Chapter 28- New
This chapter contains some adult material.
Rebecca does not sleep. She burns sacred herbs in Lizzie's workshop to calm the couple in the bedroom and asks the forces of nature, her gods and goddesses, to let them find rest. Her people were once from Scotland, heathens hidden for centuries from the church, practicing in secret to avoid death. Hadrian's wall separated the family and made them English in region, but not in their hearts. So they witched on.
She bakes, too, a magic of its own, making sure there will be food without work for them in the morning. And then she dozes in the chair when the light is just greying the sky. When it is dawn and the sun streams through the windows, she wakes. She hears movement in the bedroom and creeps to the door, opening it only a crack. They move together, intertwined under the sheets. She closes the door without noise, a smile on her face. She stokes the fire then wraps herself in a heavy shawl and steps out into the snow, her footprints the first in the six inches of accumulation. She walks to her own home, the day brightening as the sun lifts fully over the horizon.
She opens the back door; Thaddeus is at the kitchen table with coffee, "Good morning, Bec. How does your patient fare?"
"She's not my patient." She passes him and pours herself a cup. She usually sits with him at the table in the morning, coffee after breakfast, but she stands at the window instead.
"Bec? What's going on? You're not telling me something."
"Does a witch ever tell everything?"
"Come on, darling. Talk to me."
But she doesn't. She sips her coffee at the window and watches the world wake up.
Thaddeus stands and walks to her, his coffee left behind. He puts a hand on her shoulder, "Please-"
She whirls around and slaps him hard, "No. You stand down, Thaddeus Doyle. I heard every word last night. Every. Single. Word. And it was cruelty at its finest to interrogate him so. I swear, by all the forces of this world and every other, that if you were the architect of this hare-brained scheme, I will take you apart piece by piece."
"Rebecca, please. We had to know if she'd gone mad."
"Not that way. To assume from the start that he'd hurt her, even after all these years... Thad, it's been 25 years since he gained his freedom from Allerdale Hall. A quarter century. He's loved her for nearly all of it, been free for over the past decade...and yet you accused him of such a grievous sin..." She pushes by him and drops into a chair at the table, "How would you be feeling if it were me, out there on the moors that you'd just rescued, and the only friends you'd ever had came in asking such a thing? Really, Thad- did you think this at all through?"
He slowly sits down across from her, "There's a reason Mal did most of the speaking. He'd been worried about Lizzie for years. She's well past the age her mother was when she died, but we just don't know what happened to Magdaline. Was the madness in her blood? Did it come on because of Lord Sharpe? We can't say."
"And were it to come on our Lizzie, what then? Would you cage her? Take a pike to her brain and hope it relieved her without stealing her from her own head? Or would you let her lover care for her with all his heart? He's dealt with madness before and survived her. Not well, mind you, but he's walked that path. And were she mad, he wouldn't be alone in the handling of it. Or he wasn't, until last night. Lord knows if he'll trust us again."
"Are you saying that we shouldn't care?"
"No. I'm saying you should mind your own damned business and let the girl grieve her father. Let him, too. Reg, Lizzie, Nate- their the boy's only blood family. He's lost the only elder he's ever had who didn't treat him cruelly. Who never wanted him to die so they would be rid of a disappointment. What does that do to a man? A child? To grow up that way? And now Reg is gone and Thomas is carrying Lizzie's grief heavy on his shoulders, trying to ignore his own so he can care for her. And there you boys went to add to that burden..."
"I'm sorry. We only were worried for her when we came in last night."
"No, you were worried for yourselves."
Thaddeus tips his head, curious to hear her reasoning, "Oh?"
"Aye. Yourselves. You were scared you would endure something horrifying again. You didn't think a whit about what it would mean if she was mad. What it would do to her. To her lover. Mal didn't want to see another girl dead. He loves her, you all do. But if she's mad, what are you going to do to stop it? Is breaking the man she loves away from the people who he will depend on to take care of him when he must devote his life to caring for her really thinking of anyone but yourselves?"
Silence. She hears the mice scritching along the floorboards upstairs. She glares at the ceiling. The sound stops. Then she looks back to Thaddeus, waiting.
"My god, Becca...I'm so sorry."
"You're not the only one who needs to be sorry and I'm not the one you need to be telling it to. I'm going back over there in a bit. Not yet, they need their time alone. But soon. You aren't to be knocking on their door today, none of the lot of you. Not even Nate. But after the year starts its close, you need to speak so you're on the right terms when the next one begins." She finishes her coffee and retreats to her work room, to herbs, the cauldron over the fire, and lanterns.
Thaddeus sips his coffee in the sunlight, thinking. He has to talk to Malachi. To Roger. To Nathaniel. They year ends in only a few days. There is work to do.
Back in the cottage, Lizzie sighs against Thomas' chest as he rests over her. She kisses over his heart and he rolls off her, slipping his hand between her legs, fingers sliding gently back. She shoves him and laughs.
"Oh? A bit sensitive, are we?" he teases, kissing her forehead.
She nods and moans as he strokes, fingers easing into her as her legs fall open, welcoming him. Her lips seek his and he happily kisses her mouth, her chin, her neck, nibbling her ears as she gasps, her hand resting on his wrist, guiding his movement, her other fingers buried in his hair. It isn't long before she quivers around his fingers. She presses his hand into her and falls back against the pillow, panting.
"Oh, Lizzie. I love the sounds you make. I love the expressions on your face as we make love. And I cannot yet understand why you chose me."
"Because I love you."
He smiles, "I love you, too, Miss York. And perhaps after we bathe, we can talk of our future."
She fumbles for her notebook and finds it buried under the blankets, "Are you serious when you say you will consider marriage?"
"Yes. But please understand this terrifies me. I may need to stop or back away all together for a little while."
"We will go as slow as you need."
"Speaking of slow, what time is it? The sun is fairly high, at least for December."
She shrugs. He slips from bed and goes to draw a bath. It is a huge tub, one of the few expensive things they bought with the wealth from Allerdale Hall. They can sit in it together and on this cold morning, that is exactly what they do, washing one another and cuddling under the warm water. After they are dried and dressed, they walk out to the other room and find the breakfast baking Rebecca has left out on their table. There is a note.
"Lovelies,
"I baked. I prayed to the old gods. And I hope this morning you can start to move forward in love. Send for me when you wish to talk of ceremonies. I can also send for Brother Mort. I will take care of you, even if my boys are being unreasonable dunderheaded fools. You can bet your last penny Thad, at the least, will regret the lack of care they had for the both of you last night. Now enjoy your breakfast. And one another. I know you did this morning."
Thomas laughs a little uncomfortably, "Oh my...she must have still been here when we started."
Lizzie shrugs, "She is a witch. These things are part of our natural lives. There is no shame attached to sex in our traditions, only sacredness for what it can be to those involved and the vulnerability it requires. She may have stepped in to check on us and seen. But she likely only smiled and shut the door to leave us be."
"So very different from my growing-up."
"So very different from the growing-up of most people, I would suppose. But we are a different sort, up here by Hadrian's Wall. Less tamed by the church out here in the wilds of the Lakes."
Thomas serves her breakfast, makes coffee, and then sits across the corner from her, their legs woven together under the table. Once they have eaten, she checks the time. It is nearing eleven. They took their time waking up, making love, bathing.
Lizzie sets her notebook on the table, "So...what do you want to do today?"
"I want to know how we will proceed with not only the day, but with our lives. The idea of getting married...it's daunting."
"I know. I love you, Thomas."
He takes her hand, "I know. And for you I will do what I can. But if I cannot, please do not think I love you any less. Only that I cannot ignore the wounds I have caused myself."
"Or that Lucille caused you."
"I know."
"You are safe here. You know that?"
"Am I, still, given last night?"
"Yes."
"And what if I can't entirely believe that?"
"Then believe me when I say that no one dares cross the witches of this village- there is a story that your father showed up on Rebecca's door after my mother was dead. The story says he told her women like her needed to be broken on their backs. And she looked him dead in the eye and said men like him best watch the shadows, lest they have knives driven into them while sleeping, for women like her had the ways to do whatever necessary to protect themselves. When Thaddeus tells the tale, it ends there. When Rebecca tells it, and she rarely does, it continues that night, when she appeared by his bedside in the dead of the night, a spirit while her body was yet here in the village, and told him that he was never to come here again, lest she take vengeance for everyone he had ever hurt, his children included. And to hear her tell it, you would think that the reason his horse threw him and trampled him while he was out hunting was because she'd done something to make it happen- horses listen to witches. And she would not bury him in the churchyard. She put up enough of a fuss that he's outside the fence behind the church. The story says your mother called it a 'family plot'- we all called it the unconsecrated place for the man who deserved to be damned."
"Lucille poisoned the flask he always took with him. It was a rudimentary poison, not what she would learn to blend for tea- it was a small miracle the horse finished the work. He'd never thrown anyone before. She said she had to end him before he killed me. He nearly did, forgetting me out in the fields- I think I was 8. It took days to find me and I was nearly dead. All I remember is cold and then waking to his thundering at me for being so weak. And that doesn't count the times he tried to strangle me or beat me or the cuts and burns..." He rubs his arm unconsciously.
Lizzie places her hand over his; he drops his head when he realizes what he is doing, "And you're safe from him now. He is dead. You are with me. And we dismantled Allerdale Hall."
Thomas embraces her and rests his head on her shoulder, "But it's never all the way over, Lizzie. It still haunts. I still have nightmares. Fewer, yes, but they are horrifying. And there are so many scars."
"I know a tissane that is meant to help with quiet sleep. Would you be willing to try it?"
"Tissane?"
"Like a tea, but without any actual tea."
"I can't."
"If it is from your lover, perhaps you can. Do you trust me?"
"Yes. But this isn't about trust. It's about who hurt me. And how she still hurts me."
"Would you be willing to try were I to make it? I won't hold you to anything if you can't. But if you need rest, it will give it. And perhaps it will steal some of the power she still has over you."
He sits back and takes her hands, "We will see. But first, let's go to Rebecca. One challenge at a time, and the first one is talk of marriage."
She nods and kisses his cheek, a comfort and assurance. They finish their coffee, bundling up against the chilly weather. They follow Rebecca's footsteps to her cottage and knock on the door.