The Witch's Finger

The bitter east wind whipped up the sand and swept it across spiny grass dunes and the twisted, denuded limbs of the stunted shrubs that grimly clung to the shifting earth. Brother Stephen gathered the folds his robe and leaned into the gust. As he made his way across the uneven ground toward the sea, the dunes began to thin.

A weak sun shone silver across the waters that seemed to retreat even as he approached. Without the defence of the dunes, the wind flayed at him still more cruelly and drew a salty tear from his narrow squint that stung as it dried on his cheek. The basket that he would fill with shellfish was an ineffective shield against the squall but better than nothing.

Now the harsh screeching of gulls cut across the wind's droning whine and through his narrow field of vision he made out a flurry of movement at the seafront. It took a few moments for the clamour of wheeling and swooping to settle enough for him to see the silhouette of a woman at the fulcrum of the activity. He grunted in irritation as he realised that she was feeding the birds. Such a senseless waste of grain and now he would have to compete with their greedy beaks for shells.

Disturbed by his approach, the gulls rose noisily again. She turned to him, smiling. An admonishment died in his throat as he beheld her face. Beneath a billowing tangle of black hair, a pair of deep brown eyes stared out from a pale oval, piercing his soul. He felt himself falling through those jewelled irises into the abyss of her pupils. Her smile did not falter in the long silence where he searched for words.

"Good morning," he said at last. "You have a gift with birds."

She nodded and tilted her head, an acknowledgement and a greeting.

Another silence. With an effort, he shifted his gaze to the horizon to collect his thoughts but the moment he turned back to her, he was lost again. He closed his eyes. When he opened them again she was walking into the wind and away from him.

---

The waif occupied Stephen's dreams that night and beyond, drifting at the periphery, near but elusive. He shuffled aimlessly through his waking hours. He immersed himself in his daily tasks, wrote his scriptures as beautifully as ever and prayed dutifully.

Father Jacob's keen nose smelled trouble nonetheless and his intense, watchful gaze darkened to a fierce scowl. The thick, grey briars of his eyebrows knotted tight beneath furrows so deep that they had begun to develop furrows of their own.

A week after his encounter on the beach, Stephen rose early to harvest blackberries from the hedgerows. He quailed when he saw Jacob waiting by the door. Lowering his head he tried to surge past but Jacob grabbed his arm in a grip that belied his years.

"Be careful Stephen," he said quietly, "You are loved here."

Bewildered but relieved, Stephen set out.

The short summer they had enjoyed that year made for a pitiful harvest of dessicated berries. Stubbornly, he continued, wandering far from his origin as he searched. The light was beginning to fade as he reached through the bramble barbs for some inaccessible fruits when three sharp claps echoed across the field. Thorns tore at him as he fell back, startled. Across the stubble of the field, Stephen saw a figure with eyes skyward as a murmuration of starlings swirled there. The silhouette's tattered clothes flailed out behind it in the wind and it's outstretched arms clapped again as the starlings arced in perfect synchronicity. Stephen's heart swelled.

In a daze, he crossed the field to her. As before, she was unperturbed by his arrival. The smile that was etched in Stephen's psyche returned as her eyes flicked away from the display to meet his momentarily. Following her gaze, he too was entranced by the patterns woven by the birds until he heard her gasp. She was looking aghast at the trickle of blood that was running down his arm and dripping from his fingers.

He staggered, giddy at the sight of it. Even as he mumbled an explanation, she came to him, tearing off a strip of her ragged shawl to tend to his cuts. Moved by her kindness and still woozy, he grabbed her arm, more firmly than he intended and lent to kiss her. Startled, she backed away. Clarity returned and a creeping dread ran cold through his veins as he saw the fear in her eyes, his blood on her sleeve and remembered his vows. His expression twisted into a snarl of anguish at his squandered chastity and his clumsy approach. At this, she turned and ran while he stood rooted, contemplating his ruin.

---

Eventually Stephen moved, almost involuntarily, first ambling aimlessly through twilight then stumbling around in the dark, moonless night without direction. He began to shiver uncontrollably and instinctual navigation at last guided him toward home. His brothers' relief at his return after dawn was shortlived. Stephen collapsed cold, hungry and exhausted. They worked quickly to make him comfortable, noting with concern the gouge on his arm. Stephen raved incoherently in his delirium and his memories were confused save for an episode that would define his future.

Waking from a fevered dream he shouted "She has my heart!" The other monks surrounded his bed and their expressions turned from concern to horror save for Father Jacob at the back. Jacob's head slowly bowed, weighed by a sorrow too heavy for him to bear.

"He has been bewitched!" cried brother James.

Panic and commotion spread through the rest of the order. It suited James' ambition to organise a witch hunt and, in the panic, the others were grateful for direction.

---

Stephen's physical equilibrium was returning now but each time he woke, a dreadful foreboding seized him and he retreated back to slumber. By evening, sleep offered no more escape and he rose to confront reality. As he dressed in the clean robes that had been laid out for him, the chorus of a baying crowd approached. His window lit up orange in the light of burning torches. He froze as he remembered his cry. He imagined all too clearly the trial that would face the waif, her clothes stained with the blood of a servant of God.

Emerging from his cell, he saw the mob, led by James marching a struggling, bedraggled figure toward the church. Desperately, he beseeched them to reconsider but their righteous fury needed sating. Her eyes spoke fury, fear and defiance as he looked at her one last time, her right hand clenched tight into a fist.

Her trial, such as it was, went as Stephen had imagined by all accounts but her punishment was crueller. James had deemed that, in order to protect themselves from her evil spirit she should be buried alive in the foundations of St. Mary's Church under God's watch.

A desolation swept through Stephen that never truly left him. Wherever he stepped he seemed to be followed by the accusing eyes of one bird or another.

---

The harsh winter that followed took old Jacob with it and James ascended to become Father. Dark shadows with low voices stalked his dreams and insomnia made him irritable and tyrannical.

The night before the spring equinox, the full moon shone harshly through James' window. He was awake then to see a crow alight on his window sill and tap three times on his pane then fix him with a baleful stare.

He cursed it foully as he dressed, determined to have this out with God. The worm moon illuminated his path to the church where a clamour of rooks observed him. He turned the heavy key in the church door and angrily threw it open. The moon's rays streamed through and caught the tendril of an oak that was emerging from the acorn that the waif had been clasping in her fist. The floor cracked as the shoot broke through and a vengeful apparition emerged from within and rushed to confront him. He screamed in terror as her furious visage seared his retinas robbing him of his sight from that night forward. He staggered back grasping at air as he fell. The rooks laughed pitilessly at his discomfort and he felt the swoosh of their wings as they swooped about and around him.

---

This tale was inspired by local folklore surrounding the origin of an oak tree that now grows at the centre of the ruins of St. Mary's Church in East Somerton.