SEVEN: A Southern Priest
They spoke very little on the journey to the village. It seemed as arduous for Father Cooper as it was for Alice, who leaned her weight against him and hopped pitifully along the path. His patience never faltered, but she was ceaselessly frustrated by the pace. Tom could be bleeding to death in a ditch, for all she knew, and her weakness could be costing him his life. But the pain in her ankle was becoming unbearable, aching and burning until she could think of nothing else, until even thoughts of Tom were pushed to the back of her mind. The priest seemed to notice her pain – perhaps from the grimace etched on her face – and suggested a rest.
"I'm fine, I'm fine," Alice protested. She wanted to reach the rectory as soon as possible. Every minute they lagged was a minute than could have been spent searching for Tom.
"I need a rest," Father Cooper insisted, helping her sit upon a jagged mossy boulder. He sat across the path on a fallen log and regarded Alice with curiosity as she caught her breath, bracing a hand against her burning chest. "Do you know these parts well?" he asked.
Alice shook her head.
"Nor I. I am from much farther south, you see. I have only been in this area for a few months, and I'm afraid I still know precious little about the County."
Alice did not respond, now rubbing at her shin as if it would soothe her ankle pain. Father Cooper took her silence as permission to continue with his story.
"I attended the funeral of an old friend at Priestown last year. When I saw the…well, the state of things in the County, I took it upon myself to find a parish here."
"The state of what?" Alice asked unkindly. She was growing more and more mistrustful.
"The people here need the Word of God." The priest's eyes widened as he spoke. "They are trapped in their outdated ways, and only the Lord can lead them to freedom!"
Alice watched him warily but did not speak.
"The old ways are ingrained within them," he continued. "They believe in demons, spirits, and witches! Witches!" he laughed, shaking his head.
Again Alice said nothing. Father Cooper may know nothing of pointy shoes and Pendle District, but the villagers whose church he oversaw would not be so ignorant. He sighed, quiet with his thoughts. The derisive laughter faded from his face.
"Alice, do you know of Salem?" he asked, resting his elbow on his knee. Though he was on the other side of the footpath, somehow he seemed to be looming far too close.
Alice shook her head. "Who's that?"
He chuckled darkly. "Salem is not a who, but a where. It is a village in the New World. My third eldest brother, a priest like me, sailed to the New World some years ago. He wrote to me of Salem not long after, though of course the letter took over a month to reach me. When the letter did finally arrive, it contained a very distressing account. My brother told me of the deaths of twenty-five people in Salem due to a false belief in witchcraft. Twenty-five innocents dead at the hands of witch hunters and their weak-minded followers. And I vowed that such ignorance would not lead to the death of one more person. Not while I can spread the Word of God."
Alice looked down. The victims in the New World were innocent, of course – a real witch would have sniffed out the danger without effort. It certainly was not a tale Alice wanted repeated here in the County or anywhere else, but she also wasn't quite sure that Father Cooper's version of religion was the answer. To avoid that conversation she rose to her feet, deciding that she had rested enough. She gripped the priest's proffered arm and began limping on again.
They emerged from the forest into the late morning sun at the edge of a grassy garden. It was not very well-kempt, the flower beds overgrown with grasses and weeds. A squat house crouched about fifty paces away, windows evenly spaced across the long wall, and Father Cooper informed her that this was his home, the rectory. Another few minutes and Alice had staggered across the garden to a brown door on the side of the rectory. The priest held it open for her and she limped across the threshold into a comfortably furnished room, though dim and low-ceilinged. Nearly as soon as she entered the room, the exhaustion of the night collapsed upon her, and Alice sank into an armchair without being asked. Father Cooper made no comment, disappearing into another room for a moment.
He returned holding a box. Pulling another chair closer to where Alice was resting, he opened the box and pulled out a length of linen bandaging. He reached for her ankle, and though Alice's mind recoiled at the thought of this strange man touching her, she could not summon the energy to move herself away. Sitting down seemed to be all it took for her to succumb entirely to her fatigue. Father Cooper untied her pointy shoe and eased it off her swollen ankle, placing the shoe gently on the floor. He wrapped her ankle tightly with the bandage until it was completely immobile and resembled a fat cocoon. Alice closed her eyes, the bandage having eased her pain some. When she opened her eyes it seemed she had fallen asleep, though it hadn't felt longer than a blink. Father Cooper was standing above her with a tea tray he had not had before.
"My housekeeper was kind enough to make tea. Shall I bring it upstairs to one of the spare bedrooms for you?" he asked. Alice had to admit to herself that nothing sounded better than a rest in a comfortable bed. She rose awkwardly, supporting herself on the arms of the chair. Seeing her pointy shoe on the floor at her feet, and knowing it would never fit over her ankle now, she held it by the laces and followed Father Cooper. Her bound ankle rather hampering her progress, she leaned all of her weight on the stair rail. The priest led her to a small room in the back of the house with a window overlooking the garden and the woods beyond. It was sparsely but comfortably furnished with a bed, a chair, a small chest of drawers with a wash basin and mirror, and a side table with a Bible. Father Cooper set the tray on the side table and turned to Alice expectantly.
"Is there anything else I can get for you?"
"No." Alice was too weary to be polite.
"Please drink some tea. Have a peaceful rest." He closed the door behind him, and Alice pressed her ear to the wood to listen to his footsteps descending the stairs. Hardly able to remain standing any longer, Alice collapsed on top of the bedclothes and promptly fell asleep, still wearing one pointy shoe.
It was already dusk when Alice awoke again. For a moment, she thought she was home at the cottage in Chipenden, and reached her left arm out to feel for Tom. All she felt was empty space. Remembering where she was, in the relative comfort and safety of Father Cooper's rectory, she sat up and gazed around the room. The tea had grown cold, untouched, on the table to her right, and her eyes fell on the Bible that accompanied the tea tray on the table. Like the cold tea, it remained untouched.
Swinging her legs over the edge of the bed she limped slowly, feeling stiff, toward the window that offered a view to the garden and the forest through which she had arrived. The light outside was gray and blue with the setting sun, casting an eerie stillness over the world. Her ankle ached beneath the wrappings, but she could not waste much more time before setting out to look for Tom. The man who had come on spook's business looked like a farmer, with sturdy muddy boots and wiry muscles, but she hadn't recognized him. He probably led Tom somewhere east of Chipenden, out toward the farmland of another village.
That was assuming, of course, that the man truly was in need and hadn't led Tom into a trap. Alice sighed. There was no way to find Tom with so little information. Glancing at the mirror above the drawers across the small room, she strode close enough to see her reflection within the wooden oval frame. It surprised her how dirty she looked, wild and unkempt like a vagabond – like a witch. Her hands started shaking, heart feeling weak and small within her chest. She told Tom to use a mirror if he needed her, but the truth was it had been years since either of them had communicated in that way. It was just something she said to remind him that she was always there to help on the rare occasions they were separated. She had done her very best to leave that life behind. Alice wondered what it would cost her to use one now. She chewed the inside corner of her mouth.
No. She could not bring herself to do it. She would find Tom with her own instincts – they were rarely wrong. She could sniff out that farmer again and take it from there. No dark magic needed. For the time being, she needed to look after herself – heal her ankle, build her strength. Then, at her most effective, she would find Tom.
Following her nose, Alice hobbled back downstairs, her heavily bandaged foot nearly slipping several times on the sleekly polished stairs. She could smell something savory wafting from the kitchen, but before she could investigate, Father Cooper approached from the drawing room.
"How are you feeling?" he asked, placing a congenial hand on her upper arm.
"Fine." She felt tired, actually. Weak. The stairs seemed to be enough to exhaust her.
"Come sit with me while my housekeeper finishes our supper." He offered Alice his arm and assisted her in limping into the drawing room. He settled her in a purple armchair by the fire and sat in its twin across from her. Alice found herself staring into the fire dazedly, suddenly feeling more exhausted than she had in the forest the night before. She could not say how many minutes passed in this drowsy silence before Father Cooper spoke.
"Where are you from, Alice?"
"Um," Alice sleepily dragged her eyes from the fire to his face. "Southeast of here."
"Do you have family?"
Alice could have laughed or cried, but she had the energy for neither. She had a large family, maybe the largest in the world: her father had sired hundreds of children, maybe thousands over the centuries, so she had half-siblings of all forms. On her mother's side she had Malkins dating back to before written history.
"No."
"No family at all?"
"No."
"That's very sad to hear." Father Cooper seemed sincere, but Alice could not bring herself to care. Pity was the last thing she was interested in. This priest could do nothing for her. "Why did you come to these parts?"
"Looking for…work," she lied clumsily.
"Indeed? Well perhaps I can set you up with some household work when your foot is healed. My own housekeeper has just put in her notice I'm afraid."
Alice looked back into the fire.
"I'll go look in on our supper, shall I?" the priest asked, rising. He returned almost instantaneously, it seemed to Alice, declaring supper to be waiting for them.
He led her into the kitchen and sat her at a wooden table in front of a steaming bowl of stew. It smelled delicious, but Alice's head was growing foggier by the moment. If she had drunk the tea, she might have thought she had been poisoned. But she had not touched the tea. What was happening to her? Father Cooper was speaking, but it all sounded muffled. She could not make out individual words, but his tone was rising. He was shouting. Alice's vision was growing blurry, but she saw a woman enter the room from the priest's right. She looked somehow familiar to Alice, but the world was steadily growing too dark for her to see.
Wow I'm so sorry I haven't updated in so long! I'm taking an online class and it's killing my brain. But my final paper is due this weekend, so expect more soon! Also, the Salem witch trials happened in the early 1690s, so it is plausible for someone in Lancashire to know about them in the early 18th C. I think. Please review!
