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Rumors clustered, thick and uncanny, around the Witch of Jasmine Cottage.
The villagers called her a witch, at least. Newton Pulsifer, knowing villagers’ tendency to dub any not-entirely-conformational woman a practitioner of the dark arts, reserved healthy skepticism.
Like any sensible witchfinder,*he’d done his research. Scoped out the territory; combed through news reports; interviewed neighbors about the strange woman who lived alone in the little cottage near the edge of Tadfield.
Finding people to interview was easy enough. R.P. Tyler, who jumped at the opportunity to complain about neighbors; Mrs. Henderson, Jasmine Cottage’s landlord; the four children who’d come to Newt’s rescue when his horse lost a shoe and sent him flying. It seemed everyone had something to tell about the Witch… though few had actually met her.
She dances naked in the dead of night, some said.
When the moon is full, others whispered, she communes with demons.**
She sees the future.
She flies on a broomstick.
Her grandmother blew up a town once. Blood will tell…
She’s a friendly one, my boy, and we’re all lucky she is. Witches have the power to curse.
It was the last one Newt fervently hoped was true. A friendly witch was exactly what he needed. Surely, if she could cast curses, she could also remove them.
Well, not surely. Newt wasn’t sure at all. But at this point, the Witch of Jasmine Cottage was his only hope.
It took him three tries to gather the courage to knock.
The first time, his nerve completely failed. What was he thinking? Either he was bothering an ordinary woman, or a sorceress who would probably mix his eyes with frogs’ toes. Either way…
He’d fled halfway down the walkway before he thought, If I don’t try this, what will I do instead?
There being no answer, he steeled himself and went back up the walk.
He’d just lifted his hand to rap — for real, this time — when someone screamed.
Newt jumped half a foot, heart in throat, spun in a circle, stifling his own shriek… and sagged, seeing the kids racing past, screeching in what was obviously laughter.
Newton Pulsifer, get yourself together.
Mind made up, he raised his hand again, knuckles moving decisively towards the door…
Which swung open before he touched it.
He barely yanked his fist back in time to avoid accidentally punching the woman who stood on the threshold, one hand on the doorknob and a bread knife in the other. Thankfully, she was clothed. Against the wall behind her leaned a broom.
She looked him up and down, while Newt stood frozen, then nodded briskly and tucked the knife into her belt.
“Hi,” said the Witch. “Come on in.”
Somehow — Newt wasn’t sure how — he found himself sitting in a witch’s lair with a cup of coffee.
“Two lumps of sugar?” she’d asked, as if already knowing the answer, and dropped them into his mug before he’d finished nodding dazed agreement.
He took a fortifying sip.
“So,” said the Witch, setting aside the book she’d been leafing through. “I’m Anathema.”
“Newt,” Newt managed. “Pleased to meet you.” He stared at the book, feeling adrift, and blurted, “Does that have spells?”
“Hm? No, just prophecies.”
“...Oh.” Unsure what to say, he looked helplessly around. He’d prepared a script for presenting his case to the Witch; he couldn’t remember a word. His gaze landed on the broomstick. “What do you do with that?”
“I sweep the floor.”
“Oh. Sorry.” Newt deflated. All his trouble, all his anxiety… all for nothing. “Then… you’re not a witch?”
Anathema smiled. “I never said that.”
All in all, explaining his predicament went much faster than expected. Anathema seemed to know half the story before he’d told it.
Newt was getting curious about that book of “just prophecies.”
“Machines,” she said at last, thoughtfully. “You want to work with machines. But they die around you.”
“If all they did was die,” Newt said grimly, “it wouldn’t be so bad.”
“And you think that you're cursed.”
“It must be a curse!”
Anathema nodded, slowly. “I can try to help. But I warn you, curses are tricky. Just figuring out the cause could take a while, let alone breaking it. You’ll be stuck in Tadfield the whole time. And it might not be a curse...”
Newt swallowed. Met Anathema’s eyes. Contemplated an indefinite period of time in her company.
She was smiling again: direct, vivacious, terrifyingly real.
“I think,” said Newt, “I can handle being stuck in Tadfield.”
And Witchfinder Newton Pulsifer shook hands with the Witch of Jasmine Cottage.
* In other words, not Sergeant Shadwell. Newt had signed on as a witchfinder hoping to learn useful skills. He’d been quickly disillusioned.^
** Actually, last full moon the nearest demon had been busy communing with an angel.^