A Spell in the Country

by Heide Goody

  “Come now. What meaning can we see here? What does it show us?”

  “That it’s really bad to stand next to a busy main road?” suggested Jenny.

  To emphasise her point, a tractor and trailer piled high with hay bales rattled by at speed.

  “Be serious, Miss Knott,” said Norma.

  “Oh, I am,” said Jenny, stepping onto the verge as far back from the road as possible.

  Kay crouched over the badger and poked at it with a stick. “I see animals. Donkeys. A cat.”

  “My cat?” said Shazam.

  “And a monkey.”

  “Very good,” said Norma. “What else? Pay close attention to the liver. It is the most communicative of all the organs.”

  “I see … blood.”

  “Badger blood by any chance?” suggested Caroline.

  “Girls’ blood. A woman drenched in girls’ blood.”

  “Where do you see that, exactly?” said Norma.

  “And I see a passionate encounter. Some full-on snogging.”

  “Is it Jenny again?” said Caroline.

  “No,” said Kay. She looked at Norma. “It’s you.”

  There were claps and cheers and laughs.

  “Enough of that!” snapped Norma. “What are we? Witches? Or a drunken hen party?”

  “We could be both,” said Caroline. “We can multi-task.”

  The sun was shining and, although none of them had actually seen the sea yet, there was a seaside tang in the air and the caws of evil-eyed seagulls wheeling above them when they got out of the minibus in Skegness.

  Norma inhaled deeply until her magnificent corsetry creaked. “There’s nothing like the smell of the British seaside to clear the sinuses and soothe the soul.”

  “A stick of rock and a bag of chips comes a close second.” Caroline locked the minibus and pointed across the car park to a nondescript shopping centre. “By my reckoning, the shop is through there and up to the left somewhere. Now, our ticket runs out at five o’clock so we all need to be back here by then.”

  “But, surely, we’re sticking together,” said Norma.

  “Oh, I suspect some of us might wander off to inspect the sights,” suggested Caroline.

  “Not on my watch. This way, ladies!”

  Norma marched them through the shopping arcade and out onto a busy high street. The street thronged with elderly shoppers, fat and uncontrollable children, and holidaymakers showing off more tattoos, orange-peel skin and back body hair than they would fifty miles further inland. Norma cut a path through them like an arctic ice-breaker, and the witches hurried to keep in her slipstream. She stopped halfway up the high street, outside the Coin Fountain arcade, and backtracked twenty yards to a narrow archway between two fast food outlets. A cracked Perspex sign advertised One Stop Sorcery: through the alley and turn left with an accompanying arrow for people who didn’t know which way was left.

  “It’s very atmospheric,” said Shazam. “Like Diagon Alley.”

  “I think it’s more like they can’t afford to rent a place on the actual street,” said Jenny.

  Norma led a snake of witches down the less-than-fragrant cut-through into a backyard of fire escapes, commercial dumpsters and blocked drains. A multi-coloured bead curtain and electric purple door frame did little to elevate the One Stop Sorcery shop above its surroundings.

  The arrival of half a dozen customers caused an almost apoplectic fit of surprise in the woman behind the counter. “You’re not a coach party, are you? Coach parties have to book in advance.”

  “Just browsing,” said Norma firmly. “This way, ladies.”

  She herded them through the book section. Copies of Interpreting Your Cat’s Dreams and Nixies, Knuckers and Naiads: Communing with Water Spirits caught Dee’s eye but Norma swept them on, violently batting aside a selection of dreamcatchers and corralling them in a nook of gemstones, jewellery and geodes.

  “Right,” she said, “what tools does a witch need to ply her trade?”

  “A decent chemistry set,” said Dee.

  “Perhaps.”

  “Fuck-me shoes and a little black number,” Caroline smirked.

  “I said witch,” said Norma.

  “A familiar,” offered Shazam.

  “Wicked witches have familiars,” said Norma. “Anything else is imp-envy.”

  “Then what?” asked Kay.

  Norma gave a meaningful shrug. “Very little. This—” she gestured to the shop around them “—is window-dressing. Utterly superfluous. A good witch, an honest witch, needs nothing but her wits and intuition. She can brew all manner of potions from wayside plants. She can read the future in a cup of PG Tips. She can bewitch, ensorcell and heal with mere words. The junk in this place is the commodification of the occult: a cheap and tawdry attempt to make a witchcraft a merchandisable enterprise. I would warn all you vain and gullible witches to stay far, far a— hang on, is that a Gaja Mani?” She broke off and crossed to a shelf.

  “A what?” said Shazam.

  Norma had picked up a pearly, egg-shaped stone. “It’s a bezoar. If I’m not mistaken, this one was taken from an elephant. They are very rare and powerful. And it’s only ninety pounds.”

  “You were telling us about the cheap and tawdry commodification of the occult,” prompted Caroline.

  “Yes but – look – they’ve got an offer on. Three for two hundred pounds.”

  “Do you need an elephant stone?” asked Dee.

  “Need?” said Norma and then pulled a face. “Want. Go browse, ladies. I’ve given my caveat emptor. Go.”

  Jenny sat on an upturned crate in the courtyard outside One Stop Sorcery. With her head in her hands, she tried to focus on breathing calmly and maintaining her self-control. She didn’t feel she was succeeding.

  Jizzimus put his tiny hands on her knees and stared up at her with concern.

  “S’okay, boss,” he said. “Just keep breathin’ and when you feel it comin’, give a big push.”

  She goggled at him. “What?”

  “You look ready to drop a sprog, or lay an egg, or whatever you people do.”

  “I’m just trying to collect myself. I don’t feel very well.”

  “Oh, I thought you was ’aving a baby. Or a crap.”

  She raised her eyes to the heaven. “It’s funny,” she said.

  “Everyone enjoys a good crap,” he agreed.

  “I didn’t realise how easy it had become at Eastville Hall. Sure, there’s Kay, but she’s nearly an adult. Apart from her, there have been no children around at all. But here— Can you smell it?”

  Jizzimus sniffed long and loud, filling his lungs. “Rotten seaweed. Out of date toffee apples. Seagull shit.”

  “And children. Lots of children.”

  “Feelin’ peckish, eh? We could slope off an’ go grab one.”

  She growled in her throat. She should have thought of this: it was summer, holiday season. The delicious stink of children was everywhere. Children with their families, laughing, crying, screaming, slathered in sunscreen, daubed with melting ice-cream and sugar. “I’m not eating a child, Jizz.”

  “We could just ’ave a small one an’ see ’ow that goes.”

  She glared. “No children. I need chocolate.”

  “You know, other imps don’t ’ave to put up wiv this kinda bullpoop.”

  “Please,” she said. “Fetch me some chocolate.”

  “And that’s not code for sweet, sweet kiddie-flesh, is it?”

  “No.”

  He scowled at her.

  “You love me really,” she said.

  “Course I bloody do, you poof!” He trotted away at speed.

  “Who loves you really?” said Caroline.

  Jenny gave a start. Caroline was slouched against the wall by the shop doorway behind her. “How long have you been there?”

  “Just,” said Caroline. “Why? Should I have turned up earlier? Might have caught something juicy.”

  Jenny sighed. “I was
just— I was just remembering something someone said to me.”

  Caroline smiled. “You’re a mysterious one, aren’t you?”

  “Am I?”

  “You’re actually a very caring person.”

  Jenny was about to humbly disagree. Instead she switched track. “Why? How do I come across?”

  “A cold and self-serving bitch, like me.”

  “You’re not cold and self-serving,” said Jenny. “You’re … focused.”

  “Ha!”

  Jenny hitched a thumb towards the shop door. “You not buying anything?”

  “No. Nor you?”

  “I’ve got no money. Not much.”

  Caroline nodded. “Yep. And there’s nothing in that shop for me. I’m more likely to get my ‘tools’ from Ann Summers than a Joss Sticks R Us place like this.”

  Shazam stepped out with a bulging carrier bag in each hand and an idiot grin on her face. “Can you believe they’re doing a summer sale special on crystal balls?”

  “Funnily enough,” said Caroline. She looked at Shazam’s rattling bags. “How many did you buy?”

  “Oh, most of this is healing crystals.”

  “Is someone dying?”

  Shazam put the bags down beside Jenny. “Could you look after these while I get the other bags?”

  “Others?”

  Shazam smiled, a spark of wonder in her eyes. “And Melwyn behind the counter. She’s such a friendly person, isn’t she?”

  “I should imagine that you’re her new best friend,” said Caroline.

  Shazam dashed back inside. While she was presumably buying up the rest of the shop, Dee, Kay and Norma emerged. Norma’s capacious bag bulged more than normal. Dee thumbed excitedly through a hardback book she had bought.

  “Armadel’s Second Grimoire,” she said. “It details the exploits of witches through the ages – good and wicked.”

  “All based on spurious secondary sources,” sniffed Norma. “A waste of money.”

  “Coming through!” called Shazam, emerging with three further carrier bags and a cat unhappy at being jostled about so much.

  “Hell’s bells,” said Caroline. “Did you literally buy everything?”

  “Not at all!” said Shazam. “I just snapped up a few bargains. And – get this! – Melwyn says we’ve been such lovely customers we can have our fortunes read by Zoffner the Astute in his monastic cave for free! Isn’t that generous?”

  “It’s probably the least they can do since you’ve probably paid their rent for the remainder of the year.”

  “So, where is this monastic cave of his?” asked Jenny.

  “It’s in the funfair on the promenade: between the ghost train and the hook-a-duck stall.”

  “Sounds classier by the minute,” said Caroline.

  “Let’s get this over with.” Norma waved them back towards the high street.

  There was a thump from a dumpster as Jizzimus returned. Jenny checked to see that the others had left via the alley. “What’s this?”

  Jizzimus thrust a cellophane-wrapped box of fudge into her hand. The lid said A Gift from Skegness.

  “Fudge?” she said.

  “It’s all I could nick from the shop. Look at the fat fucker on the lid—”

  “That’s the Jolly Fisherman.”

  “Yeah, the fat fucker. He looks really pleased wiv ’imself. It’ll be delicious.”

  Jenny fought with the cellophane and stuffed a handful of soft fudge in her mouth. “It’s not chocolate,” she observed, eating it nonetheless.

  “It ain’t kid flesh either,” said Jizzimus.

  She skedaddled up the alley to catch up with her fellow witches. The fudge was sweet and delicious, but the stench of children smacked into her again as she re-joined the busy high street. The reek was ingrained into every inch, and the various ice-cream, donut and candyfloss stalls that should have masked it only served to enhance the sweet, forbidden odour, and showcase the sticky little fingers – delicious little fingers – which had pawed every counter and shelf.

  She kept her eyes down and followed the others up to a roundabout with a clock tower in the centre, then to the left along an even busier promenade. They reached the funfair without catching any glimpse of the sea. Jenny had no idea such places existed in Britain anymore. She was aware of the gleaming theme parks that dotted the country, which she didn’t visit for obvious reasons; she frequently walked past the travelling fairs which appeared in Cotteridge or Cannon Hill park: fungal outgrowths of caravans, security fencing and rickety rides manned by shifty-looking men. Skegness funfair managed to emulate the worst of both worlds: the permanence and scale of the former, the scuzziness and health and safety risks of the latter.

  Kay was entranced. “It’s like Disneyland,” she said.

  “With added chip wrappers,” said Caroline.

  “I don’t believe the waltzers at Disneyland look like they might give you tetanus, poppet,” said Dee.

  A rollercoaster juddered overhead and Jenny automatically drew Kay away from its killzone. “Are we going on the rides?” asked Kay.

  “Maybe later,” said Jenny.

  “I am deffo goin’ on that big wheel,” said Jizzimus.

  “Maybe we’ll just go on some of the game stalls,” Jenny suggested.

  Jizzimus cartwheeled over to a tin-can alley stall. “Come on then, guv. Win us a cuddly monkey.”

  Jenny shrugged amiably and gave the pubescent stall-holder a couple of quid. “Knock down any can to win a prize,” he told her.

  “And for the big prizes?” she asked.

  “Knock down a pyramid with one ball.”

  “Easy!” said Jizzimus.

  Jenny picked up the wooden balls and threw one at the leftmost pyramid of tins. As expected, Jizzimus leapt up onto the board and kicked them down. As a work of deception, it was entirely unsubtle, the cans flying off in different directions, but what was the lad going to say? Did you have help from an invisible imp?

  He did get as far as “Wow. That was some thr—” before stopping as Jizzimus, ever enthusiastic, begin kicking at the others towers of cans. Jenny quickly threw her two remaining balls in an attempt to cover up the invisible rampage.

  “You still only get one prize,” said the young man.”

  Jenny smiled sweetly at him and pointed at an overstuffed monkey in an I ♥ New York T-shirt. The young man unclipped it from where it hung and handed it over.

  “Did you do that with your mind?” Kay whispered to her.

  “Someone has unlocked telekinetic potential,” said Norma, who had been watching. “Now, if you please. Let’s get this psychic nonsense over with.”

  “It’s here!” squealed Shazam, literally jumping up and down in excitement, her bags of purchases swinging wildly about her.

  Between the entrance to the ghost train and the hook-a-duck stall was a section of black plywood boarding, a simple door and, above it, Mr Richard Zoffner AKA Zoffner the Astute AKA Mystical Holdings PLC – Knock and Enter the Future.

  “Twaddle,” said Norma and opened the door.

  “It says knock,” said Shazam.

  “If he’s a decent fortune-teller he already knows we’re here,” said Dee.

  “Enter, ladies,” called a mellifluous voice from the darkness.

  “He knew we were ladies,” Shazam whispered in excitement.

  “Because he can hear us,” said Norma.

  “Mr Astute,” Shazam called in. “Do you want us all at once or one at a time?”

  “Whatever. It’s groovy. The future has room for all,” called Zoffner the Astute. “Although I do only have four chairs.”

  “I’d like to look around the fair,” said Kay.

  “I’ll keep an eye on her if you like,” said Dee.

  Jenny made a doubtful noise. “No big rides,” she said.

  “We might even go see the sea,” said Dee.

  Caroline led the way into the darkness of Zoffner’s ‘cave’: a deep and winding plywood
recess built into the space between the surrounding rides and stalls. She followed a trail of fairy lights along the ceiling to a vaguely octagonal chamber. Chairs were arranged around a circular table. Cards, I-Ching sticks and rune stones were placed on the ornate tablecloth and, seated before them, was a white-bearded man. His was not the wispy white beard of some Gandalfesque mystic, nor was it a fulsome Santa beard. His was the beard of a man who had lost his razor some weeks ago and hadn’t got round to buying a new one.

  “Anywhere?” said Caroline, gesturing to the seats.

  Zoffner adjusted his turquoise spectacles. “Anywhere you like, wild child. But choose carefully.”

  “Oh?”

  “For the right chair will allow great and mystical insights.”

  “And the wrong chair?”

  “Is a bit wonky, child.”

  Norma, Shazam and Jenny squeezed in behind her. The four of them filled the small space. The toy monkey Jenny had won on the stall was squashed between her and Shazam. Beetlebane clawed at its felt head irritably. The black moggy looked like it had not yet recovered from its sauna torment the day before.

  “Right, Mr Zoffner,” said Norma, “we’re here because my deluded friend here is under the—”

  Zoffner held up his hand. “No words, foxy lady.”

  Caroline smirked and Norma bristled.

  Zoffner picked up the deck of cards. His shuffle appeared sloppy and his dealing was clumsy but Caroline noted they tumbled and fell from his hand into a perfect five card tarot spread.

  “Let the cards speak.”

  He turned the first one over and looked at Caroline. “The Seven of Cups, wild child. Debauchery and betrayal. Corruption of purpose.”

  Jenny snickered, apologising immediately.

  “Now, this does not have to apply directly to you. You once had a calling to serve a higher power but have turned away from it. And I dig that. Fight the man. But others have turned away from it too and they are not your friends.”

  “I see,” said Caroline thoughtfully.

  “Clear as mud,” sniffed Norma.

  Zoffner turned over a card for her. Poorly drawn men and women stepped from crypts in the ground as an angel sounded its trumpet overhead. “Judgement. Very groovy. But do you stand in judgement over others or do others stand in judgement over you? I sense you are a forceful and sensuous woman—”