The Devil on Her Tongue Read Online Free PDF

square down to the long, narrow wharf that led into the sea. Skiffs were used locally around the island or to row out to the ships dropping anchor in the deeper waters of the Atlantic, a safe distance from the shallows near the beach. There were always packet ships from Madeira, carrying mail and the
Gazeta de Lisboa
and foodstuffs and wine and an occasional passenger, as well as the bigger caravels and brigantines from afar. The sailors who came to Vila Baleira might have been at sea a few weeks or a few months. They always went to Rooi’s, the inn closest to the wharf.
    The rest of the islanders lived scattered between the high cliffs and pebbly beaches of the north and my own flat southern beach. Although Porto Santo had a history of violence, attacked by the French, the Moors and Algerian pirates, the last major invasion had been long before I was born, and the island had relaxed into a sleepy routine, with only local gossip to stir the imagination.
    As I crossed the square, Hermínia, the wife of a shopkeeper, took a loaf of bread from her basket and held it towards me. “Take it, dear,” she said, but in the next instant her friend Maria grabbed her arm.
    “Don’t give her any charity,” she said, looking at me. “They’re heathens, the witch and the Dutchman living in sin, and this odd girl a creation of that immoral life.”
    My father told me that he had his own God, and that it was not the same one those on Porto Santo worshipped. My mother believed in no god, and refused to enter a church for fear of diluting her powers. Since it had been impossible for Father da Chagos to marry them, the islanders considered that I was born of an unholy union. Did I care? No. When I was small, I had sometimes peeked through the doorway of the church. It was always dark, with a few candles burning here and there, and usually one or two old women on their knees, praying. I’d told myself it didn’t look like a place I would like to be on a brilliantly sunny day anyway. The only thing I liked about the church was its smell of incense, spicy and strong.
    I narrowed my eyes at Maria and leaned closer, sniffing. She smelled of a rotting tooth, and I knew she was in pain. I could have told her to boil the bark of the ironwood tree and drink the resulting tea, but I had no intention of helping her. “You call my mother a witch, but you use her as a healer,” I said. “Didn’t you send your servant to our door for a remedy for the itch under your skirt?”
    Maria had the decency to flush and look away from me. She made the sign of the cross and pulled on Hermínia’s arm.
    “How is that nasty itch, Maria?” I called after them, but they didn’t turn back.

    My mother knew about the powers of everything that grew under and above the earth, and how roots and seeds and bark and leaves and flower petals could be pounded and ground or cooked and mashed to heal the body and to influence the mind. Her potions gave off a rich, feral smell, like the fur of an animal, or the earth when upturned.
    We had a garden, partially shaded by the outcropping of a cliff and protected from the sea wind that coated everything with salt; my father had carted soil down from the highland pastures. My mother grew herbs procured from Madeira: caraway and licorice root, camomile and rue, cardoon and rosemary, sweet yarrow and stock. She had me trudge daily with two goatskins to fetch fresh water to keep the garden moist in the heat of summer.
    She taught me about the smells emitting from the body through the skin itself, and what those odours predicted. I learned how to tell what a person had last eaten, or if they had an upset stomach or a fever, but also if they were angry or upset, hiding it with a smile.
    You’re like a little animal
, my father had told me,
a fox, always sniffing the air
. There were no foxes on Porto Santo, but my father described them to me. Little fox, he called me, patting my cheek.
Klein vos
.
    My earliest memories were of