Here Be Witches

by Sarah Mussi

  ‘When was the last time you wore them?’ I ask.

  ‘It was quite a long time ago, says Idris. ‘Probably over 50,000 years, when I took a trip up to Scotland with Finn MacCool to get involved in a little giants’ business.’

  I laugh. ‘You look like you’re pleased to see them again,’ I say.

  ‘Ah!’ he says. ‘With the wind in my beard and the stars rushing by – who wouldn’t be?’ Idris sighs and goes as dreamy-eyed as George. Then that old haunting shadow flicks down like a visor. ‘But to get you to Snowdon will only be two steps. Actually not even two steps – one and a halfish. Each boot can cover twenty-one miles, you know. But it’s just as well; then I can get back quickly to my beloved, and spend what little time remains before dawn with her.’

  He pulls on the boots. They are large and dark green with huge laces. Once he has them on, he shuffles a little. Sparks fly and mini-lightning bolts shoot out from the rocks under the soles of his boots. His feet seem to move at blinding speed and a great rush of warm air hits me.

  ‘Now,’ he says, ‘this is going to be a bit tricky. I think you, young man,’ he points at George, ‘had better get on my back. You look like the heftiest of the three.’

  George stands up and looks around, a bit confused: ‘Where the heck are we?’ he asks.

  Idris casts an eye over Davey. ‘You’re pretty scrawny,’ he says. ‘I should be able to hook one arm around you and hoist you up on to my shoulders.’ Sure enough, with one hand he picks Davey up. It’s pretty funny actually. Davey dangles there while Idris weighs him up like a sack of potatoes.

  Idris puts Davey back down again. ‘As for you Ellie,’ Idris says, ‘you will have to be held in my arms.’

  I try to imagine George on his back, Davey on his shoulders and me in his arms. Hmmm, interesting.

  ‘Now,’ Idris says, ‘if I sit down on my bed, can you all please get into position.’

  And with that he sits down.

  George climbs on to his back and hangs there for all the world, like a backpack. Idris chuckles, puts one arm back around Davey and hoists him shoulder high. Davey clings on, already looking giddy.

  Then with both arms free, like King Kong, Idris sweeps me up. He cradles me gently, as if I were as light as a cobweb and just as fragile. Then he stands up.

  Immediately I get a head rush, an overpowering sense of vertigo. The air whizzes past with such speed I am dizzy and hot.

  ‘Hey!’ I yell, really scared.

  ‘What?’ says Idris. ‘I haven’t even moved yet.’

  ‘Oh!’ I say.

  ‘If you’re going to get dizzy when I just stand up, it will be quite disorientating when I move,’ Idris warns. ‘The seven-league strides, may upset you.’

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ I say nervously. (Henry, the things I do for you!)

  ‘Hang on then. Maybe shut your eyes.’

  They’re already shut.

  ‘I want to see what it’s like,’ says George.

  He would.

  Getting back to his normal self, Davey says, ‘I put my faith in God’.

  And then, before we can say any more, there’s a rushing that feels like a tearing, feels like a whirlwind, a hurricane. Blowing. Straight. In. My. Face.

  But as quickly as it comes, it stops. Only now I feel like I’m in two places. My stomach is thirty-odd miles behind. My lungs are thirty-some miles ahead and my nostrils feel stretched between the two places. Which they probably are.

  It’s a bit like going up in a lift but A. Lot. Worse.

  A huge hollow has opened up in my body and my innards, stomach and heart feel like they have dropped out the bottom. Then, with a woosh, everything seems to catch up and I feel totally sick.

  And we are on the side of Snowdon, in the Pass of Arrows and Idris puts us all down with a rather unceremonious thump.

  ‘Won’t you stay?’ I ask.

  I know it’s a big ask. And I know the answer it deserves. But we could do with a giant on our team. I don’t know what forces will come to fight us.

  Well, I know of course that Oswald is not going to be flapping about harmlessly like a kite while we purify Henry’s heart. And what about the Coraniaid? Have they been listening to everything they can? Goodness knows what happened to the copper piping. I can’t even remember the last time we used it. And if they have been listening, what are they going to do? Will they actually show their faces – or do they only eavesdrop and whisper secrets to one another? And if they do appear, will they attack us? Note to self: read the Mabinogion.

  And what about the witches? Surely they will come waving their wands too, trying to stop us from breaking their spell.

  And now I come to think of it, how do I actually break the spell?

  Eek!

  There must be some formula or a counter-curse or something.

  Hold firm, I tell myself. Henry is released. He will come. He will save the day. All is not lost, even though you haven’t got a clue how you are going to sort it.

  Idris shakes his head. ‘Do not ask me to stay,’ he sighs. ‘It is enough that I have spoken to Draco. It is enough that I have carried you here. It is enough that I have sacrificed my own happiness for the sake of Wales. I cannot do more. Let me return and spend some last few moments with my beloved, before I begin my eternity of loneliness. For my heart is there, not here on this ancient battlefield. And in truth, this battle must be won by the pure in heart only. Those tainted by despair will not help you.’

  He is right. I don’t want to ask more of him. I throw out my arms and hug his leg. (It’s a bit like hugging a tree trunk.) ‘Thank you so much,’ I say. ‘Kiss Angharad from me.’

  Idris runs a hand over the top of my head. ‘It is nice to do selfless things,’ he says, ‘but sometimes, think of me alone at night, sitting on my bed on Cadair Idris’s summit.

  ‘I’ll climb up there and sit with you,’ says George. ‘You can tell me about her. I know it’s not the same, but it might be some comfort.’

  ‘You’ll find me there,’ says Idris. ‘But once the magic spell has been broken, you will not be able to see me.’

  ‘Will you be able to see us though?’ asks George.

  ‘Yes, I will see you,’ Idris replies.

  ‘It’s a deal then,’ says George. ‘I’ll come. I’ll talk to you. Will you be able to hear me?’

  ‘Yes,’ says Idris. ‘I will hear you.’

  ‘Cool,’ says George. ‘Then I will come and sit with you, and even though I can’t hear you, you will hear me; it might ease your loneliness a little bit.’

  ‘But you know the saying, don’t you?’ I say to George. ‘If you sleep on the bed of Idris, you will either return a great poet or a total nutjob.’

  ‘Yes,’ says Idris with a twinkle in his eye, ‘and I am the one who decides. So have a care if you say something stupid, I will not let you off lightly.’

  ‘No worries,’ says Geoge. ‘I’m a bit mental anyway – so hopefully no one will notice.’

  In the east, the sky is lighting up a little. Davey shivers. George draws near.

  And the shadows shrink, and the light grows, and in the eastern sky a rosy dawn starts to blossom.

  Idris tightens the laces on his boots and strokes their toecaps. ‘Might pay old Finn MacCool a visit after all this,’ he muses. ‘Challenge him to a race on that old causeway of his. Stir up a bit of bother with those Scottish lads … be like old times … ’

  I smile up at him. I’d rather think of him doing that than sitting alone on his bed.

  ‘Well, I’m away,’ says Idris.

  One whoosh, the swell of warm air and he’s gone.

  And in the red light that spills over the jagged silhouette of Yr Wyddfa, I see them.

  Thousands of them.

  Swarming towards us.

  FORTY-THREE

  There they come, flooding over the hill, down the mountainside, hordes of white wailing creatures. And above me I hear the ghastly flapping of skeletal wings.


  I look into the dawn: rosy clouds above grey green light; a certain bilious shade of yellow, creeping like molten sulphur along the skyline, until the whole summit of Snowdon is silhouetted against the dawn. A light mist lies along the bed of the pass. Long shadows suddenly strike out from the mountain; fingers of darkness, reaching towards us.

  Yep, this is it.

  Dawn is breaking on the first day of spring.

  My heart pounds. A cold sweat trickles down my back. Henry, where are you?

  At our back towers the great standing stone: the Menhir of Mawr, that some call the Oracle. Above it in the pass, hidden somewhere on its high slopes, lies the entrance to the Cave of the Sleeping Knights. If we fail them today, the dark forces will rout them. Their resting place will no longer stay hidden. Their watch will end. They cannot hold out against the forces of the Olde Deepe Magicke, Oswald will seize the Golden Throne. And after that?

  Henry, we need you.

  The air trembles with the howling of wolves. They’ve come in their numbers. God, I feel sick. The whole flank of the Pass of Arrows is filling up with their jostling, thin, wiry bodies. Snouts lift up to sniff the coming dawn … but the wailing! My ears! Wailing that could wake the dead.

  I wish it could wake Widow-maker.

  And at the front of the pack come the witches. I think I can make out twelve of them, hooded faces, black cloaks swirling in the mist. A dark energy hangs over them. They move all together flapping and shuffling like one loathsome creature. I shiver.

  At their head, the thirteenth witch struts: she they call the Supreme One. I gulp: they’ve made up their number again then – a full coven is marching against us.

  Closer they come and still closer.

  Somebody must help us.

  The being they call Na Gig, Goddess, the Supreme One raises her arm and throws off her hood …

  WHAAAT??

  She pulls her mask aside …

  You’ve got to be joking!

  I don’t believe it …

  She steps closer.

  And I recognise her.

  OMG.

  I was not expecting this.

  I ACTUALLY RECOGNISE HER.

  I can’t believe it.

  I really can’t.

  My eyes!

  MY EYES!

  She’s right in front of me and it’s her!

  SHEILA?

  IT’S SHEILA!

  I don’t understand: Sheila’s my friend.

  How can she be the Supreme One?

  Not. Even. Funny.

  ‘Yes, I am Sheela Na Gig,’ she says, right up close in my face.

  I should have gone with my instinct right from the start.

  Note to self: always go with your instinct.

  This is so not funny.

  ‘I AM SHEELA NA GIG, GODDESS AND DEMON, THE GIVER AND TAKER OF LIFE. AND I CLAIM THE HEART OF HENRY PENDRAGON. ALL HEARTS OF ALL MEN BELONG TO ME! I am the womb. I am the mouth that swallows. I am the tomb of all. None can stand against me!’

  And I see.

  At last, I understand.

  When she challenged me over Henry, she meant it. She wanted him for herself. She used every means possible to get him. When all her natural charms failed, she turned to magic: the Olde Deepe Magicke of the mountains, because she knew that he too was a creature of magic. She was totally prepared to have him or die trying – and if she couldn’t have him, nobody else was going to either.

  I just can’t believe it.

  ‘Don’t look at me like that, Ellie,’ she says, her face horrible, yet beautiful somehow. ‘It was your fault. You refused to hand him over. You drove me to seek a solution more powerful than you, more powerful than dragons, more powerful than love. It’s all your fault.’

  All my fault?

  I’m so flabbergasted, I have to blink and gasp to take it all in. But whether she’s a goddess or not, she’s wrong about one thing:

  ‘Nothing is more powerful than love,’ I say.

  ‘You wish, you fool,’ she says.

  ‘But Sheila,’ I say, ‘there are so many boys. You could’ve had any of them. Henry is the only one for me.’

  With one wave of her hand, she brushes my argument aside. ‘Just hand over his heart,’ she says, ‘and we can save a lot of bother and bloodshed.’

  I look at Davey’s pale face (he’s twiddling with his straggly beard). I look at George standing straight, narrow-eyed, axe in hand. There’s no way the three of us can stand against the Hordes of Sheela Na Gig.

  George looks at me, shakes his head. ‘If you love him,’ he says, ‘don’t give his heart to her. I’d never give yours away. I’d die defending it. I am ready to die here, for you, right now.’

  Oh George.

  I clutch the heart to me. ‘No,’ I say. ‘Henry’s heart is not to be given away. When the first ray of sunlight comes over the mountaintop and strikes it, his heart will be purified, and he will have it back. Then you’d better watch out.’

  Sheila throws her head back and laughs. Something evil and creepy in her cackling makes my legs feel like they’re dissolving. Really. A bit like overcooked instant noodles.

  ‘If you do not give me the heart, I will call upon these wolves to rip you apart. I will open my book of spells and I will chant until the Coraniaid come out of the ground beneath you – and beware for they are hideous goblins who will come in their thousands. And they’ll bang you up and mash you senseless – you and both your little girly-boys.’ She waves a dismissive hand at George and Davey. ‘I will destroy everyone you love. Yep, girlfriend, suck that up! You saw what I did to your lambs. Your home will be smashed to the ground, your mother torn limb from limb.’ Sheila raises her head and screams at the dark sky: ‘Everyone who has taken your part will be slaughtered like sheep!’

  George steps forward, holds my arm. ‘Stand firm,’ he says. ‘I’m here beside you.’

  ‘Moron,’ scoffs Sheila.

  ‘Don’t waver,’ says George. ‘Remember, the pure in heart can accomplish anything.’

  ‘The Great White Dragon will strike from above,’ shrieks Sheila. ‘The Coraniaid will strike from below. My witches will strike you from in front, on either side you will be surrounded by the Cŵn Annwn, and Gwyn ap Nudd will strike you from behind. YOU CANNOT HOLD AGAINST THE MIGHT OF SHEELA NA GIG. GET IT?’

  Stones rattle. Her voice echoes off the mountain. I instinctively look up and there he is, Oswald, a great white sinister shape beating the air with bony wings. One of her companions steps forward. ‘You can summon no help against us,’ the witch hisses. ‘For amongst our coven now are the two witches of Betws-y-Coed; shapeshifters, who have robbed unwary travellers – and, more powerful than they, are the Nine Witches of Gloucester who have slain the brave and murdered Angharad Golden-Hand.’

  Dawn is breaking. The light over the horizon is creeping upwards. Soon the sun will reach over the top of the mountain.

  ‘Ellie doesn’t stand alone,’ George says, axe in hand. ‘When you unleash all your evil against us, you should know that there’s one boy standing here whose heart you do not have. You Will. Never. Have.’

  ‘Oh pul-eese. You’re pathetic,’ sneers Sheila. ‘You’re sooo nothing, you waster!’

  ‘OK, Sheil,’ says George, ‘Maybe I am a waster, but can’t you see what you’ve become? Just stop it. Look around you. You’re no goddess. You can’t borrow Na Gig’s power here. Not on Snowdon. I’m George. I live on this mountain. This is Wales, remember? And I’m not afraid of you, let alone in love with you. Ellie is my best girl. I’ll die with my axe in my hand, right here where my family have lived for generations, to defend her right to love who she likes. Get real, Sheil. Think about what you’re doing. And go home.’

  Oh George.

  Sheila’s face grows dark. She splutters, can’t seem to form words.

  Davey puts his hands together, appears to be praying. As if that will do any good.

  ‘And Ellie is your friend,’ continues George. ‘Yet you se
t her up. That was mean and not worthy of you. I can’t imagine you really want to be that kind of person? Horrible, like them?’ George waves his arm at the witches, smiles his most winsome smile to date, speaks in his most rational tone.

  Davey intones another low hymn, mumbles a bit of prayer.

  My heart thumps. I’m so scared. I’m so proud of George. I realise I’m gripping my hands so tightly around the heart that my nails have gone right through the skin of my palms.

  ‘It’s simple – just stop it,’ says George. ‘And let’s all go home. What do you say?’

  I look out over the sea of wolves, at the tall, blackened figure among them. I look up. Even Oswald has paused. He’s flapping his great grizzly wings, waiting for the outcome.

  Everyone’s waiting for Sheila to command. She must be getting such a total buzz off this. It’s what she’s always wanted: to be the centre of everything; to be in absolute control.

  I glance nervously up at the horizon. What chance have we got if she attacks? Seriously? If only Idris could have stayed, chucked a few rocks perhaps, then that might have helped. A little bit, anyway.

  Everything is poised, waiting.

  Sheila sees me looking. ‘Last chance,’ she says, holding out her hand.

  Oh Henry, Where Are You? You are supposed to be here by now!

  The first tip of light reaches the crest of the hillside. Very soon, dawn will break. Just try to survive until it breaks. The standing stone at our back will be lit up by a beam of gold. Just hang on. Get ready to catch that first ray.

  If only I knew exactly where the Cave of the Sleeping Knights was, maybe I could jump inside and ring the bell – wake them all up?

  Surely this is why they sleep, isn’t it? To be woken and to defend Wales in its darkest hour?

  But I don’t know where the entrance to the cave is. Stupid. No one knows where it is. That’s the whole point.

  Sheila is impatient. ‘Time’s up, you minger,’ she says.

  I freeze.

  She turns.

  She waves her hand: ‘AS ABOVE, SO BELOW, SO MOTE IT BE!’ she yells.

  Out of the sky, the White Dragon swoops. In one ghastly breath, he sends a ton of ice racing towards us.