The Betrayal of Maggie Blair

Chapter 5

Ebenezer Macbean lived for another six weeks. All that time I watched the comings and goings from the Macbean farm with dread, but as the weeks passed and nothing happened, I began to feel hopeful that Granny had been wrong and that he would live after all.

Granny and I were out in the kail yard, binding sticks into the hedge to stop Blackie from breaking through. It was a wintry February day, the sky as gray as the heaving sea. Granny looked up to watch a skein of geese fly overhead.

"'Wild geese, wild geese, going to the hill,'" she muttered.

"The weather it will spill," I finished automatically in my head.

I looked in the direction they were flying, as I always did, to see if there were rain clouds in the sky and caught sight of a woman, her head uncovered, her hair flying wild, running down the lane toward us. Granny had seen her too.

"Here she comes, with trouble on her, but I won't pity her, for she'll bring that trouble to us, you'll see."

Jeanie Macbean's rage and grief were almost choking her as she reached our gate. She clung to it, her hand to her side, trying to get her breath.

"You wicked—you vile—murderous—witch!" she gasped. "You killed him. You killed my Ebenezer!"

"Now, Jeanie," Granny said, with unusual mildness. "You know that isn't true. I would never harm a child. Come inside. Sit down for a while."

"I—wouldn't cross—your threshold—to save my life!" Mrs. Macbean said, panting. "Why, Elspeth? Why did you do it? It was because of the christening, John said, because you weren't invited. I wanted you to come! I told him! He said you weren't to be asked, because of the respectable folk of Kingarth. But to kill the wee man just for that! To take his life!"

She began to sob, unable to go on, hitting at the gate with her fists.

"Jeanie," Granny said, sounding almost pleading. "Will you listen to me? It was I who brought that child into the world. Why would I harm him? I tried to charm away the evil from him at your hearth, but your man wouldn't let me. There was a sickness on him from the start—the blue on his lips and in his face. I've seen it before. I knew what it meant. I didn't say it to threaten you, but to warn you, Jeanie. That was all."

It was the nearest thing to an apology that I'd ever heard Granny make, and I breathed a sigh of relief, sure that it would convince Mrs. Macbean. She wanted to believe Granny, I could see it in her face, but then came a man's shout from up the lane. Mr. Macbean was running toward us, his face dark with rage.

"Get away from her, Jeanie! Don't go near her! The witch'll kill you too!"

I was learning more about Granny that day than I'd ever learned in my whole life, and now I saw, for the first time ever, that she was afraid. It set up an answering fear in me, turning my insides to water.

Say something soft, I silently urged her. Say you're sorry that Ebenezer died. Tell him what you told her. Tell him you didn't harm him.

But Granny took a deep breath and scowled. She would follow her own rule, I could see, and try to make her enemies fear her.

The look she turned on Macbean was as hard as a blow and cold enough to freeze the man's liver. He shuddered under her stare, turned pale, and put his arm around his wife's waist.

"Come home, Jeanie, before she puts the evil eye on you too. She's of the Devil, and it's the minister who'll deal with her."

"You see, Maggie?" Granny said triumphantly as we watched Mr. Macbean support his wife's tottering steps up the hill. "I made them fear us. Now they'll leave us alone."

But they won't, I thought. They won't.