Hobb's Cottage: A Short Story Read Free Page A

word ‘whore’ whispered at first and then repeated, louder and louder.  I raise my chin.  My babe needs goodness.  I cannot flee.
    On the quay it is no better.  In the past the fishermen would speak to me and exchange bunch of carrots or a cabbage for a mackerel.  I see one man cross himself and, knowing that their superstitious nature is deep rooted, my heart sinks like kittens flung into a well. 
    “Witch!”
    The word is a hiss, and it comes from a small boy helping to mend his father’s nets.  “Witch!”
    My mouth dries.  I see again the terror in my mother’s eyes as they came for her.  The hands that grasped and tore at her flesh.  Hear the screams rent from her throat when they threw the rope around the tree and watched her dance.  Hear again my own shameful whimpers.  I spin round and think of home, of bolting the door.  Of safety.
    “She cursed the Squire’s baby,” mutters a woman from her doorway, clutching her own babe closely. “They say that he won’t thrive.  The Squire’s Lady is sickening too, burning up with fever.”
    “She bewitched the Squire and she bears Satan’s spawn,” whispers another.
    I try to hurry but my body is unwieldy.  In doorways I see people cross their forefinger and thumb in the ancient sign against evil and I know then that all is lost for me and my babe.  James’ silence has damned me.
    Two days later by a waning moon I brew a vicious tisane of arrowroot and hemlock, which bubbles black and vile above the few sticks of firewood that I can muster.  Dark smoke rises in plumes, as noxious as the liquid that I strain into a pewter mug.  These are dark dealings indeed and my heart is heavy.  I drag myself to the window seat and stare out at the night, the night, which is as black and empty as death.  Clouds tear in from the west and the sea spits like a tame cat turned wild.  I place my hands on my belly and stroke the flesh.  All my love, all my despair and all my terror seep into that gesture, before I tip my head back and drink.
     
    “The cottage is great, Mum.” Phoebe tucked the mobile under her chin while attempting to pluck a jacket potato from the oven. “Ouch!”
    Instantly the flesh on her hand started to shrivel and her eyes welled up. Why was she so emotional lately?
    “I’m fine,” she promised hastily, dunking her hand under the tap.  If her mother started to worry she’d never hear the end of it. “I just burned myself, that’s all.” 
    Phoebe tried to swat away her mother’s concerns.  Her mother didn’t need to know she missed Alex so badly that it was like emotional toothache, didn’t need to know about the almost baby, and certainly didn’t need to know that in the two weeks she’d lived Hobb’s Cottage Phoebe had scarcely slept.  Strange half dreams haunted her, shadows shimmered just out of view and sometimes she heard the high thin wail of a baby.  She’d sit up in her bed clutching the covers to her chest while her heart beat a wild tattoo. 
    No, her mother didn’t need to know she was going crazy.
    Ending the call, she paused for a moment. She did love it here at Hobb’s Cottage but something was out of kilter, something that floated at the back of her mind and which was more than just missing Alex.  Maybe the strain of working three jobs for the entire summer season was affecting her more than she’d realised?
    Phoebe retrieved her supper, grated cheese into the potato and poured a large glass of wine.  Collapsing onto the saggy sofa she picked up Miller’s book and began a chapter on wreckers.  Tilly’s story was too full of holes and disturbing co-incidences to make comfortable reading.  Moments later she was engrossed, imagining storms and waves, terrible cries, sailors’ hands scrabbling and against the cruel rocks, their ragged nails scraping in frenetic terror.  She turned the page then froze, suddenly aware that the scratching had continued. It was transported from her imagination to