asked as they made their way together down the hill. She shrugged.
‘I used to pass out quite a lot, I think, although I could never remember it. Mother called it my blanknesses and Hazel calls it absences, but I thought it was getting better. Please don’t tell Mother or she’ll make a fuss and keep me cooped up even more.’
He nodded – she hadn’t come to any harm, after all.
‘You never did show me what you’d collected,’ he said.
She grimaced, still reluctant, but passed her bag to him.
‘Fly Agaric!’ he exclaimed, looking inside the bag at the large, brilliant red toadstool with its white spots. ‘What a beauty! But you know that’s not allowed, Leveret. What are you going to do with it?’
She looked up at him solemnly and he was struck by the strange beauty of her green eyes framed with dark, glossy curls.
‘You know what I’m going to do with it – why does anyone gather such a thing? It’s for Samhain. But please, please don’t tell on me. I’d get into such trouble and I do know what I’m doing, I promise. Please?”
He smiled down at her, liking her all of a sudden. She was very different and it must be hard for her living in her brother’s shadow. Yet she had a quiet confidence that implied she did indeed know what she was doing, so he nodded.
‘Alright, I won’t say a word. But be very careful, Leveret – we both know how powerful Fly can be. You know how to prepare it? Only take a very tiny amount. And one more thing – in return for my silence.’
‘Yes?’ she asked, looking up into his kindly face.
‘Show me where you found it. It’s the best specimen I’ve seen this year.’
4
‘Remember I’m going out this evening, Leveret,’ said Maizie as she wiped down the scrubbed table in the kitchen to remove all traces of their meal. ‘We’re meeting in the Barn to sort out the food for Samhain. It’ll be a really good feast this year with the harvest we’ve had. I want you to carry on with the weaving tonight while I’m gone.’
‘But Mother, you know how useless I am at weaving,’ groaned Leveret. She’d planned a pleasant evening in the scullery decanting elderberry wine ready to smuggle some up to Mother Heggy’s cottage at a later date. She intended to add it to another tincture she was preparing.
‘’Tis about time you knuckled down to learning these sorts o’ things,’ said Maizie firmly, wringing out the piece of cloth with a grip of steel. ‘You’re always saying that you want to stay at Stonewylde when you’re an adult, after you’ve finished your education, of course. So you’ll need to make cloth for your family like every woman does.’
‘But I’ll have different skills, Mother, which I can trade for cloth that other women have made. Like Hazel – she doesn’t weave.’
Maizie’s eyes gleamed.
‘Like Hazel? Are you saying that you want to be a doctor, Leveret?’
She stopped fussing over the kitchen surfaces and grasped her daughter by the shoulders, peering into her eyes. Leveret tried to look away, uncomfortable under the scrutiny.
‘No, I meant …’
‘Because Leveret, I’ve said nothing until now, but ‘tis my dearest, dearest wish that you become a doctor like Hazel. Another proper doctor for Stonewylde.’
Leveret started to protest and tried to move away but Maizie gripped her harder and carried on relentlessly.
‘I’ve seen you messing about with potions and herbs, don’t think I haven’t noticed. I know you’ve a natural gift for healing. Remember when little Snowdrop had those awful stomach cramps and it was you that cured her? And when the chickens got that mange? And all the wild creatures you’ve healed? Oh Leveret, you’re a natural born doctor! I’ve talked to Yul about it and we thought—’
‘No, Mother!’ said Leveret firmly, pulling away. ‘I don’t want to be a doctor. I know what it means, all the years at university and in hospitals. I’ve told you: I’m not leaving Stonewylde. This is where I belong and where I want to be, not in some horrible place in the Outside World.’
‘But Leveret, ‘tis only a few years of learning and you’d be back in the holidays like all the others, helping with the harvest and suchlike. And it’d be worth it! Just think—’
‘No! I don’t want to go Outside at all.’
‘But you have to leave after your exams to go on to college for your higher exams. And if—’