Witch from the Sea

It was Hallowe’en again, the night when witches rode on their broomsticks to their covens where they worshipped the Devil in the form of the Horned Goat.

The day was misty and so typical of October in our part of the world—warmish and everything one touched was damp.

Because it was Hallowe’en the servants were talking. I wondered if any of them remembered Maria. It was seven years to the day since she had gone and Senara was nearly eight years old. It was a long time to remember.

But Jennet must have talked to the children of witches, for when I went to the nursery Senara was asking questions and Tamsyn was answering them and she could only be repeating what she had heard through Jennet.

“They go to covens,” Tamsyn was saying.

“What are covens?” asked Senara.

“That’s where they meet. They fly there on broomsticks and there is their master, the Devil. Sometimes he’s a big black cat and sometimes he’s a goat. He’s ever so big … bigger than anybody has ever been, and they dance.”

“I want to go,” said Senara.

Connell said: “If you go you’re a witch. Then we’ll catch you and tie you to your familiar and throw you in the sea.”

“What familiar?”

“It’s a cat perhaps.”

“Could it be a dog?”

“Yes, a dog,” cried Connell, “anything. Sometimes it’s a mouse or a rat or a beetle … or a horse. It’s anything.”

“It could be Nonna,” said Senara. Nonna was her own special puppy whom she had named after the Tower. Her eyes were round. “Perhaps Nonna’s my familiar.”

“You can’t have one,” said Tamsyn protectively. “If you did they’d say you were a witch.”

“And we’d take you out and hang you on a gibbet,” cried Connell with relish—his father’s son.

“He wouldn’t,” said Tamsyn protectively. “I wouldn’t let him.”

“I’d hang him instead,” said Senara.

“I’d like to see you try.”

Connell had Senara by the hair. She kicked him. It was time for me to intervene. In fact I did not know why I had allowed the conversation to go on so long.

“That’s enough,” I said. “You are all talking nonsense. Nobody is going to be hanged by anybody and there are no witches here.”

“Jennet said …” began Tamsyn.

“And I say we do not listen to stories of uneducated servants. Let them have their witches if they will. We are not to be deluded.”

Then I made them take out their books and we read from Sir Thomas More’s Utopia, which was far removed from the distasteful subject of witchcraft.

That night Maria came back.

Colum and I were supping together in the winter parlour. It was a rather silent meal as our meals had become. He made no effort to converse. Sometimes he would eat and leave me at the table.

I think that even he accepted the fact that after the death of Fennimore there was an insurmountable barrier between us. I could sense a tension mounting; I wondered whether he could or whether he cared. He did not always share the bedchamber; he had been away from home for several nights, presumably arranging for the disposal of the cargo salvaged from the Landor Lion, but on those occasions when he came to me, I sensed it was to let me know that he would still claim his rights. It was like staking a claim, an assurance of a right of way, I thought cynically. I hated those encounters yet I still found excitement in them and there was a sense of disappointment when he was not with me.

This was the state of affairs on that night.

She must have walked straight into the castle for she came and stood in the room.

For the moment I thought I was seeing the ghost again. Then she spoke.

“I have come back,” she said.

Colum stared at her—as I did.

“Come back,” cried Colum. “Good God. Maria!”

“Yes,” she said. “I come back. I live here again.”

“But …” began Colum.

I stood up. I could feel myself trembling. “Where have you been?” I demanded. “Why have you come back?”

“It is nothing to you where I been,” she said, in her halting English. “It matters not. I am back.”

“You think you can just walk in …” said Colum.

“I think yes. You took my ship … You kill my friends. You owe me home. I stay. Do not try to turn me away. If you do … you will be sorry. You owe me this. I take.”

I said: “This cannot be.”

“Yes,” she answered, “it can.” She was looking straight at Colum.

She was more beautiful than I remembered. She wore a velvet cloak with a hood which fell back to show her shining dark hair which was piled high on her head. Her dark eyes were long, and smiling serenely. There was something unearthly about her. I am dreaming, I thought. This cannot really be Maria.

“I go to my room, my Red Room,” she said.

“You cannot stay here,” I began.

She ignored me and turned to Colum. “My belongings will come soon,” she said. “I stay here for a while.”

Then she left us.

I stared at Colum. “What does this mean? She has gone to the Red Room. This can’t be true. Where has she come from?”

“She will stay here,” he said.

“It is the price you must pay for murdering her people,” I said, “is that it?”

“Say what you will,” he answered. “She shall stay.”

Then he left me there.