by Paul Magrs
‘It can’t end like this,’ Effie whispers. ‘We can’t just let them slit our bloody throats!’
‘We can’t fight the whole town,’ I tell her. ‘They’ve all got knives!’
And it’s true. It seems that everyone has come armed with kitchen knives. What are they going to do? All pitch in and hack us into tiny pieces?
For the first time I am really starting to get frightened. I realise that there is absolutely nothing we can do. We are stuck in the black heart of this murderous throng. We are about to be done away with by a whole town.
‘You have blasphemed against the spirits of the sisters,’ cries someone close by. I recognize it as the voice of the lady who gave us poisonous tea.
‘We didn’t blaspheme against anyone!’ Effie protests.
‘You made wild claims! You posed as one of Charlotte’s Angels! You threaten our peaceful solitude and quiet here on the Moors!’
‘Rubbish!’ Effie yells as we are dragged and bumped across the churchyard and then hauled onto the makeshift altar. ‘You’ve got tourists coming through here all the time! How are we any different? You can’t sacrifice everyone!’
Then there was a chant starting up, ‘Witch’s blood! Witch’s blood!’
‘They’re all crackers,’ Effie tells me. We are lying side by side on the mossy stone and I’m lost for words. I really think we’re going to end our days lying here. Our blood will rush out of us in huge spraying fans and we’ll expire together while the townsfolk cheer.
It’s like something out of the olden days. I thought I’d escaped from all this barbarism.
Mrs Harris looms above us, and she’s clutching the fanciest knife of them all. She’s the leader of this gang, it seems, and she’s the one who will strike the first blow, with this golden sickle knife. She’s chanting, ‘Witch’s blood!’ too, and leans forward to tell us, ‘We’ve prayed for the return of one of the witches trained by the sisters. It is said that if we bleed you here, then Charlotte and the others will return to us! They will stir from their long slumbers and manifest themselves for us again!’
‘Don’t you bet on it, ducky,’ Effie spits at her. ‘If that’s how you think it all works, then I feel sorry for you. Magic doesn’t exist for the benefit of dreary people like you! Magical beings won’t simply answer your nasty little prayers and appear at your behest!’
‘We are their acolytes! If we spill your blood, then they will come again! So it is written!’
Effie swears at her. ‘No, no, no, you’re wrong! Who the devil are you lot to order the Bronte sisters about?’
Someone else cries out, ‘Stop! Enough of the quibbling! Cut their throats and have done with it!’
‘Yes, vicar,’ says a chastened Mrs Harris.
‘You can’t just kill us!’ Effie screeches. ‘We’re important! You can’t just spill our bloody blood!’
‘Yes, we can! Yes, we can!’ chant the townsfolk, feverishly.
And during all these manic proceedings I myself am somewhat quiet. I don’t know why. I’ve gone rather limp and dull-witted. Overcome by the monstrous unfairness of it all. I feel exhausted now. Subsumed by the realization that this might be it. After all my years of depredation and danger, this could be the end of it all. And I find myself feeling relaxed and almost accepting of the notion.
Perhaps it is time I went and left this world in peace…
But then my puzzling serenity is disturbed by Effie’s caterwauling above the noise of the chanting. ‘But you can’t kill Brenda! She is important! She’s vital!’
I turn to look at my friend and next door neighbour. Vital? What’s she on about? I try to ask her what she means, but I can’t summon the energy to grab her attention. Does Effie know something about me, about my destiny, that I don’t?
‘You can’t just spill Brenda’s blood!’ she howls, thrashing her skinny body about and straining against our bonds. ‘It’s precious! It’s vital! You can’t kill her here!’
Now I’m seriously worried that poor Effie has lost her marbles.
As it happens, none of the crowd are listening to her anyway. They are much more concerned with their chanting and brandishing of knives. Everything is reaching a worrying fever pitch. I’m starting to fret that we’re approaching what could be a deadly climax to the proceedings.
The sacrificial blades flash and glint above us. They swish closer, cutting through the smoke from the burning torches.
‘Noooo!’ Effie howls. ‘You can’t do this…!’ I must say, she’s putting up enough protest for the two of us.
This is it.
I prepare to meet my maker.
Again.
And then…
Something rather odd occurs.
Everyone falls silent, all of a sudden. The cacophony of over-excited townsfolk abruptly ceases.
They are all looking at something. Something that has appeared above our heads.
I hold my breath. Could it be rescue of some sort? Perhaps someone in the horrid melee has seen sense and decided to put a stop to this awfulness. I can’t crane my neck enough to see what or who it is. The cold stone has made me stiff. All I can see is Effie, lying beside me, and struck silent as everyone else.
The air has gone colder. And there’s a curious aroma. I sniff cautiously and find that I can smell Lily of the Valley.
‘That’s how they always smelled...’ Effie whispers.
‘Who..?’ I start to ask. But I know the answer even as I say the word.
Our potential killers are murmuring now, in both fright and stifled delight. There is a ghost appearing in their midst. Gently, very gently, she lowers herself out of the night and comes level with our sacrificial altar. I can see only part of her. She’s a kind of icy blue miasma, and I can see, right through her, the amazed faces of our oppressors.
She waves her hands in the air, dismissing them. She doesn’t say a word, but they understand what she’s telling them to do. Stand back, you silly people. Go home. What are you playing at? Get yourselves back into your beds and stop trying to sacrifice these nice old ladies.
Effie says one word, ‘Charlotte…!’
I have only a second to bask in the relief of being saved. I stare at the calm, benign face that turns to look at us. She’s beautiful and radiant and she smiles at us, a little sadly.
And then the sacrificial stone beneath us cracks open like thunder. We are broken free of our bonds.
And the earth swallows us in one hungry gulp.
§
Down, down, down the rabbit hole.
We’re falling without fear, without panic. I don’t know much about science or the mechanics of gravity, but it seems to me that Effie and I are descending a bit slower then we ought to be. The bowels of the earth are rising to meet us with a little less alacrity than they should.
This is what happened to the child Effie, all those years ago. She dropped through the ground, through the secret aperture in the graveyard, into her destiny. Now it’s all these years later and she’s doing it again, with her best friend in tow, turning head over heels in ungainly fashion, with sacrificial robes flapping all about us.
Down and down we fall. Fast enough that we can’t quite catch our breath to shout across at each other, to check that we are both okay. But also, slow enough to pick out the curious details of this long-neglected tunnel: the wispy ends of tree roots, like whiskers, poking out of the clodded earth; the sunken graves and coffins that have settled into deep crevices, some cracked and disgorging their pale occupants. As we fall I see bones and treasure chests and teacups and bronze age artefacts, all lodged in the soil like the secret ingredients of a Christmas cake.
Effie pays all these things no heed. She’s intent on spinning like an elderly dervish and streaking on ahead of me, keen to get to the bottom. Is it my imagination? Or is it getting warmer? How far have we
fallen? How far is the centre of the Earth? Is it miles and miles beyond this? Again, I wish I’d studied such things and found out the truth. Are we likely to find ourselves at the centre of the world? I seem to remember that people have been there before, haven’t they?
But before long we arrive where we are supposed to be. There is a light below us, a warm light, like you get from gas. We seem to slow in mid-air, but I still get a nasty bump when we land at the bottom. Someone has put out a big thatch of straw for soft landings, but it’s become threadbare and mouldy.
Effie has a more elegant landing, of course, dropping out of the darkness like Peter Pan in a pantomime. I yell out when realise I’ve landed on a human skeleton.
‘Oh dear,’ says Effie, as I show her the skull. Its expression is one of ghastly surprise. ‘That looks to me like the remains of one who tried to force himself into the secret academy. He’s been left here to rot.’
This observation makes me feel very uneasy.
‘Oh, never mind, Brenda. You needn’t worry. We’re supposed to be here, all right. Charlotte herself showed us the way, didn’t she? She saved us and then she sent us down here. We aren’t intruders.’
She helps me back onto my feet, and I’m all aches and pains. All I can think about is that I don’t know how we’ll get back out. And maybe we won’t. It doesn’t help that Effie is practically hopping about with excitement at being here.
‘Look, we take this tunnel. That’s where we want to be.’
I have no choice but to follow her into a rubble-strewn tunnel, lit by gas lamps and smelling ripe with decay. After a while the floor is tiled in black and white squares.
‘We’re getting closer,’ says Effie. She trots past another corpse or two, in various stages of decomposition. All men. ‘It’s women-only down here,’ she tuts. ‘These fools should have known that. It’s death to any man who tries to enter this sanctum in order to learn the secrets of the Sisters.’
With every passing moment Effie is becoming odder, and less like the Effie I know. It is as if with her returning memories of her months spent in this place, she is becoming more complete, but also more like a stranger to me. I am reminded uncomfortably of that adventure of ours in which she was magically transformed into a vampire queen. It’s not something I’d like us to have to go through again.
The tunnel grows narrower and soon we’re rubbing shoulders with the walls on either side. They are growing smoother, more polished, but that does nothing to help my claustrophobia. I’m about twice the size of the petite Effie, so it’s me complaining first that I think I’m going to get wedged stuck down here, and that’ll be the end of me.
Effie turns with sympathy in her eyes. ‘Of course. I was a kiddie when I was last down here. The way ahead is a bit pokey… but I’m sure you’ll be all right, Brenda. Charlotte would never have sent us down here unless it was safe for us both.’
I’m not as optimistic about her friend Charlotte’s intentions.
Soon we come to a skinny door. It’s unlocked and, at one push from Effie it swings outwards with an eerie moan. Beyond there is only darkness.
‘I don’t like this…’ I start saying. But then I think, Oh, buck up, Brenda. You’ve both been in scarier situations than this. At least you’re both together.
‘It’s a bridge,’ Effie whispers. ‘About the width of my foot. Stretching into the blackness. There’s nothing else. Just an immense drop. Can you hear the echo?’
I nod grimly. ‘Why is it so dangerous?’
‘It’s a test,’ says Effie. ‘I remember this now. All of it. They put you through these tests, in order to make sure that you are worthy of joining their academy for girls…’
She is starting out along the narrow bridge. It creaks and sways. Effie is like a ballerina suddenly: all grace and determination.
‘Come on, Brenda. Follow me. It’s easy. I’ve done it before.’
Yes lady, I think. You’ve come this way before, but you didn’t have a great galumphing best friend with you. I’ve got a rotten sense of balance. My coordination is all to pot. I’m never going to make it safely over to the other side… to face whatever is waiting for us over there… I’m simply never going to make it…
I take my first step. Pause. I take my second. The bridge wobbles slightly, but stays firm beneath me. It can hold my weight. I can do this. I can prevent myself from panicking. And I can make it across to the other side.
‘H-how far is it, Effie?’ I ask, keeping the fear out of my voice.
‘I can’t remember,’ she admits, this graceful, blurry form ahead of me. ‘But I’ll tell you something I do remember…’
Even as she says this, the darkness around us is starting to lighten. Shapes are manifesting themselves and stirring colourfully. Are my eyes playing tricks on me? Maybe I’m hallucinating because of the drugs in our morning tea?
‘What is it?’ I gasp, as the vast shapes start looming into focus.
‘You’ll see all kind of weird things swarming in the darkness,’ says Effie. ‘Everything you fear most in the world…’
Oh, just what I need.
And then it begins: the images pasted up in the darkness around me. It’s a phantasmagorical montage of all my most hideous fears. Effie shuffles ahead of me, ever onwards, and I haven’t even a moment to consider what horrible things she might be seeing. I’m too caught up in the nightmare images that assail my own good person. They are projected hugely all around me – I see myself trapped inside the Deadly Machine of Mr Danby, going off my head and revisiting my murky past. I see myself fighting hand to hand with that devilish fop, Count Alucard, his pointed teeth flashing with greed. Now I can see Effie and I approaching the Bitch’s Maw for the very first time and glimpsing that coruscating vortex with awful trepidation. And here we are in hell, with no notion of how to get back home.
Faces and more faces are swarming around me like pale bats. Enemies and foes, friends and lovers. They’re laughing at me, all of them, and my unsteady progress across this bridge. But I have to keep on. I know I have to keep my mind on putting one foot ahead of the other.
‘Take no notice of them, Brenda!’ Effie calls. ‘They’re just illusions…’
‘I know that!’ I gasp, but it’s so hard pushing them out of my mind. I see my brutish, one-time fiancé, Frank, laughing ghoulishly at my plight. And here’s my progenitor, with his silver hair and his hawklike expression, snarling at me and telling me my demise is not before time.
‘You have to defy them, Brenda! Deny them reality!’
‘I do!’ I cry. ‘I do deny them!’
‘They can’t have any hold over you, ducky. Whoever, whatever is haunting you, they can’t hurt you now!’
Effie’s so wise and strong. Somehow, down here in this terrible place, she’s reconnecting with the powers and knowledge that she used to have. Now she’s just about running and skipping ahead on the narrow bridge, like nothing can ever touch her or harm a hair on her head.
‘Brenda…! Hurry! We’re almost at the other side…!’
I try to go faster. I try to control my laboured breathing and my rising panic. I try to keep pace behind her, but it’s not so easy for me. And she’s being swallowed up in the tendrils of black mist. She’s at the far side, calling back, but I’m still stuck in the middle, with my demons calling out to me…
I see the heinous Mr Danby laughing his head off, taunting me with his plans for doing away with all my young friends. Here’s Mrs Claus, shrieking in her bath chair, telling me I don’t deserve a good friend like Effie. They’re dragging me down. From nowhere there are tiny mermaids appearing, massing on the air and flying with the vampire bats…
There is nothing for it. I have to get out of this nightmare.
I put my head down and I run. I pound heavily across the final stretch of bridge. So heavily, I can feel the stone beneath my feet crumbling aw
ay.
I pelt headlong through a dimly lit door at the other end and fall into the waiting arms of Effie who, for once, doesn’t collapse under my tremendous mass.
‘Good for you Brenda,’ she tells me.
‘But why?’ I ask her. ‘Why do they put up those images? Why do they want to taunt us like that?’
‘It’s to keep out undesirables. The Sisters don’t want just anyone entering their secret base.’
But how could they know about my most awful fears? Can they look into my mind? Were they seeing things in there that even I don’t know about?
Effie is walking down a rather plain tunnel and the going is smoother for a while.
‘We must be miles away from the churchyard now,’ I say. ‘Under the Moors, maybe, by now…’
‘I suppose so,’ she muses. ‘But it hardly seems relevant. Down here it’s like a different world altogether.’
‘And you came here when you were a child, for a year and a day.’
She nods. ‘And I remember it so well, Brenda. Coming all this way. Trying to keep brave…’
‘I think it’s downright cruel. What right did they have to put children through this? Even if they were the Bronte sisters.’
‘They saw their work as very essential, Brenda. They were training us to be witches on the side of good. We were filled with the knowledge that would allow us to defend the world against the kinds of forces that you and I deal with on a day to day basis.’
I mull this one over. How can I never have heard of this academy before? And I realise that I know far less than I ought to. Before I moved to Whitby I hardly even knew about the Bitch’s Maw and the apertures that are open to hell’s influence. Until very recently I never knew there was more than one of the ghastly things. Even after a life of more than two hundred years it seems I’m pretty innocent of the ways of the supernatural world.
Whereas Effie is seeming increasingly better-informed with every passing moment.
