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3/27/15
Jojoba Company Australia Beauty Products - Review
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3/26/15
UrthBox Monthly Snack Subscription - NonGMO, Organic, All Natural
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3/25/15
Belli Skincare for Expectant Moms and New Moms
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Grab Bag Reusable Shopping Bags - Review
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3/24/15
Weekly Giveaway Linky - Wednesday Wealth (March 25-31)
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Giveaway! Magic Glowing Duvet Cover Cures Fear Of The Dark #GlowAway
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Madame Irma Children's Watch
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Jesus Sees Us Doll and Book #JesusSeesUs
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3/23/15
Per-fekt Skin Perfection Gel - Review
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Spring Home Collection at Kohl's
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HOUSEWITCH by Katie Schickel - Review and Excerpt
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Excerpt:
CHAPTER 1
For every evil under the sun
There is a remedy or there is none.
If there be one, seek till you find it;
If there be none, never mind it.
—MOTHER GOOSE
Misery Shoal, Massachusetts • 1945
“Where’s Papa?” Aurora asked as the sisters made their way across the mudflats and into the marsh.
“Papa’s gone,” Freya said, swatting at cattails, scattering their velvety seeds into the air.
A dense fog had rolled in from the sea. It shrouded Misery Shoal in a coat of gray, and brought with it the smell of winter.
“Where’s he gone to?” Aurora asked.
“Never mind. He’s just gone.” Freya’s red hair shined like a flame against the brittle landscape. She was the middle child, and the most beautiful of the sisters.
Somewhere a ship’s horn belched through the stillness, and this made the girls alert, for they were unaccustomed to the sounds of Commoners at the shoal.
The oldest sister, Wilhemena, lifted the cauldron with both hands, tucking her elbows into her sides for leverage. It reminded Freya of the way she’d seen her father lift the cod and haddock to measure at the Derby Street Pier. Those fish could weigh up to fifty pounds and stand as tall as Freya herself. Even a strong man like her father had a hard time raising the hand scale high enough to clear the tails off the ground. His biceps, the tendons in his forearms, straining under the weight, his face pinched in anticipation while the fishmonger read the scale.
“When’s he coming back?” Aurora asked.
“He ain’t,” Freya said.
“Never?”
“Never.”
“Hush now. That’s just more of your nonsense,” Wilhemena said.
Aurora frowned. Although Papa was often at sea, she couldn’t imagine never seeing him ever again. She turned to Wilhemena’s wisdom on the matter. “Is it true? Is Papa never comin’ home?”
“Of course it isn’t true,” Wilhemena said. She braced the cauldron against her stomach to keep the water from spilling out. “Let’s hurry on home. Before the tide turns.”
Misery Shoal was a spit of land shaped like a crow’s claw, formed by centuries of longshore waves dragging sand and sediment southward. At high tide the neck of the shoal slunk underwater, making it impassable. Nautical maps warned sailors of its shifting nature with a black “XXX.” Only the Ellylydan family called it home.
Freya and Aurora skipped after Wilhemena, stopping now and then to inspect a mud crab or pry open a clam in search of pearls. Aurora had heard stories of the pearl divers in Japan and found exquisite possibilities in an unopened mollusk.
“Freya, hurry up,” Wilhemena called. “Come along now, Aurora.”
Freya ignored her. She had captured a pickerel frog and was teasing it with a thatch of goldenrod. She shoved the frog into the pocket of her apron and squeezed, the poor creature clambering up the thin cotton, only to be squashed by Freya’s fingers each time.
Up ahead, Wilhemena slowed her pace and clucked her tongue. There was work to be done. And even though her sisters were younger and more easily distracted by childish things, she expected them to at least try and work as hard as she.
Wilhemena yelled to Freya, who was crouching by a rock, “Watch the baby for me. I’m going up ahead.”
“She ain’t a baby anymore,” Freya said. “Why are you always treating her like a little baby?”
“Mind your tongue,” Wilhemena snapped. “Just watch after her.”
Freya rolled her eyes and went back to torturing her frog.
As Wilhemena disappeared through the reeds, Aurora, who at four really wasn’t a baby anymore and felt no more like a baby than her sisters, tromped barefoot into the spongy grass to get a better look at a water beetle.
“There’s snakes in there,” Freya called out. “Look. There’s some moving the grass.”
Aurora feared nothing of earthly creatures. Hexes, yes. Enchantments, definitely. For those were real. Snakes were far too interesting to be feared. She watched the reeds part and snap back to their vertical postures. “Just a muskrat,” Aurora said, to which Freya replied, “It’ll eat you up with its big fangs.”
Aurora stopped to consider that scenario. She wasn’t sure if Freya, being a whole year older and wiser to the world, might know something about muskrats that she had yet to discover. As far as she had seen, muskrats ate marsh plants and mussels and left little girls alone.
“You sure?” Aurora asked.
“Oh yes,” Freya answered. “They start with your nose and work down. A girl was eaten by a muskrat just last week. All’s they found left was her skull.”
Aurora decided to resolve the matter with Wilhemena, who at eight, was even wiser to the world than Freya. She started walking, but as the thought of the little-girl-eating muskrat took shape in her mind, she quickened her pace until she was running as fast as she could through the marsh. By the time she made it to the creek, her doom seemed inevitable and she didn’t notice the thistle patch until she ran right through it, taking a whipping against bare legs. She cried out.
Wilhemena ran to her, scooping Aurora into her arms. “It’s okay, little one. I’ll fix you up.” Wilhemena pulled the burrs out of Aurora’s skin. She found some bright green ribwort and chewed it into a pulp, then applied the salve onto Aurora’s leg. Later that night she would make a poultice of soaked burdock leaves to draw out any infection.
When Freya caught up to them, she crossed her arms, a smile on her lips.
“Can a muskrat eat me up?” Aurora asked.
“Nonsense,” Wilhemena said. There was no doubt about who would put such a thought in a little girl’s head. “Freya, don’t be so hateful.”
When Wilhemena turned around to lift the cauldron, Freya took the opportunity to pinch Aurora on the arm. Aurora screeched, thinking at first that the muskrat had bitten her, but it was only Freya. Crying, she knew, would invite more punishment.
Rather, she pulled out the heavy artillery. “I’ll tell Papa on you.”
“Papa will wring your neck if he hears that you’re scaring your little sister,” Wilhemena said.
“You needn’t worry about Papa,” Freya replied, a look of contempt crossing her face.
Wilhemena opened her mouth to argue but there was work to be done. “Follow me,” she said and led her sisters along the creek bed to the beach where they could find firewood.
The three girls gathered driftwood, fragments of lobster traps, boards from battered ships. Tucked behind a washed-up slab of concrete they spotted a patch of wild raspberries still clinging to thorny branches, miraculously undetected by birds. They dropped their wood and feasted on the last of the season’s berries. When they had picked the bush bare, Wilhemena broke off a few branches and bundled them up with the wood. Red raspberry was known to aid in digestion and to keep malevolent spirits at bay.
The whole excursion had taken close to an hour and in the fog and ebbing light, the line between sky and sea had all but disappeared.
* * *
TriDerma Medical Strength Skin Healing Products
Disclosure: I received product at no charge in exchange for my honest review.
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