WEEK 2

VANORA MEETS THE WITCH

Morning arrived. Vanora had fallen asleep sitting by the

fireplace. A faint ray of daylight peeked through the window.

Vanora shivered. The fire was going out and what remained

were mere dying embers shooting sporadic bursts of fire.

Vanora jumped to her feet. Her heart felt heavy as she

remembered that just at midnight Calvagh had come with

news on her father’s Púcán that had washed ashore with no

one inside, its mast bent. She was determined to go down to

the village to ask if someone knew about her father’s fate

and where they had found the Púcán.

She peeked out to the hollows looking for Crow. The air

on the island felt dry, not the typical soggy wetness when

covered with a light fog.

 “Crow, I need to talk to you,” Vanora called out loud. She

saw the bird swoop by and do three air loops around her

before coming to rest on her shoulder.

“Milady, I heard it all. I have my brood trying to get news

of dear Old Fergal. I tried to warn you last night not to go out,

but I couldn’t get to your window. Devil’s weather we had. I

reckon it was Ornice’s doings.” He shook his dried wings.

“Crow, I must see if someone in the village has news of

father.” Vanora hurried her step.

Crow whispered into her ear, “Be mindful Milady,” he then

added, “Now I’m off to gather news.” And with that, Crow

took to the skies.

Crow knew where he was heading—to find Ulliac, a

powerful enchantress who lived days away in the forest of

Uls and who may know what happened to dear Old Fergal.
 He’d heard the villagers whisper in alarm that it was all

Ornice’s doings. Tales abounded, and everyone was filled

with fright just at the mentioning of her name. Ornice, the

beautiful and wicked woman with unrivalled powers who, if

she thought someone to be a churl, or speak ill of her, freely

uncorked her anger by destroying their crops, sending

changelings at midnight to steal new infants from their cribs,

or toss cows and pigs and sheep and fishermen down the

cliffs into the awaiting sea.

Vanora arrived at the Witches Cove market where her

father kept a stall selling fish. The market was buzzing with

townspeople haggling with the merchants for their wares.

Vanora rushed through the fish stall rows and noticed all

eyes were on her. In the first stall she found Fodla, a widow

her father regarded with much respect, for the woman was
built strong as a man and kept a large litter of black cats to

feed. She could fish like any other man on the island and

was known to get a good catch and haul it in her Púcán all

by herself. But this morning Fodla was hiding under her

shawl.

“Fodla, father never arrived last night, Bold One Calvagh

told me they found his Púcán . . . . Do you know anything

about my father’s fate?”

Fodla was silent. She uncovered her face only to stare at

Vanora, then quickly brought the cloth back over her face.

Vanora couldn’t understand what she meant by that. She

was known to be a free-spirited, loud woman whose

hollering invited the villagers to come and buy her wares and

claiming hers were the “best and freshest.”

 Vanora went through the row of stalls asking everyone if

they had news of her father, but just about everyone shook a

no and gave a sorrowful stare.

Vanora heard whispers in the air but couldn’t catch what

those whispers were carrying. It was just before she reached

her father’s that stall she stopped in her tracks. Her eyes

bulged out. Her heart leaped so high she was afraid it was

leaving her body. Occupying her father’s stall was an old

woman with the largest creels of fish she’d ever seen. It was

one large basket on top of another, all brimming with fish.

Vanora ran to where the woman was sitting. Her thoughts

were garbled. Who was that old woman? And what was she

doing in her father’s stall? She must know of her father’s

fate. Vanora held her breath when she came face to face

with an old-olive-skinned woman with strands of wavy dull

black and white hair sweeping to the floor and a glare that

chilled Vanora to the bones. The old woman’s top lip was

drawn in—Vanora saw no teeth. She had sunken cheeks

and skin that fell in folds.

“Ma’am, who . . . who . . . are you?” asked Vanora timidly.

The woman starred at Vanora with piercing eyes. “Old

Fergal fsold me hifs bufssinefs,” she answered. Her words

had a sibilant sound of an f before the s—Vanora thought it

could be the woman’s strange accent or her lack of teeth

making it so she couldn’t pronounce the words correctly.

“Where is my father? Do you know of him?”

“Old Fergal—he’d enough of thifs place, and went

away,” she said. Vanora couldn’t understand what the

woman was saying because she continued with that strange

accent. The old woman let out a cackle.

 Vanora regained her voice. “It can’t be, my dear father

would never leave me . . . . ” she said, her voice growing

louder as she spoke.

“Go yer way girl. Look for no home, no father. I got the

money to prove he fsold me hifs bufssinefs and hifs dwellin’.”

She waved her hand at Vanora as if she were chasing away

a fly. “Fshoo!” she said. Her hands revealed dark, pointed

nails like daggers and black, engorged veins that popped out

of her bony and wrinkly skin. “Off ye go!” she shrieked.

Vanora stepped back, frightened. She then heard a

rumble—the earth was moving under her feet and

everyone’s feet. The entire market started to come apart,

with stalls crashing to the ground and people running for

their lives. The stalls were just a few yards from the bay, and

the people there saw the water move away—run out to sea.
They knew something was about to happen and they fled for

the hills.

Vanora also knew that a sea wave, when it is called back

to the sea, comes back a monster. Vanora turned and ran

away from the market—but not before turning her head to

look one more time at the strange woman who stood with

her hands out, shaking them, while fog rose up from the

ground.

Vanora followed everyone running away from the sea and

heard the earth’s continuous deep rumble below. She heard

the villagers’ shrieks. She saw flocks of birds take to the

skies cawing and dropping their white poop. She saw a

stone crack open under her feet—water was gurgling up.

She tried to hop onto another rock but tripped on her shawl.

The entire ground’s seams were coming apart—the rumbling

didn’t stop. Vanora, on all fours, reached for a very large

stone slab. She gripped her fingers on its edge, and the slab

began to slide down to the sea, taking her with it. Her calls

for help went unanswered. The entire market had

become a cacophony of screams of terror. People were

being carried out to sea. She felt a firm grip on her back

lifting her up, way above ground. Fodla threw her on her

shoulders like a piglet carried to market and ran, lugging her

all the way up the mountain.

The villagers up in the mountain watched the sea turn into

a giant wave. Some villagers claimed they saw fairies riding

the crest. That was not a good omen—someone had

angered them. The sea came and went, taking sand and

everything on the shore.

 It was close to nightfall when the villagers began to return

to their dwellings. After the chaos, silence reigned over the

island. The sky turned a mottled grey, and the earth was a

soft mud created by a constant drizzle.

Vanora couldn’t stop crying, thinking about the old

woman’s words. How could her father abandon her? What

had she done? Was she that much of a burden? She had no

answers and her heart ached. She didn’t know how she was

going to support herself—she was an eleven-year-old who

could only manage to take a simple currach, a little wooden

boat lined with oiled seal skin, and oars to the bay to fish, but

she could not take a Púcán, a bigger boat with a sail, out to

sea, for it required a man’s strength and courage, and she

had none.
 Before she entered the house she turned to look back

toward the village. She saw the old woman coming up on her

heels. The woman’s hands hoisted up her skirt, and her hair

flowed in the air, swept by the wind like tattered strands of

cloth. Her black shawl wavered like wings of a bird of prey.

Vanora heard the woman’s grunts as she struggled to climb,

and she saw that feline, threatening, semi-closed-eyes stare

that sent Vanora running inside, shutting the door behind

her.