The Moorwitch

by Jessica Khoury

In the shadows ’neath your bed, She spins her spells with spider’s thread, Her hair is black, her eyes are red, And if she sees you, you are dead.

With him, even string comes with strings attached.

Tyger Tyger, burning bright . . . In what distant deeps or skies, burnt the fire of thine eyes?

No. Oh, no, no, no. I will not overlook his rudeness for the sake of one Fatesdamned dimple.

“Shall I go ahead, in case any more ponds decide to appear out of nowhere? Savage things, ponds. Quite unpredictable.”

Oh. Rose, you fool. Of course he wasn’t about to . . . If he had, I would have slapped him. Wouldn’t I? Yes, yes. I’d have definitely slapped him. I definitely would not have kissed him back.

I am a respectable schoolteacher, and respectable schoolteachers simply do not go about kissing abominable Scotsmen with wool for brains and logs for biceps.

The moors rush and sigh, and the candles bob like will-o’-the-wisps in the gloaming, their berry scent sweetening the air. Off to the west drift wisps of honey-colored clouds, where the afterglow of sunset lights the horizon.

How curiously cruel you humans are, that you must first kill your gods before you worship them.”

“Dance with me, laird.” I tilt my head, smiling coyly up at him. 210 He curses and disentangles my hands from his hair. “You should not have come here, you daft wee menace. What were you thinking?”

“May the road rise to meet you, young lovers,” she murmurs. “May the wind always be at your backs. May the sun shine warm upon your faces, and may your threads never break.”

I understand him a little better now, and know that he is not, perhaps, quite the villain I first cast him as. If anything, I am more the villain in his story than he is in mine.

“Will you lend me a horse, or shall I be forced to run alongside you? Because this conversation is far from over. It’s no use putting me off, sir. My seventh fault is stubbornness, you know.”

Straw sticks out of his hair, and half the buttons on his shirt are undone. But for all his dishevelment, he looks to me in that moment as bright as a sunrise.

He doesn’t hear me approach, so he is doubly startled when I wrench the bagpipes right out of his hands. “Rose Pryor!” he cries. “You cannot just snatch a man’s pipes away, you harpy!” “I can, I did, and I will again, if you don’t let up!” 283 “Give those back, you madwoman!” He lunges at me, and I dance out of reach, the pipes clacking in a way that makes the color drain from his face. I turn and walk briskly back to the house, still clutching his pipes.

I’ve let myself fall for the laird. I thought I was so careful, so clever, and all the while, my heart was betraying me.

I draw one hand up, place it over my pounding, aching heart. My weary, battered heart, beating away despite all the torment my naivety and foolishness has inflicted upon it. I wish I could pull it from behind my ribs and cradle it in my hands like a wounded bird; I wish I could set it free, watch it soar across the moors.

So perhaps it is this which gives me the courage to go onward—I have nothing left to lose, but something which I might still save.

He smiles until both dimples flash. “I should like to commit mischief with you. I have a feeling you’d be very effective at it.” 343 “Well, it is my eighth fault.” “Nonsense.” He shakes his head, his hands cradling my face. “To me, you are faultless.” I tilt forward on my toes, as his lips part and his breath draws, about to speak, and I kiss him.

I kiss Conrad North as if I am ice, and he the fire to melt me. I kiss him knowing that while I thought I had nothing more to lose, I find I could still lose everything. Maybe the only thing that ever mattered.

Even as I stand dying before him, the weight of his cursed debt crushing my heart, I look at him and see that for all his might and beauty, he is small and desperate and destined to fail. It is a strange thing, to look on a god and see only a fool.

Fear, always with me, even when I feel my bravest. I suppose that is the nature of it, and it can only be accepted. That’s all right. I know now that I can be afraid and still keep moving. I can be in the 370worst pain a body could feel and still keep moving. I can lose my magic to the last drop and still keep moving.

Small and ordinary wonders I might have passed a thousand times in a day without ever noticing them, and now they seem indescribably beautiful.