A story from The Witch Cord

She is asleep under the water. She. Just she. They hadn’t bothered to give her a name when she was born. Nor did they think of one as she lay on the tattered mat just one side of the door jamb. Names were uttered, certainly. Names thrown and dropped into the sea of accusations between parents and midwives, elders and priests. But none of those names would have been suitable for a child.

She wasn’t named at the water’s edge either. No words were spoken then. No voices were raised to stop her father from laying her on the ground; it was the only gentle thing he’d ever done. And nor was her mother there to whisper a name. She had made all the sounds she was ever going to make. Only the water made a noise, a rhythmic heartbeat of liquid slapping rock.

Then the storm spoke. The crops had waited for this sermon. They had waited six months, from breech born to beach worn until the storm opened its mouth and passed judgement on all those gathered together. Its words were quick and they were terrible and the people ran from them and the people rejoiced in them.

And she was left upon the rock.

Did she cry?

No. Not at her birth. Not at mealtimes. Not at being lifted and not at being left.

But her hands, her hands never stopped moving. It was as though she was born swimming. As though she could swim to the stars or back into the belly of the earth. And as the storm lifted the lake from its knees, those hands kept on moving. They dipped and looped. They dipped and looped until the waters rose and covered her, until the waters turned her thin clothes to water lilies.

She sank quickly. Into the folds of water she slipped and her hands gripped the stems of the starwort which had clung to the lake bed during all the months of drought and which now awoke and flowered in her hands as they dipped and looped. Dipped and looped. They dipped and looped in and around the starwort stems, tying them in knots, turning them into a Witch Cord – though she could not speak and had no name.

She did not cry.

She is asleep under the water. She. Just she.

She has slept through all the years since her parents left her and in all those years her hands swam, knotting the starwort into spells of sleeping and surviving beneath the water. Over the years moments have drifted through the currents and she fed on them. She tasted the ripe fruits of lives which grew and were plucked in the village of her birth. She tasted the fullness of wheat fields which were cut down and made full again. She tasted the snows which fell and then fell deeper into the earth. She tasted until her belly was full and now she wakes.

She was asleep under the water and now she is not.

The Witch Cord is full of knots. Each knot is now a knock on her heart.

Wake wake.

Wake wake.

Wake wake.

A witch is just a woman wronged, but some women were born with magic in their fingers. The starwort in her hands had grown beyond its usual size. Over the years it had struggled to push its face above the surface but now it does. Now she does and together they rise up above the lake which dips and loops and parts to disgorge them. The starwort unroots itself from the womb of the lake bed and, her hands still swimming, they rise.

Even when the water is silent beneath them, she moves as though still inside it. Her body, the lilies of her baby clothes long gone, is wrapped in hair and weeds all moving to her current. Ahead of her, below the village of her birth, are the barley fields. The sun presses its face to them and everything it touches once more begins to blacken and burn. The village has grown in the years since her birth and these fields are needed more than ever.

She floats through the dry air, her wet body beginning to bake in the sun. She is a shadow upon the land, moving like a rock thrown. Her father still lives in the village. He has a new wife now, and new children. Will he choose one of them to bring the storm again or will some other man find a helpless infant to leave upon the stone? A girl child who had no value? She eases herself down until her feet brush against the barley. They tilt their heads and drink from her but she does not stop. The village is not far away.

Some of the villagers look up as she approaches. Some stop their work and stare, one hand above their eyes. Others run indoors. Soon more of the villagers are outside, watching her float nearer. The priest had not expected to see miracles and so waits to see if this is from heaven or hell. The poet looks to his feet. He does not want his dreams overshadowed with true beauty.

Eventually another man emerges. He is older, bearded, dark-eyed and stooped. He does not shield his eyes to look up at her but stands firm.

“You?” he asks.

She does not answer. She did not cry. She floats above him, blocking the sun. The starwort in her hand dips and loops around her wrist. The water on her body is turning to cloud beneath the sun. It gathers around her and spreads, darkening the village streets and extending towards the fields. She has years inside her. Years of being alone beneath the lake. Years of being someone else’s sacrifice. His sacrifice. Their sacrifice. She could wash away this village in a day. She could pour herself down for a month and still not be empty of all those years. Even an ocean could not hold the loss inside her.

But she does not cry.

She undips and unloops the starwort from her wrists and opens her hands. It falls to the dry streets and takes root. Starwort is not invasive. It spreads only as much as is needed. It brings fertility.

A witch is just a woman wronged. But wrongs need right, not revenge.

She opens her heart and rains

gently

sufficiently.

—

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