'I'm afraid,' Dan said, 'that sounds very much like Karen and John.'
'You know them?'
Dan nodded. 'Karen Morley and John Hassell. It was John's wife who got killed on Bell Beacon – the Sabbat Queen…'
'Oh, God, yes. I remember.'
'John was terribly bitter afterwards and you can't blame him. But he'd have come through, on his own. Karen was the coven Maiden; she took Joy's place as High Priestess and got working on him. Persuaded him to fight back by going black. They wanted us to join them and when we said no, they set off – about twenty of them altogether -for Savernake Forest. We never saw them again but by God we heard about them. They're the Angels of Lucifer.'
'The ones who killed Ben Stoddart? – or at least said they would and then staged that terrible thing at Eileen's old Unit?'
'The same. And Ben Stoddart died.'
'Jesus!… Could they really do that?'
'They could and they did, Geraint. We're certain of it. If I were you I'd tell your friend Joe to stay clear of them… Oh and don't tell him you know their names or who they are. It wouldn't do any good and if word got to them that he knew…'
'I get the message…' Gcraint looked a little embarrassed. 'Look, if I said this at the parent-teacher meeting (we're still holding 'em, did you know that?) I'd be in trouble. But I know damn well that witchcraft works. And if the Angels of Lucifer have power, then so have you lot. Can't you do some thing about them?'
Dan looked at Moira who said: 'Not yet, Geraint. We may have to one day but the time's not ripe. Consolidation's our job right now. Because when we do clash with them…'
'Pistols for two and coffee for one?'
'Something like that, yes.'
When Geraint had gone, Dan said: 'I'd hoped we could put off the lighthouse till we were dug in. But if the Angels are mobilizing already…'
Moira nodded and they called the coven. It still consisted only of themselves, Rosemary, Greg, and Sally. Eileen and Peter had both, separately, asked to be initiated, but Moira, although she welcomed them to most of their Circles, would not bring either of them fully into the coven as long as the tension between them and Eileen's tormented ambivalence were unresolved. And Angie, while benevolently disposed, said she felt 'more at home on the sidelines'.
It was five years since Moira and Dan had last created an 'astral lighthouse’. The house next door to them had been put up for sale and with thoughts of forming their own coven already in their minds, they had very much wanted it to be bought by the right kind of neighbours. They had set up a Circle in their bedroom, and enacted the Great Rite together with dedicated solemnity and in a white heat of love; at the moment of orgasm they had forged the thought-form of a shining light over the empty house, and fervently envisaged its purpose. Within a week, Greg and Rosemary had appeared, liked the house at once, and paid their deposit on it. (Nine months later little Diana had been born; 'And that,' Dan said contentedly when he first held his daughter in his arms, 'must have been some lighthouse.")
Tonight, three days before the full moon, the coven talked together for an hour, and then Moira and Dan, Rosemary and Greg, withdrew to their own tents, while Sally took Diana for a walk by the river in the moonlight as a special late treat. As they watched the water, a fish jumped, and a minute later, a few metres downstream, another. The old woman and the child looked on, fascinated, while first one silver ring and then the other spread, shimmered, and disappeared into the eddies of the current.
'Magic Circles!' Diana whispered.
'Yes, darling. Magic Circles.'
On the day of the full moon, Camp Cerridwen heard a long unfamiliar sound; a motor vehicle coming up the logging road. When it rounded the bend they saw it was a big Dormobile motor caravan with four people in it. Dan was the first to recognize them and called out 'Fred! Jean!' excitedly as he ran towards them. Big and grinning, Fred Thomas braked and jumped out, with Jean behind him; then a shy-looking younger couple, Bruce and Sandie Peters, vaguely remembered as members of the Thomases' coven in Chertsey – the coven which had hived off from the Hassells' and had been invited, but refused, to go with John and Karen to Savernake Forest.
By now the rest of the Camp had come running, and after a babble of welcomes and introductions, Fred told Dan: 'They said in the village we'd find you up here.'
'But driving, for God's sake! Where did you get the petrol?'
'Oh, that,… We've been saving it. We've been holed up near Chipping Norton till the Madness was over, and ever since then we've been trying to pick you up. Tarot, I Ching, map-dowsing, the lot and getting nowhere. Then suddenly, three nights ago, Jean said she knew. Somewhere in these mountains, a forest near a lake. We thought it was Bala at first but she was positive it was somewhere around here. So we reckoned it was worth the last of our petrol and headed this way – then in Llanfyllin we picked up your trail from a family who said you'd saved their lives by telling their cousin in New Dyfnant about the vinegar masks. So here we are – and if there's a litre left in the tank, I'll be surprised… May we stay? Have you room for us? We'll work hard.' He grinned again. 'I know I'm only a bloody-clerk but Bruce here is a builder. And both the girls are gardeners.'
'Room for you?' Moira smiled back. 'Look around – you bet there is. And I've a feeling you're only the first.'
18
‘If Mac sounds off once more about the evils of witchcraft,' Beaver grumbled, poking the fire viciously, 'I'll…'
'Yes, Beaver? What will you do?' Wally's question was crisp and sardonic and when he was crisp and sardonic he was dangerous.
Beaver moderated his voice. 'Just that his preaching's a bloody bore. We're clobbering witches, aren't we? – and doing all right out of it. Can't we just get on with it and manage without Mac's lectures?'
Wally poured himself a whisky. 'Let him talk. You don't have to listen'.'
'Easier said than done. He's got a voice like a dentist's drill.'
'All the same, you'll do it. Mac's our lifeline to Beehive. Where'd we be without that? No petrol dump, no ammo -we'd just be one more brigand group putting the fear of God into the locals. The couple of dozen we can reach in an hour's walk. No future in that because they've got nothing worth looting.'
'They've got some cattle and things.'
Wally laughed. T can just see you settling down to a quiet life milking Buttercup every morning.' He switched off the laugh and went on incisively: 'We are mobile and we have fire-power. They're the things that matter and it's Mac who supplies them. All we have to do is wave a Crusader banner for him. Personally, I don't give a damn if we're clobbering witches or flat-earthcrs or guys with red hair. But it's witches we're paid for – in petrol, ammunition and other things. And that's worth a few boring speeches from Mac. He really believes in it. And he's ready enough to do his bit if a raid turns into a fight. So let him talk, if he wants to.'
Beaver sighed. 'I suppose you're right… Tell you one thing, though. Petrol and ammo are fine but here's the six of us in a nice cosy manor house and it's like a bloody monastery. If Beehive really wants to keep us happy why don't they send us some women?' r
'Poor deprived Beaver.' Wally regarded him thoughtfully. 'You have a point, though – some resident crumpet would be good for morale. It might even be able to cook.'
'There's Little Big Tits, at the mill. I could sort that man of hers with one hand.'
'For Christ's sake, Beaver – I've told you before. Foxes don't rob the farms they live on. So hands off the locals. We want 'em scared of us, sure – but not hell-bent on revenge. No aggro within five kilometres of base and that's an order. Again.'
'It was just a thought.'
'I'll do the thinking around here.'
'Think me up a redhead, then.'
Wally was silent for a minute, then narrowed his eyes into the chilly smile that announced an idea. 'Would you mind if she was a witch?'
'I'm not Mac. She can be a Confucian Methodist Jewess if she's built right. And preferably under
eighteen.'
'Business and pleasure,' Wally mused. 'Two birds with one stone. Yes, why not?'
'There's six of us,' Beaver pointed out. 'That means six birds not just two.'
'Fair enough… Have you ever heard of Woodbury Croft? Well, I have. I keep my ears open, which is more than you do. And I've been saving that one up.'
Molly Andrews had looked at the sky, sniffed the air, tapped the barometer and decided it was not going to rain. 'Right, Jane. If you get Team A on to lifting onions, I'll take Team B for sowing summer cauliflowers – that'll be a quicker job, so when we've finished we'll come over and help your lot. Barbara, Team C on the cows.'
'Where are we storing the onions?' Jane Hooley asked, with her usual slightly anxious frown. The youngest of the three teachers, she was earnest and meticulous; the girls had teased her a good deal when she had first come to Woodbury Croft a year ago and Molly had wondered if she was going to prove suitable. But she had won the girls over by some indefinable alchemy of her own and the teasing had petered out.
'In the end garage, dear. Spread them on that long bench by the window, where the sun can dry them. If there are too many for the bench, we'll make some wire frames to extend it… And, Barbara, see what you think about Snodgrass, will you? I'm not happy about him, and he's the only bull we've got till Peppy grows up. Hell, I wish we had a vet.'
They discussed Snodgrass's symptoms while the girls assembled in the gym for the morning briefing. Molly had been a teacher for twenty-three years, and Principal of Woodbury Croft for the past nine, and she was still both bewildered and exhilarated by finding herself, all of a sudden, more farmer than teacher, in charge of what she called 'this agricultural nunnery'. In the summer term there had been seven staff and ninety-three pupils; now there were only three staff and eighteen pupils. The crisis and the witch-hunt had hit the school badly, for Woodbury Croft was, in its modest way, as well known for its pagan orientation as Saffron Walden and Sidcot were for their Quakerism. Four out of five of the girls had come from witch families and Molly and her deputy Barbara Simms were both open witches. The non-witch girls had been withdrawn by their parents and two of the staff had resigned at the time of the first Order in Council. Molly, though naturally worried, could not blame them. The rest had simply not come back for the autumn term, except for Jane and Barbara and the eighteen girls who were still with them, and with the witch-hunt in full swing, Molly was surprised that any had returned at all. Then, with the earthquake, she had found herself responsible for them all. No word had come from any of the parents or from Jane's brother in Huddersfield or from Barbara's fiance in London. They must all be presumed dead till proved otherwise. Meanwhile they themselves were alive, thanks to a good stock of vinegar for pickling, and Molly's prompt reaction to the Prime Minister's broadcast.
The period of the Madness had been a nightmare. They had no defence but a twenty-year-old revolver that had belonged to Molly's soldier father and exactly six rounds of equally ancient ammunition. Molly had managed to stockpile some food but it had had to be rationed to near-starvation level because they had no idea how long the siege would last. For siege it was. Woodbury Croft was in isolated Midland country but they saw roving madmen almost every day. Molly had had no choice – with eighteen girls aged eleven to seventeen on her hands – but to barricade the school's main building and stay inside it. On three occasions, when all seemed quiet, she had made a quick sortie with two of the senior girls (she picked the best sprinters) to gather what they could carry from the vegetable garden, Molly armed with the revolver and the girls with axes. The third time, they had been taken by surprise by a barefooted madman who had rushed at them out of a shrubbery. The bigger of the two girls had tried to hold him at bay with her axe and then Molly had shot him, astonished that the gun worked.
They had not visited the vegetable garden again until the Government radio confirmed that the Madness was over.
Since then, they had seen no one but two nomad families who had passed by with little to add to what they had guessed already – that there were no neighbours in evidence for several kilometres. Woodbury Croft was on its own.
Molly, her two assistants, and one or two of the older girls had started planning. The vegetable garden was fortunately large, for home-grown vegetables had been part of the school's policy and it could be extended. They had some seeds and looted more from the shop in the tiny abandoned village four kilometres away. (Why it had been abandoned remained a mystery; there were only four corpses – all obviously madmen – and all of the few vehicles which they were used to seeing there were gone.) They had rounded up three cows, two calves, and a bull, and about a dozen hens with a cockerel. Until their own vegetable area's extension began to produce, there was plenty to see them through the winter in the deserted fields and gardens.
Molly had begun to feel more confident; the girls (with the one or two inevitable exceptions) had rallied remarkably well; the work was getting done, and they were even managing to put in a few hours a week of classroom education, for Molly was determined that as far as possible the school should continue to be a school. Farther ahead she could not see.
She hoped they would not remain in all-female isolation for too long; it was not healthy or natural for growing girls, and Molly herself, though unmarried, frankly liked male company. She particularly missed Jock Innes, her own High Priest, and his brother Alec, who had visited the school without fail for all the festivals, and oftener if they could, to hold Circles for the staff witches and for those of the girls whose parents wished it. ('Like a convent's confessor,' he used to joke.) Perhaps Jock and Alec were dead too, now. One night, in a crisis of loneliness, Molly had sat quietly in her bedroom and opened up her astral awareness, trying to pick them up. She had been so swamped by the horror that pervaded the astral plane, at the height of the Madness, that she had withdrawn from it at once, gasping and weeping, and had not tried again.
Doreen and Kathy worked their way along the line of onions, Kathy doing most of the talking as usual. They did not look like sisters; Doreen, almost seventeen, abundant red hair caught in a waist-length ponytail, already full-breasted and wide-hipped, of whom everyone had always said 'she's the quiet one'; Kathy, just fifteen, with her short black mop and boyish figure, who was never still and never silent. Yet they had always been close and although each was in her own way essentially feminine, they seemed aware of a creative polarity of difference which they enjoyed as a man and woman might. They were the only children of witch parents who would have been reluctant to send them to boarding school, if their father's job as a foreign correspondent for The Times had not kept him (and their mother, once the girls were old enough) constantly on the move. Their mother had always arranged to be at home for the school holidays, or to take them with her, if it could be managed, to where their father was. A very gifted witch herself, she had spent much of their time together training the girls in the Craft, and they had taken to it like ducks to water, working very well as a partnership because of that very polarity of difference. It was just as well that they were close, now, because they knew it was almost certain they were orphans.
'I hope we'll be growing some spring onions, too,' Kathy was chattering. 'These big fat ones are nice, specially for cooking, I like 'em with mashed spuds, but fried is best -only fat's hard to come by now, isn't it? But spring onions, come salad time, salad's so boring if it's just lettuce and things…'
'Hey, Kath – shut up – listen…'
Then Kathy heard it too and straightened, incredulous. All along the line the girls were stopping their work, staring towards the drive. It couldn't be… but it was, engines -a big van and four motor-cycles, winding up from the road-Then they were all running, excited, Miss Hooley with them and across the field they could see Big Molly and her lot running too, and Miss Simms and the others from the cowshed.
Doreen, as she ran, felt a flash of unease. Something about the way the van drew up, two men jumping down from it to left and rig
ht, and the motor-bikes halting spread out in a neat are, two on each side of the van – all happening together, like a military operation… Don't be silly, she told herself, these days people do behave like soldiers if they've any sense, keep together, ready for anything, eyes open… She kept running, Kathy beside her and soon everybody was gathered in the drive, staring at the visitors.
'My name's Walter Crane,' the man who was obviously the leader was telling Molly. Doreen didn't like him; his eyes never seemed to blink and he stood with his feet apart like a poised boxer.
'And mine is Marie Andrews,' Molly said. So Big Molly isn't happy about him either, Doreen thought; I've only heard her use her proper name about twice, when she was upstaging people. 'We are what is left of Woodbury Croft School. Where are you from?'
'North of here… Is this all of you?' He made an economical gesture to include the assembled women and girls.
Taking him very literally (another upstaging sign, Doreen knew) Molly did a roll-call with her eyes. 'Yes, all of us… You're very lucky to have petrol, aren't you?'
'It's Government issue. From a special concealed dump.'
'Oh? Then you have some official function?'
'You could call it that, Miss Andrews.' He snapped his fingers. In a moment, all his five followers had guns in their hands. Automatics appeared from inside anoraks and two light machine-guns from motor-cycle pannier bags. Several of the girls screamed but Walter Crane snapped 'Shut up!' with such frightening authority that the screams became mere whimpers. Doreen, who had not screamed, remembered her mother's training: If anything frightening happens, breathe slowly and keep your nerve. Doreen breathed slowly, taking Kathy's hand in her own. She realized that her instinct about the arc of motor-cycles had been right; the raiders had them neatly penned.
'And what is that function, Mr Crane?' Big Molly asked. 'Terrorizing schoolgirls?'
He still did not blink. 'Our function, Miss Andrews, is rooting out witches.'
Omega Page 28
