Waking the Witch (The Witch of Cheyne Heath Book 1)

by W. V. Fitz-Simon

  “And not just you. I did it to everyone, to the entire world. It was so destructive. It made me do things that were so bad for me. Gosha, I’m so sorry for everything I’ve put you through.”

  Tears flowed down her cheeks, making Gosha cry as well until they pulled their chairs together and hugged each other close.

  “Don’t be silly,” said Gosha into the thick luster of Miranda’s blond hair. “I’d do anything for you.”

  After a time, they pulled apart laughing. Miranda’s mascara ran down her face, but Gosha was confident hers was still perfect. It was good to laugh with someone she shared so much with, despite never being free to be fully herself.

  “Here,” said Gosha, taking out her makeup kit, and set to work cleaning up Miranda’s face. “Some of mother’s little helper.”

  “The best of friends a girl could have,” said Miranda, looking up so Gosha could apply eyeliner to her lower lids. Miranda knew about Gosha’s special recipes, but had no idea they were the product of witchcraft. “There’s a retreat we go to every fortnight at a lovely country house not far outside London. We just sit and talk and do our practice. It’s given me the strength to finally beat this addiction.”

  “There you are.” Gosha packed away her things. No one in the dining room took the slightest note of their little commotion. It was one of the reasons she loved the club. Everyone was free to be themselves.

  “Darling, you’re a magician,” said Miranda, checking Gosha’s work in her own little hand mirror. It’s true she almost looked herself again, but there were some things no amount of Craft stolen from her mother could wipe away.

  “I still have pots of the stuff at home. I’ll bring you one next time I see you.”

  “Enough about me, darling. I’m being a terrible friend again and dominating the conversation. Tell me what’s wrong.”

  Gosha blinked. Her mind slipped out of gear in panic.

  “N-nothing.”

  “Oh, don’t be silly.” Miranda reached across the table and adjusted a frond of Gosha’s hair. “Something’s up. You’re doing your usual trick of hiding behind your makeup, but I can always tell. There’s a twitch at the corner of your eyes that gives you away. Honestly, you’d be a terrible poker player.”

  Gosha felt exposed, naked in front of Miranda. She was so careful to keep any hint of the supernatural away from her. A sip of water steadied her nerves and cleared the lump in her throat that threatened to strangle her. She had packed up the problem of George and his affair into a little box stashed in the back of her mind until she could devote more time to it. Unpacking it and trotting it out for Miranda would distract her from the larger problem of who killed Mick, and she didn’t want to be drawn off that path. Though the subject of Mick was fraught with tripwires, it was the thing that most weighed on her. Keeping it all back would be dishonest, and she wanted her relationship with Miranda to be as truthful as she could make it.

  “I saw someone die the day before yesterday.”

  She built a story methodically out of elements of the truth, leaving out everything that might cause her friend alarm, anything that smacked of Craft and Influence. Self-censorship took up so much energy. It was a relief to convey at least part of the truth, even if it were only a sanitized version of the story, stripped of any reference to the supernatural. By the time she finished, their food was cold.

  “Gosha!” came a cry from across the room.

  The dining room was quiet. Few members had come for lunch. Most were still in bed. Only the teetotalers and hardened alcoholics were awake at this hour. It was a shock to hear her name called across the room.

  In bounded Johnny Suharto, an unlikely sliver of black against the colorful suit of the older man he dragged in behind him. The painter, Wilfred Stepney, was just the right side of fifty for the difference in ages between them not to be scandalous, but Gosha was surprised, nonetheless. The old fart was such a snob. Johnny was far too ‘street’ to be his type.

  “I’m so glad I ran into you.” Johnny kissed her on both cheeks. “Do you know Willy?”

  Gosha suppressed a smile, knowing full well the great Wilfred Stepney would hate being called that.

  Willy nodded at her and wrinkled his nose as if he smelled a particularly foul side of fish somewhere in his immediate vicinity. He was a misogynist as well as a snob.

  “I’ll be outside in the car, ducky.” He spun around on one heel and wiggled his fingertips in their general direction as he minced out.

  Johnny realized who Gosha was with and hovered above Miranda, mouth agape. Gosha had never seen him this lost for words.

  “Johnny, meet my dear friend, Miranda Lovelock. Miranda, this is Sigit Sigit Johnny.” It was only proper to introduce him by his stage name.

  Miranda turned on her best, most charming smile as she always did to make those around her as comfortable as possible.

  “It’s an honor to meet you.” Johnny curtseyed as if being introduced to the Queen. “Huge fan.”

  “What a darling name,” said Miranda. Even though her voice had lost its gentle whisper, she still filled it with warmth. “What does it mean?”

  “Mum always called me it when I was a kid. Sigit is Indonesian for ‘handsome.’”

  “Handsome, handsome Johnny! Oh, that’s perfect.” She clapped her hands together with delight.

  “There's a memorial for Mick tonight at the Crack Club on Wickham Street. Will you come?” He squatted between them and handed her a crude printed flier with a picture of a rag and bone man on his cart of odds and ends. Across the top, a messy typeface declared: ‘Trash Removal.’

  “May I see that?” Miranda snatched the flier out of his hand with a frown. “Mick Trash was the boy you tried to save?”

  Even under the masking glamor of Gosha’s makeup, her face grew pale.

  “Did you know him?” asked Gosha.

  “I have to go or I'll be late.” Miranda snatched her bag and jacket from the back of her chair. “It was lovely to meet you, Johnny. Let’s get together next week.”

  She blew a kiss at Gosha and rushed out the door.

  “Miranda.” Gosha rose to follow her out, but by the time she made it to the front door, Miranda was long gone.

  “Was it the flyer?” asked Johnny, at her side. “It’s a bit crass, but Mick would have loved it.”

  “No, I’m sure it wasn’t,” said Gosha, confused. “She’s been through a lot recently—”

  17

  He stands on the corner across the road and watches as people enter. The house was easy to find, tucked away on a leafy street just off the north end of Dunsany Park. The old biddy who answered the phone was very welcoming, but he still feels nervous. Conservative, well-dressed middle-class men and women greet each other with open familiarity. Their casual friendliness is more intimidating than if they were grim and silent.

  The little chapbook that changed his life is in his hand, its corners well-worn from never leaving his pocket. In the three months since finding it in a musty old used bookstore off Morel Road, he has read it more than a hundred times. He has poured over its contents until the early hours of the morning, pondering its meaning and trying to grasp its concepts. The first time he read it, it made sense like nothing else ever had. All those sermons in Sunday mass and all his catechism lessons fell away. Granted a glimpse of a truth far more permanent than prayers and communion, he felt reborn by the words in the book.

  He takes a deep breath and calms himself, the way the booklet prescribes. He opens himself to the awareness of his feet on the pavement and the breeze in his hair. The churning of his thoughts fades away so he can listen to the needs of his unrealized self.

  This is it, he thinks. This is what I need.

  He plucks up his courage, checks to see no cars are coming, and crosses the street.

  * * *

  The world spun around her as she came to herself and stumbled, her head throbbing, nausea surging up in her gut.

  Johnny caught her be
fore she fell.

  “Are you okay?”

  Her stomach turned and spasmed, her salad spewing out, spattering over Johnny’s boots and onto the front steps.

  “Oh god, I’m so sorry.” She covered her mouth with one hand in case another wave came up.

  “Don’t worry about it.” Johnny laughed as he helped her back inside and onto one of the regency chairs in the foyer. “I’ve had much worse. Stay put. I’ll get you some water.”

  The world stopped cavorting around her as she clutched the thin wooden arms of the chair and pressed herself into its upholstered back, her head still pounding. Whatever dampening her visit to Repton Oratory granted her had disintegrated. She had to pacify these intrusions, and fast. The after-effects were intensifying.

  Johnny returned with two glasses, one empty, one full, and a dinner napkin.

  “Wash your mouth out with this one, spit it into that one, drink down the rest.”

  She felt steadier, able to make it to the car. She tried to get back to her feet, but the floor wobbled beneath her and she sat back down with a thud.

  “You’re not in good shape, are you?”

  The vision had given her a clear picture of the house where Mick was going, but Dunsany Park was at the far north of Cheyne Heath. At the edge of the borough, it was an area she was unfamiliar with, a rabbit warren of twisting side streets. She could waste hours finding the place.

  “Do you want pot?” asked Johnny. “It helped my nan with the nausea when she was getting chemo.”

  He patted himself down and rifled through his pockets.

  “I’ve got none on me,” he said, laughing. “That’s unusual. My stash is back at the squat. We can go get it.”

  “That’s sweet of you.” She squeezed his arm in thanks. “I’ll be fine. I just need—”

  * * *

  He can barely contain his excitement as they walk out of the office and down Manor Road. Johnny grabs his arm, breaks into a run and drags him around the corner. When they’re well out of sight of the record company windows, Johnny squeals and bounces up and down on the balls of his feet.

  “We did it. We did it.” He wraps his arms around Johnny, and they bounce together, ignoring the stares of the passersby. “Wait till we tell the lads.”

  They collapse laughing on the bench at the bus stop. As the euphoria ebbs, the implications of the meeting dawn on him.

  “Fuck. What did we agree to? What’s this awful fucking song they want us to do?”

  “It’s fine,” says Johnny, always confident, always willing to make the best out of any situation, no matter how crap it might be. “It’s an old Dusty Springfield track. I can make it work. It’s almost the same chord progression as that stupid disco number we did when we were fooling around at Christmas. We can use the same synth riff.”

  Their bus comes and goes as they plan, as does the next one and the one after that, but he doesn’t care. This is what he and Johnny do best, scheming for world domination through music.

  * * *

  This time she had nothing left to throw up, but the contraction in her gut still made her double over, pain lancing through her head.

  “You’re not all right,” said Johnny. “We should get you to a doctor.”

  “No, no, it’s fine. I think it was something I ate.” She felt terrible lying, but how could a doctor help her with visions of a dead man?

  “Was Mick religious?” He and Johnny were close. He might tell her something useful.

  “What?” said Johnny, confused.

  “Did he go to a church?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so. Why would you ask that?”

  “There was a book he read a lot. It was very important to him. You might have seen it. Small, pocket sized.” She suggested the dimensions with her hands.

  Johnny gave her the taxed look of someone having trouble shifting gears.

  “That pot sounds really nice,” she said. “I’ll take you up on it.”

  If the book wasn’t among Mick’s things at home, perhaps there was something else that would help her narrow down her search for the house near Dunsany Park. If the pot fixed her nausea, so much the better.

  “Yeah,” said Johnny, happy to be back on solid ground. “Let me tell Willy we’re going. I’ll be right back.”

  Wilfred Stepney glared at them from behind the snooker table in the billiards room, his suit clashing with the green baize table-top.

  The conversation didn’t go well. They were far enough away that she could only make out part of what they were saying, but their body language made the subtext clear. Sir Wilfred did not appreciate disruptions to his afternoon plans and was not afraid to make his displeasure known. Johnny lost his temper.

  “Stop being such a fucking baby.” His voice carried all the way from the bar. Sir Wilfred shushed him, trying to hold Johnny’s gesticulating arms still. “She needs my help. Call one of your fucking rent boys. I’m sure they’ll be quite happy to pose for you.”

  He turned on his heel and stormed back toward her.

  From the edge of the snooker table, Sir Wilfred raised a hand to the rafters, testifying his outrage. “Don’t expect me to come to your pathetic excuse of a performance. I’m friends with Stevie Nicks. Your weak impersonation would not impress her.”

  Johnny rolled his eyes as he helped Gosha up out of the chair and flicked a “v” with his fingers at him.

  “Fussy old queen.” He slipped one arm under hers for support. “Thinks the light of the world shines out of his arse. Sorry about that, luv. Do you have everything?”

  She had Johnny drive the Mini for fear of blanking out on the road and coming back to herself to find them wrapped around a lamppost.

  Johnny’s squat was in a large, boarded-up Victorian tenement not too far from Canterbury Gardens. A shabby derelict on the outside, the inside was an Aladdin’s cave, every wall covered in fabric or sculpture, the decrepit old building transformed into an exotic wonderland. The house was quiet except for the sound of snores wafting up and down the staircase.

  “We threw a wake last night,” said Johnny as he led her to his room on the top floor, a small but well-furnished bedroom for a squat. She had seen a lot worse. “It got intense.”

  “How are you all managing?”

  “The lads went back home. They’re from Bromley, so it’s not too long a trip. Mick’s mum and dad are coming up from Southport this afternoon to take his body back.”

  “I’m so sorry,” she said. “It was a tragedy.”

  “Yeah, well.” He took a cigarette box off a shelf by the bed and rolled a joint. “The record company called us to say they still want to move forward, so there’s that. Mick would have…”

  Johnny’s face crumpled as he fought back tears. Gosha wrapped her arms round him, and he let go, sobbing into her blouse.

  “Oh no,” he said, emerging from behind a wall of emotional residue. “I’m ruining your Vivienne Westwood.”

  She laughed.

  They chatted about unimportant things as he finished rolling the joint, about their clothes and their favorite shops, about awful Darren and his terrible mustache. The conversation drifted to Mick. It was a strange thing to talk about someone who had just died, to talk about them in the past tense when you had seen them alive two days before. Mick was a powerful force in the bedroom. A void hung where he should have been, strengthened by the glimpses into his past that kept thrusting into her mind. She watched Johnny roll the cigarette paper around the weed, spreading it out into an even line. He ran his tongue along the edge of the thin paper, rolled it up and twisted off the ends. She’d only known him a few months, but the sight of his back bowed over the joint drew her to him the same way she was drawn to Edmund when he played with his toy cars, or how she was drawn to Timothy when sat on his bed and read stories to his stuffed elephant. A complex brew of emotions flooded through her: respect for his talent, fondness for his forthright self-confidence, trust in the certainty of their mutual loya
lty, a love for their shared vision of what pop music could be.

  The parade of thoughts and emotions clattering through her mind solidified into a sense of self that wasn’t her own. She was seeing Johnny through Mick’s eyes, his feelings bleeding over into hers.

  “Were you lovers?” she asked as he lit the joint and took a deep drag.

  “Mick and me? God, no. That would be like incest. Would have been.” He passed her the joint.

  Her second sight prevented her from enjoying drugs or booze. Anything that altered her consciousness made the apparitions worse, but whatever supernatural side-effects the joint might have would be worth the relief from the pressure behind her eyes.

  “How do you feel?” he asked after she took in a lungful of smoke. She managed to exhale without coughing.

  “Better. It’s helping a lot.”

  Different intoxicants affected her in different ways. Alcohol was the worst: getting drunk didn’t cause her problems, but the hangover after left her in a daze of flickering images of the past. Cocaine focused her, blocking out all but one image, strengthening it so much she could reach out and touch it. LSD she never dared try. Over the years she developed a reputation among her friends for being a bit of a prude, but she just didn’t like to lose control. The consequences were too fraught.

  Weed, perhaps the least troublesome intoxicant she had tried, gave her the best understanding of whatever force this Influence was that fueled her mother’s Craft. As she settled back against the wall, her legs crossed under her on the bed, she allowed mellow lethargy to spread over her. The air rippled and swirled with gentle distortions like heat rising off scorching sand. She had never spoken about this with her mother. The old crone would have been appalled at her taking anything harder than aspirin, but she always assumed this visual effect to be Influence.

  It radiated from Johnny and flowed out in thick ropes that wrapped themselves around the electric guitar in the corner and threaded into an open wardrobe bursting with colorful outfits. She’d seen this effect before, the few times she’d smoked weed with her friends. It was always the most talented and creative of them that were like this, with thick, powerful auras of Influence that flowed out of them to infuse their work.