Marek (Buried Lore Book 1) (3 page)

She
continued: ‘
There
are many of us,
Marek
.
You must come and join our circle.’

‘Why?’

‘We
need the power of other witches to stay strong. We are forced underground
because we are feared and persecuted!’

‘Should
you be feared?’

She
responded with her laugh again and did not answer my question directly. ‘Some
of us, I regret to say have resorted to…certain rituals that are not looked
upon
favourably
.’

‘I
do not believe you. It sounds like a story to scare me. And I have no sister.’
I turned to leave for I had had enough of this delusional woman.

Without
warning she gripped my wrist fiercely, her long spindly fingers biting into my
flesh like strips of hard leather. Her squinting eyes looked into my very soul
and I felt suddenly weak. ‘Listen brat! Your sister said you could have trouble
believing. I have been beaten by moronic villagers, pelted with rocks and then
hung by my feet – all this to get to you. When I was close to here and
barely hanging on to my existence, others stole my raft and threw me in the
sea.’

‘Is
my sister so important that you would risk your life?’

‘It
is not just for your sister. It is for the cause and I must obey. With every
new blood, our circle grows stronger and wider.’ Again the shrill sounds of her
mirth pained my ears, but this time it was cut short by a raspy cough and she
released my arm to hold her stomach. Pink spittle foamed around her mouth. The
very smell of this pitiful woman was making me nauseous along with a feeling of
being confined: the walls and ceiling closing in around me.

 ‘I
cannot help you.’ I stumbled out of the door, her words trailing after me. ‘You
have no choice. You must be with your own kind. Cross the waters east, and
enter the Black Forest where your true family lives.’ Then there was more
coughing followed by movement and grappling. I went back to see my father and
the apothecary dragging her back to bed, her body limp. It had taken the last
of her energy to follow me and I was sure she would die that very night.

The
apothecary looked at me suspiciously, scratching his head while my father took
me roughly by the shoulder and pushed me out the door and along the street,
anxious to leave the hut far behind him. We travelled back across the town and
home before he explained. He said that from the moment I walked towards the
woman, he felt shut out, like floating in a kind of limbo, and heard none of
our conversation. The other man must have experienced it too, perhaps worried
then that he was tainted with black magic. To be tainted meant that you were
marked and watched. Suspicious persons would be wary, and looking for other
strange signs.

I
thought it likely the body of the old crone would be burned quickly that night,
dead or alive, and her ashes buried somewhere deep in the island. They would
not have been scattered out to sea, as the fishermen would not want their fish
cursed by disease.

I
waited until after our evening meal to tell my father about the strange
exchange with the diseased woman.

For
several minutes my father gave no response, his bulky arms strangely graceful
as he completed his cooking task. I rubbed my foot against the floor, anxious
for his reaction.

Although
it was past midnight,
Ricco
served us both cups of
warm meaty broth, perhaps to calm his nerves. He nodded for me to sit down and,
while he chewed the small chunks of meat deliberately and thoughtfully, his
eyes never met mine. Our house remained silent of voices until I could take it
no more.

‘Well, Papa.
Is there more you should be telling me?’

‘It
would be foolhardy to listen to the word of a demented crone.’ He turned to the
tasks of removing his clothes and preparing for bed while I waited for more.
‘Don’t just sit there, get back to bed,’ he said gruffly. ‘It is a busy day
tomorrow and we will be up before sunrise.’

His
lack of response was not out of character for he had always been a man of few
words. He was also perhaps regretful of taking me to the crone, but all I could
see at the time was the injustice of his silence. His indifference made me
thump my fist on the table.

‘I
hate you,’ I shouted. ‘You have been lying about everything. You have told me
nothing about my mother. For years you have kept me in the dark about her. Then
you tell me about the crone and then you say nothing as if all this will be
gone tomorrow. I am sick of you, old man. I am sick of your silence.’

My
father sat down, his bones creaking into place. As he looked up at me, I
suddenly noticed how very old he had grown, the skin under his neck sagging. I
was racked with guilt. Had he not taken good care of me my whole life? Had he
not forsaken many evenings of rest, after a day’s heavy work, to teach me words
and other skills, while many of my peers remained so ignorant of such?

I
sat next to him draping an arm around his shoulders. ‘Papa,’ I said, softly
this time. ‘I did not ask for this gift.’ I used the word ‘gift’ at the time,
as it would not be revealed until later that it was indeed a curse. ‘I do not
know what I’m doing. I have this craft that I know nothing about. After healing
you I have felt like a misfit. And now I find I have…had a sister.’

‘
Marek
. I have kept you in the dark for your own good. I
thought that if you did not use your special skills, the same healing gifts you
inherited from your mother,
then
you would be safe.
But I have been riding this hope on borrowed time. Your mother said that there
is no escaping it, despite my efforts to prevent her from using it. She was
strong of mind, and heart, your mother. And she continued to use her gifts for
good, for healing, even when it was dangerous. It was using this gift for good
that got her killed…’ My father’s voice broke apart.

‘Please
continue, Father,’ I pleaded. ‘I need to understand.’

Defeat
was written on
Ricco’s
face. The past was about to
catch up with me after years of wondering.

‘I
met your mother, Marissa, when she was just a girl in Genoa. She was not
originally from the town. She had travelled from the east looking for work in
the Mediterranean warmth.’

I
said
Marissa
over and over in my head. It was the first time I had heard
her name.

‘She was living with her young daughter and selling medicines at market
stalls.
At first
I believed her to be simply a healer, mixing herbs to help ease the ailments of
the sick. As I spent more time with her it became apparent that she was much
more. Her herbs would cure diseases that physicians could not. But it was after
we were married that I discovered her real skills.

‘On
our way back from the markets one evening, we stopped to deliver a gypsy baby
on the side of the track. The infant was stuck in its mother’s womb, and the
woman near death. Marissa had closed her eyes and felt for the baby. She had
known straight away that the umbilical cord was twisted around the baby’s neck,
and she reached and loosened its grip to guide the baby out. And your mother
asked for nothing in return.’

‘But
surely doctors have done such things to save a woman.’

‘No, Son.
That baby was born dead. I saw it myself. We took its lifeless body back to our
house to bury. Whilst I was asleep your mother spent all night with the dead
baby. In the morning the girl child was alive. When the mother and daughter
were gone I was angry. I did not like her playing with life and death. She said
that with the infant so new there would be little to show that it was altered…’

‘Altered?’

Ricco
brushed at the air dismissively and briefly explained how my mother had prayed
that the new soul placed in the infant, to replace the one that had moved on,
had not been a bad spirit using the child’s body as a way of entering our
world. At the time I did not fully absorb this explanation so distracted I was
with the fate of my mother. Later, however, these words would come back to
haunt me.

‘I
believe the reason she played God,’ continued
Ricco
,
‘was that she did not have the heart to tell the mother her child was dead. Marissa
could not have borne it, especially since you were already growing in her
belly.

‘We
fought about her curse because I was scared for her. We were hearing that
witches were being rounded up and burned. Most of her clients were so indebted
to her they did not divulge her practices and whereabouts to the authorities.
There were rewards of gold for those who did. Then one day a poor farmer came
to our door. He had lost all his crops from an insect plague the year before.
This year his crops were diseased. If he did not have a good year, his family
would starve. Already he had lost two children through the winter when they did
not have enough food to put flesh upon their bones. Your mother, of course,
never refused anyone.

‘She
followed him to his farm and spent two days walking amongst the crops that
prospered under her touch. Within the month they were ready for harvesting and
the crop was the best the farmer had seen. That piece of scum!’ There was much
venom in his voice. ‘That man collected a reward the same year, a large sum of
gold, for revealing Marissa’s whereabouts.
It wasn’t enough
for the coward to have a full harvest and profit from it
,
his ambitions were much higher
.

‘The
inquisitors came for your mother whilst she was giving birth to you. Several
others from the village, who loved her, begged them not to take her until she
had safely delivered our child. Then you birthed with the help of Irene, your
mother’s friend. Your mother was still bleeding when they took her away with
your half sister in her arms. For a daughter was instantly considered to have
the same black arts. As you were a male, you were spared and I can thank God
that the inquisitors at the time were ignorant.

‘I
begged for your mother’s release but it was to no avail. I was allowed to see
her only once before…’
Ricco
faltered.

‘Even
living in a filthy dungeon with rats she did not complain. She said she knew it
would happen this way but had no regrets. She asked me to watch you closely,
believing that you had inherited her gift, and when the signs were there, to
encourage you to use them. It was then I
realised
that her daughter, your half sister, Oleander, wasn’t there. Marissa told me
that Irene had made a brave attempt to help her daughter escape, but both had
been killed. I brought you here where we were unknown.’

We
sat staring in silence for some time. Though what my father had told me had
satisfied my curiosity after so many years, my heart was still hollow and
yearning for something beyond my island and imagination. Something inside me
said that this story did not yet have an end and my father had only a small
piece of a much larger puzzle.

‘I’m
sorry for your loss, Father.’

‘And
yours, don’t forget, for you are without a mother. Your sister doesn’t live.
The crone was lying,’ said my father with repulsion. ‘She is demented, and
playing with your mind.’

‘But
Father,’ I argued. ‘It is too coincidental.’

‘Did
she once mention your sister’s name?’

‘No,
but…’

‘Then
she is dead,’ my father retorted. ‘There is no more talk on this. You have to
accept that they both are dead, that the crone was sent to misguide you. Your
mother said there would be those of her
own kind who might try and seduce you or steal
you away for their own evil purposes.’

That
night my dreams were restless. I pictured bat-like demons flying through the
sky and into our chimney to suffocate my father. I dreamed of my mother
screaming for me, her hand outstretched as she melted into a fire pit.

The
next day, the body of the hag from the sea mysteriously disappeared from the
infirmary, and several goats were found, their necks broken and twisted, their
bodies mutilated and bitten. For several days afterwards the townspeople were
curious and gossiped, spreading new stories by the hour. Some said she was one
of the undead, that she had taken their blood like the demon she was. Some said
that islanders may have dismembered and buried her body, then slaughtered the
animals to rid the island of any evil spirits brought there by the crone.

Many,
however, believed she never died but attempted to return to whence she came,
and more likely drowning in her
endeavour
.
And that the slaughtered goats were the work of wild dogs.
Suspicious as they were, the people just wanted easy answers for any strange
occurrence so they could continue with their simple lives. Most believed that
talking about such things would bring bad luck or even heresy. She was no
longer spoken about outside the home and years hence the old crone disappeared
into the stories of men, whispered among small groups at the
osteria
.

One
morning, I woke with a clear plan in my head. I worked fast and furiously over
the coming weeks. I took to my tasks quicker than normal and finished jobs that
were not due for weeks. Sometimes I worked into the night. My father watched on
curiously but did not query my unusual
behaviour
.
After revealing my past he was back to sharing little more with me than
discussions on the weather, people in the town and instructions on our building
projects. He still talked of his boat building and his ambitions for me but it
was with less gusto.