Two women lived in the house, embraced in its protective hold, watching, waiting. Two women, one then, one now.
Grace stood silently behind the door as the woman called Selena came into the cold from the sunshine, bringing her belongings in the house and filling each room with her sadness. Grace followed. She understood the woman’s broken heart; she knew what had brought her to Slaugh Cottage, what she had lost. She felt the same emptiness.
Grace had been holding her breath for three hundred years. She stayed unseen amid shadows as Ned and Francis carried Will Cotter in from the fields, cold and dead. She placed a finger on her father’s lips, whispered love in his ear. No one noticed as she touched Ned’s cheek tenderly with the palm of her hand. He had grown old so quickly.
She watched from the garden as Gabriel Harper grew from a gentle child into a strong man. He was exactly as she knew he would be, handsome, inquisitive, kind, and Grace loved him with all her being. She stood at the window as he returned from church with Catherine Stokes on his arm. He paused at the gate for a moment, a smile on his lips. She wondered if he remembered her then.
Grace remained after they were all gone from her: Bett, Ned, Gabriel, his children, all taken too soon, one by one. She roamed alone within the walls and the garden, peering through the window each day, her breath leaving no mist on the glass. The sound of the owl came to her in the moonlight as she hid in the branches of the blackthorn. The tree had been in the ground for many times its natural lifespan, unbending in the dawns and dusks of each year. Dark roots delved beneath the earth, deep as unspoken truths: its flowers blossomed each May and it sprouted bitter fruits in October.
Over many years, people came to the cottage but they did not stay long. By day, Grace could not rest: she thought of her son and cried out to be with him. Each night snatches of lullabies were kisses on her lips and the scent of lavender filled the house. It was the last kindness she remembered.
The woman, Selena, had lost a child too. Grace knew it – she comforted her as she sobbed. Grace stood close to her as she shivered by the hearth and held out her palms, warming the span of her hands until they were too hot. They both watched the smoke curl upwards, silent as a spell.
Then it was Midsummer Day again, the same day they had named Grace a witch and dragged her to the elm tree. It was the day they stole her child, her life and her peace. The woman, Selena, had found happiness, but she knew Grace’s perpetual pain. That day, soft words were whispered in the cold hard place where they had buried her and weighed down her soul with a stone. It was the only prayer anyone had said for her and it filled the cottage with light.
Then the moment came as sweet as spring rain. As she stood in Slaugh Cottage for the final time, Grace closed her eyes and thought of her father’s kind face, her Grandmother Bett’s toothless smile, her mother’s joyous expression of love. She saw Gabriel’s eyes once more and she thought of how good it would feel to run into his strong arms and breathe the softness of his skin. She didn’t hesitate – she rushed towards it as a hare would rush towards freedom.
Then all was gone.