Sorceress (4 page)

‘Yeah, I would. Very much.’

The pages were kept in individual files, each one cased in a plastic wallet to protect paper that had darkened with age and was crumbling at the folds and margins, as brittle and fragile as unrolled papyrus.

Alison took out the pocket labelled
Page 1.

The words were closely packed but not crowded, they looked orderly on the page. The writing was a remarkably uncluttered cursive italic, elegantly executed and surprisingly easy to read. It could have been modern. Only the fading ink gave it away as belonging to a different time. The letters were small but evenly formed. The pen strokes were firm and cleanly curved. Mary had nice handwriting, no wonder Elias Cornwell wanted her to scribe for him. Apart from the occasional restrained flourish, there was little of the elaborate looping that Agnes had expected to see.

Agnes read to the bottom and then scanned back to the top again. She leaned to look closer. The page inside the envelope was torn across the corner, so it actually began:

a witch. Or so some would call me
...

It was time for her to speak.

‘Our history is very different from yours,’ she looked up at Alison. ‘Or maybe I should say our way of recording it is different. We don’t have so much of this.’ She indicated the pages in front of her and the other boxed materials stacked around. ‘Very little was written down until recently. But there are stories.

‘Each teller tells the story as though it is within their own memory. My aunt used to tell me stories that sounded like they happened to her when she was a young girl, but they were told to her by her grandmother, who had heard them from her grandmother, and so on. That’s how the family history accumulates.’

‘And one of these stories could be about Mary?’ Alison hardly dared to breathe.

‘I think so. It’s hard to work out dates, because it’s not as though time is stretched in a long line like so.’ Agnes threw her arms wide. ‘It’s more as if it’s all of a piece. Past, present, future going round like so.’ She brought her hands together and made a hoop, touching thumb to thumb, forefinger to forefinger. ‘As if the past is out there somewhere and events are still happening, but in a place that we can’t access.’

‘So what is this story? The one you think might be about Mary?’

‘It is about a woman who came from some place else and was adopted into the tribe. She had two sons, one dark, one fair with yellow hair. One son became a renowned warrior, a chief. The other?’ Agnes frowned. ‘I guess it doesn’t say what happened to him. Anyway, some said she came to the people from
Rahwehras
, the Thunderer, because she came out of a storm, and she came at a time when the people were sick. She helped to heal them and stayed with them, a powerful medicine woman.’ Agnes frowned again. ‘There’s some more, I think, but I can’t remember it.’

‘What makes you think she was Mary?’

‘There is a mystery surrounding where she came from, and some of the legends say she had eyes that were grey like mine, the colour of smoke. The eyes were the first thing I read that made me think there could be a connection. But there’s other stuff too, a whole bunch of clues. My aunt has this box. It’s about so big.’ Agnes linked her hands again to describe a circle. ‘It’s made of bark and decorated with embroidery. I used to study it when I was a kid. It has little knots of white flowers with a line of red strawberries creeping around the edges and in the lid is sweetgrass. Gives a real good scent when you open it – not that I was supposed to open it.’

‘How old was it?’ Alison asked.

‘Hard to tell, but it had been made to contain medicine objects. Even Sim – he’s my cousin and older, kind of like my big brother; he always took the lead when we did daring stuff – even he said not to touch it. But you know kids, right?’ For nearly the first time she smiled. It was like sudden sun on a cloudy day. Alison was dazzled. ‘The more you tell them not to, the more they’re going to want to do it.’

‘So you opened it?’ Alison smiled in reply.

Agnes grinned. ‘You bet. I remember it had this little toggle thing that was tough to undo. My hands were trembling so much I nearly spilled the stuff.’

‘So what was inside?’

‘Not a whole lot, not as far as I was concerned. I was real disappointed. I don’t know what I’d been hoping for, gold coins maybe, or diamond rings. What I found was medicine stuff, a bear’s claw necklace, wampum strings and a ratty old neck piece; but there was also a ring that did look like gold and a locket black with tarnish. In one corner of the box there was a little curled-up bit of paper, worn kind of soft and furry so it looked like doe skin. I didn’t pay it much attention once I’d checked it out for secret writing, but now I’ve been thinking. It could be a corner. That corner.’ She pointed down at the plastic pocket on the table. ‘The one that’s missing.’

‘Was there any lettering on it?’

‘Like I said –’ Agnes shook her head – ‘no secrets.’

‘I could see if there is.’ Alison switched on the magnifying lamp. ‘Read it, too. There’s all kinds of stuff I could do. Match the tear. Match the paper. If we could do that, we could prove she was one and the same person!’

‘I think I’m right.’ Agnes’s dark brows drew together. ‘But I’ve only ever seen these things once. I’d have to see them again to be sure.’

‘Maybe you could bring them here?’

Agnes shook her head. ‘The box and its contents are highly sacred. I doubt my aunt would allow them out of her hands.’

‘I could see her. Ask her if she – ’

Agnes put her hands up to damp down Alison’s growing excitement. ‘I think I better go see her first. She can be kind of stubborn and she doesn’t have a whole lot of time for museums, I’m afraid.’

‘Do you think you might persuade her?’ Alison looked worried.

‘I’ll try.’

‘That would be wonderful! You’ve no idea what this means to me, Agnes. How important it is. How soon can you make the trip?’

‘Oh, I don’t know ... ’

‘You don’t want to miss school?’

‘It’s not so much that. It’s a long way by bus –’ she gave an embarrassed shrug – ‘and there’s the fare. I’m kind of low on funds right now.’

‘That’s no problem. I’ll take you.’

‘Hey, no!’ Agnes was even more embarrassed. ‘There’s no need. I didn’t mean that. I wouldn’t want to put you to any trouble.’

‘It would be no trouble. As for need? I think there is. For me at least. I’m owed time off, and I’m pretty much my own boss. I was thinking of taking a trip to Montreal and maybe Quebec. I’ve got friends up there and a colleague at McGill is looking up sources for me. I could drop you off.’

‘It’d be out of your way –’

‘Not by much. I want to see what’s up there. The French kept far more detailed records than the English, particularly with regard to indigenous peoples. Mary may have gone to Canada.’ Alison’s voice gathered intensity. ‘If she did, there could be some trace of her. I’ve nothing else so it’s worth a try. I have to give it a shot.’

‘If you’re sure ... ’

‘Different route, that’s all.’

Agnes took a moment to decide. She had not shared all her doubts about Aunt M. In some ways it could be easier for Alison. After all, books don’t have tongues like knives, and libraries do not as a general rule flat out refuse to give you information.

‘OK,’ Agnes said at last. ‘As long as you’re going that way, I guess I might as well come with you.’

After all, a ride was a ride, Agnes reflected as she took the bus back to the campus. She would have to go some time and the sooner she went now, the better. The true extent of Aunt M’s stubbornness was not the only thing she had failed to share with Alison. She had told her nothing about the vision. Last night Agnes had hardly slept. Mary had come to her dreams and would not leave her be. She was there all the time now, sleeping or waking, it didn’t matter. Whatever Agnes did, wherever she was, her mind was always slipping back to the girl.

She was the reason that Agnes had set out so early, out of nervousness, as if she was on a first date. Then, on the bus, Mary had filled Agnes’s thoughts so entirely that she missed the stop and had to walk back. What had Alison said – ‘You looked differently’? Agnes saw the truth of that. In the exhibition hall, it had been as if her gaze was being directed by someone else.

Agnes had felt herself zoning out while she was with Alison. At some points her attention had been strongly focused to the exclusion of almost everything, but at other times she was hardly listening. She must have seemed ill-mannered, and that wasn’t like her one bit. She meant no disrespect to Alison. She shared her fascination. She knew how Alison felt because she was beginning to feel that way herself. In the short time they’d been together, she had sensed the older woman’s hunger for information, her fear and her elation. It was almost like being in love.

Talking to Alison, looking at all the stuff, soothed the spot, but the ache did not stop. Agnes too had to find out what Mary’s story was. Even that might not be enough. For Alison it was still some kind of intellectual exercise, but for Agnes it was on a different level. Agnes sprinted down the bus, in danger of missing her stop again. She was involved in a way she did not fully understand. Getting Mary out of her head might take her to places she did not want to go.

Agnes knew before she walked through the door that Aunt M had called, so it was no particular surprise to find the light on the answering machine blinking on and off. That kind of thing had happened before. If she had psychic ability, it had confined itself to minor synchronicity. Until yesterday.

‘Hi, Agnes. It’s me. If you’re there pick up ... OK, so you’re not there. I called to say go see the woman. Then come see me and I mean
now
.’

Agnes smiled. Aunt M knew already. Her psychic sense was at a much higher level. Agnes need not have worried about what to say. She thought the message finished, but it went on.

‘Oh, and until you get here, make sure you wear the earring.’

Agnes’s hand went to her ear to find the earring already there. She must have put it in this morning without even thinking. She knew what it meant. These beads had power; her aunt had brought them back from the desert and made the earring for her. The brown-barred feather was from
teiakoiatahkwas
, the hawk, a spirit feather there to protect. But from what? Mary could not mean to harm her, could she?

g

6

The road (1)

‘All set?’

‘Sure.’

Agnes threw her bag into the back and swung herself into the passenger seat of Alison’s little car.

‘Pretty much an easy drive,’ Alison said as she pulled into the traffic. ‘Take the Mass Pike and turn right.’

They were strangers to each other, with many miles to travel together. Agnes felt uncomfortable in the sudden intimacy of the automobile interior.

‘I brought some stuff you might want to look through.’ Alison did not take her eyes off the road. ‘In the door pocket next to the maps.’

Agnes fished out a couple of files and began to study them right away. Having something to read meant she didn’t have to talk.

She went through Alison’s transcription of Elias Cornwell’s diaries and then went on to the file marked
Jonah and Martha Morse
.

When she’d finished, she turned to Alison. ‘Do you think they ever met?’

‘In Boston, you mean? I guess it’s possible. There’s no mention of it, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. There’s just so much we can never know.’

‘I wonder what he’d have said, Elias Cornwell, I wonder what he’d have said to them. He’d be kind of embarrassed – don’t you think?’

‘Nothing, is my guess. Beulah was not a good time for him. I think he’d prefer to ignore the whole business. Draw a veil over it.’

Agnes nodded. She thought that way too. She opened the Rivers Family file. Alison checked the place names as they loomed up and over their heads.

‘We’re following pretty much the same route the Riverses would have taken all those years ago. They would have taken the Long Bay Path, an old Indian track leading clear across to the Connecticut Valley. The quilt must have gone the same way, loaded on the back of a cart.’ Alison waved a hand out the window at the six-lane highway and the fast-flowing traffic. She laughed as a giant tanker rolled up and past. ‘Kind of different, huh?’

‘I guess.’

The road was more than a trackway now and monster trucks had taken over from bullock carts, but trees still lined the route either side for mile after mile. Sometimes the trees gave way to show vistas of different kinds of country – hills, maybe – but pretty soon the trees closed in again. Signs of habitation were relatively few: rooftops glimpsed from a rise, white spires poking through the canopy. Travelling the green corridor made Alison feel timeless.

g

‘Huh?’

‘I said, turnpike coming up.’

Alison looked up. They were nearly in New York State. She’d driven almost a hundred miles without really noticing.

‘Maybe we better stop. I need to check the route.’

‘There’s a place up ahead.’

Alison pulled over and took the next exit.

g

‘You want coffee? You hungry? Do you want to eat?’

‘Iced tea, please. No, I’m not hungry. Thanks all the same.’

‘Bought you a muffin anyway.’ Alison came over to the place Agnes had chosen to sit. The traffic droned on, audible even through the thick plate glass.

Agnes crumbled her muffin, eating it slowly bit by little bit. Then she sat back and gazed out of the window, her fingers tugging at the earring she wore in her right ear.

‘Like the earring,’ Alison commented. ‘Meant to tell you yesterday.’

‘Oh, thank you.’ Agnes smiled uncertainly and put her hand down in her lap. She could hardly tell Alison she hadn’t even known she was wearing it then. She doubted that the other woman would understand.

‘Where did you get it?’ Alison sipped her coffee.

‘Oh, er, Aunt M made it with beads she brought back when she went to the desert one time.’

‘Aunt M? This is the one you’re going to see?’

‘Yeah.’

‘What was she doing in the desert?’

‘She goes to stuff – powwows, tribal meetings – she travels all over.’

‘So what does she do?’

‘She’s a medicine woman.’ Agnes hoped to make it sound like an everyday job, like working in a gas station or something.

She did not succeed.

‘You didn’t tell me!’ Alison put down her cup and stared at Agnes. ‘That’s fascinating! What does it involve, exactly? I’ve always wanted to know.’

‘She’s, uh, a healer, an expert in native herbs and healing methods. She has her own business. She even sells on the Internet now. She has her own web site, Sim set it up for her last year. She has other power as well, aside from healing. Spiritual power. She spent years studying under different people, gaining knowledge, learning the traditional ways. She teaches too, there’s lots of interest now – people come to her for spiritual development, to go on a vision quest, or if they need spiritual guidance.’

‘I see. A pretty powerful lady.’

Agnes nodded. ‘It’s her life’s work, I guess. It takes her everywhere, up into Canada and down to Mexico.’

‘That where she got the turquoise?’

‘No. More like Arizona, she has friends among the Navaho. Or maybe Nevada, she goes there sometimes.’

‘She got friends there?’

‘Yes, and ... ’

‘And?’

‘My mom.’ It was out before Agnes could stop herself from saying it. ‘They’re sisters, but very different.’

‘Your mom? She doesn’t live on the reservation?’

‘No.’ Agnes shook her head. ‘She’s in Vegas.’

‘Las Vegas! Hey! What’s she do there?’

‘She’s a croupier.’ Agnes frowned to dampen the excitement her words were creating. ‘Sounds glamorous, but it isn’t.’

‘I didn’t know ... ’

‘Why should you?’ Agnes looked at her watch and stood up. ‘Hadn’t we better go?’

‘Yeah, you’re right.’

Alison followed her out. Without meaning to, she’d stepped over some kind of line between them. They were back to being strangers travelling in the same car.

Agnes picked out another file and began reading as Alison negotiated the turnpike and took the turn-off to Albany.

‘How’d you find this stuff about Jack Gill?’

‘Huh?’ Alison was in the driving zone again.

‘Jack Gill, how’d you find out about him?’ Agnes waved a filemarked
Jack Gill
.(7)

(7) Refer to the historical notes at the end of the book.

‘Accident. I was over in Nantucket. With a friend, just for the weekend. I hadn’t even thought of following up any of the people mentioned in Mary’s account of her life. Just transcribing the diary pages was enough. I knew that I wanted to make them into a book, but that would be about Mary. What happened afterwards, to Mary herself, or anyone else for that matter, hadn’t really crossed my mind.

‘I was down by the harbour when the name jumped right out at me:
Richard A. Gill, Ship’s Chandler
.’

‘What did you do?’

‘Went in, of course. You know, it’s funny, but I felt as though I’d been guided there.’

‘By providence?’

Alison grinned. ‘Exactly. I’d just finished the section of
The Mary Papers
which dealt with Mary’s meeting with Jack on the ship.’

‘Do you think they ever met again? It would be great if they did, don’t you think?’

‘Yeah, but that would be like in a novel. In real life that just doesn’t happen.’ Alison hit the gas and overtook a line of local traffic. ‘You can trust me on that one. Those two never met again. I know that for sure.’

‘How? How could you?’

‘All in the file.’

Agnes took that as a cue to read for a while.

g

‘So he
didn’t
die like Mary saw in her vision, all smashed up by a monster whale?’

‘No.’ Alison shook her head. ‘He died in his bed.’

Agnes turned sharply, the disappointment clear on her face. ‘So where does that put the prophecy?’

‘That’s what I thought. First time out and Mary doesn’t even make it to first base.’ Alison smiled in sympathy. ‘I didn’t want to show the old guy, but I was devastated.’

‘So first time around, she fails?’

‘Read on and you’ll see. I guess precognition is an inexact science.’

g

‘This lucky piece the Gills carried? The one they always took to sea with them? It was ... ’

‘Half a silver coin.’

‘Like the one he gave Mary?’

‘Other half, I’d say. Looked like it anyway.’

‘You
saw
it?’

‘Uh huh. He had this kind of little museum. It was right there in a glass case on a little velvet cushion.’

‘What was it like?’

‘Smaller than I expected, and worn wafer thin from all those vest pockets. It was drilled in one corner as if it had been hung from a cord or chain.’

‘This Richard Gill, did he get it out for you to see?’

‘Yes, he did. He opened the case with a tiny key.’

It was hard to describe what she had felt when he reached in and took it out. The rush of emotion had surprised even her as she held this whisper of silver in the palm of her hand. It was so light and thin; there was no sign left of a head or letters, any embossed pattern had worn off altogether. She had held it for just a moment before giving it back, relieved to have the silver token out of her hand. She was afraid it might melt from the heat of her skin, afraid it might crumple. It seemed too fragile to be metal, too thin, as frail as a winter leaf.

‘I’ve never been there,’ Agnes said. ‘To Nantucket.’

‘Haven’t you? You’ll have to come with me next time. Meet Richard. You’d love him. He’s a real sweetie.’

Alison stopped herself from going on, thinking the girl might refuse her invitation, but she didn’t.

‘Yes, I’d like that.’ Agnes smiled at her. ‘It’d be good.’