The Witchfinders Daughter

I hadn’t ever really been close to my grandmother, certainly not close enough to warrant becoming the sole recipient of her home in Belfast, Northern Ireland. After losing my parents when I was six, I’d come to live with her, my childhood full of religious fervor and loneliness. She was never the happiest woman. More stern and dictatorial, hellbent on teaching me to live my life as her god’s faithful servant. I’d left Northern Ireland two years ago, swearing never to return. Yet here I was, back in Belfast, with the keys to her beloved home in St. Helens.

It was quiet – obviously. You’d be surprised how silent things can be without the dull humming of a refrigerator or the low chit chat of a television. The place still smelled strongly of her cloying, archaic perfume and strangely, the pressed powder she would use on her face every day. The house itself was not fancy, there was no amazing backstory, no skeletons in the closet, not historic relevancy. Just your standard 1960’s brick and tile, and judging by the striking orange and brown décor, it had clearly never been renovated since the day is was built.

Remnants of her strong beliefs lay everywhere. From the multiple crucifixes on the walls to the pictures of Jesus hanging in every room. One year, maybe five years ago, I’d taken one down in protest. Her reaction was one that suggested I’d welcomed the devil himself in.

Sitting on the orange tiled kitchen bench was a thick folder, my name on it, accompanied by a stamp from her solicitor. They had told me there were documents to be signed and returned.

“Ms. Hopkins,” the letter inside read, “Our sincerest condolences on the passing of your grandmother, the much beloved and respected Elizabeth ‘Betty’ Hopkins. Her wishes are attached. May God be with you now.”

Much loved and respected, eh? It made me smile, albeit slightly.

The details of a bank account, in my name, with twenty grand.

Thank you! I could definitely put that to good use.

Of course, of course, there was a page from the bible attached. Exodus 20:5.

You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous god, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generations of those who hate me.

Nice one. A smite from beyond the grave.

One more note, this time, in her own handwriting.

“My cushla, please forgive me. Your fate is not your own, merely the continued torture of our fathers. Use the money to make it right. All my love, Gran.”

Really? Really, Gran? One more time. Always getting the last word in. Just once, just one single time, I wish she could have just been herself and stopped this religious bullshit. Just once. For the first time since hearing of her passing, I was crying. Not tears of sorrow, not tears of loss. Tears of rage, of betrayal. Of confusion. She had spent my entire childhood telling everyone how she was being punished, the inference being I was the punishment. “To raise a child, then lose them and inherit their very image is a punishment no woman should have to endure,” she would tell anyone and everyone. Yes, I looked like my mum. Her daughter. I couldn’t help it and I definitely wouldn’t have chosen to lose my parents, that’s for damn sure.

I couldn’t actually recall coming upstairs and falling asleep on my old bed. Now, I had only moonlight to help me navigate my way because apparently in my urgent need to get to bed, I’d left my phone downstairs. The same phone I should have been using to ring the power company and get some electricity running to the place.

Instead, I just laid there, staring at the ceiling. Staring at the moon. Thankfully, it was a clear enough night. Without it, I’d be in complete darkness. It was bitterly cold. I’d forgotten just how ice cold this house could be without the fireplaces going. There were heaters mounted to the wall, but, y’know, electricity and all that…

Opening the old wardrobe, half of my angsty teenager clothes still hung, neatly pressed and smelling of mothballs. It made me smile, despite still feeling the daggers of her earlier note. Everything felt familiar. The textures. Buttons. Zips, Ties. Even my old school uniform was there. Suddenly, I felt catapulted back to my last year of school. There was an unfamiliar item, however, a coat. Thick. Dark. Smelled of Gran.

I pulled it out and lay it on the bed, angled to allow the moonlight to wash over it, allowing me the ability to inspect it more closely. It was old and yet somehow, I’d never seen it before.

One pocket showed a bulge. It was a little black notebook, wrapped in one of my grandmother’s handkerchiefs. Maybe leather bound? This thing, I held it to my nose briefly, ugh, it smelled awful. A heinous mixture of Sulphur, perfume, mold and ash. Scrawled, unusual handwriting, barely legible and incredibly faint, filled the book. Names, it looked like. Names and perhaps places? Maybe it was her little hitlist of women who’d bested her at church raffles and the like. The thought made me laugh. Certainly on brand for a woman who'd had her priest as number one in her speed dial.

I placed the odd little book on the bed side drawer in fell into a dark and difficult sleep, pitted with nightmares of fire and all encompassing fear.

Morning came and went with little to no sunshine to speak of. I’d used the last of my phone battery to arrange electricity and groceries. I’d gone to the bank to organise internet banking for this new account and I busied myself with cleaning the place up while I still had the cold, gray light of a snowy Belfast winters day. Later, by the light of the fire, I pulled the book from my handbag. A small, folded piece of paper fell out. It wasn’t as yellowed and delicate as the pages of the book itself.

It was a map.

Oh, a treasure map, I thought wryly. It appeared to be the grounds of Grey Point Fort, about a ten minute walk from here. True to form, there was a distinctive X smack in the middle. If my memory served me, that would be in the forest that separated the waters edge from the old 20th century fort. Not a big walk. If I could find a torch, I could easily walk down and have a look.

Or, I could wait until daylight and have a look then.

In the interim, I could try to look through this weird little book and try to make sense of the gibberish contained therein.

Matthew Hopkins. 1654.

I set the book down so gently, as if it may suddenly turn to dust in my hand. 1645. That was, what? 375 years? I couldn’t help but gasp. Shit. Should I even be touching this thing? Shouldn’t it be in a museum or something? The owners name was Hopkins. Maybe a relative? Possibly? Not that Hopkins was an especially unusual name.

I turned back to the book.

Some words had long since faded. Some names were completely illegible. Some parts were still visible. Every few pages showed the name of seemingly random places. Suffolk. Essex, maybe. Possibly Sussex. Cambridgeshire. Northhamptonshire. Bedfordshire. Manningtree. There were names of people, residents I assume, under each place name. It looked like at least a 20 names in some cases. Each name had a cross next to it, like an x. Staring at these strange old writings, I couldn’t help but shake my head. Clearly, some old relative of mine who went from town to town, no doubt with some bizarre religious agenda. My grandmother had always told me we’d come from a long line of “God’s servants, doing the very best they could”. Maybe these names were conversions? Although, I wasn’t too sure that 17th century Britain really had many other religions. Certainly, it was far from the cultural melting pot we see today.

I wrapped the book in the handkerchief, pulled a cushion from the sofa and curled up in front of the fire, falling asleep within seconds.

Morning was cold and dark, matching the oppressive, dungeon like feel of my grandmothers house. There were so many things I had to do today, but whenever my mind would start to wander to other tasks, the book would somehow catch my eye.

“Okay,” I said out loud, to no one at all, “let’s find this.” I grabbed to small, crudely drawn map, pulled on some boots and a coat and walked out the door.

Everything looked the same under a thick cover of dense, white snow. The map made almost no sense but somehow, after a few hefty kicks with my boots, I did find an enormous dead oak tree with a hollowed centre. It would have been a majestic piece of nature, once upon a time. Now it just stood like a black, bony hand reaching from a grave. Deep inside the base, almost at the bottom of the tree was a wooden box, about the size of cereal box. It was wrapped in layers and layers of plastic and black duct tape. Either I’d found my grandmothers mystical item or some drug dealer was going to be very upset with me. It didn’t weight much and as the multiple outer layers were shed, I was finally able to open in. Inside, another note.

My stomach dropped to my feet.

“Herein lay the belongings of my ancestor, Matthew Hopkins, Witchfinder General of East Anglia. Responsible for the deaths of hundreds of innocent men and women for the crime of witchcraft. Their spirits walk the earth, searching for peace while God continues to punish us for Matthews misdeeds, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children for generations to come. Make this right. Set them free, as I was unable to do. Yours in God, Elizabeth Hopkins.”

Fingernails. Rings. Pendants. What appeared to be bones. Locks of hair. Pieces of material. Strange, brutal looking surgical pieces.

I wanted to vomit. Suddenly, gone were the icy winds. The snow. Gone were the excited mutterings of tourists at the fort. Silent were the sounds of day to day living of my fellow man. Nothing existed outside this box. These souls, these remnants of lives lived before mine, taken by a man determined to destroy that which he did not understand.

To my mind, there seemed no other option: I took the box to the waters edge and set it alight, thankful my lighter seemed to catch the wood in just the right place to allow a full and proper combustion. As I watched the cleansing flames dance and leap into the air, sending ash every which way, I was suddenly imbued with purpose.

Within minutes, the box was nothing more than some burnt embers and pieces of scarred metal. I scooped it up in my hands, shoving as much as I could into my pockets.

It was a silent walk to St Johns, resting place of my grandmother. Taking the collection of material from the coat pocket, I mixed it in with a handful of grave dirt.

“I’ll set them free, Gran.”

I stood up and looked at the headstone, feeling her presence everywhere for the first time. Her note finally made sense; she wasn’t asking me to set my life right, she was asking me to make their lives right. To set our family free from “the iniquity of our fathers”.

I had twenty grand in the bank, a little black book of names and a hundred tortured souls at my side to guide me. They would know peace before my quest was over.

As would I.