Free The Daylight Gate by Jeanette Winterson Page A

she is secretly a witch? Does she kiss it or does she blaspheme it?’ He put the heavy crucifix in his pocket. ‘It is valuable evidence.’
    ‘James Device says he will testify against Alice Nutter.’
    Roger Nowell shook his head. ‘His drunken word would not stand against a woman like Alice Nutter. And we have enough work to do, Hargreaves. I want the wretches in Malkin Tower brought to me this evening to make statements. Potts will be present, I am sure. And get these graves decently laid.’
    ‘Yes, sir. And Alice Nutter?’
    ‘I have said not yet.’
    Hargreaves was not pleased but he could not argue.
    The men walked slowly from the churchyard. Jennet Device, who had been watching them from the bushes, ran up to the open graves, scooped up the teeth in both hands and made off towards Malkin Tower.

An Eye for an Eye
     
    The speediest way to take a man’s life away by witchcraft is to make a Picture of Clay, like unto the shape of a person whom they mean to kill, and dry it thoroughly; and when they would have them to be ill in any one place more than another, then take a thorne or a pinne and prick it in that part of the Picture you would so have to be ill; and when you would have any part of the body to consume away, then take that part of the Picture and burne it. And when they would have the whole body to consume away, then take the remnant of the said Picture and burne it; and thereupon by that means, the Body shall die. The same can be wrought by means of a Doll or Poppet
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    ELIZABETH DEVICE WAS in the cellar of Malkin Tower. She was tending a cauldron coming to the boil over a dirty fire. A rough altar, a pair of sulphurous candles and a skeleton still chained to where its owner’s body had left it, completed the furnishings of the cellar.
    Mouldheels was nearby, busily sewing the legs onto a headless doll.
    There was a shout from outside. Elizabeth Device went across the cellar and dragged away a large stone from a small hole. Fast as a ferret, Jennet Device crawled through, a small cloth bag in her mouth.
    Her mother emptied the bag of teeth onto the altar. She gave Jennet a scrap of bread. While her daughter was eating, Elizabeth unwrapped from a cloth the severed head from the graveyard. Then she laid out Robert Preston’s tongue.
    ‘Mouldheels! Sew the tongue into this head. The teeth are going into the pot. I have used everything. All of Demdike’s stored arts must be used for the spell.’
    ‘What do you do?’ asked the child.
    ‘What do I do? I’ll tell you what I do. That poppet Mouldheels is finishing will serve to injure Roger Nowell until he cries for mercy. We have no clay but we have rags enough make a doll like your grandmother showed you, didn’t she? With the pins and the thorns?’
    The child nodded.
    ‘And we will cause this severed head to speak. A spirit will speak through it and guide us.’
    Mouldheels had the grisly half-rotted head on her knee . ‘Jennet! Hold open this mouth while I do my sewing.’
    Jennet came and pulled open the slack blue mouth of the corpse-head. ‘There’s a worm in there, Auntie.’
    Mouldheels looked. ‘Worms everywhere, poppet, we live as best we may in a world of worms, but wait till this good head speaks.’
    Elizabeth was back at her pot. ‘Jem didn’t come back. You seen him, Jennet?’
    The child looked away. ‘He was frightened in the churchyard. He left the teeth.’
    ‘Where did he go, Jennet?’
    The child shrugged and concentrated on the damp empty sockets of the head. Mouldheels was sewing the tongue to what was left of the roof of the mouth by making big stitches through what was left of the nose. ‘Not much to anchor my line here,’ she said. ‘Lucky we had a fresh tongue. The tongue rots first. And the eyes o’course.’
    ‘What is the pot for, ma?’
    ‘Nothing to eat if you were thinking it so. When the head is ready we shall boil it in the pot and then we shall boil the doll in the pot so that our spell is good on