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1878: Emily – The Corn Mother 10/52

The Corn Mother novella weekly serialisation artwork

Jeremiah has been acting mighty strange these last couple of days. He’s always been a bit unpredictable when he’s drank some ale but this is different. His eyes seem wild and staring and he’s ranting and raving about how he shouldn’t have done it, how she’s visiting him in the night to torment him and fill him full of guilt.

He seems to mean Ms Jessop who lived in that cottage they went mob-handed to the other week and ended up burning down. They’ve not found her, although some of the menfolk tried looking. That’s just fuelled the rumours that she’s fled with the Devil or some such fanciful nonsense. I expect she just saw sense when she heard them coming and has thought better of returning to live amongst such folk as would so easily turn against her.

Hopefully things will settle down over the next week or so and he’ll get back to normal.

 

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1878: Ms Jessop – The Corn Mother 9/52

The Corn Mother novella weekly serialisation artwork

It’s been a week now that I’ve been living in the woods. I’ve managed to stay out of sight and nobody bothers me here.

I’ve been living on what I can forage and a few nighttime raids on people’s barns and food stores. There’s water to drink from the local brook and I’ve been lucky that the weather has held.

It’s given me time to think, to ponder about what I do now and next. I’m an outcast from my home and that hurts. I know that I shouldn’t lash out in anger and revenge but I feel that I still will.

An idea came to me this morning when I was foraging and I saw those mushrooms growing. I just need to plan carefully and choose my moment.

 

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1878: Mrs Worthword – The Corn Mother 8/52

The Corn Mother novella weekly serialisation artwork

That damn fool Jeremiah. Born with half a brain and lost the little he had in the tavern. He burnt that cottage down. A perfectly good cottage it was and with her out of the way I knew that I’d have been able to talk my way into taking over the tenancy. It had a good acreage of land at the back that I could’ve kept a few goats and some chickens on. Since my Joseph passed away times have been hard and I’ve barely had enough to keep body and soul together.

I could have seen out my days in that cottage rather than spending them living amongst my oldest’s family and his wife. I never could stand her. Thinks she knows best but she knows nothing.

 

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1878: Jeremiah – The Corn Mother 7/52

The Corn Mother novella weekly serialisation artwork

When that black cat started hissing at us I knew it was true. She was in league with something otherworldly.

And then there were all those jars of who knows what that she must have used in her rituals.

And them books. A whole row of them. Full of evil scriptures no doubt.

I just couldn’t stop myself. There was a fire burning in the hearth, with nobody to tend it. What more proof do you need than that to tell you of the wickedness in that cottage?

I used pages from one of the books as a taper, lighting it from the fire and began to burn down the witch’s home. The bedding took easily and soon the flames were on the thatch of the roof and we stood back to watch the cottage burn.

 

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1878: Mrs Wothword – The Corn Mother 6/52

The Corn Mother novella weekly serialisation artwork

She wasn’t there. Fled on her broomstick I told the others, gone to join the Devil in his fiery underworld.

I made sure they noticed signs of her kinship with Old Nick. That black cat of her’s hissed when we came in, that had them on edge, and then there were her jars of herbs and tinctures. Many in that crowd had been to her over the years to seek help with maladies but that has soon been forgotten and I had them all thinking they were potions she used in her witchery.

I’ll have this cottage for my own. She won’t dare show her face here again.

 

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1878: Ms Jessop – The Corn Mother 5/52

The Corn Mother novella weekly serialisation artwork

They came last night with burning torches. I’d heard them coming and so I’d taken away to the woods but I watched them from amongst the trees. At their head was Mrs Worthwood, like an aged pied piper, and there was a grim set to their faces.

When they discovered I wasn’t there they set to on my cottage, smashing and tearing, throwing things out into the fields. I couldn’t watch and couldn’t look away.

 

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1878: Mr Smithwick – The Corn Mother 4/52

The Corn Mother novella weekly serialisation artwork

That’s just what we need. That old tittle-tattle Mrs Worthword has been gossiping and saying that Ms Jessop has been wandering the fields at night so that she can curse the crops. That she practises witchcraft and was responsible for the crops failing last decade, when anybody with common sense knows it was a natural blight and too much wet weather that did for them.

The problem is that the villagers are scared. They remember that ruinous year all too well and they’re worried it will come again. They’re just ordinary, simple folk and they put far too much trust in folk tales.

Most of their families have lived and worked here for generations without things changing all that much but with the new steam engines they’re worried that they’ll lose their livelihoods and be forced to leave and live amongst the smokestacks in the city.

We need to nip this in the bud before it gets out of hand.

 

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1878: Mr Smithwick – The Corn Mother 3/52

The Corn Mother novella weekly serialisation artwork

Young John’s mother told me about what he’d seen. Ms Jessop walking the fields alone at night. I told his mother not to tell anybody else but it was too late, she already had, and you can no more stop the passage of that kind of gossip through this village than cause the wind to pause in the fields or the rain to stay in the clouds.

I’ve called a meeting with the others to discuss the matter. First though I’ll go and have a quiet talk with Ms Jessop, tell her to stay indoors at night like all the other good folk.

 

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1878: John – The Corn Mother 2/52

She was out there again last night. Walking the fields on her own. She thinks nobody has seen her but I have.

What’s she doing out there? You’ve got to let the land rest for the night if you want it to be bountiful. That’s what my grandmother told me. She’s not letting it rest, not letting it be.

I’m going to have to tell somebody. Maybe me mam, maybe Mr Smithwick. Something’s got to be done.

 

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1877: Ms Jessop – The Corn Mother 1/52

Act 1/4

I’ve lived here all my life. It’s the only place I know. Some folk from round here talk about going to live elsewhere, of jobs in the city but that’s not for me. I like to watch the cycles of life and the year. To cook my own food that I’ve helped to pluck from the ground and water that I’ve carried in from the well.

It’s a hard life and not for everybody but its the one for me. Even when the crops failed I wouldn’t have left. Where would I go? To a stinking hovel in the city and spend my days chained by the factory clock to a weaving machine? No. Not for this lass.

But it can be difficult knowing everybody and everybody knowing you and your business. From time to time I wake in the middle of the night and I just wander the fields. It gives me space to think. To just be. I can still hear the animals in the woods but it’s peaceful, away from those infernal steam engines that they’ve started to use for the ploughing and to carry feed and produce. They say its progress but I’m not so sure.

 

(This is part of a year long serialisation of The Corn Mother novella written by Stephen Prince. More details on The Corn Mother book and albums here.)