The Minister's Daughter by Julie Hearn

Author:Julie Hearn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers
Published: 2003-09-09T04:00:00+00:00

SEPTEMBER 1645

On the second Sunday in September the cunning woman gets out of bed, climbs down the ladder, and promptly forgets where she is. Nell finds her huddled beside the cauldron, mouthing a garbled spell of protection and glaring at the chicken.

“Go back to bed, Granny,” she coaxes her. “Go on, and I’ll bring you up a cordial.”

“Who are you?” the old woman replies. “And where are my scarlet slippers?”

It is forty years, at least, since the cunning woman has worn anything on her feet except clogs or broken boots.

It takes a great deal of persuading to get her up the ladder and back under the coverlet, and still she isn’t sure whether Nell is her sister, a neighbor, or some daft maid come from miles away for a love potion.

“Those love potions …,” she murmurs. “They don’t always work.”

Nell tucks her up like a poorly child and goes back down the ladder to rake the hearth and feed the chicken.

It is time, she realizes, to let everyone know that her granny is sick in her mind. It is time to stand alone as the village healer and midwife—that is, if folk will let her.

Her own mind, she is sure, contains enough of the Knowledge now to conjure a remedy for just about everything from itchy scalps to gouty toes. The properties of every herb, root, flower, seed, gum, bark, and berry she is ever likely to use are clear in her head. She can distill, infuse, and preserve as necessary. And she understands the significance of adding magical things—the skin of a snake, flakes of iron, foam from the sea, or wine in which a ruby has been swirled seven times.

The cunning woman has taught her well, for as long as she has been able. She might not have covered everything, but it is enough to get by on, and the rest will come with experience. There can be no more lessons. For her granny’s moments of clarity are so rare nowadays that when they happen, it doesn’t seem kind to press for more Knowledge. The past … that’s all the cunning woman wants to dwell on now. Little bits of the past, as bright and precious as the lozenges of glass that once formed a picture in the window of the church.

It is weeks since Nell and her granny last showed their faces at church. A Sunday in the village might as well be Tuesday on the moon, for all the cunning woman knows or cares anymore. Even if Nell were to get her ready this morning and down through the fields in time, it is doubtful she would sit still for the sermon. She would dance a jig, more than likely. Or rattle off various ways to pull a tooth without pain. Or loudly accuse the minister of never smiling or of stealing gooseberries from someone’s garden. She would behave, anyway, in an odd and unacceptable manner. People would get annoyed. Children would take fright. No one would understand.

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