34
CHARMS
I TOUCHED A FINGER to the gleaming white surface, then rubbed my fingers together appraisingly.
“There is absolutely nothing greasier than goose grease,” I said with approval. I wiped my fingers on my apron and took up a large spoon.
“Nothing better for a nice pastry crust,” Mrs. Bug agreed. She stood on her tiptoes, watching jealously as I divided the soft white fat, ladling it from the kettle into two large stone crocks; one for the kitchen, one for my surgery.
“A nice venison pie we’ll have for Hogmanay,” she said, eyes narrowing as she envisioned the prospect. “And the haggis to follow, wi’ cullen skink, and a bit o’ corn crowdie . . . and a great raisin tart wi’ jam and clotted cream for sweeties!”
“Wonderful,” I murmured. My own immediate plans for the goose grease involved a salve of wild sarsaparilla and bittersweet for burns and abrasions, a mentholated ointment for stuffy noses and chest congestion, and something soothing and pleasantly scented for diaper rash—perhaps a lavender infusion, with the juice of crushed jewelweed leaves.
I glanced down in search of Jemmy; he had learned to crawl only a few days before, but was already capable of an astonishing rate of speed, particularly when no one was looking. He was sitting peaceably enough in the corner, though, gnawing intently at the wooden horse Jamie had carved for him as a Christmas present.
Catholic as many of them were—and nominally Christian as they all were—Highland Scots regarded Christmas primarily as a religious observance, rather than a major festive occasion. Lacking priest or minister, the day was spent much like a Sunday, though with a particularly lavish meal to mark the occasion, and the exchange of small gifts. My own gift from Jamie had been the wooden ladle I was presently using, its handle carved with the image of a mint leaf; I had given him a new shirt with a ruffle at the throat for ceremonial occasions, his old one having worn quite away at the seams.
With a certain amount of forethought, Mrs. Bug, Brianna, Marsali, Lizzie, and I had made up an enormous quantity of molasses toffee, which we had distributed as a Christmas treat to all the children within earshot. Whatever it might do to their teeth, it had the beneficial effect of gluing their mouths shut for long periods, and in consequence, the adults had enjoyed a peaceful Christmas. Even Germain had been reduced to a sort of tuneful gargle.
Hogmanay was a different kettle of fish, though. God knew what feverish pagan roots the Scottish New Year’s celebration sprang from, but there was a reason why I wanted to have a good lot of medicinal preparations made up in advance—the same reason Jamie was now up at the whisky spring, deciding which barrels were sufficiently aged as not to poison anyone.
The goose grease disposed of, there was a good bit of dark broth left in the bottom of the kettle, aswirl with bits of crackled skin and shreds of meat. I saw Mrs. Bug eyeing it, visions of gravy dancing in her brain.
“Half,” I said sternly, reaching for a large bottle.
She didn’t argue; merely shrugged her rounded shoulders and settled back on her stool in resignation.
“Whatever will ye do with that, though?” she asked curiously, watching as I put a square of muslin over the neck of the bottle, in order to strain the broth. “Grease, aye, it’s a wonder for the salves. And broth’s good for a body wi’ the ague or a wabbly wame, to be sure—but it willna keep, ye know.” One sketchy eyebrow lifted at me in warning, in case I hadn’t actually known that. “Leave it more than a day or two, and it’ll be blue with the mold.”
“Well, I do hope so,” I told her, ladling broth into the muslin square. “I’ve just set out a batch of bread to mold, and I want to see if it will grow on the broth, too.”
I could see assorted questions and responses flickering through her mind, all based on a growing fear that this mania of mine for rotten food was expanding, and would soon engulf the entire output of the kitchen. Her eyes darted toward the pie safe, then back at me, dark with suspicion.
I turned my head to hide a smile, and found Adso the kitten balanced on his hind legs on the bench, foreclaws anchored in the tabletop, his big green eyes watching the movements of the ladle with fascination.
“Oh, you want some, too?” I reached for a saucer from the shelf and filled it with a dark puddle of broth, savory with bits of goose meat and floating fat globules.
“This is from my half,” I assured Mrs. Bug, but she shook her head vigorously.
“Not a bit of it, Mrs. Fraser,” she said. “The bonnie wee laddie’s caught six mice in here in the past two days.” She beamed fondly at Adso, who had leaped down and was lapping broth as fast as his tiny pink tongue could move. “Yon cheetie’s welcome to anything he likes from my hearth.”
“Oh, has he? Splendid. He can come and have a go at the ones in my surgery, then.” We were presently entertaining a plague of mice; driven indoors by cold weather, they skittered along the baseboards like shadows after nightfall, and even in broad daylight, shot suddenly across floors and leaped out of opened cupboards, causing minor heart failure and broken dishes.
“Well, ye can scarcely blame the mice,” Mrs. Bug observed, darting a quick glance at me. “They go where the food is, after all.”
The pool of broth had nearly drained through the muslim, leaving a thick coating of flotsam behind. I scraped this off and dropped it on Adso’s saucer, then scooped up a fresh ladle of broth.
“Yes, they do,” I said, evenly. “And I’m sorry about it, but the mold is important. It’s medicine, and I—”
“Oh, aye! Of course it is,” she assured me hurriedly. “I ken that.” There was no tinge of sarcasm in her voice, which rather surprised me. She hesitated, then reached through the slit in her skirt, into the capacious pocket that she wore beneath.
“There was a man, as lived in Auchterlonie—where we had our hoose, Arch and me, in the village there. He was a carline, was Johnnie Howlat, and folk went wary near him—but they went. Some went by day, for grass cures and graiths, and some went by night, for to buy charms. Ye’ll ken the sort?” She darted another glance at me, and I nodded, a little uncertainly.
I knew the sort of person she meant; some Highland charmers dealt not only in remedies—the “graiths” she’d mentioned—but also in minor magic, selling lovephilters, fertility potions . . . ill wishes. Something cold slid down my back and vanished, leaving in its wake a faint feeling of unease, like the slime trail of a snail.
I swallowed, seeing in memory the small bunch of thorny plants, so carefully bound with red thread and with black. Placed beneath my pillow by a jealous girl named Laoghaire—purchased from a witch named Geillis Duncan. A witch like me.
Was that what Mrs. Bug was getting at? “Carline” was not a word I was certain of, though I thought it meant “witch,” or something like it. She was regarding me thoughtfully, her normal animation quite subdued.
“He was a filthy wee mannie, Johnnie Howlat was. He’d no woman to do for him, and his cot smelt of dreadful things. So did he.” She shivered suddenly, in spite of the fire at her back.
“Ye’d see him, sometimes, in the wood or on the moor, pokin’ at the ground. He’d find creatures that had died, maybe, and bring back their skins and their feet, bones and teeth for to make his charms. He wore a wretched auld smock, like a farmer, and sometimes ye’d see him comin’ doon the path wi’ something pooched up under his smock, and stains of blood—and other things—seepin’ through the cloth.”
“Sounds most unpleasant,” I said, eyes fixed on the bottle as I scraped the cloth again and ladled more broth. “But people went to him anyway?”
“There was no one else,” she said simply, and I looked up. Her dark eyes fixed unblinkingly on mine, and her hand moved slowly, fingering something inside her pocket.
“I didna ken at first,” she said. “For Johnnie kept mool from the graveyard and bone dust and hen’s blood and all manner of such things, but you”—she nodded thoughtfully at me, white kerch immaculate in the fire-glow—“ye’re a cleanly sort.”
“Thank you,” I said, both amused and touched. That was a high compliment from Mrs. Bug.
“Bar the moldy bread,” she added, the corners of her mouth primming slightly. “And that heathen wee pooch ye keep in your cabinet. But it’s true, no? Ye’re a charmer, like Johnnie was?”
I hesitated, not knowing what to say. The memory of Cranesmuir was vivid in my mind, as it had not been for many years. The last thing I wanted was for Mrs. Bug to be spreading the rumor that I was a carline—some already called me a conjure-woman. I was not worried about legal prosecution as a witch—not here, not now. But to have a reputation for healing was one thing; to have people come to me for help with the other things that charmers dealt in . . .
“Not exactly,” I said, guardedly. “It’s only that I know a bit about plants. And surgery. But I really don’t know anything at all about charms or . . . spells.”
She nodded in satisfaction, as though I had confirmed her suspicions instead of denying them.
Before I could respond, there was a sound from the floor like water hitting a hot pan, followed by a loud screech. Jemmy, tiring of his toy, had cast it aside and crawled over to investigate Adso’s saucer. The cat, disinclined to share, had hissed at the baby and frightened him. Jemmy’s shriek in turn had frightened Adso under the settle; only the tip of a small pink nose and a flicker of agitated whiskers showed from the shadows.
I picked Jem up and soothed his tears, while Mrs. Bug took over the broth-straining. She looked over the goose debris on the platter and picked out a leg bone, the white cartilage at the end smooth and gleaming.
“Here, laddie.” She waved it enticingly under Jemmy’s nose. He at once stopped crying, grabbed the bone, and put it in his mouth. Mrs. Bug selected a smaller wing bone, with shreds of meat still clinging to it, and put that down on the saucer.
“And that’s for you, lad,” she said to the darkness under the settle. “Dinna fill your wame too full, though—stay hungry for the wee moosies, aye?”
She turned back to the table, and began to scoop the bones into a shallow pan.
“I’ll roast these; they’ll do for soup,” she said, eyes on her work. Then without changing tone or looking up, she said, “I went to him once, Johnnie Howlat.”
“Did you?” I sat down, Jemmy on my knee. “Were you ill?”
“I wanted a child.”
I had no idea what to say; I sat still, listening to the drip of the broth through the muslin cloth, as she scraped the last bit of gristle neatly into the roasting pan, and carried it to the hearth.
“I’d slippit four, in the course of a year,” she said, back turned to me. “Ye’d not think it, to look at me now, but I was nay more than skin and bane, the color o’ whey, and my paps shrunk awa to nothing.”
She settled the pan firmly into the coals and covered it.
“So I took what money we had, and I went to Johnnie Howlat. He took the money, and put water in a pan. He sat me doon on the one side of it and him on the other, and there we sat for a verra long time, him starin’ into the water and me starin’ at him.
“At last, he shook himself a bit and got up, and went awa to the back of his cot. ’Twas dark, and I couldna see what he did, but he rummaged and poked, and said things beneath his breath, and finally he came back to me, and handed me a charm.”
Mrs. Bug straightened up and turned round. She came close, and laid her hand on Jemmy’s silky head, very gently.
“He said to me, Johnnie did, that here was a charm that would close up the mouth of my womb, and keep a babe safe inside, until it should be born. But there was a thing he’d seen, lookin’ in the water, and he must tell me. If I bore a live babe, then my husband would die, he said. So he would give me the charm, and the prayer that went with it—and then it was my choice, and who could say fairer than that?”
Her stubby, work-worn finger traced the curve of Jemmy’s cheek. Engaged with his new toy, he paid no attention.
“I carried that charm in my pocket for a month—and then I put it away.”
I reached up and put my hand over hers, squeezing. There was no sound but the baby’s slobbering and the hiss and pop of the bones in the coals. She stayed still for a moment, then drew her hand away, and put it back in her pocket. She drew out a small object, and put it on the table beside me.
“I couldna quite bring myself to throw it away,” she said, gazing down at it dispassionately. “It cost me three silver pennies, after all. And it’s a wee thing; easy enough to carry along when we left Scotland.”
It was a small chunk of stone, pale pink in color, and veined with gray, badly weathered. It had been crudely carved into the shape of a pregnant woman, little more than a huge belly, with swollen breasts and buttocks above a pair of stubby legs that tapered to nothing. I had seen such figures before—in museums. Had Johnnie Howlat made it himself? Or perhaps found it in his pokings through wood and moor, a remnant of much more ancient times?
I touched it gently, thinking that whatever Johnnie Howlat might have been, or might have seen in his pan of water, he had no doubt been astute enough to have seen the love between Arch and Murdina Bug. Was it easier for a woman, then, to forswear the hope of children, thinking it a noble sacrifice for the sake of a much-loved husband, than to suffer bitterness and self-blame for constant failure? Carline he may have been, Johnnie Howlat—but a charmer, indeed.
“So,” Mrs. Bug said, matter-of-factly, “it may be as ye’ll find some lass who’s a use for it. Shame to let it go to waste, aye?”