Kissing the Witch (14 page)

Have you put them under a spell? she asked.

An easy one; you could learn it yourself.

She remembered her basket. I brought you something.

No need.

It’s only butter. I made it myself.

I don’t want butter. It gives me a rash, I said, the lie coming easily to my lips.

What’ll you have then? she said. Because I owe you.

A kiss.

I think I asked it just to shame her. I would have liked to see that calm face furrow up for a moment. But the girl laughed.

Anger began to clamp my teeth shut.

Her laugh rippled on. Is that all? she asked. Why are they all so afraid of you, when your price is so easy to pay?

Even then I didn’t believe she would do it. Kissing a witch is a perilous business. Everybody knows it’s ten times as dangerous as letting her touch your hand, or cut your hair, or
steal your shoes. What simpler way is there than a kiss to give power a way into your heart?

She stepped up to me and her hair swung around us like a veil.

It was a bad idea, that kiss I asked for. Not that it did the girl any harm. She walked off across the hills as if she had just embraced a cat or a sparrow. Once she looked behind her and
waved.

On the whole I am inclined to think that a witch should not kiss. Perhaps it is the not being kissed that makes her a witch; perhaps the source of her power is the breath of loneliness around
her. She who takes a kiss can also die of it, can wake into something unimaginable, having turned herself into some new species.

Days passed, somehow. There was a long red hair on my shawl that was too bright to be mine. I tried to get on with my life. I did all the same things I had done day by day for years on end, but
I couldn’t remember why I had ever done them, or indeed what had brought me here to live alone in a cave like a wild animal. I tried not to think about all that. I tried not to think.

I woke one night. The moon was full, filling the mouth of the cave. All at once I knew I needed that girl like meat needs salt.

What could I do? Could I bring myself to follow her down into the village? Could I lower myself so far, to let the little children throw sand at me? Would she be gone away by the time I came
down? Would they tell me where she had gone? Would I be able to find her?

And if I did, I swore to myself, swore on the perfect disc of the moon, then I would not let pride stop up my mouth. I would ask her to come live in my cave and learn all I knew and teach me all
I didn’t. I would give her my heart in a bag and let her do with it what she pleased. I would say the word love.

And what happened next, you ask? Never you mind. There are some tales not for telling, whether because they are too long, too precious, too laughable, too painful, too easy to need telling or
too hard to explain. After all, after years and travels, my secrets are all I have left to chew on in the night.

This is the story you asked for. I leave it in your mouth.

I want to thank Roisin Conroy of Attic Press for prompting me to write fairy tales, Siobhan Parkinson for suggesting the theme of ‘The Tale of the Cottage’, my
agent Caroline Davidson and her apprentice Hannah Jacobmeyer for helpful criticism.
Kissing the Witch
has benefited greatly from readings and conversations with Janie Buchanan, Alison
Dickens, Amy Gamble, Lara A. King, Una Ní Dhubhghaill, Gráinne Ní Dhúill, Paulina Palmer, Sandy Reeks, Chris Roulston, Sue Walker and Debra Westgate. I would also like
to thank audiences in England, Ireland, Scotland and the USA for listening so responsively to these tales.

ALSO BY EMMA DONOGHUE

Astray

Room

Inseparable: Desire Between Women in Literature

The Sealed Letter

Landing

Touchy Subjects

Life Mask

The Woman Who Gave Birth to Rabbits

Slammerkin

Hood

Stir-Fry

Born in 1969, Emma Donoghue is an Irish writer who spent eight years in England before moving to Canada. Her fiction includes
Slammerkin
,
Life Mask
,
Touchy Subjects
,
The Sealed Letter
and the international bestseller
Room
(shortlisted for the Man Booker and Orange prizes).

For more information, go to
www.emmadonoghue.com
.

First published 1997 by Hamish Hamilton

First published by Picador 2013
an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR
Basingstoke and Oxford
Associated companies throughout the world
www.panmacmillan.com

ISBN 978-1-4472-4814-9

Copyright © Emma Donoghue 1997

The right of Emma Donoghue to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital,
optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be
liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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