by Mark Stay
In a burst of flapping feathers and chirping beaks, they began to sing and swirl around Faye. She danced with them, laughing, breathless, red-cheeked and spinning with her arms unfurled like wings. She could barely speak, her heart filled with a joy she hadn’t known since she was a child. Between breaths, she managed two words.
‘Hello, Mum,’ she said.
THE WITCHES OF WOODVILLE WILL RETURN…
MRS TEACH’S SÉANCE
June, 1940
Before and during the events in The Crow Folk
1
Her Ernie was gone and nothing would bring him back. Philomena Teach knew that. She understood it in the same way she knew the sun would set at the end of every day. She accepted it as she would showers in April and bitter frosts in the winter, but it did not make the pain inside her go away. Try as she might, she could not rid herself of the weight of grief that wrapped around her. Getting up in the morning involved a lot more huffing and puffing, the butter and jam on her toast had lost its flavour, her breakfast tea was milky and weak. The grief would not go. It was part of her now.
Not that anyone else in Woodville noticed. Mrs Teach was taller than most men, and still kept her chin up when standing in line at the baker’s. She was rounder than most, yet still moved on dainty slingbacks when negotiating the cobbled streets of the village. When she stepped out of the front door of her terraced house, she was all smiles.
Behind closed doors, she could be herself.
‘I told you to take it easy. Didn’t I say you should rest at weekends? You, with your dicky ticker.’
She would have conversations with him as she moved around the house. Telling him about her day as if he were still there, sitting at the kitchen table with some bit of car engine spread across it in bits as he worked to fix it with his blackened fingers. That was his gift. Ernie could fix anything.
‘Except your heart, you great lummox. Couldn’t fix that, could you?’
It was so quick. He complained about a pain in his chest that afternoon, went to bed and never woke up.
Her last words to him had been, ‘I bet it’s that steak and kidney pie. You wolfed it down like a little piggy. Chew your food, Ernie Teach.’
He had chuckled and kissed her goodnight. At some point she was aware that his hand had slipped from hers. When she woke, he was cold.
Mrs Teach was no stranger to death. She had nursed many through their final hours, but for Ernie to slip away in their marriage bed had hurt her the most.
His smile had been the first thing she saw in the morning and last thing at night. She missed his warmth, the touch of his hands and lovemaking that was so enthusiastic it would wake Mrs Nesbitt next door.
Death was not unusual in Woodville, and it had become a more regular visitor since the start of the war. Three of the village’s sons had perished at Dunkirk, and only last week poor Mrs Rogers got a telegram to say her Danny was lost at sea somewhere off Norway. Ernie was too old to fight on the front line, thank goodness, but had enrolled at the village police station to join the Local Defence Volunteers. He had been ready to do his bit.
His armband arrived the day of his funeral.
Mrs Teach’s only comfort was she knew that death was not necessarily the end.
When you had the gift, the dead could speak.
Of course, this was absolutely forbidden by the council of witchcraft. For a start, no one actually knew if they were really talking to the dead. There was a theory – one favoured by Vera Fivetrees, High Witch of the British Empire – that the voices heard at séances were put on by demons intent on winding up those poor souls mourning in this realm. That voice wasn’t your dear, departed grandmother you were hearing from the other side. It was some wretched incubus doing a bad impression and getting a giggle from it. Vera’s theory was based on her own childhood experience after catching out such a demon in a supposed séance with her mother, who was not only not dead, but in the room with her at the time knitting a scarf.
Séances were also forbidden for the very simple reason that you were opening a door to the underworld and that was a door best left shut, locked, bolted, then buried at the bottom of the deepest well you could find, and finally covered in several layers of cement.
Nothing had come through in centuries and everyone wanted to keep it that way.
Especially after what happened last time.
In her youth, Mrs Teach had accidentally summoned a demon during a completely unrelated magical act that was innocent and without malice, but had somehow got her on probation from practising magic for nearly two decades.
Thankfully, Kathryn Wynter had helped her sort that out and it was all in the past and best forgotten.
Philomena Teach knew she shouldn’t risk incurring the wrath of Charlotte and Vera Fivetrees again, but this séance would be a one-off and no one need ever know. She closed the curtains and arranged four silver hand mirrors around the room. One on the mantel, one on the window sill, one by the door and another in Ernie’s old armchair. All faced the small card table in the middle of the room. Philomena fiddled with wingnuts under the table to extend it, pulling it open to unfold a centre section with a pentagram carved into the wood. If her bridge club knew they had been playing on a table used to evoke spirits, they would have had a fit, but it had been in the family for three generations and, even though Mrs Teach had been forbidden from practising magic, she kept the table. Why chuck out a perfectly good card table, even if it it was carved with enough runes to power a demonic uprising?
She placed a copper dish in the centre of the pentagram and poured into it a small, precise amount of ash made from alder and laurel wood. She said a few words known only to witches, and the ash shivered into glowing embers and soon the room was misty with white smoke.
Mrs Teach took what looked like a letter opener – the one with the obsidian handle and a blade that could slice between worlds – from the mantel and placed it on the table, pointing it to the mirror in Ernie’s armchair. She then took a salt cellar from her gown pocket and shook a circle around the table on the carpet.
Mrs Teach wafted the smoke towards her face, then sat in Ernie’s armchair, resting the mirror in her lap.
The ritual began. A monotonous repetition of old words to budge open the door to the other side. In her day, Philomena could do such a simple ceremony in minutes, but she was out of practice and it took all of her concentration to remain focused.
As her lips moved and the words came without thinking, she quite lost track of time. She heard young Faye Bright and Freddie Paine stroll by on their Air Raid Precaution rounds. The steady beat of two pairs of boots on cobbles occasionally punctuated with cries of ‘Put that light out!’ was a welcome diversion, but then the church clock stopped chiming at eleven and Mrs Teach knew it wouldn’t sound again till six. Silence cloaked the village and Mrs Teach’s eyes felt much more comfortable when they were closed. A nap wouldn’t hurt. It would help to clear the mind. She could try again in a…
2
Philomena Teach woke to the steady exhalation of the wireless. A white noise of nothingness, peppered with blips and whines from distant crackles of lightning. In her awakening grogginess, Mrs Teach half wondered if she had left the radio on before nodding off, but a séance needed complete silence and she was not the type to have made such an error.
‘Phee-Phee?’ the voice came whispering through the wireless. ‘Phee-Phee, are you there, my love?’
Phee-Phee.
Ernie’s name for her.
He had many. Phee-Phee, Pumpkin, Love-Lump. Used only behind closed doors and known only to them.
‘Phee-Phee, speak to me, darling. Please.’ His voice was filtered through hiss and crackle, words rising and falling with the swell of the airwaves.
The first light of dawn filtered through the curtains, the smoke had cleared and the embers in the dish still shimmered. The door was open and someone had stepped through.
‘Phee-Phee? Speak to me, my love.’
>
How could she be sure it was really her Ernie?
‘Pumpkin? Love-Lump? Did you call me? Please speak to me.’
A movement caught Philomena’s attention. A face in the reflected glass. An eye in the mirror on the mantel, lips moving in another. A manifestation of Ernie.
Mrs Teach tried to say his name, but her mouth was dry and all that came was a croak. She cleared her throat and started again. ‘Ernie, is that you?’
‘It is, my love, it is. I’m so happy to hear you again.’
A warmth rushed through Mrs Teach, starting in her toes and flooding her heart. ‘Ernie, oh, Ernie, I’ve missed you.’ She knew this had to be too good to be true, but any rational thought was shoved aside as tears came and her lips trembled. ‘I’ve missed you so much.’
‘So have I, Phee-Phee.’ The voice was still nothing but distant fragments, but it really sounded like Ernie. ‘I long to see you again.’
‘Where… where are you?’ It was the question that everyone wanted to know the answer to. Back when she was a girl and gave her first séances, her nana had told her that folk would ask such questions. Nana warned against giving answers because no one ever liked what they heard. But Philomena Teach wasn’t afraid of death. She just wanted to hear her Ernie’s voice again.
‘I don’t know, Phee-Phee,’ came the reply. ‘It’s dark. Dark and cold. I’m scared. Can you help me?’
‘Yes, my darling Ernie, just listen to the sound of my voice,’ she said. ‘Let my love warm you in the dark.’
‘I want you here, Phee-Phee,’ Ernie said. ‘Join me. Cross over and we can be together for ever.’
‘Er.’ Mrs Teach became aware of the tiniest of alarm bells ringing at the back of her mind. Something wasn’t quite right here.
‘There are so many of us in the dark,’ the voice said.
‘I thought you were alone?’ Mrs Teach replied, trying not to sound too suspicious.
‘We are. We all are.’
‘All?’ Mrs Teach asked, and she was sure she could hear someone trying to cover up a snorted laugh through the radio noise. ‘You cheeky sod. That’s not my Ernie, is it?’
‘Ah, you saw through my little ruse,’ the voice said, filling the room and dropping to a cadence that was one part oil, two parts brimstone. ‘I’m surprised you didn’t latch on sooner, Philomena Teach.’
‘Who are you?’
‘Who…? Mrs Teach, I must say I am more than a little wounded that you don’t remember me. After all, we got on so well last time.’
‘Last time?’ It didn’t take long for Mrs Teach to flick through her mental address book of demon acquaintances. There was only one. ‘Kefapepo, isn’t it?’
‘At your service, madam.’
‘Don’t you madam, me. Begone, foul demon,’ Mrs Teach said, leaning forward to turn off the wireless.
‘Ernie, I can bring you Ernie,’ Kefapepo blurted.
Mrs Teach hesitated, her fingers resting on the off dial of the radio. ‘Liar,’ she said.
‘You know I can.’ Kefapepo dropped his voice to a whisper again, and Mrs Teach angled her head to better hear him. ‘Not for long, of course, but I can bring him to you and you can finally say your goodbyes. That’s what you want, isn’t it, Mrs Teach? A proper farewell to the love of your life. That’s all we want, isn’t it? Just a few more moments. I can give them to you.’
‘How?’ The word was hoarse and dry, and she cursed herself for saying it. Now he knew she was interested. ‘A séance?’
‘Mrs Teach, you insult me. You’re not dealing with those fools who come to have their palms read. No, no, no. I will choose a form for Ernie and he will come to you.’
‘A form?’
‘A body. A host. You can expect a visit one evening. You will have until the stroke of midnight to make your farewells and all those things you meant to say when he was alive.’
‘No.’
‘Mrs Teach, this is a unique and generous offer, never to be repeated. I highly suggest you say yes and be quick about it.’
‘Why are you doing this? You lied to me before, why should I believe you now?’
‘Mrs Teach, how dare you question my—’
‘You are a demon, not to be trusted. Goodbye.’
‘He will be the first of many,’ Kefapepo said. ‘My gift to the world.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘The dead are all around me. I call to them and can summon their spirits. It’s one of my gifts. I have studied the old ways and discovered how to… breathe new life into them.’
‘You won’t be doing that with my Ernie,’ Mrs Teach said. ‘Now, begone.’
She switched off the radio, and the demon was gone. The room lost its chill, and the embers in the dish faded to ashes. Mrs Teach opened the curtains to a pale yellow sun peeking over the bell tower of Saint Irene’s Church.
3
After tea and toast, Mrs Teach picked a bunch of sky-blue hydrangeas from her garden. Clutching them tightly, she made her way to the one place she had been avoiding since Ernie’s funeral. His stone in the graveyard of Saint Irene’s.
He rested in the shadow of an oak tree, side-by-side with strangers. Mrs Teach had seen enough peculiar phenomena in her time to know that an afterlife was certainly a possibility, but that the idea of Ernie floating on a cloud playing a harp was nonsense. She feared that death was cold, dark and lonely.
‘Hello, my love,’ she said, crouching to rest the hydrangeas at the foot of his stone. ‘I got you these. I don’t know why we bring flowers to the dead. To brighten the place up, I suppose. Coming here, chatting, flowers, prayers. Everything we do for the dead, we do for ourselves, don’t we?’
Mrs Teach stood and brushed her skirt straight. ‘It’s been three months, three weeks exactly, my love,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to visit, though I suspect you neither know nor care. I’m going to stop feeling sorry for myself and get things done and I’m starting with your allotment, poppet. I haven’t been there since… and I know I don’t have your green fingers, but all the posters go on about digging for victory, so I’m going to have a go. It has to be better than wallowing in the past, and I know you had no time for that nonsense. But, I promise you this, I’ll come here regularly. Fresh flowers and me jabbering to myself. Yes, I’m sure it’ll be good for both of us.’
4
Philomena Teach was renowned in the village for many things, but first and foremost she was known for being observant, which was a polite way of saying she was nosey. She would refute this, of course. She simply took an interest in the welfare of others and always lent a shoulder to cry on. Never mind that she would often know that they had something to cry about long before they themselves did. There was no denying that there was little that went on in the village of Woodville without her knowing it.
Which is why she was shocked that it took her all morning to notice what was missing from her Ernie’s allotment. She started with a little light weeding – the plot had gone a bit ragged in his absence – and then some watering, feeding and harvesting the few radishes and lettuces that had endured.
It was only when she stopped for a tea break that she sat in a deck chair, surveyed her work, and blurted out, ‘Where the bloody hell’s Bernie?’ causing Mr Loaf digging nearby to jolt, press a hand to his chest and mop his brow with a red polka dot neckerchief.
Bernie was the name she and Ernie gave to the scarecrow on his allotment. The name came about because he was wearing Ernie’s old top hat and tails – a leftover from their courting days – and so they named him ‘Ernie Mark 2’, which became ‘Ernie B’, which for a while became ‘Ernib’ and then finally through various convolutions ended up as ‘Bernie’.
All that was left of Bernie was his wooden pole.
‘Have you lost something, Mrs Teach?’ Mr Loaf asked as he negotiated his way around the bean poles and sunflowers of his own allotment. Ever cheery, and camp as a row of tents, Mr Loaf was possibly the only villager to ch
allenge Philomena for the title of ‘nosiest person in the village’, though his was a professional interest. As the village’s only funeral director, he was always on the lookout for new business.
‘Someone’s pinched our scarecrow,’ Mrs Teach told him. ‘Why on earth would anyone purloin a scarecrow? I ask you.’
Mr Loaf, a small wiry chap with limbs that at first sight appeared to have a surplus of knees and elbows, adjusted his round specs and inspected the now-empty pole. ‘Ooh, you wouldn’t believe what some people get up to these days, Mrs Teach,’ he said. ‘I know we all bang on about the Dunkirk spirit, and we’re all in it together and all that, but there are some nefarious types out there, I don’t mind telling you. Black marketeers, thieves in the night, muggers and villains in this very village if you can believe such a thing.’ He thought for a moment. ‘P’raps they wanted the top hat and tails? They were still in fairly good nick, and what with clothes rationing and all, some folk will go to any lengths to get their hands on good cloth.’
‘Then why take the whole thing, stuffing and all?’ Mrs Teach said, a thought sparking deep inside her mind. She tried to concentrate on it, but Mr Loaf was off on one.
‘Who knows how these perverted minds think,’ he said, patting her hand. ‘And you, still in your period of grief and mourning, Mrs Teach. The bounders should be ashamed of themselves. What would their mothers say? That’s what I want to know. Where are their mothers, hmm? And their fathers? I blame the parents. Spare the rod, spoil the child. Someone needs to tan their hides and teach them—’
‘Mr Loaf, if I may,’ Philomena interjected as politely as possible. ‘Do you recall if it was here yesterday?’
Mr Loaf pursed his lips and rolled his eyes to the sky in thought. ‘Trouble is, Mrs Teach, something like a scarecrow, round here… well, it’s part of the furniture, isn’t it? Part of the landscape. The sort of thing you don’t notice till it’s… well, till some vagabond half-inches it. But, yes, yes, I could’ve sworn it was here yesterday.’