Gosha had so much to learn, made only harder by how firmly she was set in her ways. But everything about her life was different now. She was learning the hard way to be open to change.
* * *
“I can’t stand being cooped up in here.” She slammed the copy of Time Out, her only connection to the life she used to live, down on the kitchen table. “I’m going out.”
It was nine on a Tuesday. Johnny Suharto was performing at Shatter, and the cover was only three quid. She hadn’t seen him since the business at the bookstore. She wanted to run away from this awful state of grief and worry and be out among carefree and careless people, if only for a few hours.
“Keep an eye on the boys, will you?” she asked her mother as she powdered her face and applied her darkest eyeshadow in elaborate, graphic shapes across her lids.
“You look like a ghoul,” said her mother.
She looked strong and threatening, someone you wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley round the back of Morel Market, or in a secluded country house where innocent people awaited a fate they didn’t deserve.
“I think I look fabulous.”
The crowd to get into the club stretched around the corner. Young men and women in outlandish and creative outfits waited in hope of being noticed and let in, but the doorman studiously failed to make eye contact with anyone on the wrong side of the rope. Gosha possessed advantages everyone else lacked: her favorite leather jacket, a pair of hand-painted Doc Martens boots from Kensington Market that went all the way up to her knees, and a patent leather miniskirt that showed off a scandalous amount of leg, even for nineteen-eighty.
There was an art to working a velvet rope. Confidence, arrogance, and the absolute certainty that you belonged inside had to be balanced with well-placed flirtation that would land well regardless of gender or orientation of the door staff.
“Hello, boys.”
Neither of the bouncers or the door person acknowledged her presence. Her window of opportunity was closing. She was rapidly looking more and more like an idiot. They would never let her in.
The doorperson was tall and skinny, with androgynous cheekbones, kabuki makeup and a white satin coat that stretched down to their knees and obscured all gender markers. So much Influence sloughed off them in uncultured waves that Gosha wondered if they were an oath-bearer. She took the lipstick out of her bra and reapplied the dark pigment.
“Is that a Biba lipstick?” A deep and raspy voice came out of the doorperson’s delicate frame. “Alfie, let her in.”
Alfie, a handsome, broad-shouldered young man with a boxer’s mashed nose and scarred eyebrow, winked at her as he unhooked the velvet rope to let her through.
“Have fun tonight,” he said.
Inside, Johnny was already onstage, halfway through a cover of ‘Landslide’ by Fleetwood Mac, his rich, heartfelt vocal a match for Stevie Nicks any day of the week. As the final ethereal chords of the backing tape faded, someone down the front shouted “tosser.”
“Bastard!” Johnny launched himself from the stage at the heckler, disappearing into a melee of teased hair, eye makeup, and colored satin.
She pushed forward to help. Her mother had only taught her one or two new words in her secret tongue, none of them useful to Gosha now, but Gosha still knew how to use her elbows and boots. She pulled Johnny free of the melee in no time.
In the safety of the lounge bar, he wrapped his arms around her and hugged her tight.
“I went round your house, but no one was there. I was so worried about you. What happened?”
They took their drinks to a booth in the corner and she told him the whole story, in minute detail, leaving out nothing. The music in the bar was subdued, the latest New Romantic singles playing softly in the background. Boys, girls, and every gender between passed them by, oblivious to them. Johnny absorbed everything she told him without question. When she finished, she sat back, sipped her drink and watched his reaction.
“I can’t believe it,” he said.
After Miranda’s rejection, her chest clenched with regret for having opened up so completely to him.
“I mean, I believe you. It’s completely mad, but I know what I saw in the bookshop with Auntie Rosamund. What are you going to do?”
“My mother thinks she can set me up to be like her, and make ends meet helping people out, but I don’t think it’ll work. I’m so useless at it.”
He squeezed her arm to reassure her.
“Rubbish. I bet you’re brilliant. You should have seen Mick and me when we first got our synths. We didn’t even know how to turn them on. And now look at Mick. He’s…”
His eyes welled up with tears, and his face creased with sadness. It was her turn to hug him while he wept.
“I know,” she said. “It’s so impossible. You want to talk to them and tell them things, but they’re gone, and what can you do? But it gets easier to bear, I promise. He’ll never go away. He’ll always be with you.”
He blew his nose on a drink napkin.
“I’m moving out of the squat,” he said. “I can’t stand it there anymore.”
“Come and stay with me. We have a basement flat you can have all to yourself.” She and her mother had gone into the flat with talismans cocked, but all trace of Margrave’s shade was gone from her darkroom. “I was going to rent it out, but I’d much rather you be in there.”
“I can help out. I lined up a bunch of gigs to keep me busy. They don’t pay much, but it’ll be something.”
A dark, throbbing baseline struck up from the dance floor in the next room and Siouxsie Sioux began to sing about orphans in the snow.
“He loved this song,” said Johnny, staring into the bottom of his drink.
“Come on.” She took his hand and pulled him toward the music. “Let’s dance and send him off in style.”
* * *
The doorbell rang as Gosha poured herself a cup of coffee.
“I’ll get it,” said her mother. “That stuff is disgusting. You need tea. Tea will make you feel better.”
She disappeared into the hallway.
Gosha needed more than tea to beat back the hangover from the previous night that threatened to flatten her into the floor.
“Who is it, Mamusha?” she asked as she slouched out to see.
A young woman with long, blond hair and an expression midway between worry and fright, hovered at the threshold.
“One moment, miss,” said her mother to the girl.
“What’s going on?” whispered Gosha.
“It’s time for you to get your life back. This young woman’s boyfriend has gone missing. She’s worried something bad has happened to him. She needs help.”
“How did she know to come here?”
“Witch marks on the front door. To most, they’re invisible, but the needy will be drawn to them. How do you think I got all my business?”
She turned to the young woman. In a panic, Gosha tried to pull her back, but her mother wouldn’t be dissuaded.
“Come in, please. My daughter will be happy to help you.”
“I’m really sorry to bother you,” said the young woman.
“It’s no bother. My daughter’s door is always open. Come through to the kitchen.”
Her mother led her to the kitchen table, the whites of the young woman’s eyes glowing in the gloom of the hallway.
“What’s the matter?” asked Gosha.
“Mitch never came home last night. His dad called him in the morning wanting something. He wouldn’t tell me what. His dad’s into drugs and robbery. I’m worried Mitch’s got caught up in his dad’s business all over again. I went to the police station, but they wouldn’t listen.”
Gosha remembered when people like this poor young woman would come to her mother’s kitchen door with stories of sorrow and tragedy. Her mother always greeted them kindly and with compassion, listening without judgment to their problems over endlessly renewed cups of tea. Despite Gosha’s nerves, she realized
she knew deep in her bones how to play this out. She knew what needed to be said to comfort the girl and eke out of her whatever knowledge was required to find her boyfriend.
Behind the young woman, Gosha’s mother sat in the corner and pulled out her knitting.
“I’ll put the kettle on,” said Gosha, “and you can tell me all about it.”
Without looking up from her work, her mother nodded her approval.
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DEDICATION
For my father,
S. C. Fitz-Simon
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks to my amazing team of cheerleaders, readers, and editors: Sandy Blaine, Lisa Simon, Erica Di Caro, Amy Matthews, and Lee Houck. Without your support, encouragement, and feedback I would never have got this far.
Thanks also to my dear friend, Curtis Wallin, for the amazing covers and logo design, and my mother, Barbara Hulanicki, for the illustrations in the print version of the book.
Thanks to Rosie and Tony Bartlett, and the whole Bartlett family for providing the inspiration for the setting for Gosha’s home. When I was thinking of my ideal of a sanctuary where family and friends could come together and feel welcomed and safe, the only place I thought of was their home in London.
And the biggest thanks of all to my husband, Kris Gamache, for his quiet confidence that I’d get this done, his critical eye when it wasn’t so great, and his unabashed enthusiasm when I finally got it right.
MORE BOOKS BY W. V. FITZ-SIMON
THE WITCH OF CHEYNE HEATH
Book 1: Waking the Witch
Book 2: Craftwork
Book 3: Spellshock
Book 4: Paint it Black
ABOUT W. V. FITZ-SIMON
W. V. FITZ-SIMON is author of the Witch of Cheyne Heath series of supernatural thrillers. His books combine occult traditions, otherworldly realms, New Wave synthpop, camp, humor, and adventure. He lives in New York City with his husband where he knits sweaters (slowly), plays board games (frequently), and teaches yoga (joyfully).
* * *
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COPYRIGHT
Copyright © 2020 by Witold Fitz-Simon
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without written permission of the copyright owner except for the use of quotations in a book review.
For inquiries regarding this book, please contact: [email protected]
www.wvfitzsimon.com
Cover design: Curtis Wallin
www.curtiswallin.com
ISBN: 978-0-9771733-2-7
Waking the Witch (The Witch of Cheyne Heath Book 1) Page 33