Corrag. Susan Fletcher

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      So when I saved lives, Cora saved them.

      When I cured an ache, or sealed up a wound, Cora also sealed it.

      Never love is what she told me. Sometimes I thought then she surely does not love me? If she says ‘do not love’? I know she could be black-tempered. I know that mostly she was daydreaming, and had a half-smile to give – but sometimes a cloud came down upon her. It made her hiss in the cottage. She would run out into the rain to curse, and roar. She hated the word justice, and churches, and tore at her nails, and she smacked me, too, sometimes. When I said a bad word against her she put a teasel in my mouth and said chew, so that I’d learn the soreness of such words – and I’d think, chewing teasels, this isn’t kind. I also thought this isn’t her…Not the proper Cora.

      Do not love…But I think she did love me. I think so. For she combed my hair at night, and when my shoulder popped itself she’d kissed it, said poor old bones…And one winter in Hexham we caught snowflakes and ate them, left our shapes in the deeper drifts. We sang old and naughty witch songs on our way home, and that was good. There was love in that.

      But there was no other love – not for people, sir. She loved no man. Instead, she packed her heart away and let them take her like bulls take their cows – sighing on to the back of her neck. She never met the same bull twice. Nor did she ever meet them by day, in case they were handsome, and what if her heart broke out, and was free? I blame the ducking stool for that.

       Ride north-and-west. Don’t come back.

      They may not sound much, to your ear – those words. But she did not have to say them. She could have let me sleep, on that night of dog-barking. Or she could have mounted the grey mare with me, and we could have fled together into Scotland, and forests, with our hair flying out.

      But she said ride north-and-west – because she knew she would die.

      She knew they would follow her – hunt her till they found her, and on finding her, hang her, and whoever she was with.

      Be good to every living thing she said.

      She died alone. Which was better in her eyes than dying with her daughter by her side.

      Miss her? Sometimes. Like how I miss the soft, dreamless child’s sleep that I once knew but don’t, now. And I wish her death had not been murder, and I wished for a time that we’d had a better, true goodbye. But she is in the realm, now. It is a good place to be.

      She said her own goodbye, much later.

      It was dusk, in a pine forest. I looked up to see her ghost passing by. I knew she was a ghost, for ghosts are pale and very quiet, which she never was in life. She trod between the trees and glanced across at me. She looked so beautiful, and thankful, and this was her goodbye.

      I thought of her at the Romans’ wall. With the stars and silence. With the mare working quietly on the pear.

      I thought of her too in the forest. There were small sounds like the wind high up, or a pine cone dropping down – and I thought maybe these sounds were Cora, like she was speaking to me. I listened for a while, thinking is it you? Are you there? And the wind shushed the trees, which was like I am here. Yes.

      I thought of how she’d crouched in wynds, selling herbs and secrets.

      How she loved blackcurrants.

      But what good are backward glances? They do not help. They cannot be helped, or do any proper helping. I had her with me. I will never be far away from you.

      So I said on with it – I had to. I knew a life awaited me.

      Mr Leslie. I am glad to see you.

      I thought perhaps you’d not return today. For I know how my talking can be. I was always one for going on and on – for saying so much a person’s eyes grow fish-like, and dead. Maybe it’s the lonesome life I’ve had. I’ve been mostly out of doors, on my own, with no soul but my own to talk to – so when I have a person with me I talk and talk and talk.

      Was I that bad? Were you tired last night?

      I am glad that you are here again. With your folding table and your goose quill.

      I know you do not care for what I tell you very much. What does a James-loving man want Hexham for, or grey mares, or Mossmen? He doesn’t want them, I know. But I will give you what you need, in time.

      The forest, then. The mare.

      Mr Fothers’ mare, the grey one who he’d called bewitched, his grizzled old nag. He had locked her up with every full moon and given her no water to drink, for Mr Fothers thought water called the devil in. So she’d licked the walls, whinnied for rain. We took a pail to her, Cora and I. One night we held it to the mare and she sucked and sucked the water up. She blew hard through her nostrils, scratched her rump on the doorpost and Cora said she’s too fine a horse for him. Which was true.

      Now I rode her.

      I was on her back. Me.

      I looked down. I had not fully looked on her before. I had patted her nose at the Romans’ wall, and I’d pressed my cheek to her neck and clutched at her mane as she’d galloped. But we were not galloping now. We were treading through a forest, and I saw that she was a pretty horse – white-coloured on top, but with brown flecks on her hind parts and belly, like she’d trodden on soft apples and they’d burst, speckled her. I felt how she swayed. She was wide like barrels, so my legs stuck out.

      And she was tall. Maybe not to most people, but I am tiny-sized – so she was big as a house to me. The ground seemed far, far down. I learnt, in time, how mounting her it was best to run a little, grab her mane and heave. If she minded this she never said so. She might even hold her foreleg up for me to step on, which could be useful in hurried times when folk were shouting witch – and later I’d find hay or fistfuls of mint and offer them to her, kind thing. I think my clambering up was far better than a fat man on her back with whips and spurs. I’d once seen him jab her in the mouth so much with a horrid metal bridle that her mouth frothed pink and her eyes rolled wild. Wicked man. All I did to her mouth was fill it up with pears.

      Nor was she quiet. I learnt this in those trees. She whickered at things that pleased her and at things that did not. She blew through her nose when I patted her, and sometimes she snored in her deep, horse-sleep. And most of her life she was eating – brambles, nettles, dock – so most of her life her belly grumbled at itself with all that food inside it. Food makes air, as we know. She could be very noisy when that air found freedom. It’s not decent to speak of this, but she could toot.

      Yes, I talk fondly. So would you.

      Creatures do not care for hag or witch. It is what makes them so wise and worthy – how they only mind if they are treated well or not. That is how we should all live. The mare shook off witch like it was a fly or a leaf that fell on her. She kicked the ones who tried to hurt me, and she had a way of rubbing her head on my shoulders when I felt lonesome. This made her nice to be with.

      I was glad of her. I rode her through the forest and told her so.

      I called her my mare. I put a kiss on my hand, pressed my hand to her neck.

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