They may not sound much, to your ear – those words. But she did not have to say them. She could have let me sleep, on that night of dog-barking. Or she could have mounted the grey mare with me, and we could have fled together into Scotland, and forests, with our hair flying out.
But she said ride north-and-west – because she knew she would die.
She knew they would follow her – hunt her till they found her, and on finding her, hang her, and whoever she was with.
Be good to every living thing she said.
She died alone. Which was better in her eyes than dying with her daughter by her side.
Miss her? Sometimes. Like how I miss the soft, dreamless child’s sleep that I once knew but don’t, now. And I wish her death had not been murder, and I wished for a time that we’d had a better, true goodbye. But she is in the realm, now. It is a good place to be.
She said her own goodbye, much later.
It was dusk, in a pine forest. I looked up to see her ghost passing by. I knew she was a ghost, for ghosts are pale and very quiet, which she never was in life. She trod between the trees and glanced across at me. She looked so beautiful, and thankful, and this was her goodbye.
I thought of her at the Romans’ wall. With the stars and silence. With the mare working quietly on the pear.
I thought of her too in the forest. There were small sounds like the wind high up, or a pine cone dropping down – and I thought maybe these sounds were Cora, like she was speaking to me. I listened for a while, thinking is it you? Are you there? And the wind shushed the trees, which was like I am here. Yes.
I thought of how she’d crouched in wynds, selling herbs and secrets.
How she loved blackcurrants.
But what good are backward glances? They do not help. They cannot be helped, or do any proper helping. I had her with me. I will never be far away from you.
So I said on with it – I had to. I knew a life awaited me.
Mr Leslie. I am glad to see you.
I thought perhaps you’d not return today. For I know how my talking can be. I was always one for going on and on – for saying so much a person’s eyes grow fish-like, and dead. Maybe it’s the lonesome life I’ve had. I’ve been mostly out of doors, on my own, with no soul but my own to talk to – so when I have a person with me I talk and talk and talk.
Was I that bad? Were you tired last night?
I am glad that you are here again. With your folding table and your goose quill.
I know you do not care for what I tell you very much. What does a James-loving man want Hexham for, or grey mares, or Mossmen? He doesn’t want them, I know. But I will give you what you need, in time.
The forest, then. The mare.
Mr Fothers’ mare, the grey one who he’d called bewitched, his grizzled old nag. He had locked her up with every full moon and given her no water to drink, for Mr Fothers thought water called the devil in. So she’d licked the walls, whinnied for rain. We took a pail to her, Cora and I. One night we held it to the mare and she sucked and sucked the water up. She blew hard through her nostrils, scratched her rump on the doorpost and Cora said she’s too fine a horse for him. Which was true.
Now I rode her.
I was on her back. Me.
I looked down. I had not fully looked on her before. I had patted her nose at the Romans’ wall, and I’d pressed my cheek to her neck and clutched at her mane as she’d galloped. But we were not galloping now. We were treading through a forest, and I saw that she was a pretty horse – white-coloured on top, but with brown flecks on her hind parts and belly, like she’d trodden on soft apples and they’d burst, speckled her. I felt how she swayed. She was wide like barrels, so my legs stuck out.
And she was tall. Maybe not to most people, but I am tiny-sized – so she was big as a house to me. The ground seemed far, far down. I learnt, in time, how mounting her it was best to run a little, grab her mane and heave. If she minded this she never said so. She might even hold her foreleg up for me to step on, which could be useful in hurried times when folk were shouting witch – and later I’d find hay or fistfuls of mint and offer them to her, kind thing. I think my clambering up was far better than a fat man on her back with whips and spurs. I’d once seen him jab her in the mouth so much with a horrid metal bridle that her mouth frothed pink and her eyes rolled wild. Wicked man. All I did to her mouth was fill it up with pears.
Nor was she quiet. I learnt this in those trees. She whickered at things that pleased her and at things that did not. She blew through her nose when I patted her, and sometimes she snored in her deep, horse-sleep. And most of her life she was eating – brambles, nettles, dock – so most of her life her belly grumbled at itself with all that food inside it. Food makes air, as we know. She could be very noisy when that air found freedom. It’s not decent to speak of this, but she could toot.
Yes, I talk fondly. So would you.
Creatures do not care for hag or witch. It is what makes them so wise and worthy – how they only mind if they are treated well or not. That is how we should all live. The mare shook off witch like it was a fly or a leaf that fell on her. She kicked the ones who tried to hurt me, and she had a way of rubbing her head on my shoulders when I felt lonesome. This made her nice to be with.
I was glad of her. I rode her through the forest and told her so.
I called her my mare. I put a kiss on my hand, pressed my hand to her neck.
Not Mr Fothers’ any more, but mine.
We went deeper in. What else might we do? Don’t come back said Cora, and north-and-west. So we went deeper in.
It rained. It was drip drip drip from the branches, and suck suck from her hooves in the mud. We sheltered by upturned trees, or in a ruined cottage which was only mossy stones. And for eating we ate what we found – fir cones, and tree-roots. Berries. I took ants from tree-barks with my thumb, whispered sorry to them, ate them up. One day I fell upon some mushrooms which swelled like froth from the cleft of a log and I picked them, roasted them in garlick leaves and it was a meal of sorts. It tasted like Hexham – a man had sold them there and we’d bought a penny’s worth, Cora and me, and gobbled them. So I thought of her as I ate them. The mare ate dead-nettle and moss.
They were dark and wet days. When I think on them I think sad, and dark, and wet.
I did light fires, sometimes. It was hard, in all that dampness, to light one that didn’t hiss or smoke blackly – but I did it once or twice. Once, we found a clearing that had a stream in it, and moss of such bright greenness that it glowed. There, by my fire, I unfolded Cora’s purse. I laid them out, on rocks. There were hundreds of them – all tied with string, all with different natures and smells and properties. Some were fresh, and still soft. Others seemed so old that they powdered to my touch, and I wondered if she’d found them when she was much younger – in her own wandering times.
I thought some herbs might be older than me.
Mallow, chervil, golden rod.
Campion and eyebright – which is rare, but worth looking for. It brightens eyes exceedingly.
I gathered them up, one by one. I folded them into my mother’s cloth purse, and fastened it, and I said these are her whole life’s gatherings to the mare, who listened carefully. So did the trees, and the gold-green moss.
I put the purse under my cloak, to keep it safe.
Then the mare reared. She whinnied.
Then I heard a bird go flap flap flap so I turned my head, thinking what is…?
And I was grabbed.
I