HALLOW

Perdita Stott

There’s a trick to living here. The trick is to not mind. You have to not mind that the locals cross over to the other side of the street when they see you coming. To not mind that they won’t look you in the eye when they serve you in shops. If they serve you in shops. To not mind that the children go past the house at a dead run, hands covering their nose and mouth. They think it stops spells from flying in.

I wonder sometimes why my ancestors didn’t simply move away, but the Hallows women have had their bones in these hills for centuries. The moorlands and rivers are as much a part of us as our blood and skin, we are rooted to the land.

The Hallows women have daughters. Only daughters. There hasn’t been a son born in our family in more than 300 years and even his poor little life didn't last more than a few hours. We are a family of mothers and daughters. We love frequently but marry rarely. Those of us who do marry, keep the Hallows name. Sometimes we keep the husbands too, but these days who’d dare fall in love with a Hallows girl?

I first knew we were different when Mr Griffin wouldn’t cut down our dead oak. I was nine and my mother had just died. My father kept the house dark in those days, curtains drawn, lights off, shrouding us in night time, as if he could persuade himself it was all a dream. The tree started to wither and die the same day my mother walked out onto the moor and never came home.

“So, is Mummy dead?”

I was still too young to know that there were some questions you do not ask. My Father glared at me with whiskey rimmed eyes, “She’s gone.” Is all he would say.

They call it the dead oak and it certainly looks dead. Black bark arms, empty even in the summer, reaching wide to the sky. If you look at it long enough, it almost seems as if it’s about to pull itself up from the roots and go striding across the hills.

That’s what I tell the local children. They come to our gate, sometimes, on a dare, to prove they’re not scared. I tell them stories and delight in the terror I create in their eyes.

“She’s in there, you know,” I tell them.

“Who?” they ask, wide eyed.

“My Mother, of course,” I gesture to the almost walking tree, “can’t you see her? She’s trapped in there.” I shake my head sadly. “One of her spells went wrong. She was trying to become one with the earth, but the spell took over. Now she’s trapped inside that tree.”

“How do you know?” whines a sticky child, busy picking his nose. I roll my eyes.

“Any fool can see it. Just look at the tree, look how she’s reaching out for you, begging for help.” I grin like a wolf. “Don’t get too close, though. She’s always looking for someone to swap places with her. Some little child that she can trick into releasing her.” I swipe my hands at them like a claw. “Get within her grasp and whoosh! She’ll have you in her branches forever!”

The children jump back with a squeal, but the boy, still picking his nose, seems unimpressed. He’s slightly older than the other children, almost at the age where he no longer believes in magic.

“That’s just a story,” he says, pushing past me to stand in front of the twisting tree, “your mum’s not really a tree, everyone knows your mum ran off. Everyone knows she was mad, everyone - “

Maybe it was a sudden gust of wind, or an unfortunate trick of the light. Maybe it was an accident, or bad luck, but whatever caused it would seal my fate as village witch forever. A branch of the dead oak swung out, swift as a striking snake, and whipped the boy sharply across the face. He reared back, yelling, his hands clasping his eye as blood bloomed between his fingers. The other children screamed and scattered from the sudden sight of his blood on my lawn. They never came back.

I still see him, sometimes, walking around the town. He opted for a glass eye in the end, which I think was a good choice. He still picks his nose, though, when he thinks no one is watching.

We never did cut down the tree. My father tried a few times. He’d fill himself up with whiskey and fake courage, then drag the ax across the lawn. He’d shout a bit, pretend to swing the chopper, but always he’d slump, sobbing to his knees at its base. Sometimes he’d raise his arms up to caress its slender branches, a supplicant at an altar. But if my mother really was part of that tree, she never answered him. She never answered anyone.

Except for me. Everyday on my birthday, the old dead oak would bloom a single apple, blood red and sweet as sin. My first birthday without my mother I left the too hot house to go stand outside in the cool night air. I breathed in the scent of the Moors and noticed the fruit hanging playfully in the top branches, like a parent jingling keys to make a baby laugh. I held out my hands like a good girl and the apple dropped neatly into my hands.

Now every birthday I slip out of the house at midnight and collect my secret gift. I sit under the cold branches and watch the moon spy at us through the tree’s dark hands, naked witch fingers reaching to the sky with moss encrusted knuckles. I don’t tell my father, he wouldn’t understand. This is just between mothers and daughters, rooted together, in this hallowed place.

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