by Mark Stay
Suky looked down the dark road to the village. Recollections stirred in her of walks on spring mornings, of daffodils lining the road and pink blossom in the trees, of laughter and a life before the darkness.
All she had to do was take one step, then another, and keep going and she could leave all this madness behind.
‘Please, please stop.’ The clown-faced scarecrow’s cries broke through Suky’s thoughts.
Suky turned on her heels, rushed towards the struggle and shoved Pumpkinhead with all her might, almost stumbling over with him. Pumpkinhead’s top hat fell to the dirt, the rain playing it like a drum.
Around her, Suky could sense the other crow folk shuffling back. She took the clown-faced scarecrow’s hand and helped him to his feet. His head was misshapen, there was straw all over the ground and he whimpered whenever he moved. Suky wrapped her arms around him, propping him up.
‘You are a beast and a bully,’ Suky told Pumpkinhead. ‘You made us promises about freedom, you made us promises about happiness, but you’re just another man telling us all what to do to get what you wants. You’re greedy and selfish and your head’s too big for your body. There, I said it.’
‘Oh, sister Suky,’ Pumpkinhead said, picking up his top hat and brushing the dirt from it before returning it to his head. ‘Greedy? Selfish? Have I not given you life? Have I not given you purpose? Hmm? Brothers? Sisters?’ He turned to the others and there were murmurs of agreement, though not as many as usual. ‘Have I not given you hope? Have I not promised to fulfil your dreams? Have I not sacrificed every waking moment of my time to making them a reality?’
‘No,’ Suky said, her shame boiling into anger. ‘You have a greater curiosity for that book, if you ask me. That book ain’t for us, is it? It’s for you and you only. You wants its magic for yourself, don’t you, you big greedy guts. Well, I for one am not helping you any more.’
‘You defy me, sister Suky?’
‘I do.’
‘I see.’ Pumpkinhead beckoned the clown-faced scarecrow to him. ‘Brother, come to me. I must make amends.’
‘Don’t,’ Suky warned, but the clown-faced scarecrow slipped from her arms and staggered to his master.
Pumpkinhead cradled the clown-faced scarecrow’s head in his hands, squeezing harder and harder. Suky’s mind felt light and floaty as Pumpkinhead drew on her strength and that of her siblings. Suky resisted, pushing away with thoughts and memories of old. They were ghostly and distant, but it was enough to keep her mind her own. The others were not as strong and Suky watched, helpless, as life left Clown-face like air from a balloon. He fell to the ground, his stuffing straw whirling off in the breeze, the rain pummelling his shirt and trousers.
Suky crouched down and took the clown-faced scarecrow’s empty sackcloth head in her hands. His red felt smile frozen for ever. She clutched it to her chest as she got to her feet and backed away. ‘What are you?’
‘I am your saviour,’ Pumpkinhead said. ‘I am your god.’
‘No,’ Suky shook her head. ‘God is kindness and forgiveness and love for ever in Heaven above. He ain’t like you.’
‘Then where is he? This kind and forgiving God?’ Pumpkinhead looked up to where lightning flickered in the clouds. ‘Is that him? No. I think not. I am here. I am real. The god of scarecrows – yes, I like the sound of that – the god of scarecrows stands before you, Suky. And without me, you are nothing.’
‘T’ain’t true,’ Suky said, gripping the smiling clown’s sackcloth head tighter.
‘No? Where will you go, sister? Who will give shelter to a wretch like you? A damp bundle of straw in a tatty gingham dress will find no suitor among the boys in the village. No landlady will let you cross her threshold when you look like that. There’s no room at the inn on a night like tonight. The stables, perhaps? Yes. You can enjoy my love and protection, or you can fester with the pigs and cows in a barn somewhere. The choice is yours.’
Suky looked to the other crow folk, all standing mute behind Pumpkinhead. ‘Why does none of you speak out?’ she cried.
‘They cannot,’ Pumpkinhead said, and she saw the other crow folk were trying to talk, lurching forwards as if retching, their hands moving to their mouths and throats, but no noise was coming out. ‘Worship me, Suky, thank me for all I have given you and you shall continue to live.’
He offered his gloved hand for the taking. Suky looked from the hand, to the others clutching their heads and moaning, then back to Pumpkinhead. ‘I think I would rather turn to dust,’ she told him.
‘A shame. Make peace with your god, child.’ Pumpkinhead lunged forwards and gripped her head. He drew her closer and Suky felt him try to claw into her mind, prickles of pain stabbing at her brain followed by clouds that threatened to sweep her mind away.
Suky thought of daffodils. Of blossoms. Of her mother’s loving smile, of toasted crumpets with salty butter and gooseberry jam, of summer fairs and autumn leaves and crisp snow in winter. These memories of her old self, the ones she had denied before, came much more clearly now. Suky let them wash through her. She recalled how the smell of her father’s tobacco lingered long after he left for work, how her baby brother’s cries and coughs kept her up. She remembered that final night, when the boy she loved more than sunshine broke her heart, and how she had laced her tea with poison, and death had come for her as she slept.
Suky’s love and pain flooded through her and pushed Pumpkinhead out of her mind.
He stumbled back, grinning in admiration. ‘Not so feeble-minded as your kin, sister Suky, hmm?’
‘I am not your sister, I am not your Suky, I am Susannah Gabriel,’ Suky said, her voice raw and breathless.
‘No,’ Pumpkinhead said, looming over her. ‘You are nothing and you will go back to nothing.’ He raised his hand as if to strike her, but Suky was faster. She knocked his top hat off and tugged the sack in her hand over Pumpkinhead’s noggin. He lashed out, but she ducked under his blow, then shoved him again and ran down the road a few steps. She turned around to see him tumble back again as he struggled with his new face. ‘Get it off me, you fools!’ he yelled at the other crow folk. One or two tried to help, but the others were too scared.
‘I may have nowhere to go,’ Suky cried as the rain hammered down, ‘but I would rather spend my days with happy pigs and heifer cows in a barn than with you.’ She turned and ran towards the village.
The other crow folk simply stared at her, their minds lost on the breeze.
‘Kill her,’ Pumpkinhead’s muffled voice came from inside the sack on his head. ‘Kill her, kill them all, just bring me that book, you fools.’
33 MRS TEACH’S CONFESSION
‘You gave him the book.’ Mrs Teach and Charlotte were waiting for Faye by the lychgate of Saint Irene’s Church, arms folded, united in their rage. ‘You did, didn’t you, you little minx? You’ve doomed us all.’ Mrs Teach’s lips were like the knot in a child’s balloon. Charlotte remained aloof, nose raised in disdain.
As Faye and her father rattled to a halt on the bicycle, she felt a cold droplet on her hand, followed by another and another. The rain had followed her back to the village.
‘Answer me,’ Mrs Teach demanded, but Faye twisted around to check on her father.
‘How are you, Dad?’
‘I’m fine, Faye, I’m fine. You shouldn’t have come after me, girl. That was too dangerous.’
‘What did you do with the book?’ Mrs Teach persisted. ‘You gave it to him, didn’t you?’
Faye leaned her bicycle against a lamp post. ‘I gave him a book,’ she said. ‘Not the book.’
Mrs Teach squinted one eye. ‘Wot?’
‘When I fell over your trunk, I landed on your book,’ Faye told Charlotte. ‘I knew what to do right away. I read it in a detective novel once. They call it a switcheroo.’ Faye reached into her satchel and revealed her mother’s book, safe and sound, and blew a raspberry. ‘Fooled ya.’
‘You gave him my book of woodcuts?’ Charlotte said,
a tiny smirk of admiration on her face.
‘I did, though I don’t think you’ll be seeing it again. I heard the distinct sound of pages being ripped up when old Pumpkin-noggin realised he’d been diddled. Sorry.’
‘That book was over two hundred years old.’
‘Time you got a new one, then,’ Terrence said.
‘Well, you are the clever one, aren’t you,’ Mrs Teach said. ‘But the demon will be angry, and he will be coming for us.’
‘Demon?’ Terrence looked from Faye to Mrs Teach and back again. ‘No one said nothing about no demon.’
‘Well, Dad, y’know when I insisted he was a scarecrow?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Turns out I was well off the mark. He’s a nasty piece of work, who—’ Faye started, then turned to Charlotte and Mrs Teach. ‘That Pumpkinhead, you said his name was Kefapepo, right?’
Charlotte nodded.
‘Did he know my mum?’
‘I’m sorry?’ Charlotte narrowed her eyes.
‘This Kefapepo fella, did he ever know my mum? Was she ever…’ Faye glanced over at her dad, who looked back at her from the sides of his eyes. ‘Was she ever consorting with demons and such?’
‘What the blazes are you on about, Faye?’ Terrence asked.
‘Mum was a witch, Dad,’ Faye said, waving her hands in the air. ‘Though how you could be married to her for so long and not know that, I’ll—’
‘I knew what she was.’ Terrence silenced Faye as the rain fell harder. It flattened his hair and ran in rivulets down his face.
Faye’s spectacles began to mist over. ‘You said it was a hobby. A silly fancy.’
‘I’m not daft, Faye,’ Terrence said. ‘She told me enough when we was engaged. Though she never called herself a witch as such. But I knew she had some sorta… gift? Yeah, I suppose you would call it that. She kept it a secret. All the women in her family did. But she ain’t a witch like in the fairy stories. She used to help people. Cure them, make them happy when they was sad. She would sit with the dying, she would make tea for them that was grieving. And yeah, she made potions and did little rituals and all that malarkey, but most of the time she was just a good person, Faye, and she certainly weren’t consorting with any bloody demons.’
‘When all this is done,’ Faye told her father as she got her voice back, ‘you and me need a long old chat about Mum.’
‘All you need to know is in her book,’ Terrence said. ‘She done that for you, Faye. She reckoned you might have the same gifts she had, and she wanted to make sure you knew what you were doing.’
‘Then why didn’t you tell me about it?’
‘I hadn’t got round to it yet.’ Terrence pressed his hands on his chest. ‘I’m a busy man, girl. I got a bloody pub to run. I would’ve told ya sooner or later.’
‘Why don’t I believe you?’ Faye shook her head as thunder rumbled above.
‘You believe what you want.’
‘I believe you’re a great big fibber. Lying to your own daughter.’
‘I would not lie to my—’
‘Then you was so absent-minded that you somehow forgot to mention in the seventeen years that you’ve known me that Mum was a witch. I know you’re busy with the pub, Dad, but you’re not that busy.’
‘All right, I was scared,’ Terrence snapped. ‘That good enough for ya? I’d seen what it did to your mother and I didn’t want the same thing happening to you. People being frightened of yer. Treating you different. Whispering rumours. I was trying to protect you, girl.’
‘Scared? You?’
‘Yes. I especially didn’t want you turning out like these two,’ he said, gesturing at Charlotte and Mrs Teach. ‘No offence.’
‘Some taken,’ Charlotte said.
‘Don’t be too hard on him,’ Mrs Teach told Faye. ‘Most folk don’t understand what we do, even those who are close to us. The wise ones – like my Ernie and your pa – let us get on with it. And he’s right about your mother. She could be trouble, like you. Full of opinions, but she was a good lass in her own way.’
‘Then why is Kefapepo’s name in her book?’ Faye opened the book and flicked to the page with the columns of numbers and zigzags. ‘She created a bell-ringing method and named it after him.’
‘Bells? Really?’ Charlotte reached out. ‘May I?’
Faye snapped the book shut and tucked it back in her satchel to protect it from the rain. ‘Not until you tell me how my mum knew about this demon.’
Charlotte looked to Mrs Teach. ‘Do you want to tell her, or should I?’
‘Tell her what?’ Mrs Teach blinked innocently.
‘You know what.’
‘I’m sure I don’t.’
‘Then I’ll tell her.’
‘Don’t you dare.’
‘Then you do know what.’
‘Maybe I do, but that doesn’t mean we should—’
‘Oh, Gordon Bennett on a bicycle,’ Faye broke in with a voice that startled an owl out of its nest in the bell tower. ‘What did I say about telling the truth? Tell me what and tell it now.’
Charlotte glared at Mrs Teach, who tightened her lips before throwing her hands into the air. ‘All right then, but this has nothing to do with our current predicament, I’m sure.’
‘I’ll be the judge of that,’ Charlotte said.
Mrs Teach chewed on her lip like a toddler caught with her hand in a sweetie jar. ‘Before I tell you this,’ she said to Faye, ‘I want you to know it was a long time ago and I was young and—’
‘Get on with it,’ Faye said, wiping the rain from her hair.
‘When I first met my Ernie, he had the best allotment in the village. He was always winning prizes at the harvest festival and his squashes were the talk of the county, weren’t they, Terrence?’
‘If you say so.’ Terrence shrugged.
‘We hadn’t been stepping out for long when he lost the biggest pumpkin prize to that crafty bugger Jack Neame. Well, my Ernie was bereft, poor love, and I was a bit of a show-off back then, so I… I did a teensy-weensy bit of spell-work to help ensure it wouldn’t happen again.’
Terrence was aghast. ‘You cheated to win the harvest festival?’
‘Like I said, it was a long time ago. We were courting and I wanted to impress Ernie. So anyway, in doing so I may have… accidentally summoned Kefapepo.’
‘What?’ Faye snapped, lightning flashing above her.
‘Not a manifestation,’ Mrs Teach said, raising her hands in defence. ‘Just a voice. He said he could help, but I sent him packing as soon as I knew what he was. But I’ve paid the price. Someone snitched and I’ve been on probation ever since, forbidden from practising my magic.’ She glanced pointedly at Charlotte.
‘Don’t make me out to be the wicked witch.’ Charlotte puffed with indignation. ‘We have rules and you know what happens when we break them.’
Mrs Teach curled her hand into a little mouth and made nyah-nyah-nyah noises.
Charlotte folded her arms. ‘You’re the one who risked a demonic incursion to win best pumpkin at the village fair.’
‘Ladies, please,’ Faye snapped. ‘You accidentally summoned a demon, Mrs Teach. What happened next?’
‘I told your mother, Faye,’ Mrs Teach continued, ‘and she did a little reading in a few grimoires and, based on what I told her about him, and what she knew about bells, she started working on a method to drive him off should he ever come back.’
‘Why bells?’ Faye asked.
‘Consecrated bells have long been used to drive away evil spirits,’ Charlotte said. ‘Though the method she created was never rung, and now he’s back and walking among us.’
‘I break the thunder, I torment evil, I banish darkness,’ Faye muttered to herself, recalling the words her mother had written underneath the method. ‘But why is he back now?’ Faye asked. The penny dropped. She opened her mouth in shock and pointed an accusing finger at Mrs Teach. ‘Oh, your Ernie. You got him to bring your Ernie back, didn
’t you? That’s why he visited you as a scarecrow and tried to get up your skirts.’
Mrs Teach’s cheeks turned red as Charlotte scowled at her. ‘You lied to me. You bloody lied to me.’
Mrs Teach looked everywhere but at Charlotte.
‘You silly old boot.’ Charlotte threw her hands up in the rain. ‘What were you thinking?’
‘He promised me a chat. That’s all I wanted. A few words with my Ernie to say a proper goodbye. He went so sudden and all—’
‘And to do this you summoned a demon?’ Charlotte raged.
‘No. I was having a seance and he came to me. Barged in like an uninvited guest, he did. I sent him on his way. I didn’t want any of this, and I didn’t want my Ernie coming back as a straw man, but he sent him anyway.’
‘None of this matters now,’ Faye said.
‘It bloody does,’ Terrence said. ‘She and Ernie cheated on the harvest festival. That’s bang out of order.’
‘Dad. Please. We all do peculiar things when we miss someone.’
Charlotte glared daggers at Mrs Teach. ‘If Vera Fivetrees finds out about this—’
‘She won’t,’ Mrs Teach said.
‘Who?’ asked Faye.
‘Doesn’t matter,’ Charlotte said.
‘I just wanted to hear his voice again.’ Tears glistened in Mrs Teach’s eyes. This wasn’t her usual theatrics. ‘He had such a sweet voice. It was all I lived for. Please forgive me.’ Mrs Teach held out her hands.
‘I understand, I really do,’ Faye said, taking one of Mrs Teach’s hands and giving it a squeeze. She reached out for Charlotte. ‘Miss Charlotte?’
Charlotte’s arms remained folded and she looked away.
‘If I may offer my twopenn’orth?’ Terrence said, clearing his throat. ‘I reckon if there was some way I could hear my Kathy’s laugh once more, I would wrestle the Devil himself. No one can know what they’ll do till the time comes, so I ain’t one to judge. Miss Charlotte, you must have someone special you would want to hear again, surely?’