Chapter 16

Sybil's second letter to Flora

Hello again dearest Flora,

I hope by now you are coming to terms with your ancestry. I have no doubt that Hester and Bill kept even a whiff of this from you. It was for your own protection and I completely agreed with them.

As the saying goes, you're a big girl now and you deserve to know who your blood relations are, especially as you will be living in their village. When I say ‘their', it is more true than you might think.

The Gardwickes, of which you are one, the Peverels and the Harkers are the oldest families in this village. They have all been here constantly since the time of Hilde, our ancestor in Anglo-Saxon times and other ancestors possibly well before that. Neolithic remains have been found that indicate the constant presence of a community or settlement here since at least that time.

The Gardwicke story starts with Hilde. That would have been her only name at that time, but it would have been qualified by a word or two describing her. For example, Alfred the Potter or Edwin the Farmer. Hilde was Hilde the Geard Wicce. Geard was a garden or enclosure such as the wildflower meadow and Wicce simply meant ‘wise woman'. Over time this became the regular surname we use now- Gardwicke.

As the wise woman of the village, she was both healer and midwife. Her cures came out of her garden from the herbs and flowers she grew there. Her potions and medicines were passed down through the years, at first through the oral tradition. You will see them written down at a much later date – remembered by generations afterwards - in the earlier pages of the large leather journal on the shelf, along with later entries. I hope you make good use of it.

She was one of the most respected people in the community. There are records of her in the Peverel's archives. Among other historical accounts, it has her acquiring a large parcel of land behind her cottage. Or rather exchanging the land for being on call whenever any of the Peverel family were ill or with child, giving her services for free. You will probably see where this is going.

Yes, that parcel of land is now the wildflower meadow behind our cottage. Gallipot cottage has been lived in by members of the Gardwicke family since Hilde's time even though it has had a few transformations. You can see now why I wanted it to stay in the family, can't you?

Unfortunately, as things are today, women don't always want to settle down with families. I didn't myself, but as long as there is Gardwicke blood here, then I feel that my job is done. You are a true Gardwicke. Now I should explain what that means in reality and that is the most difficult part. Perhaps not as difficult as the revelation in my first letter but still tough to grasp.

As I said, wicce meant ‘wise woman', a healer and later – ‘witch'. There were other women trained by Hilde who became wise women. As the village grew, the number of wise women who were taught the old ways was over-proportionate to the population here. That's why Farstone became known, even centuries ago, as the village of Witches.

At the beginning of the 1600s, Sir Ralph Peverel rebuilt all the cottages of the village with new, strong building materials and they have survived as such today. I say this to show you how the Peverels were unusual in that they were good to the residents of their village and in return received both the loyalty and the labour of the villages.

Not long after came the Witch Trials. The persecutors came to Farstone, whose reputation had preceded it. Any wicce or indeed any woman they could find was herded into the street. They were tied up to wait for the carts to arrive to carry them to the city for trial, as if they would ever receive a fair one. Sir Ralph jumped in to save them. He had good reason. His daughter was among the witches spread in the dust of the street.

He persuaded the men, with the aid of rather a large sum of money, that he was a personal friend of the king and that these wholly innocent women were under his protection. He could vouch for them as they were ordinary women who did no magic. Because of this, the despicable witch trials left Farstone unscathed.

What he said wasn't quite true though. Magic did touch just a few of the women. None more so than the Gardwickes. Not a malevolent, evil kind of magic, but a gentle type of magic.

I can't speak for the other families as it is not my place but as for the Gardwickes, their powers of healing were so much stronger because of the power behind the thought. They didn't just put a poultice on or deliver a dose of physic down a person's throat. They willed it to work. They could feel in their minds if it would work and the touch of their hands was the best healing medicine that could be imagined. Their patients swore they could feel heat coming from their fingertips. I feel the same when I heal, thoughts and hopes go into the healing. I know I have delivered or saved babies that should have died. I have healed burns that shouldn't have healed. I have tunnelled into minds and found what really ailed them

Many times it's not just the body that needs healing but the mind. In many cases when people took to their bed with no reason and weakened themselves, you had to heal the mind first in order to heal the body. It's a process we in Farstone simply know as Empathy. Available to all but in practice, very rarely used to its full capacity.

It seems to be hardwired into the collective Gardwicke brain. Your mother Matilda would have been a powerful Wicce. I think you are very much like her. This is where you come in.

I broke my promise to Hester and Bill when you were seven years old. I had promised to leave you completely alone, but I had this feeling that I needed to see you. Seven is an important age for a wicce. They start to develop their potential at that age. The capabilities become apparent to those who know. Hester and Bill wouldn't have known how to recognise it and I felt like I needed to be there with you, to see if you were displaying any of the signs that nature not nurture was taking its course in you.

What I found in the short time I spent with you was that the Gardwicke inheritance was in safe hands, should you choose to take on the mantle. I felt sure that you would.

The thing that convinced me most of all was your empathy for the flowers and trees in your garden. If you have empathy for natural things, you have empathy for everything. You may not remember how you talked to me of the sound of the trees rustling. How you handled, the flowers so delicately. How you picked some daisies for me and made me a daisy chain. You laughed when it wouldn't go over my head so I put it over yours instead. Then I added another chain, do you remember? It belonged to your mother, given to her by her father on her last birthday before he was killed. It was very precious to her. This was her ‘Tree of Life' necklace.

You were, according to Bill, the only one who could calm the slavering beast next door. The dog was just like putty in your hands. You were obviously letting it know in your mind that you loved it and were no threat. With these things and the fact that you had melted the heart of this crabby old woman, I knew that the empathy you had for all living things was your strength. You have no idea how happy that visit made me and it has cemented the future of the Gardwickes, at least for the time being.

So, my dear Flora, you find yourself a Gardwicke in Farstone, the village of witches. There are more of us here than you think. It is your rightful place and the continuation of a long tradition. I don't want you to feel like you are trapped in a cage, so if you feel like this, you must leave. I suspect that you will stay.

Are we witches? I will leave you to make your own interpretation of this. What is a witch? Certainly not the fairy tale warty witch, the old crone who cast evil spells on their enemies and rode on a broomstick. Certainly not the poor women who were killed in the 17th century on false pretences cooked up by corrupt men on a mission and by jealous women.

Today's witch, if we have to label her so, is a power for good. She may just follow the rules of nature or have knowledge of the craft through study. Sometimes the study will reveal a certain natural skill set. She may find she has a talent or, dare I say power, in some of the forms associated with us. Divination, healing, mediumship, and natural psychic abilities amongst others. If we have to be called anything instead of these processes being accepted as one aspect of normal, then a witch is as good as anything.

Of course, it has bad connotations too, but think of the name as honouring all those people who were called witches in the past and died for it. You can choose to take up this mantle or not. I think it may have already chosen you.

There is one more thing which I must mention. Something that takes us into other realms and for which you may now, possibly rightly, regard me as a mad old woman. I don't think this will ever touch you, but in case it does, I need you to be aware.

Long ago The witches of Farstone were associated with the Fae. They were the only people around here whom the Fae would communicate with, according to legend, This legend hasn't come alive for many generations - but then the Fae don't have normal lifespans according to any knowledge we have of them.

If you think about it, the village name itself was based on the legend of the Faery Stone, Faestone, now known as Farstone. The stone was somewhere on Farstone Moor above the village and was supposed to be a portal into the world of the Fae.

Legend had it that any human who passed through this portal would be lost forever. It was used by the Fae to leave their changelings on when they had stolen human babies in their place. All just legend you may think and should stay as such. Those were my thoughts exactly when I was young except for two things.

One, I know one of the Fae. I base this on the fact that he has not aged in the whole time he has visited our realm. I don't know, I can only believe the evidence of my own eyes and Culhain is that evidence. Alongside this agelessness, he knows things he can't possibly know. Peggy is the person who can feel their presence more than I can and understands them more.

The second thing is that, here in Farstone, we still believe in fairies. Please don't laugh, you may find yourself believing the same. Pookey Wood, which you own, is named after the mischievous sprites that were supposed to live there. Puck, Puca, pixies, whatever you want to call them. They were shape-shifters and although I have felt nothing but a good atmosphere in the woods, this was what the people in much earlier times named it.

Somewhere on Farstone Moor, the Faestone, their portal into the realm of the Fae doesn't exist for most people. It is a legend, a myth. Yet I know for a fact that both my mother and grandmother each saw it once in their lives at least. I too have seen it once when I urgently needed to find it. I felt as though the Fae made it appear for me when I was in need. Perhaps because in this village, we still believe.

So it does exist. Whether or not you will be able to see it yourself and furnish yourself with proof, I have no idea. Perhaps like us, you will only find it once when you are in need of it.

I apologise again for telling you about the Witches of Farstone and expecting you to accept it. I think that you will believe, eventually at least and realise that you are one of us. I also apologise for introducing the subject of the Fae, which I never intended to do. Perhaps I wanted to get it all over with at once. Now from thinking me a mildly eccentric but harmless old woman, you will think me a crazy old crone who should have been locked up years ago.

Whatever else you think, please think of me as your loving aunt who welcomes you, if posthumously, to the family, who will always watch over you and who wishes you every good wish for your life in Farstone.

Your loving aunt,

Sibyl.

xxx