Author: Paula Brackston
Date: 2000-01-01 05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Witches; Fantasy; Historical Fiction; Fiction; Paranormal; Magic; Historical; Short Stories; Romance; Supernatural
Description: A captivating new original 20-page short story by Paula Brackston, author of The Witch’s Daughter, “The Witches of the Blue Well” is the story of Ceri, a young woman in early eighteenth-century Wales whose grandmother always told her the magic blood of the women in their family flows through her veins. But when famine and hardship come to their village, will Ceri be able to harness her magic to save herself and her sister, or will her power bring about the destruction of all that she loves? With her signature enchanting style, Paula Brackston has penned an enthralling story set in the world of
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Rights: Copyright © 2012 by Paula Brackston

Contents

Introduction: Thoughts on Writing The Winter Witch

The Witches of the Blue Well

Photographs

Excerpt from Welsh Folk Lore: a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales by the Reverend Elias Owen

Excerpt from The Winter Witch

The Witches of the Blue Well

Paula Brackston

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Introduction: Thoughts on Writing The Winter Witch

Dear Reader,

Have you ever thrown a coin into a wishing well? And as that silver disc spun through the air and plipped into the cool water, did you—however much you pretended not to—hold close a dear little hope that your wish might come true? If so, then you are part of a tradition of belief in the power of wells that is many centuries old.

Wales is peppered with wells that have been called “holy” because they were blessed or visited by a saintly person, but many of these, and many more besides, were considered to hold magical and transforming properties long before Christianity reached the shores of this dramatic country. Known rather frighteningly as cursing wells, these might have been elaborately excavated and walled constructions, or a simple spring bubbling forth from the hillside. Those wells that became renowned for their powers attained their own mythology, their own stories. A tale would spring up, born of some small incident, coincidence, or stroke of luck—good or ill. An ailing child would drink from the well and be returned to good health. A prosperous farmer would fall to ruin after carelessly washing his feet in the well pool. People saw an effect, they discerned a cause, and conclusions were drawn.

Of course, such power could not be left unguarded or unwielded. It was not uncommon for someone—often a lone, elderly woman with no family and no other means of support—to set themselves up as guardian of a well, harnessing the magic of the divine water. Even if they did not actually own it. These figures became known locally, and villagers and farmers would come to them asking for curses or cures to be made on their behalf, Such women—for most of them were female—kept their position through a mixture of fear and respect. It was a dangerous post to take, for too much fear could start up cries of “witch!” and the consequences of that label are well documented.

I was drawn to the idea of the power of such a well continuing for hundreds of years, with legends surrounding it passed down from one generation to the next, their reputations growing and gaining more mystery with each passing decade. The region of Wales in which my book The Winter Witch is set is an open, wild place, with steep hills and high, bleak moorland. It is a place that breeds fierce people with fiercely argued views on life and fiercely held beliefs. It seemed to me to be exactly the sort of landscape that would breed witches. Real witches.

There is an innate human need to make sense of the seemingly inexplicable. People of all cultures have always striven to understand the mysterious workings of their world, and of themselves. As fast as science provided answers it raised yet more questions, and however much it addressed “how?” it rarely seemed to give a satisfactory response to “why?” Belief filled in the gaps in knowledge. Whether founded in religion or superstition, the idea of some otherworldly force influencing, or even deciding, the fortunes of us all has been a powerful and enduring concept. And one that many have manipulated for their own purposes. Cursing wells gave that idea a tangible form. It gave those who would use their power a place and a material to work with.

I’ve explored these notions in this short story. You will also find here an extract from an essay by Reverend Elias Owen, written in 1887, detailing from a contemporary viewpoint the way wells and their powers were used. I wonder what the good reverend would have made of The Witches of the Blue Well?

—Paula Brackston

The Witches of the Blue Well

That was the summer we watched a star fall from the heavens. Not everyone in the village saw it, but those of us who did knew that it meant something. Something important. The men were certain it foretold war, but Mam said men liked to speak of battles to show they weren’t afraid. Gwynnie said it meant she would find her one true love, but then she was fifteen and beautiful, and wanted a husband. She told me I couldn’t understand because I was only twelve.

Our grandmother was the one who really knew what that special star meant. “How can you tell, Mamgi?” I asked her, sitting by the hearth, legs curled beneath me, the rushes on the floor tickling my bare feet. The night-dark of the inside of our longhouse had shrunk the world to the reach of the uneven firelight. “How can you know what it means?”

She looked at me hard, and was silent for such a long time I thought she’d fallen asleep with her eyes open, as she sometimes did. She liked to tease me, but on this occasion her face was serious, her voice solemn.

“We are each of us born to a purpose on this Earth, Ceri. Your father is a farmer. Your mother raises her children. Your sister will marry well.”

“And me?”

“You, cariad, well…” She leaned forward in the creaking hazel chair and spoke in a whisper, words meant for my ears and none other. “You have the magic blood in you.”

I felt excitement flutter in my belly. At last she had spoken aloud what she had only ever hinted at before. There were suddenly so many questions I wanted to ask that I could not choose one to begin with.

“You are like me, Ceridwen,” she went on. “Like your namesake of legend.” She nodded slowly at the obvious truth of this, but I did not know what she meant, not truly.

“But, Mamgi, if I’m magic, too, why don’t I know what the star means?”

“You are young yet. Still more a child than a woman,” she said with a shrug.

I frowned at this. I was tired of being the baby of the family, tired of Gwynnie being treated like a grown-up and me having to trail behind her in everything. “I’m old enough,” I said. “Old enough to know things.”

“Oh, are you now?” Mamgi narrowed her eyes at me, settling back in her chair again. “Tell me then, if you’re so grown, you tell me what that star means.”

I tossed my head, as if the matter was casual, but then, as I started to think, as I started to recall that bright flash tearing through the velvet heavens, with its tail of fire burning a rainbow’s arc in gold above us, something inside me shifted. I felt a change within me. I was no longer guessing, no longer bringing my childish imagination to bear on the question. Instead, I experienced a certainty, a calm knowing of what it signified. And that knowledge was heavy and unhappy, so that I was chilled to my bones by it. I shivered and shuffled nearer the fire, but the cold inside me would not be driven out by its earthly heat. Still watching the flames lick the dwindling logs I gave Mamgi my answer.

“It means hunger and hardship. There will be bad weather, and the crops will fail, and the beasts will not thrive, so that people will fade away for lack of food. Sickness will come and claim those already weakened. Many will die.” The words came out of my mouth, but it was as if I did not send them myself. Rather they came through me. I turned to my grandmother again, my eyes full of tears and my heart full of fear. “Oh, Mamgi! What can we do to stop it?”

She shook her head sadly. “There is nothing to be done, cariad.”

“Then what is the point of knowing? What use is it if we cannot help anyone with what we know?”

“That is for you to work out, Ceri,” she said softly. “Now, sit still and let an old woman sleep.”

I can still see her dozing, the soft shadows from the fire lifting the years from her craggy face, her gentle snores accompanied by the crackling of the logs and the moaning of the lonely wind trying to find its way into the house.

Not twelve months later the terrible prophecy had come true. First there was drought. Then came the cold rain that washed away half a summer and most of the harvest with it. That winter the stock ailed and wasted before our eyes and nothing Dada or any other farmer of the village could do would save them. The rain turned to ice and snow, and the old and frail among us could not keep out the cold with empty bellies and were soon in the frozen ground. Even Mamgi’s magic was no match for nature’s cruelty. Before she died she tried to teach me what she could, but I was not yet a woman and the magic wouldn’t come. How I shook my fist against the heavy tread of time! Mamgi did not get cross. She told me to be patient, that she would help me, but she grew iller faster than I could grow older, and she was so frail toward the end.

By the grey spring that followed, cottages stood deserted and there were not enough people to work the fields. Exhaustion offered up its victims to any passing ailment so that even the strong and the young began to fall. Dada lasted longer than most, but died on Easter morning. The fight went out of Mam then, and she called us to her deathbed one cheerless afternoon in May.

“You must leave this place,” she told us, her breath ragged. “There is a wickedness here that will not stop till it has claimed every last child.”

“But, Mam.” Gwynnie could not keep the fear from her voice. “Where would we go? This is our home.” Poor Gwyneth was so very altered. Her golden hair had lost its luster. Her cheeks had lost their bloom. Even the periwinkle blue of her eyes seemed to have faded.

Mam shook her head, too weary to argue or to dress her words nicely, “If you stay, it will become your grave.”

Gwynnie began to cry. Mam turned to me, taking my hand in hers. “Look after your sister, Ceri. I know you are the younger, but it is you who are the stronger. Take her far away from here, somewhere bright and sunny where she can be beautiful again. One day she will be able to repay you. Now she needs your strength. Your special strength, cariad.”

And so we left. We buried Mam next to Dada, and said good-bye to the only place we had ever known. We took with us just a small bundle each, for we had no horse to carry any belongings. Gwynnie had all but given up before we left, taking no interest in what lay ahead of us, not so much as asking where it was we were bound for. I told her, all the same.

“We shall travel west and make our way to the sea,” I declared, with a deal more confidence than I felt. I knew we could not go east, for that would take us into England. The mountains to the north would defeat us before a week’s walking was done. And I had heard tales of the wild men who lived to the south, who were lawless and Godless and would lick their lips at the sight of two lost girls. All I knew about west was that if you continued far enough you would reach the ocean, and that it was full of fish for the taking, and we would not have to dig in the dark earth for turnips ever again, but could feast on all manner of wonderful food that the shining sea would give us.

We were fortunate, at least, to be making our way into the unknown in the summer months, so that the nights were warm enough to spend beneath the stars without chilling us, and the days were cheerily sunny. Even so, Gwynnie found our path arduous. She had spent so long without good food that even when I succeeded in snaring a rabbit or finding blackberries for us to eat she could only manage a mouthful or two. In the evenings we would sit by a little campfire and I would watch her staring into the flames and I knew I was losing her. For she had lost so much, so many people she loved and, there was no denying it, she had lost herself. She was no longer beautiful Gwynnie, fair Gwynnie, Gwynnie who all the boys pined for. I could see she had already given up hope that she would ever be that bonnie girl again. And if she wasn’t her, then who was she? I tried to cheer her with thoughts of the future, thoughts of the sea, but nothing caught her interest.

“Oh, Ceri, what do we know of the sea?”

“I know it is full of fish,” I told her.

“We don’t have a boat, or even a net—how would we catch them?”

“I can catch trout in a stream; it cannot be so very different persuading fish from the seawater.”

She simply sighed and shrugged and went back to gazing into the fire.

While we were traveling I did my best to try and summon the magic Mamgi had seen inside me. If only I could put it to use, to help Gwynnie, somehow. At night I would turn my face up to the heavens and close my eyes and bring all my will and mind to bear, but nothing happened. Not a leaf stirred, nor a breeze got up, nor any sign at all that even the smallest drop of anything out of the ordinary was near.

We walked on for days that became weeks, until I stopped counting. What was the point in measuring things from a past that no longer existed? Instead, I took to asking people we met along the way how many days’ journey there might be to the coast, so that I was counting toward something, instead of away from it.

And as I walked I felt myself change. It was as if with each step I was moving further from being a child and closer to being an adult. One night, bathing my tired feet in a laughing stream, I was startled to see blood trickling down my leg. My own magic blood. What Mamgi told me she had been waiting for. The red droplets fell into the water, where they burst in a fleeting glimpse of pink before being washed away. The girl that set out from our village had gone and now a young woman stood in her place.

It was when we were fewer than five days short of our goal that Gwynnie started to cough badly, a deep rattle that shook her whole body. Four days off she had to keep pausing to catch her breath. We came upon a cottage and I knocked on the door to ask for bread, but the plump man looked down his broad nose at us and saw the state of us. Saw we were half starved. Saw my sister was sick. And he sent us away with the harsh words people use when they are afraid.

By the time we reached the top of the narrow valley beyond a high mountain pass I knew for certain I was watching my sister die. She had looked so poorly for so long that I had grown accustomed to the pallor of her skin, the pinched appearance of her features, the dark circles beneath her eyes, and the soft wheezing that accompanied each hard-won breath. But now there was something else. A subtle shift in the quality of her presence, as if her very soul were beginning to fade.

“Ceri, I can go no farther,” she said, sitting heavily on a low stone wall to one side of the dirt trail.

“Don't fret, Gwynnie. We can rest here a while and press on tomorrow. When you are feeling better.”

She shook her head. “No. I cannnot go another mile. Another step. I shall stop here.”

I wanted to argue with her. To grip her shoulders and shake her and tell her “Two more days! Only two more days’ walking to the sea, Gwynnie, the beautiful shining sea!” But I knew it was of no use. It was cruel of fate, or God, or whatever it was to stop us so near to our salvation, but stop us it had, for she could not continue. She would never see the sunshine glinting off the bouncing waves of the ocean, nor taste the sweet food from the sea I had heard tell of. She would die by the side of the lonely road and all I could do was witness her passing and bury her body.

I heard the music of fresh water and found a little spring a short way from the path. I coaxed Gwynnie over to it and settled her down in the shade of the mossy bank behind it. As I fetched water from the pool in front of the spring I felt a curious vigor return to my weary limbs. I could smell only the faint aromas of wet mosses and damp ferns, but it was as if I was breathing in something potent. Something…wonderful. I took the few blankets and clothes out of our packs and made my sister as comfortable as I could before hurrying off to fetch firewood and set snares. I was becoming accustomed to our rootless, scavenging existence, and necessity had made a fair hunter of me. Within an hour I had a cheerful fire going, and rabbit with wild garlic and sage simmering in our old cooking pot. Though the food did not interest her, I believe the homeliness of our make-do outdoor hearth and the gentle tinkling of the spring soothed Gwynnie, so that she even managed to smile at my attempts to sweep stones from our little space.

“You might make someone a good wife after all, Ceri,” she told me.

“Huh!” I said. “Why would I want to run around after some man? I can look after myself.” And, after all, hadn’t I proved that to be true?

We had just begun our meal when we were interrupted by the sound of uneven footsteps. I stood and peered into the gathering darkness to see an old woman emerge from the gloom. She was bent and weathered with age, and leaned heavily on a stick. Her pace was slow but, as she stepped forward into the firelight, I saw that her eyes were still quick and bright.

“Good evening to you, grandmother,” I said.

“What have we here?” Her voice was unpleasantly sharp and hoarse, as if she had spent a lifetime shouting and this was all the sound left her. “Two young maids all alone and far from home?” She moved closer still, stooping over Gwynnie to examine her more thoroughly, causing her to shrink away in fear.

“My sister is unwell,” I said.

“I have eyes to see that for myself, child.” She swung round suddenly and turned those eyes on me and now it was my turn to be afraid. There was such fire in them, such fearsome strength! It was all I could do not to take to my heels and run, but I could not desert Gwynnie. “Well then,” the old woman barked at me. “What have you done about it?”

“Forgive me… I don’t know what you mean?”

“You say your sister is ill, and you are right, so she is. Gravely ill. I asked you what you have done about it?”

“I… I have made her comfortable, built a fire, cooked her something to eat….”

“Yes… yes, I can see all that, too. Do you take me for a fool?”

“Why, no…”

“We will come to the matter of you helping yourself to my firewood, catching my rabbit, and drinking from my well presently….”

“Your well…?”

“For now, I want you to tell me what else it is you have done to cure your sister?”

“What else..?”

“Cease your echoing, child! It wearies me. If I wanted to hear every word I uttered repeated I’d catch myself a jackdaw.”

Before I could speak again she prodded me hard in the ribs with her walking stick.

“What's the matter with you, merched? Don’t you love your sister?”

“I do love her, very much,” I insisted, finding a little anger at the suggestion I might not to give me courage.

“Well, then, why haven’t you used your magic to help her?”

I opened my mouth to form the word “magic” but stopped myself just in time. The old woman continued to study me with her bird-bright eyes, clearly waiting for a sensible response to what she considered a sensible question. And in that moment I was taken back to the way Mamgi would look at me. She had spoken so briefly of my magic blood, and we had been robbed of the time she needed to teach me, but she saw in me just what this old woman saw. There was no mistaking that look.

“I would if I was able,” I said as levelly as I could. “I don’t know how.”

She thought about this for a moment, seeming to weigh up possibilities in her mind. Behind her Gwynnie started up her harsh coughing and I went to her, putting my arm around her, feeling my heart bruise at her suffering. I looked up at the old woman.

“Show me how to help her,” I begged. “Please, I’m sure you can if you have a mind to. Show me how to heal my sister. Before it is too late.”

“And what will you give me if I do?” she asked, folding her scrawny arms across her chest, leaning her weight through one elbow on her walking stick. It was only as the fire took hold of a fresh piece of an ash bough and the flames brightened that I noticed the stick was not actually touching the ground. Nor were the old woman’s rag-wrapped feet. She was, in fact, floating a short distance above the summer-dry earth, as casually and easily as if it were a thing everyone could do. My mouth dried, and I felt my head lighten, so that I struggled to keep my wits about me. This was no ordinary crone. This… creature… surely possessed real magic.

“You are welcome to our rabbit stew,” I offered.

“Ha! My rabbit, remember? Mind,” she sniffed the cooking pot, “it smells passably good. I might just take a bite.” So saying she picked up the wooden ladle and took the pot from the heat, setting herself down beside the fire. Without so much as offering us a mouthful, she greedily gobbled down the scalding stew, not pausing or looking up until she had eaten every last, herby drop. She dabbed at her whiskery mouth with her skirt hem and sat back with a sigh. “That's better,” she said. “You should never spell-cast when you are hungry. Do you know that, merched? Now, fetch me a cup of water from the well. Quickly, if you please.”

I felt my blood begin to boil. It wasn’t enough that the old witch should devour all our food, not leaving a spoonful for Gwynnie or me; now I must fetch her water! And yet I dared not show my anger. She was Gwyneth’s last hope, and I knew it.

I took the small wooden cup that was all we had by way of drinking vessels and filled it from the curiously blue, glossy water that bubbled out of the side of the hill and fell into the stone-ringed pool. This was not some deep hole in the ground requiring a bucket and rope. The mountain water spouted from the surface of the hillside at this very point, so that it naturally collected in the stone trough that had been constructed immediately below it. I cannot say whether it was fatigue or my inflamed imagination at that moment, but I recall hearing bells as I collected the water. High, distant, sweet chiming bells, the like of which I had never heard before. And once again my senses were freshened by the sweet air that seemed to bubble up from the water.

I returned to the old woman and handed her the cup. She took it from me, but instead of drinking it, as I had expected, she rose and stepped over to Gwynnie. With surprisingly fluid movements, she knelt beside her, lifted her chin, and bade her take a few sips. Next, she raised the cup and let a carefully judged amount trickle onto my sister's upturned face. As the water fell, the crone set up an eerie chanting, the words of which were strange to me, and impossible to properly discern. She bathed Gwynnie’s hands in the remaining water, before standing once more. I saw that she had plucked a long, golden hair from Gwyneth’s head. With great care, and not a little ceremony, she took it to the well and held it high. Again she spoke in a tongue so curious and unknown it sent shivers through me, and as she raised her voice I heard the blessed bells once more, so that all the natural sounds of the night were shut out by their tolling and the crone’s chanting. All at once, she dropped the strand of hair into the water, and then set to spinning around, three times this way, three times that, three times this way again. She moved impossibly quickly for a person hobbled by such old, worn feet, but oh…how she did spin! To look at her was to feel dizzy. At last she stopped, a little out of breath. Without a word she picked up her walking stick, her movements stiff and halting once more, and turned her back on us, setting off along the path and into the night.

“Wait!” I called after her. “What should I do? You haven’t told me…what can I do?”

“Whatever your sister needs,” she called back.

Such an instruction seemed useless to me. I wanted to quiz her more but, with surprising swiftness, she was gone. Gwynnie had fallen into a deep sleep, but did not seem in anyway improved. What could the old woman have meant me to do? I knew no spells. And yet, she had seen something in me, straightaway. I walked back to the well and stared into the pool, at a loss. I had to try. I could not sit and wait for the garbled words of a crone to cure my sister. Beneath the curious gaze of a barn owl on a nearby rowan tree, with moonshadows slanting across the hillside, I stripped off my ragged clothes and climbed into the well pool. The shock of the cold water made me gasp and caused my teeth to set up chattering but, slowly, as I lowered my body into the water until it was completely submerged, I started to feel the healing power of the well. I felt the grime of miles rinsed from my skin. I felt the fatigue from climbing steep inclines and sleeping in stoney beds eased from my muscles. I felt the gnawing ache of hunger flushed from my stomach, and the heavy sadness of loss washed from my heart. I felt healed. I felt renewed. Strength coursed through my limbs. Clarity awakened my mind. Hope swelled my soul. These were wondrous waters indeed!

I climbed out, dressed myself, and hurried back to where Gwyneth lay dozing fitfully. I laid my cool hand on her feverish brow.

“You will be well, Gwynnie!” I told her, and I meant it with all my heart and soul. I closed my eyes and tried to recall the sound of the beautiful bells I had heard, and to bring to mind the strange words Mair had used. “You will be well!” I repeated. But I could hear the desperation in my own voice. When I opened my eyes and looked down, Gwynnie remaind unchanged. Unhealed. Unhelped. I had achieved nothing.

I had just stoked the fire and wrapped Gwynnie in another blanket when more footsteps broke into our quiet camp. These were heavy and determined, and our firelight revealed them as belonging to two men. The first was quite aged, his face wearing the weather of years, his hat covering sparse grey hair that bushed out in sideburns on his cheeks. The second was a young man, the grandson of the first judging by the likeness between the two, and quite pleasant to look at. The older man held up the lamp he had with him and squinted down at us. I stood up, making myself appear as strong and as grown up as I could. Gwynnie was near asleep and only whimpered softly at the disturbance.

“We have business with Old Mair,” he said. “Where is she?”

There was something about his tone, about the set of his jaw and the planting of his booted feet that I did not care for.

“I don't know anyone of that name,” I told him. “We are passing through on our way to the coast.”

He peered down at Gwynnie, holding his lamp forward, so that its russet light found her dear face. The boy gasped. His grandparent merely frowned.

“The maid has a sickness. We don’t want anyone bringing sickness here.”

“We will be on our way in the morning.”

He looked as if he did not believe me, and indeed, I knew myself to be a liar, for Gwynnie would not be well enough to travel in a few hours. Whatever magic the old woman thought she had worked, I could see no change in her yet.

“You keep away from the village, mind.” He took a step nearer. “We've troubles of our own without you bringing yours to our doorstep.”

For a minute I thought he might haul Gwyneth to her feet, weak as she was, and send us packing then and there. Whatever he had planned he was stopped by a large white owl that suddenly swooped low, flying between us and the men, pushing them back with its swift, unexpected movement.

“The child will do you no harm, Prosser.”

None of us had heard the old woman return, but there she was, appeared as if transported like a leaf on a breeze and set down behind the men. They wheeled about at the sound of her voice and took a step backward. It was clear to me then that the older man’s bluster was born of fear.

“Well.” Old Mair leaned crookedly on her stick, her head on one side, a small smile tugging at the corners of her thin lips. “Wasn't it me you wanted?”

The older man cleared his throat noisily. “You know why we’ve come,” he told her. “My cattle are sick, and it is your doing. Your wickedness is making them ill and will ruin me if it is not stopped!” The reddening of his face was evident even in the patchy light of our camp.

Old Mair threw back her head and laughed. It was not a petty sound, and the toothlessness of her mouth was not a pretty sight, but there was great strength in that laughter. And what puzzled me was that, in that instant, I envied her. Envied her that confidence, That lack of fear. It was as if she knew these men could not hurt her. She knew, frail and brittle as her bones must have been, that she was the strong one. She was the one who should be feared.

“And why would I want to bother with your scruffy beasts, Prosser?” she asked. “What makes you think I would waste my time in such a manner?”

“Evans the Bryn paid you to do it, I know he did. He’s always been jealous of my herd. He wants me out of the valley so he can ask what he wants for his stock. He came to you, no use denying it!” The man wagged a finger at her, though he had not courage enough to shake a fist. “You took his money and used that well of yours to curse my cattle, and I’m telling you, you have to make it stop, see? You have to lift the curse, right this minute, or…”

“… or what?” She stood firm, waiting for an answer.

The younger man looked from the old woman to his grandfather and back, sensing there might be a need for his youth and vigor, but having not the slightest idea of how he might use it. At that moment, Gwynnie set up coughing again and I hurried to help her sit. The young man was clearly moved by the sight of her suffering and I could see he was torn between offering help and assisting his grandfather. Gwynnie opened her eyes and saw the handsome youngster looking down at her and, for the first time in weeks, I saw her eyes brighten, just the tiniest bit.

Prosser was stamping his foot in frustration. “Duw, woman, what will it take to make you see sense? My cattle are not the only ones sick, mind. If our stock start dying people will blame you. You will be driven out, well or no well. We’ll not stand by and see our livelihoods brought to ruin by your wickedness.”

“Get away with you!” Old Mair dismissed him with a wave of her stick. “Picking on a lonely old woman, for shame. If your beasts are ailing it will be because you are a poor stockman, and that’s the only curse that’s on them. I daresay that poor wife of yours suffers from the same tender care likewise.”

Prosser snatched his hat from his head but thought better of arguing further. He yelled at his boy to follow, ignoring the young man’s pleas that they do something for Gwynnie, and the two strode off down the hill path and out of sight.

“They will come back,” I muttered. “They will come back in the morning, won’t they?”

“Fools!” Old Mair spat onto the path and moved to sit near the fire. “They speak from fear and greed. Such things are what drives a man like Prosser.”

“Is he well thought of? Will others follow him, do you think?”

Mair took a worn clay pipe from under her shawl and pulled a spill from the fire to light it. She was in no hurry to reply to me, but took her time working up a deal of puffing smoke and settling herself comfortably. When at last she spoke it was not to answer my question.

“You have been in the well, merched. Don’t try to deny it.” she pointed at me with her pipe. “I can see the change in you.”

I sat down and folded my arms, too weary to mask my own frustration. “Then you see more than I.”

“You felt nothing?”

I hesitated. “What I felt has not altered what I am.”

“Ha! You are as foolish as old Prosser if you think that!”

“I am not!”

“Then help your sister before it is too late.”

“Do you think I have not tried?” I raised my arms and then let them fall back into my lap, the gesture giving away just how defeated I felt. “I have tried, but I cannot do anything to help her.”

Old Mair sucked some more on her pipe for a few moments and then, wordlessly, leaned forward and put her hand into the fire. To my astonishment, she plucked a burning stick from the flames and held it up. She was not holding a cool, unburnt length of the wood, but had wrapped her hand around the burning branch, so that orange tongues of fire curled out between her fingers! Yet she appeared neither to burn nor to suffer pain. Then, casually, she tossed the stick back into the campfire.

“You do it,” she told me, as if she were asking me to do nothing more difficult than pick up a spoon from a table.

I opened my mouth to protest at such an impossible task, but her expression silenced me. And somewhere, far, far off, I could hear that sweet celestial chiming once again. I leaned forward, my heart thudding as I reached out toward the fire. At first the heat felt unbearable, the closer my hand got to the flames, and I swear I could hear the hairs on my skin singe. But then, just as I thought I could stand the heat no longer, it ceased to reach me. I was able to pick up a blazing twig, just as Mair had done, flames licking my palm and engulfing my fingers, and yet I was not burned. I was not burned! I lifted the stick high, gazing at it, making myself see what I knew was proof, proof of what I could do. Of what might be possible.

And then the pain began. With a shriek I dropped the wood and leapt to my feet. My scorched skin was in agony. As I rushed to the well to thrust my hand into the water I could hear Mair laughing.

“My hand!” I gasped. “I don’t see that my suffering is anything to laugh at,” I snapped back at the maddening old woman.

“You will learn. You will get better at what it is you have to do, merched. You think such gifts come easy to a person?”

“Gifts? Curse, more like,” I said, gradually feeling my breathing return to a more normal rhythm as the cool water soothed and eased the burn. And, amazingly, continued to soothe and ease the burn until it had stopped altogether. When at last I dared draw my hand from the pool and examine it I found not a mark. Nothing. My hand was as good as it had been before I took the stick from the fire.

“Look!” I cried, turning to show Mair. “Look at my hand….”

But she had gone.

That night I feared I would lose dear Gwyneth. She fought for each breath and sweat beaded her pale brow. I kept the fire going all through those long hours, but still she shivered, even as perspiration damped her clothes. It wasn’t until dawn lifted night from the distant horizon that she slept peacefully. I stepped wearily over to the well and leaned over the low stone wall. My faint reflection gazed back at me. If the old crone had any magic, she did not seem to have succeeded in using it on Gwynnie. Perhaps all she was capable of was parlor tricks and gibberish and playing on people’s fears. She saw magic in me, but what use was it if I could not bring it forth? If it lay sleeping inside me it may as well not have been there, for it was at that moment I needed it. At that moment Gywneth needed it.

I dipped my hand into the blue, silky water, disturbing my reflection so that it rippled and danced. To my astonishment, as I watched, instead of settling into a dark mirror of my face, the reflection reformed into someone quite different! The image that looked back at me was of a woman, fully grown, with flowing black hair and dark, fierce eyes. She was not beautiful, but she was handsome, and strong, and wonderful. I gasped, but this new reflection did not gasp, instead she whispered. Whispered words in that same foreign tongue that I had heard Old Mair use. And though I did not know the language, I somehow understood what the apparition was telling me. It was as though her words were not so much falling on my ear as being laid down directly onto my mind. And oh, what she told me! She told me that I was brave, and strong, and had nothing to fear. She told me that I would soon know my destiny, and that it was something marvelous. She told me that I need only have courage, and have faith in myself, in my own abilities, and that the magic waters of the well would work through me and me through them. If I only believed, all would be as I wanted it to be.

And then the wonderful face vanished, and I felt its loss keenly, snatching at the water as if to catch that bewitching woman and bring her back. But she had gone, and only my own careworn reflection peered up at me. I shook my head, wondering if my mind was tricking me for lack of sleep. Behind me Gwynnie slept on, but her breathing was uneven and thin, and I feared it was a slumber from which she might never awake.

What point is there in magic if we are afraid to use it?

By the time I returned to sit beside my dear sister, the sun had freed itself from the top of the easternmost hill and was sitting fatly in a clear sky. Still, Gwynnie did not stir. I lay down next to her and pulled her close to me, resisting the tears that threatened to fall.

“Oh, please wake up, Gwynnie!” I whispered into her hair. Her only response was the shallow, wheezing breath that fought its way in and out of her frail body. At last I could be strong no longer and I gave way to weeping, holding her close, so that we were both soon soaked in salty tears. Exhausted, I fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.

When I awoke the sun was high and the day warm. I sat up, drowsy and muddle-headed, to find Gwyneth was no longer in my arms. I turned in panic to see her sitting on the wall of the well, combing her hair. I rubbed my unreliable eyes, but it was true. There she sat, clean and bright, her hair having regained its shine, her skin glowing, clearly restored to good health.

“Gwynnie!” I cried, leaping to my feet and hurrying to embrace her. “You are well! You are cured!”

“I am hungry,” she said laughingly. “I thought you might sleep all day and I would have to find a rabbit myself.”

“The old woman,” I started to gabble, “Old Mair…her spells must have worked. She used the water from the blue well, and she…said words… And then I tried. I bathed in the well, and…’

“You have been sleeping in the sun too long,” Gwynnie shook her head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. No old woman cured me with a spell.”

“Your sister is right.” We both jumped at the sound of Mair’s voice. Yet again she had appeared without so much as her soft footsteps to herald her arrival. “I did not cure her,” she went on, fixing me with her disturbing gaze. “’Twas you that did that, merched.”

“Me? But, no, I tried to help Gwynnie, but nothing happened.”

“Didn’t it? Are you certain about that?” she asked.

“You were the one who cast a spell.”

“I did, but your sister was sorely afflicted. My magic only kept her alive long enough for you to save her.”

“I tell you, I did nothing. I… I saw something, someone, in the well. I heard…words.” I hesitated, hoping for some explanation from Mair, to help me make sense of what I recalled, but none came. “And then I tried, I tried to use my magic to help Gwynnie, but it wouldn’t work. She would not wake up.”

“So what did you do next?”

“I lay down with her, and held her, and fell asleep.”

“Before you fell asleep.”

“Before…?”

Mair shook her head and tutted loudly. “Have you such a short memory, merched? You wept, didn’t you? You wept, and your tears fell onto your sister, see?”

“You are telling me my tears hold magic?”

“Tears wept for love, true tears, mind, well, a witch has no stronger magic in her.”

“Witch! Oh, no, don’t call me that.”

“You came here a girl with magic in you, just a ferch hud. Then the water saw you, and it took you in, and now you belong to it. Now you are a witch. Still a beginner, mind. But you’ll get better with practice.”

I was searching my mind, recalling the events of the early morning, the bells chiming, the wonderful face in the water, of my faltering efforts at magic, struggling to understand what she was saying, when into my thoughts came the sounds of horses and people on foot approaching. The next minute a small crowd came bustling along the path. At their head was farmer Prosser and his grandson, but this time they had brought a dozen or so villagers with them. The group gave off a whiff of anger and of fear. Old Mair stood firm beside us, walking stick in hand. Gwynnie sensed danger and slipped from the wall to stand with me.

“You're to come with us, Old Mair,” Prosser said. “If you won’t lift the curse from our cattle you will have to answer to the magistrate.”

“I told you yesterday, Prosser, I’ve not cursed your cattle,” said Mair.

“They sicken for no reason!” he was shouting now. “And there’s others in the village whose stock are going the same way.” At this there were cries of agreement from some of the villagers in the crowd.

It didn’t seem right to me. Why should they all gang up on a lonely old woman like this? It wasn’t fair they held her to blame. As far as I could tell, if she was capable of magic it was of the healing kind, the way she had done her best to help Gwyneth.

“You’ve no proof Mair has done anything wrong,” I said as firmly as I could. “Leave her be.”

Prosser turned his ugly face on me then. “What has this to do with you, girl? And why aren’t you gone from here, like you said you would be, with your ailing sister?”

“She’s not ailing no more, Tadci,” his grandson pointed out. “Look at her now. Just look at her!”

All eyes fell on Gwynnie. She looked as if she had never had a day’s illness in her life. In fact, I had never seen her look more lovely. There was a shocked cry from the back of the throng, and I recognized the man from the cottage whose door I had knocked on to ask for help a few days back.

“I saw them last Saturday! Came to my house, they did, asking for food, and that girl looked so poorly. She looked to have a disease. Sent them away, I did, for fear they would bring us all down with their affliction. Yet now she is cured.”

“Tis magic!” shouted a stout woman.

“Tis the devil’s work!” cried another, and the whole mob took up shouting and waving their fists, accusing first Mair and then me. I felt panic rising like bile inside me. Maybe it was Mair who healed Gwynnie, maybe it was me, maybe it was both of us—whatever the truth of it I couldn’t see how either of us could stand up to such a fierce knot of hatred as stood in front of us.

Well then, I thought, if I had healed Gwyneth, perhaps I could heal Prosser’s cattle. Quickly, before he could resist me, I stepped forward and snatched some cow hairs from the farmer’s jacket. Leaning over the silky water of the well pool I scattered the hairs onto the surface, muttering a hopeful prayer that the beasts be cured and thrive. I tried to bring to mind and repeat some of the strange words I had heard Mair use. The coarse black strands spun faster and faster until they sank into the pool, swallowed up by the glossy blueness. I was aware of a pressure upon my ears, and could feel the beating of my heart echoing through me, and through the water. And all I could do was hope. Hope that I had done something. Something strong. Something good. Something magical. I straightened up and looked Prosser squarely in the eye.

“Go home and see to your stock, Farmer Prosser,” I told him. “I promise you will find them well, with sleek coats and bright eyes. If you do not find them so, you can come back and claim me for the magistrate.”

Then, calm as ever you like, Gwyneth stepped forward. One hand twirling her golden hair around her fingers, the other she stretched out toward farmer Prosser’s handsome grandson. “There is nothing to be afraid of here,” she told them. “Imagine, a big strong boy like you frightened of two young girls and a feeble old woman.” She smiled as she reached forward and took the youth’s hand in her own. The second she touched him his face lit up with delight, and he smiled broadly.

“Well, Tadci, she’s right. ’Tis silly of us…we should be glad to see a person in such good health. How could anyone so…lovely…do us any harm?”

There was a murmuring and a deal of fidgeting behind him as others shuffled forward for a better view. All who saw Gwynnie were enchanted by her, and I thought then that she was working her own special kind of magic. But the farmer was not to be so swiftly convinced that all was well. I sensed, too, that he did not care to have the wind so quickly taken from his sails. Hadn’t he led the villagers here, striding unafraid in front of them? He would not be so easily robbed of his prize.

“Old Mair will come with us,” he insisted, holding up his hand to silence his son’s protest. “I shall not take my instructions from a ragamuffin girl. The crone will bide in the village jail till the magistrate arrives.”

“Or until your cattle are cured.” I stated the bargain there and then, baldly offering them what they wanted, but what they could not be seen to want. After all, they had come for Mair because of her curses, would it be right, would it be godly, to let her go because of a curse lifted by more magic? There was a chance they might throw me in their filthy little prison, too. But I doubted it. There was no reverend here to chastise them if they chose to let me come to their aid. Their fear of damnation was real, but it came second to their fear of a winter without food. Prosser did not give me an answer beyond a grunt, as he and a fellow villager stepped forward to take hold of Mair.

“You’ve no cause to put your hands on me,” she said. “Where is your proof? There is no case for me to answer, save your own bad stockmanship and foolish fear.”

“That’s for the magistrate to decide,” Prosser told her, nodding at the other men. She may have been old and brittle, but it took three of them to drag Mair away, and she could be heard protesting even when they were no longer in sight.

I watched them go, feeling helpless and weak. For an hour after they had disappeared along the stony path I paced this way and that, fretting about what I should do.

“We should leave,” Gwynnie said. “No good can come of going into the village. They will not listen to us, Ceri. We should be thankful I am well again. Make the best of it. Go on our way.”

But I knew I could not leave Mair to the mercy of the magistrate. What if my cure for Prosser’s cattle failed? I knew Gwynnie would have died without the old woman’s help.

“You are probably right,” I told my sister, choosing my words with care. “We should pack up our things and be gone. Even so,” I added slowly, as an afterthought, “it seems a pity for you not to set eyes on Prosser’s grandson one last time. Strikes me he looked at you fondly.”

“Oh, do you believe so?” Without knowing she was doing it, Gwynnie began to twirl a lock of golden hair around her finger.

“We could perhaps walk back as far as the farm. Maybe we could see him without getting in Prosser’s way. And I could see if the cattle are returned to good health.”

“And then we’d come away? We wouldn’t put ourselves in the way of trouble, Ceri, you promise?”

I promised, and we set out. On the way we asked directions of a shepherd, so that we found the place easily enough. The farmstead was on the edge of the village. Opposite it stood the church, an inn, and a cluster of cottages. Set a short way off was the low stone building with a grille gate which served as the jail. I could just make out Old Mair’s crooked shape behind the bars.

With a strong sense of purpose I pushed through the gate of the small garden in front of the farmhouse and strode up to Prosser’s front door.

Gwynnie was horrified.

“Ceri! What are you doing? You said we would stay quiet and not be seen….”

I had not lifted the brass knocker when Prosser’s gruff voice barked from the yard over the garden wall.

“What do you think you are doing, merched?” he bellowed.

At once I felt unequal to the task. This man might be foolish, but this was his home. He had the advantage here. What was to stop him bundling me across the road to join Mair?

“My cattle do no better,” he went on.

“It may be too soon….” I tried, but he cut me off.

“I know what a dying beast looks like! The heifers are off their feet, sitting in the field with no interest even in food. And my prize black bull is not long for this world. Come. See for yourself how the curse is still on him.” He waved us round to the yard gate and we followed him across the cobbles. Gwynnie looked daggers at me, but I stayed strong. I had to. Prosser led us to a stable of stone walls, the door of which was open. Inside, it took a moment for my eyes to brighten in the gloom, and then the poor ailing beast was revealed. The pitiful creature lay flat, its great bulk reduced to nothing more than a huge mound of meat, his ribs rising and falling with great shudders, as if each breath might be his last.

“Does that look cured to you?” Prosser demanded, and I heard the break in his voice.

I knelt beside the animal and stroked his curly-haired head. His eyes were open but dull, and his nostrils emitted a foul stench. Where was my magic? Where was the healing I had sent? Was it all just wishful thinking? Was it all just vanity and hope? But then I reminded myself of Gwynnie’s recovery. I must have had a hand in that, surely? Mair believed so. And hadn’t I held that burning stick? And hadn’t my scorched skin been healed in the well? I could try, then and there, once more. I knew that to be seen to try again, and to fail again, would make our situation even worse. To try was dangerous. But try I must.

I closed my eyes. I summoned in my head a clear picture of the well, of the pool, of that wonderful face reflected and shining. I filled my mind with the words and sounds that had come to me then. I made myself believe. I made myself know that I could do it. The magic was in me, and I could use it. I must!

At last, quite exhausted from the effort of the attempt, I opened my eyes. The bull suddenly fidgeted, his eyes bulged, and his hooves flailed frantically and without purpose. He did not get up. He was not recovering. I was watching him die. Tears of fury and despair filled my eyes.

“Oh, you poor creature!” I whispered to him. “I am sorry.” And as I spoke I fell to weeping and my tears dropped onto the dense black coat which covered the bull’s brow. He lay still then, completely still, his chest no longer working like bellows, his eyes sightless.

Behind me, Prosser said what all of us knew. “He’s done for.”

I climbed unsteadily to my feet, not bothering to brush the fetid straw from my skirts. The stable was filled with such a heavy silence I wondered how any of us could stand beneath it. And then, just when all hope was lost, the bull’s nose twitched. Twitched as if it were being tickled. Then one ear flicked as if bothered by flies. Then his tufty tail swished. And then, with one almighty movement, all with speed to shock us from our torpor, the great beast wriggled and lifted his head and hauled himself to his feet. We stared at him, and he stared back, before uttering a tremendous bellow that set us all back on our heels.

“Look at him now!” gasped Gwynnie. “Look at him.”

Farmer Prosser stepped forward, cautious and bemused. He pushed his hat back on his head and scratched his brow. He reached out a hand and the bull licked it, its thick pink tongue bigger even than the famer’s broad fist.

“Well, Duw,” said Prosser. “He’s hungry. I do believe he’s hungry!”

Outside the stable, once we had all got over our amazement, I struck a proper bargain with the bewildered farmer. He would let Mair go, she could return with us to the well, and she would not be troubled more. And if ever his stock fell sick again he could call upon me for a cure. Prosser was so delighted to see his precious beast on its feet and returned to good health, I believe he would have agreed to just about anything. He fetched the key to the jail and released Mair, not stopping to talk to us further, he was in such a hurry to spread the word of the recovery of his bull.

We watched him go. Gwynnie slipped her arm through mine. Old Mair pointed at Prosser with her stick.

“He is a fortunate farmer indeed,” she said. “If t’were left to me I might have seen the silly beggar’s beasts rot!” She gave a shriek of gleeful laughter, and it was hard not to join in.

***

All of Prosser’s cattle were cured. So were the other livestock in the village. They fattened and thrived quicker than any had been seen to do before them. I did not need to weep upon them, for I had learned to believe in my magic. I had learned to have faith, in myself and in the power of the well. Doubt had held me back, and now belief propelled me forward to become what I was meant to be.

And Gwyneth completed her conquest of young Dafydd Prosser’s heart. The two were married, and the family was so prosperous Gwynnie had them build a fine farmhouse, just nearby the well, and she named it Ffynnon Las, after the blue of the water in the spring.

And I kept my promise. I used my magic as best I could to help the villagers, not just the farmers and their animals, but the people as well. Slowly, they started to come to me, to seek my help, and the help of the well. They came in all shapes and for all reasons—the barren wife, the lovelorn youth, the pain-wracked old man, the shepherd whose flock wasn’t doing well, the schoolmaster whose eyes were failing, the miller troubled by mice.

Nobody bothered Old Mair after that, and she was allowed to stay in her tiny croft above the well, taking coins for cures from travelers who pass by. And when all is quiet and there is no one to disturb us, we sit by the fire next to the water and speak of magic, and of how we will set our spells and wisdom down in a great book one day, a grimoire, so that other witches may learn from it. Other witches who settle here to be close to the magic water many years from now, long after I am gone.

I decided against going to live on the coast. Oh, I take trips, mind, with Gwyneth in her smart gig, so that we both get to see the shining sea, and eat fish fresh caught and tasting of the endless ocean. But I found where I belong. Mair showed me what I was capable of. It was she who had directed me to use the well, because she had seen in me the same spark of magic Mamgi had noticed all that long time before. And now I sit on the well wall looking at the fine stone house love built for Gwyneth, and I listen to those sweet bells chiming, and I feel the magic blood singing in my veins and, now I am grown, when I look at my reflection in the water I see that strong, wild woman looking back at me, each and every time. For the well took in my past and showed me my future, and now I am become what I was always meant to be, a true and powerful witch of the Blue Well.

From the Author’s Camera

This is Ffynnon Maen-Du, in Brecon. Thought to be an ancient “cursing” well, known for accommodating the wishes of lovesick maidens, located not very far from my own home! It has a very ancient design, with an inscription made during a renovation dated 1754. There is a channel running from it to a pretty bathing pool with marsh marigolds and irises fringing its edges.

The following is an excerpt from Welsh Folk Lore: A Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales, written in 1886 by the Reverend Elias Owen, and taken from the collection of Project Gutenburg (www.gutenberg.org), where it is available in its entirety.

Witches and Conjurors

From and before the days of King Saul, to the present moment, witches have held dreaded sway over the affairs of man. Cruel laws have been promulgated against them, they have been murdered by credulous and infuriated mobs, they have lost their lives after legal trial, but still, witches have lived on through the dark days of ignorance, and even in these days of light and learning they have their votaries. There must be something in the human constitution peculiarly adapted to the exercise of witchcraft, or it could not have lived so long, nor could it have been so universal, as it undoubtedly is, unless men lent themselves willingly to its impositions.

It is curious to notice how good and enlightened men have clung to a belief in witchcraft. It is, consequently, not to be wondered at that the common people placed faith in witches and conjurors when their superiors in learning professed a like faith.

I have often spoken to intelligent men, who did not scruple to confess that they believed in witches and conjurors, and they adduced instances to prove that their faith had a foundation in fact.

Almost up to our days, the farmer who lost anything valuable consulted a conjuror, and vowed vengeance on the culprit if it were not restored by such and such a time, and invariably the stolen property was returned to its owner before the specified period had expired. As detectives, the conjurors, therefore, occupied a well-defined and useful place in rural morality, and witches, too, were indirectly teachers of charity, for no farm wife would refuse refreshments to the destitute lest vengeance should overtake her. In this way the deserving beggar obtained needed assistance from motives of self-preservation from benefactors whose fears made them charitable.

But, if these benefits were derived from a false faith, the evils attending that faith were nevertheless most disastrous to the community at large, and many inhuman Acts were passed in various reigns to eradicate witchcraft. From the wording of these Acts it will be seen what witches were credited with doing.

An Act passed 33 Henry VIII. Adjudged all witchcraft and sorcery to be felony. A like Act was passed 1 James, c.12, and also in the reign of Philip and Mary. The following is an extract:

All persons who shall practise invocation, or conjuration, of wicked spirits, any witchcraft, enchantment, charm, or sorcery, whereby any person shall happen to be killed, or destroyed, shall, with their aiders, and abettors, be accounted felons, without benefit of clergy; and all persons practising any witchcraft, etc., whereby any persons shall happen to be wasted, or impaired, shall, with their counsellors, and aiders, suffer for the first offence one year’s imprisonment and the pillory, and for the second the punishment of felony without the clergy.… If any person shall consult, covenant with, entertain, employ, feed, or reward any evil or wicked spirit, or take up any dead man, woman, or child out of his, her, or their grave; or the skin, bone, or any other part of any dead person to be employed in any manner of witchcraft, sorcery, charm, or enchantment, etc., he shall suffer death as a felon, without benefit of clergy.

The law of James I. was repealed in George II’s reign, but even then persons pretending to use witchcraft, tell fortunes, or discover stolen goods, by skill in the occult sciences, were to be punished by a year’s imprisonment; and by an Act 5 George IV., c.83, any persons using any subtle art, means, or device, by palmistry, or otherwise, to deceive his Majesty’s subjects, were to be deemed rogues and vagabonds, and to be punished with imprisonment and hard labour.

Acts of Parliament did not succeed in eradicating witchcraft. Its power has waned, but it still exercises an influence, shadowy though it be, on certain minds, though in its grosser forms it has disappeared.

Formerly, ailments of all kinds, and misfortunes of every description, were ascribed to the malignant influence of some old decrepit female, and it was believed that nature’s laws could be changed by these witches, that they could at will produce tempests to destroy the produce of the earth, and strike with sickness those who had incurred their displeasure.

v

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The Winter Witch
on sale 1/29/2013

Copyright © 2013 by Paula Brackston.

1.

Does the spider consider herself beautiful? When she gazes into a dewdrop, does her reflection please her? Her web is finer than the finest lace, her body a bobbin working her own whisper thread. It is the web people admire. Its delicacy, its fragile strength. But the spider, poor creature, is thought of as ugly. She repulses some. Sends others into fainting fits. And yet she is beautiful, or so it seems to me. So nimble. So deft. So perfectly fashioned for the life fate has chosen for her. Like this one, here, in my palm. See how she ponders her next step, testing the surface, this way and that, her tiny feet tickling my skin, the hairs on her body sweeping my hand as she moves. How can something so exactly suited to its surroundings, to its existence, not be deserving of our admiration? How can a form so elegant, so neat, so sleek, not be recognized as beautiful? Must everything be pretty to be adored? The ladybird has black legs and a beetle body, but girls exclaim over the gaiety of her red wings and the cheerfulness of her spots. Must we always bedeck ourselves in prettiness to be thought pleasing? It would appear so. A woman must look a certain way to be worthy of a man’s attentions. It is expected. So here I stand, in a borrowed white gown, with flowers in my hair and at my waist, gaudy as a maypole, looking how I never look, presenting an aspect of myself that does not exist. It is a lie. How much happier I would be to don the gossamer spider’s web as my veil. And to drape myself in my customary dark colors, the better to blend with the shadows, the better to observe, and not to be observed.

“Morgana? Morgana!”

Mam is impatient. No, not impatient, a little afraid. Afraid that I might slip away, hide myself in one of my many secret places, and stay hidden until this moment has passed. This moment not of my asking. Not of my choosing.

“Morgana!”

Can she really wish me to go? To leave the only home I have ever known? To leave her? Surely a daughter’s place is at her mother’s side. Why must things change? Why will she not allow me to make my own choice, in this of all matters?

“Morgana, what are you doing?”

I am found. She peers in at me, stooping into the low entrance of my holly den. Blood hurries to her lowered head, flushing her face. Even in the dim light the prickly shelter allows I can see she is agitated. And that the rosiness of her cheeks is set against a worrying pallor.

“Morgana, your dress…you will make it filthy sitting in here. Come out.” She withdraws and I can put off the moment no longer. I ponder the spider in my hand. I could take her with me; pop her in my petticoat pocket. At least then I might have a friend as my witness this day. But no, she belongs here. Why should both of us be uprooted?

There, little spinner, back to your web.

I return her to her rightful place. I wish I could stay with her in this dark, close space, this earth womb. But my wishes count for nothing now. My fate has been decided. I squeeze out of the den.

Outside the sun hurts my eyes. The brash light illuminates my silly dress and showy flowers. I feel most horribly bright. Most ridiculously colored. What nonsense we are all engaged in.

“Duw, child, you have enough mud on you to plant potatoes. What were you thinking? In your wedding gown.”

She tutts and huffs and frowns at me but I am unconvinced. I see fear in her eyes. She cannot hide it from me. She ceases beating at my skirts in an effort to remove the dirt and places her hands on my shoulders, holding my gaze as firmly as she grips me.

“You are a woman now,” she says, having just this second called me “child.” “It would serve you well to behave as one. Your husband will expect some…manners, at the very least.”

Now it is my turn to frown. Husband! Might as well say Own er! Master! Lord! I turn away. I do not wish to look at her while my heart is full of anger. I feel my bottled fury bubbling within me, and something shifts, something alters. Sounds become distant. Voices meaningless. There is such a pressure inside my skull, such a force fighting to be released. My eyelids droop. My movements become slow and leaden. The sensation of falling backward grows.

“Morgana!” The urgency in Mam’s voice reaches me. Calls me back. “Do not, Morgana! Not now.”

I open my eyes and see the dauntless determination in hers. We are, after all, alike in this way.

She turns me on my heel and all but marches me from the garden and along the lane to the chapel. With every hurried step the plain stone building comes closer. I will enter it as my own person and leave belonging to another. How can this be?

“Here.” At the gate to the graveyard Mam suspends our marching to fuss with my hair. “Let me look at you.” She looks, and I know she sees me. And I know that when I am away from her there will be no one to look at me in the way she does. And the thought brings with it such a weight of loneliness I have to steady myself to bear it. Mam touches my cheek. “All will be well, cariad,” she says.

I shake my head.

“I want only what is best for you,” she insists. “It is all I have ever wanted.” I feel her hesitate. A jay bobs past on its uneven flight and laughs at our pain. “He is a good man, Morgana. He will give you a home, a life. A future.” She sees that I do not care what he will give me; that I would rather stay with her and have none of these things. She has no answer to this.

A brisk trotting alerts us to the arrival of my betrothed. We both turn to watch the white pony stallion leaning into the collar of its harness boldly as it pulls the tub-trap up the hill, hastening the moment I have been in dread of all these months. The day is warm, and the little horse’s neck is slick with sweat but it is clear he, at least, is enjoying his outing. In the trap, which is mercifully free of flowers or ribbons, Cai Jenkins closes his hands on the reins and brings the pony to a halt. He is a tall man, lean, but strong, I think. His face is angular, almost severe, but softened by a full mouth, and light blue eyes. They are startling and bright— the color of forget-me-nots in sunshine. He ties the reins and steps down from the narrow wooden seat. His wool suit is loose on his bony frame. Mam never promised him I could cook. Will he remember that, later? It is a bad idea to make assumptions where people are concerned. When he climbs down from the trap he moves easily, a man clearly accustomed to a physical life. But the hint of shoulder blades beneath his jacket suggest he does not do well. No doubt he has felt the lack of a cook since his first wife died. Three years ago, that was. He loved her, he actually told us that. Came right out with the words.

“She was all and everything to me, see? I will not pretend otherwise’ said he, sitting in our parlor, Mam’s best china in his hand, tea growing cold while he filled the room with his unnecessary words. He had looked at me then, as if I were a colt given to biting and it would fall to him to devise the most effective manner of taming me. “I want to be honest with you both,” he said. “A drover must have a wife to qualify for his license. There is no one in my region…suitable.”

Why is that? I wondered then and I wonder now. Why is there no one nearer his home fit to be his bride? Why has he to travel to find someone suitable? How am I suitable?

“Well,” the teacup in Mam’s hand had rattled as she spoke, “there is a great deal said about love and not much understood, Mr. Jenkins. Respect and kindness have a lot to recommend them.”

He had nodded then, smiled, relieved that it was agreed. This was to be no love match.

Now he takes off his hat and holds it, too tight, in his hands, his long fingers turning it restlessly. His sandy hair is unruly, beginning to fall into curls at his collar, and in need of cutting. His gaze cannot settle on anything nor anyone.

“A fine morning for it, Mrs. Pritchard,” he says. Mam agrees. Now he puts his eyes on me. “You look…very well, Morgana.”

Is that the best he can do?

“Shall we go in?” Mam is anxious to get this done before I take it into my mind to bolt. She still has a firm hold on my arm.

Inside, old Mrs. Roberts stands next to the pitifully small floral displays. Mam oohs and aahs and thanks her. Reverend Thomas is all welcomes and delighteds. Mam puts me where I am to stand and Cai Tomos Jenkins stands beside me. I will not look at him. I have nothing to say to him.

The reverend starts up his words and I go to another place. Somewhere wild and high and free, untroubled by the silliness of men and their plans. There is a piece of hill above Cwmdu so steep that even the sheep won’t tread there. The surface is neither grass nor rock, but shifting shale that defies the hold of foot or hoof. To climb to the top you have to lean sideways into the slope, let your feet slip down half a pace for each you ascend. No good will come of fighting the mountain. You have to work in harmony with it. Be patient, be accepting of its unsettling ways, and it will slowly bear you up to the summit. And at the summit you will be made anew. Such vistas! Such distances! Such air that has not been breathed by damp lungs, or sucked in by furnace or fire. Air that fills your soul as well as your body.

“And do you, Morgana Rhiannon Pritchard, take this man to be your husband…?”

At the mention of my name I am pulled back into the chapel with a speed to make me dizzy.

“Morgana?” Mam puts her hand on my arm once more. Something is expected of me. She turns to Reverend Thomas, imploring.

He treats me to a smile so unsuited to being there I wonder it does not slip off his face.

“I know you cannot speak, child,” he says.

“Does not,” Mam corrects him. “She can, Reverend, or at least, she could when she was a very small child. At present, she does not.”

She omits to tell him to exactly how many years “at present” applies.

The smile falters a little, leaving his eyes and remaining only around his wet mouth.

“Quite so,” says he. Then, louder and slower, “Morgana, it is necessary that we know you consent to be Mr. Jenkins’ wife. Now, when I ask again, if you agree, just nod, as clearly as you are able.”

Why does he assume silent to be the same as simple? I feel all eyes upon me now. The reverend speaks a few lines more, and then leaves a gap for my response. There is a sound in my head like the waterfall up at Blaencwm when the river is in full spate. The heat of my mother’s short breath reaches me. It is not the breath of a well woman. I know this. And, knowing this, I nod.

I turn and look at my husband. He smiles down at me, a faltering gesture of friendliness as he slips the narrow band of gold onto my finger.

“Excellent!” cries Reverend Thomas, hastily declaring us man and wife and snapping his good book shut with a puff of dust to seal my fate.

I grind my teeth. The door of the chapel flies open with a bang as it hits the wall. The reverend exclaims at the suddenness of the wind, of how abruptly the weather can change this time of year. A fierce rush of air disturbs the interior, disturbing the hymnals in the pews, and tearing petals from the more delicate flowers.

I turn my gaze from a startled Cai Jenkins. I feel my mother’s disapproval upon me.

She is younger than he recalls, somehow. Perhaps it is the white dress. At eigh teen she is a woman, after all. The distance in age between them is but a few years, even if those years have been, for him, long and slow. Although not uncommon, twenty-five is young to be a widower. He thinks that she is smaller, too. Her frame almost frail. Her mother assured him she is strong, but she looks for all the world as if an October wind up at Ffynnon Las would blow her off her feet. Still, it is the start of summer now. She will have time to settle before winter comes to test her. To test them both.

After the uncomfortably brief ceremony the three ride in the trap to Morgana’s cottage. The journey is short and they complete it without a word beyond the directions her mother gives him. The little house sits on the end of a row of four farm laborers’ dwellings, each with a small garden to the front. Cai waits outside with the pony as the two women fetch his bride’s possessions. A bundle of clothing tied with string, a wooden crate, and a patch work quilt make up the trousseau. Cai secures them in the well of the trap and stands tactfully back as mother and daughter say their farewells.

“Morgana, remember to dress warmly, and do not venture far from the farm. It will take time for you to become familiar with the land about your new home.”

Morgana nods dismissively.

“Treat the hills with respect, child.” She pulls the girl’s shawl tighter around her narrow shoulders. “There is not a person on God’s earth cannot be beaten by sudden weather or hidden bog. Not even you.” She shakes her head and ceases her admonitions. Placing a finger beneath her daughter’s chin she tilts her face toward her own. “Morgana, this is for the best.”

Still the girl will not meet her mother’s eye.

“If you are as good a wife as you have been a daughter, then Cai Jenkins is indeed a fortunate man, cariad.”

Now Morgana looks up, her eyes brimming with hot tears. Cai shuffles his feet, a reluctant witness to such a painful parting. Morgana throws her arms around her mother, holding her close and tight, sobbing silently onto her shoulder. Cai watches Mair close her eyes against her own tears. He sees clearly now, in the unforgiving clarity of the morning sun, and in the intensity of the woman’s sorrow, that there is a deathly shadow clouding her pinched features. He wonders at the love a parent has for her child that could cause her to give her up when her own need is so acute. He remembers Mair’s wariness of him when first he approached her concerning Morgana. It was understandable, the reputation of drovers being mixed at best. For the most part they are seen as wild, tough men, whose traveling sets them apart from others. Most have a name for being solitary, and even a little mysterious. After all, many living in farming communities will never venture farther than the horizon they can see from their window; who knows what mischief and shocking deeds the drovers become involved in on their journeys? And who would trust a man given to sleeping in the field with his cattle, or frequenting inns, night after night, no doubt meeting women who are charmed by the romance of their trade? It had been no easy task to persuade Mair that the head drover, porthmon, was different. That he was different. True, he is inexperienced, and this will be his first year in the role. But he has earned it. His father, and grandfather, were porthmon before him. It had always been accepted he would follow in their footsteps. It is not a given right, not an inheritance they could pass to him as a certainty, for there would be others who coveted the post. But tradition, habit, common sense, even, demand that the honor continues within the family. After all, if a man is left a good farm and he is known to be an able, trustworthy farmer, it is a fair foundation for the making of a porthmon. Ffynnon Las had built a reputation as a farm with a herd to be proud of, and had supplied cattle to feed the English hunger for roast beef for two generations. Cai has assisted his father on many droves, working the herd, living the life of the traveling cattleman for several weeks every year since he was a teenager. He married Catrin, and on his father’s passing it was expected that he would take over. But then Catrin had died, and everything changed. For no man can be head drover unless he has a wife, a living wife, and a homestead to return to. The position of porthmon will put him in a position of great trust in the locality. Aside from the livestock, people will place in his hands deeds of sale, items of value, and important transactions for him to handle on their behalf when he reaches London at the end of the drove. Many living in such remote areas as Tregaron will never venture beyond the parish, let alone into another country. The drove provides and opportunity for commerce and communication with a different world. Marriages are arranged. Properties change hands. Heirlooms are sold. And all proceeds are given to the head drover, to the porthmon, for safekeeping and delivery. Such riches might prove a sore temptation for a rootless man, the reasoning behind the law lies, but a man with a wife and farm hostage, well, he will come home.

At last his new bride steps up into the trap. She has changed from her wedding gown into clothes the color of the dry mountain earth. She looks less delicate now, but no less small. Cai registers, and is surprised by, a minute thrill at the closeness of her as she settles beside him. He turns his attention to Mair, who has about her now an air of resolute determination.

“From this moment Morgana is in my care,” he assures her, “you need not be concerned.”

Mair nods, handing him a cloth-wrapped cheese and some bread.

“And you?” Cai asks. “How will you fare without your daughter?”

A flash of anger passes across Mair’s face. Cai knows the question is unfair, and that there is no satisfactory answer to it, and yet he could not stop himself asking. Why, he wonders. For whose benefit? To salve whose conscience?

At last Mair says “I am content to know my daughter is settled.”

“She will be well regarded at Ffynnon Las,” he tells her. He sees that this gives her some comfort. He knows it is what she wishes to believe. During the months in which the match had been arranged he had made it his business to discover what he could about the pretty, silent girl who had caught his eye on the drove of the year before. He had been able to discover little, beyond that her father had upped and left when she was small, she worked with her mother at the large dairy farm in Cwmdu, and that Morgana has not spoken since she was a young child. His inquiries at the inn had yielded scant information; a few words regarding her affinity with horses, her willingness to work hard with her mother, her calming touch with the herd, and, of course, her wordlessness. But Cai had noticed something. Something telling in the responses he had gained. For each and every one of them had been preceded by a pause. No matter whom he questioned, there was always a slight but unmistakable hesitation before the speaker would deliver their opinion. As if they struggled to find the right words. As if there was something they were not saying. In these fleeting pauses, in these in-breaths, Cai is convinced, lies the truth about Morgana.

He picks up the reins, and with a click of his tongue the little horse sets off at a lively trot, seemingly unhampered by the extra weight he must pull. Morgana twists in her seat, waving at the lonely figure of her mother whose hand eventually falls to her side. Then the road turns a bend and she can be seen no more.

They are soon following the course of the Usk. The great river is to their left as they travel up the broad valley, the majestic mountains on either side of them. A buzzard circles, climbing on the warm, rising air of the cloudless day, its cry as sharp as its claws. Cai glances sideways. His new wife has dry eyes now, but her countenance appears stricken. He is aware there is nothing he can say that will lift the weight of her heart at this moment, and yet he falls to speaking.

“We will stop at Brecon overnight. We can reach Ffynnon Las by tomorrow afternoon easy with going like this,” he says, indicating the smooth, hard surface of the track. “It is a good road. People have drovers to thank for that, see? Not that they do. No, they’ll more likely enjoy complaining if it rains before the drove and the herd poach the wet ground to soup. Even that is only a temporary inconvenience, mind. Rest of the year the road is as you see it. For the benefit of all.” He is irritated by his own need to fill the silence with chatter. It is a habit he knows he must break free of if their life together is to be tolerable. After all, her silence was one of the things that drew him to her in the first place. He is still unsure why. When Catrin was alive they enjoyed stimulating conversation. She had been expert at teasing him and then laughing at his blustering. He wonders if he will ever hear Morgana laugh. It seems unlikely. He slips his hand into his jacket pocket and considers taking out the small gift he has for her. The cotton and ribbon in which it is wrapped is soft against his warm fingers. He had spent many happy hours carving the little wooden lovespoon for his new bride. Tradition would have had him give it to her upon their engagement, but the opportunity had not presented itself. He had thought to give it to her on their wedding day instead, but a shyness overcomes him, and the moment does not seem right.

Their route takes them up the precipitous climb over the last of the Black Mountains through the village of Bwlch, perched on its rocky summit. By the time they have scaled the hill the pony is laboring, its pace erratic, its head low as it leans into the collar. Cai knows the animal will not falter, but will convey them safely to the top. There is a spring-fed trough at the side of the road. He steadies the pony to a halt and jumps from the trap.

“We’ll let him rest awhile,” he tells Morgana.

She, too, steps down, turning at once so that she can take in the final view of Cwmdu, far in the valley below. The last of home. Cai leads the pony to the trough where it drinks in deep gulps, its ears moving in rhythm with each replenishing swallow of sparkling water. He takes a tin cup from the trap and fills it, passing it to Morgana, before unwrapping the food her mother supplied. The two eat and drink in silence. He finds himself watching her and notices that she does not once look at him. It is as if he is of no consequence to her whatsoever. How long, he wonders, will it take to change that? A whisper of a mountain breeze tugs at her night-black hair. She wore it upon her head for the wedding, but now it hangs loose down her back with the sides pinned up, like a girl. From behind the hedge comes the bleating of a lamb, momentarily separated from its mother, its protestations loud and panic filled. The ewe’s low reply summons it, and quiet descends once again. Cai is unaccustomed to remaining wordless in company, and yet he finds it curiously calming. Clearly Morgana does not require the near ceaseless chat ter so many women of his acquaintance seem compelled to engage in. If he can only still his own mind, only learn to resist uttering the thoughts which speed through his head, perhaps he too can find peace in such quiet. Since he lost Catrin, since the body blow of grief at her passing, he has found only loneliness and lack in silence. Noticed only the absence of love and companionship. But it would be true to say, also, and this he has been all too aware of, that he has been equally bereft, equally lonely, equally alone even, when in the company of others. There is, hidden somewhere deep within him, a very small, fragile hope, that with Morgana, things might be different.

Later that afternoon they arrive at the Drover’s Arms on the western side of the market town of Brecon. Dusk is already tingeing the whitewash of the modest building with pink. Cai passes a coin to the lad to stable the pony, and he and Morgana carry her luggage inside. The inn has a large room downstairs furnished simply with high-backed wooden settles by the fire-place and benches running along tables. There is a low bar at one end, formed by a trestle, with barrels, flagons, and tankards behind it. It is early in the evening, so that the room is empty save for a solitary snoozing farmer by the unlit fire. The innkeeper, a genial, round-faced man, greets Cai warmly.

“Jenkins, m’n!” He grasps his hand and pumps it vigorously. “’Tis early in the season to be having a visit from the likes of you.”

“Ah, Dafydd, I’m not come here as a drover this day.” He knows some further explanation is expected of him, but the look on Morgana’s face prevents him uttering such words as wedding or bride. He fancies she is relieved when he merely requests accommodation for the night and some supper, affecting ignorance of his friend’s obvious curiosity.

They are shown upstairs to a low-ceilinged room scarcely large enough to accommodate the bed within it. When they are alone Cai hastens to put Morgana’s mind at rest.

“I will spend some time with Dafydd,” he tells her. “He’s a keen talker who requires only to be listened to. I need not tell him of our…well, there we are. I will have some supper sent up to you.”

Morgana looks at him, her dark eyes wide and slightly fierce, and her question as plain as if she has spoken the words aloud.

“Be at ease,” Cai tells her. “I will stay late in the bar, see. I will not…disturb you.”

She nods and lowers her gaze. He nods, too, even though she is not watching him, but is busy lifting the lid on her crate. He peers over her shoulder and is surprised to see that the box contains books.

“Oh, you can read?” He colors at the expression his question draws from her. “Of course, why not? And English as well as Welsh, I see. Very good. Yes, that’s very good.” He backs away, relieved to be able to leave her, already anticipating the further relief a tankard of ale will bring him.

He closes the door behind him and at last I am alone again. His earnest good intentions tire me. Mam would say I should be grateful, should be pleased to have a considerate husband. But I am not pleased. I do my best to keep my inner turmoil from revealing itself to others through my countenance, but it must surely be discernable, at least to him. And here I stand, trapped in this room, a bride alone on her wedding night. He has assured me I will not be disturbed. For that much I am grateful. What does he expect of me? Tonight the company of men contents him. I can not convince myself such restraint will continue once he has me installed in his own home.

I shall look at Dada’s books to distract myself from my situation. There are two candles, and still some light from the fading day. He was surprised to discover the contents of my crate. He draws the conclusion that I am able to read, and it surprises him. Indeed I can, though I am less able to write. Does he, too, consider me simple? Would he have married a simpleton? I must think not. He did appear pleased to learn I am not entirely without schooling. I was permitted to attend school for a while, and I have Mam to thank for that, as for all else. It was she who insisted I be given a place at our local elementary school.

“But, Mrs. Pritchard,” the weary schoolmaster, Mr. Rees-Jones had attempted to dissuade her, “surely the girl cannot be expected to learn, given her…affliction.”

“Morgana is not afflicted, sir. Only silent.”

“My point exactly. If she cannot form the sounds of the letters, how can she learn them? If I cannot hear her read, how can I correct her? If she cannot answer questions, how can she learn?”

“She can listen, Mr. Rees-Jones. Is that not how Our Lord’s disciples learned?”

He had offered no response to this save a pursing of his thin, dry lips. I was given a place, in as much as I was permitted to attend. That was the extent of Mr. Rees-Jones’s willingness to accommodate me. My seat was at the back of the schoolroom. I was equipped with neither chalk nor slate and never instructed in the art of writing. I was, however, allowed to listen, and to let my eyes follow words on the page of any book not already taken. I listened and I watched, and slowly the patterns on the paper began to reveal their mystery to me. How I longed to know their secrets. Oh, what joy that would have been. To be able to enter the minds of others, to hear their thoughts as clearly as if they were whispering in my ear. Not minds formed from a lifetime of working the fields, nor dulled by the noise of the loom, but higher minds. Minds given to ideas and imaginings beyond my small world. Mr. Rees-Jones cared not what progress I did or did not make. He had, “tis true, no satisfactory way of measuring it, after all. But Mam saw it. She watched me curl my feet beneath me on the rug in front of the fire and read by the light of the flames. She witnessed my quiet concentration as I followed what was written and turned each page with reverent care, even though I had to struggle to decipher what was there.

“Morgana,” she once said, “I declare the only time I ever see you still is when you have a book in your hand.” And she smiled, pleased at my modest achievement. Pleased at such a normal talent. Pleased, I suspect, that she had been proved right.

Alas my schooling did not continue long enough for me to complete my learning. The schoolmaster’s tolerance of me, it transpired, was a fragile thing. One dark winter’s day when the snow lay thick on the ground, shortly after my tenth birthday, a new boy joined the class. His family had come recently into the area, his father being a well-regarded cattleman brought into the employ of Parry Blaencwm to tend his herd of Pembrokeshires. Ifor was his only child and had clearly been indulged in all manners possible every day of his life. His body was plump with these indulgences. Beneath his garish ginger hair his face was round and red, his expression permanently expectant, as if waiting to see in what ways people might please him next. Being new to our school he encountered what must have been unfamiliar hostility. The other children disliked his overfed appearance, his self-important bearing, his evident belief that the world existed for his advantage above all else. For all their showering him with gifts and pleasures, his parents had failed to furnish him with the ability to make friends. Adrift in the choppy waters of the schoolroom, bewildered by the lack of interest he was shown, Ifor resorted to selecting a target for abuse; a child who, in his opinion, would best serve to reveal himself in a good light. For his purposes this required someone more an outsider than he. Someone apart from the others. It was his misfortune, as much as my own, that his eye lighted on me.

For a while I endured his jibes and sneers without response. It was not, let it be said, the first time I had encountered such treatment. People fear what they do not understand, and that fear can make brutes of them. Ifor, though, had not the wit to be frightened. Better for him if he had. Each day he prodded and poked and jested at my expense. Each day he won an inch more ground in his battle for position in the class. And each day my patience grew thinner.

On that winter morning, when a weak sun glowed dully in a colorless sky, Mr. Rees-Jones sent us outside for some air and exercise to quell our restlessness. Ifor seized the moment. He was seated on a low bench beneath the schoolroom window, a thick muffler making him look even fatter than usual, his plump backside spreading widely on the snow-dusted seat. He called out to me, a sneer already arranged on his face.

“Don’t make too much noise, Morgana. Mr. Rees-Jones doesn’t like noise, doesn’t like talking. Oh! I forgot— you can’t talk, can you? Too stupid to speak.”

One or two of the other children began to smile, pausing in their games to watch the fun. Fun made at my expense.

“Sshh, now, Morgana!” Ifor grew bolder. “You are disturbing everyone with your silly chattering. What’s that you say? It can’t be you because you are too dim to speak? Dim and dumb! Dim and dumb!” he chanted, his cheeks flushing. “Morgana Dim-and-Dumb, that’s what we should call you. Stupid Miss Morgana Dim-and-Dumb!”

On and on he went, the chant gathering strength as others joined in, relishing the cruel song so that the air was soon full of the sound of their mocking. And Ifor’s eyes grew brighter, his chest puffed up with pleasure at his own cleverness. It would not do. Really, it would not.

I wanted to be somewhere else. I might have chosen to let my eyelids fall, to let the voices grow distant, and to send my mind somewhere quiet and free. But I did not. Not on this occasion. This time my anger grew inside me, built into something hard and fierce and hot until it must come out or else I would be burned up by it, consumed by it completely. I breathed in, feeling the breath fuel the flames of my fury. I faced my tormentor, my eyes wide, holding his own gaze, a gaze which faltered as it glimpsed the anger within me. I did not once look away from him, not when the heavy snow on the roof above where he sat started to tremble, not when the other children noticed and fell silent, not even when, with a brief rumble and a swoosh, the snow slipped from the tiles, hurtled to the ground, and landed squarely upon Ifor, covering him entirely. Now the silence was broken by gleeful laughter, and the children pointed and chortled at the wretched boy— the snowboy, for such he was now. He struggled and with a wail emerged, snow clinging to his clothes and caking his eyelashes. The laughter increased. He looked wonderfully absurd, standing their wailing like an infant, the tables turned so that he was the object of ridicule. Now he could see what it felt like.

Of course, the noise brought Mr. Rees-Jones running. He threw wide the door, halting abruptly on the threshold, taking in the snow-encrusted boy. He looked first at the other boys and girls, who fought to stifle their hilarity, and then at me. He narrowed his eyes in a way I did not care for. Clearly, he did not care for the manner in which I regarded him either. He had been reluctant to admit me to his precious school in the first place. As the months had passed he had became increasingly intolerant of my presence, and my conflict with Ifor did nothing to improve matters.

Things came to a head a few weeks after the incident of the little avalanche. We had been set to work on some tedious mathematical equations, and the early spring sunshine on the tall windows was compounding our suffering, making the room unbearably hot and stuffy. One of the older girls made a plea for the window to be opened and Mr. Rees-Jones gave me the task of using the long, hooked pole to reach up and release the catch. As I crossed the room, however, Ifor stuck out his foot. I tripped and was sent sprawling onto the floor at the very feet of the schoolmaster. Again I endured mocking laughter. I snatched up the pole and, standing on tiptoe, used it to unfasten the latch. I was supposed to settle the window into the metal holding strap, which would allow but a few inches of air. However, it seemed to me this would barely be enough to sustain one of the soft grey pigeons in the yard outside, let alone a roomful of pupils. Or a roomful of pigeons, thought I. The image I conjured in my mind of a flock of the flapping birds swooping and unloading their droppings around the classroom, and particularly upon Ifor, was simply too glorious to resist. Of course, Mr. Rees-Jones blamed me for letting the window fall wide open. He held me responsible for letting the pigeons into the room. And he could not help but notice that I alone was free from the white and grey splodges the panicked birds deposited upon everyone else in the room, himself included. He was never able to say how their unusual behavior was my fault, but it didn’t stop him wanting rid of me. When Mam collected me from school that day she was told plainly that I was no longer welcome to attend.

2.

As they near the end of their journey and the trees at the boundary of his land come into view, Cai feels a nervousness stir his stomach. What will Morgana make of Ffynnon Las? He is confident she will not be disappointed by the size of the house, or the scale of the farm, or the quality of his herd, but will she see the place as her home? He cannot know how much information her mother has passed on to her about his status. He cannot know, even, if such things matter to the girl. He does know, however, that she is a long way from the only home she has ever known, away from her mother, and thrown into a new life with a stranger. He does not want to remain a stranger to her. Indeed, what ever the case he put to Mair about needing a wife for his drover’s license— which is nonetheless a fact— he knows that he does want, hope for, expect? No, that would be too strong a word, but wish for a connection with Morgana that will go beyond a contract. Be yond an arrangement.

He recalls the first time he noticed her, all those long, lonely months ago. The drove had halted overnight at Crickhowell, and had the good fortune to arrive on market day. Having settled the herd, and having no obligations beyond that of drover, rather than porthmon, he had wandered into the little town to divert himself by looking at the stalls. It was late in the afternoon, and people were for the most part starting for home. Some of the traders were packing up for the day. However, he found a small covered market area where several stallholders remained, their wares piled high on sturdy tables or handcarts, still hoping for further customers. In one corner was a short, low bench covered in gingham, upon which were a half-dozen rounds of soft cheese, these being all that had not sold.

Morgana was standing behind the bench. She was wearing a plain cotton dress and crisp white apron, which made her look clean and wholesome, yet there was something dishevelled about her. Her hair was insecurely pinned upon her head, with dark curls escaping here and there, giving the impression the whole lot could shake loose at any moment and cascade about her slender shoulders. He remembers rather hoping it would do so. Even though she was standing still, her restlessness struck him at once. It was as if she could barely contain herself, so keen was she to be released from her post, to be somewhere else, somewhere, he fancied, freer and more open. Her eyes would not settle on anyone, and when the town clock struck five she started violently, seizing on the sound as a signal to, at last, pack away and be released from the chore of watching the stall.

In her haste to wrap the cheeses one slipped from her grasp. It rolled across the flagged floor of the marketplace, collecting dust and dirt as it wound its way between booted feet and table legs. Morgana dashed after it, the laughter and shouts of the market-goers goading her on. She was forced to drop to her knees and scramble beneath a fruit stall to retrieve the runaway cheese. Two men, clearly the worse for a day’s drinking, made loud remarks at her expense. Uncalled-for comments which were both insulting and cruel, it seemed to Cai. He pressed forward through the small crowd, hastening to Morgana’s aid, but before he could reach her she herself had retaliated. Grasping the ankle of the more unstable drunkard, she wrenched his foot sideways, toppling him into his fellow and sending them both crashing through the nearby fish and game stall. A roar of laughter went up from the onlookers, as the pair thrashed about amid trout heads and ripe pheasants. Morgana leapt to her feet, clutching the errant cheese. The meaner of the two drinkers lurched to his knees, spitting further abuse at her. Cai held his breath, waiting for the young woman’s reaction. She narrowed her eyes, lifted the cheese high, and then brought it down with considerable force over her target’s head. He reeled backward, dazed, the crumbly cheese falling about his ears in clods, the crowd revelling in the hilarity of the moment. Cai found himself laughing, too, until he realized that he was under Morgana’s gaze. He turned to her then, looking deep into her dark, bright eyes, and in that moment, in that glimpse, he would swear he felt something pass between them. What? A flare of attraction? A fleeting flame of lust? He could not name it, but what ever it was, it reached him, it moved him. And he was certain Morgana had felt it too.

He glances across at her. This morning she has chosen to sit opposite rather than beside him, the better to balance the trap, he suspects. He likes that he is able to look at her more easily, but misses the closeness of having her next to him. He found it surprisingly difficult, the night before, to stay so long talking with Dafydd, knowing that Morgana was upstairs. But he had deemed it sensible to leave her alone. He would not force his attentions on her. He did not want their coming together to be an act of duty or of right. He would be patient. When he had, at last, crept into the small bedroom, the sight of her sleeping had stirred in him not passion but sympathy. She looked so vulnerable. He had allowed himself to watch her for a moment longer before settling onto the lumpy armchair beneath a wool blanket. There was, after all, no rush. They had their whole lives together.

“There!” he is unable to hide his own delight at seeing the farm again. “That is Ffynnon Las,” he points as he speaks, at a collection of stone buildings still some distance away. He watches Morgana’s reaction. He is already beginning to be able to read the minute changes in her expression. She does not gasp nor gawp but her eyebrows lift a fraction, her eyes refocusing, her lips parting the tiniest bit. The pony, sensing home, quickens its pace, and soon they are turning up the driveway to the farm. Now Morgana becomes quite animated. She turns in her seat, twisting this way and that the better to take in the sloping meadows, the oak copse, the stream-fed pond with its feathery willow, the rise of the hill behind the house, the sheltered yard of barns, and, at last, the house itself.

Ffynnon Las stands as it has done for more than a century, its broad back to the mountain to which it clings, its wide frontage, two stories high, with tall windows positioned to face southeast, to greet the morning sun and shelter from the northerly winds of winter. It is not a pretty house, but a handsome one. Its proportions are not grand but are generous, and not designed for function alone. The blue-grey stone of which the building is constructed is softened by a climbing honeysuckle which scrambles unchecked above the front door, fringing the ground-floor windows with narrow leaves and blooms of palest yellow. Even the dark slate roof shimmers cheerfully beneath the summer sun. The entrance is approached through a little iron gate and along a flagstone path, either side of which are small patches of unkempt lawn, and beds of roses and shrubs apparently happy in their state of near neglect.

Cai stops the fidgeting pony outside the front gate.

“Well?” he cannot resist asking. “What do you think of the place?”

He can see by her expression that she is surprised. What had she imagined, he wonders. Some lowly long house, perhaps? Nothing more than a croft for her to share with the beasts? He finds he is quietly pleased at her surprise.

Morgana turns to him and he fancies she is about to smile broadly when the moment is interrupted by a raucous barking from within the house. The front door is flung wide and Cai’s two corgis come scampering out, the size of their voices much greater than the little dogs themselves. They run around the trap, circling it in a woofing blur of fox-red and chalk-white fur, their short legs and bushy tails moving ceaselessly. Now Morgana looks truly amazed.

Cai laughs. “That’ll do, Bracken! Meg, stop your noise! Not the sort of dogs you are used to, I suppose?”

She shakes her head, hopping down from the cart to allow the excited creatures to greet her properly.

“You won’t find so many collies up here,” he explains. “Corgis are heelers, better with the cattle, see?”

Cai enjoys watching her obvious delight in his dogs and it is a minute or so before he becomes aware he, too, is being watched. He turns to see Mrs. Jones standing in the doorway.

“Cai Jenkins,” she shakes her head at him, “just how long are you planning to let your bride be bothered by those wretched creatures before you show her into her new home? Duw, bach, what are we to do with you?”

Heulwen Eluned Pryce-Jones, who has always insisted on being plain Mrs. Jones to all and everyone, is a woman as round as she is tall, and as good-natured as it is possible for a person to be. Her width bears testament to her love of good food, just as the lines on her face and dimples in her cheeks speak of her consistent cheerfulness. As always, she is wrapped in a spotless apron, her mop cap neat and crisply starched, a ready smile lighting up eyes that belie the threescore winters they have seen. Not for the first time Cai questions whether or not he would have survived the dark days following Catrin’s death if it had not been for Mrs. Jones’s determination to see to it that he did.

Without thinking, he reaches out a hand to Morgana. “Come and meet Mrs. Jones,” he tells her.

She stops petting the dogs and stands up. She hesitates only briefly before taking his hand and allowing herself to be led down the path to the house. Cai is startled by the feel of her weightless hand in his and finds that, when the moment comes to do so, he is reluctant to let it go.

“Mrs. Jones, may I present to you my wife, Morgana Jenkins. Morgana, this is my aunt and my housekeeper, Mrs. Jones.”

“Ooh, there’s pretty you are! Pardon my manners,” Mrs. Jones bobs a curtsey with some difficulty, her stout legs unhelpfully stiff. Morgana hastens forward to help her up, shaking her head, clearly embarrassed to be shown such deference. The two women look at one another closely. At last Mrs. Jones claps her hands together in glee. “Well, Duw, Duw,” she says quietly, “tis about time happiness came to Ffynnon Las.” She beams at Cai, who looks at his feet.

“I’ll fetch the luggage,” he says.

“Never mind luggage!” Mrs. Jones is scandalized. “Isn’t there something else you should be doing?” When he looks blankly back at her she continues, “Well, carry your new bride over the threshold, Mr. Jenkins!”

Cai opens his mouth to protest. He looks at Morgana and notices her take the smallest step backward. Would she really want him to do that? To take her in his arms and carry her into the house? Like a proper bride. His hesitation stretches the moment into awkwardness, so that now he could not make such a flamboyant gesture, even though he would like to. Instead he mutters something about the journey having been long and tiring and hurries back to unload the trap.

For a second I think he will do it; will step forward, sweep me off my feet, and transport me across the threshold as tradition dictates. But he does not. What am I to make of his reluctance to hold me? Can it be that he does not see me as a wife in all senses? Am I merely a necessity, then? A requirement of his status as head drover? Is that to be my purpose in life and no more? I might not want his attentions forced upon me, but that does not mean I wish to exist in some manner of limbo, neither maid nor mistress. What can his intentions for me be?

I confess to being astonished by Ffynnon Las. It is not the humble farmstead I had supposed it to be, but a house of some importance. And a housekeeper! It seems the lack of meat on his bones is not a result of the absence of a cook after all. And Mrs. Jones herself clearly relishes her food. Why does he remain so slight, so insubstantial, despite this good woman’s care? Seeing that I am not to be carried into my new home and that my husband is occupied with the luggage, it is she who takes it upon herself to bid me enter.

“Come in, and welcome. The Lord knows it is we women who must act while men dither.”

She leads me into a wide hall which has a sweeping staircase of polished wood rising from it. To all sides there are doors, so that I do not know how I will ever know my way. What use can one man have for so many rooms? I am taken into what Mrs. Jones insists is the parlor. The tall shutters are open so that sunlight floods the room. There is an ample fireplace, neatly laid, and a sumptuous couch, and a ticking grandfather clock, but the most striking piece of furniture is an enormous oak dresser which displays more china than I have ever seen in my life. The patterns and colors on each plate and cup are quite exquisite, so that I step closer, lost in the swirls and twists of briar roses, ivies, trailing blossoms, and coiling vines.

Cai comes to stand behind me.

“You like Catrin’s china, then? She was so proud of it. ’Twas her mother’s, see?” He pauses to gaze around the room as if seeing it properly for the first time. “I don’t come in here much. I’m not given to entertaining.”

An awkwardness joins us in the room and he hurries out, Mrs. Jones on his heel, both determinedly telling me of the various comforts the house has to offer. I am led from room to room until I am dizzy with gazing about me and begin to feel stifled by the stale air, longing for the outdoors. And there is something else, something which tugs at the hem of my attention. I sense it as I stand in the doorway of the master bedroom. There is a coldness in the air, and a strange heaviness to it, which seems to have no obvious cause. I have little time to consider this curiosity further, however, as my guides usher me on. At last we arrive in the kitchen. It is clear, what ever might have been the case in the past, that this is now where life is lived at Ffynnon Las. The fire in the well-equipped range is lit and throws out a welcoming warmth. There is a long scrubbed table, an assortment of chairs, a high-backed settle, hooks for meat and pots, and a smaller dresser sporting only pottery and some pewter. In the window there is a cushioned seat, worn and furry with dog hairs. Indeed, the minute they gain admittance, both corgis take up their positions, noses pressed against the glass, eyes brightly scanning the approach for intruders.

“Well, now,” says Cai, “I must check on the stock. I’ll leave you to…” he hesitates, as unsure as I am as to precisely what it is I am to do. “…Mrs. Jones could show you where things are…” he trails off, knowing very well that I have just seen where everything is. She attempts to rescue him.

“Perhaps Mrs. Jenkins might like to rest awhile?” she offers. “After her journey.”

He looks at me and I know that he knows I am not tired. I have done nothing for two days, why would I rest? The discomfort in his eyes and the way he fidgets where he stands give him away. But still he says “Of course. You’ll want to put away your things. Rest… Mrs. Jones can help you prepare something for our meal.” He gives up now, turning for the door. The open door. I clench my fists. The door slams shut.

“Oh!” cries Mrs. Jones. “What a draught do run through this house.”

Cai looks back at me. He sees something in my face that makes him think, makes him consider. I hold his gaze. My mother’s entreaties come into my head. Do not be willful, Morgana. You must do as your husband wishes. Must I? Must I stay in this pointlessly big house pretending I care to cook while he walks the hills? I tilt my head a little to one side, asking. Understanding lifts his features.

“Or would you prefer to accompany me, perhaps?”

I give the smallest of nods, and the door swings slowly open. Cai and Mrs. Jones stand catching flies as I stride past them, the corgis running at my feet.

We leave the house and cross the small meadow beside the house. The sun is so bright it causes the horizon to shimmer. I follow Cai and we scale the steep slope, leaning into the incline. The day is warm, but not unpleasantly so, and a soft breeze cools my skin as we ascend. The dogs scuttle ahead, noses down, big ears pricked, their tails flags behind them. At first Cai fills our steps with chatter, but the farther we get from the house, and the nearer to the summit, the quieter he becomes. I do not think this is because he needs his breath for walking, for he has an easy gait practiced at climbing the mountains, and lean muscles I now see working beneath the thin cotton of his shirt. This is no real effort for him. Rather I think he is affected by his environment, at once calmed and stimulated by the freshness of the air and the limitlessness of our horizons, as am I.

We pass through another gateway, some distance above the house now, and the quality of the grass under our feet alters. No longer are there the lush green blades of the lower pasture. There are no flowering clovers here, but tough, wiry growth, tangled at the roots, clinging tightly to the thin layer of earth that covers the rocky hillside. The soil itself is peaty, with a spring in it that will turn to bog in places in the rains of autumn. I can smell the bitterness of the peat, almost taste it. As we at last crest the hill skylarks whirr and flit beside us, alerting each other to our presence. Some way off to the north I hear the plaintive cry of the lapwing, its reedy upward notes seeming to ceaselessly question life and its own tenuous place in it. We negotiate a patch of sharp-edged rocks and Cai offers me his hand. Does he consider me so feeble, so fragile, as to require assistance to step over a small pile of stones? I remind myself he does not know me. It is not entirely unreasonable he should imagine me to be so…female. I let him take my hand. Just for a moment. Mam would be pleased.

Cai stops and raises his arm.

“Now, you can make out our boundary from here. Those Scots pines to the west, see? Then as far north as the beginning of Cwm Canon— you can see the color of the land changes where the bog starts. To the south, well, the meadows below the house you saw as we came up from Lampeter…”

He falls silent as he must surely realize I am not listening. I do not need words to direct me to see what surrounds me. What vistas! What landscape! Different from home, from the rocky escarpments and dramatic sweeps of the Black Mountains. Here are rolling uplands, with grazing to the very tops. We are well above the tree line, but I can see wooded valleys yonder, and here and there a tenacious rowan bush or twisted blackthorn punctuates the moorland. The ground spreads away, pale green with whiskery bents of tawny gold, patches of purple heather, clusters of gorse still flowering yellow, and whimberries low and broad-leafed, promising berries later in the year. The breeze is stiffer here, disturbing the tufty heads of the cotton grass which grows amid the damper patches of soil, where tiny streams and ancient springs give a reliable supply of water, even in a summer drought. The only dwellings visible are far away, dolls’ houses set upon the lower reaches of the hills or huddled together at the leeward foot of the mountains. A sudden, sharp cry above our heads makes us all, dogs included, look up. A flash of copper glinting in the sun, a fast-moving streak of color, at first too swift to be properly discerned, quickly reveals itself to be a sizeable bird of prey.

“A red kite,” Cai tells me. “There are plenty of them up here.”

I am accustomed to sparrow hawks and buzzards but have never before seen a bird so striking in composition and color. I watch it until it has passed out of view.

“Shall we go on?” Cai asks me. “The herd will be near the dew ponds, shouldn’t wonder.”

I look at him and see my own excitement reflected back in his reaction to my face. I know I cannot hide how moved I am by this wondrous place. He smiles, pleased. And I smile back. He is surprised, I can tell.

“Aye,” he agrees, “They are surely something special, these hills. Some people think the place bleak. Unwelcoming. Some call it “the green desert,” “tis so empty. For myself, well, I think no man could wish for better.”

On this we are most definitely agreed. He seems reluctant to break the moment, but at last bids me follow him and continue our walk. A farther half mile brings us to another slope. Here we are traversing the side of a smaller, steeper hill, and the path is barely wide enough for a cart. At one point it turns quite sharply. As Cai walks he dislodges a stone which shoots off the track and bounces down the incline, all the way to the stony riverbed below. I had not realized how high we have climbed, and watching the rock disappear such a distance makes me feel giddy. It is not a cliff, as such, for the surface is covered in tenacious grass, but the angle would make it too steep to ride or even walk down, and to trip would mean descending the two hundred feet or so to the bottom without hope of stopping.

“Got to be careful here, mind,” says Cai. “A cousin of mine lost his life being casual with that drop.”

At last we arrive at the dew ponds, and the herd comes into view. I am unable to hide my surprise. These are not the large, dairy cattle I have been used to. They are much smaller, entirely black, their coats, even at this time of year, quite shaggy and rough, their horns short and sharp. They catch our scent on the breeze and raise their heads, shifting and turning to face us. As we draw closer one or two of them back away or hide themselves behind their bolder cousins. The whole group seem restless, to me, clearly agitated by the proximity of the two of us, and of the dogs, who set up a yapping which does nothing to quell the nerves of the beasts.

“Hush now, Meg! Bracken!” Cai adds a shrill whistle which quietens the little hounds and brings them to his side. The cattle wait, watching.

“They can be skittish,” he tells me. “Never take their cooperation for granted, not a Welsh Black. They are hardy, mind. There’s none other would do so well up here, in all weathers, on such sparse grazing.” His expression softens, and I see more than pride written there. Affection, could it be? “The dogs will gather them easy enough, mind. You’ll see.”

I look from the comical, stumpy corgis to the powerful wary beasts and wonder that such a thing might be true. I step slowly forward toward the nearest young heifer. She snorts, lowering her broad head.

Be at ease, my crow black friend.

She hesitates, and then edges forward to sniff my upturned palm. I look back at Cai who smiles, surprise showing on his face. I find myself thinking that he is attractive when he smiles.

We leave the cattle and walk along the high ridge to where his other herd will be grazing. He did not make much of the fact that he is a breeder of Welsh Mountain ponies, but I am eager to see them, particularly if they are all as feisty and wild-looking as the little stallion who pulled our trap all the way from Cwmdu. But our journey is interrupted by the rattle of wheels down in the valley. The sound is incongruous up here, seeming to come from another life altogether. Cai shades his eyes against the sun and squints at the ribbon of road below. I, too, search and find a smart carriage and pair pulling into the driveway to Ffynnon Las. Cai’s shoulders slump, only fractionally, but enough to be noticed. He catches me watching him.

“Mrs. Cadwaladr, with the Misses Cadwaladr no doubt. We must go down.”

I hang back. I have no desire to leave the mountain, and certainly no wish to greet a carriage full of strangers. He pauses, aware of my reluctance. Even so he says, quite firmly, “We must go down.”

By the time Cai and Morgana reach the house Mrs. Cadwaladr and her two daughters are already installed in the parlor awaiting the tea Mrs. Jones has bustled off to make.

“Ah, Mr. Jenkins. Forgive our calling unannounced. It is our natural impatience! We could not wait a moment longer to set eyes upon your new bride. And here she is! Oh! So very young. Child, step forward. Let us look at you. Well, well, Mr. Jenkins, what have you found for yourself here?”

Mrs. Cadwaladr, as is her habit, sports a bonnet overly decorated with ribbon, a dress overly fancy for the hour and occasion, and a quantity of rouge ill-advised for someone of a naturally ruddy coloring. Her choice of puce fabric, with her daughters dressed in paler imitations of her own outfit, is not a happy one. Cai is put in mind of a row of summer puddings. He attempts to make introductions, but is quickly drowned out by his visitor’s loud exclamations.

“These are my girls, Bronwen and Siân. Young ladies of evident elegance and appeal, I am sure you will agree. Neither married as yet—“tis a mystery to us all. Say only that they are careful in their selection of a husband. Now, girl, tell me your name. Speak up, I cannot abide mumbling.”

When Morgana gives no answer Cai hurries to explain.

“My wife… Morgana…does not speak, Mrs. Cadwaladr.”

“Does not?” the woman is astonished. “Has she no tongue, perhaps? No capability of producing sound? Some childhood illness, may be?” Her daughters crowd forward now, their curiosity provoked by the unexpected presence of an oddity.

“She has a voice,” he tells her. “That is, she is able to speak but has not done so for many years.”

This information is greeted by a stunned silence, as if everyone has now, for a brief moment, been robbed of the power of speech. Cai glances anxiously at Morgana and is pleased to see her raising her chin. The movement is fractional, but suggests courage, he feels.

“Well, Mr. Jenkins, I find this hard to comprehend. A man such as yourself, with all the qualities and attributes of a gentleman, and many an eligible young lady in the vicinity—” here Bronwen and Siân have the good grace to blush, “—that you should encumber yourself with a person so…lacking.”

Cai bristles.

“I do not regard myself as encumbered, Mrs. Cadwaladr. Nor do I consider Morgana in any way lacking. She has the ability to communicate, in her own manner, when it is required.”

“Required?” Mrs. Cadwaladr is so unsettled she pulls a fan from her bodice and begins flapping it in a way that is both agitated and agitating. “And when, pray, might it not be required of a wife, of the mistress of such a house, of a person, indeed, who intends taking any part in society, when might it not be required that she communicate? Forgive my bluntness, Mr. Jenkins, but I fear you have made a rare error of judgement, and one that I believe you will, in the passage of time, come to regret.”

Cai is about to protest when they are joined by Mrs. Jones carrying a tray of tea. There is a deal of fuss as the refreshments are placed on the table and everyone finds somewhere to sit. The corgis cause some alarm by attempting to alight on Bronwen’s lap. Cai sends the dogs out with the housekeeper. He catches Morgana’s eye and nods at the teapot. Somewhat thrown, she nonetheless succeeds in filling cups and passing them around. Mrs. Cadwaladr does not take her eyes from the new Mrs. Jenkins for an instant.

“Ah, what pretty china. It belonged to your first wife, I believe? Such a tragedy. Catrin was so lively, so charming. I always enjoyed her company. And her conversation.”

Siân and her sister stifle giggles. A frown settles on Morgana’s face. Cai is not sure why, but now he feels nervous of her. She is, he decides, unpredictable. And whilst he himself does not care for his visitor or her vacuous off spring, she has a certain standing in the community, and, experience has taught him, such people can, if provoked, cause trouble. He clears his throat, ignoring her comment, and assumes the most cheerful tone of voice he can muster.

“Morgana, our guest is the wife of Reverend Emrys Cadwaladr. He is very well known hereabouts. His ministry is avidly followed. You will hear him preach come Sunday when we travel up to Soar-y-Mynydd chapel.”

“Oh, you plan to take her out in company, Mr. Jenkins? Do you think that wise?” asks Mrs. Cadwaladr, her cup raised to her lips.

Cai feels the heat of anger rising within him and struggles to be civil.

“Naturally Morgana will attend chapel,” is all he trusts himself to say.

His visitor smiles much, much too sweetly. “Well, if you insist. I expect she will particularly enjoy the singing,” she says.

Cai cannot be certain, but thinking about it later he will believe he heard Morgana’s teeth grinding just an instant before Mrs. Cadwaladr is taken by a fit of sneezing. A fit so vigorous, that she loses her grip on the tea cup in her hand, causing it to upend and empty hot tea down her beribboned décolletage.

Also by Paula Brackston

The Witch’s Daughter

About the Author

PAULA BRACKSTON has a master’s degree in creative writing from Lancaster University in the UK. In 2007 she was shortlisted in the Crème de la Crime search for new writers. She lives in Wales with her family.

Visit her online at www.paulabrackston.com.

Author photograph courtesy of Red Dog Media

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

THE WITCHES OF THE BLUE WELL. Copyright © 2012 by Paula Brackston. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.thomasdunnebooks
www.stmartins.com

Cover design by Elsie Lyons

Cover photograph © Petr Malyshev/Shutterstock.com
eISBN 978-1-4668-3273-2

First Edition: December 2012