'Ann the Healer' by Elizabeth Phillips
Ann thought that the farmyard looked much bigger now that its occupants were dead.
Winter that year had brought with it a wasting disease, the likes of which Bodmin had never seen before. Entire herds of livestock had been extinguished, decomposing while they still gasped for breath. Ann's last cattle had succumbed that morning. All that was left of the family farm was Ann, her father and their horse Bayard, though the girl knew he couldn’t last; his eyes had developed a dull film and his coat was stretched taut against sharp hip-bones. Soon, the farm would cease to exist altogether. Without food, Ann knew that the whole of Bodmin was certain to follow.
As she finished sweeping a stable, a crack of thunder whipped through the lowland. Ann started like a doe; weakened by famine, her legs crumpled beneath her, and even the storm ceased its bellowing as the toll of Ann’s head connecting with cobblestone echoed around the yard.
How much time had passed Ann couldn’t tell, but when she next opened her eyes the farmyard was intangible behind opaque sheets of rain. Wind lashed at the stable, buffeting the tin roof so loudly it took her a moment to notice a shrill chattering behind her. She snapped her head around – impervious, in her shock, to the sharp throbbing of it – and the storm muffled her shriek before it even left her mouth.
Cross-legged, nonchalant and glowing slightly in the dim were three impish figures. Barely a foot in height, their puckered faces resembled children’s, though their mouths were set in hard, straight lines and their eyes were cold as steel. Falling silent, they blinked at Ann.
“What are you?” She choked.
“We are fairies,” they replied. The bleakness of their child-like faces unsettled Ann.
“Fairies? But-”
“But fairies don’t exist?” The fairies interrupted, imposing and hard-faced.
“I didn’t think so.” said Ann. “Though it seems I was wrong.” The ghost of merriment flickered behind the fairies’ cold eyes.
The creatures, their expressions flat and solemn, told Ann that, long ago, mankind and fairies had lived harmoniously in Cornwall. The fairies were impish in nature, and their mischief and capers had brightened mankind’s every day: “Lighting them up.” That was, until they fumbled a prank involving flame and Bodmin’s thatched houses. Maddened with grief, the village culled fairies in droves; the remaining three hadn’t known joy since.
“It was an accident,” They insisted. Then, “Supposedly.”
The fairies knew about the wasting disease, too; they called it venjya, and told Ann how to cure it. Incredulous and desperate, Ann heeded their advice; within the hour Bayard was as bright-eyed and lively as a colt. When the girl asked how she could ever repay them, the fairies wistfully replied:
“We wish only to see you light up.”
Ann’s father was overcome by the sight of his steed restored, so much so that he only laughed at his daughter’s insistence that it was fairies who had cured Bayard, not her. At his jubilation, the fairies seemed pleased; their eyes brightened just a little, and the corners of their mouths dimpled.
By the end of the week, Bayard had filled out enough that he could be saddled again. Buoyant with hope, Ann and her father rode out to the nearest neighbouring farm. There, Ann followed the whispered advice of the impish figures in her peripheral vision, and healed Farmer David’s last, wasting ewes. Though they remained invisible to all but Ann, the fairies seemed moved by Farmer David’s elation at their good deed; the fairies’ eyes assumed something of a twinkle.
Word of the miracles spread like wildfire. Soon, every farmer in the county had presented their livestock to Ann the Healer. Herds were restored, farms re-established, the harvest bountiful once more; unburdened by worry, the villagers of Cornwall smiled again. Insistent that, for now, they be visible only to Ann, the fairies’ icy frontage melted with every good deed they engineered; as they redeemed themselves, the childishness of their features prevailed over the graveness. One day, Ann hoped, she might even bear witness to the fairies’ laughter.
“All we want,” the fairies would repeat, “is to see you light up.”
And indeed, all of Cornwall seemed brighter.
*
It was dusk when the soldiers came. Swords and armour flashing, they clattered onto the farmyard and tore Ann screaming from her father’s arms, uttering but one word:
Witchcraft.
Soldiers erected a stake even as Ann was dragged to the Cornish Witch Trials; the court was lined with Lords from all over the country who had heard of Ann’s inexplicable talents.
“Inhuman!” Boomed the courtiers. “A witch!”
The words rang in Ann’s ears all that night, echoing throughout the confines of her jail.
When dawn arrived, indifferent, with it came a stranger glow: the fairies! They huddled on the cobblestones as they had once before. Only this time, they were grinning.
“Because,” they told Ann, quivering. “Today, as you stand at a stake before all the Lords of Cornwall, we will reveal ourselves and the good we have done. We all shall be acquitted! We shall see you light up!”
So Ann didn’t protest as she was led before the baying crowd of courtiers. She didn’t flinch as she was bound to the stake, or when preparations for her execution were made and tweaked. She imagined Bayard; later, Ann might ride him through the orchards whilst the sun still hung in the sky. Even as the first kindling set alight beneath her, Ann only anticipated how her father would light up when she returned home that evening. And all the fairies had to do was appear.
They never did.
“Burn the witch!” The crowd snarled. “Light her up!”
Ann’s faith dissolved with her skin and hair...
“Light her up!”
The word venja burned against her melted eyelids...
“Light her up!”
...And over the spitting of her broiling flesh, Ann finally heard the fairies laughing.
Words by Elizabeth Phillips