Nobody on Ostrander Ridge says their own name aloud on the road past the Gammidge chimney. They say the name of a dog, or a cow, or whatever walks beside them. Children learn the rule before they learn to count, and the reason is given later, if at all.
Agnes Thorley is up before the hens. She skims eleven crocks, wraps the cheeses in nettle leaves, and sets a saucer of sour milk on the bedroom sill before she leaves. At dusk she will read it. A smooth skin means nobody has looked in. Curds gathered in a ring mean somebody has, and then she scrubs the sill with wood ash and says nothing at supper. By seven the pony, Dunnock, is in the shafts and the cart is loaded to the rail. She checks the near wheel's linchpin twice, since a wheel lost in the Hollow tends to stay lost. The market lies at the valley's foot, and the only road to it runs through Gammidge Hollow.
The witch is at her gate when the cart comes level, as she is most mornings. She is tall and narrow as a heron, in a waxed green coat patched with sailcloth, and her hands are too large for her wrists, the fingertips stained black with walnut ink. One eye is amber and follows the cart. The other is milk pale and stays where it is. Agnes keeps her chin down and says, loudly, "Easy, Dunnock." The amber eye follows the name along the road like a finger along a line. Nothing else happens, and most days that is enough. The market takes the day. Agnes sells nine cheeses, trades two for a sack of salt, and wins an argument over a cracked crock. When people ask after her health, she answers for the pony. The ridge holds that the witch keeps every name she has ever overheard in a clay jar, and that a jar splits when its owner dies. The cellar door is nailed shut, and I have no way to test it.
Coming home, Agnes finds the witch standing in the road itself, a jar in her left hand and her right hand raised, palm out. Dunnock stops without being asked. The Hollow smells of crushed mint where the goats have crossed. "Dunnock," says Agnes, "and that's all you'll get." The hand lowers. At home the saucer on the sill has skinned over smooth. The ridge tells strangers this much. Give a dog's name, not yours. Walk the crown of the road, not the verge. Leave whatever lies at her gate where it lies.
- Classification
- Human spellcaster and name-keeper
- Habitat
- Hollows, lane ends, hedge cottages
- Danger
- Moderate
- Size
- 6 ft tall, narrow as a rake
- Activity
- Diurnal
- Realm
- Hill farms and market roads
- Binomial
- Maga nomenserva
- Diet
- Goat cheese, barley broth, mint tea
- Temperament
- Watchful, unhurried, quietly territorial