Wilde

by Eloise Williams

‘Wilde. I know you are feeling ill, but you must be feeling sick to the maximum if you think any of it has anything to do with you!’ She laughs.

  I glance at her.

  ‘I just mean that everything is going nuts in this weather. It’s exhausting. My mum said last night she had to put frozen sprouts in her pillowcase. No one really wants to eat them anyway, so it didn’t matter.’

  We start walking to class. Dorcas offers me a mint while she talks.

  ‘…and that’s why I told Mum that her only option was to put all our clothes in the freezer.’

  We have Page to Stage this morning, so we go to the hall. Lewis passes me my bag.

  ‘Thank you. I’m sorry about yours.’

  ‘Don’t worry. My baby brother was sick on it last night as well. Mr Ricketts cleaned that off too. Result.’

  He is easily pleased.

  6

  ‘Into a circle, please, young people. Into a circle. That’s it. Into a circle.’ Gwyneth Fox-Rutherford spends ages rounding us up and even then everyone apart from me keeps talking. ‘Superlative. We are now enclosed in a circle of trust.’

  She looks directly at me and then straight up into the sky. I think she is checking for birds. She must have seen the starlings earlier. I’m glad she looks up; it gives me an excuse to do the same.

  Nothing. The sun roasts white overhead and, apart from a buzzard a very long way off, there is nothing to fear.

  ‘The curse!’ Gwyneth proclaims dramatically. I snap my head to look at her. It doesn’t have the same effect on anyone else. They all keep yapping and straggling out of shape.

  ‘Can we have some quiet, please, guys? Quiet, please. I said, SHUT UP.’ Gwyneth’s eyes bulge. I think she’s surprised herself by losing her temper so quickly.

  ‘We aren’t allowed to use those words, miss. They are extremely rude.’ Jemima’s eyes are wide with horror. She really is quite the actor.

  ‘Apologies, folks. It’s the heat. Making me a little short-tempered. But now I have your attention, may our journey into the unknown past commence.’

  Gwyneth does a little jig of celebration. Someone yawns loudly. To be fair it is pretty difficult to concentrate in this heat.

  ‘Excellent start. Yawning is good for relaxation and allowing our bodies to be refreshed and in the moment. Join me in awakening our conscious selves.’ She yawns. Everyone joins in yawning, long and hard and way, way, way too loud. Lewis, back from a brief spell in Time Out, is walking a thin line already.

  ‘Wonderful.’

  Lewis yawns again and makes everyone laugh. Gwyneth pretends to take it on the chin and smiles a patronising smile. ‘Are we ready?’

  Lewis yawns a tiny yawn. This time Gwyneth doesn’t even pretend to smile.

  ‘We are going to start with, what I like to call the “actor warm-up”.’ She makes inverted commas in the air and uses a voice which she clearly thinks is funny. I don’t really get it, but I don’t want this woman to feel embarrassed. Just because she’s an adult it doesn’t mean life’s easy.

  ‘I don’t think we need to warm up, Miss. It’s boiling.’

  ‘Jemima Morgan, is it?’

  ‘How do you know my name?’

  ‘I’m keeping my eye on you.’

  Jemima preens. ‘I’m glad, Miss, because I’m really good at Drama.’

  ‘Wonderful. Now, please don’t call me Miss. Call me Gwyneth.’

  A ripple of laughter.

  ‘Gwyneth.’ Lewis tests it out and gets a laugh again.

  ‘The first part of the warm-up is to shake your faces like this.’ She clasps her hands together and shakes her head loosely. Some of the class copy her with so much energy that there is a danger of their heads falling off. I do it half-heartedly, so I won’t mess up my plaits. She makes us pretend we have a busy bee on our fingertip, waving it around while we make a buzzing noise; do an impression of a horse, which makes my lips tingle; and sing lots of la’s back to her. Gwyneth loves every minute of it. I don’t.

  By the time we finish the warm-up, we are struggling to breathe, it’s so hot, and we are instructed to sit in the shade of the willow tree. Gwyneth looks panicked by the state of us. She’s not a teacher so I guess she doesn’t think about health and safety. Even in this willowy green tangle, the sun has lemoned the grass, but it’s heavenly after the piercing bright of the yard.

  We sip from our forever bottles and wait. Even Lewis is too hot to cause trouble.

  Gwyneth unwinds her sparkly neck-scarf and sits on the grass cross-legged. ‘The curse!’

  She looks at me. I look at Susan Stevens. Susan Stevens stares solidly at Gwyneth and refuses to catch my eye.

  ‘The curse on this town was put here by a horrible, terrible witch.’

  I shrink into myself.

  ‘I am about to tell you the tale of the evil witch they named Winter!’

  ‘Heard it.’ Lewis has recovered.

  ‘Ah, little boy, but you haven’t heard my version.’

  The class scoff at her attempt to humiliate. I want to tell her she’s just being nasty because he spoiled her moment.

  She lowers her voice and, despite the heat, we are caged in this emerald world and her words charm us.

  ‘In the middle of Witch Point woods, centuries ago, there was a humble cottage. A woodcutter and his wife lived there with their seven daughters. Beautiful were their daughters. Kind and true.’

  She looks around, eyeballing us to make sure she has our attention. She does. Everyone loves creepy stories, even when they’ve heard them a million times.

  ‘One fateful night, a witch came upon that humble cottage and peering through the windows saw the happiness of the family who sat by candlelight inside. The wicked witch wanted to kill their love stone dead, so bitter was she.’

  Gwyneth punches her own leg for emphasis on the word ‘dead’. You can tell it hurts her, but she doesn’t stop.

  ‘The evil, pus-covered hag put an enchantment on herself to disappear her pimples, vanish her pustules and make the fleas which crawled from her ears jump off her skin and look for others’ blood on which to feed.’

  This is gross, but everyone except for me and Susan seems to be loving it.

  ‘She cast a bewitchment on herself, to make her look like a lonely and destitute girl. When the family sat in front of their meagre fire to eat, she crossed their poor threshold and sat down at their pitiful, scrap-filled table.’ Gwyneth acts this all out, wrapping the willow fronds around her like rags.

  ‘“Who are you?” the woodcutter demanded,’ Gwyneth booms in a deep, stern voice, throwing the leaves aside and putting her fist up, ready to fight.

  ‘“I am but a poor and meek and destitute girl, Sir,” the witch replied.’ Gwyneth is all innocence and wringing hands.

  ‘“Let us take her in, poor little wren,” the woodcutter’s wife cried.’ In a very shrill voice, apparently.

  ‘“Oh yes! We would so love an eighth sister! Please, father!”’ Gwyneth gets a bit carried away here, trying to portray ten different characters at once. I am worn out just watching her.

  ‘The witch wormed her way into the family’s affections and trouble came soon enough.’

  We all lean in.

  ‘One night, as the snow began to fall, the witch convinced the sisters that they should all come with her through the woods “to a place of great beauty”. Being trusting and good through and through, they followed her out into the woods. Soon the blizzard became so thick they couldn’t see their path home. She lured them to where the seven rivers meet, at the Falls of Snow waterfall, and there she drowned them in revenge for all the witches who had been dunked and drowned before her. They haunt the rivers forever.’

  Gwyneth gives a theatrical cackle to end.

  I don’t feel well. This story of the witch – it feels wrong. My heart thuds painfully. Something twangs my memory, out of reach. I try really hard to remember, but it’s cloudy and I can’t get to it.

  ‘What does dunked me
an, miss?’

  ‘It means the witches were held underwater to see if they would cast a spell to save themselves. If they drowned, they weren’t witches. If they lived, then they were.’

  ‘That’s stupid.’

  ‘Thank you, Lewis.’

  Dorcas pipes up. ‘They did other things to them too. Rolled them down hills in barrels filled with spikes. Burned them at the stake. They crushed them with huge stones to get false confessions. They even killed their pets if they were thought to have helped with witchcraft.’

  ‘That’s enough, thank you, Dorcas.’

  ‘What happened to the witch called Winter, Miss?’

  ‘She was caught by a witch hunt and hanged for her hideous crimes. As she swung from the noose by her neck, she left an evil curse on the poor town and its people so that everyone would have bad luck forever. An everlasting curse on Witch Point.’

  The class has heard this legend before, but they’re still excited to hear such a dramatic rendition. I feel as if I’m going to be sick again. By the look on Susan’s face, she feels the same.

  ‘She sounds like a really horrible witch,’ Jemima says, smiling spitefully at me. ‘We are extremely proud of our heritage here, Miss. When will auditions be, Miss? I mean, Gwyneth.’

  Jemima is all angelic golden-halo hair and I feel my face crease like a raisin.

  ‘We have the rest of the day to cast. I have these for you.’ She hands out photocopies of the script. ‘Practise. Auditions shall begin anon.’

  Dorcas pipes up, ‘Which could be an abbreviation of anonymous but in this context means soon.’

  ‘Thank you, Dorcas.’

  ‘I’m completely ready, Gwyneth,’ Jemima smugs as she has never smugged before.

  ‘One is never completely ready, Jemima. One can always improve.’

  I feel a nasty sense of satisfaction as Jemima turns ketchup red from her neck to her fringe.

  ‘Ten minutes of preparation, then let battle commence!’

  People busy themselves with their audition pieces. I sulk on my own and pretend to be reading through lines: ‘I am a terrible witch. A hideous hag. I am ruthless and heartless, and I hang my head in shame.’

  I can hear Jemima projecting the same lines loudly outside the curtain of leaves. They suit her.

  I’m going to let Gwyneth know that I’d like to help with directing, scriptwriting, stage management, or anything offstage, but before I get a chance she goes to get some more water from the canteen and leaves us on our own, which I’m pretty certain is Not Allowed.

  ‘That was very weird, wasn’t it, girls?’

  The Sleeks come through the willow curtain on cue and move in my direction.

  ‘All those birds in one place.’

  ‘And when she went inside, they all disappeared.’

  ‘As if she could control them or something.’

  ‘A witch could do that. Control things.’

  ‘A real witch.’ Holly and Ivy burst out laughing.

  ‘Stay well away from her.’ Jemima’s voice is glacial. ‘Careful, don’t go too close. She might put a spell on you.’

  The twins shriek away, laughing and pretending to be zombies. Jemima glides away, a swan made of ice. I hear anger fizzing in my ears.

  ‘Hang the witch,’ someone shouts. The floor swoops beneath me.

  Gwyneth comes back into the wavering green looking less than pleased. ‘Right, Year Six. Come and sit down.’

  Everyone carries on as if she hasn’t said anything.

  ‘Come and SIT DOWN, I said.’

  Everyone sits. Except Lewis, who carries on rehearsing his lines until he notices, about a minute later, that everyone is smirking at him.

  ‘See, Miss Gwyneth? That’s why I should have the main part. I’ve already got an audience, haven’t I?’ He bows and everyone cheers.

  Gwyneth takes out a huge folder and puts on some thick-rimmed black glasses. Auditions start. There’s no way I’m auditioning. I want to work backstage, then at least no one will be looking at me.

  When the hilarity of the first few auditions is over, it becomes a bit boring. Dorcas’s very enthusiastic reading brings me out of my stupor for a bit. I am forced to stumble through a couple of lines. Jemima takes herself way too seriously, but is irritatingly good. A couple of the others make a decent job of it, but my attention is waning fast.

  When Mum and Mae used to put on plays, it was for fun. They used every inch of the garden as a theatre and invited friends and relatives. One year, the year Dad fell in love with Mum, they put on A Midsummer Night’s Dream and floated candles on the pond and strung fairy lights in the trees. Dad says he was as enchanted by my mum as if he had really had the love-in-idleness flower squeezed into his eyes by a meddlesome fairy.

  They stuck with Shakespeare because it was so successful; with Mum and Mae playing lots of roles at all their garden parties. Mum didn’t want to do it professionally, so when Mae went off to drama college, she stayed behind and was a seamstress. She was planning to do a PhD on Shakespeare with the Open University. She never did in the end. I wonder if she would have had a more exciting life if she hadn’t settled down with Dad and had me. I wonder if she would have gone off and seen the world like I’m going to. If she could foresee things like Mae said, did she know what was going to happen to her? Could she see the future me?

  Eventually, Gwyneth gives us a two-minute break while she casts. I stay in the same spot, so I won’t have to chat to anyone. I try not to think about all the things that have happened lately. I try to empty my mind, like they taught us to do in mindfulness breaks in my last school. Instead of emptying, my brain immediately fills with a tsunami of thoughts, curses, screams, vicious claws grabbing for me, and birds, millions of birds, taking me up into the sky, then dropping me like a stone.

  Gwyneth claps her hands.

  ‘It’s been a difficult job casting. Each and every one of you was superb in your own way.’ She paces the stage area. ‘I’ve tried to be fair and give an accurate reflection of talent, ability and commitment, whilst also suiting the person to the role as creatively and cleverly as is humanly possible.’

  We sit and wait.

  ‘“A Witch called Winter” – the cast!’ She lists the parts. Ivy is cast as Winter and stands to punch the air. Holly is one of the seven. Lewis gets the part of the woodcutter and asks if that means he can have a real axe. He’s told no. Dorcas is the woodcutter’s wife, which she looks happy with. Lewis asks if that means they have to argue all the time. He’s told no. The others are all given parts they seem content with. Even Susan Stevens smiles.

  ‘Wilde, you will be the hangman.’

  I put my hand up shakily. ‘Miss, I don’t want to be onstage. I’d like to help direct or…’

  ‘Impossible, I’m afraid. We need everyone to take part. The executioner will be your role.’

  ‘But, Miss, I don’t feel comfortable onstage.’ Or with being the executioner.

  ‘Then I will give you some extra tuition.’ Her eyes are magnified by her glasses.

  I put my hand down. I don’t want extra tuition. I don’t want to be in the play.

  I’ll be off sick. I’ll explain to Mae that it’s all too stressful for me. She’ll understand and if she doesn’t, I’ll hide. Or I’ll drink saltwater to make myself throw up. I’ve done it before, it’s not that bad.

  A thin, hesitant voice calls out. ‘Miss.’ It’s Jemima. ‘You didn’t call me out.’

  ‘Ah, yes. What’s your name again?’

  ‘Jemima, Miss. You said you were keeping an eye on me, Miss. I mean, Gwyneth.’

  Jemima is visibly shaking. Her face is taut, her cheeks pinched. This is really, really unfair.

  ‘Erm.’ Gwyneth scans through her list a few times, then takes her pen from behind her ear and writes. ‘Third woodcutter from the left.’

  Even I can see that is wrong. Jemima may be a horrible person, but she shines when she is acting. A light glows inside her.

&nbs
p; Gwyneth snaps her folder shut triumphantly and sweeps out, beckoning to us to follow. ‘Exit pursued by a bear.’

  We all get up except Jemima, who sits for a moment too long. My heart goes out to her. I know what it’s like to want something so badly and not be able to have it. I can imagine that throbbing feeling she must have in her throat. Holly and Ivy are whispering and glancing over at her. She straightens her back and stands.

  ‘Stupid play, anyway.’ She heads away from school. I chase after her, her ponytail bobbing ahead of me.

  ‘Jemima.’

  She ignores me, walking briskly.

  ‘Jemima.’

  She stops and turns, tears streaking her face.

  ‘You can have my part if you want. I really don’t want it.’

  ‘How kind of you to give me your cast-offs.’

  ‘I don’t mean it like that. I’d rather not be in the play at all. Honestly. I’m not being nasty. It’s just…’ It’s impossible to give her my part. I should have known she’d be humiliated by the offer. ‘I just. I want you to have it. Please. You’d be doing me a favour.’

  She seems uncertain for a second, then looks over my shoulder to Holly and Ivy on the far side of the yard. They are still whispering. Jemima glowers at me and now there’s no uncertainty in her eyes. There’s just plain hatred.