Page 10 of The Changeling

Make the round of our blessed ground,

Sweep out darkness, Lady’s broom.

Sorcha and I had chanted the words with her, so that when we were grown we would know what to do. When the whole house had been cleansed, Nan propped the new broom by the front door, where it would stay all winter to protect us from wicked spirits. She then slowly lowered herself to her knees, joints creaking, and broke up the old besom to lay a new fire on the hearth in either room. We added fallen branches from other sacred trees – ash and apple, hawthorn and hazel, oak and rowan – to be lit that night from the Hallowe’en need-fire.

Without the fires lit, the house was freezing cold and so I was glad to be wrapped in shaggy sheepskin as Mam stitched together our costumes. We made masks as well, from leather with eyeholes cut in so we could see. Mam always said that the only way to hide from faeries and boggarts was to look like one.

With great difficulty, we dug out the hard centre of turnips and carved them with jagged eyes and mouths to make neep lanterns, and then, as the sun began to dip towards the horizon, walked towards the nearby town of Crieff to go guising with the other children. Every soul-cake we ate was another person saved from hell, and we won them by singing or reciting a poem. I always won more soul-cakes than any other child. Mam said it was because my voice was the sweetest, but I thought it was because I was so wee and crookit.

Once dusk was falling, a long line of people climbed the Knock to the highest point, bringing kindling to add to the bonfire. It was a long steep climb. Sir George Graham of Inchbrakie had brought up a basket full of apples and set a chain of men to pass buckets of water from the spring to the big barrel used for the dooking. Rory and Robbie had blackened their eyes with soot and tied twigs to their heads like stag antlers, and the girls wore cleverly made masks in the guise of cats and foxes and birds. In their fine velvet and furs, though, no-one would ever mistake them for anything other than the children of a laird.

‘Where are the Scotts?’ the miller’s wife asked Nan, as she unloaded a basket full of fresh-baked oatcakes from the back of her pony. ‘Does the laird of Monzie still frown on Hallowe’en?’

‘He thinks it pagan, which it most likely is, and ungodly, which it most certainly is no’,’ Nan replied.

‘Poor Lady Egidia,’ the miller’s wife said. ‘The whole village here, enjoying themselves, and she sits alone at home.’

‘She never got over the loss of her babe,’ Mam said sadly. ‘She’s with child again, and I think she dares no’ set foot outside the castle for fear of what might happen.’

‘Och aye, that was a dreadful thing,’ the miller’s wife said. ‘Imagine putting your bairn to sleep in its cradle and waking in the morning to find it gone! It must have been stolen by faeries. No wonder her husband is so set against the old ways. I heard he went half-mad, searching for a way into the Knock, for you ken that’s where the faeries dwell.’

‘Poor man,’ Mam said. ‘To never ken what happened to your baby! It’d drive anyone mad.’

The miller’s wife nodded, and took her basket of food to the table. Nan put her arm about Mam. ‘Dinna fret now, Cait,’ she said gruffly. ‘No human soul can be blamed for the wickedness of those devilish creatures. Lord Patrick should never have tried to tear down the faery circle, he should’ve kent he’d be punished for it.’

I listened avidly. I had always been fascinated by tales about the faery folk who lived in the Knock. Always I heard everything that was said. While Sorcha and the other children ran around, chasing each other and shrieking, I had to sit on a stone, holding my neep lantern and pretending I did not want to play.

The Graham boys ran past, fighting each other with sticks.

‘Look at the poor wee crookit thing,’ Rory called to Robbie.

‘She’s so peculiar.’

I saw myself through their eyes. Dressed like a boggart, a necklace of rowan berries about my neck. Robbie cast me a look of pity. That I could not bear. I tore the mask from my face and dragged off my necklace, casting them into the darkness. I glared at the two boys, as alike as two halves of a whole. I hated that they were identical, while Sorcha and I were as different as day and night. I wanted us to be the same too. Rory poked out his tongue at me, but Robbie gave an apologetic gesture. I turned my back on them.

When the sun was just an angry red line on the western horizon, nine men worked frantically together to strike a spark from oak rubbed against oak. At last an orange flash, sustained long enough to light a birch branch. A young man seized the flaming torch and ran around the circle of intently watching faces, before thrusting it into the heart of the bonfire. Flames crackled up, and everyone cheered and hugged each other. The musicians struck up their fiddles and drums, people began to dance, the women passed plates of food and the men thrust glowing pokers into mugs of spiced apple cider. The livestock were driven through the smoke, and children ran around, singing:

Hey-ho for Hallowe’en

When all the witches might be seen

Some black and some green

Hey-ho for Hallowe’en.

What does a witch look like? I wondered. I imagined a woman with wild black hair and a pale face like a corpse, standing in the shadows, staring at me. Suddenly the shapes of the darkness rearranged themselves, and she was there, as if she always had been. I jerked back, almost falling off my seat. She lifted one bony hand and beckoned me. Come, she mouthed. Rue, come.

The bonfire with its leaping flames, the dancing couples, the children trying to bite apples bobbing in the huge old barrel, the men singing and shouting, all became distant, as if seen through dark glass. Instead, ethereal music, the chime of faery bells, a kind of high-pitched keening like someone sorrowing.

Rue. Come.

I rose and took a step towards her. I was stiff from sitting still, and stumbled. I grabbed my stick to steady myself. When I looked up, the witch was gone.

The fire was dying down. The merriment was over; mothers were calling their children back into the light. It was time to lay the stones. Everyone who came on All Hallows’ Eve had to bring a rock with them, large enough to be enclosed within their two hands. When the flames were sinking into ashes, the stones were laid one by one, from the oldest to the youngest, in a great spiral around the fire. Nan was one of the first to lay her stone. I was one of the last. Rory laid his down, then Robbie, then Sorcha. When it was my turn, I limped to the fire and laid down my stone.

When the spiral was done, everyone bowed their heads and blew out their lanterns. Darkness descended in a rush. Overhead, a multitude of stars. I had never seen so many. The cold penetrated like a blade. Then, one by one, from youngest to oldest, we relit our lanterns from the embers of the dying fire. In silence the crowd began the long walk home.

I could only go slowly, and so we were the last to come down the track. The only light was from our little neep lanterns with their grinning demonic faces and the lamp that Nan carried, a warm golden glow that she shielded carefully. If it blew out, we could not light our home fires from the Hallowe’en flame, and would have a year of bad luck.