Kissing the Witch (8 page)

For all her talk, I knew she despised me. I saw her biting on her brass ring; I could count her rages by knots in the thread I showed her at the end of each day. But the more I disappointed her,
the more custom she drummed up at her window.

All went well as long as she oversaw the spinning herself; her hands spotted multitudes of sins and saw to them as quick as fleas. But with the passing of years my mother’s fingers began
to curl. Her hands dragged themselves around the house like stiff spiders. After the smashing of the third milk jug, she resigned herself to sitting all day at the window. She stared at her traitor
knuckles and harangued any buyer who went to any other door than ours.

Inside her she began to spin gall into sickness; by the end of a year it swelled as big as a baby.

In her final fever, she took to screaming a single phrase over and over, as if they could hear her throughout the city: Shit into gold! My daughter can spin shit into gold! But her eyes followed
me around the hearth. They hung on my slippery spinning wheel. On her last morning, my mother’s hands reached out, scrabbling for a purchase. Not knowing what to give her, I put my hands in
hers. She held on, her long nails scoring my palms. The clouds in her eyes parted; her voice was sane. Daughter, she said, if I have trodden you underfoot it was to wash out the dirt. If I have
trampled you, it was to mesh your fibres into something useful. She tugged at the brass ring on her little finger until it came off, edged with blood; she slid it on to mine. Work will be your
mother, she whispered; it will lead you through dark days; it will clear you a level place to rest at last.

I sat quite still for more than an hour, listening to the silence, feeling the air between my lips. Then I prised my mother’s cold fingers off mine and stood up.

Sympathy for my loss brought in twice as many orders. The room began to fill up with bales. Whenever I grew drowsy over the wheel, hypnotized by spinning sunlight, my mother’s ghostly
croak startled my ear. Whenever I wanted to shut the door and hide away, my mother’s foot wedged it open. Whenever I tried to refuse an order, my mother’s hand closed around my throat.
Flax mounted higher than my head on every side, and sealed off the window. I sat like a prisoner, and knew that I could never spin it all if I lived to be a hundred years old.

I began to look around for an assistant. Some were too slow, others too slapdash. This one was a chatterer; that one smelt sour. Finally I heard of a young woman who had been spinning all her
life until her house had burned down around her. If she was burned into charcoal, I didn’t care. Be she flat-footed from treading, stung-lipped from licking, swollen-thumbed from pressing the
thread, I would take her.

She was none of these things. She was small like a robin and slow in the head; sentences seemed too much for her. I showed her my room, walled with glowing flax. She stood on one foot and said,
in her halting way, that she was thinking of going back to the land of her birth. I gave her my most pleading smile and called her Little Sister. She seemed to like the name. How would she take her
pay? Cloth or plate or coin?

She didn’t seem to follow. Let me sit at table? she asked.

Gladly.

Eat from plate drink from cup?

I would feed her with my own hands if only she would spin my trouble away.

She agreed to stay until the room was empty. I watched, wide-eyed, as she ate through the work, hour by hour, day by day. I sat at the window and called merrily to passing customers. I shared
plate and cup with her every evening.

The day Little Sister cleared the last corner, a new load arrived, more than ever before. She chewed her lip and said she wanted to go back to the land of her birth.

I put my hands together and begged. How could I reward her? Dresses or bracelets or milky pearls?

She shook her head as if she didn’t understand the words. Let me sleep in bed? she asked.

Willingly.

Be sister truly and you not shamed?

I would join my blood to hers for life if only she would spin me right-way-up again.

She agreed to stay until the room was empty. My eyes rested on her as she cut through the work; every day there was another shaft of light across the room. I sat at the window in my best dress
and exchanged greetings with handsome merchants. I shared pillow and blanket with Little Sister every night; she snored, but not loud enough to keep me awake. The day she cleared the last corner, a
huge load of flax arrived from the richest weaver. It filled all the room except for a circle around her wheel and stool. She bit her thumb and said she was going back to the land of her birth, and
this time she sounded like she meant it.

I went down on my knees and put my face to the dusty floor. Threads clung in my hair as I looked at her. How could I make it up to her, if she stayed? Would she take half my house, half my
fortune, the ring off my finger?

She shook her head so slowly it seemed as if she was searching for something in the corners of the room. Flesh of your flesh? she mumbled.

What?

First-born in my arms?

I put my head back to laugh, and told her she was welcome to a whole litter of my future offspring, if only she would spin me out of this mess.

She agreed to stay.

Until the room is empty? I asked, making sure.

Stay, she repeated. Stay always.

Nothing could have made me happier. With Little Sister at home, spinning up her magic, I could go out again, feel the sun pinking my face. I dressed even richer than I was and paid calls on fine
ladies, dined with weavers, drank with moneymen. Not that I was idling: everything I did was for the sake of business; each courtesy to a merchant, an arrow aimed true. And, finding my vocation, I
learned that my mother was right after all. Work was a rope on a ship in rough water, a candle on a creaking staircase, a potato in a beggar’s embers. It kept me sane and bright-eyed; it kept
me from dwelling on the past; it even kept me from remembering that I was a woman.

Which is the only clue I can give as to how I, so sensible, daughter to a far-seeing mother, found myself with child.

I’d have died before telling the merchant in question, turning up like a beggar at his door. I wouldn’t have married even if I could have; I was a woman of business now, a woman of
affairs, far too far gone to make a good wife. I threw up my breakfast every day for a week. Little Sister found me weeping into a pile of flax, and knelt down beside me.

We worked it all out. It would be winter by the time I grew fat, so I could wear a cloak that hid everything. I would tell the neighbours that my assistant had got herself a great belly. (Too
dull in the wits to shout out for help, poor creature.) I would boast of my kindness in keeping her on. (We working women must stand by each other.) Little Sister could keep an eye on the baby
while she spun, the thread whirring soothingly on to the bobbin.

I should have known things wouldn’t run that smoothly. The night of my confinement I lay gnawing at the sheets, squeezing Little Sister’s hand whenever I needed to scream, so she
would scream in her own voice for the neighbours to hear. It seemed to me in my delirium that my mother had tied my thighs together, so the shame would split me apart.

It felt like many days later when Little Sister lifted the bawling gout of flesh in her thread-scarred hands. I cut the cord myself, I was in such a hurry. He’s all yours, I said, trying
to laugh.

She took him away to be christened. I pressed my face into the soaked sheet and thought of being dead.

As soon as the bleeding had stopped I returned to work. I flattered buyers, traded witticisms with weavers, made it my business to know the name of every merchant’s wife in the city. I was
thin again, fast on my feet, to be seen around town in every house but my own.

Because the baby cried all day, all night. Little Sister claimed he hated flax; it made him sneeze. I nodded, but knew he was a thing possessed. I had bales of flax stacked higher around the
four walls to muffle his bawling. The spinning was suffering too: Little Sister was always running to see what was the matter with him. It grew hotter; the thread smelt of him. I stayed out of
their way as much as I could, but one afternoon I came home to find Little Sister asleep over her wheel, and the baby drooling into a fresh hank of wool. I picked it up and slapped him across the
face.

Little Sister woke at the baby’s first shriek, but said nothing. I walked out of the door and stayed away till the following evening. By the time I came back everything seemed peaceful.
Outside the door were stacks of butter-coloured bobbins, ready for collection. Inside was nothing at all. The room was absolutely empty.

I ran faster than I ever had before, faster than my mother would have thought decent, faster than I thought I could. I caught up with them at last, on the bridge just outside the city gates.
Little Sister had bound the baby into her dress; he was fast asleep against her flesh.

Gasping for breath, I told her to give back what was mine. She looked me in the eye like she never had before and said, You promised. First-born.

I begged her, for friendship, for sisterhood, to take all the gold I had but give me back my child. She curled her lip and said, Your gold not worth shit.

I knelt down on the cold stone of the bridge and clung to her skirts. Don’t desert me, Little Sister. I’ll be different.

She looked at me with something like pity and said, Don’t know me.

What?

Never asked my name.

Didn’t I?

Never boy’s name neither, she told me. Taking him away now so he know who.

She waited till my eyes fell, then walked. My knees felt frozen to the ground. I looked through the slots in the parapet. The black river was sliding towards me, bringing who knew how many
hardworking days, who knew which desires, which regrets.

I stumbled along the bridge, caught her sleeve and asked,

Who were you

before you became Little Sister?

And she said, Tell you story?

Tale of cottage.

I
ONCE HAD
brother that mother say we were pair of hands one fast one slow. I once had father he got lost in woods. I once had mother.

Huntman had wonderful beard. Let me and brother come too into woods with gun. Brother let me help little house of branches till broke and he push away.

Things changed after we held broom behind our hut and they jumped. Things went sour milk in churn all forgotten. Sky went far off and leaves went scrish scrish. Too cold for snow, say mother.
Put brother and me sleeping with chickens not annoy huntman.

One night hit her harder whap whap so her voice went big into rafters woke chickens say, Curse you.

Then on no luck for huntman. Means no meat for us. Brother say mother eat her words. I see only nuts and old bread. She say, Sorry sorry. She put last drops holy water on huntman gun. Still no
luck. One night he come home snowed like pine. Next day lie in smelly furs all day bellyache. Bang fist on wall call angels witness. Say, How can we feed your children when we can’t even feed
ourselves?

Moonrise I holding chicken for warm hear him through wall. They talking small not like whap whap. She say, It’s their home. He say, What’s a home with a bare table?

Later after sounds like running I hear him say, Pick one. You can’t feed two birds with a single stone. The little one’s no earthly use not right in the head.

After mother cry and gone quiet like sleeping I hold my head like apple shake it for see what sick. Sound all right. Never can tell.

Morning huntman let us come too into woods for rabbits brother and me. I dance like appledust. Trees come thicker round till no sky left. He tell brother go look at snare. He sit me behind tree
for game. Make little fire give bread say, No sound good girl.

I suck bread soft and wait for them come back. Cold. Sound like crows. Good girl. Want home. Cry.

Lots hours later fire gone small. Hear feet think maybe lost father coming with acorn teeth and ivy where eyes were. Try run fall on root.

Brother it was whistling. I call out. Don’t cry little nut I found you I’ll bring you home, he say. Twice as old and ten times as clever. I put legs round waist and hold on.

Hut shine light. I feared. Stop at door. Seem like dark inside. Brother say, Home again little hen. Lift latch mother cry cry like happy. Huntman angered say, Why did you get yourself lost you
halfwit girl? He not remember game. No food on table. Mother face wet salty.

Night they talking low again. Brother sleeping. I push nosy chicken away put ear on wall. Huntman say, You want to watch them starve? You want to wait till the cramps buckle them up? Mother cry
Nonononono like punched out. He soft voice now say, Don’t take on so woman. Don’t fight fate. You can have more when times are good again.

I think of having more more food more fire more shoes till sleep.

Morning mother not get up. I want into furs with. Huntman say, Woods again today.