Slow Poison

by Helen Slavin

  It was only a few minutes before Charlie and Emz emerged from the tunnel together, Charlie carrying the last flagon of Blackberry Ferment and Emz the basket of apples. At the sight of the apples Anna shuddered. Fear tried to take a small step in her direction and she blocked it.

  “What are we going to do?” Charlie asked the question. “We seem to have all the pieces but no instructions.”

  They looked at the items before them so that they didn’t have to look at the fear in each other’s faces.

  “There’s got to be something here to jog our memories.” Charlie was thinking aloud. With a sudden small squawking sound, she lifted the flagon of Blackberry Ferment and unstoppered it. “First things first…” She swigged from the flagon and then offered it to Anna.

  “No. I think we need to be…”

  Charlie pushed the flagon at her.

  “This is how we do it. Like a fairytale. We drink this and we…” her gaze ranged around the collection of objects. Emz came to her rescue.

  “We don’t eat the apples.”

  “Agreed.” Anna nodded, already the edges of her mind were beginning to fold in and out on themselves and create memory shapes, Grandma Hettie in her black raincoat, as always, a step ahead. Charlie gave another squeak.

  “And we make a house with the sticks,” she said and grabbed for the first on the pile. “Oh my God… that’s it… that’s it…” she took the switch and with a step forward she jabbed it into the ground. The second she did this the memory clicked in both Emz and Anna.

  The den. Always nine sticks.

  “Now… I have a bit of business to take care of. You three wait inside ’til I get back.”

  How many afternoons, when Grandma Hettie had had what she termed ‘a bit of business’ to attend to, had she made them a den of switches? They had played or read or snoozed in those dens and, above all, they saw it now, they had been kept safe from whatever ‘bit of business’ Grandma Hettie had dealt with.

  They arranged the nine tree limbs in a circle, each one staked into the ground.

  “There’s something else. Something missing.” Anna walked the circle; a piece of memory nagged at her but would not tug free. Charlie walked around too, Emz strolling afterwards, her hand trailing along the staves. She gave a short laugh and stopped, her left hand reaching into her pocket. Anna and Charlie watched as she began to unspool some thread from a small, slightly scruffy ball. There was, it transpired, exactly the correct length of thread.

  “Spider web,” Emz smiled at them. “Remember?” At once Charlie recalled her Grandmother informing her of the strength of spider web and Anna remembered the fact that the Romans used spider webs in wound dressings. The sisters turned to check out their handiwork.

  “It looks very…” Charlie cast her glance around the circle, was becoming transfixed by the long thin shadows that the switches and branches were casting, each dark line standing sentinel beside.

  “Magical,” Emz decided. “Very magical. Shouldn’t we be standing inside it?”

  Charlie reached for the flagon of Blackberry Ferment and ducked under the thin thread of spider web into the den. Emz and Anna were swift to follow. Charlie unstoppered the flagon, began to trail the ferment around the boundary of the circle. The Witch Ways took in a deep breath. Blackberries. Havoc Wood.

  Anna looked up at the sky as fear scuttled about in her head.

  “Of all the checkpoints we’ve patrolled…” Anna began, “which is your favourite?” she asked her sisters.

  “What?” Charlie asked, stoppering up the last of the Blackberry Ferment and holding the flagon to her chest.

  “Thinthrough,” Emz answered at once. “I like Thinthrough the best.”

  “Hazzard’s Pass,” Anna said. The two sisters looked at Charlie. Her face was looking rather pinched and tired.

  “I’m scared.”

  “Good. It’s fuel. It attracts her and powers us.” Anna was matter of fact. “What’s your favourite checkpoint in Hav…?”

  “Top Hundred,” Charlie blurted. “Always.”

  Anna nodded.

  “That’s yours, Charlie. Over there, Emz.” She pointed out two switches on opposing sides of the circle. “Mine’s thataway.” Anna’s branch was at the top of the circle and, if anyone above had taken a compass and a pencil they could have drawn a strong, true triangle between the three points in the circle. The three sisters took up their positions.

  “What now?” Charlie asked and looked at Anna and Emz. Emz also looked at Anna. Anna’s gaze was making a circuit of the walls, and then drifting down to the standing staves.

  “Invite her in,” Anna said in a stony voice.

  * * *

  At Villiers House Roz Woodhill was not cooking. She had not cooked since the night of the Crimson Ball and Matt was very worried about her. She was not doing anything much. Not talking. Not smiling. Not being very loving. There was something wrong with her ankle.

  “You need to go and see someone about your ankle,” he had fussed, growing anxious.“You need to leave me alone.” Her voice was hoarse and small and not like her voice.

  “Why don’t you ring up? You’ve been hobbling about, you need to get it X-rayed.”

  Roz turned her tin glazed eyes upon him and, for just a second, they flashed black.

  “Leave me alone.”

  Shaking and afraid Matt stepped away from his wife. He did not understand what was going on. He had thoughts, but they were stupid scared thoughts that were influenced by too many horror films.

  In the evenings she slumped in the chair in front of the television. At night she slept like the dead.

  And, most worrying of all, Matt dreamt each night that a woman, a thin, white-faced woman, was standing beside the bed and each night drifts of black smoke would lift from himself and Roz and the thin white-faced woman would inhale this smoke like marijuana.

  He was beginning to be afraid to go to sleep.

  He had poured out his woes to Gary at work over a mug of tea. He was not used to talking about personal stuff at work; usually it was the football or rugby or cricket in summer. Gary was sympathetic.

  “Get her out of herself. Out of the house,” he said when they had been talking for over two hours. “Why not take her to Jakey’s Halloween Party?”

  * * *

  Matt had thought Roz might not want to come but she had been keen.

  “A party? There will be people? How many?” The tinny eyes were greedy looking. Matt thought he might cry.

  Usually they threw their own big Halloween party and indeed last year’s had begun to get a little out of hand; naked people in the garden and black candles setting fire to the blind in the conservatory. Matt was a knot of fear and worry and, as he sat in the living room, Roz was staring at him.

  “Penny for them?” she asked. He did not like the sound of her voice, it was off somehow and the way she looked at him was like a cat looking at a mouse. Gary’s advice was exactly right. They needed to get out of the house.

  “Nothing. Look, let’s go. Yeah? Have a drink and a laugh.” He got up from the sofa, struggled against the idea of running out of the room to escape that gaze. “It’s Halloween.” At mention of the word, Roz fetched her coat.

  They walked down through town.

  “I’m tired,” Roz complained. Matt squeezed her hand. He was not surprised considering how much she was hobbling on that dodgy ankle. He wanted to lift her into his arms and carry her. Take her away from here.

  “We’re nearly there.” They turned up Carter’s Stretch and they could already see Jake’s front garden where a small group of smokers had gathered dressed as rubber werewolves, bedsheet ghosts, slutty witches looking solemn and subdued.

  “This is great,” Matt said, squeezing Roz’s hand again. “This is really great.” He was convincing no one. Roz stopped dead in her tracks, her head turning slowly towards the castle.

  “What is it?” Matt looked out into the night. A small group of trick-or-treating
children were using the pelican road crossing, the sound beeping briefly into the night quiet.

  As he turned back Roz was right in his face, her breath sour and smelling of rotting brown apples.

  “I will take what you have,” she said, her hand reaching for his frightened face. There was a flash of black between them, Matt suffering an odd, painful sensation like a blood vessel bursting in his eye. Roz’s eyes widened, the tin glaze flared and vanished from her eyes and she crumpled. Matt half stumbled, diving to catch her before she hit the floor, his arms folding around her and with a sudden scared cry, Roz’s arms folded tight around him. She was pulling herself into him, her fingers clawing at him.

  “Matt. Matt. Matt,” she whispered as if she’d just fallen into a life raft. “Oh… Oh…” her body shuddering and juddering and, at last, tears, Matt’s fingers wiping them from her face.

  “I’m here. I’m here.” He held her tight, shifted to the floor, lifted her up into his lap and closed himself around her. “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”

  * * *

  Mrs Fyfe was worn thin and dry as a blade of summer grass. Now, with the burst of black from the stupid man and the last skein of black from the occult dabbling Roz woman she had enough, just enough, to get her there. She heard them. She saw them. Three fools waiting in their own trap.

  The effort of spinning herself into the wind seeped at her energy but as she landed on the greensward on the other side of the Castle’s curtain wall, she knew that this game was worth the candle.

  * * *

  Even from within the standing staves from Havoc Wood, the magic force from Mrs Fyfe crackled into the Ways.

  “Look at her ankle,” Charlie whispered. The sisters looked. Mrs Fyfe’s left ankle in its snarled black boot was twisted back on itself, swollen out purple where the bone was broken.

  “At last. The Witch Ways.” This thought amused Mrs Fyfe. “What a miserable legacy Hettie Way has left,” she sneered. There was a short silence during which the three sisters stared, unblinking, at Mrs Fyfe. She was not amused.

  “Come far?” Charlie asked, her voice sounding strong as it echoed around the castle walls. Charlie had not known what she would do, the words had bubbled up unbidden and Charlie was trying not to reveal her own surprise at this phenomenon. Mrs Fyfe was even less amused and pinched her lips together. She gave an ugly jerk forward as if pushed and there were sounds trapped inside her. Anna, Charlie, and Emz could hear them, like a distant voice, many voices in fact, crying to be let out.

  “Going further.” Emz now, taking in a breath, knowing where the words were and how it had to be said, her voice echoing into the stone. There was a soft and deep ringing tone in the air.

  “Trespasser,” Anna declared at which Mrs Fyfe was not amused at all. She rallied herself, swallowing down the voices and with her mouth still pinched shut she took a limping step and began a circuit of the staves. The Witch Ways watched her progress, their hearts beating hard, so hard in fact that Charlie knew she could hear her own beat vibrating in the stave from Top Hundred that she stood beside. As the wooden thrum of it blended with the soft ringing from the stones Charlie suddenly knew what to do.

  She took three steps forward to where the basket lay and picked up an apple. For a second Mrs Fyfe’s face glinted with anticipation but instead of taking a bite Charlie moved to the nearest wooden stave and finding an appropriately sharp branch she impaled the apple upon it. The fruit browned and withered almost at once.

  “You are fools. All three,” Mrs Fyfe smirked, but she had stopped walking. Charlie took another apple and impaled it. Emz and Anna joined the task. The effect on Mrs Fyfe was clear, the tiredness pulling at her, beginning to round out her shoulders. The ankle swelled a little larger, the foot caved in a little more and still Mrs Fyfe managed a low laugh, unpleasant and rumbling.

  “I wonder what weapon you think will wound me?” the laugh rattled at them. Charlie began to struggle to move towards the next stave, and the apple in her hand was sending out a sour scent that was reaching right inside her. Holding her breath did not stop the smell invading her; instead it intensified, she must breathe so that she could breathe this horror out and yet each breath inwards turned up her fear, her doubt. The emotion wafted from her in a stench. She could see Mrs Fyfe inhaling it, breathing it in, as refreshing to her as oxygen. Emz gave a terrified gasp, clutched at the black smoke that was spooling out of her. They were fighting it but Charlie was crying, her hands swiping at her eyes.

  “This isn’t working… why isn’t this working?” Charlie sobbed, watching as Mrs Fyfe’s dodgy ankle realigned itself, as her thin, stretched face took on a little more flesh. “I can’t… fight.” She broke down, the tears pouring from her, all her grief and doubt. She reached out for her stave, her fingers closing around it.

  “Strength. Find. Our. Strength.” Emz choked out the words. She stood now facing her stave, both hands holding it like a staff, her mind filled with the memory of the little knitted hat. Grief like a knife through her. Logan’s arm on hers, “I’m sorry” and the jealousy was sour and vivid green.

  Anna stood by her stave and felt the heavy black velvet of her sorrow fold around her. She was not afraid. She knew what she had to do. She took three strides to the basket and picked up the last apple. Charlie looked at the fruit, at her sister, and nothing could come from her except a thin whine of sorrow. Emz fell to her knees, sobbing into the grass.

  Listen to your instinct, Anna. Red skin. White flesh.

  Anna Way bit into the last poison apple.

  At once she felt it, the raw uncooked venom of it and it tasted sour and sharp. It was not her mouth that puckered and dried, it was her mind. All the darkness rushed in and in that darkness Anna Way might have been lost.

  Might have been.

  Mrs Fyfe felt the rush of energy. The sorrow, the lament. It was like a piece of bloodied beef to her energy, more vital than all of the town together. It seethed and rolled in a heavy iron rich tide.

  Might have been.

  Except, that within this darkness, Anna Way knew where she was going. To a small, much darker corner, cooled by the stone and weed scent of the deep deep well of memory and here, in the darkness, the well water bubbled.

  There would be no bounding or banishing now; Mrs Fyfe was beyond their reach. The Witch Ways offered her a main course, a high dark fear, crunchy and marrow filled. She was powering up, drinking in more than she had drunk in centuries. She felt her blood thicken and darken in her veins.

  All that might have been. All that was. The well water roiled upwards, mental stones shifted with a rumbling grind.

  All that might have been.

  All that was.

  Calum in his armour on that first day. Calum on any other day. Calum laughing. Calum grumpy. Calum shouting. Calum sleeping.

  Calum gone.

  The empty chair. The empty bed. The bare place, here, where Ethan slept.

  Calum is gone. Ethan is gone.

  The darkness curved in on itself and the thunder rumbled onwards, tears falling like a rainstorm, salt and sorrow, lashing, and here in her heart, the weapon of it at last unsheathed.

  Black. Bitter. Grief.

  But, more powerful still, the white burning lightning.

  Love.

  * * *

  Within the standing staves a searing light cast the shadows of the branches outwards catching Mrs Fyfe in their black lines, her body and mind overdosing on the energy of Anna’s emotions, the black heart of her grief pounding at Mrs Fyfe’s corporeal form. Hammering, hammering, hammering until with the flash of lightning Mrs Fyfe exploded like a supernova, black star particles that vaporised into the stones of the castle and were gone.

  40

  A Wheel, A Knife, A Piece of Wood

  The week after Halloween was quiet in Woodcastle. The entire town had begun to recover properly from the Apple Day events and was, consequently, feeling a bit hungover and sorry for itself. Plus, it was now Novem
ber and therefore nearly Christmas and that was dragging along its own tinselly kind of depression.

  Anna was working at the Castle Inn today and so her sisters and her mother had arranged to meet and eat there. They were coming in for the market day. Charlie was on the Drawbridge Breweries pop-up once again and Emz was finishing a day of revision sessions for her upcoming mock exams before dropping into town.

  Vanessa had not been to the market for a number of years. She tended to pop into the big-name supermarket on the edge of Castlebury because it was two minutes’ drive from the DeQuincy Langport Research Centre. Today, the supermarket did not carry what she needed and so she had walked into Woodcastle bringing with her the rather ancient basket that had once belonged to her mother.

  “I’d like a small wheel of the Hartfield Hard please…” Vanessa asked the cheesemonger, a middle-aged woman in dungarees and an old-fashioned linen pinny matched with a pair of wooden clogs.

  “Of course… want to try our new blue?” The woman offered a cheese knife with a small nub of the blue cheese on it and Vanessa tasted. It was brightly tangy and intensely creamy, and Vanessa savoured it, holding the flavours in her mouth as she looked through the stalls to where she could just see the edge of High Market Place and a glimpse of the black and white construction of the Moot Hall. Word had reached her of the Crimson Ball.

  “It’s good isn’t it?” The woman smiled at Vanessa.

  “Yes. Yes, it is.”

  Vanessa took the wheel of cheese which had been wrapped in waxed paper and placed it carefully in the bottom of the basket.

  Yolanda Gill was wearing an all in one blue overall and was sitting at the rear of her stall weaving a scarf on a peg loom. The wool was spun from her own sheep, a small flock of Jacobs visible from Vanessa’s house, grazing as they did in the top field. Vanessa made her selection from the ready woven items, a scarf in lichen greens. It was folded and put into the basket.