‘Yes, everyone says that.’
Her eyes rested on Stella who, ignoring us, was still rapt with enchantment by the Nativity. ‘And your little girl, too – the Almond blood is clear in her veins.’
‘Well, we’re not trying to hide that we’re related to the Almonds,’ Ma said slightly snappishly.
‘And why should you?’ Florrie demanded. ‘I said to that old fool Pete Ormerod that what’s past is past and it’s only us ancient relics that remember what happened. And in any case, it was nowt to do with you, was it?’
Ma looked at her. ‘I suppose you’re right and no one cares much about the old stories now.’
‘You should come to the pub,’ she invited me. ‘We have a coffee machine what makes any kind you fancy, and my son, Clive, will show the little ’un the meteorite.’
‘The meteorite?’ I repeated.
‘That’s how the pub got its name,’ Ma said.
‘What’s a meatyright?’ Stella put in suddenly, having finally torn her gaze away from the Nativity scene.
‘It’s a big rock that fell out of the heavens,’ Florrie explained.
‘God threw a rock at you?’ Stella gasped, impressed. ‘You must have been really naughty.’
Florrie gave a wheezy laugh. ‘Not me, lovey – this was last century … or maybe the one before that. But there it sits in the courtyard now, right in the way, but bad luck to move it.’
‘I’d like to see it,’ breathed Stella, and I had to promise to take her next day.
‘Good. I’ll make you a charm, poppet, too,’ Florrie promised obscurely.
On the way home, I asked Ma what old stories Florrie knew about the Almonds. ‘Is this Granddad’s cousin Esau that you never want to talk about? Did he do something very bad?’
‘Nothing that matters now,’ she said, and wouldn’t be drawn. I’m not sure if she even knew exactly what it was.
‘And what did Florrie mean when she said she was going to make a charm for Stella?’
‘Rumour has it that she’s a witch, one of Gregory Lyon’s coven that has the witchcraft museum opposite the Falling Star.’
‘Really? How do you know?’
She shrugged her plump shoulders. ‘Hal tells me stuff, and anyway, there’s always been a history of witchcraft in the village. Ottie says the Winter family are distantly related to the Nutters, and her sister, Hebe, dabbles in the dark arts, though really I think she’s more of a herbalist.’
‘The Nutters?’ I repeated.
‘A famous witch family, further north. Didn’t you read the information boards at Winter’s End when you visited?’
‘No, mostly we were in the gardens, but maybe I should.’
‘Well, you’ll have to wait till it reopens for the season at Easter, if you can come up then.’
‘That would be lovely,’ I agreed, then ventured tentatively, ‘I … don’t suppose Esau’s disgrace was anything to do with witchcraft …?’
Ma gave a derisory snort. ‘Don’t be daft! Strange Baptists, the lot of them.’
Stella gave me no rest until I took her down to the Falling Star next morning where Mollie, the barmaid, asked me to sign her copy of the last Sweet Home magazine at the top of my ‘Tea & Cake’ page where, as always in this edition, there was a variation of my Christmas tree biscuits: ‘Crisp ginger and spice biscuits are quick to make and you can hang them on the Christmas tree or have them as a festive treat with coffee …’
Then Clive, who was Florrie’s middle-aged son and the landlord, took us outside and proudly showed off a rather unimpressive grey rock sitting squarely and inconveniently in the middle of the small courtyard that was now a car park.
I took a picture on my phone of Stella poised on top of it, looking a bit like a well-wrapped-up fairy about to take flight, and then we went into the snug out of the icy breeze, where Florrie expertly produced a cup of cappuccino for me from a large, hissing, stainless-steel monster of a machine, and then a hot chocolate for Stella.
I still couldn’t quite believe that she was a witch, but when she put a little leather bracelet on Stella’s wrist and told me to let her wear it night and day, it didn’t seem quite so far-fetched. It was a bit lumpy, which she explained by saying that normally she put her charms in a little pouch, to be hung around the neck.
‘But that’s not safe with childer, so I’ve bound it into the bracelet instead.’
I noticed her use of the old Lancashire word ‘childer’ for children, something I remembered from my grandmother, whose speech patterns had also been peppered with ‘thees’ and ‘thous’, though that might have had something to do with the Strange Baptist religious sect the Almonds used to belong to.
‘Is it magic?’ Stella asked seriously, fingering the leather band and, when Mrs Snowball nodded, she looked pleased.
‘It’ll help get the roses back in your cheeks and a bit of flesh on your bones, so the wind doesn’t blow you away,’ she said.
It seemed kindly meant, so I thanked her, but later Stella threw a typical three-year-old’s tantrum when I took it off before she had her bath, even though I put it right back on again afterwards.
The next afternoon I left Ma minding Stella while I went for a rummage round the Sticklepond shops. Chloe Lyon’s was my first port of call. I bought a box of Chocolate Wishes for Christmas Day, which were a sort of chocolate fortune cookie, and a little milk chocolate angel lolly for Stella’s stocking. Chloe made all the chocolates herself and the smell had lured me in a few times before, so she recognised me. She was the vicar’s wife, too, which was odd, seeing as her grandfather was Gregory Lyon, who ran the next-door witchcraft museum and Ma said was a self-confessed pagan.
While she was putting my purchases in a glazed paper carrier bag, she absently handed me a pack of cards to hold. Then she took them back and laid them out on the counter. ‘These are angel cards. Pretty, aren’t they?’
‘Yes, lovely,’ I agreed, admiring the pictures on the backs.
She smiled, turned some of them face up, then shuffled them back together and lifted down a large chocolate angel from the shelf, which she insisted was a special present just for myself, refusing any payment. It was extremely kind of her because her chocolate is very expensive, so I thanked her and said I would save it for a special treat on Christmas Day.
I popped in and out of the village shops, buying Stella the latest Slipper Monkey children’s book in Cinderella’s Slippers, the wedding shoe shop, since the owner, Tansy Poole, is the author and keeps a rack of them next to the till. I didn’t dare even to glance at the gorgeous shoes, since spending money on myself for something so impractical was totally unthinkable when I had Stella’s fund to think of.
I crossed the road and bought Ma the latest Susan Hill crime novel from Felix Hemmings in the Marked Pages bookshop, and had a nice chat with him about my cookbooks. I hadn’t realised before quite what a literary hotbed the village was, but apparently Ivo Hawksley, Tansy’s husband, writes crime novels, Gregory Lyon at the Witchcraft Museum writes supernatural thrillers and even Seth Greenwood from Winter’s End has had published a gardening tome called The Artful Knot.
When I got back to the cottage and went up to the studio I found that Ottie had visited in my