‘Or knew from the start.’
‘But either way it wouldn’t make any difference; Gran couldn’t do anything except try to keep it secret too.’
‘That was the best way, the only way, in which she could protect your mother. I admit she did well, considering. I believe your mother and father met once a year.’
‘So, Marcus and my mother … they wanted to see each other … they arranged to meet, sent the kids to Gran’s … but the husband turned up unexpectedly … and Marcus killed him.’
Mary is nodding to each one of my statements.
‘But my mother killed herself because of the guilt …’ I sense Mary is shaking her head.
‘Because she couldn’t be with Marcus?’
Mary is still shaking her head.
I hold my gaze away from her, eventually saying what I have always known. ‘Because of me?’
Mary’s hand is on my arm and I turn to look at her pale eyes, watery with age. ‘Not in the way you think.’
‘How many ways can there be?’
‘I suspect she hoped that you would look like her, like her other children. You didn’t. It was clear once you were born that your father was Marcus.’
So it was because of me.
Mary pushes me on. ‘What would the Council want your mother to do?’
I remember Jessica’s story and the card she said had been sent to Mother. I say, ‘Kill me.’
‘No. I don’t think the Council has ever wanted that. But your mother was a White Witch; she loved a Black Witch and had his child. And, because of her relationship, her husband – a White Witch, a member of the Council – was killed.’
The truth leaves me hollow. They would want her to kill herself. They made her do it.
two weapons
The next morning Mary makes porridge. She sucks hers up slowly, making disgusting noises. I haven’t slept and the slurping sets me on edge.
Between spoonfuls she says, ‘Your gran has done the best she can with you.’
I scowl at her. ‘My gran has lied to me.’
‘When?’
‘When she didn’t tell me that she had met Marcus, that she knew Marcus. When she didn’t deny that my mother was attacked by him. When she didn’t tell me that the Council was responsible for my mother’s death.’
Mary pokes me with her spoon. ‘If the Council ever found out where I was and what I’d helped you discover, what do you think they’d do to me?’
I look away.
‘Well?’
‘Are you trying to tell me that they would have killed Gran?’
‘And will do.’
I know she’s right, of course, but that doesn’t make me feel any better.
Mary gives me a string of chores to ‘help me get out of my morning grouchiness’.
As she supervises my scraping out of the chicken-house, I say, ‘Gran told me that you left the Council in disgrace.’
‘Well, I suppose that’s one way of describing it.’
‘How would you describe it?’
‘A lucky escape. Finish that and close it all back up. Then make some tea and I’ll tell you.’
I boil water on the stove in the cottage and Mary sits outside in the sun. When I bring the tea she pats the grass beside her. We lean back against the wall of the cottage.
‘Remember, Nathan, the Council is dangerous. They will not allow anyone to show the slightest weakness towards Black Witches. I was foolish enough to once voice a concern I had. I worked as a secretary for the Council. My job was to keep the records. They have many files and I kept them well, but one day when I was tidying up I had a few minutes of free time and I decided to read one. It described the Retribution delivered to a Black Witch. It was horrific.
‘I stupidly told one of the Council members that the Retribution was terrible. This was not a problem. Retribution is terrible, it’s supposed to be, and if I had stopped there nothing would have happened. But I didn’t. It bothered me greatly. I couldn’t sleep. I had always known about Retribution but somehow I hadn’t realized how much suffering was inflicted. A month of torture before they let the witch die. I worked for the Council because I believed White Witches were good, superior, and I was now faced with the fact that they were as bad as Black Witches, as bad as fains, as bad as them all.
‘There was a Black Witch in the cells and I knew what they would be doing to him.
‘It was stupid to even try to help him. He would never be able to escape. But I was full of righteous anger. And so I did what I could.
‘I pretended that I was mad with hate at the Black Witch. He had killed the family of one of the Council members so it wasn’t hard, though in truth they were a stuck-up snotty bunch who always treated me like muck.’