She told of the feel of the thick woollen material against her face and the smell of her mother, the smell of all mothers. She told of the marsh gentian they had been picking for medicine when the men came and how her mother had dropped the purple flowers, scattering them as she ran back to the house with her daughter, as the soldiers clattered in the yard and as they shot her husband while he knelt and prayed. Maggie had heard the shot and seen her father twist and fall, surprise on his face. They had taken her mother and thrown her on a cart with Maggie clinging to her. Other women had been on that cart but, when they reached the beach and saw the thick salt marsh with the tide coming in, all but two had sworn the oath to the King. Her mother and one much older woman had not. Maggie told of how she had been torn from her mother, and how she had stood in water as the tide swept higher, dumb with fear and confusion and disbelief – still thinking of the scattered flowers and the waste of it – her bare feet sinking into the silt on a soft summer day, a tiny breeze ruffling the water, the wavelets lapping as they stroked her skin.
What do You think about The Highwayman's Curse (2012)?
