Mystery at Meadowbank Cottage An original story written and performed by Stephanie Poppins Music by my brother John Miles Carter Chapter 7 Tuesday St.
Clare peeled off her garden gloves,
Finger by finger,
Then afforded herself a well-earned sit-down on the only patch of grass at the back of her house that she hadn't managed to cut.
This garden knew her moods.
That was the only explanation she had for why the lavender always leaned toward her when she was troubled,
Or why the old damask roses,
The one she'd inherited with the cottage along with its mossy slate roof and draughty sash windows,
Dropped a petal or two whenever she sighed.
Meadowbank Cottage was magical.
Barely thirty feet by forty,
Bordered on all sides by a crumbling stone wall wearing a thick coat of ivy,
It still managed to fit in a lifetime's worth of growing things.
The lifetime of Mary Green,
The late white witch of the village and mother of Tuesday's ex-boyfriend,
Jonathan Green.
Tuesday looked around.
It was time for new additions.
But gardening was much tougher than it looked.
The gnarled hawthorn in the corner had been feisty when the cottage was built,
But now it creaked and muttered on windy nights,
Its steep red berries staining the cobblestones wherever they fell.
It had startled Tuesday at first,
But it hadn't taken her long to relax right back into the ways of the countryside,
And now she fancied she'd be here forever more.
She was growing stronger day by day.
In the centre of her green patch,
She'd placed three paving stones to form a rough triangle.
Upon these sat the cauldron she'd found covered up in the little shed.
Old Tom Bucket had told her about that.
Ever since he'd given her Mother Green's recipe book,
Tuesday had been grilling him about everything there was to know.
The recipes,
The incantations,
The energy of the place that she now called home.
And Meadowbank Cottage had quickly become that.
It had taken just a few cans of paint and the old sewing machine,
Another thing she'd inherited when she bought the house,
To transform it into the little haven she had today.
Meadowbank Cottage was wonderful.
It was as though a kindred spirit was protecting her from beyond the grave.
And Tuesday had not left the memory of her parents out either.
They took pride of place on the mantelpiece above the old agar oven.
Life here was really taking shape.
If only she didn't have to deal with the scandal caused by the local landowner Jed Norman and Jonathan Green's wife,
Colleen.
Tuesday held her hands out to the cauldron.
Inside her brew was bubbling away happily.
This was the embellished pot she'd imagined when Tom first mentioned it.
Cast iron and black with age and use.
But it was more the size of a generous stock pot,
Set on an old iron trivet,
Than the enormous vessel she expected it to be.
Thomas called it the tub,
But Tuesday felt that didn't really do it justice.
Especially if it was to be used to make the brew she needed to protect her from what was going on around.
I'll call her the cauldron,
She said with a smile,
Because that's what she is.
Thomas had found it very amusing that his young slip of a neighbour,
As he saw her,
Saw fit to call a metal vessel a girl.
But he kept his mouth shut.
There was no understanding women,
He reasoned,
And at his age he wasn't about to start now.
Tuesday had set the fire going an hour ago,
Letting it build slowly from dried rosemary stems and apple wood.
And now the steam was curling up into the mid-summer afternoon.
Tuesday flicked through her recipe book.
Each line had been handwritten,
And the words,
Spindly and black,
The perfect text for witchcraft.
These were potions for headaches,
Heartaches and harvests,
For binding and loosening,
Clarity and forgetting.
And there were pressed flowers,
Stuck to each page,
And penciled annotations and pictures,
Where words would not suffice.
And there was Spike,
Come to join in the fun.
The little kitten wrapped its tail around the leg of Tuesday's stool and settled down to watch what she was doing.
We're brewing a little magic to ward off scandal,
Tuesday confided.
I've just moved from one problem and I'm not about to get involved in another.
The new problem,
And she felt faintly absurd even thinking this,
Which is why she was going to deal with it quietly at home in the garden rather than telling anyone,
Was Colleen and her passion for Jed Norman.
The old one,
Robert Shafe,
Was long gone.
Jed Norman and Colleen's husband,
Jonathan,
Were at loggerheads over the land she'd just bought with her brother.
With this in mind,
Tuesday got the feeling this was just one more way for Jed to get one over on him.
But how could Colleen live with herself?
Jonathan might have wound Tuesday up recently,
And he might have deserted her all those years ago.
But he didn't deserve a cheating wife.
And as it turned out,
He wasn't a bad man for marrying quickly and without scruple.
He was just a fool.
As for Colleen,
Tuesday bore no ill will towards her.
Well,
Not about stealing her man,
Anyway.
She sighed.
She needed protection from all this.
She was still healing from her life-altering escape to the country.
Jonathan would just have to find out some other way.
It would not be her that told him.
She would only be accused of interfering if she said anything.
No,
Tuesday Sinclair was not a homewrecker.
But she wasn't a walkover,
Either.
If Colleen came sniffing round for information,
She would not be giving her anything.
Tuesday breathed in the steam of the cauldron and the potion within.
The title White Witch seemed to suit her.
And she was getting ready to adopt it.
She just needed to try her hand at some good old-fashioned potions designed by the expert herself,
Old Mother Green.
The recipe book was very clear on this.
Working for protection is not working against another.
Tuesday ran her line across the title A Brew for the Turning Away of Unearned Ill-Speaking and looked at the notes penciled underneath.
Protection turns harm aside rather than returning it,
It said.
Intention is everything.
This seemed to make sense.
Tuesday must not react no matter what anyone said.
Now,
Which herbs to add next?
Thyme,
Then rosemary,
A little salt,
A slip of rowan,
Water drawn from a running source.
OK,
First things first.
She ran to the tap.
This water came from the same hillside spring the whole village used.
She hoped that would count,
Even if Jed Norman had been responsible for contaminating it.
Maybe this potion would help with that.
Then the thyme,
Then the rosemary and the salt.
Grabbing the rowan berries,
She crushed them in her palm and sprinkled them in.
They lay on the surface of the water and she watched them sink slowly.
Then she checked the book again.
Right,
She said,
Now for the incantation.
She straightened up.
What is spoken without truth,
She stated,
Turn it back to open air.
What is sent without cause,
Let it find no purchase there.
Let my name be my own again.
Let these walls know quiet.
By this water,
By this flame,
By the will behind it.
The last word dropped into the cauldron like a stone.
Then an unexpected voice behind her made her jump.
That's a remarkably good poem,
It said.
Tuesday did not quite drop the spell book,
But it was a near thing.
Hiding it behind her back,
She swung round.
Jonathan Green was standing at the garden gate,
The low wooden gate in the stone wall she'd never once remembered to lock.
And he had his hands in his jacket pockets with an expression she could not immediately classify.
He looked thinner than she remembered,
Like a man who'd been having a very hard time.
Jonathan,
She said abruptly.
Sorry,
He answered.
I knocked at the front and no one answered.
I couldn't hear you.
Then he noticed the cauldron.
Tuesday shuffled uncomfortably.
And as she did,
The book fell to the ground.
Something shifted in Jonathan's face,
Something she hadn't expected at all.
Is that.
.
.
It is.
He came through the gate without asking,
And Tuesday didn't stop him,
Although she probably should have.
In a few strides he was by her side,
And she let him pick up the book because the look on his face had stopped being the look of an intruder and had become something else entirely.
It was a private look,
A little boy lost look.
He turned the cover over in his hands and opened the front page.
She watched him read whatever was written there.
Tuesday had never looked at the very front page.
This is my mother's,
He said.
Tuesday said nothing.
I've been looking for this.
Jonathan turned a few pages,
Touching the penciled annotations in the margins,
And Tuesday could see now his mother's hand touching his.
She died when I was away.
I couldn't find this afterwards.
I thought it was lost.
Tuesday looked into his eyes.
At that moment she felt very sorry for Jonathan Green.
It was in a box in the shed.
The one you left.
Everything you left in the house,
I assumed.
That's fine,
He said,
Cutting in.
I'm glad you've got it.
Tuesday believed him completely,
Which was the most annoying thing.
Jonathan Green was a man who'd treated her badly in the past.
He'd led her on.
They'd had a wonderful time.
And then he left her almost as quickly.
I'm glad somebody's getting use out of it.
Mum would have liked that,
He added.
He closed the cover gently and handed the book back,
Then glanced at the cauldron.
The herbs were turning in the water now,
And the smell was distinctive.
What are you trying to protect yourself against,
He asked.
I recognise that smell.
Tuesday blushed.
And then she blurted out what she had been trying to hide for the last few days.
Your wife,
She said.
Jonathan's face did a number of things in quick succession.
It went from mild,
Impartial interest,
To fury,
To regret.
Ah,
He said.
Yes,
Exactly,
Said Tuesday.
She hoped that would do the trick.
He needed to know Colleen sniffing around constantly was not what she had in mind when she moved in.
May I?
He gestured to the old stone bench and they sat down together.
Then she spoke of their plans for Leighton Village holiday lodges.
She talked of Justin,
Her brother,
What had happened to her parents,
And how she'd been longing to come back and live in the country for at least the past year.
I got the feeling you might return,
He said with a smile.
The last thing Tuesday wanted to do was admit he was right.
But he was right.
And by the looks of it,
He had a little of the gift that his mother possessed.
About the other day,
He began,
Voiced careful,
When I was abrupt,
Short.
You didn't deserve that,
I'm sorry.
Tuesday softened slightly.
You've got a lot on your mind,
Jed Norman and the land.
You don't have to protect me from it,
She added gently.
That's what Justin's trying to do and I don't need protecting.
I can look after myself.
I'm handling it,
He said.
I'm sure you are.
She paused for a moment.
Then decided to ask him the one question that had been on her mind for weeks now.
There's something over there,
Something you might know about.
She pointed to the stone sticking up at the end of the lawn.
Carved into it were two simple initials,
JG.
Jonathan looked very uncomfortable and he stood up abruptly.
Well,
That was something I did years ago when I was a boy.
You can get rid of it if you like.
It means nothing now.
Then he walked back down the path and slammed the gate shut behind him.
Tuesday looked back to the cauldron.
What is wrong with that man,
She said to herself.
And then she thought carefully about what Tom Bucket had said about that stone.
Stones were placed in the ground to mark the place you buried the one thing you hoped would come back to you.
This was exciting.
Something to discover.
And making her way to the old wooden shed,
Tuesday looked for the largest,
Sharpest spade she could find.
