Page 20 of The Moorwitch

In what I’ve seen of the house, I’ve got the impression that it has been largely left to cobwebs, with furniture covered by oilcloth, closed doors, ticking clocks, and a general air of ruin and abandonment. But the kitchen is tidy as a pin and warm. Dried herbs hanging on rafters above my head fill the room with the rich scent of thyme, rosemary, and mint.

Mrs. MacDougal is off tending to the injured laird, which leaves me with the little girl for company. I have seen no sign of any other residents, either family or staff. Mr. MacDougal was sent to gather the horse I left sleeping on the road. I pity the man, out in this storm, andhope the lightning now crashing outside hasn’t sent the animal bolting into the wood.

Sylvie North sits on the hearth with her chin resting on her hands and her bright eyes fixed on my face. Her gaze has not left me since she opened the door; her brother’s injury hardly seemed of interest to her. It makes me wonder in what sort of condition he often turns up.

“London!” Sylvie exclaims. “I wishIwere from London. I haven’t been anyplace at all. Did you go to school? Are you friends with the queen?”

For the last ten minutes, she has peppered me with an endless stream of questions, moving from place to place like a vibrating hummingbird, chair to table to hearth to floor. The dog, Captain, bounds wherever she goes and lays his shaggy black head on her lap so she can scratch his ears.

“I hope your brother is all right,” I say. “Are your parents at home?”

She waves a dismissive hand, making the knitting needles around her neck clatter. “It’s just me and Connie. No parents. And he’s hit his head harder than that before.”

My eyebrows lift. “Has he?”

“Once, he fell off the stable roof. Broke his arm and his nose.”

“What on earth was he doing on the roof?”

She grins. “Trying to fetch me down.”

I find myself not doubting a word of it. The girl hasn’t stopped fidgeting since I met her.

“What’s that?” she asks, nodding at my threadkit.

I open it to reveal the gleaming new spools inside. “Well, it’s my—”

I’m interrupted by an earsplitting squeal from Sylvie North. “You’re a Weaver!”

“Yes, I thought I might craft a pain-relieving spell for your—”

“Show me some magic!” Sylvie claps her hands together. “Make time stand still. Or—I know!—make it snow indoors! Can you turn me into a wee falcon? I’ve always wished I were a falcon.”

“Sylvie North!” The commanding Scottish voice comes from our left, and I turn to see Mrs. MacDougal approaching at a vigorous pace. “Leave our guest be.”

“I told you, I’m not Sylvie,” Sylvie says. “I am a harpy, Weaving entrails on my loom, with human heads as my weights and their bones as my needles!”

“Miss Pryor,” says the harried housekeeper, “you must excuse our resident harpy. Last week she was the Egyptian goddess of death, and the week before that she was Elaine of someplace or other—”

“Astolat,” Sylvie corrects her. “I was Elaine of Astolat, languishing for love of Lancelot.” She spins around, her needle necklace clacking. “I collect frogs. Would you like to see them, Rose Pryor of London? I have twenty-eight. Well, twenty-seven. Dionysus has escaped.”

“Not again,” groans Mrs. MacDougal. “If I find that beastie in my bed again, he’ll be in the pot for supper. Now go and sit with your brother. He is awake, but we must keep watch until we are sure the damage isn’t worse than it seems.”

Sylvie casts a wistful look at my spools. “But—”

“Now, lassie!” Mrs. MacDougal’s voice brooks no argument.

With a groan, the girl trudges away, her gaze lingering on my threadkit until she has left the kitchen.

Mrs. MacDougal sighs. “Aye, that’s our Sylvie, our wee summer squall. She has a way of getting underfoot.”

I smile, thinking of my students back home. “She seems like a bright little thing.”

She turns to me, her eyes narrowing, and I instinctively sit up straighter. Mrs. MacDougal reminds me a bit of my old teacher Sister Elizabeth, who also had that way of looking at me as if she suspected I’d spit in her tea.

“So you’re a witch, then?” she says.

I stiffen. “Weaver, madam, is the correct term.Witchis an old word and was not always used kindly.”