up – don’t you think?

I shook the bars. I banged my iron wrists on the bars, and kicked at my pail. I screamed not by fire! Not that way! And come back! Come back! Come back! Come back!

I shook, and shook.

I heard my words echo and his footsteps die away.

So it will be by fire. Outside, they gather wood. I hear them drag it through the snow, and the nails going in. Inside, I look at my skin. I see its scars and freckles. I feel my bones, and I roll the skin upon my knees so that the bones beneath them clunk – back and fro. I follow where my veins run along my arm and hands. I touch the tender places – inside my legs, my belly. The pink, wrinkled skin between my toes.