Page 13 of A Lullaby for Witches

For all that Henry was my brother, sometimes I wondered that we were related at all. He had always been a broody child; he had a watchfulness about him, as if he was above the rest of us mere mortals. I thought of the boys in the woods, their hungry eyes. There had always been a gleam of something dark in Henry, something dangerous and slumbering. Was he like them?

“Don’t lie,” he told me. “You’ve always been a free spirit, with your nocturnal jaunts to the woods and the beach. You aren’t like the others, and neither am I.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, yes you do. You and I are different from the rest of them. We could never bind ourselves to someone who doesn’t understand us. The Ida Fosters of the world are all well and good for George and Clarence, but not for the likes of us.”

I rolled my eyes. The only thing different about Henry was that he fancied himself a poet, a tortured soul. “You’re wrong,” I told him, before I could stop myself. “I’ve found a man who knows what I am and loves me for it.”

I don’t know what perversion compelled me to say it. Did Jack love me? We’d only had a handful of exchanges, but the memory of his hand on my arm that morning, the urgency in his voice when he’d told me he needed to see me again, was still vivid in my mind.

Henry’s gaze sharpened. “What? What man?”

The sun slid behind a cloud and in an instant the warm spring air had gone chilly. I knew that I had misstepped, that Henry was the last person I should confide in. “No one,” I said quickly.

He reached for me, putting his hands on my shoulders. “Maggie,” he said, his voice going soft. “You can tell me anything. I’m your brother, aren’t I?”

I shrugged out of his grasp. “Don’t call me Maggie.”

“Of course,” he said bitterly. “Only your precious George is allowed such a familiarity. Are you worried you won’t hold pride of place in his heart now that he will have a wife?”

“I’m going back inside,” I said. “Perhaps it is time for you to go home, as well.”

He didn’t say anything, but I could feel his eyes on my back, burning into me as I whistled to Shadow and walked back to the house.

The sound of footsteps in the yard roused me from my light sleep that night. Creeping to the window, I could see a woman, her lantern light slicing through the rainy night below, and I knew at once that I had a customer. I let out a curse under my breath. What was she doing here, at the house? I met all my patients in the old cabin in the woods, and even the uninitiated knew enough not to come to my door in town.

I was not quick enough to dress and intercept her before Molly knocked on my door. “You have a visitor,” she said coldly.

Ignoring her disapproving glare, I picked up a lamp and made my way downstairs to the kitchen, where the woman was standing in the doorway, looking like a drowned rabbit. She carried in her arms a bundle of blankets, and despite her wet hair and frenzied look, I recognized her as Jenny Hough, a good, respectable woman who wouldn’t have so much as glanced in my direction in the day. “Come along inside,” I told her. “I won’t bite you.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Mrs. Hough came the rest of the way in the kitchen, and I closed the door, shutting Molly out. Molly must have had her suspicions, but I knew that she would not tattle on me, for fear of what I might do to her in retribution. Good Catholic girl that she was, she knew to keep her distance from me. Did my parents know, too? Well, yes and no. Certainly they knew that I spent a good deal of time out of doors, and that I occasionally entertained women from town during odd hours, though they probably thought I fancied myself an herbalist or something innocent enough. They did not—could not—know of the dark powers I possessed.

My patient sat on a stool, arms crossed and shivering. Placing a cup of steaming tea before her, I did what I always did first: I asked her what ailed her, and then I listened.

It was always my hope that whatever ailments came through my doorway might be treated with herbs, or perhaps a little charm—something designed more to give the person peace of mind than to actually work magic. But sometimes they required something more, something darker and more powerful.

Mrs. Jenny Hough cupped the mug of tea, the steam wreathing her face as she recounted her troubles. Her little girl, it seemed, was insensible with fever, and the physicians had told her that it was hopeless.

When she was finished, she looked up at me with wide, frightened eyes. “Can you help me?” she whispered.

Of course I could help her, but she was not going to like what my help would entail. They never did. “Where is the child now?” I asked her, warily eyeing the bundle in her arms.

Her gaze dropped to the bundle, and I bit back a curse as my suspicions were confirmed. But there was nothing for it, so I bade her remove the blankets.

“Lay the child down on the table,” I instructed her. She only hesitated for a moment, and then was arranging the limp body of the little girl on our kitchen table. Running my hands over the cold flesh, I assessed her condition. She was achingly fragile, her eyes moving feverishly under her paper-thin lids, her small hands curled into fists at her sides. What an exquisite burden it must be to love something so small, so delicate.

My fingers found a pulse, though it was faint and erratic. Mrs. Hough watched me, her knuckles white as she clutched the edge of the table. Gently laying the girl’s arm down and tucking the blanket around her, I stood back. “She is very far gone,” I told her mother. “Though you are not without recourse.”

“Anything,” she said, “I will do anything.” Reaching into her cloak, she produced a thick roll of banknotes.

But I shook my head. “It is not a question of money. If you want your daughter to live you must find a new body for her. Her spirit lives, but her body is dying.”

Mrs. Hough stared at me. “You cannot be serious.”

“I am quite serious. You will need a body that yet lives, preferably of the same age and sex. Otherwise, do not waste your time dragging your poor daughter to witch’s houses in the middle of the night. Make her comfortable and prepare your goodbyes.”

“You propose that I kill another girl so that mine might live? I—I could never! They warned me about you, but I couldn’t have imagined that you would be so craven...so—so unnatural!” Gathering up her daughter, she fumbled for the door as if she could not get away from me fast enough.

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