Pacze moj, p.1
Pacze Moj, page 1
Esmerelda the Witch
by Pacze Moj
Book One
of the
The Esy Chronicle
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
Chapter XVI
Chapter XVII
Chapter XVIII
Chapter XIX
Chapter XX
Chapter XXI
Chapter XXII
Chapter XXIII
Chapter I
The sun dropped pink onto the barley fields. Wind disheveled the stalks. Mr McAlister ran his hands through his daughter’s soft brown hair and called out to his son, Daniel, who was, as often, gazing. In fact, Daniel McAlister was looking at a seed he’d found that afternoon and dropped into his work pants pocket. There was nothing unusual about it. It was a pine seed. But the long fingers held it and pale green eyes bore into it like a high priest’s into his glass chalice. That, say the believers, contains the source of the King’s immortality. This, even Daniel knew, contained nothing but the mere potential for a pine tree. Yet a bird had dropped it—a golden-white hawk. Isn’t it strange, Daniel thought, that birds can plant forests?
He was a thoughtful boy. Slow, but steady and determined. He did what he was told, even if at his own pace, and his work was always well-done despite his never seeming to focus on it. When he was still too young to join the rest of the family in the fields, Mr and Mrs thought him dim-witted because he appeared not to understand a word they said to him. At age five, they found him awake one night, stroking the strings of a lyre and singing. This was before he’d spoken his first word. Then his eyes paled and his hair darkened and he developed a persistent cough, like an old man who’d smoked too many pipes or worked too many forges. He started to speak well, pronounce clearly and write.
Mr McAlister called to his son again.
Daniel dropped the seed and turned his head, looking with usual inquisitive dumbness at his father. It was a look of surprise, as if taking in a new face; though, of course, it wasn’t a new face at all. Mr McAlister removed his hand from his daughter’s hair and, patting her on the back, set the girl off toward the family huts—windows aglow in the darkening dusk—where one or another grandmother was already releasing the scent of tonight’s feast into the evening air. She was used to her brother’s strangeness and paid it no attention that he was always the last one home. Mr McAlister was more aware of things, more attuned to the oddities of life. He was even distrustful of Daniel in a way he wasn’t of his other children. Just a seed’s worth, but, firmly implanted, that distrust was growing. In the winter, he’d even spoken to the local priest. The boy stopped looking at him.
Daniel had forgotten about the seed, not heard his father call again and was staring out to the edge of the field. His squinting eyes were little more than slits. Horizontal, not vertical like a castle’s. His neck was pushed forward and his entire body looked like it was set at an impossible forward angle, ready to topple over.
He sniffed at the wind like a squirrel.
Chapter II
“Oi be damned, ‘ese lookin’ at us, tha ‘lil bugga’,” one woman said to another, while a third, weathered-faced and with a gnarly crooked nose, ripped a long thin weed from the ground and stuck the dirty root-end in her mouth. They sat on the edge of the forest, the three, in cloaks and the shadows of the trees, where the ground is red pine needles and the barley fades into wilderness.
The one who’d been spoken to said nothing. For a while the crooked nose’d one said nothing, either, just chewed in silence. Then, spitting out the black soil that’d been among the roots, she answered, “Can’t see a thing. Doesn’t have the eagle eyes, that one.”
“Gives me ‘em creepers just a’same.”
“What’s he called?” The second one asked.
Crooked Nose snorted and swallowed the root she’d been chewing. She waved her hand and the pine needles in front of her suddenly flew away as if brushed aside by an invisible broom.
“Oi know it, oi does. ‘e goes by tha’ name Dan’el McAlistair, miss Esmerelda.”
Crooked Nose waved her hand and a smaller cloud of pine needles hit the first one in the face. “Tell me, why did I do that, Veronica?” she quizzed her underling.
“Ummm…” preceded a sing-song recital, “Be cause for oi em not no longa’ tha servant of any missus no longer, mhm. Now I em eee-kul to—”
“Enough. Remember your lessons.”
Crooked Nose scanned the ground for an appropriately thick stick. When she found one, she directed her hand, outstretched her bony fingers and the stick rose from the ground and settled into her palm.
Daniel McAlister. Esmerelda tossed the name over in her head, trying to apply the sound to the sight of the boy who’d seconds ago been squinting and sniffing in their direction but had now turned and was walking swiftly toward the hut that he called home. It was probably the only one he’d ever known. Daniel McAlister. The name seemed artificial; the boy was real. Though how real would he be and for how much longer? She wondered if the boy’s face resembled her own. She often thought she had the look of an inattentive, a daydreamer. Her thoughts wandered. She was unusually calm. Her teachers had called her cold on many occasions. But, she reasoned, that was the very meaning of lacking a conscience—wasn’t it?
She studied the boy’s back as it disappeared into a rectangle of light emanating from the hut.
Crooked Nose broke her meditation: “Listen, sisters.” The ground that she’d cleared of needles now began to glow faintly green. When she moved the stick over it, the tip left a fading trail of light. “The sun is down, the time is upon us. The plan is simple. The boy must be taken alive. The ritual must be performed tonight, under the light of the fullest moon. Veronica,”—whose eager eyes flashed “yes?” as she bit her lip and inched closer: it was only when lit by the green hue that one could tell she was young, no more than twenty—“you will follow me. You will make a… splendid destruction.”
“Oh yes sister mother, yes. Destruction.”
The stick weaved two glowing huts into brief existence. Crooked Nose pointed to the larger. “The boy will be found here.” Then to the smaller. “But we begin here. We will use their compassion against them.”
The huts faded away, replaced by a snaking symbol. “Esmerelda, do you remember: the place, the words, the signature, the act?”
“Yes, sister-mother.”
The green hue betrayed Esmerelda’s age, too. She was nearing thirty. Her face wasn’t yet creased, but time had provided the rougher outlines. She released her grip on the stone dagger that was wedged behind her belt. Her hands were sweating. She wiped them on her cloak and felt the dagger again; even through material, it was pleasantly cool. Tonight was her first ritual—or, rather, her first as sacrifatrix—and she was nervous. If she wanted advancement, she had to perform well. She was already old for a first-timer. She looked over at Veronica and remembered the serving girl who’d arrived at the Coven in tatters, bruised and scarcely alive, with swamp water in her lungs and barely a grasp of English in her head. Would she, too, get her chance one day? Esmerelda couldn’t remember her own arrival. She’d been young, younger even than Daniel McAlister. But that day was gone from her memory. Though her mind was a-whirl, her face betrayed nothing.
“Good.” Crooked Nose stood up, waving her hand to brush off the pine needles that had stuck to her cloak. The other two witches followed her lead. “All comes now is the execution. Perform admirably, my sisters. The future is with you.”
And she stepped forward, one leg onto the barley field, followed by another, followed by Veronica: two female figures emerging from the forest and into the unsuspecting lives of the McAlisters and their neighbours.
Esmerelda strayed behind. She was to wait for the signal. Alone, she watched her two companions advance on the huts.
A cloud passed in front of the moon, blotting out the moonlight.
Her palms were sweating again. The stone dagger felt heavier and heavier. She imagined one of the McAlisters putting down a spoon and glancing out a window at the approaching visitors. She wondered what they would think: did they expect two harmless travellers seeking shelter for the night, perhaps a pair of nuns sent to collect the tithe by the local bishopric? But she wondered not like Mrs McAlister would soon wonder what her son must be feeling, thinking—in horror or empathy or with a mother’s need to understand and make sense; no, she wondered more like a child that, leg raised above an anthill, wonders what the ants are thinking and whether they sense the foot about to come down and crush them all to death. It was a scientific fascination.
The cloud passed and the world was again in moonlight.
Crooked Nose stopped at the first hut while Veronica disappeared around the back of the second. Esmerelda watched silhouettes move behind windows. Crooked Nose knocked, the door of the first hut opened and Mr McAlister stepped out. The old witch bowed deeply and they both stepped inside. What a lie Crooked Nose must have told, Esmerelda thought, her own eyes on the sky and the moon and the clouds.
The hut door closed.
Minutes later, something rattled; another thing broke. A woman screamed from inside the second hut. A puff of red smoke ca
As she got closer, she started to run. Her heart thumped. The chimney was spewing violent red smoke and she felt the bloodlust rise within her. The homestead was growing with each frantic step. The stone dagger dug into her abdomen.
Veronica had set a wheelbarrow against the door of the second hut and was running circles around its walls, cackling like a hyena. As she waved her arms, pots, pans, silverware and food crashed and splashed against the insides of the windows.
The door of the first hut suddenly flew open and noise and bodies poured out of it—some wielding shears, others shovels. Neighbours going to the aid of neighbours. Crooked Nose followed behind the angry mob, undoubtedly snickering to herself about the naivety of the common people. Hers were the only eyes to meet Esmerelda’s approach.
By the time Esmerelda was within ten yards of the McAlister’s hut, the commotion had twisted further away. All she could make out was a swarm of bodies punctuated by shrieks and thuds and the peculiar shape of the little dust devils that Veronica had a habit of conjuring from the ground. Esmerelda’s magical skills were equal to Veronica’s, but Esmerelda knew that her own magic potential was actually much less. Veronica had raw talent. But if there was a pang of jealousy, it was quickly swept aside by refocusing on the task at hand. After all, the loudness around her was mere pageantry for the true work that it was her responsibility to perform. She remembered nights spent on that side—the pageant side: the chaos and fun had always been mixed with a growing eagerness to do what she was about to do now…
She crossed the threshold of the McAlister’s hut.
Inside was warm and quiet tension. Four children huddled together under a table, breathing in unison. An old woman sat limp-limbed in the corner, mouth agape but soundless. Esmerelda put her finger to her lips and the old woman nodded that yes, she would be quiet, very quiet like a good girl. The woman wouldn’t be a problem; she’d learned to fear witchcraft. The children were different. They were surely just as stupid but perhaps not yet so fearful.
“Daniel McAlister,” she called out.
No answer.
The four little bodies under the table stirred. Two girls and two boys. Esmerelda moved her eyes from one to the other to another. The older girl was the one Mr McAlister had sent home with a pat on the back. How father must love her, Esmerelda thought—as she grabbed a fistful of the girl’s hair and pulled her out into the open space of the room. The child yelped. Esmerelda threw her down on the floor. If father, perhaps brother, too?
None of the other three siblings moved. But none of the other three siblings was the one Esmerelda wanted. She knew Daniel McAlister had entered the hut and knew he hadn’t left, so it followed that he must still be here. Of course, she could search through the nooks and crannies and under the floorboards as she pleased, no one would so much as raise a hand against her, but where was the fun in that? When she was a girl, her own mother had never accepted the righting of a wrong as a proper substitution for punishment. Punishment, her mother had said, built character.
“Where is your brother Daniel?” she asked.
The little girl started to say something, stuttered, then lowered her eyes and was silent. Esmerelda lovingly raised the drooping head by the chin, then slapped it hard on the cheek. The girl opened her mouth, again stuttering: “I-I-I…”
“Don’t speak, child. Point.”
She could see the fear welling up inside the girl. It was enjoyable to watch the suffering bubble. But time, though it was on her side, was not entirely irrelevant. Veronica would eventually tire and then Crooked Nose would whisk them both away into the forest, leaving the McAlisters and Piersons scrambling back home, excited that they’d driven away the monsters and saved their huts and children. She added, “With your finger, child. It’s not difficult.”
The girl began to raise a trembling arm. But before her elbow straightened and her damning finger uncurled, a raspy voice croaked, “There.” Esmerelda turned to see the old woman—perhaps to save the girl from the a lifetime of moral turmoil, or else simply out of terror—waving her hand at a wooden cupboard. “There,” she repeated, wheezing out the word as if it was to be her last: “There.”
Patting the girl gently on the head, Esmerelda smiled at the old woman, who quickly avoided the look, and took three steps toward the cupboard. When she was near enough, she said softly, “Daniel McAlister, come out, come out.”
Daniel coughed, but said nothing. The cupboard door didn’t as much as stir. Esmerelda remembered how she had played hide-and-seek and other games as a child. Sometimes she hid in the cupboard, too. Sometimes no one found her until it was dark and then she came out and the house was empty. Other times, the winner was the one who stayed hidden the longest. How she wanted to play a game with Daniel. The atmosphere, the cruelty, the chance for revenge. But she let her bloodlust cool.
And banged with her fist on the cupboard door.
Opening it—
Barely had time to register Daniel’s crouching body before it lunged out at her, the silvery glint of a kitchen knife in its palm; they both fell, he on top of her, and she felt the cold of the knife at her chest just as her back hit the floor and her breath went out with the thud. She gasped. Daniel’s eyes widened and she looked down: the boy’s trembling hand was holding the knife handle, the blade having melted away as it came into contact with her skin. Her shirt was torn, but her body whole.
She thrust out her right hand and seized Daniel by the throat. The muscles in his neck went tense, he dropped what was left of the knife. As it clanged repeatedly against the floorboards, she screeched, “Didn’t your mother teach you—metal, my dear, is ineffective against witches.”
She tightened her grip, she sat up, she stood, she raised Daniel off the ground until his bare feet dangled in the air.
Behind her, one of the other children made a run for the door—which Esmerelda slammed shut with a wave of her free hand. The child stopped. Esmerelda turned. Daniel kicked his feet and grabbed at her wrist; the other was bent back menacingly, holding half a dozen forks suspended in the tense air, pointed at the attempted escapee. “Sit or die, child,” she said. The child returned to the others huddling ever-tighter together under the table.
She let the forks drop.
And slapped Daniel across the face.
“Don’t fight, Daniel McAlister. It is destined.”
It felt good to hold a commoner child by the neck, extinguishing its life breath by breath. The more its lungs laboured, the stronger hers pumped. She felt full of oxygen and life, overcome by power and the desire to make murder. Over the years, she had seen violence among the commoners, yes, but also restraint. She had seen men sheath swords when they could have run them without consequence through the bellies of defeated adversaries. Only to then perform acts of insane brutality under the very eyes of the representatives of the King’s law. She could not understand this contradiction: mercy in one hand, dangerous passion in the other. Now, looking into Daniel McAlister’s eyes, she knew that this one harboured the same weakness. Power has become a question of reproduction and numbers, she remembered one of her Coven matrons saying. The commoners had started a war out of fear—an indiscriminate, stupid application of force. She looked at Daniel’s dry lips. Yet conducted it without strategy, by fits merciful and self-destructive. The lips spasmed, she loosened her grip, the boy breathed. That was the difference: she would kill with no moral hesitation, but she would not be reckless or wasteful. Daniel McAlister would die, but he would die for a purpose. And for that reason the commoners would eventually lose this war. She was confident of it. Once the numbers evened, the weak would, as always, yield to the strong.
