Joab made me listen intently to the birdsong and the breeze blowing through trees. He made me smell everything—the earthy fallen leaves, squashed apples, mushrooms and bark. He made me taste blackberries (I insisted on taking only the ones that were high up on the bush, remembering Tom’s advice). We ate the sweetest plums and tart apples growing in the orchards around the house.
He insisted I turn my face to the sky in the middle of a downpour of rain to feel ‘the essence of life’. We sat still on a fallen tree and watched gray squirrels and rabbits while he told me folk stories of witches with the ability to transform into hares or stags. Some witches chose animals as their familiars. He explained that familiars became a witch’s eyes and ears beyond the reach of their human senses. I thought about the gangs of crows that appeared to guard Hunter’s Moon. “What about crows?” I asked.
“Crows? Yes,” Joab said suspiciously. “Why?”
“No reason. Only there are a lot of crows around the house, and I find them a little sinister.”
“As far as I know, they are just crows. No one has familiars these days. Technology is much more efficient. I am starving. Let’s eat.”
We picnicked in the fields overlooking the billowing Hampshire hills and valleys below. We chatted and laughed and joked. Joab talked about his ideas and ridiculously passionate views about politics. My lame contributions were quickly dismissed.
Over the next few days, we continued our lessons and found similar passions in other things. We discussed art and books and music. We both loved music, although my memories and recollection of music were minimal. Joab made it his mission to re-educate me, and we listened to his amazing vinyl collection for hours.
One day we got drunk on blackberry whisky that we found dusty in the cellar. I watched him balancing along the wall outside the house, having finished half a bottle of the lethal fruity concoction while reading his favourite poems. Poets he described as the original Bohemians—Baudelaire and Rimbaud. He eyes flashed with passion as he discussed the raw words which painted unapologetic verses of desire, lust and hedonistic pleasures of Bohemianism and their radical ideas.
There was something very strange and old-fashioned about Joab and his ideas. He seemed from another age. His mind just didn’t seem to be wired like any other guy I’d met before. Joab romanticised about other true Bohemians who claimed that if you have not achieved great things by the time you are twenty-seven, then you might as well be dead. “Some of our greatest artists—Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain—all dead at twenty-seven. Is that a coincidence?” For a moment a wave of melancholy swept over him, almost like a look of regret that he had not followed the same route as his heroes.
“Sometimes I envy them, their short, crazy lives, lived to the max, their legacies. To live forever is…must be exhausting.” Joab looked tired and deflated, only for a second.
Why would a young guy with everything, aspire to only live a few more years?
“Weren’t all those people on drugs?” I said, sounding naive.
“Yeah, well, some drunk themselves to death too, but they left an awesome legacy of music. Today’s kids don’t want to do great things anymore. They don’t want to leave a legacy that could change the world.”
I growled with frustration and stood up to confront Joab. “Hey, how old are you? You are not far off being a kid yourself. What are you? Nineteen, twenty? You sound like some of the old men Steve drinks with at his club. Kids like me need to sort our own lives out first before taking on the world. There isn’t much I can do against all these threats from abroad. There are plenty that do care about our world. So what have you done that is so special?”
“I have done so much more than you can imagine keeping this country safe and free. We are on the cusp of doing something great again.” He gesticulated with the elaboration of a drunkard. “We have agents everywhere, feeding intelligence back to our central coven. All I can say is there is a huge, major threat from a group of Russian militants. They are planning a cyberattack on our national security. If they succeed, the consequences will be devastating. We have a plan that’ll turn the tables back on them.”
I was gobsmacked. “Are you serious?”
Joab’s expression changed, and for a fleeting moment, he looked panicked. Then he laughed a slightly awkward, cynical laugh and pushed his hand through his hair. “Yeah, what can I do?” Then he positioned himself to leap athletically from the wall to land next to me. Instead, his lace came untied and got caught under his other foot, and he tripped and landed in an undignified heap of black denim and leather next to the recycling wheelie bin. I roared with laughter. He looked at me embarrassed. “You are so gullible. It is way too easy to wind you up! Hey, sorry about the rant. To be honest, I am pretty drunk. I am going to take a piss.” He headed up to the house, I saw him glance at his phone.
The next morning, nursing a pounding headache, I swore never to touch blackberry whisky again. I wandered back into the herb room and resumed my task I had abandoned yesterday. I pounded herbs with a pestle and mortar and brewed revolting tea. I was growing familiar with the properties of herbs and the recipe of the teas. I wondered what might have been in the tea Annie gave me on our meeting. I wondered if the herb tea was less innocent than I thought.
Next, I arranged candles according to their colour and their magical role. I poured over ancient books as well as scouring the internet to learn about the craft. Joab taught me some simple spells and how to cast a magic circle. He explained that for a spell to work, you needed to command the elements. The first element was the spirit who can be represented with an image of the goddess, to invite her into the circle. The remaining elements could be represented by people.
Joab was fire; I was air. We needed an earth element. Joab explained that this was Annie. Earth elements are obsessed with looking after people, growing things and making potions and medicines and cooking the most sublime food ever. I remembered the wonderful banana cake I tasted on my first visit.
Tom was the water element. He was not around much. Like his element of water, he was easy going and free flowing, and that meant he was always on the move. Joab mocked him for being oversensitive and emotional ‘like a girl.’ I liked Tom, and I wanted to know more about him.
“Hey, you know I met Tom when I walked to the phone box. I liked him. He was funny, easygoing. Have you known him long?”
“You went for a walk with Tom? Why didn’t you tell me? What did he say?” Joab said jealously.
“Not much. He invited me to the pub.” I immediately regretted disclosing the invitation.
“I told him to stay away from you, and he is sidling his way in as always. Stay away from him. Promise me.”
“Joab, c’mon. It is not a big deal. All I said was I went for a walk with him and I liked him. What’s so wrong with that? You sound really jealous.”
“Whoa, I am not jealous of him. I was just, look…let’s get back to Wiccan.”
Still distracted by blatant jealousy, Joab steered the conversation back to witches and began discussing the differences between the types of witches.
Joab showed me how lone witches and hedge witches could create a magic circle with a bowl of salt for the earth, an incense stick for air, a candle for fire and a bowl of water. As an air element, I was supposed to be good at finding things, so Joab took my necklace, which was my only meaningful possession, and hid it.
We drew a pentagram within a circle with chalk and marked the missing elements of earth with salt and water with a small glass of water. Joab held a candle and gave me an incense stick to wave around. The swirling scented smoke represented the air. He placed a small stone effigy of the goddess in the remaining space within the circle. We called the goddess, and Joab recited a simple locating spell.
“Close your eyes and imagine the pendant. Breathe slowly and block out every other thought.”
It was impossible to block out my thoughts. I was still revelling in Joab’s overreaction to
my walk with Tom. “I can’t concentrate,” I said with frustration.
“I am sorry. I completely overreacted. It is fine. You don’t have to stay away from Tom. But he is a dick. Best to stay away from him. But what kind of dick would I be to ban you from making friends? It is not like we are together.” His skin coloured slightly. “I am your teacher, and speaking of education, let’s get back to the spell.”
I glanced at Joab quizzically. The boy who I found so intimidating, that rendered me breathless on our first meeting, and I suddenly realised that perhaps I had some power over him.
Back in teacher mode, Joab continued. “Remember it is your will that commands the magic to happen. The magic circle and the words of the spell just help you focus and concentrate your energy,” Joab said, breathing rhythmically. “Now, say these words with me: What is lost, I must now find. Bring it back. It must be found. Take my luck and spin it round.”
I closed my eyes and awkwardly repeated the words. “What is lost, I must now find. Bring it back. It must be found. Take my luck and spin it round.” Nothing happened, as I expected. I huffed with frustration. Joab’s sharp look insisted I keep trying. I closed my eyes and refocused. I imagined my necklace, the shining amber surface with the weird letters engraved into it. I whispered the spell, repeating the phrase again and again. “What is lost, I must now find. Bring it back. It must be found. Take my luck and spin it round.” Then a vision of my necklace appeared in my mind. “I can see it!” I couldn’t see where it was though.
“Now zoom out a little. What can you see?” My brain hurt from concentrating so hard. My body felt light. My stomach swirled, and suddenly I felt suspended in air. I didn’t dare open my eyes. The colours and shapes swirled around my mind and body like a dream. Slowly the colours stilled then came in to focus. It was as if my mind left my body and was floating through the house. I was staring down at something. The blurred outlines became clear. “I can see something. I can see the necklace. It is hidden in something. I don’t know…fabric or…different coloured fabric.”
“Look beyond the fabric.”
“I can see the wood grain…wood?”
“Zoom out further.”
“It is an old chest of drawers.”
“Good, really good work. Which room are they in?”
I imagined the room, the colour of the walls, the window. I could see clothes on the bed.
“Oh my God, Joab, it’s working. I am actually doing magic. I can see my necklace. I can do it! I am a seer. I am a witch.”
With the break in concentration, my exploring mind was pulled back into my body as if it was attached by a tight elastic band. I felt dizzy, disorientated and sick as though I had just stumbled off a fairground ride.
Joab laughed at my hysterical revelation. “I knew you could do it. So, where is your necklace?”
“Your room. It is in your room in the drawer.” I flushed red. “You arse. It’s in your pants drawer, isn’t it?” I said accusingly.
Joab shot me a mischievous grin. “Yep, help yourself. I had to put it somewhere you wouldn’t guess!”
“Ugh, not a chance! I am not rifling through there. I have no idea what I might find,” I said, scoffing.
“I will get your necklace. Make some coffee, and how about we have a go at hypnotism now that your brain’s warmed up?”
“Errr, I don’t know. I meant it when I said I don’t want someone rifling through my thoughts, even you.”
“It has been three weeks since we started training. Some of your magic is emerging, but we are no closer to learning about your identity. If you let me into your mind, I can search for those doors that are locking your memories and your magic away. Do you trust me?”
Reluctantly and sceptically, I agreed.
We drank our coffee and listened to some of Joab’s old vinyl records.
“OK, you have to relax your mind totally to let me in, so lie down.” Joab chinked two tiny symbols together, which made me laugh and giggle immaturely. He tried to hypnotise me several times unsuccessfully—that too ended with me in giggles. Joab was clearly getting pissed off with my childishness.
“Trust me and breathe,” Joab said earnestly.
I wasn’t certain I did trust him, not fully, not yet, and he asked me to trust him a lot, which actually makes me wonder whether I should. But I wanted to know about my past too much to let my paranoid trust issues get in the way, so I let him try to hypnotise me again. This time I concentrated totally on my breathing and his voice, and I put my consciousness in his hands.
“Relax,” he said. “Breathe deeply. In through your nose for the count of six, then out of your mouth for the count of eight. Feel all your muscles relax.” He repeated this until I was relaxed. “I am going to count down from ten, then you will fall into a deep sleep.”
I fought it, but before he reached ten, I was gone.
July 1940
Joe bobbed along on the floating bridge to Woolston. It was a hot, hazy day, but he could see the Supermarine factory looming on the other side of the water where the first Spitfire was designed and made. Now they make hundreds of the things every week.
Joe rubbed his face, relieved it was no longer crammed into a gas mask half the day from fire marshal training. The drills were cut short by a collapsed building, which meant hot and gruelling work, clearing debris from the railway so supplies could get through to the city. Another raid was expected tonight, so tomorrow would be more of the same backbreaking work. At least for now, he was escaping the docks. Joe was charged with an errand to deliver a message to Violet. All he knew was it was something to do with the ritual at Lammas on August the first. She had some means of getting the word out to all the key pagan families in the south of England.
It was quite a trip from the docks to Hamble, but a dozen other boys would have given their right arm to take Joe’s place, to have the chance to have a drink with Violet alone. She was like no one he’d ever met before. She was like a movie star but in full colour. She possessed a magic power incomparable to any other witch he knew.
When he got to Hamble, Joe stooped to get in the old wooden door of the pub and headed straight for the bar. He dropped his gas mask and bag on the floor next to his stool.
The gruff publican mumbled, “No glasses left and not much beer.”
Joe felt around for his metal tankard in his bag. It had become common practice to take your own to pubs as there was a shortage of glass everywhere. He found it. “Put whatever you have got left in there. I am parched.”
The barman carelessly splashed the beer into Joe’s tankard.
“Mines a gin, darling.”
Joe swung round to see Violet’s dazzling ruby-red smile.
“Hey, you are late…I had to snuggle up with these boys. Hey, boys?”
The boys cheered in response to her wink.
“I remember you….is it John, Jack? Oh don’t tell me…J…Joe,” she gushed. “You so kindly gave me one of your delicious cigarettes at the meeting in the woods. I say…don’t suppose…”
Joe fumbled in his back pocket to present her with a Woodbine cigarette before she could finish her sentence. She placed it between her lips with her shining red nails and waited while he fumbled around looking for matches.
“I won the fags in a card game,” Joe muttered through dry lips.
“How utterly marvellous…shall we…” She ushered him to a more discreet table away from the bar.
“I have not spoken to someone posh like you before,” Joe stuttered, cringing.
Violet threw her head back and laughed, sending her shining bronze curls cascading down her straight back. She leant towards Joe and moved her lips towards his ear, sending a shiver down his spine and whispered, “Eh, chuck, I’m a Lancashire lass born and bred.” Violet laughed. “I find it jolly hard to believe my thoroughbred witchy lineage has not been scrutinised by your family. I heard your father does not readily approve of outsiders, particularly those who are part of the war effort.”
“What do you know about my pop?” Joe demanded defensively.
“I thought he was some of sort of communist campaigner and was organising a march with some dockworkers to protest against the war…” She trailed off.
“Shh, I could be lynched,” Joe whispered urgently. He glanced around expecting to see gangs of patriotic workers and soldiers ready to punch him. To his relief, they remained oblivious.
She backtracked. “Well, darling, you can trace me right through to the Pendle witches.” Violet leant close and Joe’s mouth dried when he smelt her lily of the valley fragrance. She whispered huskily, “We Pendle witches are a strong lot. We practically buzz with power. However, in the real world where magic is a sin, I have found by refining my voice, more doors have opened. For instance, the chaps at the base think I am a well-educated eighteen-year-old girl from a good family, which is not far from the truth, only their interpretation of education and family differ from ours. The slight bending of the truth and a little age enhancement on my birth certificate got me into a Spitfire even though the bastards won’t let me fight. I am a good pilot and as courageous as the next man. I am level-headed, intelligent and sensible, but it seems that having a bosom as splendid as this prevents me from being a real pilot. I have to be content with tinkering with engines and flying planes between air bases. Beats being a land girl hands down. Have you seen their hands? Like leather. I have been speaking like this so long I can barely remember my native dialect!”
Joe gawped at Violet. “You fly Spitfires?”
“Do you want to see one close up?” Her eyes sparkled with adventure. She grabbed Joe’s hand, pulling him abruptly to his feet, and he clumsily stumbled in her wake as they left the pub.
“Where’s your car?” She could tell by the rise of Joe’s eyebrows it was an absurd question for seventeen-year-old working-class lad from the docks.
“Why do we need a car when you can enjoy our beautiful country on two wheels?”
The Haunting of Violet Gray Page 6
