A Spell in the Country

by Heide Goody

  “Yes.”

  “Never needed one of those,” Caroline smirked. “The things I want tend to be available when I need them.”

  “A finding spell—” Dee was saying.

  “And by ‘things’ you mean ‘people’?” said Jenny.

  “You see, we could—”

  “Well, yes,” admitted Caroline. “That’s where my talents lie, after all.”

  “I’ve noticed,” said Jenny. It occurred to her that they’d been ignoring Dee. She looked at the third witch. “Finding spells?”

  “Well,” said Dee, finding herself with the metaphorical floor. “We need to conjure the thing we’re after. Really concentrate on it. Picture it in your minds—”

  “But we don’t know what it looks like,” said Jenny.

  “A bit like a broad bean plant.”

  “Nope,” said Caroline. “Don’t know what one of those looks like either.”

  Dee sighed. “Stumpy thing with perky leaves and black and white flowers. Got that?”

  Caroline and Jenny nodded.

  “Now think of the smell. Week old corpse. Really stinky. Hold all of that in your mind while I make the sigils.” Dee murmured something softly under her breath as she made a complicated set of movements in the air with her hands. “Right. If there’s any within half a mile or so, we should see a faint glow in its direction.”

  They all scanned the horizon.

  “Is that the sun or is that glow?” asked Caroline, indicating.

  “The sun’s over there,” Jenny pointed out. “Maybe we should go and take a look.”

  The ground was very muddy underfoot, and the field they were crossing had recently been ploughed. It was hard work to cover what had originally looked a short distance. Dee was encouraged to see that the glow was getting brighter.

  “How did you learn that spell?” asked Caroline.

  “Self-taught,” said Dee.

  “Rubbish! What about the spell words and those gestures?”

  Dee sighed. “If you must know, it’s just my own little ritual that gets me into the right frame of mind. I sing the chorus to Fixer Upper and draw the bendy thing from the album cover of Tubular Bells. It works for me.”

  “Fixer what-what?” said Jenny.

  “It’s from Frozen,” said Dee. “It’s kinda catchy.”

  “If you’re a seven year old girl with a princess complex,” agreed Caroline.

  “Don’t be mean,” said Jenny.

  “Sorry,” said Caroline. “I’ll … Let It Go.”

  Jenny groaned and the trio plodded on.

  “You know what I can’t imagine,” said Caroline.

  “How you don’t get bigger laughs with your killer material?” Jenny replied.

  “I can’t imagine coming from a family where magic and witchcraft are openly talked about.”

  It took Jenny a moment. “Ah, like the Holder-Eckfords, you mean.”

  “I bet tea time at Sabrina’s is all about cursing the cucumber sandwiches to make the edges curl up.”

  “Touch of envy there, Caroline?” Jenny asked.

  “Envious of posh gits with a silver spoon shoved up their arse?”

  “I think it’s a silver spoon in the mouth,” said Jenny.

  “You’re right,” said Dee.

  “It’s up the arse?” said Caroline.

  “No, it’s weird that some people didn’t have to discover witching for themselves. Adolescence is hard enough when you have no clue what’s going on in your life. I learned not to ask questions when I figured out other people couldn’t do the same things.”

  “Oh, I never considered it a problem,” said Caroline. “More of a gift.”

  “I think I must have worried for us all then,” said Dee. “I was about thirteen when I put two and two together. I spent a lot of time in the library, reading up on superstitions surrounding witches. Gave myself the heebie jeebies, I can tell you.”

  “You didn’t believe all of those things about running water and spinning wheels did you,” said Caroline.

  “Why wouldn’t I? It’s like all those ridiculous myths you hear in the playground about sex.”

  “Like you can’t get pregnant standing up,” said Jenny.

  “Or the first time,” said Caroline.

  “Or if you sneeze after doing it.”

  “Or that it’s actually medically damaging if a guy doesn’t get any.”

  “Ha! The old blue balls thing,” smiled Jenny.

  “Although, it did happen to Dean Morley.”

  “Dean Morley?”

  Caroline gazed into the distance. “Wouldn’t take a hint. Wouldn’t let it go. Took a Doc Marten to the goolies to explain what ‘no’ means.”

  “Anyway,” said Dee, feeling her point had been diverted long enough, “I was all over the place, trying to figure out what was true and what was false. I was supposed to go on a school trip to France and I faked appendicitis to get out of it.” She exhaled heavily at the memory.

  “What were you frightened of?” asked Caroline.

  “I don’t know. Turning to dust. Bursting into flames. Faking appendicitis seemed only sensible.”

  “But what did you tell them when you got to the hospital?” Jenny asked.

  “What could I tell them? That I had faked the whole thing because I’m a witch and I was afraid of crossing running water? No. I had my appendix out.”

  “Oh no, Dee, that’s terrible,” said Jenny, failing to conceal her smile.

  “Wasn’t my last trip to the hospital either,” said Dee. “That same summer I tried to learn to fly a broomstick. I knew by then how crucial it is to really picture what you want to do; really feel it. I was convinced that if I jumped off somewhere high and I felt the wind rushing past me, and felt the broomstick lifting me through the air then the magic would kick in and I’d be flying.”

  They’d all stopped walking. Caroline stared at Dee. “I’ve never heard of witches flying,” she said. “Is it possible?”

  “No,” said Dee. “I sprained my ankle jumping off the shed. Followed it up with two broken arms when I jumped out of a bedroom window.”

  “One experiment wasn’t enough.”

  “Well, the first time wasn’t exactly with a broomstick…”

  “No?” said Caroline.

  “Vileda SuperMop. Second time, I saved up my pocket money for a real hawthorn and birch besom broom.” Dee’s eyes glazed as she took her own turn looking back. “It’s no fun breaking both your arms. Gives you a lot of thinking time. Too much thinking time. I came up with the idea that manmade structures didn’t have the right energy, so for my last attempt I jumped out of a huge oak tree. Broke my leg that time.”

  They all stood for a moment before Dee turned away and stomped ahead. “Come on, let’s get on with the task in hand!”

  “It’s the other side of that hedge,” said Jenny. “Shall we walk round it?”

  They looked at the thick hedge stretching into the distance on either side.

  “I can’t see a way round it,” said Caroline.

  “Only one thing for it then,” said Dee. “We’ll need to go through. A stout stick and a determined attitude should do the trick.”

  “Is there a spell for making a hole in a hedge?” Caroline asked.

  “I don’t know one,” said Dee. “If there was a wicked witch around she could blast a hole with witchfire.”

  “Witchfire?” said Caroline.

  “Wicked witches?” said Jenny in a disbelieving tone.

  “No such thing,” said Caroline.

  “There are,” said Dee.

  “Says the woman who jumped off the shed on a kitchen mop.”

  “Experiences which have made me sceptical of witch lore. But I do believe wicked witches are real.”

  “And you don’t mean just, like, witches who park in disabled spaces, or put random apostrophes before the letter s?”

  “No. I mean bad-to-the-bone, hardwired-into-their-genes wickedness.”
r />   “None of this is helping us get through this hedge,” Jenny pointed out.

  Caroline ignored her. “So – what? Green skin, warts on their noses, cackling and building gingerbread houses?”

  “No, nothing so silly as that,” said Dee, thinking back on some of the accounts she’d read. “They have demon familiars, and eat innocent virgins, and—”

  “Bollocks,” said Caroline.

  “Oh, I don’t think so,” Jenny interrupted. “Is this stick stout enough?”

  Dee looked at the twig in Jenny’s hand and the dense hedge in front of them. She approached it tentatively, shaking her head. “Could be scratchy.”

  “Like a drunken bitch with four inch nails who thinks you’re trying to steal her boyfriend,” said Caroline.

  “Nice simile,” said Jenny.

  “Thank you.”

  “I wonder if we could just stomp through with our wellies?”

  “Let’s give it a go,” said Dee. “How hard can it be?”

  They all plunged into the prickly hawthorn with various noises of discomfort.

  “As a rule of thumb,” said Dee conversationally, her cheek starting to drip blood, “the age of a hedge in centuries is equivalent to the number of species in a ten yard stretch. Which makes this a fairly young one. It’s pure hawthorn.”

  “Well that’s just great,” muttered Caroline. “Does anybody know how to untangle hair when you can’t use your hands?”

  “I think we just need to move forward,” said Jenny. “I’ve already lost a pocket off my jacket.”

  “I think I’ve lost a pint of blood.”

  Fifteen minutes later they were on the other side. They collapsed onto an expanse of grass, comparing the damage the hedge had inflicted on them and their clothing.

  Dee scrambled to her feet and looked around. It was very different to the ploughed field. Everything was carefully tended and organised into separate planting areas. Some plots were bare, but most had vigorous and well cultivated plants growing in neat, well-spaced rows.

  Jenny stood next to her “Are we in an allotment? I have this horrible feeling I know what we’ve found.”

  All three of them walked forward to where the glow was perfectly clear. It hovered in an ethereal, misty green cloud over a set of plants in a central plot.

  “We found broad bean plants, didn’t we?” asked Caroline, hand on hips. “We pictured them and we found them. Bloody hell!”

  “I don’t understand why the smell part didn’t work.” Dee was plaintive. “Broad beans don’t smell like a week old corpse.”

  Caroline looked sheepish. “I’m going to put my hand up here. I don’t know what a week old corpse smells like.”

  “Nor me,” admitted Jenny.

  “Right, dears,” said Dee. “I see. We need to start again. This is obviously not where the amulet is.”

  “While we’re on the subject of things that we don’t understand,” said Caroline. “What exactly does an amulet look like?”

  “Well, it’s a sort of pendant,” said Jenny. “Isn’t it?”

  “I don’t think so,” said Dee. “An amulet doesn’t have to be worn around the neck.”

  “So, it’s just any kind of talisman,” said Caroline.

  “No, poppet. Talismans aren’t amulets. Well – all amulets are talismans but not all talismans are amulets.” Dee frowned. “I think.”

  “So, it could be a brooch,” said Jenny. “Or a bracelet.”

  “Shazam said that her keyring was an amulet,” offered Caroline.

  “That’d be the one from gullible-wannabe-witches.com.”

  “Oh, leave poor Cobwebs alone,” said Caroline.

  “You’ve got a soft spot for her,” Dee noted.

  “You’re not the only one who takes pity on dumb, defenceless animals.”

  Jenny let out a long, exasperated huff. “To clarify. We don’t know where this amulet is.”

  “Correct,” said Dee.

  “Or what it looks like.”

  “Correct.”

  “Or indeed what form it might possibly take.”

  “Indeed.”

  “And when we do find it, we probably won’t know we’ve found it.”

  “Um…”

  Jenny threw her hands up in the air. “That’s it. I quit.”

  “What?” said Caroline. “We’ve barely started. And look what we’ve achieved.”

  Dee looked at their mud-spattered, liberally torn clothes and scratched faces. Even with her usual cheery optimism she struggled to find much achievement in view. “We know where it’s not,” she said, without much confidence.

  “I’m heading back,” said Jenny.

  Dee nodded. “You’re worried about Kay.”

  Caroline frowned. “Yeah, what’s the deal with you two? Is she your apprentice or something?”

  “Something,” Jenny agreed.

  “She’ll be fine with the others,” said Caroline. “We can’t just give up. That means the others will automatically win, and I absolutely refuse to accept that.”

  “We don’t stand a chance anyway,” said Jenny.

  Caroline was having none of it. “If anyone can find an unknown thing which we’ve got no way of locating, then it’s me!”

  “Why’s that?” asked Dee.

  “Because I’m frickin’ awesome!” yelled Caroline, stomping back towards the hedge.

  “You carry on,” Jenny said. “I’m sorry to— I’ll see you back at the house later on, okay?”

  “If we’re not back by tomorrow, sweetness,” said Dee. “we’ll probably still be in this hedge.”

  “Good move, boss. Ditchin’ the slow team,” said Jizzimus as the other two witches exited back through the hawthorn. “We gunna go and eat the littl’un now?”

  “We’re eating nobody. I just want to see that she’s all right.”

  Jizzimus kicked at a potato plant and blew a raspberry.

  Jenny scanned the perimeter of the allotment. “Can you see where the entrance to this place is? There must be a road or a path. We can follow it round and get back to the hall.”

  Jizzimus climbed up a runner bean cane wigwam support and peered around. “Good news and bad news. Which do you want first?”

  “Just tell me,” sighed Jenny.

  “The entrance is over that way, but it’s got a massive gate on it.”

  “Iron?”

  “Iron. And I can see it’s padlocked from ’ere.”

  “What’s the good news?”

  “I can see a rabbit in the lettuces!”

  With a whoop Jizzimus leapt down and gave chase to the startled animal. Jenny was impressed a rabbit could jump as high as it did before it pelted away, Jizzimus just behind it. He returned a few minutes later, dejected.

  “Got away, did it?” asked Jenny.

  “Jumped a dyke into a field over by the road,” grumbled the imp. “Tha’s cheatin’. Takin’ effin’ liberties.”

  “Could I get out that way?”

  “If you can jump like a rabbit. It’s a big dyke.”

  Jizzimus was right; it was a very big dyke.

  Anywhere outside the Fens it would have qualified as a small canal. Fortunately it wasn’t presently filled with water. Even so, the bottom was a sticky, boggy morass. Beyond was a short field in which cows mooched and grazed, a line of trees, and a blessed glimpse of tarmacked road.

  “They do that thing in Holland where they jump dykes using a big stick,” she said thoughtfully.

  “You got a big stick, guv?”

  Jenny liberated the largest bamboo cane she could find on the allotment.

  “Oh, that’ll do it,” said Jizzimus with the kind of encouragement that offered no encouragement at all.

  But Jenny thought she could clear it. She could visualise it. She could see herself doing it. She focused, backed up a way and ran at it, wanting to give it her all.

  Jizzimus yelled, “Strawberries!” at the crucial moment of jumping off. It was too late to stop
her forward momentum. She did not stop, did not leap, but stumbled. Mostly upright into the bottom of the ditch and found herself up to her knees in mud.

  “Jizzimus!” she growled.

  “Wha’? I jus’ seen some ripe strawberries. You want some, guv?”

  Jenny heaved forward with a grunt. She slipped further down into the mud; it gripped her thighs. She stopped moving.

  “I thought you liked strawberries?” called Jizzimus. “What are you doing down there? Those kiddies ain’t gunna eat themselves.”

  “I’m in trouble,” she said, slow and calm.

  “Nah, you’re only in trouble if you get caught eatin’ ’em.”

  “I’m stuck, Jizzimus!”

  He approached the edge of the dyke, chin already covered in strawberry dribble. He scratched one of his cow ears thoughtfully. “’Ave you tried movin’?”

  “I daren’t move. I’ll sink even more.”

  It didn’t matter; she was sinking anyway. Jenny thought rapidly. She knew how to stabilise the situation. She spread her hands on the mud and unleashed a brief but powerful blast of witchfire at her surroundings. There was the stench of hot compost on a summer’s day, but it did the trick. The mud surrounding her was baked to a solid mass; the vegetation in her immediate vicinity charred and wilted. Only the sturdiest plants on the edges of the blast remained. One caught Jenny’s gaze: it was similar to the broad bean plants she’d seen in the allotment. Was it from a dropped seed or was it the elusive Coney Bane?

  “You made a right mess of this place,” said Jizzimus, nodding in approval. “It smells brilliant, guv. Like cow fart pie wiv slurry custard.”

  He was right. The smell of baked mud was bad enough, but there was another stink: so ripe it was probably just like a week old corpse.

  “I think we found Coney Bane,” said Jenny. “The amulet might be nearby.”

  “Nah. Nothing here apart from this bit of old tin.” Jizzimus, held up a square silver medal.

  “That’s it! Can I have it please?”

  Jizzimus clippety-clopped across the baked earth and passed her the amulet. It was either really ancient or just badly-made, and stamped or engraved in a grid format across it, the words:

  SATOR

  AREPO

  TENET

  OPERA

  ROTAS

  “Wha’s that then?” asked Jizzimus.