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Yendale farmyard, ~4pm Saturday May 4th, 1771


Glad of some clear direction amidst the confusion of the day, Maggie had run to catch up with a rather startled Robin for her due escort. Although in truth the youngest and gentlest Yendale sibling would be the easiest to murder in virtually all circumstances, Robin was sure to make the keenest attempt at vigilance whilst trotting at Maggie's side. He relaxed somewhat when their own stone fenceposts and the stacked wall of the yard came in view, the black-tarred toolshed that had once been a stable rearing up before any more than a strip of Yendale Farm's thatch could be seen stretched along the horizon upslope.

A pair of pullets, one ginger and one speckled, bustled from the brambles at the wall's foot and hastened inside as though caught in the commission of a crime, their clucking for a moment obscuring the increasingly audible thwack of a mallet on wood. The churned and re-hardened clay of the track up became hard-packed earth underfoot, soft with inclusions of dung and ash. The smell of hearthfire and stink of byre crowded out the sweet cowparsley and may scents of the trackside vegetation and scatter of homestead trees.

As the pair passed the outer threshold a monstrous growl sounded behind them like some distant cornyx call to arms: looking back, Runt had appeared on the track some paces down soft-footed as a shadow, facing away from them. He growled again, tail curling at the tip as his great shoulders tensed, and the hare that had been camouflaged against the earth by her stillness rose up, turned her head about and fled. The hammering above continued.

Runt came and brushed up against Robin in passing as though the brief confrontation was nothing beyond the ordinary. He deigned to throw Maggie a glance, then blinked with deliberaton and wandered off to their right on whatever mysterious cat errands he was currently pursuing. Hunting mice out of the  collapsed section of wall where weather had weakened one key stone to powder, perhaps, or just pacing out the inner ward of his home turf. It was possible he meant to circle all the way about, behind the house and outside the kitchen garden, then come around the barn to piss on the mended wheel as soon as Jack had it back on the cart, which the farmer looked to achieve soon.

Jack Hurley looked up as they drew closer, then pointedly returned his attention to testing the boards held by the peg just hammered home. "Y'came back, then," he stated by way of greeting.

Just as they entered the yard, Maggie puts a hand on her brother’s shoulder. "Let's offer Jack our help. But after, I need ye  t’tell me what’s passing between you lads and Jim Stone.”

She walks up to Jack with a tolerably pleasant grin and asks how they might help with his task.

Jack looked up with infinite suspicion, then at the cart with its axle up on a precarious mix of logs, stones and slates on its near side. Knowing Maggie could lift it and likely slap the wheel on one-handed if she wanted to clearly tempted him, but he trusted her about as far as he could throw her, which if he was actually capable of doing he'd have attempted long before.

"I've done most of the carpenting, but leave the boy here." He nodded towards the house.

"Wife's in the kitchen, she'll want to know you're not drowned dead in a ditch. I'll call ye when you're needed."

"Aye, Jack, just whistle an' I'll be along," Maggie tries not to smirk at the arrogant man-thing. She goes along to the house. "Katey! I'm home! Let me tell ye all that's occurred up by th' Wyzenwood an' what I've heard. Is there a crust a bread an' some dripping. I'm that starved."

When she finds her sister she greets her with a hug and kiss and takes Jamie off her hip to prattle at and dandle as she tells about the tracks they found and what she believes they portend, about Jim Stone in the bog hole (but not about the fairy door and the riches it could lead to, no need for Jack to get wind of her treasure), about the foolish men that ran heedless into the wood and what they found there, about all that was said by Mercy and the doctor and the preacher.

"It's powerful doings and no mistake." she concludes as she tucks the sleeping infant into his cradle that's growing too short by the day.

Kate had already been fairly cheerful when Maggie came in - unusual, for a day after Maggie'd slept elsewhere, as Kate was one to worry - and moreso to see her sister home, though her joy faded with the rest of the news and she seemed pensive, deeply concerned.

"Mm...I think I heard something of that noise," Kate said, "-but that was after Master Fox was already out. He came up here, y'know-" she caught herself, suddenly deciding against some detail and turning away to ladle more from the pottage pot "-passing through."

"What could they want, whoever would give a poor maid to Her up there?" she wondered.

"Wait there," Maggie says, turning all her attention on her sister, "What would Master Fox be wantin' here at our farm? You must tell me, Kate. Quality folk don't come around just t' hob nob with th' likes o' us. What was he after? What did he say?"

"Said he'd been in the Wood," Kate said, sliding Maggie's bowl back to her with more pottage and bread. She didn't look at her sibling and there was a high flush in her cheeks as she turned away to reach down more barley and herbs to set simmering to top up the pot. "Said it felt like being buried alive, like being sick and alone in a huge house, that he needed to hear, see, touch someone else. He showed me his hands and I took 'em..."

Kate's voice had gone small and trembled now, not understanding herself. "I...I didn't, I wouldn't betray Jack, but we weren't right. He was...so beautiful, afraid like that somehow. Fragile, like a new thing. I...I felt beautiful, too, and new, but me at the same time, and I wasn't afraid of him. I let him kiss my shoulder, touch as he thought he needed. We weren't right."

"When he left I penned the baby in the linen-space with the blocks and went straight out to Jack, and I think - I mean, I just feel like it worked this time, and I been that pleased I'd half-forgot about the young squire, but O God, what did I do?" Kate's breath hitched, doing nothing but leaning on the side of the range.

Along the short passage to the outer door, it sounded like the men of the house were heading in, Jack saying something inaudible. After all this time it was likely he - with the aid of poor Robin doing his best - had probably wrestled the wheel on himself.

"-distract him whilst I pull mysel' together," Kate pleaded, almost looking back, then grabbing a lumpy turnip to peel. _"please."

Maggie grabs her sister in a quick embrace, her head a-whirl with this disclosure. As Jack comes into the room, she rounds on him.

"Ho, Jack! Given up on the cart have ye? Never mind, I'll go out wi' ye after supper an' set it aright. What?! Job's done? Oh-ho, this I have ta see. Come on!"

She practically drags the protesting Jack back outside and around to the cart. She inspects cart and wheel minutely, asking questions and making disparaging comments.

Finally she says, "Aye, well, suppose it'll do. Lucky ye had our Robyn come by t'help, eh? Come along then. Let's wash up and get our vittles."

She is fairly confident she's gotten under the man's skin enough that he'll not notice any irregularity in Kate's demeanour.

Jack had gradually hackled up under this treatment like a cockerel kicked about by barbarous youths, right on the point of launching spurs-first and beak for the eyes despite knowing it'd get him struck again. The avian contempt pulled his shoulders back and put a certain amount of murder in his upward stare.

"What," he demanded, carefully setting the mallet down again from making some suggested taps to wedges, "-is it that's wrong with ye?"

It was a statement that fairly ended the conversation, at least until they were inside. Kate was calmly scooping peelings into a stock pot for later boiling and the baby slept on, oblivious to tension that didn't entirely wash away with the grease and sawdust Jack rid himself of as Kate updated him of the village's plans. Aware that he was the easiest target for deflected wrath, Robin had made himself scarce, likely out in the garden with the cat.

"Hrmph - and this hanging about at the stones, it wasn't your idea?" he asked Maggie, scarcely mollified by bread, dripping, and tea, even with kitchen pepper on the former.

"Truly, Jack, I've never figured that out. Do ye think I'm maybe a changeling, some fairy's get? 'Twould explain a lot, aye?"

Maggie's glad to find Kate composed and going about her chores in an almost normal fashion. They eat their tea almost companionably while Maggie recounts the story of the activities around the Wyzenbwood again.



"My idea? Jack, are ye daft? D'ye think I have such sway over doctor an' preacher an' Mast--" A sharp glance from Kate diverts her from that line of thought "--an' Mister Collins? They don't even listen t'th' respectable women in Scorch Norton. They surely don't listen t' th' likes o' me."

Perhaps to his credit, Jack had forborne from making any comment on his late mother-in-law's proclivities, only touching the horseshoe above the door in passing for the invocation of the Fair Folk.

"They heeded your sayin' she was dead, save the Vicar," he pointed out, watching her closely, knowing something was amiss in the house but unable to pin it down save that it had come with Maggie. "An' then mayhap-"

"They're here!" Robin called in the door. "The men to guard our stone - shall I take them up?"

The baby burbled softly, stirring a little. Jack drew in a breath ready to rise, but paused fractionally to see if Maggie would decide this was her errand. For a moment Maggie saw him as the village men might - a small man now but a few years from thirty, trying to hold a farm together whilst all in it squirmed athwart his grip; a silly little fighting-cock - and knew he would not follow at her heel if she went there.

Maggie remains seated, not even turning to look out the door.

"Well, Jack, I expect they'll be wantin' t'get permission from th' master o' th' farm. Robyn, you'd best go along in case Jack has need of ye.

"Is there a bit moore pottage, Kate? It's that hungry I am."
This message was last edited by the player at 14:26, Mon 16 May 2022.

Jack gave Maggie a narrow look of suspicion and went to greet the guests on what was technically his land. "Don't give her all we've got," he told Kate in passing.

"There's enough," Kate responded softly, "-tell them I'll send the hay box up with something later. Maggie, you eat too fast," she finished, using the ladle to sort what was done from the top of the pot. "Here, shall I addle egg in it?"

"Ah...right." Robin ducked back out from where he'd appeared, reluctant but aware he couldn't shirk a man of the holding's duty here. Jack hastened his going, and the pair in the kitchen heard the door shut on greetings outside, a dull babble that grew distant from the quiet within. The baby slept.

"Never mind, Kate," Maggie says, staying her sister's hand and looking intently into her eyea as she pulls her down to sit on the bench beside her.

"Tell me very plainly about Master Fox when he came today. What time was it? What did he wear? Did he look well and was he orderly about his person, his clothes? What did he say when he greeted you and what did you say to him? Quickly now." Her voice is urgent and serious, unlike her usual lackadaisy manner.

"This isn't gossip, Meg..." Kate responded, upset. She looked aside under Maggie's intensity and took a deep breath, her hands trembling a little in her sister's grip as though the younger woman had captured a perfect brace of fearful birds.

"It was...afternoon, perhaps before three? I thought I heard the searchers, calling, so it was when their voices might carry here. He wore that beautiful blue coat of his, with the brocades, and the waistcoat that goes with that, a shirt, white ruffles at the throat clipped down with some green stone...a watch, surely, with the gold watch-chain, breeches of some dark blue stuff, stockins of a new butter colour, not quite white, shoes with silver buckles to them and his hair-ribbon like the breeches, dark. He looked-"

Kate frowned. "No, it wasn't upset. Stunned. Afraid...new. Fragile. Like something fallen out the nest." She swallowed and shifted with discomfort, shame or the memory of being at a raw liberty from such notions changing her breathing and spotting colour in her cheeks. "He 'ad some twigs and leaves and suchlike caught about him, I would say, but about as orderly as you might expect, had he been in the Wood, as he said, an' run out."

"He said 'Please help me,' and I, bein' somewhat surprised and by way of bein alarmed by the young squire coming in like he was blown there, I asked him what was wrong, an' he said that about feeling dead in the Wood, and begged to touch me." Her fingers curled as though away from pain. "It didn't seem wrong, at the time. We can't either of us been right."

Maggie peers intently into her sister's eyes.

"I've something fearful t'tell ye, Kate. Your visitor this afternoon couldn't have been Master Fox. Master Fox was still lost in th' Wyzenwood then an' when he emerged with Tom Bees, he was... was all over blood they said, though he said it wasn't his own. And when he come out, he went straightaway to his house with Widow Sexton and Mistress Criddle who wouldn't let go of him." She squeezes her sister's hands ever tighter.

"What I fear... What I fear, Kate, is that you were visited by some fetch sent by th' Witch o'th' Wood. Mercy Westcott told us how th' Witch has been in th' Wood since before th' Church come to these parts. And her greatest desire was for a woman who could bear... somethin'--some evil child. But th' Druids an' th' Romans an' th' priests kept that from her.

"What I fear is that she sent out some semblance o' Nathan Fox while she held himself at th' heart of Wyzenwood. Tell me, Kate, did ye lie with him today? Y'know I don't ask for gossip or t' shame ye and wouldn't even if my own name were spotless, which we know it isn't."

She lets go Kate's hands and snatches her into a tight embrace. Whispering in her ear, "Tell me true, Katy love. Did ye lie with him?"

Kate wouldn't look back, gasped and began to struggle like a trapped beast at the hug. "Maggie, what-? Get off! Get- off!"

Freed, she clung to the end of the bench under her where she'd fallen back and gave Maggie a look that made Maggie think of the time she'd slipped into a field with a cow as a child: she'd thought nothing of it, as the neighbouring cattle were always kind to her, big, slow-moving beasts with warm muzzles. Only that once, one had a new calf. Enough halfhearted grey light wound through the kitchen's smoke to catch the smudges of green in the wintry wet-leaf brown of Kate's eyes, gazing back with that flat wild danger where always docility had been.

"I didn't. Listen to me, what I've sinned, I've sinned, an' he never did more than I let 'im, Wood-thing or no. Why would I say it was touch and not even kissing on the mouth if I was set to lie about it?" In the brief quiet after the queston, both sisters knew they knew that answer: distraction. Kate looked away, still highly flushed.

"Well, I didn't. You could ask Jack if ye were minded to set him fixin' things with blows, or if I'm right come back and see come the new year that my...my child had dark hair, if the story about Fox red holds water. How d'ye know it was the young squire I had here and not the one went with his bride that was the false one, or if Herself was making doubles, why would She let the true one go?"

"An' if - if - it was a child She wanted - an' I won't believe there's such thing as born evil, even the gorgon, if it was a gorgon, must've took milk and been harmless like another babe, that they let it live, an' it them - there's no reason it'd be now, or me, or if it was now and me that Her thing wouldn't have..." she took in a quick, sharp breath. "Look, he did what I let him, an' if he smelled like leaves he felt and breathed like a man, an' gave me all due courtesy. If he made a finish of it for his own self, it weren't in here, and weren't in me."

Kate was quite pink in defiance, but took off her bonnet to re-fix her hair, as though re-making her good self, or whole self, with all that might befit a proper wife. "It's not like either'd have to honour that," she said thickly, too aware of herself in her skin. "An' before you ask, if it weren't what I'd chosen, if he'd but come in and put me across the table or some like, knowing as I couldn't lift a hand for myself against gentry nor be heeded after, I'd never have mentioned it."

Kate swallowed, calming back to the woman who could never replace Maggie's mother for all her work or taking on of burdens. A woman, Magggie saw as she rarely did, who was only four years older than she. "Not because you'd say any like of that I was game if I didn't go out and call for my husband at once, or if I'd red in my stockings, or any such men's nonsense...but I think ye'd kill him for me, an' that's a death by the stake, and then where would we be?"

She nodded over at the cradle and at last offered her hands back again, ready to be touched even if there was a wet bright glitter to her eyes. "I'm sorry, Maggie. I did something fair wicked today and I'm not sure why, or now quite what, and this notion you have...I don't know I doubt the whole, but there's a lot to it."

Tears of relief spring to Maggie's eyes as well.

"Oh, Kate, my heart is joyed to hear ye say so. I never would expect different of ye but it seems witchcraft is afoot and I was sore a-feared for you. Well, all's right for now. Still, you must be watchful, with that Wood loomin' so close here. I'll see can Mercy come t'put th' house under protection somehow. But know that any man that would harm you in any way would answer t'me an' I'd have his life or his manhood to square accounts, even were I t'hang for it." She is silent a moment struck by a thought.

"I'm wonderin' if it might be as you say. That the real Nathan Fox was here and a false one gone home to Fox Manor. I don't know what can be done about that. Perhaps Mercy'll have an idea."

She hugs her sister to her and kisses both cheeks: "I owe you so many debts, Kate, that I can never repay any way but t'be true to you, and to Jack aye, and do all I can for your family. I promise that I will.

"Now I'd best be out and see what men have come here and what it is they want and what's doing. Then I'll away to Mercy. But I'll sleep here tonight, or send word."

Another kiss and she's grabbing up her shawl and out the door.

"If the real one ever came out...Lord save that young Janet, she's scarce more than a girl..." Kate said, but returned the hug with a sure, strong grip that reiterated that love gifted never was for deserving. She caught Maggie briefly in rising to kiss her temple and give her a small smile.

"Thank you," she said, meaning it, then hefted up as Maggie looked set to dart out, gesturing to the relevant basket. "-and take some onions for them to be getten on with, at least...!"

---

Maggie clambered over the wall at the most convienient spot, onions swaddled in her apron. Damp hid in the deep grass heading up to the Crop Stone once she'd crossed their top field, and though the trees surrounding the stone itself were few the hush inside them made the spot feel like stepping into an empty church. Tobacco smoke wended its way through the scent of may blossoms and greenery, suggesting the men were talking over such a treat and as yet not doing very much guarding at all: stepping closer to the clearing about the broad and drunkenly tilted monument, Maggie spied Natty Hartman explaining something that might be 'antlers' by the gesture he was caught in, Jack with his back to her and the younger Toby Aching, a cousin of Polly's on a spring visit to his parents and sister.

The latter youth was a rambling freckled creature who might be set going on any topic and get around to scaring himself, as much like his sister Emma as a round ball of chalk to a solid chunk of limestone. It was a little concerning that he currently had Robin fascinated with what looked to be a pistol. Natty only had a pitchfork, but expecting a Hartman to add gravitas to any proceedings was like expecting a Yendale to live purely off green vittles. The straggle of trees stretched out behind them a little way, curving towards the Fox estate and messy with shrubbery, half of it hazel coppice gone gleefully feral with neglect. Somewhere out among it a blackbird sang with excessive enthusiasm.

"Jack," says Maggie as she nears the knot of men, "Your wife has sent these onions to refresh you an' your guests." After allowing Jack to tell her to pass out the onions, she shakes out her apron and says, "Do any of you know whether Mercy Westcott was still at the inn?"

"Aye, but she was about set to leave when we were, at that," Natty said, taking his pocketknife to the top of his onion with fair dexterity.

"Wouldn't have anyone go with her for witness," Toby added, somewhere between awe and suspicion.

"Aye, then I'd best look for her at her cottage. Good day t'ye, Goodmen."

Maggie takes the fastest way to Mercy's home.

[I had thought Mercy's cottage was marked on the map and can't remember where it is.]

Maggie's sudden lurch from the grove and the copse to the field was marked by alarmed hails from the men that faded behind her as she loped for the road.

"Hey, don't _go ^alone-!"

                                    "Maggie!"


Likely Jack reassured them or said she'd have it coming if some murderous road man took her, refusing to be told - or both, for none ran after. Maggie was alone with her steady breaths and the gentle crush of enriched earth or fieldside weed-beds underfoot, the wind on her face and the fields and village stretched out below as they'd always been. She clambered over the stile at the field boundary and onto the coach road, finding herself in the company of wheel-ruts and a flight of goldfinches that had been picking insects amongst the thorny hedge. She set off downhill.


[[it's the one with its own little corner of trees at the base of Yendale's dale/corner of the main road and back lane at the edge of the village - Maggie started out just off-map at the top and is coming down the main road towards the village now, right on the very top of the map.

Relatedly, please give me a Spot Hidden.]]

Maggie ran, heedless of the men’s warning cries as they faded behind her, glad of the wind in her face, happy to release the strength of her body. She approached the little copse that sheltered Mercy’s home.

Margaret Yendale rolled 72 for Spot Hidden 25.

Loping freely, seeing nothing but her path and a vague impression of the green swaying over it to her left, Maggie came nigh the windbreak trees behind the midwife's house. She slipped through a withered gap in the hedge and threaded the trees, coming past the pond that caught any drainage off the hill not sent around it by field drains, busy with tadpoles, and into the back garden. It seemed Mercy was not outside at present.

Maggie steps carefully through the garden, approaching the back door.

"Mercy, it's Maggie. I come with a tale t'tell." she calls.

A hedgehog trundled away from her tread, out foraging early amongst the cool long grasses about the vegetable beds. The trees were in the main not full-leafed enough to whisper but muffled winter's croaks with budding foliage and what they had, as though the old year's corpse were not the springing-point for the green. She approached the cottage, calling.

Perhaps she was too quiet, or the inhabitants too engrossed in their tasks: Maggie was cautiously ducking into the kitchen and re-knocking the door as she went before Widow Sexton looked over, gathering up fallen bundles of herbs knocked from the rafters, and called into the other room. "Mercy, Maggie's here!"

"Unless she's got a baby in the last two hours, you get tea for her and tell her wait, if I move fast I'll get shards o' china in my 'ands. Sod's law that is," came the reply from the parlour.

The Widow tried to keep her straightest face at that tone, which soon became a genuine welcoming smile, even if the kitchen did look like a couple of bullocks had been through it. "Maggie! Real tea or herbal tea?"

She nodded at some sweepings sat in a strawwork sieve on the displaced table. "We've got just about anything, and some idiot mix besides."

"Herb, please, Miz Sexton," says Maggie with an answering smile, draping her shawl on a peg by the door, "And what can I do t'help here?"

Maggie got her choice of lemon, orange, spearmint, peppermint, lemonbalm, thyme, ginger, rosesugar, hawthorn, burdock, dandelion flower, lavender and chalmomile, which the Widow Sexton set up for brewing whilst Goodie Westcott disposed of the china sherds she had and set one of her remaining fancy plates on the table. Maggie was set to retrieve the broom stuck in the rafters over Mercy's bed upstairs, since it had clearly got wedged up there by some enthusiastic poking for secrets by someone standing on the bed itself (presumably they thought Goodie Westcott could hide things there by levitation).

The broom came down easily with Maggie's reach and strength, and when she returned to the kitchen a miraculously unstolen acorn scone with herbed apple-butter was laid out ready for her by a steaming mug. Goodie Westcott waved away Maggie's thought of shifting the table back where it ought to be and lowered herself heavily into a chair that should itself be somewhere else, taking spearmint tea with a lavender pinch for her own part.

"So, what tale do y'bring me, then?" she asked, sipping.

Maggie sips her orange and ginger tea and looks a bit abashed. She nibbles the scone while she gathers her thoughts.

"Forgive me, Goodie Sexton, and no offense intended," she begins, a flush creeping up her throat, "But my tale involves two other people and I must share it with Mercy alone." She gives a nearly simpering smile to try to soften her words even more.

[[GM edit: terms of address - the Widow Sexton was very much married. 'Goodwife' carries what I believe to be the intended level of respect for the head of a household.]]
This message was last edited by the GM at 08:47, Thu 26 May 2022.

The scone was warm, tasting of autumnal nuts and fruit. The widow could not help but wince a little at the amount of trouble that seemed impending there between a blush from Maggie and seeing a midwife and diviner about a private matter, her voice dropping to a concerned maternal tone: "All right, but if either lad needs a talking-to in the village, I'll deal with him or his mother as needs be."

She rose, taking her scone from warming by the range. "Y'don't need to put up with every kind of foolishness - there's good times can be had without drink or man that aren't the worse for the lack, I swear it. Mercy, may I...?"

"Take the poker, Tempe, and I'll be doin' with sticks," Goodie Westcott assured her. "Go with God," she added in the old-fashioned manner, hardly thinking about it. The Widow Sexton nodded and set out armed and provisioned to make her way home.

"I thank ye, Miz Temperance, for your kindness," Maggie calls after her amid furious blushes at the state of her reputation in Scorch Norton. Ah, well.

Then she tells Kate's story of Nathan Fox's visit, omitting no detail, and her own fears of what it means and portends and the danger posed to her sister.

"Hmm," said Mercy, leaning back in her chair. "I'd say Kate has the right of it if she feels she's conceived, but what part the Wood had in that I'm not for sure. At that, I'd agree that it's not any child specifically the Wood wants, either: rather that what She does, her particuler power, it's of a kind that's in flesh and the makin' of flesh. Same's causes seed to take, in the ground or in the womb, or otherwise to rot if it's witholden, that's my thought."

"Something happens if she gets a life with power that runs along with hers, and not that bit acrosswise, as it might be with a maiden or the father of a thing. What, I don't know, but if heathens would carry on sacrifices but keep that back, I can't think as it'd be anything good for us such as lives on the land hereabouts." She tapped her fingers against the side of her cup, thinking.

"You're right about which is our Fox, though, I should think. Herself up there can't...make souls, though she can keep 'em, and hand out shapes. 'New' sounds right. Even if someone'd been conscious, somehow, all the while She'd had them kept, I imagine as it would be a shock to be in a body again, like a living thing." She shuddered, once.

"Well. I suppose the question is, do we tell anyone else...is Kate well, in her own feeling? Not desperate to meet him again or feart sick or any such?"

"I think..." says Maggie, then hesitates, gazing into her cup, "I think she felt gently used by this Fox thing. Jack is a hard man, though he does not mistreat Kate, I don't mean that at all, really, but there’s little gentleness to him. T’be spoken to an’… and touched with gentleness…I think Kate found that … Well, I think that was agreeable to her and a memory she will keep deep in her heart to… to treasure.

“Even before I told her of my suspicions, she knew a memory it had to stay, that no good could come of it. Now I believe, I hope, I’m sure she will be on her guard.”

She looks up, searching the wise woman’s face for an answer. "But what is there for us t’do about this false Fox? Do we tell Nathan Fox an’ his people so as they c'n be on their guard?

“And, Mercy, why is She stirrin’ now? What’s changed in the Wood or in Scorch Norton or in the World? Or in us?”

"That Kate has all the sense God gave your mother, Lord rest 'er, and most He never gave your father, to boot." Mercy set her cup down thoughtfully. "Aye, and soft and patient usage will help a woman achieve and her womb to take, so we can hope there's nothing owed to Herself up there."

"What worries me is that Herself can't be making souls, so if this wood-thing has wants of its own, and speaks, She's gone an' put some captive in that body...it's not Polly, for I imagine the least trace of her would have other concerns to be going on with, and I'm not for sure the guardians didn't catch her soul to save it, so as She's only got the life. It's not your father, for whatever some folks say I'd have known long before if he were that sort of man, by trade if not by instinct. If it's that old Mr. Fox, I can't but wonder 'ow long it'll be before his nature reasserts itself through the thing and starts treating the whole county like a chickenhouse." She drummed her fingers on the table.

"What should we tell that household, an' all...'bar the door against your master in case he's not him' will hardly pass, an' we don't know that the thing, such as it can look like one man it's not, might not look like another. A relative might be easiest, if it's Fox, but those as the Wood's seen up close, maybe even shed a hair or drop of blood in Her domain...I wouldn't be so sure it couldn't copy them, given time to practice, but the village'll likely be for shutting them up in their houses if we could make them believe that, and our own vicar amongst their number."

"I think...I think betwixt us - an' I'll get Tempe to help, without mention of quite how you got to be for certain, no fear to poor Kate - ay, I think we ought get those who ventured in the Wyzenwood together as best we might. Then try a fair parley with them. After church might be simplest: though it gives the thing the night, most of the village is set to go about in pairs, or at any rate the women. With no sword nor pistol that we know of, enticing or dragging, the thing would have a harder time making off with two than one."

Mercy was quiet for a while at the last plaintive question, taking up her cup again to swirl the dregs like they might answer. "Someone killed Polly Durbin," she said at length, "-because he was too afraid to even wait and see if she carried his child to term."

"Do ye have any suspicion about who it was killed Polly? Was it a Scorch Norton man?

"So it is some fetch that Kate saw? Not Nathan Fox at all?" Maggie is awestruck that she might have been right about it. "Could th' Fox people put up some sort o' protection then t'keep it out? Like a horseshoe over all th' doors? Or somethin' like?"

Margaret Yendale rolled 2 for Know 55%.

The midwife frowned, shaking her head. "Nothing as would make more sense than it being Tom Bees, only he spent so long trying to woo her, makes little sense that he'd kill her once her family would finally have to accept him for her choice or else send her away - she implied the child was his and said he'd surely marry her, only Long Tom looked surprised when I tried to ask on it. Then he threatened to get me and/or Hester Collins branked and set away for hysterics, as it were, so I let him know as it'd be the worse for him if he tried."

"There's temper to him, for sure, and he went in the Wood and the bargain that seemed to be hangin' loose afore, with Herself just trying to send us animals, offering-like, that changed after. You could say the same of Samuel Hartman or Master Fox, though, save that the two could vouch for each other the night it happened, or so I've heard, the young squire fallen drunk asleep with the Criddle hands." Goodie Westcott gave a tense sigh of frustration.

"I don't know, though. There's stupid boys who're rank murderers and there's stupid boys who're just stupid boys, is how it is. Have ye any notion yourself?"

She thought about protections. "Seal it out once, perhaps, but that's assumin' it isn't in, an' belike if I did rig up something with as best I know about the Wood - for She's not quite of the Good Folk, else they'd not shun the place - they'd just go an' invite it in again. I could catch it in a trap, if we but knew where it was and could lead it in..."

"Not Tom. No," Maggie says slowly, "He c'ld jus' marry her an' would, I think. But I don't see it being any Scorch Norton manoy. And Master Fox, well, he c'ld snap his fingers at th' village an' at th' Durbins."

"A trap? Aye," her poacher's mind likes this idea, "But how bait it? Wouldn't do t'put any o' th' girls an' women in danger. I'd do it though. Y'know I'd stand with ye against Hell itself, Mercy."Her gaze wanders around the cottage that's still not entirely put to rights.

"Who did this here, Mercy? An' was it just mischief or a threat of worse? Will ye be safe alone here tonight? I promised Kate I'd come home tonight, but I know she'dll understand if you need me." Her face shows that she's not sure of Kate's understanding but wants to protect the wise woman, if needed.

"He could, at that, an' it'd scarce be an effort for him to bed about any girl in the village," Goodie Westcott agreed, swift enough that Maggie could tell it wasn't a new thought. "Only thing is, there weren't two of him 'til this afternoon."

"Being asleep with the Criddle hands don't mean he mightn't wake up, for sure, but for all his crest is 'Be Bold', it's carrying things a bit far to think he could surely get out and go back again, and not one wake at the going or to miss him in the rest of the night, and say so."

Mercy smiled at Maggie's solidarity. "I'd hope as we'd not have to go as far as that," she said. "The thing'd just have to believe ye weren't onto it, and be led to a point between knots of power...probably somewhere on the Fox estate, though that carries a risk of bein' seen. I'll try to set it up on the morrow."

"Hmph. Overgrown boys looking for spells, belike, or bits of poor Polly," she said, surveying the mess likewise. She smirked at the offer. "Ah, no. They don't dare come back whilst I might cast curses - if they did, I've a sight more powerful casting for 'em."

She got up and headed to the range, picking out a skillet from its hook. "Cast iron. Don't you fear for me any. Man or Wood-thing, they won't get past that."

Maggie pops the last bit of scone into her mouth, smiling at her friend as she chews.

"Aye, 'spect you'll be alright then. I'll get home and give Kate a hand. Unless something stirs, I hope t'stay home t'night. Bide ye well, Mercy Westcott."

On the way out, she stops and gives Tempe a proper hug and bids her a good night. Then, Maggie is away and across the fields to Yendale farm.

Temperence Sexton was indeed sitting up on the gatepost like an unweildy bird and as such surprised by Maggie swooping up to hug her: she tensed, briefly, then laughed and let the poker go, returning a hug that might not have been Maggie's mother's, but at least was someone's, and truly meant.

"You look after yourself, spring bean," she told her, holding on a moment more, then let the big young woman loose to push through the gate and run.

Clean air, turned earth and new growth replaced the richer manure-and-flower scent of gardens: the smell of these long-known fields in spring. The first part of the gradient made little impression on Maggie's powerful stride, though at length the steepness brought her to labouring and at last to a flushed skirt-swinging walk, feeling the weight of the day. Still, the sun was just low enough to catch in the hedges and the longer blades of sprouting barley, turning each edge to a stained-glass wonder, and it was good to be higher than the village, even with the Wood looming at her side.

A hare shot past her, maybe an animal, maybe a young woman running and still running while she should be dead two thousand years before. The brown shape went up like an arrow and curved away some way before the farm wall, vanishing around the hill. It was cooler up here, touched by the wandering winds and the Wood's shadow, and the warm giddiness of a lot of ale and male attention seemed extremely remote.

---

She came in to a quiet house, her child still asleep in the cradle and Jack seemingly doing no more than watching it a moment, a half-made twine of nettle strands looped around his hand and lolled loose against his thigh. The farmer tensed at the appearance of Maggie's big shadow.

"Coughed," he explained himself, and directed his sister-in-law to the byre since the cows were in and Kate attending to them. Assured that he meant Jamie no harm, at least, Maggie wandered out to play with the kept calf and sing to the cows whilst Kate milked. It was unclear if this made for better or worse milk than cows unsung-to, but the beasts at least seemed entertained and if there had been any tension between sisters it eased away like the grey from the sky as the day waned towards night.

Maggie had not expected to sleep soundly, what with Wood-things abroad, wildness put by and Yendale's often-stretched sense of peace, but between the day's trials and a soft scatter of rain in the night she was conscious of very little waking once abed. There were only familiar scents, and quiet murmurs in the night, then the soft and rising wash of sleep.

What a lovely sequence. Thanks.

Maggie gives a quiet thanks to Jack for tending to her babe. She goes out to the Byrne and, between snatches of song, relates to Kate what Mercy thinks of Fox’s visit and what it might suggest. Sleep overtakes her quickly. She awakes a bit past dawn to birds twittering on the ridge pole overhead.

Hearing Kate rustling at the hearth, she turns out to help her sister, washing her face and hands and breaking her fast on porridge and milk.

She finger combs her hair and bids Kate to be careful of any wandering 'strays'. Then, she wraps her shawl about her and sets off for the village to learn the news of the inn.

As she strides along the lane toward the green, Robin comes along the other way. They pause near Mercy Westcott's copse for Robin to give his news. He tells her that he and the other lads around  weren't up to anything with Jim Stone, but that Jim did have Polly's coveted silver fish Not sure since when, but they were friends, Polly and Jim, and he wouldn't hurt her for it.

"Polly's fish that she's that proud of and lords it over everyone else? She gave it to Jim Stone?" Maggie asks incredulously, "Alright get along with ye. Your master'll be wanting you."

After Robin has taken himself off, Maggie ponders for a bit. Then she swings off to Mercy's cottage to give her this new bit of news.
This message was last edited by the player at 20:20, Sun 26 June 2022.

Merrily bustling in at the back door as was her wont, Maggie was at first somewhat alarmed to find Goodie Westcott sat slumped over the table in her shift, her still-thick plait of hair coiled beside her like a companion beast. Hastening over to her caused a small warning scrape of iron from the pan at her left hand before she lifted a sleep-hazed face to Maggie's.

"Oh, mornen, is it?" she said vaguely, blinking at the apparatus on the table. Maggie did not recognise the purpose of the glass- and earthenware jars, string, nails, and sharp-smelling stuffs exactly, but she did know a trap new-oiled and ready for assembly when she saw one.

Maggie shares Robins tale of Polly's fish and Jim Stone.

"I don't reckon Polly givin' her jewel t'anybody, least of all some boy. It worries me, Mercy.

"What's this yer fashioning?"

Seeing that Maggie was disinclined to wait until she was in what might be called a fit state for visitors, Goodie Westcott dipped a jug to the water pail and filled the kettle, setting it boiling whilst Maggie talked. "Mph. Don't like it either. The lad will go for someone an' you get him angry enough, sure, and he'll hold a grudge, but it makes too much of a normal kind of sense for him, to go'n lure her out to the Wood in the middle of the night."

"Could be she felt it owed - what would be so great a deed ye'd give up a best treasure for't?" The midwife put her hands far back on her hips and arced her spine until everything crunched that was going to, then rubbed her face.

"Trap," she explained of the mess on the table, giving it a dubious glance. "It's about ready to go out, once I've made sure that whatever I was thinking at three in the morning was the kind of sense that holds in daylight. What kind of tea'll you have, an' blood pudden or sausage?"

Having no idea what such as Jim Stone could provide Polly such that she would part with any valuable possession (the girl was not open-handed), Maggie declines to speculate. This is especially so with something like a trap to catch her mind.

"Trap, eh? How's it work?"

"Hmph. Think of it...as a deadfall more than a snare, though it might not kill the thing, dependin'," Goodie Westcott said, taking Maggie's preferences for second breakfast when they were given and setting to preparation.

"Herself up there isn't an iron thing - like the Good Neighbours, She's older than iron, probably can't interact with it directly. So I've made a working on the string that makes it as near like Herself by what we know as I reckon will come attuned if one of her things passes it. String comes and wraps about these nodes of iron jarred up with rue and sealed with crossed rowan and- other things, so as soon as the string means Her power, that power can't pass so easy."

She gestured vaguely at the jars. "I'll have to bury 'em to be certain they'll not explode an' make it secret, but get a thing of Hers in a circle of these, it'll be of a sudden cut off from Her. Completely or mostly I don't know, but if it don't kill the thing it'll weaken it. Finden it to lure it in there will be the hard part."

Maggie nods, concentrating on Mercy's explanation. "May be I need t'cast m'self some iron shot, aye? An' keep a good iron blade near me."
This message was last edited by the player at 03:47, Sun 17 July 2022.

"...the knife, ay, that might help a little. I'd not say shot, since if y'didn't get it clean, whatever ye shot at, there's a thing driven mad with the burning inside, and that powerful besides. A hare that does nothing but watch or a calm thing mimicking a man is one kind of problem, a monster as can maybe put teeth where it likes an' gone raging like a rabid dog, that's another."

She slid Maggie's tea across to her, the tiny seeping basket set in the top. "You tend the pan and I'll get dressed," she said.

Maggie watches the pan with part of her mind while another is busy with Mercy's words. She decides that she'll cast some ieon shot all the same.

After a bit, she pulls the pan from the heat, calling out, "All done in here, Mercy."

Goodie Westcott eventually reappeared, setting up her hair. The cottage smelled of warm meat fat now, atop the usual scent of herbs and vinegar. Mercy found them what was left of yesterday's bread to make the most of the grease that came with the heavy breakfasting.

"Thank ye - we'll need some strength to get us through the sermon, not even minden what comes after. It's some day we've got ahead."