The Hellion by Harriet Young

Author:Harriet Young [Young, Harriet]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Unbound
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

11

Growing, growing,

Roots holding deep,

The mistletoe winds,

Suffocates the host.

1610

Alizon sat stiffly on a stool, next to Old Demdike’s ancient, worn chair. Her limbs were weary. She was only eighteen years old, but she felt a thousand. The first frosts had come, and they were always the worst. The icy realisation that the blankets and cloaks from the year before were destroyed by moths or just poor storage. The glances at the woodpile and the food stores, knowing they would never last through the winter.

She had spent the day up in the forest, looking often at that growing sycamore, which she would never chop down for timber. She knew the wood she collected would never be enough. Those still, marble ice days in February would be fireless regardless.

But tonight, they sat before the fire.

‘Well lit, Alizon. This fire dances,’ Old Demdike muttered.

Alizon didn’t reply. For over a year, she had spoken as little as possible. She watched, she saw, she was usually mute.

Old Demdike leaned forward, old bones creaking. ‘Look at the stories it tells! We will become eminent, wealthy and fat it must mean! We will all leave this place, to go somewhere larger, much more impressive…’ She paused, frowned at the patterns in the fire, then abruptly leaned back in her chair, silent.

Alizon ignored her. Old Demdike saw things in the fire most days. It never made any sense. The days, busy and away working, were manageable, but evenings were inescapable.

The sound Alizon had been dreading came. The door creaking open. Her mother and sister returning home.

Jennet ran in first. She perched directly in front of the fire, her back to the flames, facing Alizon and staring straight into her eyes. She began to sing, smiling all the time.

‘Take a key key and lock padlock her up,

Lock padlock her up, lock padlock her up,

Take a key key and lock padlock her up,

My fair lady.’

Alizon drew herself in, shivering, but Elizabeth, stepping through the door, chuckled.

‘The children at the well taught it to her. Doesn’t she have the most perfect voice?’

There was no answer from Old Demdike or Alizon. Elizabeth shrugged. Jennet began again:

‘Take a key key and lock padlock her up,

Lock padlock her up, lock padlock her up—’

‘I am not hungry. Good night.’ Alizon stood abruptly. She avoided everyone’s eyes as she stepped through to the second room. She would not eat tonight, but it was worth it to enjoy a few more minutes away from her sister and mother, who shared the room with her.

She lay on her bed of straw, and as she did every night when she thought she wouldn’t be seen, she pulled Night from under the straw. Her one memento of that sweet day. Her one, single possession. She kissed Night’s head, turned him over and over, then thrust him back under the straw. She couldn’t risk falling asleep with him visible in her hands.

It was cold, icy cold, and her blanket was thin. She kept all of her clothes on, but she still shivered and thought longingly of the fire in the other room.

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