Hobb's Cottage: A Short Story Read online

  Hobb’s Cottage

  By

  Ruth Saberton

  A Short Story

  Dust swirling midst the air, dancing through light which pools like syrup across the still and empty rooms. Somewhere a shadow shifts. Floorboards creak and sigh. The time for recompense is coming.

  Hobb’s Cottage was tiny even by Polkerryn’s standards, a seventeenth century dwelling with barely two rooms, but from the moment Phoebe knew it was up for rent she wanted it passionately. It didn’t matter that the cottage had stood uninhabited for months or that the windows were frosted with grime. Every evening on her way to work in the village pub she would stop at Hobb’s to breathe in the heady perfume of the wild roses and rampant honeysuckle and to dream.

  It wasn’t the prettiest cottage in the village. There were no frothing hanging baskets on the porch and the garden was tangled with thick briars and bindweed but Phoebe loved it regardless. She adored the walls that leaned at crazy angles and dreamed of planting swathes of nasturtiums and curling up in the window seat to drink wine while the evening sun dipped its toes into the sea. She couldn’t quite explain it but there was something about the neglected cottage that had wound its way into her heart just as the dog roses had twined their roots into the crumbling garden walls.

  And now was to be her home. It was hers!

  At least, though Phoebe as she turned the key, it was hers for as long as she could pay the bills although unless a miracle happened fairly soon, like a lottery win or Alex finally deciding to leave Laura, this might not be very long…

  I’m not going to think about Alex, Phoebe told herself sternly. This house was going to be for her and her alone. It was for her new life away from everything that had gone before. If Alex wanted to be a part of it and put his boots by the hearth, throw his socks on the floor and pad across the worn flagstones, then that was great. Better than great - it would be all her dreams coming true. But if he didn’t, if the winter nights were spent huddling alone under the duvet watching the bobbing lights of fishing boats returning to harbour, then that would be fine too. This had to be a turning point, the new start she so desperately needed.

  Phoebe ran her hands over the dusty windowsills and smiled. She could hardly believe this was really home. The rent was crucifying but she could work extra shifts in the pub and clean a couple more holiday cottages if she had to. There were cheaper places and living here doubled her outgoings. It made no sense at all yet Phoebe felt as though she’d placed a piece into a puzzle; alone or single it didn’t matter because Hobb’s Cottage was hers now.

  So, when she wasn’t pulling pints in the local pub, Phoebe coiled her long black hair into a bun, rolled up her sleeves and scrubbed and polished until she thought she’d collapse. Fat black spiders scuttled disgruntledly from their lairs and the grime of centuries seeped into her skin. She swept up piles of ancient dust, looped fairy lights over the banisters, scattered rag rugs across the floor and finally hung a dried bunch of red roses above the small door. She wanted those to be the first thing Alex would see, if ever he came back to her of course. Roses in place, she checked her mobile for the thousandth time but as usual it remained stubbornly silent.

  She threw it onto the sofa in disgust. Of course Alex hadn’t called. He’d made his decision when he’d asked her to go to the clinic, hadn’t her? Just a few cells, he’d insisted almost airily not knowing that his words had made Phoebe go cold to her bones, it wouldn’t take long.

  “I don’t need him,” Phoebe said aloud but her voice sounded strained and odd in the thick quiet of the cottage. Annoyed with herself for giving Alex even a second of her time, she busied herself making a coffee. Drink made, curled up in the window seat, wrapping her hands round the chunky ceramic mug and staring out to sea, lulled by the endless whisper of waves. Boats chugged into the harbour while seagulls wheeled above the restless sea. Mesmerised, Phoebe wondered who else had studied this view and what other dreams have been woven from the window seat. This cottage was so filled with history she could practically taste it.

  “Hobb’s Cottage!” Lucy Donovan had squeaked when Phoebe popped in to the Polkerryn Witch Craft Museum to announce her change of address. “Blimey! You’re brave. It’s meant to be haunted.”

  Phoebe couldn’t help smiling at this since Lucy spent most of her time surrounded by some of the most grisly objects imaginable. A feline skull and a shrunken head perched jauntily on her desk while a voodoo doll moonlighted as a paperweight. Not that any of this seemed to bother Lucy or her brother Dan, a history graduate who’d somehow ended up in the village to help his sister in the museum. A wise soul with fawn’s eyes, a wild head of ebony gypsy curls and a voice like velvet, he passed his time cleaning the exhibits, listening to Phoebe rant about Alex and doing research for a book he was writing about Polkerryn. Phoebe enjoyed Dan’s company but part of her held back from getting closer to him just in case Alex should change his mind. It seemed she held back on a lot of things for Alex.

  The witchcraft museum was a gold mine. Holidaymakers in Cornwall were only too happy to part with their cash and the museum featured in all the guidebooks so when the rain tipped down tourists in raincoats steamed gently, marvelling over myths of Merlin and pagan legends. Phoebe had visited when she first moved to Polkerryn but there was something about the gloomy corners and stillness that she found unnerving. She much preferred to meet Lucy and Dan in The Mermaid Inn. Standing before a skeleton, crudely strung together with red ribbon and now hung up somewhat haphazardly in a glass case, she was grasped by a sudden sharp desire for sunlight that made her breathless.

  “Hobb’s an old Cornish word for witch,” Lucy was saying. “Witch’s Cottage, that’s where you’re living, hon! Hang on, I’m sure that I’ve got something on it that Dan was reading the other day.” Delving beneath the counter she unearthed an ancient book.

  “Historie of Polkerryn, by Nathan Miller,” Phoebe read out loud. She looked up and frowned. “I’ve never heard of him. Who’s Nathan Miller?”

  “Some famous resident from the nineteenth century,” Lucy said, blowing dust from the cover. “He spent his time here researching Cornish history rather than hitting the cider like the rest of us! His writing’s dead dull but I’m sure he mentions your cottage a fair bit. Take it with you. I’m sure there are links to witches.”

  Since most things that interested Lucy had links to witches, and consequently making money from credulous tourists, Phoebe took this with a large fistful of salt. But she borrowed the book anyway and during quiet periods at work poured over the faint print. The writing was tinder dry and by the time her shift finished the letters were line dancing in front of Phoebe’s exhausted vision.

  Sitting in the window now, Phoebe recalled the brief tale. Apparently a young girl called Tilly Penhalligan had lived in the cottage during the seventeenth century. From what Miller had written her fate was uncertain but she had stood accused of bewitching the Lord of the Manor and killing his infant son. There were no horrible details of burnings though and the Polkerryn witch appeared to have vanished off to Bodmin Gaol and into obscurity.

  It was hardly a tale to make anyone nervous but rather one that gave her a twinge of sympathy. Phoebe couldn’t help wondering what her own fate would have been in the seventeenth century. Would Laura and her friends have stormed up the hill shrieking that she’d bewitched Alex and seduced him with her long black hair and dark brown eyes? Would she have gone to jail for nothing more sinister than being stupid enough to have fallen in love with a married man? The fishermen’s wives in the village certainly eyed her with suspicion, that was for sure! Even in the high tech twenty-first century a woman without a man was a threat. A free spirit who read Beowul
f in the original and who stomped about in long skirts and big clompy boots didn’t fit in with their playgroups and coffee mornings. They all wondered where she’d come from and why she was in their village. Let them wonder, Phoebe had decided within ten minutes of arriving. Their wild imaginings were far more exciting and romantic than the truth.

  After all, there wasn’t anything romantic about losing your baby and then giving your lover an ultimatum…

  Maybe things in hadn’t really changed much at all since the seventeenth century? Gazing out at the view Tilly must have studied while she waited for her lover with as little hope as Phoebe now waiting for Alex to make up his mind, her eyes grew heavy. Thinking about Alex exhausted her.

  She’s here.

  I watch from the shadows, this girl in my house and I feel her sadness. An emotion so pervasive I feel it running deep within her and fluttering out through her lips as she breathes. In her sleep she turns to face me and her sightless eyes open. She senses me.

  The room dips and swirls and now the floor is new, the windows twinkling and in the hearth a fire burns, warming the cauldron of broth that bubbles atop the flames. Chickens scratch outside the door, my pig roots in the tiny yard and puss purrs contentedly in a patch of sunlight. Herbs crowd the window ledges, rosemary, feverfew and thyme, while outside the roses and honeysuckle that James planted for me nod drowsily in the breeze.

  I glance down at my hands, and laugh to see they are soft and smooth! I am a maiden again! Dewy skinned and pink of cheek, my hair is neatly coiffed, the black curls that James loves to wind around his fingers and crush against his lips modestly tucked away. My dress is of sober brown wool, my apron is white and as I sweep my cottage I hum a little tune to myself. I’m fortunate indeed that James found me such a haven and I laugh to have the sun on my face and the cries of the gulls in my ears. I laugh too at James’ curses when he forgets to duck his head as he comes through the porch and when he holds me in his arms I laugh because I am young and alive and so very in love.

  I am safe here. In this tiny place they know not my mother, Megan the Healer, they are not aware that in our village people came crying to her for cures and herbs. When babes wouldn’t turn they came, when teeth rotted and swelled they pleaded for help, when hearts were broken they came to have their tears dried. And when they had taken all that they wanted, they came for my mother, carried her away and hanged her while I fled like a coward and closed my ears to her screams.

  Witch Girl they called me and I was afraid. I travelled the county finding work where I could and sometimes using my mother’s herb lore. When James Tregarten, the young squire, looked upon me with favour I didn’t say no. I collected herbs and flowers by moonlight and slipped them into his goblet but any country girl whose head’s turned by a handsome face would have done the same. And is it really witchcraft that urges a man bored with a plain and fat wife to seek his pleasures elsewhere?

  Country lore and love potions, these are the only spells I weave.

  James has hidden me away in this small cottage at the edge of his lands. Here I pretend I am a respectable widow. Later James will come and lead me up to the small attic room where we’ll tumble on the bed and crush the wild flowers I’ve strewn across the linen. His lovemaking makes up for all the nights alone when I watch the waves break over the jagged rocks and feel loneliness bite into my soul.

  I’ve started to brew my mother’s healing potions and I meander down the cliff path to the village where I swap them for grain and milk. Sometimes I bathe naked in the rock pools and float on my back gazing up at the moon. My hair spreads like inky seaweed and I laugh with the pleasure of being young and powerful and lovely.

  Fool!

  The memory fades and I grow weak. The night seeps around my vision and the maiden Tilly vanishes. The girl in the window sleeps on, but stirs and whimpers.

  There is hope at last. She feels me. Can she set me free?

  When Phoebe woke the next morning she was stiff and cramped. That’s what I get for spending the night in the window seat, she thought ruefully, rubbing her neck and stretching out her limbs. The morning sunshine threw dancing patterns across the rag rugs and the tang of salt was sharp in her lungs. Phoebe yawned then brewed tea which she drank sitting on the doorstep.

  The dog roses nodded in the breeze. Funny, thought Phoebe, I’m sure I dreamt about flowers last night, flowers and white linen sheets and a man with bright blue eyes. Something shadowy perched in the corner of her vision, just out of reach and she shook her head in frustration. Maybe she needed to get into bed in future?

  “Morning, Phoebe,” trilled Terry the Post, sticking his head over the wall and handing her a stack of bills. “Lovely day! Your cat’s enjoying the sun.”

  Phoebe shaded her eyes against the glare. “Sorry? My what?”

  “Your cat.” Terry nodded towards the window ledge where sure enough a large black cat was basking. Phoebe stared at the animal. She’d never seen it before which was odd seeing as she’d been stomping up and down the hill for the past six months.

  “Looks like I’ve inherited you,” Phoebe said, tickling it behind the ears. “Along with what looks like,” she leaned forward and sniffed the window box, “thyme and rosemary. I wonder who planted those?”

  * * *

  “Tea?” Lucy asked, blonde head peeping out from the museum office.

  Phoebe tore her attention from the skeleton. “Please! They left that holiday cottage in a right state. I’ve been scrubbing for hours.”

  Lucy shuddered, slopping Earl Grey over the floor. “Yuk. Cottage cleaning’s Hell on earth.”

  “Hell that pays my bills,” Phoebe sighed, looking sadly at her sore hands. It felt as though she was constantly covered in beer or dirt lately. Then a thought occurred. “Hey Luce, have you ever seen a black cat at Hobb’s?”

  Lucy pinned her with a stare. “Are you trying to wind me up?”

  “No, of course not. It was there when I left, sunning itself on the wall. Why?”

  Lucy pointed to the desk. “There was a cat’s skull there yesterday. And it isn’t there now.”

  Phoebe followed her gaze. Sure enough there was an empty space when once the skull of a long dead feline had languished.

  “And,” added Lucy peering at the skeleton, “there’s something missing here too. The right hand’s gone. Weird. Who’d nick that?”

  Sure enough the pathetic collection of bones was lacking a hand and the skull seemed to be gazing intently out, dark sockets pleading, speaking, waiting for some response. Phoebe shivered. It was horrible to think that the pathetic collection of bones had once been a real person with their own hopes and fears and dreams. How undignified to end up in a glass case all strung up with a blood red ribbon.

  How utterly, utterly horrible.

  “Who was it?” she asked.

  Her friend shrugged. “Absolutely no idea. We know it’s a woman because of the hips and skull. Her teeth are pretty good too, at least they are for such an old skeleton, so I guess she didn’t live long enough for them to decay.”

  Goosebumps sashayed over Phoebe’s arms.

  “I found it packed away in a box when I bought the museum,” Lucy continued cheerfully. “It must have been there for years. I thought that it would be kind of fun to string the bones together for a display, have a séance, do the old Most Haunted thing.”

  “But how did she get here?” wondered Phoebe. How did this young girl become a pile of bones in a box? The thought made her nauseous.

  “I think she originally came from Bodmin Gaol. Possibly hanged for something and then the flesh would have been boiled from her bones and the skeleton used for anatomy.” Lucy shook her head. “Don’t look so shocked, it isn’t so unusual. How else do you think doctors learned back then?”

  Phoebe shuddered. “It’s totally wrong. She shouldn’t be in there. She should be…” For a moment words failed her and she struggled to capture her whirling thoughts before finishing, “She should be free.�
��

  Unbidden suddenly in her mind’s eye was an image of a girl white as marble floating in the dark sea, her face raised to the silvery kiss of the moon. Then it was gone, flickering out of sight like a fish back diving beneath the water, and she shivered. Where on earth had that come from?

  Lucy was pulling a face. “To be honest I never did like the thing very much and Dan’s been obsessed with it ever since he read that book I gave you. He thinks we ought to bury her.”

  “He’s right.” Phoebe put her drink down. “She needs to be buried, whoever she is.”

  Lucy nodded. “When the joker who’s pinched the rest of her puts it back, I’ll get on the case and we’ll see what the procedure is for burying unknown seventeenth century bones. Hey!” She nudged Phoebe and grinned. “Maybe it’s your Tilly?”

  But Phoebe wasn’t laughing. She was far too busy thinking about flesh being boiled from pearly bones.

  She felt ill.

  No longer Maiden now but mother.

  I am not ready to be a mother! I can’t be a mother. Not like this, alone and friendless. My belly swells and I loosen my stomacher hoping that the sharp- eyed villagers are fooled. I send word to James and wait for him to come while I huddle in my cloak and count the tides, hours, days and weeks of endless shifting seas. My belly stretches, moves with tides of its own and grows hard and pink.

  James doesn’t come. I tend my animals, bake bread and harvest my herbs, all the time waiting for him. Four more moons wax and wane. I cast bones and peer at water in my silver dish. All these things tell me what is already in my heart. He will not come. As I abandoned my mother to her accusers James will abandon me to mine. A widow with a six-month belly on her. I shall be ruined. They will see Satan’s mark and they will hang me. I clutch the cat for comfort and weep endless tears into his soft fur.

  I try not to visit the village but I need meat, I need milk. The babe sucks the very marrow from my bones and I feel dizzy and sick by turn. I try to gather wood but my belly renders me cumbersome and soon I have only kindling to cook upon. The gruel I make is thin, my limbs wither and I grow wan. My tears are spent and I feel only relief that James doesn’t arrive. This hollow eyed spectre with distended stomach and stick like limbs is far removed from his soft skinned love.