There is life here

An extract from The Herbalist’s Daughters, the standalone sequel to River Witch. Read about both books here.

A familiar elm rises from the hedge on the curve of the lane, and there is the cottage. White smoke drifts thinly from a stone chimney, both smoke and chimney silhouetted against the bright blue of the sky. There is life here, albeit hanging by a thread. Honeysuckle hides the once whitewashed walls and has found purchase in the thatch, battling mats of summer-dried moss. The grimy paned windows are barely visible, patches of rotting wood sinking beneath the yellow creeper.

Aaron ties his horse to the branch of a tree and walks to the iron gate in the low stone wall. There is more rust than iron on the gate, which no longer shuts with a satisfying clang. Rather, it protests squeakily at forced movement. How many months, years, have passed since anyone entered – or exited – this way? There is a second gate behind the cottage, a wooden one which gives access directly into the woods and, further on, fields. Woods, fields and hedgerows, together with her garden, supplied Mother Lovell’s pantry and the herbs, flowers, seeds she worked into potions to cure sicknesses of the body and soul. Has she abandoned her skills?

Between the gate and the door, pots spill with untended flowering lavenders, green and variegated mints and purple-bloomed sage, while thymes, chamomile, blue-flowering borage and pink valerian disguise once well-kept paths and hug blowsy bushes. The sun lights the scene and warms the scents, and the contented buzz of bees accompanies Aaron’s frowning inspection of the neglected profusion.

He turns to the heavy timber door – in no better shape than the windows – lifts the iron knocker and lets it fall. He cannot remember ever using the knocker. The door stood open on warm days, and he and Marianne never stood on the ceremony of asking permission to enter Mother Lovell’s cottage.

Shuffling footsteps, a bolt grating heavily through its rings, and the door is nudged open. A dark eye, buried in crepey folds of skin, squints into the light.

Aaron removes his hat. ‘It’s me,’ he says. ‘To see how you fare.’

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