Crushed

by Kate Hamer

  Her power increases.

  The house is once more turned into a hidden arsenal. Knives aligned, scissors pointing; even the hammers in the shed have been placed with care to protect me.

  In despair I turn to the witches. It gives me a glimmer, a little bit of strength to carry on. It’s so strange, both my downfall and my redemption coming from the same source, the same bloody and dreadful story. I get armfuls of books from the library. The woman there is intrigued by my witch quest and helps me off her own bat, tracking things down for me by interlibrary loan. I don’t even have to ask any more: there is a new pile of books when I return the old ones. I fall on them and read furiously. It’s the one obsession that doesn’t feel like pain; all the others hold me to dreadful account. The witches lift me up and urge me to keep going. They say there is an unseen power that I can tap into and that will make me stronger. They say they have my back.

  I find out more. There is both good and evil in them. Venefica. Poisoner. Some are cannibals and cook heads. They silently converse with the dead. Yes, fiends who gobble anything, any root or poison that they think might give them power.

  They can heal too, though. Plant people. Cunning folk. Hedgewitch. They make love potions that when ingested make the victim giddy and swooning. At night they venture out to gather the herbs they have planted secretly in remote places. To have such suspicious plants growing in the garden would attract attention. Result in arrest.

  They are the definition of unnatural as far as women are supposed to be. Toads are nursed in laps instead of children. After ingesting certain herbs they will fall upon any man they see and tear him to pieces.

  Then there’s the Book of Shadows.

  At first, each coven just had one book each to share around.

  Now every witch has their own personal Book of Shadows, their grimoire, that must be destroyed upon their death. Intentions. Recipes. Incantations. A cookbook of magic, of the cunning craft. Formulas for the flying ointment they make to rub on their bodies so they can attend their sabbat, their gathering.

  I think of my diary, each entry a shadow form of my real intention and only I can interpret what I actually meant. It is my upside-down book, everything a reflection of the truth, my true meaning written in the invisible ink of thought.

  Flying ointment. Paul’s pieces of paper come with a rosy print of luscious lips this time, each miniature pair pursed in the centre. I remember the wishing bowl and the jelly lips emerging from the rubble of the bowl, ruby red, swollen and dissolving and flecked with grains of soil, and I feel that everything is aligning. It’s dangerous to do this but I arrange things in my room, ready for Grace and Orla coming to stay. I can’t wait. I’m too excited. It seems a miracle that this has been arranged but it all came together – Mum not finding anyone to have me although I had to lie about Grace. Her mum’s not there; she’s on some sort of holiday but I didn’t let on about that. If she’d known that she would have tried to shovel me off to stay there, which would have been horrible as Grace would never invite me of her own accord. She always dives straight off at the end of the day like she wants to keep everything at home to herself.

  I nearly hit the roof when I hear a movement outside and I peep round the door. It’s her. She’s pausing on the landing near my door. I slide out of my room, hoping she won’t notice the subterfuge of me pulling the door too nonchalantly behind me.

  ‘Aren’t they here yet?’ she asks impatiently. ‘The car is loaded up. We’re ready to go.’

  I check my watch. ‘They’re not due for half an hour.’

  We wait silently at the breakfast bar, perched on high stools. She won’t countenance going before she’s had sight of them. She keeps pulling back her sleeve to check her watch with an exaggerated flick of her elbow.

  This is the first time I’ve ever had friends over to stay the night and my nervousness is showing.

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’ she asks. ‘Stop tapping your foot like that. It’s irritating.’

  Finally, the doorbell rings and I hop off my stool and run down the hallway. I stop, take a moment before I answer it. Bite on my fingers. Compose my face. Try to calm my breathing down. I unlatch the heavy front door and swing it open.

  ‘You’re here, you’re here.’ I hop up and down.

  They are both standing on the doorstep. Grace has a backpack and Orla, a flowered holdall with her night things. The light behind them cuts into my eyes. Grace has her hands buried deep in her jeans pockets. She’s been buzz-cutting her hair again so the bone almost shows through. She’s got wristbands and plaited thread wreathed around her wrists. Orla’s dark smudges under her eyes have grown deeper so they are almost dints in her skin.

  ‘You’re here,’ I say again, and flap my arms about a bit because nothing seems to be happening.

  ‘Yeah,’ says Grace at last and she swings her backpack off and puts it down. ‘We are.’

  Mum’s voice comes from the darkness of the hallway. ‘Well, don’t just leave them standing around there. Invite them in.’

  Orla automatically steps over the threshold and Grace squints in the darkness and hesitates, then follows after.

  ‘Quick, take off your shoes and come upstairs,’ I whisper.

  As if understanding the need to move fast, Grace shucks off her trainers and starts up the stairs behind me, but we don’t make it.

  ‘Come back down,’ Mum says, and we do, although I can see how reluctant Grace is as she moves at about half the speed she went on the way up.

  Orla is peering into the darkness of the hallway. They both stand with their bags at their feet, looking awkward and sullen, as if this is the last place they want to be in the whole world. This is not how I imagined it at all. Mum approaches and my hands start tingling with the nervousness. I almost feel like telling them to go away again. All at once I don’t want them here.

  ‘I’ll be off shortly.’ She examines them suspiciously. ‘I do hope you’re going to behave yourselves while I’m away.’ Her lips stretch tight across her teeth. ‘I’m not going to stand for any nonsense – drinking or anything. I’ll know if you have. And I’ve told Phoebe absolutely no going out.’

  Grace opens her mouth to say something, then closes it again. I had the feeling that she was about to say she didn’t want to be there anyway and she was buggering off. I want to cry I’m so embarrassed. It’s hard to push Mum away when I’m seeing her through other people’s eyes. That’s partly why I hardly ever have anyone back here. It’s too stressful. I can’t maintain the story to myself that everything’s all right. Seen through other people’s eyes, that story starts unravelling dangerously as soon as she hisses at me, or calls me an idiot or simply watches us, unsmiling and with pursed lips as we creep past her. I became used to girls making excuses to leave early a long time ago and it was easier to stop asking them. I’m beginning to feel like this was a dreadfully wrong thing to do. Them being here is breaking a skin that is delicate and impossible to rupture without terrible consequences. They haven’t got a clue how difficult it is or what it is they need to do. We all need to be as light as insect pond skaters so the surface doesn’t break.

  After she’s burned them with her gaze for a few moments, she sighs. ‘All right, well, Peter’s waiting in the car. Give me a kiss, Phoebe.’

  I start. ‘What?’

  ‘Give your mother a kiss before she goes. What’s the matter? We’re going all the way to Scotland – don’t you want to say goodbye properly?’

  What’s she up to? What’s she up to? She never kisses or touches me, only The Beloved. Everyone is looking at me and I have a horrible crawling sensation over my skin because I realise I am actually expected to go up and kiss her. She has her arms open and ready.

  I take baby steps towards her and as I get closer I see the familiar tiny changes on her face. It’s the start, the very first sign of the rage. Grace and Orla won’t see it, they won’t know what it is, but I do, even though right now it’s barely a tightening o
f the cheekbones, a slight narrowing of the eyes, the forehead paling by a single shade. Sometimes it can be made to go away at this early stage, by soothing. Other times it’s unstoppable. I wonder what’s caused it now. I glance over my shoulder to Orla and Grace and I know in a flash. It’s them standing there, Grace chewing gum, arms crossed, watching us curiously, and Orla looking as if she wants to be a million miles away. They are too other, they are not subjects in this kingdom and they don’t understand it or know its rules. They are interlopers and she resents them being here, being in her space, breathing her air while she won’t be here to regulate everything. I need things to go well so much I lurch into my mother’s arms and hug her. The unfamiliar touch of her, the softness of her Liberty print blouse, the close-up smell of mimosa perfume that she has now restocked, causes a physical sickness in me and the moment seems to go on forever. I feel huge and awkward in her arms. I feel as delicate as a tiny white flower that is about to be crushed. I feel lank and poisoned and as if she’s the only thing that’s holding me up. I cycle through all these things.

  Finally, she takes me firmly by the shoulders and holds me away from her. She takes my face in her hands and her fingers press hard in there, hurting me. I stay silent; I don’t whimper or anything because I don’t want to let on to the others what’s happening.

  ‘Good girl,’ she says, looking me right in the eyes, and the unfamiliar closeness of them makes my own widen. ‘You behave now, Phoebe.’

  She puts me aside and picks up her bag. ‘We don’t allow shoes upstairs,’ she says as she passes Orla, who immediately bends down to remove them, the product of an ultra-polite home, where she’s been taught nice manners for so long and with such persistence they are tattooed onto her heart. The no-shoes rule doesn’t apply to her. She struts around this house in shoes to her heart’s content. It’s funny how it makes everyone else seem softer and more vulnerable than her. Even The Beloved has brought that up. ‘They’re my high heels,’ she was told, ‘they always need wearing in.’ Nobody else in the house has high heels – except for a party pair owned by The Beloved – so it seemed to fit, though she being the only wearer of them seems to add to her special status somehow. It’s probably just as well: there’s nothing quite like the sight of a yellowing middle-aged toenail poking through a hole in tights to get your guts churning.

  The door clicks shut and Grace stands there with her hand on her rucksack. ‘Christ,’ she says, looking at the door. ‘What was all that about?’

  ‘Nothing.’ I want to dispel the sharp crackle in the air, to make it disappear in a puff of wind. ‘Nothing. What? I mean, bring your things up. Come and see my room,’ I mumble, and Grace slowly, very slowly like she’s making a big mistake, lifts her rucksack and holds it in front of her like it’s a baby and puts her socked foot back on the stair. I see that she’s wearing mismatched socks. I see how old and worn her rucksack is.

  When I open the door to my room it surprises me. I’m seeing it like them and I see how devoid of personality it is, how I’ve managed to drain out of it anything of myself. It’s so plain. Grace glances down at what I’ve arranged on the floor.

  ‘Jesus, Phoebe,’ she says. ‘What the fuck’s that all about?’

  33

  Grace

  I’ve got to be honest; my first instinct was to run.

  The house was like an absolute fucking cathedral. I looked up, astounded. The staircase alone was monumental. Above me, it double backed onto itself. The carpet was a dramatic slash of red through the heart of the house. A heavy brass light fitting hung in the hall space and reflected the light from the windows on its golden surfaces. Through the open door to my right there was some kind of study and in there a dark wooden cabinet with glass doors that was a sort of treasure house. I’ve never seen such astonishing objects inside a house. It was more like a museum. I wanted to get close to that glass dome and look at the flowers inside; I wanted to cup the glass bubble in my hand, run my finger over the complicated spiky brass instrument and send the globe spinning. I have never set foot in a home like this and that’s partly what drew me up the stairs – the sheer curiosity of seeing the rest of it.

  It was only then, with my socked foot on that silk-like carpet, that it occurred to me how strange it was that I’d never been here before. I hesitated. I had a bad feeling. I drew back.

  It’s warm in here. It’s beautifully clean and shined up so why did I have that sense of cold rottenness? It was underlying, like it came from the ground. I was confused. I realised when I met Phoebe’s mother, though. I could see at once where it came from. I’ve never taken any notice when Phoebe complained about her. Stop whining, I thought, at least you’ve got one that’s healthy, that’s not short of a few quid. But as soon as I met her mother I felt the hackles rise on my neck, one by single one. I’m not yours, I thought, stop trying to make me. That’s when I really considered taking off. I could easily have stuffed my shoes back on, come up with an excuse and darted away before any of them had time to think. Later, I asked Orla about it. She said she knew what I meant and that’s how she felt when she first came here – although she’s only been twice and a long time ago – but somehow the effect wears off a bit after a while. Is that how it works? I wondered. You just get used to shit so it becomes normal. I could see her mother hurting Phoebe’s face with her hands and afterwards there were red fingermarks around Phoebe’s eyes. I didn’t go, though. I was tired and it seemed easier to stay, the effort of escape taking energy. Besides, Phoebe’s mum would be gone soon and then I’d get to see the rest of the house.

  Phoebe took us into her room like an excited child who’s having a birthday party.

  ‘What the fuck?’ I asked as she opened the door and beckoned us inside. ‘I mean, what the fuck?’

  ‘Don’t you remember?’ she said. ‘Don’t you remember at the wishing bowl? We had a dolls’ tea set sometimes. This is the very one.’

  ‘Phoebe, that’s really, really weird.’

  She’d laid out the little rose-sprigged cups and saucers along with the teapot and sugar bowl on a white tablecloth on the floor.

  ‘Really? What d’you mean, it looks weird in a good way?’ She scrunched up her eyes.

  ‘No. I mean it’s a really weird thing to do. What’s all the greenery for?’ There were piles of berries in formations across the snow white of the tablecloth, like they were tracing the constellations of the sky. There were bunches of leaves in a jug and wilting flower heads.

  ‘Henbane, deadly nightshade, witch’s berry, monkshood – well, various noxious herbs and plants. I admit I’ve had to compromise and make substitutions.’

  ‘No kidding. That one looks like coriander.’

  I looked over to Orla and to my surprise she was nodding at Phoebe, like she knew what it all meant. ‘Is this what you were talking about, having a witch’s sabbath?’

  Phoebe smiled back at her like, At last somebody gets it.

  ‘So are some of these actually poisonous plants?’ I asked. ‘Is that really a good idea?’

  Phoebe pursed her lips at me as you would at a child. God, she really was irritating me now. ‘No. It’s supposed to be representative,’ she said slowly, speaking as if to a child. ‘This is the real flying ointment.’ She picked up one of the tiny cups and waved it at me.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Look inside.’

  At the bottom was a tab of acid with a pair of red lips stamped on it.

  ‘Why didn’t you just say? Why go to all this trouble?’ It made me uncomfortable, all this manic mess, this house, her.

  She shrugged. ‘I felt like it,’ she said tersely. ‘Think of it like an art installation. Let’s go and get something to eat.’

  *

  Now in the kitchen she gets nervous again and she reminds me of a nine-year-old having a birthday party and who has become so fractious and overexcited that all the other children pine to leave. I long for Daniel, for the feel of his arms around me. I miss him. I miss Mum too.
When I spoke to her on the phone for the first time she sounded a little uncertain, disoriented, then by the next day she’d relaxed; she’d been out in the garden and had tea on the patio with wasps buzzing around the jam. The hairdresser was coming later. It was the wasps that had really delighted her. She’d forgotten, she said, how they did that. How they clustered around sweetness. It was a forgotten thing from when life was normal.

  Phoebe takes pizzas out of the freezer. ‘Look. I persuaded Mum to buy us some of these. Ice cream too. And this,’ she pulls out a bottle of vodka, cloudy with cold, ‘is what I hid earlier.’

  Christ. LSD and cookie-dough ice cream. Dolls’ tea sets and alcohol. This really is fucked up. Her tension is giving me a headache. I have no idea how she affords all the drugs and alcohol – she’s always complaining her parents never give her any money. She hasn’t got a weekend job.

  ‘But your mum says we mustn’t drink or anything. That she’ll find out if we do,’ says Orla.

  ‘Huh,’ says Phoebe, sloshing some vodka smoking with the cold into a tumbler, ‘you’re not afraid of her, are you?’ Her face tightens up and she looks suddenly old, like a wrinkly plum, then it relaxes again and goes smooth. ‘Besides, I am the most brilliant housekeeper. It’s the attention to detail that counts. You have to get rid of every molecule so there’s not even a smell left behind, not even a hint of a smell. Look.’ She brandishes the pizzas, stiff discs of frozen dough still in their plastic. ‘Do you want pesto and rosemary or mushroom and black pepper?’

  They’re the fancy kind of pizzas with bits of sundried tomato stuck on them. I can imagine her standing in the supermarket in the freezer aisle, wheedling her mum into buying them and her conceding like she’s giving her daughter gold.