Witches of Lychford

by Paul Cornell

  Judith rolled her eyes. “I’m trying to show you the ineffable and you’re planning an extension.”

  “Ibe reddy do libben,” Lizzie said through her hanky.

  “The flower ladies,” said Judith, turning back to the display, “keep these refreshed for a reason, which they probably think these days is just about good taste.” She picked up the enormous vase and hauled it aside.

  Behind the flowers, Lizzie was surprised to see revealed a painting, faded colours on a surviving remnant of the original plasterwork of the church, part of what, for most of the building’s life, would have been a vibrant background of many hues. The painting was a map of the town. It looked ancient.

  Around the central crossroads of buildings were family names of outlying farms, some of which were still familiar. There was the church itself, there was the forest and the river.

  Outside all of that, however, were rough borders in different colours that didn’t correspond to anything Lizzie knew about the shapes of parishes or counties. Inside those areas were painted what looked like demons, strange dancing humanlike figures, even chaotic swirls, like storms. “This map of Lychford,” said Judith, “dates back to when the church was built, in Saxon times, replacing a stone circle, which replaced a longbarrow, the remains of which are under the crypt.” Lizzie knew of no records of such a barrow. “Here”—Judith pointed to the outlying features of the map—“are what borders Lychford—other realms, of the foul and the fair, the horrible and the wonderful, and some stuff beyond understanding.” She said that as if it were a phrase that had been repeated to her. “You won’t find these on a sat nav.”

  Lizzie looked to Autumn. She was staring at the map, her expression half relieved, half horrified. She had a hand on the end of a pew, as if she continually had to reassure herself of reality. Lizzie took that hand in hers.

  “As the town grew around the river crossing,” continued Judith, “and became a point where the farmers could sell their produce, locals who knew the craft realised that by building here they were upsetting a delicate balance that had been sorted out long before people came to Britain. That balance protected a very rare, perhaps unique crossing place, from which all these different worlds could be reached. Perhaps the people back then were skilled enough to work that out themselves, perhaps they were visited and given some sort of ultimatum. At any rate, they planned the town with that balance in mind, worked out exactly where to build, using the shape of what they made to seal off the borders and prevent any accidental blundering about. The church, when the Saxon shire reeve decided one was needed, was designed as a major part of that effort. You could say it’s one of the pins that keeps things fastened.”

  “That’s what I can feel,” said Autumn.

  “Ah, something rubbed off on you in fairyland. As well as the other way round.”

  Autumn stepped forward, and pointed at the place on the map with the dancing figures. “That’s where I went. That’s . . .” She peered closer at one of the figures. “Oh my God. That’s him. That’s Finn.”

  Judith tutted. “And after meeting him, she still didn’t believe! Is it really that hard to pay attention to what’s shagging you?”

  Autumn looked back to her, furious. “I could have used this bloody map a few years back. I could have used your help when I got home.”

  Judith’s expression remained absolutely fixed—something that meant, Lizzie knew from dealing with many ladies of the older generation, that big emotions were moving underneath. “If I’d known,” she said, “I’d have come to see you.” She looked back to Lizzie before she was forced to register any further emotion from Autumn. “Because the church is part of the defences, the vicar and the others who know the secrets have always worked together.”

  “De ubbers?” asked Lizzie.

  “Well . . .” Judith looked suddenly troubled. “Your churchwardens must know what the last vicar’s traditionally meant to have told you, but if they believed it they’d have made sure. So, since old Mrs. Hitchmough moved to Bournemouth I suppose it’s just me. I’m not the most sociable person. I’ve got issues I don’t talk about and others wouldn’t want to hear. Which, when summat terrible’s about to happen, is just my bloody luck.”

  “Dabid Cubbings,” said Lizzie, “he said—”

  Judith grabbed her nose again and just as Lizzie was about to yell from the pain again, she realised that the pain had actually stopped and that her nose had stopped bleeding. She lowered her handkerchief. “He talked about changing the shape of the church.”

  “Makes sense.”

  “You said he was a being of tremendous power and evil, but I’ve looked him up. He’s got a wife and family. He’s on LinkedIn.”

  “Those are the worst sort. He’s had himself incarnated. His wife and family probably aren’t aware of what he is.”

  “Which is?”

  “There are lots of names, none of them pleasant, some of which could lead you astray.” She marched towards the door. “You’ll learn a lot more where we’re going.”

  As Judith led them down to the river walk, then under the bridge, picking her way with more enthusiasm than skill along the narrow path in the freezing dark, Autumn started to feel more and more afraid. Suddenly, without even a torch to help her, Judith veered off into the darkness of the forest. She immediately fell over a branch, but was pushing herself up using her stick before Lizzie or Autumn could reach her. “This path should be safe,” she said. “It’s changed, but only a bit. I still know it.”

  “Is there some rule,” said Lizzie, her breath billowing in the air, “against using a torch?”

  “Of course not. I just . . . thought I could do without.” She allowed Lizzie to find an app that made the screen of her iPhone light up, and, having been shown how to hold it, kept going, keeping Lizzie and Autumn close enough to catch her if she fell.

  “I haven’t been out here much,” said Autumn, “not since . . . you know—”

  “Since you became a Fairy Wife. As they call it.”

  “—but this footpath only goes to Borton.”

  “If you walk it the usual way, it does. Look.” Autumn followed her pointing stick and saw, in the light of the moon that was now rising over the hill, that a crossing with a wooden signpost lay ahead. She felt nauseated to see it.

  “That’s . . . not usually there,” said Lizzie. She went up to the sign and touched it, like it was something out of Narnia. Autumn hated seeing that reaction. That was what she’d felt on the way in, too. One of the direction indicators on the old sign said “Borton,” pointing in front of them. The other, going off at an angle, was blank. Or was it? Autumn felt she could see something there, but it was like when you looked at the stars and saw the fainter objects only out of the sides of your eyes. When you looked directly, they vanished again, and so did this.

  She saw Judith looking appraisingly at her. “I can’t see it,” she said.

  “At least,” Judith said, “you know summat’s there. There are three ways to walk the old paths. One is by sacrifice.” She pulled a pin from her hair, and struck it across her own thumb like striking a match, a worryingly practiced gesture that produced a flick of blood. She squeezed her hand into a fist, then put the bloodied palm flat on the pathway that led off at an angle. “Or there’s an appeal to a higher power,” she nodded to Lizzie. “What you do. Or you can use what’s already there, manipulate it, like judo or summat. I’ve heard that if you live where there are lots of people there are other options too, but that’s all for a hedge witch like me.”

  Autumn couldn’t help herself. This stuff was like a lifeline for her rationality to cling to. She was, she realised, going to have to keep using logic to deal with it, as she always had before, or she’d be lost. “That’s all really interesting. If there are rules, then didn’t you ever want to work out why there are rules, how it all connects—”

  “To science? That was going to set us all free, but here we are, free to buy the latest gadget, free to
be watched on CCTV and Google Whatever It Is.” Judith was suddenly in Autumn’s face, animated by an anger Autumn hadn’t seen in her before. “This stays secret, for the people who don’t have much, who live in the gaps, who have to find some way to get by. If you start blabbing about what I show you today—”

  “No, no,” Autumn held up hands, not wanting to hear whatever threat Judith was about to come out with. She’d already spent so much of her life being scared by magic, she hated that the old woman was scaring her too. “Out of respect to you, okay? I will deal with this my own way, but I won’t go calling up the Sun and trying to get them to believe it. As if.”

  “You say,” said Lizzie, who’d been following, looking fascinated, “that big companies shouldn’t have this, but aren’t Sovo a big company?”

  “Sovo are just doing what they always do, unaware. Dave Cummings is riding them. You still don’t really believe, do you?”

  “It’s . . . a lot to take in.”

  “Never mind, our next stop will sort that out.” She led them round two turns through the trees, and stopped at the edge of a clearing. She struggled to switch off the iPhone light until Lizzie showed her how to do it, then as their eyes adjusted to the dark, she pointed. “There.”

  In the clearing stood a well. It looked simple, ancient. Autumn felt a great weight to it, like she had at the threshold to the church. There was no winch, but on the ground sat a metal bucket with a rope. “This is where,” said Judith, “I lost my innocence. I was shown this by my mates, the older girls who played in the forest and had come to see the ways. Over the years they’ve all gone. Stupid old woman, never passing it along like I should have done. If I’d had a daughter—” She stopped, shook her head. “My mother knew, and she tried to stop me learning. She was scared, poor soul. My friends brought me here one summer night, and I wish it was summer now, but those that have no choice have to make do.”

  She went to pick up the bucket and threw it into the well, letting the rope trail behind it. It turned out there was a lot of rope in that coil. It kept going as Autumn looked incredulously at Lizzie. Finally, there was a distant splash. Judith began to haul it back up again. “This,” she said, “will let you see things like I do. I had an inkling of it, like Autumn does, but this opened my eyes.” She brought the bucket to the lip of the well. “Right then. Clothes off.”

  “What?” said Lizzie.

  “No,” Autumn shook her head.

  “I’m really not up for—”

  “It’s bloody freezing!”

  Judith sighed. “All right, all right. This water is from the river that runs between the worlds. It lets you see the truth. Is that what you want?”

  “Yes,” said Autumn.

  “I want,” said Lizzie, “to understand what’s going on. So, okay, do you want us to drink it, or—?”

  Judith threw the bucket of water over them.

  Autumn shrieked at the shock of the impact. The cold went right through her coat, into her clothing. She was about to yell like Lizzie was doing when all of a sudden . . . it was like a curtain had fallen away from her vision. What had been a bare old stone well was now shining with symbols in golden inlay. The forest, stark and leafless, pulsated with the deep, hidden warmth of every tree. The moon was enormous, full of detail that was so fascinating it felt like it threatened to draw her up into it. The stars beyond it had infinite complexity, each with an individual life. Autumn had taken her fair share of illegal substances, back in the day. This was different to all of them. This was the drug that was everyday vision being cleansed from her body. This was what where Finn had taken her had been like, and with that thought didn’t come fear, but enormous relief. The strange water in her clothes had become not a horrible burden but warming. She could feel it not evaporating, exactly, but sinking into her skin, becoming part of her, vanishing from the cloth as it sought out her flesh.

  “That’s why I said take your clothes off,” said Judith. “For the next twelve months or so you’ll see like I do. Then, if you want to, you can come back for another dose. Assuming any of us are still here.”

  “It’s real, Lizzie,” whispered Autumn.

  Judith laughed at their expressions. “Just like my first time,” she said. “Only without the lesbianism. Probably no time for that now.”

  “No,” agreed Autumn, alarmed.

  “Right,” nodded Lizzie quickly, then seemed to feel compelled to add, “not that there’s anything wrong with that.”

  “You don’t have to, I found out, afterwards,” said Judith. “But they didn’t tell me at the time. It was the sixties.”

  Lizzie looked like she’d suddenly realised something that troubled and excited her at the same time. “If I can see this . . .” She came to a decision. “I’m sorry,” she said, and she turned and ran back down the path.

  “Lizzie!” Autumn shouted after her.

  “It’s all right,” said Judith. “I know where she’s going.”

  5

  They found Lizzie in her church, walking back and forth, desperately looking around. She turned to look at them almost accusingly. “Nothing.” She took them over to the organ stool and opened it, and Autumn was startled to see just how much money she’d been talking about. She’d found that the miraculous detail and sense of hidden wonders had faded a lot when they’d returned to the normal path and especially in the town, but she’d still felt a sense of additional meaning and gravity at certain places, this church included. There was no divine presence here, though, not that she could feel, and the money was just money.

  Judith put a hand on Lizzie’s shoulder. “The higher powers choose when to show themselves.”

  “If you worked with my predecessor—”

  “I don’t know whether or not what you believe in is true, love. All I know is, it’s your job to help protect the people in this town. “

  Autumn watched Lizzie take a deep breath, then nod. “What do you want us to do?”

  Lizzie tried to keep a calm expression on her face as Judith led them into town. She wanted to jump every time she felt the presence of an underground river or saw some extra dimension to someone’s expression as they trudged past. It would take some getting used to. The trouble was, as Judith had realised, it hadn’t dealt with the enormous holes at the centre of her life. Indeed, it had emphasised them. “Can we see . . . dead people?” she asked. Which got a puzzled look from Autumn.

  Judith took a moment to answer. “Sometimes,” she said carefully. “But now I need you to see this.” On random doors down the street, red symbols were shining. The symbols . . . it was like they stank. They had the same feeling about them that made you recoil from something that had been in your fridge too long.

  Judith told them about her encounter with Cummings, and Lizzie felt glad she could at last bring something useful to the table. “It’s like the Passover,” she said, “the story in the Old Testament. The Angel of Death kills the firstborn of everyone who hasn’t obeyed God’s instructions to put a marking in sheep’s blood on their door.”

  “God wanted that?” said Autumn.

  “Yeah. He’s changed a lot. But this is the other way round, right? It’s a threat to the people with markings, if these are the ones who are against Sovo. It’s a reversal, like an upside-down cross.”

  They went up to one of the houses that didn’t seem to have anyone home. Lizzie was acutely aware that here she was, in her clerical collar, in which she didn’t even allow herself to have more than a couple of pints, standing with two well-known local “characters,” staring at people’s doors. She could feel, actually literally now, the curtains twitching. The paint on the door felt warm to their faces. None of them wanted to touch it. “What if we got rid of the marks?” asked Autumn.

  “Oh,” Judith said brightly, “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “Sarcasm,” said Lizzie, “about what is and isn’t possible: not allowed now.”

  “I scrubbed my door,” said Judith, “with every magic
al cleansing agent I could think of. And Cillit Bang! I just ended up burning my Brillo pads.”

  “I guess just painting over it—?” began Lizzie. Judith was silent. “Aha!” said Lizzie.

  “You said sarcasm wasn’t allowed,” said Judith. “You two had better watch out about your own doors when you get home. Now we can see this stuff, we can be burned by it too. Sometimes ignorance is bliss.”

  Lizzie felt a little awkward. “I had to keep a bit above it all, no sign for me.”

  “I, erm, was for the store . . . ,” Autumn said. “It’s not like they were going to sell magic stuff. Although maybe now . . .”

  Lizzie decided there was something she could do. She looked around to make sure nobody was out on the dark street at this moment, then stepped up to the door. “In the name of the father—” She’d raised her hand to make the sign of the cross, but she found that she just couldn’t complete it. What was this? Was some powerful force stopping her? No, just a feeling of . . . absurdity. Weakness. She knew it wouldn’t work.

  “This mark is made of actual paint,” said Judith, gently, “no matter how weird and special that paint might be. If you could get a mark off a door by raising your finger—”

  “That would be an actual miracle,” said Lizzie. “I never was sure what I thought about those.”

  “We need to take a scientific approach,” said Autumn. “No, wait, hear me out. You say it’s actual paint. So let’s try to find out more about it.” She looked around, as if for inspiration, then found it. She pointed at the “Stop the Superstore” sign in the window of the house. “Can we get hold of one of those posters?”

  Jade Lucas felt she was doing okay, and with how things were at the moment, okay was better than okay. Okay meant she was just about up to the limit on her credit cards, but she paid the rent, and she wasn’t in trouble with logbook or payday lenders like a lot of her mates. She’d been junior management at Sovo in Slough when Mr. Cummings had visited one lunchtime to give a pep talk. They’d all expected it to be the usual bollocks, but he’d been funny, and kind of harsh, and everyone agreed after that he’d been straight with them.