H C Turk, page 33
We began walking at once. Marybelle, stepping stiffly with long, certain strides, first moved to a brick post supporting the fence of Rathel's neighbor where criminals of failed killing had previously hidden. From this niche she gained her own luggage, more of a handled sack for potatoes than my embroidery and brocade finery. Then she wordlessly continued, and I followed. I followed, but expected that door behind to open, expected Elsie to look or call out, but she did not. Wise Miss Elsie knew again what was best for her Alba. So did Marybelle, for she had summoned a brown carriage, instructing the driver to take us to an unfamiliar address. Then she provided the coachman with coin. And away.
"You have funds?" I asked her.
"From stealing the sinners' belongings. Long have I prepared this leaving with you, but felt it best not to burden you with knowledge of me, lest you or I become like Lucinda."
"You know this person?" I immediately returned.
"Not enough. This one was too thickly in London to save. God grant her the rest she could not gain alive. Was it with her you made like preparations?"
"Yes, but the Rathel and my sex had me fail."
"You have been killing sinners with this sex?"
"Only one, and only thereafter did I understand it was I who had killed him. God forgive me, but I did not know."
"Concern yourself not with God's forgiving you for your ignorance. He is the greatest Lord, not a superior person, and understands us better than we. When you begin killing from desire, then beg for God to understand, though He shall not."
"I wonder, however, why I was not told of this sexual characteristic by my superiors on Man's Isle."
"Perhaps because those witches were disrupted before the time of your learning. Perhaps because we failed you by not teaching you sooner. So know ye the remainder of your sex, Alba, that if you will be having with men, use any way but your child passage. Your purpose with any sexing remains with you and God, but the sinner will survive your hand and anus."
Managing not to say, "And mouth," I instead returned to a significant subject.
"We travel where with your coin?"
"Wales is our goal as an end, though we begin by leaving
London."
"Not to Man's Isle?"
"That place is become too small for both witches and sinners. The sinners have little interest in Wales near the mountains, which is not near us, but not across a sea. I crossed the Irish Sea twice, once fully on a sinners' boat, and before that part way, but walking. But that is done and now we are away from the tale."
Despite the veil obscuring her visage, from this witch I could sense the memory of an illness whose influence remained; and healed enough was my nose to smell her pain.
"Wales was the locale of my arrangements with a Mr. Wroth, of which Rathel became aware," I informed Marybelle. "The town's name I cannot pronounce, likely not recognize, but the Rathel would. The village is that in Wales nearest London, due west. If we journey to the same place, are we not to fear being followed?"
"I spoke with this Wroth. I learned of the same village, but more, that it is built on the edge of a path through the mountains, and thus traveled by sinners. We go farther south."
"But where do we go that we are not gained? Being aware of Mortwaite as a rare provider of extended land conveyance, Rathel via the magistrate will have any recent departure followed by horses bearing only men. We would thus be gained despite an advanced exit of hours."
"We would, but shall not, in that I have not hired Mortwaite," Marybelle replied. "I knew better upon learning of a person with your face and an aunt, of wild land sought, of your promising Lucinda a way to the wilds. But our travel to Wales is only the end. We begin by going to Bournchester. That is another of the sinners' great villages. But people often travel to and from these cities. The Lady Rathel and all of England's magistrates cannot seek every route in England for us if she knows not our destination."
"What business is arranged for us in this second city?"
"None yet, for I've never been there. But our travel is simple: We continue toward Wales, but not where we might be expected. True, someone seeing us leave the sinner Rathel's home could follow us, but I sense none. So inform me if any should be expected. Has your favorite servant run to the constables and directed English law behind us?"
"She has not and shall not. None from Rathel's household would so actively attack except the Rathel, and she was not present in her home. As per your planning."
"Help correct me if I lead us wrongly, Alba, for we are together and will suffer together if found. Though our way to Wales is longer than Mortwaite's, it yet is safer, I believe. As long as we are in the cities, we are lost amongst the sinners."
"No better thinking have I, Marybelle, and would praise God for my wisdom if I could contemplate so completely. Since I remain average, I will praise Him for a superior idea, that glorious notion of your survival. No fact could fulfill me more than your remaining on this world instead of being lost as were too many sisters."
"Praise Him for all life, Alba, for even sinners deserve the breath He gave them. And none deserves a life more than you. Thank God for the idea that is Alba."
How appropriately unemotional was all this praising of life, for Marybelle's life remained unbelievable to me. But praise God I did for the opportunity to accept her living, and thereby reject her previous visitations in distressing dreams of guilt.
Odd this carriage was to leave us with another. After a lengthy ride through those dense, connected villages comprising London, we arrived at a vehicular agency dissimilar to Wroth's, these small stables neat as chalets, the one coach seen more akin to Rathel's furniture than Mortwaite's rolling sheds. Nearby this vehicle we halted to exit. Requiring four horses for pulling, the massive box was tall with a folding step for entry, its roof purposeful and flat, supportive of luggage.
Marybelle took her sack and bid me follow, moving to a tall man standing near the great coach. Though he looked to Marybelle, she was unrecognized due to her veil. Therefore, the witch introduced herself.
"Here, sir, I am, Madam Belle and her charge of whom I
told you. Prepared we are to depart for Bournchester."
Then the sinner scolded her.
"Schedule, schedule, schedule," he intoned as though singing, looking down to Marybelle from his giraffe-like height. "A business of moving folk runs not on wheels but on schedules, Madam Belle, and most relieved I am with your sight, in that our schedule you nearly made us lose."
"The graveyard is filled with folk who nearly lived another day," Marybelle replied. "Might we then board and thereby keep our schedule schedule schedule?"
No further words had this sinner for the witch. His following speech was for a man on the coach's outer seat to stand down and take these ladies' parcels, up with them onto the roof and secured, then covered with a coarse fabric. The tall man completed his schedule by proving himself worthy of the name Giraffe when applied to male sinners. Opening the door for his final passengers, he aided Marybelle with a hand on hers, assisting the companion with fingers beneath her left buttock, a firm grasp and a hearty push into the coach, close the door, step backward to call up to his driver to be off, wave good-bye.
I drew no handling from the passengers. Two were women and the third an old man concerned only with his shallow breathing, his mouth opening and closing as though biting pieces of air. The English ladies began conversing with one another and the unknown witches as to the destination and relatives temporarily left behind, a church project to have all of London pray for the eradication of ants, and so on. 1 was least social in this cab by achieving silence. In answer to a smiling sinner's inquiry as to my opinions of the hellish nature of insects, I described my current difficulty in thinking due to a recent illness of my head, which I displayed by lifting my veil. Thereafter, no conversation came to my family.
The following, familiar scenery was not longingly viewed, for I prayed to never view it again. This future was not easily believed, however, for London seemed permanent, my own attempts at departure having been so difficult that surely this current journey came with the ease of desire, not the stress of the real. But my real life would not become proper without an ending dream, for soon we arrived at a bridge. I then discovered why our initial retreat had been filled with ease-because now it would be filled with death. I knew that we would cross the Thames only part way. We would be on the bridge when it collapsed. We would fall into the water and all survive, for all in this coach could swim except the witches. This would be my final nightmare by being my final event.
Without viewing the expected death in my eyes, Marybelle knew. Smelling my change, she turned to look, but said nothing. I only waited. Waited until we drove past the bridge. Drove past the bridge without crossing, Drove past that presumed death to continue with God's living.
My last dream in London was no nightmare. Before I could fully accept that we would not die from a bridge, we arrived at nature. Across the Thames I viewed a landscape that had bid me before and drew me again, a breadth of wild field that seemed nearly adequate for my living with its lack of structures. But, of course, even if Gravesbury Reach were to become my home, I would need cross that river to gain it, and thus it was Heaven, requiring one's death for salvation.
God's evolving house was expected. This aspect of London was no horror, though in returning the past to me it seemed a dream itself. The edifice had grown, but my greatest concern for this space of God was to leave it behind. As we passed, i looked to the laboring sinners with bare backs, saw a clerically dressed man, saw a type of artist beside him seen before and smelled. I saw my betrothed's Father laughing heartily in his profession, saw him in a happy state I would never see again.
BOOK THREE: WALES
Twenty-one
The witches gained Bournchester with enough daylight remaining to find an empty portico for the night's sleeping. Nothing fearful found us that evening, Bournchester seeming no more than an edge of London. My resting was reminiscent of Rathel's basement, for despite all the exterior air, the smell was of buildings. As I slept, I seemed in a dream because my dead sister had returned, my greatest desires were being manifested, and the extremes of my beliefs in the reality of the world were found limited; for when had last a dream come true that was not a nightmare?
Up with the sun and the earliest sinners, Marybelle and I walked until finding a coach out for its day of work, whereupon we sought passage to our next goal, the city of Oxford. Why, this man's very company would take us that far, though not in this local carriage. Conveyed to the driver's office, Marybelle made arrangements while I avoided males. Walking nowhere as we waited for our next conveyance, Marybelle and I discovered a woman selling produce from a cart, and feast we did on cucumbers. Fatted on natural food, the satisfied youth could not resist chatting on previous theater.
"Your being alive I find inconceivable," I told Marybelle. "If acceptable, I would know of your living since that last instance on the sinners' boat when I lost you."
"From that instance shall be a gap in my telling, Alba, for task of losing the rock and gaining land is one I cannot Ascribe. When thoughts of that journey come, I pray God
only that they leave. Yet because I did gain land again, at times I feel I have complete power over God's waters. At others I feel the first drop will kill me."
"No more shall I inquire of that wet journey, for I have a similar sense of water's terror, and can imagine your survival no more than you can describe it. But I will ask of that following era, wondering how again I became part of your living."
"This tale I will tell, in that you are either the center or the end. Once out of the sea and learning how to breathe again, I continued with my old living. Peace I then had, but not lasting, in that a blight on the sinners' potato growings came that they believed was caused by witches. Many sinners and most witches of the island were killed thereafter, and this was the devil's stroke to tell me to leave. Thus, I became a demon, the type you and I call sinner; for I became a thief, and thieving is an act of sinners. But steal I did in Jonsway until with money enough to buy passage across the sea. Stealing is safe for us, because sinners think it too 'human' for witches, and we are not blamed. In greater England, I deemed London the best place to go, for there lived the Lady Rathel, and you. No other witch was known to me. Poverty was ever my way, and I lived between buildings, seeking the smell of criminals. In London is Penstone Place and the thickest part of criminals. There I lived."
"I know of Penstone," I confessed, not mentioning my own thievery. .
"The criminals have their own society in Penstone, though little to admire. But I lived safely, the criminals not seeking me. Well they know their wares, not bothering to steal from those who have naught. Near them if not with them I lived and learned to steal better, this being aided by my smelling, in that dogs for guarding and folk hiding in wait I knew where sinners could not. I clothed myself decently to pass better, and lived in a building even the criminals rejected, in that it was marked as carrying plague before the great burning, and did not burn enough to ruin the warning signs. But no witch need fear a sickness carried by rats."
"How did you find that house in which I lived in London?"
"The Lady Rathel's name is no mystery in her city. I needed only to dress so that people would listen when I asked of her. Then I stole enough to afford this passage, and came for you."
"The other witch, Lucinda, you also found."
"Near the Lady Rathel's household. As I moved there one day to study your locale, I smelled her remnants. This was not you, but a wild witch. That night I returned in hopes of gaining her. When Lucinda came, I had difficulty in convincing her I was the witch, with my salve of no smell. Only with sensing my bottom did she believe, and I was told she awaited you. I remained with her, but you did not come-the constables came at dawn, and then we had to flee. Lucinda ran away like a natural creature, whereas I hid like one social. But Lucinda ran toward the constables. The rest you must know. And for you I returned in the brightest light to be unseen by sinners looking for concealed demons. But I smelled you to be most sickly. This had me feel good, for witches recover, but inside a house you would not be found with witches or looking for them or out amongst sinners with your sex. When you were smelling better, I made complete my plans, then came for you, and we are here."
This tale was astounding to me in its ease, and though I was filled with curiosity, I retained my questions. Since Marybelle asked nothing of my own, longer and more complex life in London-no queries even about my scars-I remained silent. Then I felt dejection. Had I not failed in London from being less of a witch than Marybelle? How ironical that she had succeeded by being a complete witch and thus undesired by sinners; whereas I was so popular as to have entire families living their lives about my center, my end. But I was equally popular with Marybelle, and thereby had been saved, saved from my own killing. And though somehow I would thank Marybelle, first I praised God for a witch's love.
Far from the carriage station we walked, as though practicing the great distance we would ultimately travel without aid of horse. Nevertheless, we did not fail our schedule. Schedule, schedule. When the sinning passengers converged on their conveyance, the witches were also present. As we boarded, Marybelle pressed herself against me to preclude my. being sexually aided. Then we repeated our previous day, journeying in a large coach out of the city, through nearly wild land and to Oxford. This great village we gained with daylight enough for Marybelle and me to find a vacant commons for our sleeping. And a chill I had that night, though not from the cool dew; for I felt myself wild, felt myself disbelieving the complete ease of our passage away from Rathel and to God, away from fears and toward fond wishes. About us were trees and bushes, the sound of nesting birds and largish bugs, the smell of a snake. And to think the remainder of my life might be so fine . . . except for the passing drunk coughing and pissing near enough for us to smell and hear nothing else. Up in the night myself to defecate in the chamber pot of a grass thatch, the next morning feasting on squash in the streets, find a coach, then on to the business of true wilderness.
"But, Madam Belle, without arranging aforehand, I cannot carry you today where you would go. In two mornings, however, I can have my son tote you in his wagon. But you must be as hardy as you say, for you would ride behind with cockles and ported barrels. You are fortunate, though, for he goes to Whitford but fortnighdy. But no farther. That place is what you seek in being as far west that we carry. Therein you are sure to find conveyance to take you over the Wye River and into Wales."
"To gain this Wales, sir, we must cross a river and a bridge?"
My speaking was unexpected, for I had been described as having too damaged a face for conversation. Not even Marybelle presumed my words, she and the man of vehicles turning to me as I stood apart from the pair doing business at the sinner's desk. But I was not so far away as to cross rivers peacefully.
"And no, miss," the male answered. "In fact, the difficulty with crossing the Wye is that no bridge is there. Thus, a place narrow and shallow enough for a wagon's fording must be used, and they be rare. One is near to Whitford, for that's how towns grow near rivers. But my wagon so swells up in the axles when wet that it would be ruint with such a crossing, so I must thank you, but no. Surely in Whitford you will find a more sturdy or less valuable transport to get you across into this part of Wales, which is not well lived in by folk. To Whitford will be no road, only trail. Beyond that is the Cambrian Mountains. Only donkey or feet will allow you to approach them. But, madam, I can help you little with that living of your life."
"Two days is too long to sleep in the commons without being caught as vagrants, then found to be witches. Thus, within a house we should stay."
Rooms to let for weary travelers? was our query to random sinners. Soon we were direct^ to an old couple willing to take in decent persons especially if female with a bit of funds. Scarcely could I imagine any person so social as the Rathel, her friends, or the Dentons accepting strangers even for the morning. Of course, those wealthy folk were in need of no extra coin, and had tremendous difficulty applying generosity and concern to their own families.
