Westermead: A Collection of Tales Read online

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  Raw Dog Screaming Press

  www.rawdogscreaming.com

  Copyright ©2005 by Scott Thomas

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  NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.

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  Westermead © 2005 by Scott Thomas

  All rights reserved “The Woman Who Cried Birds” originally appeared in Penny Dreadful #12, Wynter

  Published by Raw Dog Screaming Press Hyattsville, MD

  Cover image: Jules-Joseph Lefebvre

  Book design: Jennifer Barnes

  www.RawDogScreaming.com

  SPRING

  Churn

  The first month of the Westermead calendar expresses well the duality that wrestles and blends throughout the cycle of the seasons. The final throes of winter play harsh across the bleak earth, only to recede at the strengthening sun's insistence. This is the month when the sky and the sea share vastness, greyness and turbulence. Cold rains hammer the coasts and fields blur to mud as temperatures venture higher. On Plough Morn, at mid-month, there are rituals and celebrations across the land, to mark the Spring's rebirth and ensure fertility in the days ahead. Clouds churn menacingly as this month begins, as the life-force within soil-snug seeds churns, and the month comes to an end.

  Seedstir

  One rediscovers their winter-numbed senses this month. The pulse of life has quickened—it hums in the flight of bees and pounds in the hooves of pasture-bound herds. The hills are green, the meadows proud with their declarations of wildflowers. The sun's warmth urges gorse to gold and foals to shed the shaggy coats that winter had woven. The air is a delightful clutter of bird song as the nose revels in plum blossom and primrose. Eager branches purse their bud-lips, anxious to kiss the sun-drenched sky.

  Greensurge

  The rain is sweet and nourishing, the days gentle and warm. Vigor glows yellow-green from crowding vegetation. Sheep indulge. Farmers hasten their sowing. One can now gather the blond of broom and the fragrant white of hawthorn. Villagers in the Midlands celebrate Wreathe Feast, when all the pregnant women are given gifts, and their bellies are festooned with rings of flowers.

  The Green Boy

  TWO HALF-GROWN girls fluttered past the slow-footed woman, a breeze of giggles and skirts and perfume. Off they went, along the path and up the hill. Linnie Mossgrove trudged along with her staff, one hand soothing across the pout of her belly.

  "Shhh, rest still, my small and kicking one,” she cooed down at the bulge. “You can feel it, can't you?"

  The rhythmic thumping seemed to come from the ground, as well as the air. It grew closer as she mounted the hill. The hem of her skirt was dark with mud, her hair like a mad spill of wind and her soles ached ... still, she had reached the source of the drumming.

  The villagers were gathered on the edge of a field, delighted and hardy in the unobstructed breeze. The land stretched far, all stubbled and hard, the scars of a previous harvest healed by winter's white ointment. A spell woman stood like fluttering ink in her garb of black, her tangled red hair crowding her face to shadows.

  Linnie moved unnoticed to the outer edge of the revelers, smiling wearily. There were kegs of ale and tables of food and bored horses loitering. Old men with tankards abrim and black smiles cheered and joked. Children frolicked underfoot. Village women of all ages had amassed alongside the field, their collective whispers like a humming hive.

  The focus of the assemblage was a row of men—naked but for rounded wicker cones fleshed in purple moss known as bruise fur which covered their faces and heads. They walked slowly, shoulder to shoulder, up, then down the length of the field, all the while pounding at the earth with long staves. They worked to set the earth's pulse thrumming, to waken the spirits of the soil.

  The spell woman went about her business of chanting and sprinkling herbs, and rattling strings of bells. Her feet also drummed the hard ground.

  The audience of women took great delight in admiring the charms of the village men who comprised the stave-team. They made a game of trying to identify the men by their bodies alone.

  "Ooow, I want that one!” a woman exclaimed, pointing.

  "My, my, he's like a horse!” another replied.

  "That's my Broondy, you lumps of lard, no mistake about it,” another bragged.

  Linnie Mossgrove stood back, hugging herself. She was not inclined to go down to where the others had gathered in their fidgety glee. She was solemn, her eyes a shy brown, her hair as dark as fresh-turned soil, her mouth a timid pout. She stroked her swollen belly and shivered in the breeze.

  The month of Churn was a stormy thing, when winds howled grey and rain stabbed cold. The ground was stiff and ravaged in places, quick to mud in the first warm days. Linnie recalled the time she had met her husband, two years back, on Plough Morn. It had actually snowed! But today was not so bad, and might brink on warm were it not for the breeze. Merciful sunlight oozed out from behind that sky of far-flung shale.

  She took in the guisers as they passed—inscrutable creatures, looking out through the skull-sockets of their purple helmets. There was a touch of guilt and the taunt of yearning as she eyed their flexing limbs. Heavy staffs set the earth beneath her pulsing, and the child within her squirmed.

  The ritual continued. Two great and rippling bulls were yoked to a plough with the stave-team following. The animals’ horns were bedecked with ribbons of green, their wide necks strung with bells. The leader of the staffers, his cone peaked with a spurt of fresh-plucked snowdrop flowers, clenched the handles ... the initial thrust of the ploughshare broke the crust of earth and cheers went up from the crowd. A single furrow was cut down the center of the field; the spell woman danced along with a plump skin flask pouring blood from last Noovum's meat slaughter into the jagged fissure.

  It was done. The folk took to celebrating; some of the staffmen chose to remain in “costume” as they mingled. Quite often young people paired off and slipped away for private rites of fertility. The feasting, fraternizing, music and dance would go on well into the night.

  At last some of the villagers took notice of Linnie. They embraced her, saw to it that she was well fed and inquired as to the progress of her pregnancy.

  "Ohh, he's a restless one,” she reported, smiling, “growing impatient with his situation. He's terribly strong."

  They were pleased. “You're sure it's a boy, then?"

  "The spell woman thinks so."

  "Ahhh, and she's never wrong!” another woman exclaimed. “She was right about my four."

  An old woman, hunched with “the creak,” hobbled over as Linnie departed her previous acquaintances. “Linnie, lass—it should've been you out there stirring them fields to life!"

  Linnie grinned. “Why, hello, Old Mag!"

  A crooked finger wagged in her face. “You've the touch to make things grow, lassie. Remember when my herbs were plagued, how you came and did your fancy tricks to make ‘em well? And when Humber Clanside's turnip patch had them awful bugs hauntin’ it? You took care of that right good, too!"

  "I'm not a magic woman, Mag, I just try and try and put my heart into it is all. I speak to the earth with my heart, and she listens."

  "Well, it ain't just collected bits of knowledge, that's a certainty, you've got that special something."

  "I thank you for your words; you're kind."

  Two young boys watched from behind
the wall of tables and kegs. Old Mag hobbled away and Linnie stood looking out across the field.

  "It's Widow Mossgrove,” one boy noted in a hush.

  "No it isn't, she's too fat."

  "She's with child, you dung-head!"

  "Ohh, right."

  "I've heard,” the first whispered, “that a strange white rodent comes to her bed at night and brings her gifts..."

  * * * *

  The earth was warm beneath Linnie's knees as she knelt in the tangled womb of her garden. All around her Spring was about its subtle miracle. Buds like wind-stiff nipples pouted from long-barren branches. Fragile sprouts breached the soil's dry crust and unfolded their first shy leaves. The unruly snares of rose briar, along the fence to her right, were greening nicely. Violets peeked out from behind a burst of broad upright fronds.

  Gentle hands probed and worked the soil. It was cool as it clotted between her fingers—the scent dark and rich. The texture was loamy where she had worked in sand. There were secret forests of roots and the clammy pink spasms of worms disturbed. Many marvelous little creatures dwelled in that hidden world—ants, beetles, quick spiders and centipedes like ambery chains.

  With hoe and spade a spot was cleared, and the woman, at peace with this place, hummed as she worked. Bees spun about through the sweet plant fumes as she lifted a small ceramic pot and carefully worked loose the dying plant within.

  "You poor thing.” She gently shook off the excess dirt from the roots. It was a mothcandle, a smallish plant with greyish flowers, which, as the name implied, resembled moths. The flowers were doubly curious in that they only opened at night, and gave off a spectral glow. The village baker had given the plant to her after a bout of poor luck with it. The fellow had become quite flustered with the thing, for no matter what he tried, it would not bloom.

  The plant was ill, its roots weak, stems near-brittle, leaves wilting and yellowed about their tips. Linnie examined it closely before lowering it into the hole she'd made. She closed her eyes as she worked the soil in around the base of the thing, her fingers swirling in the moist darkness until the earth seemed to hum.

  "Nannie...” Linnie called softly.

  Her fingers moved slowly, gracefully, emphatically.

  "Nannie Blossom ... where are you?"

  The mothcandle sagged as if weary of this new place, stunned, even having been removed from that strangling clay pot.

  "Nannie Blossom, come help, come help. As my love nourishes you, dear friend, then come help me heal this sorry little plant."

  Beneath the soil, where her hands were immersed, Linnie felt something lick at her fingers, a worm perhaps, then something else ... It was like a warm electric breeze surging in circles about the root ball of the mothcandle. It seemed to flow right through her hands.

  "That's right, Nannie, do your dance. Spin and dance, my little friend."

  * * * *

  The hamlet of Barrowloam was a farming community not twenty miles from the western coast of Westermead. When the month of Seedstir came the hills plumped green and sprawls of gorse blazed blond. Languid herds took to their grazing pastures as fields were ploughed to chocolate-brown and seeded. Sun-drunk blossoms crowded the bases of humble crofts.

  Linnie sat alongside Reedly Grimledge, the village magistrate, as his coach creaked and jounced along the path to his house. The Kingdom official was a thin man with tousled grey hair and a horsey smile. His jokes were quick and tart and his laughter all snorts and coughs. He had Linnie pealing jubilantly the whole trip.

  "Ahh, here we are!” Reedly announced. They came to a stop by a handsome two story building of stone—a rarity in that its roof was tiled in slate. On either side of the broad wooden door stood a lamp post coiled in ivy. Directly in front of these was a small ringed pool with a large stone vase rising from its center.

  Reedly helped Linnie down. “Here we go. Right then, it's over here.” He led her over to the pool.

  "Mister Grimledge, would it have not been proper to ask the spell woman to tend to this matter?” the ever-humble Linnie inquired.

  Reedly snickered mischievously. “Oh, I'm afraid I couldn't do that. She still hasn't forgiven me for that joke I played on her last Balance-Tide. Do you remember? I hid some sheep dung in a—oh, never mind! Come look at this poor wretch."

  Linnie stepped up on the stone rim, which encircled the pool, and peered down at the plant inside the vase. It was a gullrose, so named because of the long beak-like thorns on the stems and the feathery white of its blooms. It was partly folded upon itself; some of the stems were snapped.

  "Something crushed it, you said?"

  "Ah, yes, I failed to elaborate. You may remember a few nights back—three, no, four, wait, three, yes, that's it. Three nights back we had a most vigorous storm. You recall?"

  "Mm hm."

  "Well, I heard reports from the coast, from most reliable sources I might add, that it rained hares as well as water."

  "No ... you're joking!"

  "I'm not. Dozens of the buggers came down, washed up on the shore as well. Fishermen collected them and piled ‘em like cairns. Dreadful, I know. They sold a good many of them to the butcher."

  "Really?"

  "Right. Anyway, as the storm moved inland some of these unfortunate beasts fell about my property. And, of all places, one landed smack on my favorite gullrose! Such a shame, too, it was budding up so well."

  "You're not fooling, are you?"

  "Dear Linnie, look at the thing, it's been hit with a hare!"

  She laughed.

  "I wouldn't joke about a thing such as that. The sky does rain strange objects on occasion. When I was a boy in Shropegrove it rained newts. I was lying out at picnic, dozing in fact, with my blasted mouth open and ... blah!"

  Linnie laughed until her baby kicked. “Now you've got him in an uproar."

  "He's angry because you don't believe my story about the raining rabbits."

  "All right then, I believe you. Now, I'd best get to work before I chuckle myself dizzy and fall in the pool."

  Linnie tied some of the bent stems to splints and pinched off some buds so that the plant could conserve enough strength to heal itself. She sprinkled a blend of powdered nutrients onto the soil and watered them in. Finally she swirled her fingers lightly through the upper layer of mulch.

  "Come, Nannie, come, help me do my bidding,” she whispered.

  The soil grew warm.

  "Nannie Blossom, hear my call, come swift, come now."

  Tingles of electric fur traced across her submerged fingertips.

  Reedly came out of the house as she was washing her hands in the pool.

  "Done so soon, are we, Linnie?"

  "Yes, sir. Your gullrose will be fine now."

  "Oh, splendid, splendid! Do tell me you'll stay for a meal, I can't send you off without showing my appreciation."

  "I'll gladly stay if you like."

  "Oh, splendid! We're having roasted rabbit."

  * * * *

  Linnie peeled back the bedcovers and slid beneath them. The weighty swell of her belly made even so mundane an action as this a task. She chuckled at her own gracelessness. As she sat there in the middle of that cool expanse of sheets her smile turned to pout.

  She thought of those rippling men she had watched on Plough Morn, their healthy limbs all farm-work muscled, their backs strong and hind quarters taut. How comforting it would have been just to have such a body lying beside her again.

  "Well, I'm not alone, am I?” she said, patting her belly. “We have each other, don't we, small one? Soon you'll be out, and won't that be fine? I'll take such good care of you, I promise."

  The solitary candle by the bed lit the solitary tear on her cheek.

  "What times we'll have. I'll teach you to garden, and to sing, and we'll play foolhardy games and picnic. I'll take you to visit your dear father's grave, and tell you how brave he was, going off to the North War, like he did."

  She leaned over and blew out th
e rushlight before curling fetal on her side, her palms pressed to the warm passenger within.

  "I hope you never have to go off to some awful war,” she whispered. “Perhaps you'll be a man of peace and gentleness, content to make life grow from the earth, rather than cause others to be put into it. But your father was a good man, mind you, and he thought what he did was right. I don't know, but I loved him."

  She hovered on the brink of sleep, listening to the chirping night. And before her awareness could give way to dreams, there came a sound.

  Something was moving on the floor at the foot of the bed. A soft scrabbling, then the weight on the mattress edge. She raised her head and looked.

  Soft bluish light shone; at first she did not know what it was, but she recognized what was holding it.

  "Ahhh, Nannie Blossom, what have you brought me?"

  She was a slinky thing with vaporous white hair, her face long and pointed, her ears with serrated edges like leaves, her eyes like two drops of emerald. She was standing upright on her haunches at the bed's edge. She held out a tiny moth-shaped flower, which glowed pale blue.

  Linnie reached down and took the flower. “Oh, it's lovely! I must go see!"

  Nannie sprang off the bed and ran towards the door, vanishing into the darkness. Linnie lit her candle and walked through the cottage, out to the sprawling garden, all crowded with shadowy vegetation.

  There amidst the other plants stood the mothcandle, its gentle winged flowers spread in luminous glory.

  "We did it, Nannie, we did it!"

  Two small green eyes smiled out of the black mesh of plants, blinked, then were gone.

  * * * *

  The two little girls fluttered past, all giggles and sun-bright skirts. They charged along the lane with baskets swinging, leaving behind the furrowed fields and the white stone house beyond. They reached the orchard, its blooms stark against the hills so green—great fragrant torches of pink.

  "Wait for me, you silly things!” Linnie called.

  The daughters of the farmer who had invited her out to “treat” his trees turned briefly, smiled, then dashed on, unhindered.