by Mike Ashley
“Did you see that?” he called urgently, taking a couple of steps towards the girl. She began to back away, and he realised that the expression on her face wasn’t just horror. There was something else there, something furtive . . . yes! Guilt! She looked as guilty as a kid who had just been caught shoplifting. Then she turned away and raced off down the road, scrambling over a stile near the church to disappear behind the hedge.
Paul watched her go, a little knot of excitement in his stomach. He knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that whatever it was he had just witnessed, the little girl had been responsible for it. There was substance behind the poltergeist rumours after all. This was a story, all right. This was a big one.
Smiling, he pushed open the door of the village store and went inside. He had some serious questions that needed answering.
Sarah lay motionless in the long grass like a fawn hiding from a wolf and tried to hold back the tears. You idiot! she told herself. Now you’ve done it! Now you’ve really gone and done it! And after all the promises she had made to her parents, too. They would be soooo cross with her! No chance of tonight’s sleep-over at Emma’s now. But what had she been supposed to do? She couldn’t have let Mrs Lambert’s dog get run over!
Rolling on to her stomach, she peered through the roots of the hawthorn hedge, expecting to see that horrible rat-faced man following her down the road. But instead, she was just in time to see the door of the village store closing behind him. Sarah drew back, puzzled. He must have seen what she’d done to the dog . . . of course he had, he’d started to ask her about it. But he’d asked her if she’d seen it . . . Yes, that was it! He had no idea it was anything to do with her! Sarah had already learned that most adults, when faced with what they thought of as inexplicable events, never connected her with them. Not for the first few times, anyway . . .
She’d got away with it! Relieved, Sarah leapt up and began to trot home. And as she did so, she repeated the same little mantra to herself, over and over again. No more witchcraft . . . no more witchcraft . . .
Ever since she could remember, Sarah had known that she was a witch. No, that wasn’t strictly true. She’d always had the abilities, but it had taken her a while to learn that no-one else shared them or that the rest of humanity (if they had known) would have called her a witch. Some innate sense of caution had caused her to keep her talents hidden from the outside world most of the time, but she was a kind-hearted child who liked to please others, and every now and then she just couldn’t help herself. And, boy, had that caused trouble!
She had never forgotten the first serious incident, when she was four years old. Invited for the umpteenth time round to her friend Kylie Smith’s house for tea, and having nagged, pleaded and cried until her parents had given way, she had been dropped off with their urgent warnings and cautions ringing in her ears. But Kylie’s mum had been tired and stressed, and Sarah had heard the sincerity in her voice when she had shouted, “No, we’re not going down to the playground! I’ve got far too much to do and I haven’t got two pairs of hands, I only wish I had!” That day, Sarah had learned the hard way that grown-ups don’t always mean exactly what they say. Even now, lying in bed at night, she sometimes thought she could still hear Mrs Smith screaming.
They’d moved to another town almost immediately afterwards. Since then, Sarah had tried to keep her abilities secret, but things would keep on happening, and there had been two more major incidents which had necessitated a rapid relocation of the family. But now she really did seem to be able to control herself and it had been two years since the last move. It would have been such a shame if that unpleasant-looking man had caught on to her . . .
With a smile on her face and a happy heart, Sarah headed for home totally unaware of the vast surprise that fate held in store for her.
“No, I haven’t found a bit of posh totty!” Paul Inkman flicked another cigarette end into the river and desperately tried to keep hold of his temper. “Believe me, Andrew, nothing would induce me to spend one minute longer in this boring, inbred wilderness than I have to. But there’s a story here, a real story. This is going to be big.”
“More than just a one-off news item?” came the reply, and Paul could sense the quickening of interest in the news editor’s voice.
“Far more,” he stated. “Several news items, investigative coverage, a one-off special . . . and far more than just local interest. We’re talking international here.”
“Right.” Andrew’s voice paused, and Paul could hear a strange noise emanating from the phone that sounded vaguely like someone tapping their teeth with a pencil. “This could be good timing,” the news editor continued after several seconds. “Sue is looking for another programme topic. She’s had to drop the eighty year old prostitute after the old dear died of a heart attack whilst entertaining a client. I’ll send her straight down there. See you.”
The phone went dead. Paul stared at it in fury for a few seconds and came within an ace of hurling it against a nearby stone wall.
Sue Perrigo! That self-obsessed bitch! He swore dully and repetitively to himself. He’d already lost two of his best stories to that over-made-up, empty-headed bimbo, and now it was threatening to happen again. Well, not this time. Not if he could help it . . .
Paul thought quickly. He’d have to move fast and find out as much as he could. Then he needed to get Tony on his side, although that would be easy as Sue always used her own pet cameraman whose main talent lay in making her look wonderful on a TV screen. When she turned up, it shouldn’t be too difficult to convince her that she’d been sent on a wild goose chase, although it wouldn’t be pleasant; Sue Perrigo’s volcanic temper was legendary. And then when the dust had settled, he and Tony could slip back down here and make their own detailed report, a report that would make headline news.
Paul smiled hungrily to himself. That little girl didn’t know it, but she was about to provide him with the boost that would propel him to fame and fortune.
“A sleep-over? After what happened last time?” For a brief moment Sarah thought her father might actually explode.
“But Dad, I was only seven then! And, anyway, I thought I was doing the right thing. You and Mum said I should always do what I was told.”
Lost for words, Mr Parker spluttered like an old-fashioned kettle coming to the boil, and his wife took over hurriedly.
“Sarah, when a harassed adult tells two boisterous children to disappear, they just want them to go away.”
“Well, I know that now! But . . .”
“Poor Mrs Harris has never been the same since!” Her father had managed to get his vocal chords working again. “And as for that other trick you pulled . . .”
“But Tracy was my best friend! And she really wanted it to snow!”
“Yes, dear,” answered her mother, “but outside would have been better. It took her father two hours to shovel that drift out through the bedroom window.”
“I said I was sorry! But, Mum, that was ages ago! There’s been no trouble at all since we came to Upton, has there?”
“Er, no. Not really. Nothing that anyone can prove was you.”
“Well, then!”
Mrs Parker looked at her daughter for a moment, then sighed.
“Sweetheart, why don’t you go and tidy your room? Your father and I need to talk.”
Sarah hadn’t been in this world very long before Mrs Parker had realised that her baby girl had abilities which were, to say the least, unusual. But whereas most mothers would have been deeply disturbed by levitating feeding bottles or nappies that changed themselves, Sarah’s mother had been half expecting something out of the ordinary. She had very strong childhood memories of her own grandmother, a small, secretive, plump old lady who had been able to do some remarkable things, and who had seemed deeply disappointed that neither her daughter nor her grand-daughter had shared this ability. And there were some very strange family stories about Great Great Grandmother Pritchard, who had been born in Pendle . . .<
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Sarah’s father had been far less willing to face facts, but eventually the evidence had become too overwhelming to discount. And since then, the Parkers had devoted their lives to . . . well, they were never sure whether they were simply protecting Sarah from the world or if they were also protecting the world from Sarah. They both knew that, in this modern age, if television or newspaper journalists got hold of her story her life would be ruined, but they felt that to isolate her completely from the rest of the world would also ruin her life.
And so they had trodden a middle line. On the whole it had worked, although on three separate occasions Sarah had done something which couldn’t be explained away and they had been forced to leave the area quickly. The last time they had moved, Mrs Parker had thought that it would help if they could have settled close to someone else who had the same ability, but when she had suggested this to her daughter, Sarah had been adamant.
“There is no-one else, Mum. I just know it. If there was, I’d be able to . . . sense them. I could when I was little. There was a comforting feeling at the back of my mind, a sort of glow, old and shaky but always there. But I woke up one morning and it had gone. Whoever it was must have died and now I’m alone. I’m the last witch, it’s as simple as that.”
Since then, Mr and Mrs Parker had done their best to shield their daughter whilst hammering home the need for rigid self-discipline. At first, Sarah had tended to slip up, but the incidents had only been minor and had easily been explained away. But in recent months it looked as though Sarah had at last learnt to keep her ability secret, and Mrs Parker felt that an increase in responsibility should be rewarded by an increase in freedom.
She looked up at her husband, who had risen from the couch and was pacing restlessly up and down, fulminating about the danger to Sarah herself and to the rest of the world of allowing her outside the house for even a moment. This wasn’t going to be easy.
“Darling,” she said, uttering the words that would change things for ever, “I really think we should let Sarah go on this sleep-over . . .”
Paul Inkman sat in the chair opposite Dr Phillips with an expression of polite interest pasted firmly in place and tried to contain his mounting excitement. The more he talked to people about events in Upton, the more convinced he became that he was on to something sensational.
This interview with the local G.P. was typical. Taken by themselves, her comments weren’t that startling, but when added to all the other stories Paul had heard, the body of evidence was overwhelming.
“So let’s see if I’ve got this right,” he said to the doctor. “Are you saying that people in Upton are never sick?”
“Oh, no, I wouldn’t go that far. People still get ill. But there seems to be much less of it round here, for some reason. I hardly ever see locals with colds or ’flu. And the children at the local school must be the healthiest kids in Britain. We haven’t had a case of chicken pox for ages.”
“And this is well out of the ordinary?”
The doctor leant back in her chair and fiddled with a pencil as she considered the question.
“I’d say so, yes. It’s been enough to make me wonder whether the powers that be have been using the village as a living laboratory . . . antibiotics in the water supply, or something like that.”
Paul nodded before casually asking the most important question.
“How long would you say this has been going on?”
“Difficult to say. But I’d guess that it began about two years ago now . . .”
Sarah clattered down the stairs with her overnight bag in her hand to find her father waiting for her in the hall. At first, from the serious look on his face, she thought that he must have changed his mind and her heart sank. But then he forced a smile into place and she knew that everything was alright.
“Now you be careful, young lady,” he said. For the first time today she noticed that his voice sounded husky and his nose was a little blocked. “Make sure that you don’t do anything . . . ah . . . ah . . . atishoo!”
He sneezed noisily. Sarah put down her bag, took hold of his hand and probed. Immediately she could sense the thousands upon thousands of microbes clustered in the membranes lining his nose and throat. She concentrated, her lips moving faintly as she muttered the necessary commands and sent them all away.
“There you go, Dad,” she grinned. “You’ll feel much better now.”
Her father nodded almost tiredly.
“Thanks, love.” His voice sounded sad. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully and then sat down on the bottom stairs. “Sarah,” he added, “there’s something I’ve always meant to ask you.”
“What’s that, Dad?”
“Well, whenever you see witches casting spells in films or books, they’re always brewing up magic potions in vast, bubbling cauldrons. I’ve always half expected that I’d come in from work one day to find you in the kitchen, mixing up a load of bats’ wings and frogs’ noses in one of your Mum’s best Le Creuset pans. But you’ve never seemed to need all that . . . hocus pocus stuff. Why is that?”
“I don’t know, Dad.” Sarah settled herself down on the stair next to her father and thought about it. “I guess maybe in the old days, their customers demanded it. I mean, take love potions. If you were paying a witch for a spell to make Mum fall in love with you, you’d probably want to have something definite for your money. Like a nice little bottle full of magic potion. Otherwise, if you just gave the witch some money and then found that Mum was suddenly mad about you, you might think that it was all down to you and nothing to do with the witch.” Sarah paused and then laughed. “Or maybe they just weren’t very good at being witches and needed help. But I don’t.” She looked up at her Dad, smiling confidentially. “I’m really good at it, you know.”
“I know.”
He looked at her with a strange, crinkly sort of smile and for one awful moment she thought he was going to start crying, but then he put his arm around her and hugged her tightly.
“Just . . . just be careful out there,” he said.
“Don’t worry, Dad,” she told him inaccurately, “nothing is going to go wrong . . .”
The words poured out of Paul Inkman like a torrent as he paced excitedly up and down. Nearby, Tony the cameraman sat on a wooden picnic bench, listening doubtfully and hugging his camera to himself for comfort. They were in Upton’s only public car park, a gravel-surfaced area cut out of a field behind the church that lay huddled in a bend of the river and was ringed by picnic tables and waste bins.
“Everything began two years ago,” said Paul. “And you know the kid I told you about? Sarah Parker? You know when she and her family moved here? Two years ago! All we need to do now is find out where they came from and check the place out for strange occurrences. Once we confront her parents with what we know, they won’t have any option but to cooperate.”
He stopped pacing and appealed directly to the cameraman.
“This is a hell of a story, Tony. And it’s ours. We’ve just got to put Sue off the trail first.”
“Yeah . . . right,” said the cameraman, doubtfully. “Only . . . well, she’s got a bloodhound’s nose for a story, Paul. And you know what she’s like with people who cross her! I talked to Gareth Murray after he sent some film of her picking her nose to that out-takes show. He said it was like being savaged by a Chanel-drenched rottweiler!”
“She won’t know until it’s too late, and we’ll have made our name by then.”
Paul paused as his mobile phone began trilling and hauled it out of his pocket.
“Hello?” he said. “Oh, hi, Sue. Yes, we’re waiting for you. We’re in the car park behind the church. You can’t miss it.” He paused and winked at Tony. “Only I’m afraid we’ve got some rather bad news for you . . .”
Sarah rang the front doorbell and grinned as the door shot open almost immediately. Emma Williams was standing there, a flurry of excitement on legs.
“You’re late!” she squealed. “I thought yo
u weren’t coming! Come in! Mum says take your bag upstairs, then we can go out for a bit. But you’ll have to say hello to Mum first . . .” Her voice dropped dramatically to a whisper. “And to Matt.”
“Who’s Matt?” Sarah whispered back.
“His Dad works with my Dad at the university. He’s American. They’ve just moved over here and Dad said it would be nice for him to have someone to play with, so we’re stuck with him for the weekend. Come on!”
Emma led the way along the hall and into the living room, where Mrs Williams was sitting on the couch, sipping coffee from a Scorpio mug and reading the paper. Beside her, controller in hand and thumbs a blur, a tousle-headed boy of about ten was concentrating on a computer console game on the television.
“Hello, Sarah,” smiled Mrs Williams. “I’m glad you could come to stay at last. This is Matt.”
The boy pressed the pause button on the controller and then grinned at Sarah.
“Hi there,” he said.
“Why don’t you . . .” Mrs Williams began, but then the phone beside her rang. “Just a minute,” she said as she picked it up. “Hello . .? Yes, she is. Hold on.”
She held the phone out to Emma. “It’s Tracy.”
“Tracy?” said Emma, disdainfully. (Tracy was not currently on her best-friends list.) “What does she want?”
She put the phone to her ear and listened, and her whole attitude changed visibly.
“What? Where? She isn’t! Really? Okay! See you!” Emma almost threw the phone back to her mother and was hopping up and down with excitement. “That was Tracy! She says there are TV cameras in the car park, and Sue Perrigo is there! She’s going to film something. We’ve got to go and watch! We could be on television! Come on, Sarah!”