Once upon a time, in a tumbledown cottage at the edge of a sleepy Yorkshire village, a young woman appeared out of nowhere.
The villagers never took kindly to outsiders. Suspicion spread like wildfire, and someone fetched the local constable. He arrived, checked her papers, and assured everyone she was a distant cousin of old Granny Edith, who’d passed away years ago at the grand age of ninety-six. “Granny Edith never had a soul to call family, not even children!” the villagers muttered in disbelief.
Yet the woman settled in. She cleared the overgrown garden and planted something—in the middle of summer, no less! Folk chuckled. Who sows a garden at such a time? But soon, green shoots sprouted—lush and unnaturally fast. “There’s dark magic at work here,” they whispered. And so, the name *Witch Mary* stuck.
She kept to herself, never spoke of her past, and solitude wrapped around her like a shawl. Secrets, as they do, bred gossip. Soon, the village hummed with tales—that she’d fled London after a doomed affair, swiping a wealthy lover’s jewels before vanishing into the countryside.
Then one day, a child in the village turned blue, choking on a toy part. With the nearest hospital miles away and no car in sight, the desperate mother sprinted to Witch Mary’s door. Mary seized the boy, flipped him upside-down, thumped his back—and out popped the tiny obstruction.
Respect mingled with fear after that. But not for young Thomas. He fell for her, hard. His mother wailed, “Plenty of pretty lasses about, and he goes trailing after a woman with years on her!” She’d stand outside Mary’s cottage, shrieking that her son had been bewitched, poisoned by charms. Thomas would lead his weeping mother home—only to return to Mary.
The lovers ignored the gossip. Within a year, Mary bore a daughter, Rose. Three years later, another, Lily. The village slowly lost interest—too busy with their own troubles.
Then a fierce storm battered the cottage roof. Thomas climbed up to fix it, but as he clambered down, he slipped. The fall shattered his spine. Mary fetched the doctor from the next town over. “He needs hospital care—now,” came the verdict. She arranged a ride, took him in, then hurried back to her girls.
A month later, a car rolled up to her gate. Out came Thomas in a wheelchair—paralysed for good. Some muttered it was Mary’s punishment for bewitching him.
But Mary never wavered. She wheeled him onto the porch each morning, pressed close, tended to him with fierce devotion. Love like that silences even the sharpest tongues. Some even claimed she was healing him—that he’d walk again one day.
Thomas whittled wooden animals for the children, wove baskets with deft fingers. The village men watched, envious. “Lucky sod,” they grumbled. “Got a woman doting on him hand and foot. Wouldn’t mind that meself.”
Love works miracles, they say. And true enough, Thomas began trying to stand. One afternoon, as Mary dug in the garden, his knife slipped, clattering down the porch steps. Determined, he gripped the railing, hauled himself up—then crumpled. A scythe leaned nearby. Mary had left it out after trimming the yard. As Thomas fell, the blade caught his neck.
Mary’s grief was bottomless. She nearly threw herself into the grave with him. The girls barely pulled her back.
Now alone—no pension, no income from Thomas’s trinkets—she somehow scraped by. Whispers resurged: *She’s selling those stolen jewels.*
Rose, the elder, left for London after school, trained as a hairdresser. On weekends, she returned, and villagers flocked to her scissors—paying in eggs, bread, whatever they had.
A woman alone in the village was vulnerable. The cottage needed constant tending—leaky roof, crumbling fence. Men “helped,” hoping for more than gratitude. Mary fed them, poured whisky, but never let them past the threshold.
Jealous wives once marched to her door, demanding her secrets. “You haven’t aged a day! Share those diamonds—or we’ll burn you out!”
Rumour has it Mary emerged grey-haired and haggard overnight. The women recoiled. “Witchcraft!” they gasped, scurrying off.
Grief gnawed at Mary’s health. She rarely left the garden. Lily fetched groceries.
Lily grew up bold and beautiful. With exams looming, she cared only for dancing. One evening, as she primped for the pub, Mary barred the door. Neighbours heard the row.
Old Martha saw Lily bolt like a scalded cat. Then, past midnight—*bang bang bang*—Lily at Martha’s window, trembling. “Mum… Mum’s—” she sobbed, pointing home.
Mary lay cold by the hearth, blood crusted on her temple.
The constable came at dawn. Lily swore they’d fought, that she’d shoved Mary but left her alive. Martha vaguely recalled shouts—before or after Lily fled? The constable ruled it an accident. No use ruining a girl’s life over misfortune.
Rose returned for the funeral, fed the whole village, but never spoke to Lily. That night, Lily vanished.
Martha swore Lily’s earrings that night sparkled *unnaturally*. “Never seen the like…”
The gossip reignited: *Mary had diamonds. Lily stole them, killed her, then fled to cheat Rose.*
Rose tried to hush it. But in a village, gossip is sport. She visited awhile, tended the garden, then disappeared too.
The cottage rotted further. Kids chucked stones through the windows, hunting “hidden gold.”
Seven years passed.
Martha, now stooped like a bent twig, hobbled past the ruin one day—and froze. A flash of colour. A young woman on the bench, a boy whacking nettles.
Not Rose—too stern for rouge. This one had fiery hair, lips painted cherry-red. *Lily?*
“Home at last?” Martha croaked. “And this’un yours?”
Lily hugged her fiercely. “Can’t get in. Could Uncle Jim jimmy the lock?”
He did. The cottage was ransacked—slashed cushions, debris everywhere. Jim nailed plywood over the broken pane. “Clean up, then come for supper.”
Over stew, Lily confessed: factory work, a grim hostel, a man who bolted at her pregnancy. Then a thief who landed in prison, his mother tossing her out.
“I’ll figure something,” she said.
Martha nodded. “Your mum found refuge here. So will you.” She gave potatoes, bread, pickles.
But that night—*rat-tat-tat*—Lily and the boy, white-faced, at Martha’s door. “Someone *walked* inside,” Lily stammered. “Muttering. Dishes rattling. Tommy’s petrified.” (She’d named him after his father.)
“Mum’s ghost. She won’t forgive me.”
Martha eyed her. “Conscience, more like. You wronged her.”
Lily looked away. “If I hadn’t left… She’d be alive.”
“Stay here long as you need.”
But Lily wouldn’t live on charity. The village widower—*Whitey*, they called him, for his pale hair—took them in. His kids were gone. He had a cow, land. Lily sold milk at cheeky prices to city folk on holiday. A goldmine.
Two months passed. She visited the cottage by daylight, briefly. Tommy played with village boys.
Then—*fire*. Mary’s cottage blazed like a bonfire. They hosed down Martha’s roof, let the rest burn. By dawn, only charred beams and the stubborn stove remained.
Kids poked through ashes. “Keep back!” Lily warned.
Tommy trotted up, grubby hand outstretched. “Look what I found!”
Whitey rubbed soot off a lump—glints of gold, diamonds winking in the crust.
Lily snatched it. “Mine!”
“So the tales were true,” Whitey said quietly. “You killed for earrings. Robbed your sister. And Mary’s still got her revenge.” His stare made her flinch.
That night, Lily took Tommy, Whitey’s savings, and fled.
Years later, a car pulled up. Rose and her husband eyed the weed-choked ruin. Even the stove had been scavenged for “treasure.”
Martha, near-blind now, creaked out. She told of the fire, the jewels, Lily’s flight.
“They say she killed Mary. Stole the earrings that night.”
“Just gossip,” Rose said. They left, never returned.
Ill-gotten gold brings no joy. Word spread Lily was murdered trying to sell the diamonds. Tommy landed in care—until Rose took him in. (She’d no children of her own.)
True? Who knows. But gossip never sprouts without a seed. Mary’s secrets—why she hid, where the jewels came from—died with her.
They say diamonds are unbreakAnd so, the only thing left harder than those diamonds was the villagers’ stubborn certainty that some truths are best left buried in the ashes of the past.
