Alice Kyteler was the first person to be burnt as a witch in Ireland in 1279 and this fictionalised tale makes the factual origins even more fascinating. I felt that Alice was a realistic portrayal of what women in the thirteenth century would have been like - ambitious, sensual, in fact very human. I wanted so much for her to get away with it. I hope she did. I loved it and now want to read everything that Molly Aitken has written.
It's evening. I sit beneath the rowan tree. Mother and I found the sapling at the forest's edge. It was a wild thing, bent by the wind, ardent to the sky ...
I look back at the inn, two storeys and an attic, grey walls and shuttered windows .... An icicle falls from a branch and smashes on the frozen ground. I know he will never let me marry.
It was sunrise when I found my mother. Her red hair was uncovered and trampled into the mud, and on her neck were purple marks, like penny coins left as an offering by the hands of the one who killed her ... I curled myself against her, clung on tight. I don't know how long we lay there but it was him who lifted me off her .... My father couldn't meet my eye and I just knew he had killed her.
