their mouths, and a priest was there, saying church things. I watched, and thought, why here? And at night? I did not understand. I have never understood much on God, or politics. But I know these kneeling folk were Covenanters, which is a gunpowder word. They could be killed, for praying – which is why they did it in woods, at night.
And I passed a lone girl, once. She was my age, or less. We met in some Lowland trees, in the early hours, and we slowed, brushed hands. We looked on each other for a moment or two, with be careful in our eyes – be safe, and wise. For who else is as hated as we are? Who is more lonesome, than ones called witch? Briefly, we both had a friend. But we were hunted creatures – her, the fox and I. So I took the path she had come by, and she took my old path.
Witch. Like a shadow, it is never far.
There are other names, too – hag, and whore. Wicked piece. Harlot is common, also, and such names are too cruel to tie upon a dog – but they’ve been tied, easily, on me. I drag them. Vile matter once, like I was a fluid hawked up in the street – like I was not even human. I cried after that. In the market, once, Cora was Devil’s hole.
But witch…
The oldest name. The worst. I know its thick, mud-weight. I know the mouth’s shape when it says it. I reckon it’s the most hated word of all – more hated than Highland, or Papist is. Some won’t say William like it’s poison – I know many people don’t want him to be King. But he is King, for now. And I was always witch.
That December birth of mine was a troubled one. My mother bled too much, and cursed, and she roared so long that her throat split in two, like it can in painful times. Her roar had two voices – one hers, and one the Devil’s, or so said the folk who heard it from the church. I fell out to this sound. I slipped out upon the glinting, blue-eyed earth, beneath a starry sky, and she laughed. She wept, and laughed at me. Said my life would be like this – cold, hard, outdoors.
Witch she said, weeping.
She was the first to say it.
Later, at daybreak, she gave me my proper name.
I say it – look. Witch…And my breath clouds so the word is white, rolls out.
I have tried to not mind it. I’ve tried so hard.
I have tried to say it does not hurt, and smile. And I can reason that witch has been a gift, in its way – for look at my life…Look at the beauty that witch has brought me to. Such pink-sky dawns, and waterfalls, and long, grey beaches with a thundering sea, and look what people I met – what people! I’ve met some sovereign lives. I’ve met wise, giving, spirited lives which I would not have done, without witch. What love it showed me, too. No witch, and I would not have met the man who made me think him, him, him – all the time. Him, who tucked a strand of my hair behind my ear. Him who said you…
Alasdair.
Witch did that. So maybe it’s been worth it all, in the end.
I wait for my death. I think him, and wonder how many days I have left to think it in. I turn my hands over, and stare. I feel my bones under my skin – my shins, my little hips – and wonder what will happen to them when I’m gone.
I wonder plenty.
Like who will remember me? Who knows my true name – my full one? For witch is what they will shout, as I’m dying. Witch as the dark sky is filled with fiery light.
It is like I have lived many lives. This is what I tell myself – many lives. Four of them. Some folk have one life and know no other, which is fine, and maybe it’s the best way of it – but it’s not what I was meant for. I was a leaf blown all over.
Four lives, like there are seasons.
Which was the best of them? I would live them all again, for all had their goodnesses. I would like to be back in the cottage by the burn, with cats asleep in the eaves. Or to walk in the thick elm wood – which was dappled, full of grubs. Cora called it a healer’s friend, for she found most of her cures in there. It was where I undid my shoulder for the first time, and where the best pheasants were for catching and eating, which sometimes we did.
Or I would like to be back in my second life. My second life was like flying. It was empty lands, and wind, and mud on my face from her hooves. I loved that grey mare. My fingers were knotted into her mane as she galloped over miles and miles, snorting and throwing up earth. I held on, thinking go! Go!
But it’s my third life I would like again, most of all. My glen one. I lived it too briefly – it was too short a life. Yet it’s the best I’ve known – for where else did I see my reflection and think you are where you should be – at last. And where else were there people who did not mind me, and let me be? They pressed a cup into my hand, said drink. They left hens by my hut, as thank you, and raised a hand in greeting, and I had craved that all my lonesome life. All I’d deeply wanted was love, and human friends. To stand in a crowd and think these are my kind. My people. That was my third life.
And my fourth one is this one – in here.
Yes I’m for places, mostly. But it is because they made me so – the ones who eyed me, and did not trust herbs or a grey-eyed girl. They made me for places, by hissing witch. They sent me up, up, into the airy parts.
But the truth is that I wish I could have been with people more – with those Highlanders who never minded filthy hands, or tangles, or my English voice, and who slowed to look at geese flying south, like I did.
So I am for places – wind, and trees.
But I am for good, kind people most of all.
Like Alasdair. Cora. The Chief of that clan, who is dead now.
I think, too, of Gormshuil. I think of how she was, the night before the murders – how she put her hand near my cheek, but not on it, as if she was afraid of touching me. She said there is blood coming – but she said more than that. A man will find you. A man will come to you, and see your iron wrists, your small feet. He will write of things – such things…
What were those words? I brushed them away. I thought it was henbane talking, or some half-had dream. I saw Gormshuil in the falling snow, and shook my head. No…My wrists? I looked down upon them and thought they are pink, and flesh. They are fine. It was the herb – surely. Her teeth were green with it.
But blood was spilled, in Glencoe, like she said. Blood did come.
A man will find you.
I hear these words, now.
Who says them? I say them. I say Gormshuil’s words, and I remember how she looked at me. I see the deep lines on her face which loss had made, and the scalp beneath her snow-wet hair. I wonder if she is also dead. Perhaps she is. But I think she still lives on that blustery peak.
A man will find you. Iron wrists.
Some things we know. We hear them, and think I know – like we’ve always had the knowledge waiting in ourselves. And I know. She was right. There was a light in her when she said iron wrists – a wide, astonished light, as if she’d never been so sure. Like how a deer is, when it lifts its head and sees you, and is scared – for it knows you are real, and breathing, and that you’ve crouched there all this while.
So I wait. With my shackles, and dirt.
I wait, and he comes. A man I’ve never met is riding to my cell.
When I tuck up in the straw, I stare into the dark and see my other lives. I see the bogs, the glen. But I also see his face.
His spectacles.
His neat, buckled shoes, and leather case.
The Eagle Inn