Chapter 1: The Witch

Chapter One

The cottage was small and tumbledown. It sat on the hillside like a ravaged old woman, tired and unkempt. Tiles were falling off and the front door was crooked. The fence and gateposts were badly in need of painting and it would appear to a casual observer that nobody had lived there for a very long time. 

Sheep roamed the hillside, wild and feral, for no shepherds would come near the place.  The lawns grew long and untamed, a green of the colour they call bottle green, and the goats often wandered through to nibble at the grass.  Every now and then, a stray cat would pass through the garden, saunter up the garden path to the crooked front door and lap greedily at the milk which sat in a saucer placed on the doorstep.  Sparrows would fly down to eat the bread crusts scattered on the moss covered garden path. In the winter, travellers would sometimes swear they saw smoke coming from the old, cracked chimney pot perched haphazardly on the roof.

As I have said, it appeared that the cottage was empty and down in the village they would tell visitors stories of ghosts and claim it was haunted. Between the villagers there were other legends; parents would tell their children tales of a woman who would steal them from their beds if they did not behave and the word that passed from person to person was….witch!

A witch did indeed live at Hilltop Cottage, as it was known to all and she had lived there for many years.  Her name was Mrs Prentice, there had never been a Mr Prentice, but that didn’t stop her from being Mrs. She had always been Mrs ever since she had moved into the cottage one stormy night twenty years ago.  She kept to herself and would occasionally walk down the hillside, through the dark wood and into the village for births or deaths, once even for the christening of a cow! The people of the village called on her for medicines, some for love potions, others just for advice. It was strange how an hour talking to Mrs Prentice could make you feel as if your problem was not particularly important after all.

Most of the villagers were afraid of the witch, twice a year one of the boys from the village would come to cut the long grass, mend a few of the tiles and attempt to paint the fence. A curious thing would happen a week after he had been, however, the cottage would look as tumbledown as it had before he had arrived. 

There were no dogs in the house because Mrs Prentice didn’t like them; she found them silly creatures, good for nothing but slobbering over everything.  She much preferred cats because she thought them sensible creatures with common sense that kept themselves clean.  She always said that any animal who would do anything for you just because you’d thrown it a stick was an animal not worth knowing.  The cats didn’t bother Mrs Prentice and Mrs Prentice didn’t bother the cats. They came and went as they pleased and in return she would leave them a saucer of milk at each full moon.  Occasionally, one would bring her a mouse or a bird to use in her potions and leave it on the doorstep beside the empty saucer.

The house was as crooked inside as it was outside.  The pictures in the hall were crooked, the stairs were crooked and even the steam from the kettle was crooked.  Mrs Prentice sat all day in her rocking chair in the corner of her sitting room, rocking back and forth in time to the ticking of the great grandfather clock by the fireplace. She would move in the day only if there were visitors or sometimes to chase the goats out of the kitchen, or to eat.  She was not a tall woman, but nobody would ever have dared to call her short.  She dressed all in black, even down to her shoes. Her hair was not grey nor yet silver, but pure white, tied back in a tight bun at the nape of her neck.  It was a very lonely life being a witch, but Mrs Prentice didn’t mind it much. She liked the quiet and to be left alone.  Sometimes she would sit rocking in her chair with a potion book on her lap, writing new recipes she had learned, or reciting old ones. 

There wasn’t much trick to potions and spells, it was really only cooking with a bit more flavour.  Some things were age old recipes, like mustard for curing a wart, or peppermint tea for a stomach-ache. Others were more complicated, spells to make a man love you, which privately, Mrs Prentice thought was nonsense.  If a man didn’t love you already, it was unlikely he ever would even with a spell to help, though sometimes a bit of encouragement goes a long way. There was even a spell for raising the dead, but Mrs Prentice didn’t recommend that one, she thought the dead should stay dead and luckily enough, generally they did. 

People who came to visit Mrs Prentice would sometimes bring her wood for her fire, or attempt to mend the leaky roof, or shovel the snow away from the front door.  Rarely did anyone come to Mrs Prentice just to see how she was and pass a quiet afternoon taking tea with her as they did other women in the village.  Most came wanting something and none of them even knew her first name, or her birthday. Indeed, there were some who claimed she didn’t have a birthday, which as you and I know, is perfect nonsense, for everyone has a birthday sooner or later.

Although Mrs Prentice lived by herself she was never short of company.  There were the cats that brought her gifts of mice, or sat of a moonlit night on the windowsill and told her all about life in the village.  There were the bats who lived in the attic and came out only at night along with the foxes and badgers from the wood.  In the daytime, she could look out of the window and see the sheep lazing on the grass although she rarely attempted conversation with any of them as they were very ‘woolly’ thinkers as she liked to put it.  Often a deer would stray into the garden and there were the goats.  She also had a few hens who would scrap in the dirt behind the house. There was a hen coop for them to live in, but sometimes the foxes would get into the henhouse to get at the chickens and then she would have to tell them off very severely.

Animals were generally far more sensible than humans, apart from dogs, whom Mrs Prentice considered to be as close to humans as anything else, even apes and pigs.  But there was one human who Mrs Prentice was close to, and her name was Alice. 

She was a little girl from the village and she would come skipping up the grassy hill to bring the witch her bread and milk.  She was the baker’s daughter and lived next door to the milkman. She would come to Hilltop Cottage and knock bravely on the front door.  After a few minutes, if Mrs Prentice was in a good mood, Alice would hear a voice telling her the door was unlocked and in she would go, down the crooked hall and into the crooked sitting room where Mrs Prentice would be sitting in her chair rocking to the tick of the clock.

Alice would beg her to tell stories and the old lady would oblige, for Alice was a quiet girl but very clever.  She longed to be like Mrs Prentice and live in a cottage and make potions and recite spells.  If she was lucky, Mrs Prentice would let her feed the goats as a treat and lay out the saucer of milk for the cats.  Sometimes, as an extra special treat, she would be allowed to look at the spell book, although Mrs Prentice never called it that, it was always the recipe book, for Mrs Prentice did not think spells fitting for young children.

While Mrs Prentice told Alice stories, Alice cleaned the house.  She washed and swept the floors, re-laid the fire and dusted the furniture, taking great care to give the old grandfather clock a thorough polish.  One thing that always puzzled Alice was that Mrs Prentice didn’t have a broomstick like most witches. When Alice swept the floor she used a dustpan and brush, there was not a broom in sight.  One day Alice asked how Mrs Prentice flew about at night and the old woman glared at her severely and muttered about ‘children and their ideas’. Alice didn’t dare speak another word for the rest of her visit.

One morning, Alice got up to find Mrs Prentice sitting in her kitchen talking to her father.  It was strange to see Mrs Prentice in an ordinary house that wasn’t crooked. She seemed very ill at ease, as if she did not quite fit. Perhaps all the straight edges and flat planes made her feel sick after the sloping floors and walls of her house.  Alice noticed that she was wearing different clothes today. Smarter, almost like the travelling clothes her Great Aunt wore when she came to visit every summer. Her hair was hidden beneath a bonnet and she wore her usual black dress, but more showy, with lace at the cuffs. Only Alice knew, because she had helped sew it on, that the lace was really the remains of the old parlour tablecloth. She would never have breathed a word of it: Mrs Prentice believed that appearances were very important.

Alice stayed back behind the door, making sure that her father didn’t see her, and listened to what was being said.

‘I’m not so sure Ma’am,’ her father was saying, looking worried and twisting his cap in his hands. ‘She’s only a wee lass, too young to leave home really. We need her here.’

‘Nonsense,’ Mrs Prentice replied briskly. ‘She’s just the right age. She has been a great help to me, Zebadiah and what future is there for her here? She cannot deliver bread all her life, she must learn something.’ She tapped her foot on the floor impatiently.

‘Well, I don’t know what her mother would say...’

‘Zebadiah,’ Mrs Prentice replied with a surprising note of gentle frankness in her voice. ‘I am not getting any younger, I need help. Alice is most competent and will be well looked after, you need not fear for her. I am quite insistent, it must be Alice and Alice it will be. I think perhaps, you will remember a certain incident some ten years ago...’

Alice’s father had turned pale now. ‘Ahh that I do Ma’am, that I do and I ain’t never forgotten it. I was most grateful then for all you did and I’m the same now. She’s my only girl though see. I wouldn’t want her getting mixed up in, well, you know, anything dangerous like.’

‘Alice will be perfectly safe. You have my word on that.’

There was a long silence in which Alice held her breath and waited to see what would happen. It was all very strange, it seemed she would go and live with Mrs Prentice, but for some reason her father thought it might be dangerous. The very idea filled Alice with a buzzing excitement somewhere around her middle. She wanted to go more than anything. Perhaps Mrs Prentice might train her to be a real witch at last and she could fly about the sky and cast spells. She wondered what it was Mrs Prentice had done that her father had never forgotten.

‘If the girl wants to go, I can’t see no harm in it I suppose. I should have wanted more for her, it will be a lonely life, but there’s nowt much I can offer her here.’ Her father had finally stopped twisting his cap and looked a little less worried.

‘Shall we ask her?’ Mrs Prentice did not move, or turn her head, but simply said. ‘Alice, you may come out now.’

Rather abashed, Alice presented herself before her father and Mrs Prentice. The old lady did not look angry, only rather knowing. Alice felt that she ought to known better after all this time in her company. Mrs Prentice always knew what everybody was doing and just where they were.

‘Now then lass,’ her father began. His ruddy cheeks reddened further as if he was embarrassed. ‘It’s like this. Your mother and I can’t afford to keep you no more and Mrs Prentice, well she’s kindly agreed that you can go and live with her. But only if you want to, I dare say we can manage well enough, though you might have to do a bit extra here and there. It won’t be like delivering bread and I’m sure Mrs Prentice will put you to work and hard work it will be too up there away from everyone. What do you say, Alice? We shall be sorry to see you go.’

Alice took a deep breath, hardly daring to hope. ‘Well Pa, I do love you and Ma too. It’s not that I don’t and you’ve been good to me. But oh, I do so want to go and live with Mrs Prentice in her house. Do let me, do, do, do.’

Her father looked rather flabbergasted at this outburst of emotion. He stared at the kitchen dresser for a few minutes as if not quite sure what to say. The willow pattern plate, proudly on display seemed to fascinate him for a quite a long time before her answered, and when he did his voice seemed strangely choked as if he’d swallowed a large mouthful of water in one gulp. ‘If it’s what you want girl, I shan’t be one to stop ye. You’ll be missed it’s fair to say and I should like it if you could see your way to visiting me and your ma now and again.’

‘Oh Pa.’ She flung her arms around his neck and kissed his rough cheek. ‘Thank you Pa, thank you.’ He smelled of freshly baked bread and of home. She would be sad to leave him, but the thought of living with Mrs Prentice and perhaps learning how to be a witch was far too exciting to make her feel sad for long.

She turned to look at the old lady now. ‘Thank you Mrs Prentice. Thank you.’ She did not quite know what to do to express how grateful she was, but the old woman merely nodded her head.

She rose to her feet, seeming slightly unsteady. She had a slight lean when she stood up. Something Alice had never noticed before. She supposed it was from spending all her time in the crooked house. ‘I shall expect you promptly at noon a week on Thursday. Be sure to have all your belongings with you. Now, I must be off. Thank you for the tea, Mr Murray. I shall be at the Campbell’s if anyone asks for me. Old Bartholomew passed away in the night and I must sit up with him as his spirit passes over.  Good day.’ She nodded her head and Alice’s father leapt up to open the door and see the witch out.

Alice stared after her curiously. ‘What’s she got to sit up with him for Da?’

Her father shot her a sharp look. Alice was always asking questions it unnerved him no end. ‘Never you mind that now. There’s work to be done lass, get yourself into that there back room and start sorting the orders. I need the deliveries done by lunchtime, no dallying now.’

Alice hurried into the back room to begin sorting out the morning deliveries, but all that morning her mind was on Mrs Prentice and how, in a week’s time she would be a witch’s assistant.