The Meddler

by Donna Maria McCarthy

  ‘Perhaps therein may result some justice for this tragedy today? Be gone!’ he cried, shooing them from his sight.

  Wildly they scrambled to be gone – falling over each other, left to tread the heavy path of those who are truly lost, who have no hope. Neither could they look up to the Heavens for guidance, too ashamed to ever talk of what had played out – of their guilt; and though they would suffer, the true judgement would find its real home and in truth had begun to effect.

  Chapter 24

  The two witches had known temporary victory, knowing that blood would be spilled that day – but now the Dowager felt heavy with guilt and no relief from her grief. No, now it increased. Distraught and confused she took them aside. ‘I do believe that the two of you could do with a term of separation!’

  ‘No!’ Willy cried.

  ‘Shut up!’ Niamh replied, bitterly.

  ‘And Lord knows, I could do with one from the two of you!’

  The Dowager’s distress made it difficult for her to breathe, and panting she took a seat, though this time not asking her daughter’s help.

  ‘I cannot right a wrong but can rid this town of you, especially!’ She grabbed Niamh by the hair. ‘Witch!’ she cried out frantically, ‘I blame you for all of it!’

  Niamh screamed and Willy clawed at her mama to release her – though neither were a match for the Dowager who dealt with the two quite magnificently.

  ‘You, my girl!’ she grabbed Niamh’s arm. ‘You may find friends and society where you can! I will send you off with money to carry you away – but do not fear, the truly black will always court some sort of company! I fear for the world that soon you shall make mischief elsewhere.’

  ‘Mama, you cannot! She will die!’ Willy sobbed.

  ‘Shut up, you Ninnyhammer !’ The Dowager faced her daughter, reddened with rage.

  ‘You my girl with your sickly – yes sickly – good looks, will take up residence in a convent, far from here – far from me and as far from the reach of the Devil as I can find! I cannot bear to look upon you! Lord that I should have been so blind! No, governess shall suit you just fine!’

  ‘And what makes you think that I shall not just turn around and come back?’ Niamh insolently teased the exasperated Dowager through pinched lips and grimace.

  ’Oh, you will not return here ever, my girl! I see that twinkle in your eye, where you might create more havoc – and this place tires you, yes?’ She laughed, relieved, and dragged them both to their feet.

  ‘Now be gone, the pair of you and pack, you are to leave on the morrow!’

  Niamh took her time to idle out of sight but Willy ran from her, crying.

  ‘A little justice, I pray I have served.’ The Dowager, forlornly looked at the two ungodly Cceatures as they crawled away. ‘We shall see a return to a God fearing community – one that has been taught a most awful lesson; but still, in its wake we might again feel the light.’

  And she was right…

  It would take some time and an ousting of any who sought the bad in people – who feasted secretly upon evil; and would take many years, but for sure it had begun.

  And as these two were expelled, so would their followers leave in search of less knowing folk – in search perhaps, of the one called Niamh, for a wily old character the Dowager was and had planned a lavish and very public ridding of this particular Devil.

  Chapter 25

  Meddler stood at the door, somewhere to go, someone to see.

  ‘I shall lay him in the meadow, Meddler,’ Bell Baker called to him, ‘do not leave us yet a while?’

  Meddler turned to face them. ‘Tell me of how he will lay, Reverend?’

  ‘He was such a short while in this world for such a fine dragon, and I had an idea that perhaps we may keep him for just a little longer! My pasture, you see, sees seasons pass with pomp and grandeur – where honey blossoms lace the summer breeze and bees make honey to turn into mead! There, enticement yes? Where a chorus of life plays out until frosty winter mornings come and will trace the path of he, as he leaves. And there you might find him, Ay?’

  Meddler stood quite impressed. ‘Well, if not for I – for I must away this place – is a good and fitting place for you all to seek him out.’

  ‘Father, will you take Meddler home?’

  Harry took him by the hand, and pulled him back, having not heard what had transpired.

  ‘To the Heart!’ Meddler interrupted. ‘I am sure you meant to send me to your warm and welcoming home, Harry, but –’

  ‘Hush,’ Harry said, ‘I only meant to let you know that you would always be welcome.’

  ‘And I knew before you.’ Meddler cringed at how it had come out and had the unfortunate effect of making everyone laugh a little. Taking a blush from his pouch and out of respect, he said, ‘I shall take myself, Mr Punch – though I thank you kindly. Your leg? The gout? Will make the journey a painful one for you, I can assure you.’

  Again unfortunately, his peculiar address took them all from themselves and childish giggles were stifled, born of shock and a blessing – for they offered some sort of sublime madness in place of unassailable grief.

  ‘Come, Come!’ Bell Baker announced – ashamed of himself for laughing, and Harry went to join Meddler at the door.

  ‘I do see why – no magic required. I do see why you must away, but would not Reuben prefer that you stay – for even a little while?’

  ‘Rosie will be fine, Harry.’ Meddler touched his hand. ‘Takes no wizard to see that what will come of this is a peace, where the guilty leave alone those whose stare and might accuse. A time best left to ignominious tales that are fed to the young as fairy-tale magic and to make them always fear untruths.’

  Bell Baker raised his eyes to the rafters. ‘Sad am I this day for all those Giants, Goblins and Dragons, neatly bound safely in a works of fiction! But there! There is the conscience for all and The Almighty to see!’

  ‘Another epiphany?’ Meddler cheekily asked as he walked from them all.

  ‘Things to attend?’

  ‘Yes, thank you, Reverend.’

  ‘And we shall never see you again, not any of us?’

  ‘Never? Never has never, and quite famously so, ever been anything other than a word with no provenance!’ he called as he left.

  ‘ Never ? Now there is a sum to think on!’ he thought to himself as he walked into the fiery dusk. ‘Never?’ And he chatted away a little while longer, though to who knows whom. ‘It was just the pain of it,‘ he said, though was more contemplative, less pained. ‘I am not sure if I wither, as one of these creatures seem to, or if evolution is simply painful?’

  Chapter 26

  Old Kane’s face looked tired and drawn as Meddler approached, for no words needed be said. The lack of a certain companion said all and he sighed a sob filled sigh, as the little creature passed.

  The Heart, from a distance looked as though she always had – though the beat became faint as Meddler approached. Nella feigned a busying for a celebration.

  ‘To mark the passing of him!’ she said, full of agony.

  ‘And you, Nella, are as perceptive as I, for we all knew – we knew this time would come.’

  She patted the young ones off, who pulled at her skirts and looked for their dragon beyond them.

  ‘Come, come – we shall have dragon’s fire tonight, children! Ay, Meddler?’

  ‘Of course we shall! And the brightest ever seen! Look, Look!’ He gestured to the burning skies. ‘We have been blessed with such magic, to have known the most fierce of dragons who ever deigned to walk with his subjects! Look, look how he lights the sky and see how he disappears behind the moon shadow mountains. Go then to the mountains, and chase your dragon!’

  And away they ran. Thankfully they would not make the mountains – not yet a while –but would wonder at its darkness and only ever see it as a journey to take eventually, with friends and love, always.

  Nella bravely smiled through pain etched upon her f
ace. ‘Nothing needs be said, you know – at least not of it, Creature.’

  ‘And I shall not, dear Nella – come sit with me a while.’ He took her hand. ‘You look in need of a rest.’

  She sat wearily beside him.

  ‘You too?’ she said as she sat on grass warmed by the blushing sky.

  ‘Steal that one, could you?’ she laughed, pointing to the sky.

  ‘For you I would try, Nella.’

  ‘I knew that you would leave us too – but still saddens me, so it rightly does. You two are inseparable after all!’

  Meddler looked shocked. ‘What do you see, Nella?’

  ‘I love your confused look, Meddler – is the best you have! So dear you are.’ And she pulled his hat down further.

  ‘Please, Nella!’ He took her face in his hands. ‘Tell me what you see, if it will rid me of this pain?’

  ‘And yet, little one, the plains? The blessed few who watch over us all? Surely you are forgetful? ‘

  ‘Yes, but Nella, there was something in what you said; inseparable ?’

  She looked away.

  ‘Are you actually saying that I know more than you?’ she remarked casually.

  ‘I believe – will concede – that at times when I am preoccupied, that you are perhaps more sensitive.’

  ‘Well thank you for nothing then!’ The conversation was amusing her endlessly and delighted Meddler to see.

  ‘Well you are lucky, is all I can say – though I may still have him here,’ she said, touching her head, ‘and here,’ with hand to her heart.

  ‘Oh Nella!’ And he stopped, embarrassed that he did not give her time to continue. But then, what he would say would be answer enough. ‘I have been working on the math behind a Never – and they never do add up. You see, a Never has never actually eventuated – for you see, the end to all has not yet come! In fact the only Never that exists is that the end can never come!’

  ‘Oh, Creature,’ she exclaimed and got up to walk away, ‘that’s hope, little one!’ and she disappeared into The Heart, calling, ‘Nice to have taught you something!’

  Saluting her and tossing his hat, he left The Heart. Old Kane had gone to be with his family and the track he found, he said was conducive for speculation and contemplative thought. One last look he allowed himself, to feel the warmth he had felt there, then allowed the darkness to envelope him.

  And was gone.

  Chapter 27

  ‘Devil’s trinkets, yes you may have a point! But!’

  Meddler cheekily looked up. ‘Your wings? I might say, what need you to fly? When, as you so eloquently have pointed out, there is no need for any of this! That our spirit and soul can transcend any mountain, be it born in the mind or as we see about us, Malachi?’ he quizzed, looking up at a face torn through many battles.

  Herculean he stood in stature, but with an angelic grace that was leant him with powerful and elegant wings. He twitched his feathers with a pretence to be irritated and knelt down to the wee one, as though to collude and impart secrets. He flicked him with a wing and laughed – dark and light danced about him, and was what gave him his humour.

  ‘Such actions are not befitting of one who sits in judgement!’ Meddler said indignantly.

  ‘Ah, but a little humour is a blessing, indeed! As are these!’ And he flexed his magnificent moonlight wings. ‘Both are won on the field, a little light to see in the dark – a little dark to see the light?’

  ‘Hmm.’ Meddler drummed his fingers on his chin. ‘And myself? Am I to be blessed with such apparatus? I say eventually, when I am.’

  ‘Your journey is just beginning,’ Malachi whispered.

  ‘But in the in between, we have no beginning nor end? Now I am confused?’

  Meddler quickly looked about him, but with the spirited wind that had brought him there he in turn had gone. ‘Typical! Typical! Typical!’

  And he scorned the wind that buried itself within the trees.

  ‘Quizzes! Do I not have enough to calculate? And what wisdom can I teach if it is grounded on less knowledge than I had before this? No, surely I devolve, rather than evolve ?’

  A little more thought – more calculus, and then, ‘Ah ha! That’s it! Then I aspire to the very creatures that I attempt to teach! And you, Malachi, have seen many a Meddler evolve as such!’

  His words trailed off into a sigh that he cast on the waters of the moonlit lake, where inky depths grabbed it and feasted on it – secretly taking it from him so he would always remain unaware.

  The midnight marauders who coveted secrets that he would know whispered to him, ‘Beware, beware of a curiosity to know more than is needed; enough to know that evil exists – enough to know that it must be rejected. Never more must you have but a suspicion. An equation he was, of two parts, both stemming from good.

  Evil then would remain a mystery – for most; a shadow cast by a despicable and illusive host.

  Fin

  About the Author

  Donna Maria was brought up in the idyllic surroundings of rural Oxfordshire, where adventures were spent, on hazy summer days that seemed to last for an eternity.

  Always a great reader, Alice in Wonderland was her bible, and her copy was always neatly stashed away in her bag, wherever the promise of magic and discovery sent her.

  The youngest in a family of six brothers she grew up with a scholarly knowledge of both girls and boys, her best friends of all her two nearest siblings.

  Her imagination is limitless, and when she said farewell to Oxfordshire, heart-breaking though it was, the bustling and forever changing demographic of Southampton and its urban creatures of both good and more questionable forces, proved a treat for the dark and fantastical realms, in her mind.

  Epic poetry, lengthy school assignments, and tales around urban campfires filled her days. At school leaving age she decided that even more knowledge, of our beautiful language, was exactly what her hungry mind required.

  She went to a City College, studying English Literature, English Language, Sociology and Spanish, finding the Sociology ripe with tales from folklore and beliefs, to her absolute delight, and the Spanish, a wonderful addition to stories that brewed in her fertile mind.

  She excelled at all, the English subjects especially, and upon leaving college decided that there were so many other ways to fill her note books with worthy subjects, and became gainfully employed working for the MOD, no less! On applying for a job as the Receptionist for an engineering company, part of the MOD, her talents for attention to detail and a fantastic memory were discovered and soon her role was finely tuned for somebody of her scope.

  Enough said! Obviously she has signed the Official Secrets act, and can never disclose more, and although this was an incredibly exciting time in her life, she maintains that each and every episode so far has been equal in excitement; the mind is a strange and un-tamed beast, and in some is all consuming. The produce can sometimes be really quite spectacular.

  Other HellBound Books Titles

  Available at: www.hellboundbookspublishing.com

  Biddy Trott

  'If Biddy knows no rest, then none shall…'

  A tragedy born of malice and evil, a tortured body and soul. The townsfolk of Royal Rumney have a conscience, a secret that tears away at their sanity.

  Any soul shall be offered up in place of the damned;

  'And ever the church bells tell a lie, is Biddy who comes and another will die.

  Set in eighteenth century England in the small market town of Royal Rumny, Biddy Trott, is a Gothic Horror novella with tragedy at its core.

  A young girl, falsely blamed for a fire which destroyed the town and killed many, is hunted down, tortured and killed gruesomely, with no conscience.

  Lord Abner Alexander, a member of the elite and privileged, travels to the town in search of some peace and respite from his very bawdy and raucous lifestyle.

  The town seems pleasant enough and the people welcoming, although unyielding where their dark a
nd harrowing past is concerned…

  The Amnesia Girl

  Filled with copious amounts of black humor, Gerri R. Gray's first published novel is an offbeat adventure story that could be described as One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest meets Thelma and Louise.

  Flashback to 1974. Farika is a lovely young woman who wakes up one day to find herself a patient in a bizarre New York City psychiatric asylum. She has no idea who she is, and possesses no memories of where she came from nor how she got there.

  Fearing for her life after being attacked by a berserk girl with over one hundred personalities and a vicious nurse with sadistic intentions, the frightened amnesiac teams up with an audacious lesbian with a comically unbalanced mind, and together they attempt a daring escape.

  But little do they know that a long strange journey into an even more insane world filled with a multitude of perilous predicaments and off-kilter individuals are waiting for them on the outside. Farika's weird reality crumbles when she finally discovers who, and what, she really is!

  The Cabin Sessions

  A confronting, hard-hitting, dark psychological thriller told with acid wit. Themes of abuse are explored through minds distorted by fear and corrupted by hatred and delusion; this is a tale in which redemption is gained in unexpected ways.

  It's Christmas Eve when hapless musician Adam Banks stands on the bridge over the river that cleaves the isolated village of Burton. A storm is rolling into the narrow mountain pass. He thinks of turning back. Instead, he resolves to fulfil his obligation to perform the guest spot at The Cabin Sessions. He should be looking forward to it, but fear stirs when he opens the door on the Cabin's incense-choked air