Weyward

by Emilia Hart

Fiction became a friend as well as a safe harbor; a cocoon to protect her from the outside world and its dangers.

The physician spoke with confidence. He was a man, after all. He had no reason to think he would not be believed.

We never thought of ourselves as witches, my mother and I. For this was a word invented by men, a word that brings power to those who speak it, not those it describes. A word that builds gallows and pyres, turns breathing women into corpses.

“They say that the first woman was born of man, Altha,” she said to me once when I was a child, for this was what we had heard the rector say in church that Sunday. “That she came from his rib. But you must remember, my girl, that this is a lie.” It was not that long after we’d attended Daniel Kirkby’s birth that she told me this. “Now you know the truth. Man is born of woman. Not the other way round.” I asked her why Reverend Goode would lie about something like that.

“It comes from the Bible,” she told me. “So the rector isn’t the first to tell that lie. As for the reason: it is my belief that people lie when they are afraid.” I was confused. “But what could Reverend Goode be afraid of?” My mother smiled. “Us,” she said. “Women.”

Perhaps one day, she said, there would be a safer time. When women could walk the earth, shining bright with power, and yet live. But until then I should keep my gift hidden, move through only the darkest corners of the world, like a beetle through soil.

The connections between and among women are the most feared, the most problematic, and the most potentially transforming force on the planet. —Adrienne Rich