Witch from the Sea

I was almost lulled to a sense of security, but not quite, for as soon as I retired for the night and was alone in my room I would begin to wonder what was in store for me and I would remember glances which I had—or imagined I had—intercepted between Colum and Maria. The excitement of Christmas could not dispel the suspicions that they were lovers. I think perhaps at the heart of my fears was the fact that Colum should seek to hide this from me. I was sure he had hidden nothing from Melanie. Why should he attempt to delude me if he no longer cared for my feelings? Was it because he realized this passion for Maria was a fleeting thing? Did he fear that she would disappear again as she had once before?

No sooner had I got into my bed than the fears would descend on me. I could only sleep fitfully. It was as though my instincts would not let me, as though they were warning me that it would be dangerous to do so.

There was one night about a week before Christmas when these fears seemed stronger than ever. I tossed and turned in my bed and it must have been soon after midnight when I could stay there no longer. I got out of bed, wrapped a gown about me and sat at the window.

What thoughts came back to me then as I looked down on the sea, calm as a lake, with a shaft of moonlight making a path on the waters! I could see the Devil’s Teeth just protruding for it was going to be a high tide. The gentle swish of the waves soothed me and I began to nod.

Then suddenly I was awake. I felt a tingling down my spine, that previously experienced raising of my hair on my scalp. I gave a little cry for there had been a sound in the room, and in my half sleeping state I believed that the door had opened and someone had looked at the bed and then at me. I was sure I heard a click as the door closed.

As before I ran to the door. There was no one there. It was a bad dream. But I was trembling. I could not go back to bed. I was afraid that if I did so, frightened as I was, I should sleep. Something warned me. I must not sleep. Twice I had thought someone had meant to enter my room. The first time I had called out and whoever it was had not entered. The second that person had entered and seen me at the window. If I had been sound asleep … what then?

I was haggard in the morning. I had scarcely slept all night.

Tamsyn looked at me with anxious eyes. “Are you well, Mother? You look not well.”

I said: “I did not sleep well. I had a bad dream, I think.”

She nodded gravely.

That evening Jennet came up with a posset.

“The master said you were to have it, Mistress.”

“Why?” I demanded.

“He said he thought you were doing too much for the Christmas preparations and had got tired. He said he was worried about your health and if you did not improve he was going to call the physician.”

That lifted my spirits somewhat. So I did care about him. If he were to me as he had been in the beginning, I thought, I could be so too, in spite of everything.

I thought of that other beverage which had been prepared for me, the one which had made me lose my senses on that very first night in the castle.

I said to Jennet in sudden alarm. “Did he make the posset?”

“Oh no, Mistress. He bid me make it.”

“Then you know what’s in it.”

“Surely I do, mistress. ’Tis the posset I make always when the children have their ailments. I have the herbs by me, dried they be and all in their sweet-smelling jars as I did learn from your mother as learned from hers. This be a good one if you are feeling out of sorts. There be goose grass to sweeten the blood and a sprig of woodruff for the liver, for ’tis very often the liver as will affect your poorly.”

“Give it to me, Jennet,” I said. “I will drink it and tomorrow you will see me brimming over with health.”

So I drank the posset and indeed it did soothe me to such an extent that when I lay on my pillow I was almost immediately fast asleep.

I awoke startled. Someone was in my room, standing at my bedside. I felt as though a thousand ants were crawling over my skin. I could not see very clearly. The moonlight must have been obscured by dark clouds. Hands were reaching out. I was caught and held.

“No,” I screamed.

Then a soothing voice said: “It is all right, Mother.”

“Tamsyn.”

She was laughing as she clambered into my bed.

I held her tightly against me. “Dearest Tamsyn.”

“I frightened you,” she said.

“I must have been dreaming.”

“I should have awakened you gently. How you shiver!”

“It was waking suddenly. Why did you come, Tamsyn?”

“I was worried about you. I couldn’t sleep. You looked so tired yesterday. Not like yourself at all. Then I thought, I will go and be with her. She may need me. And without thinking very much I came.”

“Oh Tamsyn, it makes me so happy to have you with me.”

“Do you feel comforted then because I am here?”

“Greatly so.”

“I shall stay with you.”

“Yes, do. I feel so happy to have you with me.”

She clung to me.

“You feel better with me here?”

“I feel so happy, Tamsyn. So much better already.”