Page 95 of The Changeling

When my sister curled up to sleep again, she barely made a hump under the quilt.

I stoked up the fire and added some wood, then carried the basket up the spiral steps to Robbie’s room, Carlin trotting puzzled but patient beside me. The click of her claws and the tap of my stick seemed very loud in the silence of the tower.

The fire had sunk low. Robbie lay motionless in his bed, his eyes shut, hollows under his cheekbones. A manservant sprawled in a soft chair by the fireplace, an empty tray by his feet. I could see by the grease on his chin and the spots on his linen that he had eaten the meal. I put the basket down and gave him a prod with my stick.

‘Wake up, Malcolm.’

He woke with a jerk. It took him a moment to recognise me. For a moment fear made him shrink back, but then he recovered himself and sneered. ‘If it’s no’ the witchling back again. What would the pastor do if he kent? Roll her down the Knock in a barrel, no doubt.’

‘You were told to watch over Master Robbie, but you have failed,’ I said. ‘His boots, which I asked to be mended, lie there, the soles still worn through. Take them now and go and wake the cobbler. Tell him to mend the boots as fast as if his life depended on it, then bring them straight back here to me. If you do not do as I say, I shall make sure you suffer for it.’

Malcolm snatched up the boots and hurried away.

There were some advantages to being thought a witchling.

Carlin settled herself on the hearthrug with a sigh, laying her head on her stretched-out paws, while I carried the bowl of broth to Robbie’s bedside. I put it on the chest, then sat on the bed beside him.

‘Robbie, it’s me. Caiti. Can you hear me?’

His eyelids quivered, and one hand twitched.

‘If I lift you up against my arm so, will you drink a wee sup, hinny?’

I spooned broth into his mouth. His throat worked feebly. I smiled and persevered until he would take no more. Then I laid down the bowl and spoon, and busied myself in washing his face and throat, and combing back his curls. I talked to him as if he were a child or a puppy. ‘I’m here now, sweetling. All is well. I’ll look after you.’

I folded down the sheet and loosened the tie of his nightshirt so that I could sponge his throat and chest. It was strange being so close to him, touching him, feeling the silkiness of his skin under my fingers, and not have him seize me and lay me down beneath him, kissing me senseless while one eager hand slid up under my chemise. I longed to lie beside him and tuck my cheek into the hollow of his shoulder, to know I was safe and loved.

‘Robbie,’ I whispered, sliding the damp cloth lower. ‘Can you hear me? Do you ken I am here?’

He moved a little, murmured something. My heartbeat quickened. I took his hand and lifted it to my mouth, kissing the hollow of his palm. His fingers tightened on mine. I looked up eagerly, but his eyes were closed, his face empty of all expression. It had been a reflex, no more.

A sound outside brought me upright and off the bed in seconds. I smoothed the sheet over Robbie’s chest. But Malcolm simply opened the door, threw the boots in, and slammed it shut again.

I picked up the boots, freshly mended and polished, and laid them at the end of Robbie’s bed. ‘Now we shall see,’ I said.

Carlin at my side, I went back to Lady Marjorie’s bedchamber. She was restless, delirious, clutching at the bedsheets with skeletal fingers. I nodded to her husband and children, and knelt by the fire so I could make her an infusion of dried birch bark. She drank a little, but it did not ease her pain for long.

The night crept past, and slowly she drifted away. I had seen my great-aunt tend the dead before, but I had never done so.

My eyelids grew heavy. I laid my head on my arms, and thought of Robbie. Had my mother cursed him, to try to force me to do her will? What did she want of me?

I must have slipped into sleep, for I woke to find the ashes sunk low and the grey light of dawn stealing into the room.

Lord George and his children slept too. I went to Lady Marjorie and bent over her. Her breath rattled in her throat, the pauses between each inhalation and exhalation taking longer each time.

I roused her family. They held her hands, called her name. It did not take long. She took one painful gulp of air, let it wheeze out past her lips, and did not breathe again. Weeping, her children kissed her hands and her brow, while Lord George went with bowed head and heavy tread to call for a board for her to be laid on. Margrit veiled the mirror and Beatrix stopped the clock on the mantelpiece. I helped them wash and wrap her in a linen winding-sheet, then Lord George laid two silver coins on her eyes to keep them closed.

All then turned to stare at me. It was time.

With shaking hands, I folded the shroud over her face and pinned the edges together with one long hawthorn barb. Then I poured salt into a small wooden dish and laid it on her breast to draw out her soul. I poured mead into Nan’s horn cup and set it to warm by the fire, then knelt on the floor and prepared a bannock in the old way, with the grain and oats ground in my wooden mortar and pestle, mixed with honey and buttermilk, then baked on a flat stone laid in hot ashes. No metal implements could touch this corpse cake, and no hands but mine.

I added the salt from the dish on the dead woman’s breast, stirring it all together with my wooden spoon. When I had shaped it into a wheel and rolled it flat, I drew a cross upon it with Nan’s flint knife and set it to bake on the hot stone. While it browned, I drew back the heavy tapestry and unfastened the window, saying the old charm under my breath: Open lock, end strife. Come death, pass life. Standing for a moment in the cold rush of wind, I composed myself for what lay ahead.

Sin-eating is an act of love, I told myself. Lady Marjorie’s spirit was weighed down with an unbearable burden. I had promised to take her sins into my own body so that her soul could take wing.

I had no soul, I reminded myself. Her sins could not hurt me.

Far above, in the clear violet sky, the last stars snuffed out. I turned back to the dark room, the dead woman, the grieving family. I took up the hot salty bread, broke it with my hands and ate it. Her daughters shuddered in horror and shrank away from me, and her husband made the sign of the cross again and again. The bread was so dry I could scarcely force it down. When the last crumb was gone, I drank the sweet, warm mead gratefully. I chanted the words written in my great-aunt’s book: