’Tis a sigh that is wafted across the troubled wave,
’Tis a wail that is heard upon the shore
’Tis a dirge that is murmured around the lowly grave
Oh! Hard times come again no more.
—“Hard Times Come Again No More,” Traditional Folk Song
This house is my prison, but it is also my lens, a looking glass that allows me to view the physical plane. While I might not be able to observe what transpires outside these walls, I do wonder if passersby ever stay their step, their neck prickling as if being watched and look up to the windows, only to find themselves staring at nothing.
She hears me, though. She comes as if called, and perhaps she has been called in a sense, for this place will always carry my voice in the shafts of sunlight, and my desires creaking in the wood beneath her feet. How thrilling to know that after all these years I’m still capable of casting a stone in water and experiencing a ripple. With her glasses and prim clothes, she is unassuming, mousy. If I did not know who she is and what she carries, I would not look twice at her. But something sings when she enters, a harmony to the melody that hums throughout the house.
She is hungry, though I can sense she doesn’t know for what. And I have so much to give, if only she will accept it.
For how can you hear my story and not believe that I am worthy of remembrance?
On a sharp, sunny day, with a crisp wind carrying salt and woodsmoke at my back, I ventured down to the beach in search of blood cockles.
Save for the loitering gulls and quick-footed sandpipers, usually I had the vast, rocky beach to myself. But that morning a tall, black-cloaked figure was bending over by the water’s edge, a dark slash against the pale sand. Unaccustomed to sharing the beach with anyone other than the occasional fisherman, I squared my shoulders and walked purposefully to where the figure was busy gathering something from the ground.
Despite my silent footsteps in the sand, the figure slowly unfolded and stood up at my approach, the hood of her cloak falling away to reveal a dark-skinned woman. She was dignified and beautiful, with a long, slender neck and brown doe eyes that seemed to see right into my soul. She might have been as young as thirty, or as old as fifty.
My breath caught in recognition. “I’ve seen you before. At the docks, when the dolphin was brought in,” I told her.
She raised her brows, clearly unimpressed with my introduction. “And I’m sure you’ve seen me many other places about town. I’m hardly a recluse.”
Her frank speech momentarily addled me; I was not used to my own directness being received with anything less than acquiescence. “What are you doing here?” I asked her.
“You’re not the only one who knows when the blood cockles come in.” Stooping back down, she ran her small, rusty rake into the sand, stopping to pry out the shy creatures when the metal clinked against their shells.
I watched as she continued her work, both affronted and a little amused that I was not so singular in my eccentricities as I had thought.
“What is your name?”
“Phebe Hall,” she answered, without stopping in her work.
“I’m Margaret—”
“Margaret Harlowe,” she finished for me. “Yes, I know who you are.” At my incredulous silence, she graced me with a knowing smile. “Everyone knows of Clarence Harlowe Senior’s pretty daughter and her wild ways.”
I was more than a little pleased to have my reputation precede me. After that, I could not stay away from Phebe Hall. She never turned me away, and was generous with her knowledge of herbs and the life that flourished in the tidal pools. Here was someone else who understood the tiny miracles of the world and cared not if she was seen with sandy hems or in the company of the strangest girl in town.
Soft-footed and reverent, we would convene in the woods on nights when the moon was full. Everything that I knew about womanhood I learned from her, from how to carry myself, to how to keep myself from falling with child. If only I had heeded her warnings about young men and the lies they tell. But of course, I was young and thought myself invincible.
Before Jack Pryce came into my life, days were for heeled leather boots, tight-laced stays and a head bowed over work. It had always been thus. At nineteen years old I was the baby of the family, and with my three older brothers all grown and with vocations of their own, it was left to me to help my parents manage the house and entertain their business guests. But the nights were mine, and mine alone. Sometimes I would walk along the rocky beach just for the thrill of feeling the sand between my toes, and other times I would meet Phebe to harvest. But more often than not it was the forest into which I would lose myself. You might envision the coast as all rock and water and salt, but Tynemouth was alive with wild woods and lush gardens, too. In the old days, there had been a settlement where the woods ramble, but in my time, all that was left were overgrown foundations and a pack of stray dogs.
The townspeople might have thought that I danced with the devil in the woods, that I held congress with demons. But there is no devil, and any demons with which I held congress were only those of my own making. The truth, of course, is always so much more mundane. It was there that I ran my practice out of an abandoned cabin, away from the prying eyes of servants and parents. It was there that I could find the herbs that I needed for my tinctures and drafts. I went because in the woods there are no expectations, no social mores. Now I wish I had not gone, for it was there that I first met Jack Pryce.
I had seen Jack in town before; it was impossible to miss the tall, lanky, young man who worked in his parents’ dry goods shop where I often did our shopping. We had never spoken beyond the required pleasantries, so when we came face-to-face in the pale moonlight, it was like meeting a familiar stranger.
Cool air touched my neck, the briny scent of the sea mingling with the fresh pines as I gathered nettles. Something rustled in the underbrush and I froze, thinking it perhaps a fox or coyote. Although the pioneer settlement was long since abandoned, there was still the occasional recluse that haunted this area and I did not relish running afoul of one. With only my thin slippers on my feet, I soundlessly moved over the fallen leaves, and took shelter behind a tree.
From my vantage I could see a group of young men tramping through the leaves and brush. They made no effort to be quiet, no effort to respect the sacred sanctuary of the woods. These were not the business and tradesmen with whom my brothers associated. These were the rough-and-tumble sons of sailors and fishermen, young men who took their pleasures in the dark pubs that lined the backstreets of town.
“Did you see that girl in the Black Horse?” one boy asked his companions. “Could see from her ankles clear up to her thighs!”
Another boy scoffed. “I was more interested in what was on her chest, or better yet, what wasn’t on her chest,” said a voice cracking with puberty.
This earned him a few snickers.
“I bet the half of you haven’t even touched a breast, let alone lain with a girl.”
“You and Tom think you’re awfully worldly just because you’re seventeen,” said the cracked voice.
If I had thought that young men were anything other than crass in private, then my assumptions were quickly put to rest. I could have easily slipped away, yet I was fascinated by this glimpse of unguarded interaction. So often, whenever I went into town, people turned away, or grew stiff and standoffish. I was so engrossed that I grew careless, snapping a branch as I moved to get a closer look.
“What was that?”
“Did you hear something?”
“I’ve heard these woods are haunted.”
“Tch, you’re all fainthearts.”
I stayed my step, but it was too late. The moon betrayed me as a thick cloud slid away, bathing my hiding spot in light.
In that moment, I knew what the deer feels when circled by a pack of desperate, hungry wolves. They would never have dared in town, but here there was only the rule of the wild, and I was the quarry, they the predators.
“It’s the Harlowe girl!”
“Say, little witch, what are you doing out here all by yourself?”
They had started advancing on me, and I, fool that I was, found myself backed up against one of the old stone foundations with nowhere to run. Could I dispel them with magic? It was possible, but there were at least four of them, and in my panic all my spells seemed to fly from my mind. Their eyes glinted with cruelty in the moonlight, their hungry expressions unmistakable. They might only have been children, but there is nothing so frightening as the energy that builds between boys as they spur each other on.
One launched a pinecone at my head, the others laughing as I ducked. I could just smell the cheap liquor on their breath as they moved toward me, when a deep voice rang out.
“Leave her alone.”
Just like that, the boys fell back. “We were only having a bit of fun,” one said.
“It’s just the Harlowe girl.”
The owner of the voice stepped into view. Tall, whip-thin and vibrating with a dangerous energy. I knew him at once as Jack Pryce.
“Why don’t you all run home to your mothers now.”
I expected the boys to protest, to insist that they were not children but men, but not one made a peep against Jack Pryce.
“Sorry, Jack.”
“If you say so, Jack.”
Cross-armed, he watched them scamper away through the leaves. I should have run also, but I was too transfixed by the moonlight in his dark hair, the dramatic shadows of his face.
“Are you all right?” he asked when they were gone.
I nodded. In truth, I had rolled my ankle and my heart was thumping furiously, but I knew how lucky I was to escape with nothing more than that.
“You’re the Harlowe girl,” he said. “I’ve seen you in town.”
I nodded again. Usually when I was in the woods at night, I was at my most powerful, the moon above me, the wind in my hair, the damp earth coming up through the soles of my feet. But tonight, I was barely able to so much as form words.
“They say you’re a witch.” It was not a question.
Finally finding my tongue, I squared my shoulders and held his gaze. “Do you think I am?”
He considered me, his dark eyes glinting. Then he shook his head. “No. I think you’re rather queer, but not a witch. Witches don’t live in fine houses with a sporting coupe in the stables, or have successful brothers who work in shipping offices.”
I might have laughed; if only he knew. But it didn’t matter, because he didn’t treat me as a curiosity; he looked me in the eye when he spoke, he acted as if having a conversation in the woods at night with the town witch was the most normal thing in the world.
“I don’t know what to think about you,” he said thoughtfully.
“You’ve only just met me. Perhaps you need more time in which to form an opinion,” I countered.
“Now that I know you frequent the woods at night, I suppose I’ll be walking this way more often.”
I didn’t realize until he gave me a long, slow smile how much I had ached for that connection with another person. I had thought that the trees and the brown rabbits and the moon were companions enough for me, but now I knew otherwise. I wanted a man to look at me with something other than leering curiosity. I wanted to know what a lover’s touch felt like. I wanted a baby of my own, a little one to love. There are many things a witch can conjure, but a baby is beyond even the purview of magic. A baby requires a man.
Perhaps it was not love, not at first, that drew me to Jack Pryce. Though soon enough I would learn that love was not the tranquil stream I had thought, but a violent torrent of a river, one that could pull me under completely.