by John Booth
She gestured again and three thin sheets of wood dropped to the earth in front of them. I saw these wooden tablets had some kind of writing upon them.
“Keep this knowledge close to your hearts sisters. You are charged never to use it. One day this oak will be struck by lightning from the gods but you will be long dead before that happens. Then daughters of your daughters will have the power to free these sinners, but they must never use that power. This is the boon and curse I lay upon you. You alone of humankind will still be able to work some small part of the powers of the Gods, but you must never use those powers to release the three.”
That was when I woke up.
It was lucky I did, because my alarm hadn’t gone off and I was late for my paper round. It was a struggle to finish it and to get to the bus stop on time. In fact, I didn’t even have a chance to have breakfast, which meant I was going to be very hungry by lunchtime.
When I got to the bus stop, Kylie was talking to Sally and Jane who stood sullenly beside her while the other usual suspects looked at them from a distance. If looks could kill, Kylie would have been burnt alive by the looks Peter and Brian were giving her.
As soon as the girls spotted me, Sally and Jane gave me looks like frightened rabbits and darted back to the safety of their friends. I wasn’t entirely sure I liked their change in behavior. Sure, it was good not to be taunted and teased, but the way they acted made me look like I was some kind of child molester.
Kylie smiled at me and I smiled back. There wasn’t much we could say to each other with the usual suspects watching us like hawks; though jackals might be a more appropriate description as far as the boys were concerned. So we stood silently together and waited for the bus to arrive.
Though I was certain Kylie was going to be annoyed with me, I was determined to go into Sutton on my own at lunchtime. I had to get her a present and a card before her birthday. She wasn’t going to appreciate me leaving her, especially if I acted mysterious about it, or so I thought.
When we got off the bus and I told her that I had to go off on my own at lunchtime.
“Fine,” she said disinterestedly. “I’ve got things to do myself.”
It was almost the end of the last lesson before lunch when I realized that I wouldn’t be able to eat and go present hunting. I was starving by then and my stomach was making loud rumbling noises.
With me, it is always breakfast that’s important. If I eat breakfast, the lunchtime meal isn’t so much of a necessity, but today it was all going to be a bit of an effort because I missed breakfast.
Walking into the center of Sutton from College takes about ten minutes, which meant I had forty minutes to find what I was looking for before I needed to head back. The card was easy and I settled for a Garfield one about how he was always hungry. I thought Kylie would appreciate the sentiment. Her present was much more of a problem. I searched for what seemed like ages before buying her something that cost me nearly all the money I had. If price was the criteria, she would certainly be happy. Looking at my watch, I calculated if I got a take-away from a burger joint I could eat and still get back in time.
I arrived back at college just before lessons were due to start. Kylie grabbed ne and dragged me off into a corner, much to the amusement of the rest of the class.
“I need to find out what Sally and Jane really did wrong with that spell,” she whispered.
“Why? Does it matter? We know they did it wrong and that’s all we need to know.”
“We need to know because, if we are going to go to Mrs. Kelly and ask her advice, we need to know the facts.”
“Getting an honest answer from Jane or Sally is plain impossible,” I complained. “How can we manage it?”
“We can’t, but you can,” Kylie told me.
“Why would they tell me anything? I’m the last person they would be honest with,” I whispered back. The whole idea was absurd.
“Their parents have told them that you are now in ‘loco parentis’ whenever you’re there and they aren’t.” Kylie explained.
“Forget loco, insane parentis would be more accurate. It’s all nonsense. All they’ve told them is that I can smack them if I want to. And, I might add for your benefit, I don’t plan to.”
“It’s what Jane and Sally have been told. ‘Obey Andrew in whatever he tells you, or we’ll punish you severely when you get home.’ That’s the instructions Sally and Jane told me they’d got this morning.”
“How would their parents know if they didn’t obey me?” I asked, exasperated with her, and Jane and Sally’s parents for that matter.
“In your village, everyone knows everything that happens within minutes. They wouldn’t dare risk it.” Kylie was exasperated, but in her case, only with me.
“How does that help me get the truth out of them? Remember, they don’t tell their parents the truth as it is. And their parents already beat them.”
“Psychology, Andrew, you have to scare it out of them.” Kylie had a smile on her face that was frightening.
“There’s nothing I could say that would scare Jane and Sally enough to get them to be honest.”
“Oh yes there is, Andrew, dear boy.”
Kylie put her arm around my shoulder and whispered in my ear, “You can threaten to give them to me.”
Kylie let go of me and sauntered to her table.
“Got your instructions, have you Andrew?” somebody said loudly and most of the class laughed.
Kylie stood up and glared and class fell silent. Wise class.
I don’t know about Sally and Jane, but if I had Kylie to face, I’d certainly give her more information than just my name, rank and serial number. I shrugged, provided Kylie realized I wasn’t actually going to let her hurt the girls, it was a plan.
When we got off the bus that evening, we waited for the usual suspects to come forward from the back of the bus.
“Sally, Jane, come with me,” I commanded. Both girls looked at me in a more than dubious manner and with a little fear. “That’s an order, not a request, young ladies.” To my amazement they got off the bus and joined us meekly.
The other usual suspects milled around us until I told them to go away, at which point they ran.
Jane and Sally stood fidgeting and pulling at their skirts as if to try and make them longer. Kylie gave them a smile that reminded me of the one in that film when the little girl says ‘Be afraid, be very afraid.’
I ordered the girls to follow us and we set off at a fast pace to the blasted oak, or banished oak, or whatever you want to call it. The girls didn’t want to go to there at all and lagged behind when they realized where we were headed.
I leaned against the roots of the oak and waited for Sally and Jane to catch up. When they arrived, I pointed at Kylie.
“You two are going to do exactly what Kylie asks you too. Kylie has my full permission to deal with you anyway she sees fit if you disobey her.” As far as I was concerned, that was my part done. I planned to sit back and hope Kylie didn’t go too far. If she did, I would have to stop her and I knew she’d be angry with me.
Kylie stood with her hands on her hips and glowered at two very frightened girls.
“Well girls, as you know we have read the spell book and know all the things you should’ve done. We also know you lied about what you did wrong. So what we are going to do now is have you perform an enactment of what you did that night, like it was a play. You’re going to tell and show us exactly what you did with Brian and Peter. Do you understand?”
“We only have to do what Andrew tells us, not what you want,” Sally said, though I could tell she wasn’t sure whether that was true.
“Andrew, will you cut some switches?” Kylie said pointing at a tree a few yards away.
“I’d be delighted,” I said, “Stay here, girls, no running away, that’s an order.” I headed towards the tree and used my penknife to cut some particularly long and bendy stems. I made a point of testing how much they whipped to select the
best ones.
“Okay, we’ll do it. Just stop him doing that,” Jane said. Her legs were trembling.
“Oh no, Andrew will carry on with his task, so we don’t have to waste any time the next time you disobey me.” Kylie grinned at the two of them, “Well come on, get on with it. And remember we’ve read the spell book.”
“Brian brought the Jenkins’ cat with him. I’ve always hated that one, since it scratched me when I was a toddler.” Sally said.“Brian… took his clothes off first. Brian had the cat in a sack so it couldn’t scratch him. He… strangled the cat while it struggled in the sack.”
“Then he did us both, he was good at it and only kept Sally waiting a few minutes after he had me” Jane giggled at the memory.
“Then we did what it said we had to in the book, to each other.” Sally continued. I blushed. They had actually done that?
“Peter was really turned on by then and Brian punched him to keep the little creep’s hands off us. If he hadn’t got us the book we’d never have let him come in the first place.”
I was keeping busy pretending to cut more branches. I’d cut quite a few and I was listening to the girls while making sawing motions with my penknife. I just couldn’t believe these girls had done those things. That had been my guess at their failure with the spell. Just shows how much I know.
“Then we lit the candles and cut our fingers, spilled our blood and did the chanting,” Jane said, finishing the story breathlessly, “Can we go now?”
“Who cut whose fingers?” Kylie asked, ignoring her request.
“We did, both of us.” Sally responded.
“Yeah, anyone can cut their finger with a knife, piece of cake,” Jane agreed.
“I see. You didn’t cut your finger, did you, Jane?” asked Kylie, leaning over her in an intimidating manner.
“Course she did,” piped Sally from behind.
“If Sally opens her mouth again, Andrew, give her a good six strokes.”
Kylie never took her eyes off Jane while she was talking.
I took my cue, picked up one of the switches, and moved towards Sally in a menacing manner. Sally backed off, but found her escape route blocked by the oak. I waved the switch in what I hoped was a threatening way.
“You cut your own finger then?” Kylie asked again. Jane hesitated and Sally started to say something, so I grabbed her and turned her around to face the tree. I swished the stick up and down, which made a frightening noise. Sally flinched with every swish though I made sure to miss her.
“You cut your own finger then?” Kylie repeated.
“OK, I didn’t. I tried to but I couldn’t do it. Brian laughed at me and Sally said that after what she’d done to me, I bloody well better. But whenever I put the knife to my finger, it hurt and I stopped. Sally got really mad and made Brian hold me down while she cut my finger. It really hurt.”
“Stupid wimp!” shouted Sally and I thought, ‘what the hell’ and brought the switch down hard on her skirted bottom. I only hit her once though. Why these girls didn’t tell us the truth in the first place, I still don’t understand. I suspect they’ve taken a pact to lie to everybody about everything.
Sally clasped her bottom with both hands and didn’t say another word to either of us that night. We send the girls on their way and I watched them walk down through the wood. Sally released her bottom before they were out of sight, for just long enough to thump Jane. She hit her hard enough to knock her to the ground. Jane scrambled to her feet and a few seconds later they were out of sight.
Kylie smirked at the success of her plan. She put her arm around my shoulder and I sank down a little so she could put her head close to mine.
“I love it when a plan comes together,” she said.
16. Revelations and Returns
It is Kylie’s seventeenth birthday today. I started the day excited, wondering whether she’d like the present I’d bought her. I wrote my name in the birthday card and neatly wrapped her present in gold wrapping paper with one of those silver stick-on bows on top. I hoped she would like it.
Last night, I went down to what Mum and Dad call the library, which is actually our dining room. Its walls are lined with bookshelves stuffed full of books.
My dream had started me thinking about the Women’s Association. In the dream, fifty women were tasked with guarding the imprisoned spirits and they were told their daughters must carry on the tradition. I wanted to know whether there was any connection between the Association and the women in my dream.
Now Mum keeps the Association’s records in the library and so, after my parents went to bed, I sneaked down to have a look. The Association’s books are locked in a glass door bookcase, which has a circular lock holding the two glass doors together so they can’t slide open. Mum always keeps the key with her.
What she doesn’t know is that when I was fourteen I went through a lock picking phase, opening people’s briefcases and cycle locks and I discovered her bookcase lock could be opened with the pointy end of a pair of compasses and a bit of fiddling. Back then, it had just been something to practice on. Now, I wanted to know what I could find inside.
I hadn’t picked a lock for a while. After fumbling with it for a few minutes I managed to slide the lock from its bar. None of the books had titles so I picked out the largest one. The first book turned out to be a set of accounts for tea, biscuits and the like, so I put it back. The second was the jackpot. It was chock full of genealogical charts and each one traced a family line from daughter to daughter. I know that’s how they record bloodlines in horses, but I’d never seen it done with people.
So my dream had been true, however insane that appeared when considered rationally. The Association really was made up of the descendants of women chosen thousands of years ago. My hands were trembling. Was there really a Goddess and did ghosts haunt Sally and Jane? I’d been half-believing it and now here was proof in my hands.
Each chart showed how membership of the Association passed from mother to daughter when the mother either died or retired. If a member died without a daughter, the daughter of her next eldest sister was chosen. This didn’t always result in the member being the eldest daughter because they chose the most suitable of the female children to follow in her footsteps. Reasons were noted down next to every name.
Every few pages, there were lists of Association members for each decade. The book had many blank pages to go, even though the charts in it started over four hundred years ago. I presumed this was the latest in a set of books going back forever. When I looked at the latest list, I noticed something strange. Since 1901 the Association had only forty-nine members. There was a family missing. One of the families must have left the village or become extinct.
It was late in the night and I felt I had to hurry. I hurried back through the pages of the book looking for the missing family. One chart was different from the others. Someone had drawn a red line across the page three quarters of the way down. The last name on the chart was Anna Murdock and there was a note below her name saying, ‘Fled the village after defying and disgracing the Association.’ There were no daughters of that line below Anna. In fact, the chart was an upside down pyramid with Anna’s name at the bottom. Her family must have died out.
I put the book back and relocked the bookcase, wondering what the loss of a member meant for the Association and their relationship with the Goddess. It was certainly something to think about.
The other thing of note I found out was my mother’s line was also an inverted pyramid. If she didn’t give birth to a daughter, which to be honest looked highly unlikely given her age, the association would be down another member when she died.
Next morning, I was late getting to the bus stop, something which was becoming an annoying habit. I saw Sally chatting cheerfully to Kylie. This surprised me after what we’d done to her the day before. Sally stood facing me and saw me while I was still some distance away. She retreated back to the huddle of usual suspects as I got closer.
“Happy Bir…” I called out to Kylie, but she hushed me before I could finish.
“Not here and not now,” she whispered urgently. “When we get to college and no one’s around.”
Kylie nudged me on the arm and pointed to something behind me. I turned and saw Sally looking at me and waiting for me to notice her. When she saw me looking, she smiled and stuck out her tongue. She turned, thrust out her bottom and wriggled it provocatively in my direction. Jane who was watching the exchange gave me a disappointed and angry look.
To cap it all, Brian raised his head from the huddle and glared as though he’d like to kill me.
“What the hell was that about?” I asked Kylie, because I didn’t have a clue.
Kylie laughed. “You’re such an innocent, Andrew. You truly are. Listen to my words of wisdom and I’ll try to explain it all to your feeble male mind. Sally has told everyone about you hitting her. In her mind, she disobeyed you, and you justly punished her like the alpha male she imagines you to be. She thinks of you hitting her as someone else might regard a love bite. She also thinks this means she has a chance to capture your heart and your body with her charms.”
I don’t know if I looked aghast at this news. I certainly felt it.
“Jane is furious because you hit Sally and didn’t hit her. Thereby putting Sally ahead in her race to be the one to take your virginity. Brian hates you because he thinks he’s Sally’s boyfriend, which is a joke all in its own right. And he thinks you’re muscling in on his personal territory. Does that explain it all?”
“But why don’t they you hate you…”
Kylie hushed me and whispered urgently. “Nothing happened between the girls and me. You took them to the woods to ask them some questions and they said nothing of importance. Don’t you remember?”
Okay, I may be thick, but I finally got it. Sally and Jane were not about to tell their friends they had let any information slip to Kylie or me. So they had to be nice to Kylie because they had no apparent reason not to be. It suited Kylie to go along with it and I suppose it gave us an edge. In that the boys didn’t know we know what we actually know.
