Wychetts and the Farm of Fear

by William Holley

After a delicious and filling breakfast, Bryony and Edwin said goodbye to Zach in the farmyard.

  “Don’t know if I can ever thank you enough for what you’ve done,” said Zach.

  “You just did.” Edwin patted his stomach. “That was the tastiest breakfast ever.”

  Zach grinned. “That was down to Chardonnay. But I’d like to thank you myself, somehow.”

  Bryony shook her head. “It was nothing. Just a little bit of magic.”

  Zach frowned. “But I thought you were scared of the magic.”

  “I am,” admitted Bryony. “But…”

  “You shouldn’t be.” Zach gestured around them. “You shouldn’t be scared of the magic when it can do all this. You’ve made everything right again, Bryony. Thanks to you I got Dad, Mum, and my old life back.”

  Zach’s parents stood arm in arm at the farmhouse door, and smiled at Bryony as she glanced at them.

  “Maybe you’re right,” she told Zach. “Maybe the magic isn’t so bad after all.”

  “See it worked out in the end,” whispered Edwin, glancing down at Stubby who watched from his shirt pocket.

  “More from luck than judgement,” said Stubby, twitching his whiskers doubtfully. “Perhaps next time you’ll think twice about undertaking such a foolhardy plan. No, scrub that. Just thinking once would be a one hundred per cent improvement.”

  “There’s not much we could do about the Cursed Field,” Bryony explained to Zach. “Inglenook said that the power of the Barrenrake can never be totally destroyed, so you won’t be able to grow anything there.”

  “No matter,” said Zach. “We got enough fertile land to keep us busy. And the Cursed Field will be a reminder to us not to take anything we’ve got for granted.”

  Bill and Jane came out of the farmhouse, still engaged in a lively debate about how a stroll in the countryside had ended up in a prolonged harvest revel. Jane was saying they should have followed Captain Rathbone’s advice and headed for the main road, whilst Bill insisted he was right to have followed the footpath through the farm.

  Then he froze, and pointed at something.

  “There it is!” he cried, stabbing the air with his forefinger. “The sign for the footpath!”

  Bryony saw a small marker post in the corner of the yard. It must have been hidden beneath the rubbish, and was only now visible after the yard had been magically tidied.

  “I told you I’d find the way home!” A triumphant Bill headed for the marker post.

  “So you did,” said Jane, following her husband. “But it would have been less trouble if we’d headed back up the lane as the Captain suggested.”

  Bryony tried not to smile. It was a pity Jane would never know how right she was.

  But Bill was enjoying his moment of victory. “Perhaps that will teach you a lesson,” he chided, wagging a finger at Jane as he marched across the farmyard. “Next time I hope you’ll have more faith in my navigation skills.”

  Then Bill disappeared, and there was a loud splash.

  “The Plunge Pool!” Bryony rushed to the edge of the trench and saw her father floundering in the murky green liquid. “We’ve got to get him out, before anything happens to him!”

  Zach’s parents hurried over to help Jane heave her soaking husband from the trench. Bryony stared at Bill, expecting him to turn into a pig or a chicken at any second. But the only transformation was to his hideous baggy shorts, which seemed to have shrunk a little.

  “Don’t worry.” Edwin joined Bryony at the edge of the Plunge Pool. “It’s not magic potion anymore, it’s just a normal cattle dip.”

  “Your dad will be OK,” Zach told Bryony with a smile. “And free from ticks for a whole year!”

  Wringing green liquid from his sodden shirt, Bill insisted he’d stepped into the Plunge Pool intentionally for ‘extreme rehydration purposes’. Then he marched off in the direction of the marker post, declaring it was a lovely morning for brisk country hike.

  Jane waved a hasty good bye to Zach and his parents before hurrying after Bill, beckoning for the children to follow.

  “You’d better get going,” said Zach to Bryony. “Before they get lost again.”

  Bryony smiled at Zach. “I hope it all works out for you here.”

  “It will.” Zach nodded. “Goodbye purty lady.” He hugged Bryony, then shook Edwin’s hand. “I’d love if you could both come back and visit.”

  “We’d like that too.” Edwin grinned. “But next time we’ll stay clear of Plunge Pools.”

  Zach chuckled. “I’ll keep the hen house and pig sty ready, just in case.”

  There was more shaking of hands, then Edwin and Bryony followed Bill and Jane out of the farmyard, glancing back to wave at Zach and his parents for one last time.

  “Shame there’s no magic left for today,” said Edwin. “Means we’ve got to walk home.”

  “Yeah,” sighed Bryony. “And it’s going to take ages on just two legs.”

  Edwin grinned. “No one would believe it if you told them you’d been changed into a pig. They’d think you were telling porkies. Porkies. Get it?”

  Edwin started laughing.

  “Careful,” said Bryony. “You know what happens when you get egg-cited.”

  Then Bryony started laughing, and the pair of them laughed as they followed Bill and Jane along the public footpath out of Barrenbrake Farm.

  Something lay on the ground beside the footpath. Bryony and Edwin didn’t notice, but it was a round object, as big as a human head, encased in an old sack. An old sack with crude human features cut into it. There were a pair of eyes, hollow and empty, and a slit of a mouth that twisted into an evil grimace as the children walked past…

  Epilogue