Poppy Darke
&
The Cauldron of Fear
by
Colin Wraight
(aLL RIGHTS RESERVED)
Chapter 1
Present day
Claustrophobic and clingy darkness hung heavy in the night air, a timeless beacon for all that is evil. Like an all-consuming plague, the black nothingness infested every space in the forest. Striking terror into those caught in its embrace, helping both predator and prey alike. The full Moon, often a candle of respite for the unfortunate, was now dimmed and confined by tempestuous storm clouds.
Gargle Skuttlebucket stooped and hobbled with a limp when he walked; even by Goyle standards he was very old. His face was once that of a Cherub, hewn out of a single rock of granite by a French stonemason almost five hundred years before but now weathered and scarred. His joints were not what they once were; they ached and grated when he moved and had recently noticed an almost imperceptible tremor in his hands. Lichen patches swathed his once rotund girth, a staple of the Boneshiner, but now flabby and sagging dangerously around his knees. It wasn’t just his body that was weathered and scarred, but also his Goyle soul.
He was created from an ancient magic to protect the living from the terrors that infest the night and haunt only the darkest of shadows. Somewhere along the blood stained highway that was his life he had become a grudging servant of a witch and committed the most villainous of sins in her name. He was getting too old for all this and cursed the wretched life that he had, he cursed the night, and he cursed that damnable cat.
It looked like rain, and everyone knows that Goyles don’t like rain. Looking over both shoulders to make sure there were no prying eyes he pulled an umbrella from under his tunic, a pink umbrella with little daisy flowers around the rim. He grimaced with embarrassment. “If my old Ma’ could see me now!” he growled. “Here Puss Puss…Where are you? You stupid moggy! Don’t make me spend all night out here!”
Trees swayed and creaked around him; the wind ripped leaves off the forest floor and tossed them teasingly in his face. “Once a great Boneshiner I was... A warrior Goyle!” He muttered angrily as he pulled a handful of leaves from his right ear. “Just look at me now… My old Pap would be ashamed, he would.” He felt a drop of rain splash on to his nose and swore, because as everyone knows rain can cause a moss infestation if left untreated.
Suddenly he heard movement behind him in the undergrowth. “Here pussy! Come on Twiddles, blooming ‘eck it’s starting to rain now, I thought you cats don’t like water.” As he turned he looked up. It wasn’t rain dripping on to his head, but blood. ”Oh not again Twiddles, Put that sheep down… at once… What is wrong with you? Her Ladyship is going to be very cross..! Do you want her to turn you into a frog! ”
A bloody, headless sheep carcass crashed onto the ground splashing its guts and entrails all over the old Goyle. “Thanks for that!” He spat through clenched teeth, and then a long furry tongue lashed out of his mouth clearing the sticky gloop in one almighty lick. “Yummy...” he belched. “Now get in that house or there’s no milk for you tonight!”
He watched as the huge mutant cat slowly slinked off in to the night, with its head down and occasional lingering looks back at Gargle Skuttlebucket it could have been mistaken for a scolded and sulking child. That Moggy was in for a thrashing and her Ladyship would most probably rant and rave all night too. Gargle sighed heavily, he was no lover of mutant familiars, but he had no desire to see the Witch throw a wobbly again.
Then he sat on a bough of a recently fallen tree and waited, taking out the torch she had given him he switched it on and shone its beam at the ground, this was fly fishing for Goyles.
He had to be very patient and wait a little while before the tantalizing scent of his prey wafted across his keen nose, soon he could hear the flapping of their wings nearby. He pointed the irresistible light in their direction; and they swarmed in by the multitude. Moths fluttered ignorantly about his head, seemingly oblivious to the fact that they were being snatched one by one out of the air by a long furry tongue. He liked to have two or three in his mouth at once and crunch on their juicy little bodies, but occasionally one would escape and that tongue would shoot out and recapture it. This was ‘fast food’ for Goyles and soon they were all gone and Gargle, to be honest, was feeling a little bloated.
He belched loudly and yawned. “We can’t stay out here all night Gargle!” he growled. “Better to face the music now, and get it over and done with.” and with that he picked up his umbrella and slid down onto the ground.
The wind hadn’t eased much by the time he arrived back at the house, but even so it was still far too quiet. He tried the front door and surprisingly it opened, she hadn’t locked him out as he thought she might. Taking a deep breath he calmed his frayed nerves and entered on tiptoes, maybe if he was lucky he could get to his attic room without her seeing him.
He reached the stairs and wished his ragged wings worked better than they did, pausing to listen on the third step he frowned. Somewhere in house he could distinctly hear the sound of sobbing, it was coming from upstairs. His huge ears twisted and flapped separately as they triangulated the sound and pinpointed her Ladyship’s boudoir. “Oh no not again!” he said.
His shoulders sagged and he closed his eyes savoring the calm before the storm. Steeling himself at her door he tapped lightly and waited.
The door slowly opened all by itself and Gargle stepped in. “I… I heard you crying Ma’am! Is there something amiss?” he couldn’t see her through the gloom, and was thankful. Even for a five hundred year old witch she was no oil painting “Can I get you anything...? A tissue, perhaps.”
The sobbing instantly became full on hysterical wailing. “Look!” she cried and held out her hand. “What is happening to me?” her fingers unfurled and revealed a long tuft of silver grey hair. “The Cauldron…It fails me!”
“That’s… That’s impossible!” He cried and turning on his torch, shone the beam upon her. He only saw a glimpse as she hissed and hid under the covers. But that split second was more than enough! She was aging alright and those were wrinkles he saw.
“I have… liver spots on my beautiful hands!” she wailed. “Smash the mirrors… Smash all the mirrors, I dare not look upon myself.”
Gargle loved her Ladyship more than he could ever say, and would gladly go to his death for her. But that was only because of her magic coursing through his veins “There-There my Lady…Don’t you fret none! You’ll always be beautiful to me.” He said softly, although it was hard to tell with his gravelly voice.
She erupted in an ear splitting scream, the tumbler of water on her bedside shattered showering Gargle with both glass and water. “Beautiful to you…” she screeched. “Beautiful to you… a Gargoyle who eats earwigs and worms….” The scream echoed around the entire house smashing every mirror in every room and a discarded pop bottle out on the drive.
“Go now to the cauldron Ma’am, this second, before it’s too late.” He cried and shone his torch at the door to guide her, but she didn’t move. “Drink you’re fill… Bathe in the cauldron, if you must.” Even though she treated him like dirt most of the time, the magic would not let him bear to see her so upset.
She contemplated the torch beam for a while and then her eyes darted back to the Goyle. “Have you found the one who escaped yet?”
“No my Lady..! He has but faded away and gone forever.” Gargle lied, capturing the boy was proving impossible especially as he was friends of the Rottenoffles, and besides, what her Ladyship didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.
“I must have that boy… You find him. I fear my magic is failing me and I grow weaker with every passing day…!” she was thinking aloud and Gargle knew when to stay quiet.
He could almost hear the cogs turning within her wicked brain. “Perhaps the cauldron is at last spent and I shall wither and turn to…To dust!” She paused for what seemed like an age, and then. “Only a baby will do for me now Skuttlebucket… You must bring my cauldron a… shiny… new… baby!”
Gargle’s heart, if he had one, sank to his feet. “My Lady, where shall I find such a thing?” He whined.
She raised her head and glared at him through the torch light. “If you loved me, and I mean truly loved me, you’d give me a baby…! Wouldn’t you?”
There was no need for an answer, he had received his orders and now would have to find a baby, and probably not just any baby would do. His muscles, joints and bones seemed to ache more than usual as he turned to leave the room, but he was far too slow anyway. Daybreak had crept in unnoticed through a tiny gap in the curtains and bathed the back of his head in daylight. He felt the burning sensation instantly and in the time it takes to blink turned back to stone mid-stride; he wobbled backwards and forwards several times before settling.
The Witch let out a scream of frustration. “You idiot!” she hissed and threw a bedside lamp, catching him with a glancing blow to the side of his head. He wobbled again and swayed and eventually toppled over, becoming wedged in the door frame. “Buffoon…! How am I supposed to get out now...? I cannot afford to waste my powers on stupidity!”
She sat up in bed and reached out with both arms, her palms faced the Gargoyle. Her eyes rolled back into her head and she began muttering in Gibberish, an age old dialect known only to Witches. Hissing the same unspeakable, unpronounceable words over and over again, she became louder and louder. Each single word was spoken with a mixture of venom and passion, soon her voice was lost in the mêlée. Living sounds seemed to dance off her tongue and reverberate around the bedroom as if seeking direction and reason. Soon there were so many words and sounds that they began colliding and crashing into each other, exploding in showers of sonic fireworks and pure energy, creating living magic. The Witch directed the effervescent light show like an insane orchestral conductor. The Gargoyle began to glow an eerie green color and then he blinked and sagged on to his knees.
“What have you done to me?” he spat painfully through clenched teeth. He could feel the magic coursing through his veins like prickly static; the spasms it caused were unbearable. “Kill me now I beg you... Free me from this hell!”
“Go to your attic whilst you can my little Goyle slave...Seek darkness and sleep, for tonight you WILL bring me a child from the suburbs!” She seemed lost in thought again for a while, and then. “I must have a newborn!”
Chapter 2
“I hate you, why don’t you ever believe me?” Poppy shrieked innocently. With her face flushed crimson and her whole body trembling with anger, it seemed for the entire world that she was indeed blameless. “I didn’t take that money. Honest, I’m telling you the truth this time.” Well trained tears flooded down her grubby little face, but Poppy wasn’t telling the truth. She could tell the most outrageous lies and believe them herself. Of course she’d taken the stupid money; it shouldn’t have been left on the table.
“Where is it?” her mother shouted accusingly and then lowered her voice as she tried to control her anger. “I can’t afford money to go missing like this all the time.”
Poppy rolled her eyes in a futile show of frustration and with hands on hips, stared impudently at a dirty shadow on the wall of a long since removed picture.
“Don’t you dare look like that and stop pouting. I can tell when you’re not telling the truth?” Frustration brought a lump to her throat and tears began to well up, which she dabbed gently with a tissue. “...Because your lips are moving!”
“But..!”
“No buts..! It’s getting late, clean yourself up and go to bed.” She said wearily and yawned.
Mrs. Anne Darke desperately wanted to believe her wayward daughter more than anything in the world, but had long since reached the end of her tether. She had to face facts Poppy was a thief, a vandal and a bully, and with another little one on the way didn’t know how on earth she was going to cope.
“Just you remember what that magistrate said!”
Her parting words chased Poppy up the stairs and caught her like a stinging slap across the face. She grimaced with pain at the thought of all those horrible memories.
She was going on about the whole ‘tagging’ episode again. Even though she was literally caught red handed Poppy tried her hardest to put the blame on some other kid. But no one ever believes a liar and it was her ‘tag’ on that railway carriage after all.
The Police were a lot less inclined to believed her lies after they found the spray cans under her bed and in the end she had to ‘fess up’. Unfortunately that wasn’t all they found and she was charged with shoplifting as well.
She was the first person in her school to get an ‘Antisocial-behavior order’, whatever that was? Then they topped it up with a banning order, and that really upset Poppy. It meant she couldn’t enter any shops in the Greater London area without adult supervision, she couldn’t even wear her favorite ‘Mega death’ Hoody anymore. The headmaster put the icing on the cake when he took it all just a little too personally and permanently excluded her for bullying.
Poppy remembered clearly, it was the scariest day of her life. She had come so close to being put into care or worse. She’d answered all the magistrates’ questions with the sweetest of smiles and sobbed at just the right moment. She bent the truth here and told a white lie there. Her stories had just the right amount of truth in them to sound plausible. She might as well have not bothered because the old man never fell for it; she got her own ASBO and a full spread on page four of the gazette, complete with a less than flattering picture of the convicts’ parents. She got shouted at more for that picture than all the other stuff put together.
Deep down Poppy knew she was a complete embarrassment to her parents and it made her sad, but even when she tried to be good she just couldn’t help but keep getting into trouble all the time. Maybe that was why her dad stayed away and her mother packed up the house and fled to the country.
Everything considered Poppy would have happily taken a prison cell with a bed in one corner, a toilet in the other and a murdering psychopath in the bunk above, to living in the dreaded sticks.
She quietly slinked off to her room and pretended to sulk for a while, she sulked in the hope that her mum would come in and see just how upset and sorry she was. Poppy really was sorry this time. She didn’t even want the money, it was just there doing nothing and the next thing, it was in her pocket. She just couldn’t help herself.
The emotional blackmail usually took about twenty minutes to have good effect and then mum would normally come up with hot chocolate and cream buns. Then there would be the’ big talk’, tears and a hug and everything would be back to normal until the next time Poppy messed things up. But today, for the first time ever, she didn’t come and eventually Poppy fell asleep wondering why she couldn’t keep out of trouble.
It was in that place of slumber, tripping between reality and the nightmares that she became aware of a freezing chill and sleepily pulled the quilt tight up around her neck. A cold shiver scampered up her back, peppering goose bumps as it went, and the hairs on the back of her head prickled and stood on end. She rubbed her eyes open and tried to focus through the gloom. “Mum, is that you?” Maybe she’d calmed down by now and they could be friends again. Her gaze was drawn to the wardrobe; she couldn’t tear her eyes away from it. Something was there beyond the packing cases, standing in the shadows, watching from the darkness. She couldn’t see anything at first but as her eyes focused there was one area where the darkness itself seemed to take form and have depth. There was definitely something there.
It’s a fact, Ghosts don’t need to hide they can stand right there in front of you, completely invisible. Mostly because no one can see them, that is until now. She had seen him, of that he was both certa
in and equally shocked. He stared right back at Poppy, and then faded back into the wall cavity. He had to think; technically speaking he was only seven years old and there was a strange girl not only living in the house next door, but he was pretty sure she’d actually seen him.
Suddenly, Poppy felt very afraid. Butterflies fluttered wildly in her stomach, a lump rose in her throat. She dares not breathe nor move a muscle. “M... Mum?” she spluttered. “Mum!” and then louder still. “Mother.” she bellowed at the top of her voice.
Within seconds the door opened slightly and her Mothers face appeared. “What’s wrong now?” She asked wiping some hair out of her sleepy eyes. “I told you not to open any windows? It’s freezing in here!”
“Over there!” Her voice trembled with fear as she tried to force the words out. “There’s someone… Something..! In here with me.” Then she pointed at the corner beside the wardrobe. “Don’t you see it?”
A small amount of light entering the bedroom from the landing showed it to be empty. “You’ve not seen a mouse, have you?” asked her mum, she just wanted to go back to bed and didn’t like the idea of vermin in the house. “I’ll get someone out to it in the morning.”
“No, there was…” Poppy insisted but was interrupted quite rudely.
“What?” Her Mother surprised even herself, and bravely marched across the room and swung the wardrobe doors open. “Empty!” she declared then clumsily dropped to her hands and knees. Before looking under the bed she shot Poppy a nervous glance, she didn’t want to come face to face with a rat. “Nothing there either. It’s very late! Now go back to sleep please?” she was desperately trying not to sound angry, but it wasn’t really working. Because she was angry, very angry indeed. It’s not easy moving house when you’re heavily pregnant. Especially when the entire reason for moving, namely poppy, wouldn’t raise a finger to help and your husband, the one who wanted a second child, had gone off treasure hunting one day and not come back. “Goodnight.” she said and was almost at the door before quickly returning and giving Poppy a peck on the forehead.
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