Black Witch, Snow Leopard

Eugen Bacon

 

 

 

1. The Rocking Valley

SAVANNAH stepped from a lone trail into an untamed, icy coldness. It smelled ancient, sincere. It refused to unlock any secrets through the valley.

The vale of black rocks connected the red hill and tipping sea she was yet to understand—in her dreams. Nightmares were her undying dread. The dripping, more than burning, revealed nothing but the croak of the undead. An unseen exorcist manipulated her dreams, filled with phantoms staring as the sky looked down. Even when the ghosts and the sky weren’t looking, her skin ached. She scratched it, tweaked it, finally took to wearing snakeskin on her hands.

Now she trod on a fading grey whitewashed with memory from a place she’d been, never been. Its patterns were broken, staves worn away. There was no melody, just bloodshot feelings in a spectrum of abandoned light.

This earth under her feet was nothing but foreign. Not a monster like the sea, but still foreign. The image in her eye was of a trail of blood, then the splash of a woman who took the universe into her tears and bled salt that travelled and basked on lizards. Sometimes Savannah saw flames, hungry bonfires that gobbled feet, skin and bones.

She wanted to pluck petals, lay them on her eyes, take away the visions. But the valley was parched, and already she felt done like a roast. Her mother died by drowning in the sea—this she knew, forgot how she knew, and disremembered if her mother was the tragic heroine of her dreams. She panicked at the thought she might recollect a woman of blue spit and no toes, eyes that changed colour between maps.

But time was lost, tick, tick, shuffle, shuffle, furtive as a jackal in something tragic that consumed. She slipped from black stone to black stone across the valley, tick-tick shuffle-shuffle, wishing she were a tree. Or the wind chasing traces of the leaves of a spreading baobab or sycamore uneven with afterimages of tickytockleshuffle. Splash!

 

 

2. The Devouring Grasslands

Qeow, my story vacillates between now and death. Qeowwww! It’s a story of longing, haunting. Memory. Grrreeeeoowww! my mother said before her death. Greow, she said weakly, as two-legged monsters with a stick that spat fire took her skin, and then me.

The big water, qeow.

Save me. Qeeeeoowww!

“You, cutie devil,” says Snatch, the two-legged with mud teeth.

 

Qeow, why are we hiding?

Greow. Because we’re different. Sometimes being different, little one, makes us game.

Are we game like the big, fat African rat?

Especially game like the African rat—how easy to catch, so meaty to eat. Big ears that hear nothing. A long tail that drags on grassland, never loops on a tree branch. The foolish rat lives in a den but abandons shelter, even knowing it’s soft-furred and slow moving. Fully game, greow to us. I’m glad you’re not a picky eater.

Qeow, the rat is juicy.

Greow. A litter of rats, even juicier. Come, dear one. Time for your bath.

Purrrr, how are we different again, Mamm?

Purrrr. We have no rosettes to camouflage when we stalk creatures, climb trees, or prowl the savanna. We mask with the mountain and its snow, little one. But brrrr, so cold.

I don’t want brrrr, so cold.

I know, little one. We stay here. But the creatures we hunt see us. The pouched rat would see us if it cared to look, but it’s too trusting in nature. Trusting and greedy. Eating, eating, always eating.

Why Mamm?

Why what, little one—why the rat’s greedy?

Why don’t we have colour? Rats are brown. Elephants are grey. Who took our colour, Mamm?

If you look closely, we DO have colour. Just white as snow.

What is snow?

It’s full of light and feels like this.

Purrrr, like a licketty, lick?

Purrrr. Just colder, little one.

Qeow, can I see snow?

Greow. It’s up on the mountain, right on the peak.

I want to find snow. Let’s look for it in the dark. You said we see seven times better in the dark.

Yes, we are lovers of night.. But it’s too far to climb looking for snow. And sthe two-legged beast likes it there.

 

We didn’t need the mountain for the two-legged beasts to find us. They came to the tall brown grass, flushed us out with banging and shouting.

Qeow, Mamm!

Greow. Hide, little one!

Mamm!

Grrreeeeoowww!

Mamm’s shimmering blue eyes shone hate at a crowd of two-leggeds circling us and pointing sticks.

“Unbelievable!” one two-legged said. “It’s a snow leopard and her cub.”

Qeow, we’re not snow leopards. Snow is far, far away, up on the mountains—

Grrreeeeoowww! Mamm said. Leave us!

A stick threw fire at Mamm.

Grrreeeeoowww! Hide, little one!

Mamm! No!

Grrreeeeoowww! I will tear and haunt you. I said leave us!

But the stick spat more fire, and Mamm—her graceful long body in mid-leap—crashed to the ground.

Qeow, Mamm! N-noo!

I nuzzled against her.

Mamm! Get up, run!

Little one, she said weakly. I told you to hide…

I purred against her chest and the beat of her heart. Ku-du. Ku-du.

 

Qeow, Mamm… I try to remember her different.

Not bleeding out on soil, but draped over a branch, a queen of the savanna. Mamm, she’d always warned me about the two-legged beasts.

I should have listened.

Perhaps if I’d not wandered away, leapt at the gold- and blood-winged butterfly… or the little bee-eater… or the red-billed oxpecker. If only I’d… qeow…

Hidden better…

 

 

3. The Healing Hills

The woman in a white flow looked back at Savannah—chained. Savannah howled, fought. She was stronger than two oxen, it took grown seamen to hold her.

“The snow will fall,” the woman said, and stepped off the plank into the black sea.

Savannah woke startled and with much sweat from the nightmare’s recurrence, the woman in white stepping, always stepping into the hungry sea.

Outside, the pitter-patter of a sleepy Sunday morning, grey and rainy.

She swept the hut she’d built with her hands, then scoured the highlands for medicinal herbs. Thistle, fennel, marjoram, chives, thyme… peppercorns, lilies of the valley. She lingered to her nostrils the saccharine scent of lavender—its bent to calm.

Normally she went through brush, wild hillside, picking out new flowers in winter’s melancholy. Today, she carefully nurtured the lavender—it was what she needed to assuage a wound.

Demdike, the innkeeper’s wife had managed to ‘cut herself’ again. Savannah knew exactly who did the cutting, and it wasn’t the daughters: Chattox, the little minx with smoky quartz eyes, a colour in them that came and went. Whittle, the raven-haired woo that lads fell into puddles for. Redferne, the tall one and the stubbornness of her burgundy-haired head full of the shakes.

“It was definitely not them, your daughters. So tell me who?”

Demdike hung her head, silvered hair in a bun. She wouldn’t look Savannah in the eye. “I ain’ done nuffin’ but fall, I swear.”

“You and I both know falling had nothing to do with it. I’ve told you before, I’m saying it again. Put daylight between you and that soggy-head you wed.”

“Ain’ him, I swear. The bucket were there, right?”

“A hot bucket, then, was it? It cut and then burnt.” Savannah reached to touch the burn, but Demdike snatched her tartan shawl over her wrist. “Aye. ’Twas an ’ot bucket.”

Savannah handed her a jar. “Here—use this in a poultice for the… hot bucket.” She touched Demdike gently on the shoulder. “I have two good ears, and some mulled wine.”

“I better be off, wot, then.”

“You’re always welcome here, you know this.”

“Hard Timmy’ll be annoyed if ’e knew I came ’ere. They be lookin’ fer me now.”

“At least tell Redferne to collect her potion in the morrow. I’m nearly done making it.”

“I don’ know—”

“It will calm the shakes, Demdike.”

“Aye,” said the innkeeper’s wife. She adjusted her mantle and hurried off holding her saffron skirt and the healing herbs down Red Hill, all the way to the Tilting Alehouse.

Savannah sighed and took back to the cluster of dark green leaves of mugwort in a pestle. She drummed the concoction, closed her eyes and swayed her head as she murmured invocation and sprinkled sage.

Her pounding talked a story until the sharp coolness gentler than mint, but with a bitter finish, overwhelmed the hut’s smell of stick dolls and burning incense.

 

 

4. The Heaving Sea

Qeow, I am sick, sick, sick. The vessel carrying us rocks, day and night it rocks, won’t stop. But the two-leggeds down in the cargo hold are sicker. They are covered in sores and shit. Planks and chains everywhere. Bleak eyes like Mamm’s when I crawled until I nuzzled and trembled against her dying body.

Ku-d… ku-d… her life fading until… silence, no heartbeat.

“Here, kitty.” It’s Snatch. He’s tinkering with the door of my cage.

Qeow, what are you doing?

“Yer not one fer captivity.”

He lifts me from the puddle upon which my cage stands, guarding the cargo hold.

Qeow, I hate water.

“I got somefin’ to show yer,” he says, as I tremble against him.

He throws me into a cabin infested with rats, burlap sacks and ghosts under a grey moon split half at the hoist of sunlight.

Qeow! I rush to get out, but he slams the door, locking me in.

Qeow, don’t leave me.

“Make yerself useful,” he says.

Don’t leave me!

His footsteps fade away from the cabin.

At first, I mind the rats, so big, bigger, greedier and sharper-toothed than the fat, fat African rats. I ignore the bleeding rats, but they gnaw at me, goad me, until finally—

Qeeeeoowww!

So tasty.

“Good work,” says Snatch. “Come here, little fella. Let’s rub ya good.”

Qeow.

The slayer of my mother. Should it matter whether he or a member of his crew did the killing?

Qeow.

“Good kitty. Hey—”

I leap off his lap and into the cargo hold.

“Greow,” says a tightly-chained two-legged on the plank. “I so hungry, little leopard.”

Qeow. I lick his sores, and the sores of the others, and strangely remember, and mourn, Mamm.

“I wish you could turn me, little leopard,” the two-legged one groans.

Qeow, why are you in chains?

“They cut. Sore, itchy.”

I find sacks of rotting maize, weeping yams, stained rice. I tear them, pull my head side by side to rip, as I saw Mamm do with tough meat. The ones in the cargo hold are grateful as I feed them the way Mamm pushed meat into my mouth.

But Snatch finds me.

 

We sail, and sail. I listen to the wind, to the faint but familiar beat of my dead mother’s heart in it. Calling, calling me.

Kudu. Kudu.

I feel a deep and terrible sadness. Mamm, are you there?

Echoes of our matched heartbeats. Kudu kudu kududu.

Qeow, are you?

Her scent of protection and wilderness speaks to me. Her sweet, sweet scent of something safe that isn’t a lie. Inside my freeze I bask in the winter sun of her heartbeat. Thumping in bittersweet, gleaming with healing, memory and promise. She’s here, she’s there, she’s waiting. Not yet. Her shimmering blue eyes stream light to my core.

Kukudududu.

I cuddle against the silence of her ancient heartbeat. Kudu. Kudu.

The sailing, the fat rats and the cargo hold teach me to replace the smog of melancholy with the earnest of doing. Foghorns blow across the horizon between land and sea. We come to a place called Cape of Good Hope, and I hear Snatch say something about the Brower Route, and going to the Dutch East Indies, then all the way to a place called England.

Snatch puts me to his chest. “Yer fetch a pound or two. It’ll keep tha young’uns feedin’. Yer know about hunger?”

Qeow.

He rubs my chin.

Purrrr. Please don’t judge me. I am alone, empty. I need to feel, and Snatch is a connection to my past, until I see—

Land! Qeow!

“But, kitty! That ain’ England!”

Qeow! I nearly fall off the ship in my excitement. Then I remember Mamm without her white royal skin. Mamm dripping crimson on savanna grasslands.

I leap into the cold, black waters and paddle for land. Now I know how Mamm caught fish and crabs.

“Kitty! What ’appen to trust? I thought we had somefin’.”

Qeow. I don’t trust anyone who’s slayed Mamm, I yell back. I don’t know how I do it, but I glide across the water as if it’s the most natural place to be.

“He can go!” cries Snatch, and I wonder if it’s an exclamation of release, or at my speed.

I turn, uncertain if I’m goading, gloating or protecting my pride.

Qeow, I don’t know about you but, actually, I’m a she.

I wash into land and run, run, run!

Grrreeeeoowww! Hide, little one! says Mamm in the wind.

 

Run, run, rundily run. All things run-run rundily run. The tongueless birds rearrange their wings. Clap their beaks on cold-cold bark. Run run rundily run. This is not my home. Like. Ever. Shadowed nests so dull in fog. I close my eyes to catch some light. This place so dark, so cold, oh brrrr. Run run rundily run. I want my frii-eends. Where you my frii-eends? The sun sunny bird jacko jacana. Locki locust bird-bird birdy. Pulse-pulse. I want my frii-eends. Where you my frii-eends? Oh crany crane-crane weave-weave-weave weaver. Oxy-pecker bee bee-eater. Pulse. Pulse. Br-br so co-old. This place so c-old! I want my mamm! Are you my mamm? Why am I hiding? Because I’m different. And different makes me game. Run, run, rundily run. Runrunrundilyrunrunrun.   

 

Qeow, I’ve been running, day and night. I feel like I’m moving in the wrong direction. The birds here are scrawny, nothing like the juicy ones of the savanna grasslands. But they too are crafty—I can’t catch them. I dream of the white-faced fish eagle, always paired. The yellow weaver birds, always vigilant, how territorial. The grey-crowned crane, sometimes dancing, jumping, bowing with a booming call. The red-billed oxpecker, chattering in a flock, each bird diligent plucking hair from the wildebeest. I’d give a paw for a mere glimpse of the annoying feathered locust bird!

One afternoon I see a two-legged little one hoisting a load on his shoulder.

Qeow. Are you lost like me?

He’s no-skinned, ghost-eyed and the eyes grow bigger. He drops his load and yells, “Daaaad!” A big two-legged comes running with a stick that spits fire. He’ll take my skin!

Runrunrundilyrunrunrun.

 

Qeow, so hungry. What’s this? More two-leggeds! Too many of them! What place is this?

Grrreeeeoowww! Hide, little one! says Mamm in the wind.

 

“Grab yerself a bargain!” someone is yowling. Near him, two-legged beings who look like the ones from the cargo hold—thin and weak and in chains—are lined up on a platform on the other end. On the far side, more chained ones eat something mushy from a trough.

I watch in stealth behind a barrel of something smelly and sticky like the fresh dung of a baby kudu. And then I see it, out yonder, something white and splayed. My mother’s skin—cut from her body as she breathed her last.

I heave and throw up the tiny fish still in my stomach.

 

 

5. The Unyielding Market

The call of a beating heart astonished Savannah. Kudu kudu kududu. She woke up to an urge, a deep desire, for satin and silk. She couldn’t understand it, but the urge besieged her feet and she found herself walking to the market.

She ran her hand through cotton, hemp, satin, even tartans in a few stalls.

“Is this cloth of gold?” she asked, at the price of embroidered coat.

The owner eyed her with a blend of curiosity and dislike, as if questioning Savannah’s very existence, and then laughed—after all business was business. “But I ’ave lace and damask—”

Kudu kudu kududu. Savannah moved towards the faint beat, and couldn’t help but notice how folk flinched from her. She was different, and different was not welcome here.

She found a stall that sold corn and yams. On the far side were the livestock: goats, piglets, rabbits, duck, bobwhite quail, calves, ruffed grouse… She listened for the heartbeat—it wasn’t here. She took one last look at the grains, bought beads, then looked at the craft stalls with their necklaces, anklets, rings and pendants.

She was turning away when, again, she heard it. She followed its drumming… kudu… kudu… and saw the man inspecting slaves. He was a furious little man running impatient fingers over a naked girl’s teeth. He arranged his plaid kilt as if hiding something, and groped the girl’s breasts for firmness, then took a whip from the kilt’s belt and raised a hand to test her mettle.

Savannah’s eyes rolled, her arms spread, and a chant fell from her mouth. The man collapsed to the ground as if himself struck. He rose, all shaky, abandoned his flogger on the ground—never put it back into the belt of his plaid kilt, and scrammed, bare-legged from the market.

Savannah followed him with her eyes until he was gone. She didn’t understand it, the chant. What she understood was that it worked to save the girl, albeit for a moment. She wondered if she could—

She lifted the flogger, looked around, dropped it. Too many merchants to flog away, and they’d notice if she tried to free the slaves. And what was that over there?

It stood at the far elbow of the market—a black statue of a boxer on a pyre. Savannah moved closer to study it. She peered at the plaque, and pulled back from it. She felt sick. It wasn’t a boxer on a pyre. It was the torched corpse of a runaway slave, burnt alive.

She stepped away, aghast, and fell into a baby leopard.

 

 

6. The Whispering Hut

Qeow, just because I listen to the heartbeat in the wind doesn’t mean I have to believe in it. But I do. When it told me to run, I ran for three days, three nights straight. When it told me to hide, I hid. That’s how I found myself behind a barrel in a market selling flesh swarming with famine and bondage. On each face—some eating mush from a trough—I saw a memory that wasn’t a happy ending. It was a memory that was a haunting, an Absolute Everything, without which its bearer would go mad.

The wind says, who taught you this game?

I learned from the time I was born.

But I don’t say this. Instead, I say, qeown’t you the wind?

My heart is an untidy garden, dark clouds eddying patches of it. The rest is grizzled with trees. I look at the black witch whose face is a sundial, shadows in her eyes. I need the axis of her promise, any promise, but her leafless stare puts the words right out of me.

Would she… might she…?

Her hands grab me. “What have we here?” Her voice rolls and rolls in grassland gust. She looks at the vomit, then at the leaking barrel. “I see why you smell of fish and ale,” she says.

The bald two-legged witch takes me in her arms up a red hill to a hut. I’m too astonished, perhaps too tired or petrified to protest.

 

She peers at me. I peer at her from underneath the straw bed.

“Oh, what big eyes you have. The colour of the sky.”

Qeow.

“Here, little leopard, is where you say: The better to see you.”

Qeow.

“My word, so frightened, so curious. What are you expecting to see?”

Qeow.

“No one will jump you.”

Qeow.

“I like your enthusiasm.”

Qeow.

“But do you like food?”

Purrrr.

She reaches with a bowl, and I crawl backwards towards the wall.

“Trying to get a bit of darkness?”

Qeow.

She tries to flush me with a broom, and I shuffle into another corner.

“Will you just barrel from one hiding place to another?”

Qeow.

“You’re pretty special, little leopard.”

Qeow.

“Okay, I’m not looking. Try this. Here, yummy.”

Purrrr.

It’s a bowl of arrow roots soaked in goat milk. I gobble the lot.

“Good. I see you’re not picky.”

Purrrr.

“Pale blue eyes, mmhhh. You’re a special leopard, aren’t you? Question is—how did you get here?”

Qeow.

“My name’s Savannah. What shall we call you?”

Qeow, they hurt my mamm.

“Let’s call you Snow.”

Qeow, no.

She inches forwards on elbows and knees.

“What’s that, you say?”

Qeow, I’m not a snow leopard. Snow is up on the mountains, far, far away.

“Fine. Your name’s Kiaow.” She strokes my nose.

Qeow.

“What’s this? You like this scratching. Right here under the chin, Kiaow?”

Purrrr.

“Well, Kiaow. Welcome to the gloaming.”

Purrrr.

 

“You’re so secretive. Won’t kill you if I see you poop!”

Qeow.

“So elusive, all the time on your own. Under the straw bed is not rapture.”

Qeow.

“How solitary. I am your friend. Friends don’t hurt you.”

Qeow, they do. His name is Snatch.

I crawl further back under the straw bed.

Savannah waits me out until I sleep. In my dream is a dead gazelle, fat maggots wriggling on its skin. Falling out of its mouth, squeezing out of closed eyes.

Qeeeeoowww!

I throw up on the gloaming.

“Is this deliberate?”

Qeow.

“A bit of a mess, little leopard. Let’s work this down. See this? It’s sage.”

Qeow.

“You won’t like it—it’s a bitter finish.”

Qeow.

“And this is lavender.” She grips me by the neck.

“Together, they will sort your vomiting.”

Qeeeeoowww!

“Don’t fight it.”

Qeeeeoowww!

“Don’t pee on me! And don’t scratch.”

Qeow.

“Sleep on it…”

“Qe-o-w.”

 

“Hey,” she pokes me in the ribs. “Are you awake? Look what I got. Yum-yummy.”

Purrrr.

“If I didn’t know better… Is this a turn?”

Purrrr.

“Here, under the neck like this?”

Purrrr.

“This is magic. Our stars are together. Whose will wane first?”

Purrrr.

 

“You definitely need a wash.”

Qeeeeoowww!

“Stop fighting. And no nipping at me either! The water’s not that cold.”

Can’t you licketty-lick like Mamm?

 

“Following me, are we? Come closer, I don’t bite.”

Qeow.

“Fine, be like that. This here—” she shows me a flower, “is of the daisy family. It can grow up to six foot high. Yes, taller than you.”

Qeow.

“These yellow-reddish ones are fine as a tonic—they cure colic. But these dark-green ones are the best for cramps and constipation. Have you pooped lately?”

Qeeeeoowww!

“Don’t be indignant, I won’t make you eat them. See here—these silvery white hairs underneath the leaves. They treat worms. Come now. I said I don’t bite.”

 

Suddenly, there’s a knock on the door. A fresh-faced female two-legged with raven hair falls into the hut.

“Miss Savannah. Miss!”

“What’s wrong, Whittle?” She’s one of the good ones who tolerate outsiders. The others, in particular her father… not so much. Folk spit after Savannah’s tread as if she’s a curse.

Savannah puts a gentle arm on Whittle’s shoulder. “That fool of a man—is your mother again?”

“It’s Redferne. The shakes are killing her in the kitchen.”

 

 

7. The Tilting Alehouse

Savannah raced to the alehouse, awash with gossip of gallows and ten people hanging in a row at the castle. She brushed aside the murmurings, swept into the kitchen where Redferne was convulsing on the floor between pots and pans. Her head lolled, her eyes rolled back.

The innkeeper’s wife was trying to push a wooden spoon between the girl’s teeth.

“Stop,” said Savannah. “I said stop!”

The kitchen-help crowd parted.

“A wooden spoon will only do harm.”

Savannah turned Redferne gently onto her side. She loosened her belt. The girl was wearing a short woollen, close-fitting coat. Savannah loosened it too.

“Give me that shawl.”

Savannah made a pillow of it, rested the girl’s head on it.

“Now off!” she clapped her hands. “Everyone off! Get out. Get out!”

The crowd cleared. Redferne stared into space.

“Hey, darlin’,” her mother said.

“Feel better, sweetie?” Savannah said. “You’ll be all right. I’m here to make sure. There, there, lovie.” She stroked her cheek with the back of her fingers.

She looked at Demdike. “Your daughter didn’t come for the potion as I asked.”

“’Er father forbade it.”

“I see.” Savannah’s voice was stern, but kindly when she turned back towards Redferne. “Here, here. Better already, no? Let’s have some lavender tea. It will calm you.”

 

It was darkened by now. Exhausted, Savannah sat alone at the dim-lit bar of the alehouse, aware she was the only woman ordering. All the rest were serving. It was not long after midday, but the Tilting Alehouse was packed. She studied the brickwork, and its announcements near the stairways to the vaulted cellar for rooms to rent, lodgers welcome, as if it were a matter of the utmost importance. She knew too well there’d be no lodgers in the cellar. That was for fortified wine and vintage ale straight from a brew-house.

“More, luv?” asked the waitress.

“Another wine. Small.”

“On its way, guv. Will ya be havin’ a bite?”

“What’s on special?”

“Everyfing’s on special.”

“Oh, yes?”

The innkeeper in his apron and hat of hair glared at her from the other end of the counter. Despite Savannah helping to heal his daughter, he refused to near her as if she were a leper.

“Scotched pumpkin, pottage,” the waitress was saying. “Potted stew, fruit tart, rice pudding, sheep’s cheese, blueberry pie, bread. Wut will yer ’ave guv?”

Horses neighed in the stables.

Savannah noticed a tall man and what might have been his wife staring intently across the packed alehouse in her direction. He wore a long coat, waistcoat and breeches. Clean crop, severe eyes.

“That’s Hono’rable Smoko fer yer. Justice of Peace from London.”

“Is that right,” said Savannah.

“They got all the fashion in London, right guv?” the waitress said.

“That, they do.” Savannah studied the wife’s long-waisted bodice, her silken overskirt draped and pinned up behind.

“Ain’ they perfect?”

“That they aren’t. Especially this one making his way—too much devilment in his eyes.”

The Justice of Peace was parting folk with his presence, as he approached.

“I hear you’ve been causing headaches,” he said.

“I find some confidence in that,” said Savannah.

“Confidence is a dangerous prospect in this world.”

“And why is that?”

“For one who creates chaos, you’re one to ask.”

“She’s a sickness eater!” a voice piped from the back.

“Brings trouble wiv the cows!” another shouted. “Me cows been sick since this un showed.” He was slapping his hands, throwing his arms.

“I’d say maybe you’re sick,” threw back Savannah evenly. “Come and see me about what’s ailing you. We might just cure you.”

Men guffawed—the laughter was crude in a way that implied a different curing.

“Watch it,” said the Justice of Peace. “Such accusations against you, might catch fire.”

“Yeah, wotchit, right,” someone echoed. “Yer might cotch fire, witch.”

“They call me Smoko,” said the Justice of Peace. “Commissioned by the Crown to maintain public order. I smoke ’em out. Witches.’

“I’m sure you do,” said Savannah. “In black robes and a wig.”

“The wig might be handy for one thing first.” His look was knowing. “That hush shop you run.”

“I’m not selling anything in my hut.”

“Them branches an’ leaves on the door tell differen’!” someone yelled.

“Tut-tut. Stealing from the Crown—severely punishable,” said the Justice of Peace.

“I do nothing of the sort.”

“The last ones I punished found themselves hooded in rows of ten at the gallows.”

“If you’ll excuse me—”

“By all means. I’m sure we’ll meet again.”

“I doubt that very much.” Savannah looked at the waitress. “I believe I’ve just lost my appetite.” She palmed the waitress a coin, and turned to leave.

But the crowd was pushing towards her with a growing cry. “Light ’er up!” The chant started in a corner, spread like flames across the alehouse. “Light ’er up!”

“Let’s see you glide through that mob baying blood,” said the Justice of Peace.

“Light ’er up!”

Qeeeeoowww!

Everyone turned towards the sound, with a mixture of emotion at the sight of a baby leopard white as snow.

“Ain’ it cute?”

Qeeeeoowww! said Kiaow, poised to leap at the Justice of Peace.

“I’ve got a thumping boot,” he said. “Don’t let that kitty near me.”

“I won’t take any more of your time,” agreed Savannah. She whistled, and Kiaow’s momentum carried the cub forward into her arms.

Purrrr.

“I’m happy to see you too.” She rubbed his chin. “Good to see you get involved, but some filth’s not worth fighting.”

Purrrr.

“You’re a keeper, you know.”

 

That night the cub lay on Savannah’s bed, its paw on her chest. She believed intensely in the power of tragedy. How it made her forget. But now she remembered. Love made her remember.

Together, they listened to the wind, to the faint but familiar beats of dead mothers’ hearts calling, calling.

Kudu. Kudu. 

Kudu kudu kududu. Kudu. Kudu. 

The leopard cub snored.

Suddenly, a roar, and the hut collapsed. A mob with pitchforks and torches dragged Savannah and the cub out into the night.

 

 

8. The Judging Castle

“Wot cow got no ’air on the ’ead?”

“’Ave a look at ’er nose!”

“Aye! It’s a witch nose.”

“Big as a pancake.” The pack roared with glee.

“Not a pancake. ’Tis a crumpet!” Ribald laughter. “Honest guv!”

“It’s a cookie, right?”

Kiaow refused to leave Savannah’s side as the villagers piled insults and accusations.

“Bet she wiv no toes—’ave a look at them boots!”

“Aye. No fingernails eiver—why is she wearin’ snake gloves?”

“She ain’ no witch!” cried Demdike’s daughter Chattox. “’Er eyes don’ change colour.”

“Tell ’er ter spit—I swear it’s blue.”

“Aye. No bloke knows where she come from!”

“Out of the Valley of Black Rocks. Would I lie ter you? She’s a witch, right!”

“Flog ’er!”

“Drown ’er!”

“String ’er!”

“Light ’er up honest!”

Qeeeeoowww!

They pushed her along a dark trail down the hill, the crowd roaring. Someone played a flute, as if it were a feast day.

They arrived at the great, big castle where they held trials. And there he was, the Justice of Peace.

“I said we’ll meet again.”

“And here we are.”

“Flog ’er!”

“String ’er!”

“Light ’er up!”

“Drown ’er!”

 

Savannah remembered her mother on the slave ship. Hands tied behind her back, composed on a plank. You will never enslave me, she said, and that was her crime. Punishable by death. You can take my body, everything a mess. But that’s all you get.

Savannah relived an escape, and the water’s pull. How she gave a shout that she thought was a call, a last call, but then something happened. A soft touch closed her eyes, and she was slipping, slipping. She woke sodden, sandwashed on a seashore. A voice that was a nonvoice in her head said, It’s okay.

Out yonder beyond the black sea she saw a valley and a highland.

She leapt to bare feet, started running for the valley.

 

“She didn’ do nuffin’, I swear!” Savannah looked at Demdike, who’d uttered these words.

The crowd was livid. ‘’Ere’s anuvver witch. ’Ave a look at ’er daughters. That un—colour in ’er eyes that comes and goes, right? That un—’aunted by ravens. That un—she’s a red devil, right!”

“There ain’ anyfink wrong wiv wot is mine,” bellowed the innkeeper. “Keep yer problems wiv this one. You ’eard she sellin’ ’ush wine. Payin’ no taxes like normal good folk. Embezzlin’ the Crown. And aye, she eats malady. I don’t know wot she’s done ter Redferne. But the gal is livin’ proof.”

“Flog ’er!”

“Drown ’er!”

“String ’er!”

“Light ’er up!”

“No one’s doing any flogging or drowning or stringing. Or lighting,” said the Justice of Peace. “Until I say so.”

The cawing crowd repeated her crimes, and all the grudges anyone ever had.

“Only witches ’ave large nose holes.”

“Since she come ’ere, me cows been sick!”

“And wot ’appened ter the rain, isit? It don’ fall right.”

“Me spuds come out blue.”

“Light ’er up honest!”

The gavel fell.

 

Demdike pushed through the crowd, palmed Savannah a tiny pouch.

“I’m bloody well grateful fer wot yer done fer me and me daughters. I swear, the good Lor’ shame me. This is the best I can do fer yer. Burnin ain’ no pleasant, I swear. If yer like, I can pay fer the executioner ta strangle yer first.”

“Demdike. You’ve done more than enough. Now spend your focus on yourself, and your daughters. I can take care of myself.”

 

Awaiting her fate at dawn, she woke, the night a serpent. Twisted dusk, quelled dreams in which she wasn’t a victim. But every so often in those visions she couldn’t utter a thing, as a swarm of black locusts buzzed between her teeth.

Hers was a language of blood and water, untellable secrets from pamphlets or palimpsests of gone lives speaking her name in parody and discomfort, fading, fading… to visions of snow or rain across eons.

 

9. The Roaring Pyre

The night is lost. Past the estuary, my past life pushes toes into wet sand. A cocoa-skinned baby falls into the water, picking palmfuls of sand, unfrightened of jellyfish gliding along arms. There’s a bridge of wood and rope above stones and a simmering surface. The sun’s rays are like the eyes of a beast twinkling back and forth on the breathing tide, formless in death without a body already snatched.

I rouse with a start.

Savannah’s in trouble. By the shiver of daybreak, she’ll be gone. Bound to a stake.

 

Qeeeeoowww!

The crowd laughed. “That the best yer can do, kitty?”

Qeeeeoowww!

Time was lost, tick, tick, shuffle, shuffle, in something tragic that consumed. Savannah wished she were the wind across the valley, tick-tick shuffle-shuffle, tickytockleshuffle. She remembered a woman of blue spit and no toes, eyes that changed colour between maps. Her mother was her true heroine.

She looked at the leopard cub crying in lonesomeness at the base, refusing to abandon her even in those last moments.

 

The moon is broken, or perhaps it’s my heart. There she is, my Savannah, at the stake.

 

Qeow! Don’t leave me.

She gazes into my soul. “You’ve excited the crowd. Go home now, Kiaow.”

Qeow!

“You’re loved,” she says calmly. “And that’s enough.”

I pull fangs and claws, and stare down the crowd.

“Kiaow! What are you doing?”

Qeow, I’ve found my new mamm.

“Might as well burn ’er wiv ’er pet familiar.”

“Aye!”

“Kiaow, little one, I told you to go home!”

“Grab that kitty!”

“Kiiaoww! Hide, little one! Run!”

Qeeeeoowww! Leave us alone!

“Best yer can do, pussy cat?”

Savannah’s eyes are closed, her lips moving in a chant.

Someone throws a flaming torch at the foot of the pyre, and the straw catches.

Just then, there’s a terrible howl from the skies and a white wind full of ice swirls from it. It’s a coldness like no other. It’s a whiteness full of light and a coldness that is—

Snow.

The skies opened and a woman in a white flow, cloaked in frost, stepped from the heavens.

“The snow will fall,” she said, and stepped off the snowy plank into the flames.

A snowstorm sweeps across the panic-stricken crowd.

 

Above their cries, I hear my mother’s beating heart. Kudu. Kudu.

Grrreeeeoowww! The crowd burst into new cries at my sound.

GRRREEEEOOWWW!

I leap and lope and soar above heads and the dying flames choking in snow. The momentum topples the stake and Savannah and I crash to the ground.

 

“My word!”

Savannah was unsure what moved her more: Kiaow’s new roar, or the ghost of her own mother cascading downwards in snow.

Kiaow gnaw-cut the ropes that bound Savannah to the fallen stake.

Purrrr, so this is snow.

“What’s this—licketty lick? If I didn’t know better… I’d say you’re fond of me.”

Purrrr.

“We’re kindred, hey? Now let’s find someplace we belong.”

 

 

10. The Unending Tale

And that is the legend of the black witch and the snow leopard who vacillate between now and death, no waning. Just a shine of together stars talking in story and a murmuration of daughters and mothers full of longing, full of haunting.

Memory.

Kudu. Kudu. Kukudu. Kudu.