“What’s his name?” I’m trying to think of a god or saint or hero who couldn’t walk.
“Frankie. You’d be far too young to know how that name was chosen.”
I sit at the table with Frankie on my knee, wishing I could work it out. “St. Francis?”
“Good guess, but not right. You may like a spoonful of honey to sweeten that tea. Let it cool a bit before you drink.”
Frankie. Francis. Or maybe just Frank? Wasn’t there once an American president who used a wheelchair? Pity I didn’t bring my phone with me. But she’d probably think that was cheating. I stroke Frankie’s oversized ears and rub him under the chin. He relaxes against my chest. Why do I suddenly feel like crying? I hold the dog steady with one hand while I stir some honey into my tea. And the answer pops into my brain all by itself. “Franklin,” I say.
Mrs. Mac grins. “Very good, Rachel. A reader, are you?”
“Lucky guess. We don’t do much American history at school. And yes, I do love to read.” I focus on my tea, my cheeks hot. I’m waiting for the usual jokes about how a girl my age should be into clothes and boys.
But she just smiles and says, “Frankie has some wheels. He’s just getting used to the contraption, but he can scoot up and down the hall quite well.”
We sit quietly drinking our tea for a bit, then Mrs. Mac asks, “Do you know anything about the history of this house? How it came to be built, and who lived in it?”
“Nothing much. Only that it’s been empty for a long while.”
“You might do a little research. See what you can tell me, next time you visit.”
“Like homework?”
She laughs, not a polite-old-lady chuckle but a full-bellied guffaw. “Not at all. Expanding your horizons. Broadening your knowledge. Preparing for the future, and I don’t mean in a learn this or you’ll never get a job way. More tea?”
I remember suddenly that I only came over to give her the letter. “Oh—I’d better go home. My mother will freak out if she can’t find me. Sorry to seem rude, I…” I get up and almost step on Sybil. “Oh, sorry!”
“There’s no need to apologize for yourself, Rachel.” Mrs. Mac gives me a searching look. Her voice is kind, though. “If you need to go home, go. And if you’d like to visit me again, please do. Sybil! Up!” The tiny dog executes an unlikely leap into Mrs. Mac’s arms. “I’ll see you out.”
As we go down the hallway, I glance through a part-open door—that I’m sure was shut before—and my feet refuse to take another step. The room within is large and shadowy. The walls are lined with shelves, and the shelves are crammed with books. There are little round tables with lamps on them, and some squashy-looking old chairs. I stand there gaping. Those books can’t have been here while the house was empty. They’d have been eaten up by insects or fallen apart from mold or something. When did she move them all in?
“Not completely sorted out yet,” Mrs. Mac says. “Maybe you could assist me next time you visit. Let your mother know first. She’d surely approve of helping an old lady, mmm?”
I walk on, reluctantly, and say goodbye at the front door. As I cross the road, I think out what to say to Mum. I’ll be going over sometimes to help Mrs. Mac sort out her books, if that’s okay. She can’t reach the highest shelves on her own. I don’t like to lie, but the truth would freak Mum out.
That house is full of magic.
To my surprise, Mum says I can go over after school a few days later to help with the books. The night before I go, I make muffins to take with me. I’m nervous, even though Mrs. Mac was so nice. What if I interrupt her when she’s busy with something, or taking a nap?
The thought of being a nuisance makes my stomach queasy. It brings back all the times I’ve heard other kids talking about me at school, as if it was freakish to read a book at recess or ask questions they don’t understand or get so wrapped up in writing that I miss the bell to go back to class.
I can’t talk to my parents about this. Their solution would be signing me up for basketball or hockey or something, on the assumption that playing team sports would suddenly make me fit in. James can tell something’s not right at school. But I can’t talk to him, he’s only eleven. And he’d pass it straight on to Mum and Dad.
Mrs. Mac opens the door and smiles, and my stomach settles. We eat the muffins and drink tea, and I’m allowed to fasten Franklin into his little wheeled contraption so he can whizz up and down the hall with Sybil running alongside.
Then we go to the library.
This time there are reading lights on, and the curtains are open, and the big room is bright and warm and welcoming. In between the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves are quirky corners and niches holding different things: a jar full of feathers, a scowling mask, a candelabra shaped like a woman with snakes for hair. There are window seats with cushions—an invitation to curl up and lose yourself in a book. At one end of the room is a tiled hearth for an open fire. The tiles have creatures on them, a bit like the ones on those stamps.
I take a big breath and let it out slowly. My home across the road is nice enough but it’s not the sort of place that brings stories bubbling to the surface.
“This house is beautiful,” I say as I look at the intricate pattern of leaves and vines and birds on the curtain fabric, and the carpet square like soft grass, and the diamond-shaped windowpanes. There are so many surprises here. One of them is the desktop computer setup, with big screen and printer and ergonomic office chair. Hers? I guess it must be.
There are books on a small table, and one catches my eye. Tracing the Cailleach: The Hag Figure in the Folklore of the Western Isles by Dr. M. G. MacEachern. I’m about to ask if Dr. MacEachern is a relative when I turn the book over and see the author’s photo on the back. It’s her, but a lot younger, around my mother’s age. She’s standing on rocks with the sea behind and her long dark hair streaming out in the wind. She’s not dressed up for a fancy author photo, but sensibly clad in a parka and jeans.
“That’s a great picture. You look happy.”
“I was happy. I’d finished my doctoral thesis and seen it published, and I was in one of my favorite spots in the world. You might find that book a little dry; it’s heavy on scholarly references. Try this instead.” She passes me a slimmer volume. The jacket illustration shows an old woman emerging from a dark wood, holding a lighted lantern and accompanied by a wolf. It’s a fairy tale version of Mrs. Mac. The title is Maiden and Crone: Tales of the Western Isles by M. G. McEachern.
“They left the ‘doctor’ off your name,” I say.
“That one’s not a scholarly work, simply a collection of some of the tales I discovered along the way. It was a lot of fun to write.”
I look through the pages. The illustrations are brilliant. One shows the witch, or maybe she’s a hag, standing in a giant whirlpool and washing what looks like a tartan blanket. She’s wild and powerful and completely unafraid. She’s exactly the way I wish I could be.
“We can be whatever we choose,” says Mrs. Mac, as if she’s read my thoughts.
“A goddess? A witch? In Ashburn?”
She smiles. “You won’t live your whole life in Ashburn. Not that it’s so bad a place to be a witch. Often it’s places like this that most need one.”
“What does that word mean—Cailleach?” I point to the title of the first book. “Sorry, I’m sure that’s not how you say it.”
“You’re doing it again. Apologizing.”
“Sorry. I mean… Could you tell me how to pronounce it, please?”
Mrs. Mac demonstrates. It sounds like KY-akh. “It means Hag,” she says. “Some folk imagine a hag as a hideous old woman. I see her as a force of nature. One which has been around since the time of our ancient ancestors, or longer still. But, of course, she could be both.”