Hag by Kathleen Kaufman

Author:Kathleen Kaufman [Kaufman, Kathleen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781684421671
Publisher: Turner Publishing Company
Published: 2018-10-02T05:00:00+00:00

THE LITTLE SHOP ON the lane was well-known throughout Glasgow. Some knew of it by association: the daughter of the great Moira Blair ran it and lived in the flat overhead with her own daughter, who had the trademark fiery hair and dark eyes of her mother and grandmother. Some knew it for Catriona, herself, and her indelible ability to know all that was troubling you without ever hearing a word. Some knew it for the strange stories that swirled around the daughter, who was swiftly becoming a woman. Muriel had been named for a many-greats grandmother around whom swirled stories of ancient witchery and a mysterious cult of powerful women. There was no saying if the stories were true, but Catriona had hoped that her daughter would find strength in her family name and not be swayed by frauds as she herself had been once.

It was a difficult time. The séances and spiritualism that the Russian woman claimed to hold power over had become overwhelmingly popular, especially among the wealthy women of Edinburgh and London. Glasgow held a more working-class sort of sensibility, and as such, Catriona’s shop was publicly an entirely unmagical apothecary, as held with the ancient and outdated witchcraft laws. However, anyone who paid the least bit of attention knew its real intent. The authorities looked the other way, and a wary peace held. Catriona was approached frequently, as many had heard of her one-time association with the Russian woman, and even though the Russian had been proven a fraud long ago, her philosophy lived on and her followers were seemingly everywhere.

Muriel was a curious girl; she took to the herbal mixtures and teas her mother taught her easily. She grew a line of herbs in her bedroom window and collected flowers from the fields outside of town. The teenager seemed to have little to no interest in others her age, and even though she attended the newly formed higher primary school and was subject to all manner of compulsory social interaction, she always seemed to exist in her own world.

For her part, Muriel did not much see the point of the higher primary school. She had learned to read from her mother at a very young age and had from that point on read everything put in front of her. She learned of wars and queens and kings. She learned geometry and higher math and philosophy. She lost herself in the sordid and gory stories of the saints and martyrs and learned the Latin names of plants and animals from the crumbling books in her grandmother Moira’s library. But her real education was spent on the heath. As soon as she could slip away and change the stiff, scratchy school uniform for soft cotton, she headed to the fields that surrounded the city. It was here she discovered that by sitting very still under the great rowan tree by the edge of the woods and emptying her head, she could call the butterflies to land on her shoulders and hands.

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