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

by W. V. Fitz-Simon

  “Thanks,” said Gosha as she and Johnny stood in the doorway to get their bearings.

  Bookshelves covered every inch of the tiny shop’s wall space, and books filled every shelf to bursting. Bookcases jutted out from the walls across the floor toward a central table piled high with stacks of books. The shop was so filled that the bright afternoon sunlight barely penetrated to the counter at the back. They’d need a map, a guide, and an expedition of several weeks length to find anything in here.

  “A friend of ours bought this book from you,” she said as she wove her way through the shelves and tables to the counter. “Do you carry other books by the same writer?”

  “May I see?”

  The woman reached out across a mountain range of paperbacks to take the book. She ran her fingers over its cloth cover and frowned.

  “Hm, interesting. I’m not familiar with this one.”

  She sniffed its spine.

  “Over there in New Age. Third shelf from the bottom.”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be rude,” Gosha took back the book, “but you didn’t look at the author.”

  “No need. I can smell New Age malarkey a mile away.” The shopkeeper waved her fingers dismissively and returned to her carton of books. “Popular with the young ones, these days. Old Eastern philosophy diluted like weak tea and tarted up with a little theosophical mysticism for authenticity. Allure of saints in the forest, and all that, with none of the unwashed armpits. Personally, I prefer a curry. If you get tired of that drivel, there’s a terrific Indian restaurant around the corner I recommend.”

  Gosha didn’t understand a word of what the woman meant, but followed her gesture to an alcove by the door. Squatting to reach the right shelf, they found four books by Emerson Margrave.

  Johnny plopped himself down, crossed his legs and pulled out a book.

  “Do you think the old coot told the truth about the dead woman?”

  “Possibly. Look for a location of the retreat center. Even a publisher’s name could be useful.”

  She riffled through a thick paperback with an unadorned yellow cover called ‘Perfect Freedom’ and stopped at a random page to read.

  ‘Time is the great evil in the world that separates us from who we truly are. I refer not to chronological time, the passage of days and the withering of the body, although this, too, is an evil that can be overcome by the perfect freedom. I refer, instead, to the time of thought. Thought takes us away from the perfect freedom of the present and drives us into the lifeless desert of the past or the mirage of the future. Desire exists in this time, and with desire comes separation and pain. We must go beyond time into the stillness of the now, the ever-expanding present. In the timeless stillness of the now, we can be in true relationship to one another. We can know each other and ourselves as we truly are and exist in the perfect freedom of the now.’

  Something about the words was familiar, but she couldn’t place her finger on it.

  “I think she’s right,” said Johnny. “This is a bunch of drivel. Here, look at this guy. He reminds me of my English teacher.”

  He handed her the book he was reading, opened to a picture on the inside flap. An older man in an elegant suit and tie sat in a comfortable armchair in front of an open window. Wrinkles lined his hands and face, and his eyes were curious and kind. It was a face she had seen before: the man Cressida had met at the Fortnum’s tearoom—

  * * *

  The excitement and anticipation grow as Emerson enters. It’s been a month since they’ve all been here together. Although the group meets in London on their own twice a week, they never achieve the same depth of experience as when they’re with him. Even his presence in the room with them elevates them all.

  “Please,” says Margrave. “Let us stand together in a circle with no one at its head and no one at its foot. We are all beings of divine light. No one is greater than the others, not even me. I am merely one who has traveled further on the path than any of you, but the path does not belong to me or anyone else. Let us join hands.”

  They shuffle around the large, empty room to do his bidding. Emerson would chide them for this, but they have an unspoken arrangement that whenever he calls them to circle, each of them shall have a turn at his side. There are forty in the group. They all take it as a point of pride they have come to this arrangement without words.

  To Mick’s joy, the group decides it’s his turn. The spot at Emerson’s right hand is empty, and all eyes smile at him to signal that he should take his place. Emerson has warned them against putting stock in symbols. They’re just another example of thought, and time, and separation, but he can’t but help feel pride to take Emerson’s hand in his own.

  “My brothers and sisters in freedom.”

  Emerson looked around the circle to make eye contact with each of them.

  “We all feel the grief for our sister, Amanda. Such emotions are human and are not wrong, but our sister has moved further along the path than any of us, even myself.”

  His voice cracks and tears well up in his eyes. A murmur of sympathy spreads around the circle.

  “Grief removes us from her presence. To hold on to grief is to chain ourselves to the past. To be burdened by Amanda’s memory is to deny her luminous glory. It is an act of selfishness. I was with her only hours before her earthly form released its grip on her eternal being. She and I stood together as we do now and experienced freedom so perfect, so beautiful, it drove us both to tears. Let us join together and receive the gift of awakening she has given us, allowing us to follow her a little further along the path. Let us embrace each other to honor our earthly forms before we turn our faces to the timeless infinite.”

  “After the circle, you and I must talk,” Emerson whispers in his ear as he turns to embrace Mick. “It’s time. You’re ready.”

  Mick feels giddy as they break the circle to move about the room as Emerson has taught them. He does his best to attend to the small moments of one foot falling in front of the other, of an exchanged smile as two people make eye contact. The excitement makes it hard for him to focus and clear his mind.

  It doesn’t matter. When spirit swells to fill the room and time stops, something deeper replaces his excitement, something more profound. Waves of bliss flow through him, as if he were submerged in the warm waters of a great river, his body carried off by the implacable surge, floating supported, at one with all the others as they drift down the path toward the source of all being.

  * * *

  A blade of searing-white agony sliced through Gosha’s skull, forcing her back into the bookshop. She lost control of her limbs and collapsed into darkness.

  20

  “What was that?” The shopkeeper rushed over as Johnny helped Gosha to her feet.

  “Are you okay?” he asked Gosha, his face pale with panic.

  “Yes, I’m—” The room twisted around her, and she stumbled against the bookcase. “I think I need to sit.”

  The shopkeeper stood over them, hands on hips, as Gosha eased herself back to the floor.

  “What’s the matter with her?”

  “She gets headaches,” said Johnny. “She’ll be all right in a moment.”

  He stooped over her.

  “You will be all right, won’t you?” he whispered.

  The spinning stopped. She nodded.

  “I just need a minute.”

  “No.” The shopkeeper flipped the sign on the front door to closed and turned the dead bolt. “No, no, no. That’s no headache. That’s some serious trouble there, missy. Get her up off the floor. She’s bending the books.”

  Johnny helped her back up to her feet, the room behaving itself again.

  “Over here. Sit her down here.” The shopkeeper led them to a chair by the counter.

  As Gosha settled back, the shopkeeper thrust her face close to Gosha’s and closed one eye as if peering through a telescope.

  “Back off, skinny boy.” She shooed Johnny away. “Auntie Rosamund ne
eds room to work. Headaches! Ridiculous.”

  She rummaged behind the counter to take out and open a music box. An unfamiliar tune plinked from it as the shopkeeper took out a ruler, the kind a schoolgirl would have in her pencil case, and held it up against Gosha’s face.

  “Sit quiet for a moment,” she said, “and let Auntie Rosamund look at you.”

  She measured Gosha’s face and tapped her lightly on the shoulders and the top of her head with the ruler. Satisfied with what she discovered, she stood back and thrust her hands on her hips.

  “That’s a hant you got there.”

  “A what?” said Gosha.

  “Somebody die near you in the past three days? Got it all tangled up about you something awful. That’s a whole business to get it out.”

  “She’s being haunted?” asked Johnny.

  “Haunted? No. No such thing as ghosts. You die, you’re dead. You go nowhere. You don’t come back. Your lady here with the eye makeup has rolled herself in the residue of a dying soul like a dog in shit. Poor thing. It’s not good. Sort it out now or it’ll only get worse. Drive you mad or leave you dead. I can help you with that.”

  The shopkeeper’s words made no sense to Gosha, but, after years as a girl witnessing identical behavior, she understood what was going on. She could have been staring into her mother’s eyes. This woman was a witch.

  Gosha scrambled to her feet and took her wallet out of her bag.

  “Johnny, get all the books. I’ll pay for them.” She opened her wallet and pulled out a few pound notes to give to Rosamund. “Thank you very much for your help. How much for all of them?”

  Rosamund looked at her, head cocked, as if she were mad.

  “Did you not hear me, lady with the eye makeup? It’s not like the flu or a bad cold. It won’t go away. You’ll be gibbering like a loon in the funny farm by Sunday if you don’t do something quick.”

  This was the hard sell she watched her mother push on rubes from the village before tangling them in a web of obligations from which they could never extricate themselves. She wanted none of it.

  “This should be enough.”

  She dropped the money on the counter and turned to leave, but the shop spun around her. She toppled over, putting her hands out in time to save herself as the floor rushed toward her. Her knees jammed into the thin carpet, making her wince.

  Johnny cried out and ran to her side.

  “Please help me out of here,” she said. “Get me away from her.”

  He pulled her to her feet and hustled them to the door.

  “Stop right there, you two,” said Rosamund, and spoke a word in a thick Jamaican accent that Gosha didn’t understand.

  The security gate descended like a clattering portcullis over the shop front, barring them from leaving.

  “If you won’t help yourself, then I must do it for you.”

  * * *

  When time flows once more, it’s dark outside. The church bells in the nearby village ring across the downs to call the faithful to evening mass. Six o’clock. Emerging from perfect freedom after almost nine hours, he feels wonderful. No hunger, no physical discomfort. It’s the longest they’ve been together in perfect freedom ever. As the group go around the room hugging each other, Emerson catches his eye from the door and beckons for him to follow.

  The house is a large Victorian manor. Forty people crammed into ten bedrooms make it a tight fit, but they’re all so happy to be there, even with the drafty windows and the ancient plumbing, they make do.

  Emerson’s quarters are separate, but he keeps them open to everyone, so nobody minds. The sitting room is small. Two overstuffed armchairs by a large window overlook the garden, kept in good condition by the members of the circle.

  “Close the door,” Emerson asks him. “Have a seat.”

  Doors are never closed at the retreat. Only in consultation with Emerson is there privacy, a privilege Mick has never enjoyed before today.

  “Mick, my good chap.” Emerson takes a small box from the shelf and places it on the side table between them. “Your progress has impressed me. Your presence in the circle is inspiring. I have no doubt in my mind. You are ready.”

  He can’t believe it. He’s only been with the group for a year. Many who have emerged from consultation have been changed profoundly, but never speak of their experience. The existence of a circle within the circle has often been speculated in whispered conversations during chores and at mealtimes, or in the dark of night.

  Emerson holds the wooden box in his hands. It’s ornately carved, with brass hinges, and an engraved hasp covered in strange symbols.

  “There are certain special members of the circle that show great proficiency in the practice, like yourself. They begin closer to the goal and progress faster, but they are more vulnerable to distraction, to being turned back at the final post. For these special individuals, I offer the help they need to make the ultimate leap.”

  “Like Amanda?”

  “Yes.” Emerson smiles. “Like Amanda. Mick, dear boy. It would be my privilege to provide you with that help.”

  “I’m honored, Emerson.”

  “Let me explain. You must understand fully so that you may willingly consent to the help I’m about to offer you.”

  Emerson opens the box and shows Mick its contents: a bracelet made of strips of brass braided into a complex series of cables and knots engraved with symbols in a language Mick doesn’t recognize.

  “In my travels to India, I encountered many sages who helped me on my path to freedom.”

  He places the box on the table and leans back in his chair, steepling his fingers.

  “I know I’ve told the story many times. But what I haven’t told the group was how terrible the process of my liberation was.”

  His manner turns thoughtful, serious.

  “I was a foolish youth with grandiose ideas of enlightenment, and my liberation came as a rude surprise. The material world does not like to lose its children, and it fights back. Desire drove me to the brink of death until one sage took pity on me and gave me a torc like this.” He gestured at the box with his steepled fingers. “It’s a simple thing, filled with light that will draw the onslaught of the jealous world toward it. I offer it to all my followers as they approach their liberation because I don’t want them to suffer the way I did. Will you accept this gift I offer you out of love?”

  The torc catches the light from the lamp between them. It glistens and shimmers, the threads of the knots seeming to flex and swirl. Mick nods and reaches for it, but Emerson pulls it back.

  “Say the words. The sage was quite explicit. Do you accept this gift?”

  “Yes, I accept this gift.”

  “Excellent.”

  He offered him the box once again, and Mick put on the torc. The brass was warm against his skin.

  “Wear it at all times, no matter what. To remove it is to risk disaster. And you must keep it private out of respect to the others. This entire conversation must remain between the two of us.”

  “Of course, Emerson.”

  “I know you’ll go far, dear boy. Perfect freedom is close at hand. I can see it in you.”

  * * *

  Gosha awoke to find herself on a reclining couch in a windowless room, its walls covered with cabinets and shelves. The pungent smell of a cacophony of herbs assaulted her nostrils. This was a witch’s workshop if ever she saw one.

  “She’s awake, she’s awake.” Johnny, perched at the end of the chaise, jumped to his feet.

  Rosamund, the witch, went around her shelves, taking pinches of herbs from the arranged jars and dropping them into a stone pestle.

  “Okay, lady with the eye makeup,” she said as she worked. “I know you’re a modern woman and don’t want to hear how to live your life from a stranger, but this is serious.”

  She stood over her, grinding up the herbs and gesticulating with her pestle as she pontificated.

  “That hant is eating at you like acid, burni
ng away at your nerves and seeping into your brain trying to find a place it can rest. It’s a miracle you’re still talking. Never seen one this big. So much power. Who died?”

  “My best friend,” said Johnny.

  Rosamund frowned and shook her head.

  “Young like you?”

  “Yeah, we grew up together.”

  “That’s not right. It takes a full life to build up that much Influence under normal circumstances. Was he an oath-bearer?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “An acolyte, a minion, a mage, a sorcerer? Do these words mean anything to you?”

  “I guess—”

  “No, I can see they don’t.” She tapped the pestle on the edge of the mortar to shake off the residue of crushed herbs. “Well, your friend was into some powerful stuff if he put up a fight like that when he died. Okay. Ready.”

  Every time Gosha tried to move, her head jostled, and the room shifted. All she could do was lie motionless and try not to vomit.

  “Watch it, lady.” Rosamund put the pestle down on the workbench behind her and picked up the plastic ruler. “Don’t get no puke on my furniture. There’s a bucket on the floor.”

  She spoke another unintelligible word in her Jamaican accent, and the herbs in the pestle burst into flame. Smoke billowed into the air as she waved it over Gosha.

  “Back, back, back.” She shooed Johnny off the chaise. “Get into everything, don’t you? Stand over there by Gertrude and stay out of trouble.”

  She pointed at an Art Deco department store bust on a side table adorned with a magenta fedora and a purple silk scarf.

  “Okay, okay,” she crooned over Gosha as she waved the pestle around her body with one hand, the other still holding the plastic ruler. “Let Auntie Rosamund do her work.”

  As the smoke filled Gosha’s nostrils, the nausea and headache that clouded her skull lessened.

  “There you go. Better, yes? Auntie Rosamund knows her business, that’s for sure. Okay, okay. That stabilized the situation, gave us room to breathe. Now we can take a proper look.”