A Weaving of Ancient Evil

by SIMS, MAYNARD

  He rapped on Sean’s door but received no reply. He tried the handle and the door opened smoothly. Looking in through the doorway, his stomach lurched as he saw the stripped bed and the lack of anything belonging to Sean. He just hoped that Sean had carried out his earlier intention and left the house. The other alternative didn’t bear thinking about.

  He closed the door, went along to Steve’s room and knocked but again there was no reply. With an increasing sense of panic he rattled the door handle, but the door was locked and wouldn’t open.

  ‘What’s the problem?’ Cat stuck her head out from her room and called along the landing to Tim.

  ‘Sean’s gone... and Steve. Have you seen them?’ He couldn’t keep the panic from his voice. Cat came out onto the landing followed closely by Lisa.

  ‘Steve’s out by the lake,’ Lisa said, ‘but I haven’t seen Sean since the lecture.’

  ‘Nor me,’ said Cat.

  Tim was sweating. ‘I think you’d better both come to my room. There’s something you should know.’

  15

  Steve took the curve in the path and stopped dead. In the centre of the lake, rowing away from the island was Sarah Delacourt. Steve ducked down behind a clump of ferns and watched as the woman steered the small dinghy into the shore, tied the painter to a tree stump and climbed out. Moments later she was walking briskly back towards the house, her heels clicking on the path.

  Steve crouched lower behind the ferns and held his breath as Sarah Delacourt clipped by. When she disappeared round the bend, he came out of hiding and headed for the boat.

  This time he had no problem rowing the small craft and he was across to the island within minutes. He moored at the jetty and climbed out of the boat, looking around to get his bearings. Ahead of him he could see the stand of trees where something had been moving. It seemed as good a place to start as any.

  Tim stood at the table and tapped a few keys on the computer. A page flashed up onto the screen. ‘Read that.’ he said to the girls and stood to one side.

  Lisa and Cat leaned forward and read the words on the screen.

  The history of the Senice family name has its origins dating back hundreds of years, when the family were prominent figures in sixteenth century Spain. The family name then had been Senerca and the head of the family, Don Luis Senerca, had been advisor to the King of Spain.

  The daughter of Don Luis, Isabella took over the family home on the death of Don Luis in 1548. She never married but instead formed an alliance with the head of another prominent household. Enrique Dos Santos was another powerful figure in Spain at that time. Not because of any royal connection, but because it was the widely held belief the Dos Santos was not only a master of the black arts, the occult, but also was in league with Satan himself.

  The alliance forged by Isabella Senerca and Enrique Dos Santos was a powerful one. So powerful in fact, that the King of Spain, worried by the couple’s growing dominance over Spanish society, and the tales of murder and debauchery that followed in the couple’s wake, sent agents to kill them.

  They only partly succeeded. Enrique Dos Santos was killed in his sleep in the apartment the couple shared in Madrid. Had Isabella been there, she too would have been dispatched, but fate had spared her. Not so the agents who had killed her beloved Enrique. Using spells and incantations learned from her lover she sent the forces of darkness to deal with the agents. Reports, describing their deaths in gruesome detail, found their way back to the King.

  Isabella Senice was arrested.

  At her trial she stood accused of witchcraft and necromancy. Witnesses came forward to state how they had heard Isabella casting spells. Staff who had worked for Dos Santos testified that after her lover’s death, Senerca constantly communicated with him, swearing that she would raise him from the dead, and using a spell for the transmigration of souls, bring his spirit back to her. It was also claimed she had used her own body as a host for the returning Dos Santos’s returning spirit, thus increasing her powers a hundredfold!

  At the trial she was termed an ‘elemental witch’, that is a witch who can manifest their powers using the four elements of earth, air, water and fire. The latter element was the most significant. When Isabella Senice was found guilty of witchcraft, death by burning was not an option open to the courts. Instead the judge ordered that her body be dismembered, with each part being buried in a different grave, in a different part of the district.

  Whilst in prison she was discovered to be carrying Dos Santos’s child. A daughter was born but Isabella never set eyes on her, the child being taken away, presumably to be adopted, although records pertaining to the child’s future could not be traced.

  Research has failed to discover any record of the death sentence being carried out, judging from later evidence, it seems unlikely that it was…

  The girls finished reading and turned to Tim.

  ‘Where did you find this?’ Lisa asked.

  ‘You’ve only read a fraction of it. I’ve been logged on for about two hours. There’s a lot more to it. It charts her life on an almost yearly basis. It was written in the mid-nineteen thirties and it’s kept in the City University archives. That’s how I got access to it.’ He tapped the keys again, bringing up the older pages. He scrolled up to the top of the screen. ‘Look,’ he said triumphantly as a photograph appeared. ‘The authors.’

  Lisa and Cat stared at the screen in disbelief.

  ‘But that’s DeMarney and Delacourt!’ Lisa said.

  Cat was studying the photograph closely. ‘It looks old. Look at the fashions, the hairstyles…’

  Tim was nodding. ‘1936 to be exact. The document is an investigation into Isabella Senice. At the end of it they conclude that not only was the woman a witch, but that she was still alive and incredibly dangerous.’

  ‘And they were taken seriously?’ Cat said incredulously.

  ‘Apparently not. They were ridiculed. There’s a small article attached to the piece. It’s just a brief item reporting that DeMarney had been asked to leave the university.’

  ‘So they kicked him out,’ Lisa said.

  ‘So it would seem.’

  ‘Hold on a moment,’ Cat said. ‘I’m still trying to get my head around the fact that this photo was taken over sixty years ago. DeMarney and Delacourt look no different then to how they look now!’

  ‘And if they were so adamant Isabella Senice was evil and dangerous, why now are they on her side?’ Lisa said.

  ‘What did she offer them?’ Cat said.

  ‘My guess is eternal youth,’ Tim said. ‘She was obviously aware they were against her. How better to defeat your enemies than to give them a gift they can’t refuse, and then have them forever beholden to you. Isabella Senice skulks in the shadows. No one sees her, yet she needs a public presence. DeMarney, and I think to a lesser degree Sarah Delacourt, provide that presence, that outward look of respectability.’

  ‘You could be right,’ Lisa said.

  ‘I am right. And there’s more,’ Tim said, and tapped a few keys. Another page appeared on the screen. ‘This is an interview with Edward Mason, Allen’s brother. In it he talks about how badly his writing was affected by Allen’s death. It seems he drowned on a hiking holiday fifteen years ago!’

  Lisa walked to the door.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Cat said.

  ‘To find Steve. He needs to be told about this.’

  There was definitely something wrong with the island. Steve would never have described himself as sensitive, but there was an atmosphere about the island he found unsettling. As he walked it was as if a thousand pairs of eyes were watching him.

  He reached the stand of trees he had seen the day before. They were mainly elms, their thick trunks supporting huge canopies of leaves. He stared up through the branches, looking for some signs of life, but there was nothing. No birds, no squirrels, he hadn’t even heard the buzz of an insect. That was why the atmosphere of the island was so strange. The place was devoid o
f any animal life, but he was still feeling that he was being watched.

  When he reached the clearing and the cottage, the feeling intensified – so powerfully that he became aware of his heart beating quickly in his chest. He took several deep breaths to calm himself before approaching the door to the cottage and pushing it open.

  The cottage was empty. Steve had been over every inch of it. From the decaying furniture and the general mess about the place it looked as though it had been abandoned several years before.

  He felt disappointed that his search of the island had proved so fruitless. He had been convinced there was something or someone watching them from the trees yesterday, but even of DeMarney’s supposed squatters there was no sign.

  He went out through the back door of the cottage to the garden and walked across to the dilapidated shed that stood, almost hidden by great clumps of nettle and bramble. The shed had a window but it was grimy and covered in spiders’ webs. He tried the door, but a large padlock attached to a stout metal hasp secured it. He rattled the door but to no effect.

  It was only when he was walking back to the house that it struck him that the padlock was fairly new, with not a trace of rust. Everything else about the cottage gave the impression that it had long since been abandoned. He walked back to the shed and had another look at the lock.

  Not only was it fairly new, but also it had been in recent use. There were traces of oil around the keyhole. In recent use and well maintained, he thought. It also struck him as odd that such a ramshackle building on an island in the middle of a lake should need such security.

  He rattled the door again, but the lock and hasp kept it firmly shut. He left it and started to search the garden for something he could use to smash the lock. He found it in the shape of a broken concrete fence post that was lying in a small ditch at the edge of the overgrown garden.

  The concrete was heavy and rough in his hands but it made light work of smashing the lock. With one blow the padlock went crashing to the ground, along with the hasp and a piece of wood from the door. Tossing the concrete aside, Steve pulled open the door, and stepped back as a fetid stench of rotting meat hit his nostrils, so strong he had to throw a hand over his mouth to stop himself from gagging.

  He looked into the gloomy interior of the shed. It was empty apart from a green tarpaulin covering the floor. Underneath the tarpaulin were two bulges, the size and shape of two bodies.

  His legs were trembling as he stepped into the shed and gripped the edge of the tarpaulin. With one firm yank he pulled it aside and then almost cried out aloud as he saw the maggot ridden bodies beneath it. He reeled away from the shed and managed three paces before he was sick in the long grass. And it wasn’t even the sight of the rotting corpses that was sticking in his mind. It was the garish and colourful heavy metal stickers covering the denim jacket one of the corpses was wearing, and the realisation he was looking at the aged and rotting bodies of Sean Collins and Susan Cross.

  ‘You were told that the island was out of bounds, were you not, Mr Vincent?’

  He looked around to see Roger DeMarney emerging from the back door of the cottage.

  Steve started to run.

  16

  Steve vaulted over the low picket fence that formed the boundary to the garden without breaking stride. He didn’t attempt to look back to see if DeMarney was following – he just assumed he was. The ground was rough and dry after weeks with no rain. Stones and branches dug into the soles of his trainers, bruising his feet, but he kept running, dodging between trees, sweeping branches aside with his arm.

  Ahead of him was the lake and his eyes searched the bank frantically for the boat, but there was no sign of it, even though he was sure this was the place he had left it.

  He reached the water and stopped, looking behind him, expecting DeMarney to break from the trees at any moment, but the silence had settled over the island again, broken only by the rasping sound of his own breathing. He caught sight of something out of the corner of his eye and turned sharply.

  It was the boat, floating in the middle of the water. He realised that if he wanted to escape the island he would have to swim for it. He was untying the laces of his trainers was DeMarney finally emerged from the trees. Walking slowly, not even breaking a sweat, he knew the boat wouldn’t be waiting for Steve.

  Steve looked back at him. The man’s face was an expressionless mask, showing no hint of emotion, and the way he moved was also strange. He was moving like an automaton, almost pre-programmed. His progress towards Steve was inexorable, relentless, but slow and deliberate.

  Steve wasn’t going to wait for DeMarney to catch him up. He kicked off his trainers, waded into the water to his waist, and then started to swim. When he glanced back DeMarney was standing on the bank, watching him, but making no effort to follow him into the water.

  The raft-like growths of water lilies and great drifts of blanket weed hampered swimming the lake, and although he was only wearing jeans and a tee shirt, he found his clothes were also slowing him down. He had one eye on the boat, which had stopped drifting on the water, and now seemed to be moving with a purpose back towards the island, caught, he assumed, in the mysterious current of the lake.

  When he was about twenty yards away from the bank he felt something tug at his leg. At first he thought something, perhaps a submerged tree stump, had snagged his jeans. But when it happened again, he felt the distinct sensation of fingers curling around his ankle. He lashed out with his foot, as hard as the weed-filled water would allow, and kicked something soft and yielding. With a small cry he redoubled his efforts.

  With a huge surge of relief he saw Lisa, Tim and Cat running down the grassy slope to the lakeside, calling his name. Lisa was gesticulating wildly, urging him to get out of the water.

  I’m doing the best that I can, Lis, he thought, just before his leg was grabbed again and he was pulled under the water.

  He resurfaced, gagging for air, water streaming down his face, thick green weed clinging to his hair.

  ‘Steve!" Lisa screamed his name out. They had reached the water now and Lisa was stretching out her hand to him, but he was still yards away. He opened his mouth to call back to her when he was grabbed again.

  This time both legs were grabbed, and he was taken down with incredible force. The brackish water poured into his open mouth, and he expelled it, clamping his mouth shut. To his horror when he stretched out his hand his fingers sank into the mud at the bottom of the lake. In a panic he lashed out with his legs and flailed with his arms and connected twice with something that felt like a huge jellyfish. One hand and a foot sank into the mass and as he closed his hand he felt the jelly-like substance squash and squirt out between his fingers.

  Frogspawn, he thought. I’m being attacked by frogspawn! The absurdity of it almost made him laugh. And then he realised that his chest was burning, and his lungs were about to burst.

  I’m drowning, he thought, with an amazing calmness, almost a total detachment. He couldn’t even find the strength to struggle any more and he thought about opening his mouth and breathing the water in – just let it carry him away to a peaceful place. Wasn’t a drowning man meant to see his entire life flash before his eyes?

  Well, it was certainly a brief life, but try as he might he couldn’t bring anything significant to mind, apart from his feelings about Lisa, which he had kept hidden for years. As a soft grey cloud closed around his mind as small voice whispered in his ear, ‘Perhaps you should have told her you loved her.’

  Ah well, his mind answered, it’s too late now... far to late... far too...

  Suddenly hands grabbed him under his shoulders and he was being hauled to the surface.

  ‘Steve! Steve!’

  Tim was dragging him through the water to the bank, shouting his name over and over again. Steve opened his eyes, looked up at the other boy, and the water, mud and weed exploded from his mouth as his lungs expelled the air they had been holding on to desperately.

&
nbsp; Tim hauled Steve up onto the bank. Lisa crouched down beside him, tears pouring down her face, her hand stroking the wet hair back from his forehead.

  He looked up at her, tears welling in his eyes. ‘I saw Susan and Sean,’ he said, and coughed up more lake water.

  ‘And?’ Lisa said.

  Steve closed his eyes to shut out the memory, and shook his head.

  ‘I really think we ought to get out of here,’ Cat said. She was staring back at the lake, a look of something close to panic on her face. Tim was doubled over, trying to get his breath back – he wasn’t used to such physical exertions. He turned and followed Cat’s gaze and the blood drained from his face.

  About ten yards away the water of the lake was boiling, bubbling like a saucepan of hot oil. And from the centre of the turbulence something was rising up out of the water.

  It was vaguely human in shape, but it was as if it had drawn from any available sources to give itself form. When Steve had felt he was being attacked by frogspawn, he wasn’t too far off the mark. The creature that was materialising in the lake had drawn on frogspawn, weed, mud and rotting vegetation to give itself substance. The face was almost pure spawn, the jelly giving it expression, the black dots of the eggs coalescing to make it appear solid.

  It was the face of a nightmare.

  Lisa hauled Steve to his feet. ‘What on earth is it?’ she said.

  ‘It’s her,’ Tim said. ‘Isabella Senice in one of her many forms. Remember? The elements. Earth, air, fire and water. She can use them all to manifest herself!’

  Steve looked questioningly first at Tim, then at Lisa.

  Lisa grabbed his hand. ‘I’ll tell you later,’ she said, and started to run, dragging Steve behind her.