11.5 The Shetland Witch, or, Atropos Wants Her Shears Back
In which there is good wine and food.
‘Oh, look!’ Ishabel said again. Hazel saw tendrils of coloured light leaking from the fragile grass walls of the basket. When she half-closed her eyes she could see slender ripples of colour winding their way around the kitchen, exploring, measuring, tasting. When Ishabel shifted her hands on the rim of the sphere, the tendrils shrank back inside.
‘The weaving technique is beautiful,’ Ishabel held the globe in her hands, her face intent. ‘Those patterns there, and here as well, are almost like writing. This doesna look like anything I’ve seen in East Africa. And Shetland is not known for its ceremonial grass weaving traditions. It is a beautiful thing, Atropos: thank you.’
‘But where is this from?’ Maggie asked Atropos.
‘From the green book,’ Atropos said. ‘I made it. It will show Zeus what power really is.’
‘My goodness,’ Maggie looked at the globe with new interest. ‘What does it do?’
Atropos held out her hands. ‘I do not know.’
‘Oh.’
‘The book ended,’ Atropos explained. ‘The instructions stopped at the end of the basket making. I thought you would know what to do with it.’
‘But look at the colours!’ Hazel said.
‘What?’
‘The little fingers of colour trying to get out. There’s a green one reaching for you now, can you see?’ Hazel asked.
‘Oh, I see it,’ Maggie said, squinting at the sphere. ‘Transparent tentacles. Your eyes are better than mine for that wavelength, clearly. Did you put them in there, Atropos?’
Atropos spread her hands again and raised her shoulders. ‘They came when I wove the basket and said the words. Perhaps they are like my Keres. They belong to it.’
Ishabel lifted the sphere to place it on a deep shelf beside the kitchen door, next to a bone knife and an ammonite. Maggie looked at the shelf and frowned.
‘Did you not have that grey and white Zimbabwean pot with the strange peerie face on it there, before?’
‘I did. But this morning when I was dusting I felt quite suddenly that it would be much better in the living room and I put it there. I don’t think we need worry about the sphere. It’s where it wants to be.’
‘I’m dead impressed that you were able to follow those instructions,’ Maggie said to Atropos. ‘The script on those pages is not easy to follow.’
Ishabel was considering the sphere, looking at it while she stirred a pan on the hob. ‘It’s an incomplete object. The power is obviously there, bound in, but we don’t know what to do with it. Well, I have nae doubt that we will find out.’
She turned to open the oven door. The smells of the roasting meat rushed out to fill the room.
‘I think I’m ready for a drink now,’ she said.
Hazel poured out four glasses of red wine and Maggie handed them round.
‘Drink, sisters,’ she intoned, and winked at Hazel.
They drank.
‘My goodness,’ Ishabel said, her eyes widening.
‘Wow,’ Maggie said, ‘This is astonishingly good.’
Atropos took another deep swallow of the wine.
‘It’s from the Co-op,’ Hazel said. ‘Look, the label says, “full-bodied and smooth, with the rich taste of music and fire”. I should buy more of these.’
Ishabel laughed. ‘It might not be the same!’
Maggie had been silent since they had began eating, but now she spoke.
‘You know, Atropos, as you’ll be staying here, you could do with a new identity, and a new name. Something that doesna remind folk of death.’
Hazel put another spoonful of salad on her plate. ‘Did you want to change your name, Atropos?’
Maggie gestured with her fork. ‘You won’t be able to use your name in our culture without funny looks.’
‘I disagree,’ Ishabel said mildly, helping herself to greens, ‘I taught in Athens for a year once, with colleagues called Aphrodite and Narcissus. Names from myth don’t always carry baggage.’
‘How about calling yourself Moira?’ Hazel asked. ‘Since the Fates are the Moirai?’
Atropos looked up thoughtfully. ‘Is Moira a person’s name?’
‘My mum’s friend is called Moira,’ Hazel offered. ‘She’s nice. She works in a castle and takes folk round its historical rooms.’
‘There’s a Moira teaching at Baltasound school,’ Maggie said. ‘I think it would do. It’s a good name. Not so common as to be suspicious and not uncommon either.’
Ishabel conceded. ‘If you are happy with Moira, then it would cause less notice than Atropos.’
‘What about a surname?’ Maggie said. ‘We need to do this thoroughly.’
‘Oh lord,’ Hazel said. ‘How can we invent a digitally impeccable life for her?’
‘It can be done,’ Ishabel said, putting together her last mouthful on her fork. ‘We know folk who can do these things for folk like us.’
‘How?’ Hazel was amazed.
‘We make sure that in every generation there are the right folk in the right offices to deflect scrutiny. Bureaucracy is a powerful tool, so we are well-practised with succession planning. We’ve been discreet for centuries, after all. None of us wants to attract attention.’
The kitchen curtains flapped as a hard splatter of water hit the windows and the doors in the hall moved in the back draught. Rain was now thundering down so hard against the kitchen windows that Ishabel’s softer voice began to be drowned out.
‘The storm seems to have thickened up a bit,’ Ishabel said, looking back into the hall.
‘Why do you not want attention?’ Atropos asked.
Ishabel looked at Maggie. ‘Is there anything about witch burning in the Feather Haa library?’
Maggie frowned. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘In the past anyone could be burned for being a witch,’ Hazel explained to Atropos.
‘Have they tried to burn you?’ Atropos asked with concern.
‘No, no. It’s not like that now. But hundreds of years ago, if women behaved unusually, or spoke in a funny way, they were persecuted. Or if they sold medicine. Or lived alone with a cat. Women running their own businesses. Women who didn’t do what the kirk wanted. So we learned to be discreet.’
Episode 11.6 will follow.
The Shetland Witch © Kate Macdonald 2024.
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