The Tangled Forest Read online

  I watched for the first time as my mother accepted the hand of a broad-shouldered man. He swept her halfway across town before his wife slapped his face and forced him to abandon her. I was about to go to her rescue when the skinner took her arm and she was saved.

  “That is why I do not like festivals,” a voice came.

  The woodcutter’s son settled himself on a bail of straw beside me. He wore scarlet stockings tied with black ribbon, and a matching diamond doublet. He had exchanged his bycocket for a soft red cap worn at an angle, which made him look older than before.

  I asked him what he meant.

  “That is my father,” he replied, motioning to the man who had first danced with my mother. “He sweeps women off their feet with no regard for my old lady. The more he drinks, the less he thinks.”

  Looking again at the man across the square, I could see why women would dance with him. He was twice as tall and twice as broad as his son. His features were as fine, but rougher. There was a well-groomed moustache above his lip, and thick coils of golden hair down his back. He was dressed in rich green fabric, which stretched tight across his chest.

  I did not dare tell my friend that the woman his father swept from her feet was my mother, for I thought perhaps he knew.

  The woodcutter’s wife stood beside her husband, pinch-faced with a permanent pout. She was dark haired and dark eyed. I saw nothing of her in her son.

  “If you hate festivals, why have you come?” I asked.

  “Because I knew you would be here.” He reached out a hand and placed it over mine. “Would you care to dance?”

  I allowed him to lead me to the centre of the square, so close to the minstrels’ music that I felt myself cradled by it.

  We crossed our arms and stepped together. He raised his arm and I walked beneath. He placed his hand about my waist and we hopped beside the hot coals until I had to take off my cloak. We quenched our thirst with mead and repeated the dance until the music slowed.

  “I should find my mother,” I told him.

  “You would leave me now, as the soft strings play?”

  “This is a dance for couples,” I replied.

  “I would be your robin. Would you not be my wren?”

  Before I could reply, he held me again and we began to move, closer than before, my feet less sure of these foreign steps. His nearness brought a weakness to my stomach like water. I felt myself wet between the legs and it embarrassed me.

  “Now, who is this fine girl?” his father said, interrupting our dance.

  “This is the daughter of the lady who lives on the ledge,” my friend replied, stepping back but not entirely letting go of my hand.

  “You look like your mother,” the woodcutter replied.

  He asked me my name and I told it.

  “Have you seen my mother?” I asked.

  “I’d be blind if I hadn’t.”

  “No, I mean, here, tonight? I thought she was dancing with the skinner, but I see him over there, alone.”

  The woodcutter’s jaw flexed as he glanced over his shoulder. “She probably couldn’t stand the sight of him. Have you seen the boil on his nose?” I did not know how to respond, for I had always thought of the skinner as a friend and never stopped to consider his physical merits. “No matter, I’m sure you will find her soon. Good work, my son,” the woodcutter said, patting his boy on the back as he left.

  “I should go to my grandmother’s,” I told him. “I am tired and need to rest.”

  “You would abandon me here, to dance by myself?”

  “You can come if you like.”

  “I will stay.”

  I said goodbye then, and went in search of my mother. When I reached Grandmother’s house, she was sitting outside, watching the fires from afar, a bottle of sloe gin to her lips. She greeted me with a pink-toothed smile.

  “Is my mother here?” I asked.

  “No. I expect she’ll roll in with the sunrise.”

  I yawned and went to bed, my head still swaying to the sound of those strings.

  *

  My mother had not returned by morning, so I ate the sausages and sourdough my grandmother placed before me, then packed up my basket and walked home through the woods. I hummed to myself and swung the basket, my happy heart still dancing with the woodcutter’s son.

  Halfway home, I heard a twig crack. I turned, thinking there were footfalls, but I had been mistaken. Perhaps it was a dear or a fox.

  When I reached the door, I could smell fresh-baked scones. My mother was laying them out on a tray to cool. Although I was already full, they looked so good that I could not help reaching for one.

  “Ask before you take something,” my mother scolded, slapping my hand away.

  I drew back, for she never spoke so.

  That is when I noticed the cut on her brow. A bruise the colour of storm clouds hung at the corner of her temple, a slice of red running through it.

  “Mother, what happened?” I asked, suddenly aware of the way she was clattering through the cupboards and sieving sugar across the scones as though shaking snow from the sky.

  “It’s nothing,” she replied, relenting and placing a scone on a plate for me.

  “Does it hurt?” I went to look closer, but she turned to wash the batter bowl.

  “No. It was my own stupid fault. I was tired from dancing, and wanted to come home. The moon was behind a cloud and I walked off the path. Caught by a low branch.”

  The treat melted on my tongue, though it did not taste as sweet as it should.

  “Mother, you know that path as well as your own name—”

  “We all make mistakes,” she snapped. “We all walk the wrong way once in a while.”

  I dipped a spoon in the clotted cream.

  “Would you at least let me tend to it?”

  “I will tend to it myself. It is only a scratch.”

  I would have believed my mother easier, if it were not for the five red fingermarks at the base of her neck.

  *

  That evening, I stood at the very edge, staring over the town. Lamps flickered and winked in the windows, but I did not wink back. Somewhere down there, amongst the thatch and the stacks, somewhere between the hay barn and the hogsty, was a person who had done us harm.

  I had never looked upon the town this way before, with suspicion. All my life this view looked out upon a valley of friends. The baker, farrier, chandler, seamstress and skinner. Had it been one of them?

  My mother knew her way in the dark. The Soul Singers would not have put a scratch on her. What had been done, had been done at the hands of another. Yet she would not speak of it, and I knew better than to press.

  I felt sure that time would reveal the culprit, and when that time came, I would not be forgiving. Yet, once upon a time, I had also been sure of seeing my friend again, and I never had. So what were my certainties worth?

  In the chill of late afternoon, I walked down to the brook. I paused to lay a wildflower at the base of the twisted crabapple. I was sorry for losing my temper with it. I had made my vow, and I had somehow broken it. The tree was merely an innocent witness and had played no part. I kissed its rough bark, and climbed a few branches to sit swinging my legs whilst I ate an apple. We were friends again, this tree and I.

  By the brook, I bent to scoop water to my lips, smiling at my fragmented reflection as droplets fell against my face. It was whilst I was kneeling there, mesmerised by my merging eyes and nose, that I felt as though I was not alone.

  “Hello?” I asked the silent trees.

  Rising to my feet, I turned, seeking out shadows as tall as strangers.

  “Hello. Is someone there?”

  A robin called back from a holly bush, so shrill it caused me to jump.

  “Oh, it’s only you Mr Red Breast,” I said, relieved.

  Though my relief rang false. There was someone else watching me from those woods, I felt sure of it.

  “We meet again.” His voice caused me to s
hriek. “I rather hoped you might be a little more pleased to see me,” the woodcutter’s son said with a smile.

  I held my hand against my pounding chest as I laughed.

  “You scared me!”

  “I can see.”

  “How long have you been there?” I asked, wondering whether his were the eyes I had felt.

  “I’ve only just arrived. There is a tree my father wants me to cut. I need to measure it.”

  He went to the water’s edge and bent to drink. Whilst he did this, I searched the trees once more, but I no longer felt the presence of another. Perhaps I had imagined it all along.

  “What are your plans for the day?” he asked.

  “There is someone I need to see,” I told him, though I hadn’t been sure before that moment.

  “The Woman in the Woods again?”

  I nodded, and was surprised when he shook his head and sighed.

  “You really should stay away from her,” he said. “You don’t want the townsfolk to know you visit. It will not do well for your reputation.”

  “My reputation?”

  “You are a sweet girl, and pretty. Everyone knows it. But women who visit that woman, they are tainted.”

  “Tainted by what?”

  “Impurity and immoral thoughts. I told you, she is a witch.”

  Until that moment, I had never thought of myself as pure and moral. I was simply a girl. Did it matter what people thought of me?

  “I promise I will not become wicked,” I said, laughing.

  “I would not care if you were,” he replied, coming close. “Though others might.”

  He leaned in, and for the second time I tasted the dry desire on his lips.

  This time, our tongues touched. I parted my own lips wider that he might invite himself inside. He tasted of cloves and peppermint tea. I wished I knew how I tasted to him. As we kissed, his hand travelled beneath my cloak to clutch at my skirt, bunching it in his fist and riding it higher, to my hip.

  “Please,” I whispered, my breath coming fast. “Please, let me go.”

  “Never,” he said, his own breath hot against my ear.

  It sent shivers through me, and I clung to his coat, not truly wishing him to let me leave.

  He kissed me again, harder and deeper.

  “I must go,” I said, pushing away.

  It was true. I had to leave right that minute, otherwise I was afraid of what I might do.

  He ran the back of his hand across his lips and grinned. His expression was full of entitlement. He owned me and we both knew it. I loved the look in his eyes, even as I dissolved in shame.

  “If my mother knew,” I began.

  “I won’t tell her, not yet.”

  I said goodbye from a distance, unwilling to come within arm’s reach again.

  “Return to me soon,” he called, as I walked away.

  By the time I reached the mighty oak, my thoughts had returned to my mother. That red scar on her pretty pale face, and the lie she had felt she must tell me. I wondered whether my mother had ever lied to me before, and realised she had.

  When I reached the cottage, the Woman in the Woods was outside, scraping rabbit hide on a wooden frame. With a blunt knife she peeled flesh from skin, a pile of debris collecting on a strip of bark by her feet.

  She glanced at me as she worked, but said nothing.

  “Someone has hurt my mother,” I told her.

  “Does she need medicine?”

  “No.”

  “Can she walk?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then she can come here herself.”

  I stood for a moment, unsure what to say.

  “The people in the town think you’re a witch.”

  “I am what I am,” she replied.

  “Then you can see the future,” I hesitated, “and the past?”

  “You want to know who did it, ask her.”

  “I have, and she won’t reply.”

  “Then that is your answer, and I can give no other.”

  “I want to protect her.”

  “She is a grown woman. She can protect herself.”

  “Have you never loved anyone?” I asked.

  She lowered her knife, studying her work, then looked at me.

  “How badly is she hurt?”

  “A bruise and a cut.”

  She placed the blade along the bottom of the frame and wiped her hands on her apron.

  “I will give you a salve to help her heal,” she said.

  I followed her into the house.

  Whilst she went to her shelves and began to root through, I bent to study the books propping up the table: Ars Notoria, Lemegeton, Arbatel de Magia Veterum, Baking with Magical Herbs. Each of them looked as though they had been read a thousand times.

  “Here,” she said, coming to the table and placing a small, wooden coin down. It rested easily in the palm of my hand, and when I unscrewed the top, I found it to contain pungent grease the colour of earwax.

  “What is in it?” I asked.

  “Calendula, Comfrey, Wild Baby’s Breath, Nosebleed and Myrrh.”

  “Will this be enough?”

  “Plenty. It is extremely potent.”

  “Thank you,” I said, surprised at her kindness.

  As I turned to leave, she called me back.

  “I do not run an alms house.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” I said. “What do I owe?”

  “Silver will do.”

  “I have only copper.”

  “How about your cloak?”

  “My cloak is worth a great deal more than your salve.”

  “Is it of as much use to your mother?”

  I could not think what to say. My cloak was worth ten pieces of silver, the salve only one at most, yet my mother was worth a hundred gold coins and more. Even so, I dearly did not want to part with my cloak. My grandmother would never forgive me.

  The woman watched my confusion and smiled.

  “Very well, I will accept your copper, and you can work off the rest cleaning my house.”

  I emptied my purse onto the table.

  “When should I come?” I asked.

  “Overmorrow, at daybreak.”

  As I walked home through the woods, I was angry. I felt as though I had made a bargain unfairly, but it was too late to take back. The weak winter sun shone through the trees, and a chaffinch sang sweetly from the bare branches of a birch. The further I walked, the better I felt, turning the wooden coin over in my hand, thinking on how it might help my mother.

  A twig cracked somewhere nearby and I stopped.

  Once again I felt that I was being watched.

  “Who’s there?” I called, turning yet seeing no one. “Show yourself.”

  When nobody stepped forward, I continued walking.

  6

  The salve soothed my mother’s cut like nothing I could have imagined. Overnight her bruise turned from blue to yellow. The split of her skin knitted together until only a silver seam remained.

  “Thank you, daughter,” my mother said, allowing me to apply a little more when she woke. “Wherever did you find this?”

  “A travelling man in town. He had all sorts of lotions and potions.”

  It did not feel good to lie to my mother, but I knew that she would not approve if I told her the truth.

  The next day, I woke with the first rays of light. I washed hastily in cold water and pulled on my ragged green housedress. I covered my shoulders with two shawls, unwilling to wear my cloak in case the witch once again asked me to part with it.

  Shivering through the early morning mist, I made my way back to the cottage. The witch was waiting for me in the doorway, a broom in her hand.

  “I wondered whether you would come,” she said.

  “Why would I not?”

  “Some people in the town are not so clever. When they cannot pay in full, they feel ashamed and prefer to run off with my medicine rather than return to settle the debt. Of course, that onl
y works until the next time they get sick, or their child runs a fever, or their wife needs a ridding. Then, of course, they have to brave me, tail between their legs like a disobedient cur, begging my help once again.”

  “Do you give it?”

  She shrugged, and I took this to mean yes.

  “Take this,” she said, pushing the broom into my hands. “I must go to collect herbs today. Whilst I am away, I want you to clean out the fire pit. Put the ashes in the buckets behind the house, I’ll use them on the garden. Sweep the floor, then scrub it. Move anything you need to move, but put it back in exactly the same place. Trim the honeysuckle about the door, it’s starting to get in my way. Scour the step, reset the fire, and feed Proudfoot dried fish from the pantry.”

  “Proudfoot?”

  “My cat.”

  “Is there anything else?” I asked, already afraid I might forget something.

  “Yes. Take the kitchen cloths, boil them above the new fire, and place them over the wall to dry. I’ll bring them in myself if you’re gone when I get back.”

  “When should I go?”

  “When you have finished, of course.”

  She looked at me as though I was slightly stupid, then went inside to collect her shawl and satchel.

  After she left, I took in my surroundings, finally accepting the truth of my task. The cottage was a carriage wreck. There were books and logs and even plates strewn about the floor. The fire had almost burnt out, reduced to a mountain of ash as high as my knee. There were cobwebs in the corners and cat hair coating the chairs.

  Once again, I began to feel cheated. The copper I had paid was not far off a silver, and though a village girl might get only a couple of coppers for a day’s cleaning, I couldn’t help feeling the effort involved was worth so much more. Still, the salve had healed my mother’s wounds, and I had a debt to pay.

  By noon I was on my hands and knees, scraping a brittle brush back and forth across the slate. I’d taken out the ash first, so that I didn’t scatter it over the nice clean tiles. I had to work in stages. I worried that if I picked everything off the floor, I wouldn’t remember exactly where to put it back, so I moved a few books at a time, a couple of plates, a cat.