by Rachel Green
The scent hit her first. It was a cloying mixture of cedar wood, balsam and myrrh, emanating from a series of incense sticks smouldering before a life-sized statue of Pan. Valerie blinked her eyes against the smoke, brushing past standing displays of necklaces to reach the window.
She ignored the sign which requested, please ask a member of staff if you would like something from the window display and reached down for the rosary. The moment her fingers touched it, a woman appeared at her side.
“See something you like?” she asked.
Valerie tensed. The woman didn’t seem threatening, but nor did a stocking until it was around your neck and getting tighter.
“This rosary,” she said. “Where did it come from? It seems an odd thing to find in a heathen shop like this.”
The woman stooped and retrieved it, her fingers running through the beads. “I don’t remember,” she said. “I’ve had it for years. A lot of non-Christians hold the figure of Christ the Martyr dear. It’s the modern equivalent of Odin, hung from Yggdrasil, the World Tree. The crucified martyr is a popular motif amongst many cultures.” She handed the rosary to Valerie, who upon closer inspection could see that although similar, it was not the one she had lost.
“There is only one true God,” said Valerie. “The rest are the works of Satan, designed to lead people away from the Light.”
“Such dogma.” The woman laughed and held out her hand. “I’m Meinwen Jones. Would you like to take tea? I was just brewing some.”
Her openness was disconcerting. Valerie glanced toward the back of the shop where a beaded curtain separated the shop from a private retreat. Releasing the tension, she smiled and nodded. “All right then, as long as there are no sacrifices going on.”
Meinwen laughed and held her hand out to the side, indicating that Valerie should go first. She pushed through racks of velvet and tie-dyed clothing into an area where bookshelves formed a corridor. On one side were books about aspects of paganism, treatises on gods and pantheons and the bread-and-butter books of love spells and candle magic. On the other were arranged dozens of boxes of tarot cards.
Valerie had got used to the scent now, but in this area of the shop, music seeped from a portable CD player; a lilting melody of harp and violin which she did her best to ignore.
“Through the curtain,” Meinwen prompted, as if Valerie couldn’t detect the scent of tea. She glanced back as if the shopkeeper might club her with an ‘ethnic fertility symbol,’ but Meinwen showed no sign of being anything other than a charming host. She still carried the rosaries, slipping the beads between her fingers as she walked.
Valerie stepped through. The shelves continued in the private area of the shop, but this time held not books or playing cards, but row upon row of identical jars. The contents varied, however. Valerie read the contents of the first few. Straw, beech nuts and snail eggs gave way to dried bats, crow’s tongues and angel feathers.
“What are these?” she asked, her gaze lingering on the strange jars.
“Spell components,” said Meinwen. “I get all sorts in here asking for this and that. The rarer the item the more expensive it is, naturally. Most of them I collect myself but some I buy in.”
“Are they real?” Valerie picked up a jar labelled Demon’s Teeth and shook it. It rattled.
“As real as you believe them to be,” said Meinwen, taking the jar from her and replacing it on the shelf.
“I see.” Valerie laughed and walked on. The shop seemed to be a lot bigger than it looked.
“It used to be a mansion, back in the days,” said Meinwen. “I rent half of the ground floor and share the kitchen and toilet with the Chandlers next door. The rent is cheap and the landlord doesn’t care what I sell.”
Valerie reached the kitchen through an open door and turned. “Then he’s not a Christian,” she said. “No Christian would allow you to sell anything called Demon’s teeth.”
“You’d be surprised what Christian folk sell,” said Meinwen, squeezing past to re-boil the kettle. “I’ve seen clothes shops that are designed to provoke adultery.”
“That’s different,” said Valerie. “There will always be clothes that encourage the procreation of the species.”
“And there will always be people needing to see what lies beyond the veil. Earl Grey, Darjeeling or Rose hip?”
“What?” Valerie looked up into the raised eyebrows of her host. “Oh. Darjeeling please.”
“I haven’t got any milk, I’m afraid.” Meinwen dropped tea bags into cups.
“I don’t take it,” said Valerie. “Nor sugar. Where I come from we were encouraged to drink tea as God intended it.”
“Spiced, to cover the taint of diphtheria?” Meinwen poured the boiling water into the cups and let the tea steep for a minute before drawing the bags out and laying them on a ceramic dish. “Do take a seat.”
Valerie sat at the pine table, choosing the chair without the cushion, correctly surmising that Meinwen used that one. There was a book on the desk, laid face down with a bookmark showing that Meinwen was a third of the way through it. With a glance at her host’s back, Valerie lifted it up, expecting to see some heathen prose but was surprised to find D. H. Lawrence’s Love Among the Ruins.
“Not what you’d expect me to read, eh?” Meinwen put the two cups on the table. She drew out the other chair and sat down. “Not that you’d approve of that one, either, but the look on your face is priceless.”
“Sorry.” Valerie took the tea. “I was judging you.”
“Everybody does.” Meinwen cupped the hot tea with her hands. “Why were you stealing the rosary?”
Valerie stared into steel-bright eyes. “I thought I was reclaiming mine,” she said. “It was similar to this one but with different beads.”
“This is jade,” said Meinwen. “Circa Eighteenth century. What was yours?”
“Jade as well,” said Valerie. “Probably a pair to yours but for the stones.”
“Why? What was different about the stones?” Meinwen picked up the rosary and looked at the beads. “Aren’t they all standard?”
“I’d marked mine,” said Valerie. “Each one had an individual’s prayer for a redeemed soul.”
“Fascinating.” Meinwen handed her the beads. “You can have this one as a replacement,” she said. “No charge. I was given it years ago and never had a use for it. It’s never sold in the shop. I often wondered why. Now I realize that it’s been waiting for you.”
“I can’t accept gifts,” said Valerie. “Not from you.”
“Why?” asked Meinwen. “Because I’m a witch?”
“No, because I don’t know you.” Valerie took her tea and sipped it.
“Then you should,” said Meinwen. “We have a lot more in common than you might think.”
Chapter Four
Pennie couldn’t stop grinning as she drove home with all the windows open. She didn’t care about the smell or the fact that her cloth seats were now covered in pig manure. Chase had invited her for lunch.
She felt like singing she was so happy and switched the radio on. She sang off-key to everything she recognized on Chiltern Radio, thumping the steering wheel in time to the beat and forcing the other drivers at traffic lights to wind their windows up.
Her flat on Sycamore Row had a parking space in front of it for her car, but despite the sign declaring it to be private, for which she paid an extra eighty pounds a month on her rent, it was already occupied. Her good mood evaporated as quickly as her smile and she parked right behind it, beeping her horn.
It was several minutes before the commotion summoned a man from the hair stylists on the other side of the road. Pennie stuck her head out of the window. “Do you know whose car this is?” she asked. “It’s in my space.”
“He’s in the betting shop.” The man pointed t
o Lazy Joe’s Turf Accountant, two doors down. “He always parks there.”
“Not today he doesn’t.” She climbed out and slammed the door before marching to the betting shop. The two sets of doors opened into a room crowded with men. Had smoking still been allowed she would have choked from the fumes. They all went silent as she came in, leaving only the three televisions above the glass partitioned tills to provide background noise. Several of them grinned at her and bent to whisper to their friends. She caught a few of them mouthing: “She’s covered in shit.”
“Whose is the grey Ford in my parking space?” she said. “I need it.”
“Ah. Sorry.” A heavy-set young man stood. He was in his twenties and his easy smile was disarming. “I’ll come and move it for you.”
“Thanks.” Pennie took another look around the room before she backed out of the door. The gamblers returned to their betting slips and newspapers. The drama over, they were keen to return to the business of the day.
The young man followed, increasing his pace to catch up with her. “I’m sorry love,” he said. “That space is always empty.”
“I pay rent for it you know.” Pennie shot him a glance. He was not unattractive. His close-cropped hair flowed easily into a trimmed beard and his dark eyes sparkled from nut-brown skin. He was no Chase, but had she not already been in love with her boss she would have asked him for a date. “How often do you use it?”
The man chuckled. “Most days,” he said. “I drop in on my lunch break.” They arrived at the cars and he pulled open the door to his Cortina. “The lock was busted when I got it,” he said. “You want to back up so I can pull out?”
“Sure.” Pennie climbed into her car and fastened her seat belt. She could see the man as he pulled a screwdriver from the glove box, jammed it into the ignition and started his car. A single brake light showed as he waited for her to back out of his way.
Pennie shook her head. He might be handsome but his car was a death trap. It was lucky she was only technically single. Besides, he was a gambler and would be a bad influence on the three children, two girls, one boy they might have. She started the car and looked behind her, dropping it into reverse so that she could give him enough space to back out.
His tires squealed as he came backwards out of the space at a speed Pennie would be almost afraid to do forwards. He came to a halt alongside her car and gestured with an open palm that she should reclaim her parking space.
She pulled into it, turned off the engine and got out. The man pulled up next to her and wound down his window. “It’s Winston,” he said.
“What is?” She locked the car, dropping the keys into her handbag as she turned to face his open driver’s window.
“Me. I’m Winston Campbell.” He smiled and held out his hand
“Oh. Pennie Black,” she said, shaking it.
“Like the stamp?” Winston smiled then frowned at the stains left on his palm. He took a cautious sniff and winced. “What are you covered in?”
Pennie laughed nervously. “Pig manure, actually. I had a bit of an accident. That’s why I’ve got the afternoon off.”
“That’s some accident. Do you work on a farm?”
“No. The Restless Paws animal shelter. Nothing fancy, just an assistant.”
“And that pays for a flat here?” Winston whistled. “I should get out of the steel trade.”
“No. I bought the flat when I got divorced. He kept the house, the car, the furniture and the dog and I got the flat.”
“You were taken for a ride, girl.”
“I suppose. It was my fault the marriage broke up. I was having an affair.”
“And you live here? What happened to Mister Dreamy number two?”
“He dumped me when I became single. He couldn’t afford for me to get too attached to him. It turns out he had a wife.”
“Too bad.” Winston gunned the engine. “Give me a call if you fancy a good time one of the nights.”
“Thanks.” Pennie ran a hand through her hair which didn’t improve the style so much as move the muck about. She was oddly pleased with the offer. “I don’t have your number though.”
Winston leaned out of his window and scrawled some numbers into the dirt in the back of her car. “You do now,” he said. “Just say the word and your love machine will be here.”
“Thanks.” Pennie tapped the number into her phone diary. “I’ll bear it in mind.”
She watched him turn into the traffic and roar away in a cloud of black smoke before she climbed the short flight of steps to her flat.
She took her socks off at the door. Even the one that had retained the security of a Wellington had become filthy. She carried them to the small kitchen and dropped them straight into the bin. Depositing her handbag next to the sink where it could be easily washed, she stripped on the spot and threw her dirty clothing straight into the washing machine. She elected not to switch it on until she’d had a shower. There was nothing worse than the dance she had to perform between the hot and cold jets when the washer was running.
Pennie padded into the bathroom and switched on the water, pulling the curtain across while she undressed. For the first time she saw herself in the bathroom mirror. Her face had a long streak of mud down one side, her eye blinking like a panda’s in the midst of it. Her hair was plastered to her skull on the same side and she recalled being pulled over by Kermit’s determined pull on the green Wellington. Her body, which had been kept relatively safe by her clothing, was clean but for a streak across her belly where her tee shirt had pulled out of the waistband of her jeans.
Her navel was full of pig manure.
Her first task was to wash—no, scrub―her hands, after which she closed her eyes to it all and brushed her teeth. At least that took the taste away from her mouth and left her teeth feeling minty fresh. How could―what was his name? Winston, remotely fancy her when she looked like this? Perhaps he had more disgusting habits than gambling and couldn’t find anyone else upon whom to ply his charms.
She draped a fresh towel over the sink, put another on the floor and then stepped gratefully under the shower. She relaxed under the water, feeling quite decadent to be showering at two in the afternoon. After several minutes of letting the water run down her body and ignoring the color as it hit the white porcelain of the bath she turned the heat up a notch and began to shampoo her hair.
It took her three lots of shampoo before the water ran clear and she felt safe to condition it, leaving the solution in her hair while she soaped and scrubbed every inch of her body, rinsing it clean only when she was satisfied that every trace of pig was eradicated.
Pennie turned the shower off, picked up the towel and buried her face in the soft fibres, wiping away the moisture then moving to dry her arms and chest, her legs and her feet. Only then did she run the towel across her back, wrap up her hair in the damp fabric and step out of the shower.
It was a relief to be clean again. She wiped the steam from the mirror and looked at herself. “Almost human,” she said with a smile.
Pulling on a soft dressing gown she opened the bathroom window to clear away the steam. Now she could dare to touch things, she headed for the living room and switched on the radio, humming to herself as she raided the fridge for something to eat as a late lunch.
One cheese and banana on toast later she felt like her old self. Flopping down on the old sofa, the one piece of furniture she’d managed to rescue from the former marital home, she reached over to switch the radio off and the television on.
Pennie towelled her hair dry to the backstabbing antics of an afternoon game show and a serialised drama, about residents in a tower block where the caretaker had the lavishly appointed penthouse flat and everyone else struggled with the heating, the water and the electricity. The dreadful acting and B-list celebrities had her channel surfing w
ithin ten minutes, and she settled on an old film.
Her mind drifting, she brushed her hair as Cary Grant argued with his leading lady, vowing that he never wanted to see her again in his life. It was all an act, of course, and Pennie settled lengthways across the sofa in the certain knowledge they would marry at the end of the feature. She finished towelling and ran her fingers through her hair to remove the worst of the tangles. Her eyes closed and she imagined herself and Chase as the leading roles. Her desperately in love but him denying, wrongly of course, that they could be together forever.
She frowned in her dream. Chase’s face kept changing into that of Winston, but Winston was unable to drive the Jeep until he’d rammed a screwdriver into the ignition. He took her to a restaurant where they ate nothing but sausages shaped like Wellingtons.
She awoke with a start. She loved Chase, not Winston. Chase.
It was already dark outside and the television was now showing cartoons. She crossed to the window to draw the curtains, looking out across the road to the row of shops in the process of closing for the night, all but the “Eight ‘til Late” grocery store and the adult book shop.
Pennie padded to the kitchen and dropped the towel in front of the washing machine. A coffee would wake her up then she could look forward to an evening with Hugh Grant on one of the films she’d bought from the supermarket. There was wine in the fridge, a bag of chocolates in the cupboard and instant noodles for tea. It all made for a perfect night in alone, unless you were a woman that did it every night.
She picked up the phone. It wouldn’t hurt to go for a drink with that nice young man. Not as a date or anything, but for some company.
She dialed.
Chapter Five
The view from the top of the church tower was one of the joys of Reverend Mackenzie’s day. The climb up the two-hundred-and-thirty-seven steps from apse to belfry to the tower was worth the trouble whatever the weather. In summer the town and fields hazed and softened under the heat of the sun. In winter, when the Reverend bundled himself in his coat, scarf and gloves, the town sparkled from the tower, as if it had forgotten the pollution of the modern world.
