Witch Child (11 page)

‘That’s one of the reasons I came here, Mary. It is my life’s work, you see.’

Entry 47

I do not always go to the forest with Jonah. Sometimes I go alone. The seasons turn towards full autumn. The days are hot still, but the nights grow colder. Jonah is needed to help with the building which must be finished before winter comes. The woodland swells with bounty. I go in search of fruits, nuts, mushrooms, anything to add to our stock of food, and I have to confess a terrible thing. I have a very great secret. If any one discovers it, I will be punished severely.

I have taken to wearing boy’s clothing when I venture out alone in the forest.

The paths are close and small. Briar and bramble would snag on my long skirts, snatch off my bonnet, tear my bodice, so I stole a pair of Joseph’s breeches that Sarah had put by for mending, along with a cap belonging to Tobias and a stout leather jerkin of Jonah’s. I keep them hidden, wrapped in oilskin, in the middle of a hollow tree.

Entry 48

Today was clear and warm and I ventured far, farther than I had been before. I wandered until past noon. It was very hot and airless under the trees and my sack was growing ever heavier. I was thinking of going back, or at least stopping for a time, when I came upon a great pond, so overhung by trees that I almost fell into it.

It looked cool by the water and I climbed down to where a great smooth rock jutted out like a sunlit platform. I reached down to scoop a drink. The water felt cold, but not chilling, and soft to the touch. I was hot, sweating under my clothes, as I seemed to have been all summer. The days are warm and we work hard. How many times have I longed for a bath? But there is so little privacy that washing more than hands and face is next to impossible.

I looked around. I had seen no-one all morning and I was miles from the village. I quickly stripped off my clothes and let myself down into the water. It felt smooth, folding round my body like dark green silk. I had no soap, but scrubbed myself as best I could, washing my hair and wringing it out. I swam to the middle and let myself float, looking up at the leaves, the sunlight through the trees. When my skin was beginning to pucker with goose-flesh, I hauled myself out and lay on the sun-soaked rock.

I must have slept, for when I woke, the sun had changed in the sky. I recollected where I was and grabbed my clothes. As I lifted the bundle, something fell from the top of it. A little bunch of leaves. The leaves had a soapy feel to them, waxy to the touch. I held them tight in my hand. They had not been there before I went into the water. Of that I was sure. I had never seen them before. How did they appear?

I looked around. There was no sign of anyone. Everything was quiet, the lake lay still as a mirror. A sudden cry made me start. It was a jay bird, that was all. The jays here are bright blue, their call softer than ours at home. I looked for the flash of colour, but saw nothing, just heard the call again. It sounded like laughter as it echoed through the silence of the woods.

I took the little bundle of leaves and stuffed them in my sack.

All the way back I felt as though I was being watched, I felt my skin pricking, and that’s a sure sign of it, but I saw nothing. At first I thought that it was someone from the settlement. I hurried to my hollow tree, fearing that I would be discovered, but when men do venture into the forest, to hunt, or cut wood, or fell trees, they make a deal of noise that can be heard for miles. I almost began to believe in spirits.

Jonah was most interested in my new plant. He turned the leaves over in his hands, examining them with his glass, pronouncing it to be some species of soapwort. He thought it could be useful in times when real soap was not available. He asked where I had found it.

‘By a lake,’ I said, the colour springing to my face.

‘Hmm, hmm. Good, good.’

Jonah did not notice my blushes. He spread a sprig carefully and began to copy it into his
Herbal
, making me promise to show him where I found it growing. I nodded in agreement, wondering what I would show him, since I did not find it
growing
at all.

Entry 49

The next time that I went to the forest, I felt again the pricking of my skin. I stopped to listen and look around, but I could see no one, hear nothing out of the ordinary. I went on, pretending nonchalance, but with all my senses alert. Still I had no warning.

He appeared so suddenly that I truly thought he
was
a spirit and I started back, showing fear despite myself.

It was the Indian boy, the one I had seen in Salem, the one who had helped to guide us here. He carried a short bow in one hand and a quiver of arrows slung across his back. He held his other hand out open-palmed towards me, probably thinking that I would bolt from him, crashing away like some startled animal, as Deborah would, or Sarah, or any of the other girls from the town. But they would never come so far into the forest. They cower on the edge, peering into the trees like frightened children. I am not like them. Once I had gathered my senses, I stood my ground.

‘I am not afraid. What do you want?’

He shrugged and looked down. He has lashes long and thick as a girl’s, they brush the black lines painted on his cheeks. Then he looked back up at me, his eyes full of mischief.

‘I have seen you many times. I thought you were a boy, at first, but then ... ’

If he left the soapwort by the lake, then he must have seen me ...

I stared, eyes wide and horrified, far more discomforted
by that than by his knife, or bow, or his fearsome
appearance. His laughter rang out and from somewhere
deep in the woods first one jay bird called back, then another. He laughed even more as memory brought the blood thudding to my face. Now I turned to run, but he was too quick for me.

‘Stay.’ He caught my arm. ‘Our people, the girls and women often go naked – it means nothing.’

‘It means something to me.’ I shook him off and ran as fast as I could.

‘Wait! Stop!’ he called after me. ‘You and the old man – Jonah –’

I did not hear the rest of his words, I just went on running until I was back at my hollow tree.

Entry 50

Jonah has had an accident. He was helping Tobias and John in the saw-pit when a log that they were positioning slipped, falling on to his ankle. The foot is at a bad angle and Martha thinks the bone may be broken, but there is no way of telling as the joint has swollen to prodigious size. She gives him poppy to take the pain away, but she calls for St John’s Wort, briony, comfrey, dill and scabious to make a poultice. None of them grow here. I do not know what to do.

Entry 51

Martha has done what she can with her store of medicines, but Jonah’s foot blackens and he is feverish. There is no doctor in the settlement. There are only a few of them in the colony, and no one is sure where we would find one willing to come. Not everyone even sees the need for one, despite Jonah’s poorly condition. Reverend Johnson says the matter is in the hands of God.

Tobias is preparing to ride. We have no horse, but John Rivers has offered his. It is past noon, though, and John thinks that it would be better to start out tomorrow morning. All is undecided, but what we do know is if Jonah does not get help he will lose his foot and may well die. Martha bites her lip. She thinks we are already too late. I can see it in her eyes.

I can stay inside no longer.

I will take my sack and head for the forest. Collecting now is not a matter of curiosity merely, of scientific discovery. It is a matter of life or death.

Entry 52

I took tracks untrodden and ways unknown. I am not afraid of getting lost. I was brought up in the forest, friend to the woodcutters’ sons and the charcoal burners’ children, I mark my way.

I did not at first see the Indian boy, but that did not mean he wasn’t there. I walked until I felt my skin pricking again. It’s a game of cat and mouse we’ve been playing, but now it has to stop.

I called for him to come out.

‘What do you want?’

‘I need your help.’

I explained our trouble.

He listened carefully. ‘My grandfather remembers Jonah. He thinks he’s a good man. Not like the others. A healer, like himself. My grandfather is Powwaw.’ He frowned as he tried to find a way to explain. ‘More than a healer, spirit leader.’

‘Like a minister?’

‘Not like John – son.’ He pronounced the parts of the name separately as if they were two different words. ‘My grandfather guessed what Jonah did in the forest and sent me to help. I left the soapwort as a gift. Then, when I met you again, you ran away from me.’

‘Will you help us now?’

‘I will ask my grandfather. He will know what is best.’

‘Take me to him.’

‘No. That is impossible. I will come to you.’

‘When?’

‘Soon.’

He was gone before I could question him more.

Entry 53

Jonah is no better. His fever grows and his foot blackens even more. He has been moved from the Rivers’ to the house he is building with Tobias. It is a bare shell, but at least it is quiet and empty of children. Martha tends him, as he tosses and groans. All night the fever grows and by the morning he is delirious.

I meant to stay awake and help Martha, but I must have dozed off. I woke to find Tobias pulling on his boots.

Dawn was breaking, the air rang with the sound of birds calling from the forest.

‘I wish that bird would stop its chatter.’ Martha put her fingers to her temples. Through the general chorus came the cry of a jay bird, calling again and again.

I ran to the door, wrenching it open. On one side of the step stood a great basket of herbs. Fleshy stems and thick glossy leaves glistened with dew, so freshly picked that they had not begun to droop. On the other side of the step lay a smaller basket, covered with a cloth. This contained small gourds, little clay pots and folded packets of bark. I looked up and around. The jay bird call was near, very near. I followed into the forest.

He was waiting for me under the trees. There he gave me his grandfather’s instructions. The leaves in the basket must be boiled and the cooling mass bound around the foot. The powders in the birch bark folds must be mixed in water and drunk to control the fever. The liquid in the clay pot is to clear the blood of poisons. Lastly, the contents of the little gourd should be rubbed on to the skin to help heal the break once the bone is set and the swelling gone down.

I don’t know how to thank him.

‘He is not cured yet. I will be here tomorrow to see how he does. Listen for me.’

‘Wait! What is your name?’

‘Jaybird – can’t you guess?’

His laugh rang out and birds replied from all around the forest.

When I went back to the cabin, Martha had taken the baskets inside. She had guessed the purpose of the bunches of leaves and was boiling them in a kettle. The smell they gave was clean and fresh, conquering the odours of sickness, filling the room with healing.

I told her how I had come by these things, and explained the treatment carefully. Martha is not happy about the extent of my woodland wandering, less so about trafficking with the natives and using their heathen remedies. The proof of the pudding will be in the eating. She knows we have no choice.

Tobias does not need to go for the doctor. The poultice has eased the swelling, and the powders have brought the fever down. The colour of the skin is improving. Jonah’s foot is no longer black.

‘’Tis a miracle,’ Martha said as she unwrapped the dressing. ‘That’s what it is. We are all God’s children. They are better Christians than some I could name, despite their heathen ways.’ She turns to me. ‘’Tis not to say I’m pleased with how you came by this. Such wandering could draw attention. If you were seen ... and with
him
... ’

‘But I have been most careful not to be.’

‘But if you
were
... ’

She looks at me, her honest face troubled, but she leaves off scolding to tend to Jonah. His pain is not over. Martha and I prepare to set the bones. We will need Tobias to hold him down.

Entry 54

I have to heed Martha’s grumbling. I have limited my visits to the forest, but still I go. Our only neighbours are the Rivers, not counting old Tom Carter and he’s either drunk or sleeping it off. I never see anyone else, so what do they know?

Anyway, Jonah thinks her fears are silly. He encourages me to find out more. Sumac, sassafras, snakeweed, joe pye weed, pipsissewa, snakeroot, skullcap. The list grows. Jaybird shows me where to find the healing plants and herbs, giving some their native name, others the name that the settlers give to them. He explains the properties of the plants, pointing out which parts are poisonous, which are wholesome, what can be used to treat which ailments. I listen carefully so that I can tell Jonah.

‘How does he do?’

‘Much better. Soon he will be able to walk with a stick. Meanwhile he sits with his leg propped up and works on his
Herbal
.’

‘I told my grandfather about that. He finds what you do interesting. He wants to meet you.’

‘You mean Jonah. But he can’t walk, I told you.’