The Witches of Willowmere

Chapter 5

Claire decided she had better read the books when she got home, just in case Dr. Moore asked her about them later. Fortunately, they were actually quite interesting. One was about goddess worship through the ages, a sort of encyclopedia of all kinds of ancient goddesses. She read about Artemis, the old Greek goddess of the moon and the hunt, whom the Romans later named Diana; Bast, the Egyptian cat-headed goddess, who supposedly took care of young girls and women in childbirth; Kuan-yin, the Buddhist goddess of compassion; and countless others. The word "Gaia," she learned, was the name of an ancient Greek earth goddess, and her name was tied into the modern environmental movement. "The Gaia hypothesis suggests that we consider the entire planet as an organism in its own right. This would mean that the earth is, in a very literal sense, our mother. ..."

The book included a set of invented rituals for women to follow to celebrate certain characteristics of each goddess. There was an Aphrodite ritual ("Burn a pink scented candle surrounded by real or artificial roses, the symbols of passion, for the goddess of love, and meditate on the gift of romantic love") and so on. The Gaia ritual was to be performed out of doors— "preferably in a wild place with many trees, where you can meditate on the beauty of nature." The book concluded by suggesting that all the ancient goddesses be thought of as "aspects of one mystical being, the supreme Goddess." In this way, women could free themselves from the exclusively masculine images of traditional religions and "seek the divine within themselves."

Claire set the book down. She could see how this goddess stuff might have an appeal for some women, but it really had nothing to do with her. Claire's family had never been the churchgoing type, and since Mom joined that West Coast cult, Dad had been vehemently opposed to any form of what he called superstition: not just astrology or tarot cards or magic crystals, but any belief system involving gods or higher beings of any kind. "Fairy tales for little kids," he'd grumble. "You'd think our civilization would have outgrown all of that by now, wouldn't you?" At his insistence, Claire had promised to devote herself purely to facts: science, geography, history, current events. What he would make of books on goddesses and witchcraft Claire could well imagine, and though she did not take their subject matter seriously, she decided to keep the borrowed volumes out of his sight.

She picked up the second book, which was about the olden-days witch trials. This wasn't one of Myra's books, she saw, but had belonged to her uncle. His name, Alfred Ramsay, was written on the flyleaf, and as she flipped through its pages, she noticed that he had scribbled lots of little notes in the margins. Some were very short, such as "Rubbish" or "Get to the point!" Others ran to several sentences. Many lines were underscored, some with a caustic exclamation point in the adjacent margin. A few of the notes were directed at himself: "Check source," for instance. He had underscored one entire paragraph describing a Salem woman who was convicted of witchcraft just because a neighbour claimed to have seen an "apparition" of her when she was really someplace else. At the bottom of the page, he had written, "Hallucination—or nerve induction?" Claire puzzled over this. She could understand why "hallucination" might be appropriate, but what in the world was "nerve induction"?

According to the book, witches were accused of all kinds of things. People had confessed to having dealings with fairies, keeping familiars, riding through the air on broomsticks, and flying with the aid of magic ointments that made their bodies weightless. Most of these so-called confessions had been made under duress, but some experts suggested that the ointments might actually have existed. Plants like belladonna contained chemicals that caused hallucinations, and ointments made with them might have made people think they really were flying through the air.

Claire yawned and turned to the index to look up Myra's famous relative. Yes, here she was: Ramsay, Mistress Alice. There was only one reference, however, and it didn't say very much. After explaining that most of those accused of witchcraft had been poor rural people, the writer went on to add: "One case, that of Alice Ramsay, was an exception, and though records of her trial are sketchy, it is said that she was ultimately exonerated. This young Scotswoman, daughter of Laird Malcolm Ramsay of the town of Lyndsay, was charged with having a familiar in the form of a cat named Leo, who granted her sorcerous powers. It was also said that she spoke to an invisible companion when she was still only a child. It is known that the early life of Alice Ramsay was exceedingly lonely, and most children in such circumstances will invent imaginary companions to keep them company. On such evidence, slight even for a witch hunt, it is unsurprising that she was not convicted." And that was all. Claire felt rather disappointed; she could not have said why, but she had developed a keen interest in the fair-haired young woman in the portrait. At least the poor girl hadn't been burned at the stake.