And so, as soon as she was buried,
To burn the house the people hurried,
So that no feature should survive
To keep her charms and spells alive.
From miles around the people came.
The cottage roared with smoke and flame,
And as the night in blackness fell,
The fire had conquered every spell.
Though not yet quite as I shall tell,
For here and there, as timbers fell,
A useful piece some sinner took,
Or souvenir was pinched for luck.
Now in the churchyard, by her grave
Whom parson tried so hard to save,
They set a stone with Molly’s date,
All wondering what would be her fate.
But Molly’s art was not quite tamed.
Some witchcraft seemingly remained.
For if, when summer’s sun is high,
This old churchyard you come by,
You’ll find the stone, which was set there,
Has vanished, quite, into thin air.
–Ballads of the Wight
J.R. Brummell
͠
Molly’s leather bound journal filled with herbal curealls lived in Constance’s faded blue memory box. It had been pressed into her coltish twelve-year-old hands as she played with the neighbourhood children at Appley Folly by a local woman, Elsie Parker.
Elsie was a grandmother and thus far too old to be the main caregiver to an unruly tribe who terrorized the locals in Bembridge. Mrs Downer wouldn’t let Constance or her older sister, Evelyn associate with the family given their common status. Constance assumed Elsie had chosen her to approach to return the book as she was the youngest and therefore most malleable of the Downers. Mum could be quite formidable should the mood so take her and Evelyn, a known tell-tale tit. The animosity between Elsie Parker and Mrs Downer of A Stitch in Time stemmed from the trifling matter of an unpaid bill for mending services.
Elsie elaborated to a bewildered Constance that her late mother, God rest her soul, had snatched the book from Molly’s cottage in the days following her death. The stone building had stood empty and alone, cooling its heels, unlike the local folk who were feeding their voracious superstitious appetites, until the only thing that could satiate it was the cottage being burned to the ground.
Elsie’s mother had been not much more than a curious tot at the time and didn’t know why she’d seen fit to pocket such an item. The only reasoning she could give was that there was nobody to stop her and it had felt very daring to do so. That the book was in her possession had remained her lifelong secret, she’d not known what to do with it once stolen and was frightened of the consequences should she disclose what she’d done. As she lay struggling, her breath coming in short grasping bursts in her last days, she’d urged her daughter to give it back to its rightful owners, the Downer family of Ryde. And Elsie, a superstitious woman herself, was doing so now by handing it to Constance.
This was the first Constance had heard of a Molly Downer, and Elsie was only too happy to relay the tale of how this long since passed relative of the Downer family was the last witch on Wight. Constance’s eyes grew wide ignoring the other children calling her back to continue playing their game as she listened enthralled with the tale;
‘Of course, it depends on how you define witch.’ Elsie stated. ‘People were quick to point the finger at anyone who was a bit different back in those days.’ She made a harrumphing sound. ‘Still are in my opinion, but with Molly, well there was the unfortunate business of the curse. Poor love didn’t have the most salubrious of starts neither what with her being born the illegitimate daughter of a reverend no less.’
‘What does illegitimate mean?’ Constance interrupted wondering as to Elsie’s sudden plummy tone as she rolled the foreign word forth.
‘Well, now you’re old enough to know what a bastard is, int ya?’
Constance flushed, she’d heard Elsie’s grandchildren referenced as such.
‘Well, there you go then. Molly’s mother was known as a healer, and although her family wanted nothing to do with her once they found out she was to be an unwed mother, they gave her enough money to build a little cottage in Hillway. She grew up in that cottage, and she had a best friend for most of her young life. They were inseparable even when their heads began to be turned by the local boys. Molly was a pretty girl, and the fellows were sweet on her, but not everybody liked her.
‘There was a girl of a similar age to her called Harriet, who took an instant dislike to Molly. It was jealousy on Harriet’s part, and she made poor Molly’s life a misery by teasing and taunting her. She’d developed a thick skin, though over the years, had to, didn’t she? The stigma of being illegitimate had seen to that, and as she grew, she learned the healing skills of her mother. Sadly, Molly’s mother grew ill and passed on when she was a teenager as did her father. He never formally acknowledged her, and he left her a pittance to live on.
‘It wasn’t long after that life turned sour for Molly. She had a terrible falling out with her dear friend, and here’s where it all gets a bit muddy. Some say the two friends fought because, Molly was a God-fearing, and chaste young woman and when she learned her friend was carrying on with a married man she let loose. Others say it was because her friend married and Molly felt she’d been abandoned after losing both parents as well. Whatever it was, it was around this time that she tripped up and sealed her fate by cursing Harriet. She was heard to say that should any good fortune fall upon her, she would die before possession.’
Constance gasped, and Elsie looked pleased with
