A Spell in the Country

by Heide Goody

  “Blood?” said Natasha. “Yes.”

  Jenny waved it away. “I don’t.”

  “I gather as much.” Natasha unscrewed the lid. “Do you think any of us like drinking children’s blood? Eating their flesh?” She poured the blood into the sherry glass. “At Eastville Hall, we are proud to offer an alternative.”

  Jenny sniffed. It wasn’t children’s blood. She could smell children from a mile away and their blood was a glorious reek to a wicked witch’s nostrils. This blood didn’t smell of children but it wasn’t ordinary blood either. It smelled—

  “Is it even blood at all?”

  “Trade secrets,” said Natasha, “but you can tell that this is not from any child. This is a guilt-free vintage and it does more than satisfy your cravings.” She slid the glass along the table in Jenny’s direction.

  Jenny reached for it and then paused. “Why are you offering me this?”

  “You don’t want it?”

  “I mean, why are you being so kind?”

  Natasha chuckled. “Suspicious to the last. It comes with the territory. Think, Jenny. Effie Fray started this witch training course project because she feared her kind were dying out. How much rarer and more threatened must our kind be. I’m not offering this to you. I’m asking you to join us.”

  “Wahey,” said Jizzimus, who had jumped down to the floor to inspect the glass of blood more closely. “An invitation to the wicked witch club. Yer aboutta become a made man, a wiseguy.”

  “There are nineteen of us here tonight,” said Natasha. “I would gladly have you be recognised as the twentieth. Speaking of which: I have a celebration dinner to attend. I’m going to leave you here with that. If you don’t wish to join us and take your rightful place, then you know where the door is. You are free to leave with only my best wishes. I hope you will decide otherwise.”

  Natasha turned and left the room.

  Jenny looked at the bloody glass.

  Caroline came to her senses. It felt like … it felt like one of those videos of a skyscraper being demolished, only played in reverse. It was confused, loud and painful but, when it was over, she was awake and whole.

  “My trousers are still wet,” she said and opened her eyes.

  She was slumped against an unremarkable and unfriendly brick wall in a small square room almost entirely composed of unremarkable and unfriendly brick walls. Something about the quality of the dank air and the light filtering through a brick grille on the wall told her that she was underground. The only breaks from the unfriendly brickwork were the small grille, a stout door and the presence of Shazam crouched beside her. She had Caroline’s hand in hers.

  “Hardly a romantic location, Cobwebs,” muttered Caroline.

  “I tried to cast a healing spell on you.”

  “It worked. It really worked.”

  Caroline was surprised to note that they weren’t cuffed or chained up in any way. Probably spoke volumes about the stoutness of the door.

  “I’m frightened,” said Shazam.

  “We’re alive,” said Caroline.

  “Mr Beetlebane ran off. I don’t know where he is or what’s happened to him.”

  Caroline cast about the cell. “Well, wherever he is, he’s probably doing better than us. Still, this is cosy, isn’t it? A bit of quality seclusion time, just the two of us.”

  “And the creepy piece of stone,” said Shazam.

  “Excuse me?”

  “The creepy stone,” said Shazam, pointing.

  A piece of sharp white rock sat on the concrete floor next to Caroline. She was surprised she hadn’t spotted it already. “I’ve seen creepier stones.”

  “But look what it’s written!”

  On the wall above the stone, words had been scratched into the brickwork in clumsy block lettering:

  HELLO.

  HELP ME.

  I’M TRAPPED.

  IS ANYONE THERE?

  HELLO. I’M TRAPPED.

  “It’s odd,” agreed Caroline, “but hardly creepy. It’s not as if the stone itself wrote— Ah.”

  With an uncertain wobble, the white stone rose off the floor, bumped gently into the wall and scratched out the word:

  HELLO.

  “Okay,” admitted Caroline. “That is one creepy stone.”

  Dee and Norma stood in the shadows a little way back from the main entrance to Eastville Hall.

  “Right, our first challenge will be to get past the receptionist or whatever,” said Norma. “We’ve got two choices. Either we create a distraction by smashing something loudly out here, or we can try and bluff our way in as potential clients and then incapacitate her somehow.”

  “Or,” said Dee, slightly worried by Norma’s disregard for collateral damage,” we could let ourselves in through the back door.”

  “There’s a back door?” asked Norma.

  “Yes, by the stables on the other side. I’m sure I’ve seen George going in and out that way. Come on.”

  They went round to the rear of the building, which was nothing like as picturesque as the front. Ugly air conditioning units clustered on the wall, and a mess of sealed bins lined the short walk down to the stable block. The stables mirrored the annexe where the witches’ rooms were: forming the other arm of the building. There were gaps in the roof tiles, windows either boarded or covered in rusting wire grilles. The brickwork sagged. The only things that appeared well maintained were the doors, and they were bolted shut.

  “I can’t see a back door,” said Norma.

  “Sure there is,” said Dee. “Along there.”

  They went through the stable yard.

  “Psst,” hissed Norma.

  Dee, a fraction ahead, turned. “What?”

  “I heard a moaning sound from in there,” Norma pointed at a barred and bolted double door.

  “What kind of moaning sound?” said Dee.

  Norma made a throaty groan.

  “Old beams settling in the evening?” suggested Dee.

  “It didn’t sound like beams settling. It was more like a growl.”

  “George uses one of these as a workshop. And as a cider brewing thing. Maybe it was just a power tool winding down.”

  “It wasn’t a power tool.”

  “A gurgling cider vat thing?”

  “No.”

  “Maybe a mixture of all three?”

  “No, Miss Finch. It sounded like … like zombies.”

  Dee gave her a look. “I’m sure I don’t know what zombies sound like. But—” she added “—I have found an entrance.” She gestured at a door round the corner. It was open, only guarded by a chain curtain for keeping flies out. “Looks like it goes to the kitchen.”

  “Then let us enter,” said Norma, squaring her shoulders. She pushed through the chains with Dee close behind and they stepped into a large industrial kitchen. In a world of sizzles and clattering pans, a half dozen kitchen staff chopped, cooked and prepared plate after plate.

  One middle aged man, in chef’s whites that were thoroughly smeared with brown, held up his hand. He was either in the middle of making something messy and chocolatey, or had just returned from a day of bog snorkelling. “What you doing in here?”

  Dee had a moment of panic, She tried to attempt the kind of mind control enchantments Caroline excelled at. She flicked her wrist and hummed a snatch of Whistle While You Work.

  “We work here. We’re waiting staff.”

  “No you don’t.”

  “Yeees, weee aaaare,” said Dee in what she hoped were mesmeric tones.

  “Oh, really?” said the chef. “Then where’s your uniforms?”

  “Um. Theeese are our uniforms. Look into my eyyyyes. You will seee that these aaare waitress unifooorms.”

  “Listen, madam,” said the chef, completely unhypnotised, “if you and your mum are trying to sneak outside so you can have a crafty fag before dinner, you can’t come through here. You need to go back out, up the stairs to the main corridor, take a left and you can go sta
nd out on the terrace.”

  “Oh,” said Dee. “Oh. Thank you.”

  “What do you mean, ‘and your mum’?” demanded Norma.

  “Come on, mum. This way.” Dee took her hand and dragged her away.

  “I’m not old enough to be your mum!” snorted Norma, once they were out of the kitchens and in a corridor that had the Spartan look of a place reserved for staff rather than clients.

  “How old are you?” asked Dee, looking up and down the corridor and wondering where to go next.

  “A lady never reveals her age.”

  “Okay,” said Dee. “Do you remember the moon landings?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re old enough.”

  Norma humphed. She spotted a trolley of cutlery and put her hand on it. “This is interesting.”

  “It is?” said Dee.

  “Plastic cutlery.”

  “Saves washing up?”

  “It is not disposable, Miss Finch. This is high quality stuff. Look around, you will notice that nearly everything is made from non-ferrous materials. What does that suggest to you?”

  “Wicked witches?” whispered Dee, eyes wide.

  Norma nodded. “Come on, let’s move.”

  They made their way further along the corridor and up a small flight of stairs, to where the floor was carpeted and the décor much richer.

  “I think that’s where Reception is. These must be offices,” said Norma, indicating a pair of rooms to their left. She tried the handle on the first and the door opened. The office was a fairly standard if vintage design, containing an oak desk and a side table with a coffee machine. Dee spotted something and touched Norma’s elbow, pointing at the desk. She stepped past Norma to take a look. The desk was fairly empty apart from a computer monitor and a blank notepad, but propped against a pencil pot was something she recognised.

  Aren’t those…?”

  “Sabrina’s permanent PK potential rings!” breathed Norma.

  Dee picked them up. Yes, one of them even had a smear of plaster on it from when it had embedded itself in the restaurant ceiling, days ago.

  “Why on earth would they be here?” said Norma.

  Jenny sat and looked at the glass of blood. Or not blood. Or near-blood. Or whatever it was.

  “Are you gunna drink it or not, guv?” said Jizzimus.

  “I don’t know,” said Jenny.

  “You don’ fink it’s poisoned, do you?” Jizzimus hopped onto the table, leaned over the glass and lapped at the blood with his tiny tongue. “Tangy. Kinda familiar. Defin’ly not poisoned.”

  Jenny still didn’t take it. “The thing is,” she said, “I’ve resisted all these years. I’ve never once eaten a child.”

  “’Part from that teenager in the shop.”

  “Yeah, but he was shoplifting. and it was just a nibble.”

  “You nearly et an ’ole finger.”

  “The point is, I’ve resisted. Why would I need methadone if I’ve never done heroin?”

  “You’re sayin’ we should do heroin?” said Jizzimus.

  “No, Jizz.”

  “I’ve always wan’ed a try a bit of skag. Bit of ’orse. Chase the dragon an’ all that. Reckon it’d be well cool.”

  “Be sensible for once, Jizzimus.”

  The imp wrinkled his ugly nose in distaste. “Tried it once, didn’t rate it. I still say you should drink it.”

  “Give me one good reason,” said Jenny.

  “Well, for one, you’re drooling.”

  “Am not.” Jenny put her fingers to her lips. She was salivating, true, not exactly drooling but— She dug in her pockets for a tissue. As she pulled one out, Kevin’s business card fell out with it. She picked it up and was about to stuff it in her pocket again when something made her stop.

  Her right thumb covered the last two letters of Kevin’s surname. She stared at the card. She placed her left thumb over the beginning of his name until only two letters were visible: KI

  “Kay Wun,” she said softly.

  “What about ’er?” said Jizzimus.

  “When she was in the crate, on the way over here. All she could see through the gap in the crate were a letter and a number printed on something inside the lorry. K1. But it wasn’t K1. It was a K and an I.” Jenny turned the card round to show the imp. “It was one of Kevin’s lorries.”

  The creepy shard of stone settled to the cell floor again where it proceeded to do absolutely nothing.

  “Is that it?” said Caroline.

  “It’ll do it again in a bit,” said Shazam.

  “But why’s it doing it?”

  “I don’t know,” said Shazam. She looked at the words on the wall. “Maybe it’s lonely.”

  Caroline brought her face down to the stone. “Hello?” she tried.

  The rock didn’t reply.

  “Hello, my little rocky friend.”

  Nothing.

  Caroline picked the stone up. It vibrated – it fizzed – in the palm of her hand. “Curious sensation,” she said.

  “You should be careful,” said Shazam. “Maybe it’s cursed.”

  “I’m sure it’s fine.”

  “I’m just saying that if your head spins round and you start vomiting pea soup over me, I’m going to lose it big style.”

  Caroline stared at the stone. It appeared to be leaning, tugging her hand towards the door. Caroline got to her feet and let the stone lead her. The stone stopped when her fingers touched the door.

  “Yes,” she said. “We’d like to leave too.”

  Caroline considered the door. Despite its stoutness, it appeared to have only one lock and a fairly standard mortice lock at that.

  “We could try to pick it,” suggested Shazam.

  “Lock picking without the right tools is far harder than people think,” said Caroline. She patted her damp pockets for something they could use but she had nothing. “Unless you have some hair grips conveniently stuck in your barnet?”

  Shazam put a hand to her impressively vertical hair. “This is all hairspray and wishful thinking. Sorry.”

  Caroline touched one of the cat sequins on Shazam’s top. They were a good two to three inches high and made of thick foil. “May I?” she said.

  “May you what?”

  Caroline ripped the sequin off and rolled it into a long thin tube. It tried to resist and spring back into shape but, once she’d flattened it against the wall, it held its shape as a matchstick length of pliable but strong metal.

  “Maybe,” said Caroline and tore another cat sequin off Shazam’s top to make a second lockpick.

  “Okay,” said Jizzimus, putting his forefingers to his temples to focus his brainpower. “Try me again.”

  “Kay was in one of Kevin’s lorries. She saw part of the logo from inside her crate.”

  “Surely there’s loadsa businesses wiv a KI or K1 in their name.”

  “True. But Kevin’s freight business runs all across Europe and one of his vehicles could have brought her all the way over from Portugal. He could even have flown her in freight via Birmingham airport.”

  “Sure.”

  “Doug Bowman was in Skegness with a lorry that had probably come in from a local port— Fuck!” she exclaimed.

  “What?”

  “How did Doug Bowman know Kay was at my house?”

  “Lucky guess?”

  “What if there was CCTV in that warehouse? What if Kevin saw it? He’d recognise me. He knows where I live.”

  “The twat,” said Jizzimus.

  “And Kevin has some sort of business arrangement with Natasha du Plessis.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “He’s bringing people here.” She swallowed hard as a thought occurred to her. “Those ghosts. Those ghosts of young women down by the dyke. Dead women.”

  “Dead women. Check.”

  “But some of them seemed very old. Like centuries.”

  “Yes?”

  “This definitely isn’t child’s blood,” she sai
d, pointing to the glass.

  “Nope.”

  “And ordinary blood, from an adult I mean, wouldn’t have any beneficial effect for wicked witches.”

  “Correct.”

  “So this is something else?”

  “Indeedy-do.”

  “Blood from women, not children, but not ordinary women either.”

  “Nope,” said Jizzimus.

  “So, what makes Kay special? What’s the difference between ordinary women and women like Kay?”

  Jizzimus shrugged.

  “She’s a witch, Jizzimus! A witch! Natasha du Plessis is trafficking witches!”

  “Oh,” said the imp and then frowned. “What does she want wiv witches?”

  “Witches’ blood,” said Jenny, picking up the cup. “Damn it. And we were told. We were told!”

  “When?”

  “Zoffner the hippy and groovy guy. The day after Shazam and Sabrina had been at this spa and Sabrina mysteriously decided ‘to quit’, he told Shazam that she had just escaped a fate worse than death.”

  “And what was that?” said Jizzimus.

  Jenny threw the glass aside. The glass snapped in two as it landed. The blood made a dark stain across the carpet. “Sabrina never left. She never left at all.”

  In the office, Dee weighed the silver rings in her hand. “I can’t imagine Sabrina would have left them behind when she went.”

  “When we were told she’d left, you mean,” said Norma.

  A movement at the door caught Dee’s eye. She instinctively stuffed the rings in her pocket just before a woman entered the room.

  “Oh. Can I help you ladies?”

  The woman, her warm amber eyes sparkling, radiated a maternal authority. Dee felt a guilty blush creeping up her neck, knowing they’d been caught red handed.

  “We were just looking for a price list,” said Norma.

  “A price list?” asked the woman.

  “Yes. Er, we heard good things about the rhassoul mud massage,” said Norma.

  “And you felt compelled to enquire at this time of evening?”

  “Seized by an impulse,” said Dee with a big smile.

  The woman smiled back. “I always act on impulse. To do otherwise is unnecessary self-denial. You’re not guests here, though.”