With nothing else to do or say, Gifford watched as those old hands chopped with generations of experience.
“You want to know about the Tetlin Witch, so I’ll tell you. There was a terrible plague, a horrible sickness,” Padera said, her head down, focusing on her work. “Killed thousands. Wiped out whole communities. One woman, who had learned the art of herbs and roots from her mother, who had learned it from her mother before her, stretching all the way back to the Old Country—the one beyond the sea—discovered how to combat the illness. Only she wasn’t a chieftain, or a man, or even a mother. She had no standing in the community, and no one listened. No one trusted her. The plague came and killed everyone in the village of Tetlin—everyone but her. She went to other villages and tried to tell them how to survive. They didn’t listen, either, and each village she visited was wiped out by the plague shortly after her arrival. People got it into their heads that she wasn’t trying to stop the sickness; that, instead, she was causing it. She was a witch, they said. They hung her in a forest where she went to hide.”
She sadly shook her head. “That, boy, is the real story of the Tetlin Witch. Not as spectacular as the others you’ve no doubt heard over cups in the lodge. And of course, the story didn’t end there because the Tetlin Witch wasn’t the only woman with a mind, with knowledge and skills. Women who refused to fit in, who didn’t act the way others thought they should, who embarrassed those in power with their wisdom or knowledge, they, too, were declared to be the Tetlin Witch. And we all know that the Tetlin Witch is evil. In some cases, these unfortunate women were merely driven away, but some—like that original wise woman from a little village named Tetlin—were killed. A lot of women have suffered—still suffer—for the crime of knowing what others don’t, or doing what others can’t. Turns out the Tetlin Witch is everywhere, and she—in all her forms—is the real plague.”
Padera finished the last of her mushrooms and, scooping them into her hand, she looked at him with both eyes. “So, yes, Gifford, I am the Tetlin Witch, and the same goes for Reanna, Roan, Moya, Brin, Persephone, and Suri. Not to mention a great many more. So call the mobs to kill me or leave me alone. I don’t have time for your foolishness.”
* * *
—
Gifford lived in Hopeless House at the end of the stone alley across the square from Roan’s cottage—the one she was supposed to share with Brin and Padera, but rarely visited. The name Hopeless House came from the fact that Gifford, Habet, Mathias, and Gelston lived there. The Cripple, the Slow, the Old, and the Unlucky all tucked neatly under one roof. Gifford was the one who named it, learning from experience it was better to stay out ahead of ridicule, to choose his own insults rather than leave it to others. Not that he thought people would choose worse, but if left to the public, then the mockery became one more thing done to him. This way, they could still laugh, but it was his joke.
He found Tressa sitting on the porch steps when he came up the alley.
She was an unofficial member of Hopeless House. The only reason Tressa wasn’t bunking with them was because she was a woman. Otherwise she’d fit right into their league of misery. Her unofficial Hopeless House title would have been the Hated.
“How’s he doing?” Gifford asked.
Tressa had a ceramic jug on her lap, hugging it to her chest. Her hair was a mess of snarls, and the sleeves on her dress were decorated with dingy brown stains. She looked up with a pair of sour lips that seemed a bit like Padera’s, only with teeth behind them.
“I don’t know,” she said. Her voice had become raspy, just as worn as the rest of her. “Some days he seems better, you know? The old bastard gets my hopes up, and then the next day…” She spat between her feet. Tressa was a good spitter, better than Gifford. It was one of the things he admired about her. Gifford made a practice of finding something to admire about everyone. Not terribly hard, since for him the ability to stand straight was a source of awe.
“I take it this is…the next day?”
She looked over the top of the jug at him with a smirk. “Old bastard didn’t even know who I was. Just stared at me.”