by Mark Cassell
She scanned her garden. I guessed she looked for something to put out the fire. If we could contain it fast enough we’d not need the fire brigade. I ran over to where a hose coiled, tangled with grass.
“This attached to anything?” I shouted.
She nodded, hair catching in her mouth. She hooked it out.
“Turn it on!”
She seemed doubtful for a moment. I dragged the hose closer to the flames as she vanished round the corner. Heat prickled my face. The hose jerked, spat, then hissed a stream of water and I directed the nozzle around the edge of the inferno. Smoke belched and I cupped a hand over my mouth and nose. Waving the hose left and right, I doused the flames and gradually worked inwards. Defiant at first, the fire diminished.
Eventually, I stood back but kept the hose aimed at the dirty rainbow of molten colours. Several fence panels showed a few scorch marks. The ivy had burnt away and water dripped from the shrivelled and blackened ends.
“Reckon you can turn it off now,” I said.
Her face, although relieved, seemed to shrink. Her mouth slightly open, she disappeared round the corner again. I heard a couple of squeaks and finally the flow dribbled. She returned just as the last drip splashed my boot.
“I’m Leo,” I said.
“Pippa,” she whispered, “and thank you.”
I coiled the hose in a pathetic attempt at neatness, and dropped it on a rusted garden chair. My cuff had ridden halfway up my forearm and something made me quickly tug it down to hide the mark, the scar – I’ve called it a scar all along but I’ve always known it was more than that.
For something to say, I said, “Guess you’re an artist.”
“I wish I wasn’t.”
“That why you threw all that stuff out?”
“Yep.” Tears welled in her eyes and she glanced away, wiping them.
“Flammable, that stuff.”
She held one hand in the other, squeezing her thumb. “Thank you.”
“You’ve already said that.”
A weak smile pushed into her moist cheeks.
“W—” I began.
Something crashed from inside her house. It sounded like deckchairs collapsing all at once.
“Not again!” Pippa yelled and ran indoors.
I followed, unable to work out whether I’d seen fear or anger in her face.
We entered the kitchen first. The aroma of fresh coffee overwhelmed me. Plates and cutlery were stacked high in a sink filled with filthy water, and a scatter of cornflakes covered the counter. Into the hallway next. The layout was similar to my own and where my back room had become a library, she’d converted hers into a studio. Or at least it seemed her intention; the carpet was half rolled across the room to reveal the floorboards.
Pippa flicked the light switch but nothing happened. Desperation made her try again. And again. On, off. On, off. Click. Click. Click …
“Stop it,” I told her.
The final click echoed and fell into the silence.
Evidently this was where the noise had come from.
A shrinking evening light cast a blue haze into the room. Five canvasses of varying sizes were strewn across the bare floorboards in the jagged clutches of splintered easels. Paint of all colours had soaked into the pile and peppered the floorboards. Bottles and brushes were all over the place. The black was still spreading, flowing between floorboards.
Pippa’s hands twisted together. “I’ve so many deadlines approaching.”
I didn’t know what to say.
“And then all this crap happens.” She squeezed tight her eyelids. “I can’t handle this.”
She had skill, yet the content was questionable. One painting depicted a landscape; hills and fields and a brooding sky. In the foreground an oak tree loomed over the bodies of men, their tunics clawed open around red and ragged wounds. The way some of those men held themselves suggested not all were dead. Blood soaked the grass. From a gnarled branch above dangled a woman dressed in rags, her neck broken and hooked in a noose. Such was the detail you could hear the men groan, the rope creak, and almost see the woman’s body swing.
Another was of a village market square. A crowd gathered around a pyre, its flames licking the night. At its heart, thrashed an elderly woman tied to a wooden post. In the shadows at the rear of the crowd, several men writhed on the uneven paving, their faces a bloody mess. Again, such was Pippa’s skill I heard the crackling flames, the woman’s screams.
The other paintings depicted similar scenes of women dying; drowned, stabbed, beheaded. The latter was particularly gruesome.
I had no doubt as to who or what these women were: witches. After all that happened to me at the beginning of the year, was I again dealing with witches?
“Please don’t judge me.” Pippa’s voice drifted over my shoulder.
I pushed fingers through my hair. It was getting long and I realised I hadn’t had it cut for over a year.
“I know what you’re thinking,” she continued, “but I don’t usually paint this kind of shit.”
“You have no idea what I’m thinking.”
She picked red paint from her cuff.
“Let’s put it this way,” I added, “I have books that delve into the history of witchcraft. I’m talking about a real history you won’t find anywhere in your local library. Or online.”
She crouched and pulled a canvas towards her. It was the one of a woman’s limp body being dragged up a riverbank by whom I suspected to be the Witchfinder General himself – a man who in the 17th century unceremoniously tortured women suspected of witchcraft. He was beneath the shadowy arc of a bridge. The darkness that clutched the stonework churned as though sentient, its coiled tendrils extending towards the cheering men above.
Together, Pippa and I propped the canvasses against the wall and set aside the splintered easels. Her work really was good. There was something about the way she used subtle brush strokes around the figures that gave the impression of motion. There must be a technical term for it but I wasn’t an art critic. She had talent, that much was obvious.
Then I found a sixth canvas, smaller than the others. My hands froze.
“What is it?” Her voice was tiny.
I stared at the painting. Of all of them, this one was unfinished – or at least appeared to be. It was a landscape focused around a wall of looming rock, moss-covered and ancient. In their shadowy embrace, dark clumps of what appeared to be fungus covered the leaf-strewn ground. But on the rock, the symbol – the sigil, as I’d recently learned – was barely noticeable yet it was there like some prehistoric cave painting. Faded red, a symbol of two triangles facing one another, one hollow, the other solid, and separated by a crude X.
“Leo?”
I touched my sleeve – an unconscious habit now. I should’ve known this would never end.
I relaxed my jaw. “These are good.”
“What is it?” She demanded, her voice now even smaller.
“I …”
“You recognise it.” Her chin quivered. “That symbol.”
“Yes.”
“What does it mean?”
“Pippa, I—”
Behind us, the floorboards creaked.
Timber groaned and split and heaved as though something pushed from beneath. Nails pinged around us. Pippa shrieked and ducked, and something stung my cheek. From between splitting planks, a cluster of shadows bubbled. Like liquid it oozed upwards and stretched as though testing the air. Faint strands coiled and whipped, spraying flecks of darkness like black tentacles flicking ink.
“What’s happening?” Pippa shouted.
From my boot, I pulled out the Witchblade.
She stumbled backwards, wide eyed. She stared at the spreading darkness – those sentient shadows I was all-too-familiar with – and then back to the curved blade in my hand. “Leo?”
I stood between her and the shadows, pointing the blade towards the expanding darkness. Already the tip spat white energy. That ozone
smell – something I’d almost forgotten – teased my senses, somehow comforting. This reassurance of its power was short-lived however, as the oppression of the shadows constricted not only the light but peace of mind, sanity, anything positive. It made me want to turn the blade on myself, to push its length through my jacket, to feel my intestines slice open … The warmth, the freedom …
I shook my head. “No!”
Pippa shuddered. By the look on her face she was having equally disturbing thoughts. She glared at me.
The shadows thickened and a thin tendril shot towards us, towards me. It snatched the Witchblade from my hand. I grabbed air as the shadow snaked back into the growing nest of darkness.
“That was not supposed to happen,” I said. There’d been a time when the shadows were afraid of the damn thing.
Pippa had pushed herself against a far wall. “None of this is supposed to happen.”
As though holding their breath, the shadows sucked inward and released the weapon. With a glint of fading daylight, the blade thumped an angled floorboard. It spun, then slid and came to rest on one of the straighter, untouched boards.
I started forward, reaching out.
“Don’t!” Pippa screamed.
The Witchblade twitched and jumped and landed again with a clunk. As though an invisible hand grabbed it, the blade stabbed the timber … then scraped along the grain. Wood curled in its wake, nearing the spilled black paint.
My lungs tightened. All the books I’d read since the chaos at Periwick House, the sentient darkness of the Shadow Fabric, the reanimated dead, the deaths of those I’d known … all I’d learned during and after that time, was useless. These shadows were different. Sentient as before, but this was something else. And when the blade – my Witchblade – dipped into the paint and began to write, I knew this was entirely something else.
H …
“What the—?” I shouted.
H … E …
Pippa pushed herself against me, tugging my jacket.
HELP.
What the hell was going on?
ME.
“Leo?” Pippa whispered.
The blade clanked to the floor, spun once, and was still.
HELP ME.
The heaviness in the room somehow weakened, my brain clearing. Whatever supernatural Being was behind this had apparently spent its energy. The darkness had fully retreated, to bubble like a pool beneath the split floorboards. It seethed, spitting shadows like puffs of smoke.
I stepped forward and pulled Pippa with me – she still had my jacket in her hands.
“Um, sorry.” She let go and straightened, seeming taller. She was still about a foot shorter than me.
Spreading my stance, I grabbed the Witchblade. Nothing happened.
She eyed the weapon.
“Let’s get out of here.” I told her. I didn’t know what else to say, what else to do. This was her home certainly, but what could we do? And who the hell had written that message?
Once again the floorboards creaked and heaved, though not as fierce as before. Rusted nails screeched. The darkness oozed from beneath and streaked across the wood, stretched over the skirting and up the wall. It spread like damp blemishes, only thick and black.
I nudged Pippa towards the doorway. “Go!”
The door slammed just before we reached it.
Pippa actually laughed. “Of course.”
More darkness blossomed. We backed up. The window was our only exit. I glanced around for something heavy enough to smash it. I went to grab an easel, and …
In a surge of shadow and brick and mortar, a portion of wall burst outwards into the garden. Twilight and cold air rushed in. Brick dust swirled. Dry, bitter.
I looked back at the door. The darkness spread across the wall and over the door panel, the knob vanishing in a twist of shadow. Whether this was a supernatural entity or even the Shadow Fabric, it seemed we had only one exit. I left the easel where it was.
“Go!” I shoved her towards the heaped masonry. “Now!”
She staggered and I gripped her shoulder, steadying her. My neck tingled, feeling the encroaching darkness. Rubble shifted beneath our feet and we made it into the garden. The Witchblade was still in my hand yet there was no energy coming from it. Cold and useless.
I had no idea where to go.
Further ahead, separating our gardens, the ragstone wall exploded. Dust and darkness bloomed, the grass heaved. Deep-rooted shadows churned in the crumbled remains. I’d seen this before, back when I’d witnessed the Shadow Fabric burst from the ground. Yet this was different, everything that was happening was different.
At some point I’d grabbed Pippa’s hand. She was cold. For a moment I thought of heading for my house but that was absurd; there’d be no safety so close.
From the edges of uprooted ground, like some kind of black fungus, dark streaks broke across the grass, curling and bursting and mixing with the earth. Sweaty, glistening heads bulged and split, oozing black goo and bleeding into the shadows.
This was most definitely different than anything else I’d experienced.
Pippa’s hand wrenched from my grip and I staggered.
She was no longer there.
I scanned the collected shadows, natural or otherwise. More of that fungus smothered the grass and weeds, choking foliage.
Her cry echoed from somewhere ahead. I stepped sideways, forward and back. Where the hell—
Beyond the crumbled wall, along the row of trees that marked the surrounding fields, a cluster of shadow thickened. Beneath over-hanging branches, Pippa’s face, pale and wide eyed, stared back at me.
Her muffled cry of “Leo!” echoed as though even further away.
I leapt over the sprouting fungus. How had she travelled so far? I sprinted. Almost there, and … her body stretched with the darkness, her form rotating, churning like curdled milk. She vanished. Only to appear again further away, past the trees and in the fields. More fungus spread, and again she cried out.
I charged towards her, my arms pumping close to my body, my feet slamming hard on the uneven ground. The Witchblade spat weak pulses of energy, somehow depleted. Having been touched by the shadows, perhaps its power had been drained. I had no time to think on it.
Again in a blur of black and white her image phased into an almost ghost-like streak. Then vanished. Still I ran. How many more times will she vanish and reappear? Finally to be lost altogether? Tall grass whipped my legs. Up ahead, the sweaty heads of fungus glistened in the fading light as if to guide my way.
Pippa’s silhouette ricocheted from tree to tree, merging with the shadows. Shimmering images of her leapt from shadow to shadow, across fields, appearing and disappearing. Again and again … Her screams were muted; a constant echo.
Still, I ran.
Up a gradual rise, her image flashed yet again. It clung to the natural shadows between trees. Faint at first, then her terrified face sharpened, bright in contrast to the seething darkness that trapped her.
“Help me!”
Her words reminded me of the message written in her studio. Was that Pippa who now screamed it or was it whoever had used the Witchblade to write in the paint?
She vanished.
My breath short, I made it to the tree line. More fungus ate into the foliage to mark the way. I kept the trees to my left and charged past. Into another field. Up ahead, a jagged outline cut the deep blue of twilight sky. Once a barn or some kind of outhouse, crumbled walls hid in a sea of nettles and tangled brambles. A corrugated roof, rusted and buckled, lay beneath heaped bricks and rotten timber. The fungus, the thickened shadows, ended.
There was Pippa. But—
No, it couldn’t be her.
Wisps of shadow drifted over the brickwork, blending with a dozen images of her sitting on the ruined walls.
Closer, and I saw it wasn’t Pippa but several different women dressed in rags or long skirts, filthy and sodden. A storm of shadow obscured their heads, hiding their
faces. One had a noose around her neck while another sat cradling her arm. Another held a bundle of rags close to her bosom, perhaps a child. One of the women, whose hair dripped a liquid darkness, kicked at a black mess at her feet.
My pace slowed. I had no doubt these women were witches. Whether practitioners of black or white witchcraft, they were here. Ghosts of witches, and Pippa had painted their deaths.
I jogged to a halt.
As if to acknowledge me, their limbs jerked. Excited almost. Their heads swayed with the darkness that hid their faces. Wisps of shadow skittered around them, teasing. In turn, the darkness fell from their heads. Faceless. Framed by unkempt hair, their smooth and mottled flesh stretched blank where faces should be. Stretched like a canvas. Dark veins bulged ready to burst from the skin. One had her hair tied back in a red scarf, though most left it straggly and knotted. Others kept it long. But their faces. Holy shit, their faces. Or lack of.
I tightened my grip on the Witchblade and approached.
Fungus crawled up the brickwork, teasing the mortar. The black vines brushed one of the women’s dangling bare feet.
As I neared the ruin, I saw Pippa. Finally.
Across an expanse of swaying nettles, Pippa slumped against crumbled brickwork. Of all the women here, she was the only one whose image was sharp, clear. She hunched in shadows that appeared to boil from the ground, her arms outstretched and bound by loops of darkness. It was like she was crucified.
I rushed forward and tripped. My knees thumped the ground.
Around me, a deepening darkness twisted and uprooted clumps of earth. Vines as thick as my forearm snaked upwards, daring me to approach further. The trunks split and black spores puffed, clouding the air.
I held my breath and scrambled up. There was no way I wanted to inhale that crap. I backed off. Shadows thickened, blackening the grass and spreading further to the left and right. More vines twisted with the earth, their lengths splitting open with tiny mouths dribbling fungus and spores. Barbs pushed from beneath grey flesh, curved and wicked.
A wall of shadow swept up, blocking my advance.
I thrust with the Witchblade. The blade sliced through the darkness and when I yanked it out, the jagged tear sucked closed again. There was no Witchblade fire, no power or strength to be gained when brandishing it; I may as well have been holding a dinner knife.
