The kitchen, where, flanked by wellington boots and raincoats and dog toys, stood the back door. The back door that led into the moon-watched garden. The back door which Mam had opened. The back door through which something had just entered their house.
Mam!
Mup ran for the hall. Aunty jerked her back.
“No, Pearl.”
“But Mam is on her own with them!”
“I said no!”
Mup fell silent. There was no arguing with Aunty when she had that expression.
“Go back to bed, Pearl,” Aunty said, quite gently. “I’ll handle this.” She walked around the corner and up the hall, her footsteps fading into the gloom.
Mup waited for the sound of the kitchen door opening. She waited for the screaming or shouting or whispering to begin. She waited and nothing happened. Nothing at all. Aunty had disappeared into the corridor as though the air itself had soaked her up.
“Go back to bed.” That’s what Aunty had told her. “I’ll handle this.” And Aunty knew best. Aunty always knew best. Mup waited, listening. Still the silence went on.
She looked at her bed, so safe and warm. She looked at the hallway, so empty and dark.
She took a deep breath and stepped out of her bedroom door.
At the far end of the long dark hall, a thin sliver of light shone through the partially opened kitchen door. It reflected in Badger’s toffee-coloured eyes as he looked up at Mup. “You shouldn’t follow me,” she whispered. “Go back to bed.” But Badger just wagged his tail, as if to say, “I trust you.” Mup put her hand on his warm neck and they walked up the hall together.
“There’s nothing in this house that’s going to hurt you, Mup.” Mam always said that after a scary movie or a bad dream when Mup would be afraid. “The only thing here is love. Besides, ghosts and monsters are nothing to be afraid of. All the bad things in this world are done by people.”
But aren’t witches a kind of people? thought Mup. If so, had Mam really invited them into their house? Mup swallowed hard, then pushed open the door.
The big lights were off, and the kitchen was dimly lit by the low lamps. Mam sat at the table, her hands limply folded, watching the moon through the window. The room was perfectly calm and still, the tock of the cabbage clock over the cooker the only noise.
Badger tic-ticked away across the tiles and lay down by the fridge. Mup remained on the threshold, her hand on the door handle, staring. The cold of the floor at Mup’s feet told her that she was awake. The creatures standing around Mam made her wish she was asleep.
Badger should be protecting us, thought Mup. That’s his job. But where was Badger – now that she needed him? Where was he? Lying by the fridge with his chin on his paws, his brown eyes untroubled.
A huge tear brimmed over and slid down Mup’s cheek. It trembled beneath her chin for a moment and fell to the floor. “Mam?” she whispered hoarsely.
The six witches that stood around Mam looked up. One was the very tall witch who had stared down at Mup in the car. Mup saw for the first time that she had a long silver streak in her hair. Gently, this witch put her hand on Mam’s shoulder, as if she knew Mam, as if they were friends.
“Mam!” cried Mup, horrified at how pale and dead and heavy the witch’s hand was, and at how Mam didn’t seem to notice it at all. “Mam.”
Mam did not look her way.
Mup dashed the tears from her eyes and turned to a patch of moonlight that was lurking by the wall. “Make her answer me, Aunty. Tell her to get up.”
The patch of moonlight shifted unhappily. “I can’t,” it whispered. “I’m not really here.”
“You are here!” exclaimed Mup, shocked that Aunty would stand there uselessly instead of fixing things. “I seen you, Aunty! We talked! You told me to go to bed, you said you’d handle it and now you’re doing nothing.”
The patch of moonlight shivered and sighed. “I didn’t think they’d be so strong here,” it whispered. “I’m … I’m not what I once was.”
Determined to get closer to Mam, Mup began to sidle her way around the edge of the room. The witches watched her. They wore just the faintest of smiles; there was just the faintest, faintest hint of amusement on their faces. As Mup came near, Badger thumped his tail and looked up at her without lifting his head from his paws. She slipped in behind him. His fur warmed her skin. The fridge door was cold through the fabric of her pyjamas. I really am awake, she thought.
“Why doesn’t he bark at them?” she whispered.
“Because,” answered the moonlight, “they’ve convinced him they belong.”
“But they don’t belong here, Aunty. You told me that. We’re the ones who belong here. We are!”
“I used to think so…” Aunty’s voice was barely there, just a thistledown tickle at the back of Mup’s mind. “But look at them. They’re so strong. They shouldn’t be so strong here. Oh, Pearl, I hadn’t realized how dependent things were on my being here. I thought I’d set everything up so your mother would be safe from them even when I was gone. How will she ever survive without me?”
“Without you? Aunty, you said you’d sort the witches out if they came! If you knew you might not be here, why didn’t you answer any of my questions about them? Why didn’t you show me how to fight them for myself?”
A sound like static began to fill the room. The tall witch with the silver streak in her hair was whispering wordlessly. Her witch brothers and sisters were whispering too. Their voices chased the questions from Mup’s mind. They made it difficult to think.
Mup slapped her hands over her ears. “Mam!” she shouted. “Mam, help!”
Mam flinched and opened her eyes, turning her head as if to find her daughter.
The tall witch tutted and snaked cold, smooth arms around her. “No need to worry about that,” she murmured in Mam’s ear. “That’s only noise.”
Mam’s head dropped back and, even though Mup kept yelling, Mam’s eyes drifted peacefully shut.
A grip like iron clamped onto Mup’s arm and a sharp voice hissed in her ear. “Hush, Pearl. You’ll wake the baby.” It was Aunty: still made of moonlight, but full and clear and solid again – raging.
“Aunty. You’re back!”
Aunty frowned down at herself. “So I am,” she muttered.
It’s because you got angry, thought Mup. You got angry, and it brought you back.
Aunty glared across at Mam. “Stella!” she snapped. “Those creatures have nothing to do with you. Stop this nonsense and get over here to your child!”
Mup relaxed. This was Aunty’s “I mean it” voice. No one ever resisted that voice. Mam would get to her feet now. She would shake free of the witch’s grip. She would cross the floor. She would put her arm around Aunty’s waist and her hand on Mup’s shoulder, and she would turn with them to face the witches. The three of them would win.
Mup slipped her hand into Aunty’s and jutted her chin, waiting.
But Mam did not come.
Instead, the tall witch straightened slowly and Mam straightened with her. The tall witch, her eyes on Aunty, slid her arms around Mam’s waist and leaned her pointed chin on Mam’s shoulder. She began to sway. The others swayed too. Like strands of seaweed around a corpse, they held Mam at their centre and she, as lifeless as a corpse beneath the water, floated in their arms.
Aunty’s eyes narrowed. “Who are you?” she asked the tall witch. “I don’t recognize you.”
“I am Magda.”
Mup thought the witch’s voice was like wind rustling through rushes – a low dryness of sound.
“You seem to be the one in charge here, Magda,” said Aunty.
“Well, you certainly are not. Not any more. Else we could never have found the lost heir.”
Mup gripped Aunty’s hand tight in fear. “They are from Mam’s mam,” she whispered.
Aunty squeezed her hand reassuringly. “My sister must trust you a great deal,” she said to the witch.
“I have earned the
queen’s trust.”
“Yes. And I can just imagine what you had to sacrifice in order to gain it. You and your companions were obviously born with a lot of magic. I know my sister. She would never let anything as powerful as you survive, not unless she had absolute control over you.”
“Anything I’ve given the queen I’ve given gladly.”
“I’d say you’ve given her everything – every ounce of loyalty, every scrap of obedience.”
“We give our obedience freely, Duchess, and are rewarded for it.” The witch’s eyes slid to Mam’s blank and drifting face. “Can you say the same of your minions?”
“Stella is not my minion! She’s free and happy.”
The witch almost laughed. “You stole her from her mother.”
“I rescued her.”
“You sealed her away from the Glittering Land.”
“I kept her safe. I gave her everything she ever wanted!”
The witch sighed as if bored now of the conversation. “You gave her everything but choice, Duchess. Who knows what she might have become had you allowed her to explore her true nature. In any case, your dominion over her is done. Your time has passed. Goodbye.” Magda gestured to her companions, and the group of witches began drifting to the door, carrying Mam with them.
Mup cried out, “NO!” and dived for Mam.
Aunty jerked her back. “Don’t touch her!”
The back door swung open, and pale moonlight spilled in. As the witches guided Mam into the blue rectangle of light, her hair drifted upwards, lifted by an invisible current. Her feet left the ground. Mup knew with absolute certainty, then, that the witches were going to take her mam. They were going to float her away – and if Mup didn’t do something to stop them, no one else would.
She shoved free of Aunty, and grabbed Mam.
As soon as they touched, the whole of Mup’s body came alive with power. It flowed, crackling and electric, from Mam. She was alive with it.
Mam and Mup spun together, alone. Mup saw her mam growing – expanding and expanding, until she was a great, strong, beautiful giant striding across the world. Mup was just a tiny speck on the surface of Mam’s power – a power that was dark and wonderful and so very much bigger than them both.
Then Aunty pulled Mup away and there was nothing – just quiet and dark.
Then there were colours.
Mup swam towards the colours and they were Aunty: her fuchsia-pink cardigan, her lime-green T-shirt, her blue, blue eyes. Aunty was shaking her. Her voice was out of focus as if under water, but her fear came through full blast: “… don’t touch her! I told you! I said, don’t touch her…”
Mup groaned.
Aunty hugged her fiercely. “Don’t touch her, Pearl. OK? Don’t touch your mam.”
“OK, Aunty,” Mup said. She was dazed, her voice muffled against Aunty’s huge bosoms. “I won’t.”
“What did you see?” whispered Aunty, sitting Mup upright.
“Mam was … Mam was big and strong. She was like…” Mup wanted to say, She was like a tidal wave, but at the kitchen door Mam was still drifting helplessly in the witches’ arms and she looked nothing like a tidal wave.
The witches floated out into the garden, guiding Mam across the luminous white of the frosty lawn. Aunty and Mup followed. The sound of the river in the next field seemed to pull the witches forward, reeling them in. Mam, her dark hair drifting upwards, her arms lifted slightly, her toes hovering inches above the ground, allowed them to carry her towards the belt of trees at the end of the garden.
The witches ignored Aunty and Mup. Mam absorbed all of their attention, and they drifted around her, the billowing strips of their clothes, their waving fronds of hair, now obscuring her, now revealing her as they moved into the shadow of the trees.
“They’re heading for the border,” whispered Aunty. “They’re taking her back.”
“Is the border here?” gasped Mup. “Next to the house?”
“Over the border” was where Mam had been born. Mup had only ever heard it mentioned in hushed and fearful tones. She was stunned to discover that all this time it had been so close to home.
“I thought I’d brought her up safe and ordinary,” moaned Aunty. “I never thought they’d be interested in her.”
The outline of the azalea bushes was perfectly visible through her body now. Looking up into her face, Mup could see the night sky, all full of stars. “You’re getting invisible again, Aunty.”
Aunty nodded and a tear slipped out and ran down her cheek. “I’ve lost. They’re taking your mother.”
“Stop them!” cried Mup. She grabbed at Aunty, but her hand passed right through her. “Get angry, Aunty! Get angry at the witches! Don’t let them take Mam to that terrible place!”
Aunty helplessly shook her head. “I’m not in charge here any more.”
Terrified, Mup turned and shouted the first thing she could think of. “Mam! Who’ll change Tipper’s bum if you’re not here?”
Mam paused. She bobbed about at the heart of the dark cloud of witches, not looking at anything in particular, but Mup thought she might be listening.
“Who’ll make our breakfast, Mam?”
Mam’s face remained expressionless, her hooded eyes glistening like ink. Behind the hedge, the river roared and gurgled. Mup ran forward, and the witches rose swiftly out of her reach, carrying Mam with them. Mup swiped at the air between them. “I can’t reach you, Mam,” she cried. “I can’t reach.”
A small frown appeared between Mam’s eyebrows, as if she could just about see Mup – tiny and distant – frantically waving below. But still she drifted upwards. Five feet above the garden she floated. The leaves of the trees were a mottled backdrop to her remote face. Starlight haloed her head.
“Stella.” Aunty was nothing but a silver outline now, filled in with the night. “Sweetheart. Please don’t go with them.”
Mam looked down with her black, black eyes. The witches draped their arms around her, one laid her head on Mam’s shoulder. They watched like cats, not even slightly concerned.
“I’m so tired, Aunty,” whispered Mam.
“Oh, darling, I know! I’ve been sick such a long time. And all that long time you’ve done so much for me. You were wonderful to me, Stella. So wonderful. You were…” Aunty searched for the right word. “Stella, you were great.”
That word: great. It meant so much. It came from somewhere deep down in Aunty’s heart. It carried every hour Mam had spent by Aunty’s side, every long trip to the city hospital, every whisper, every laugh, every genuine moment of love from the last six months and from their entire lifetime together, piled high and passed between them on the frosty air.
Mam’s face softened.
“That’s all over now, though, Stella,” said Aunty. “It’s your time now. Time for you to live a little.”
Again Mam’s eyes drifted to Mup. Mup waved hopefully, but at the sight of her daughter, standing down there on the frosty ground, Mam just seemed tired again – tired and lonely – and she began to turn away.
“Mam!” cried Mup. “Don’t leave me!”
Mam paused. She sagged. A fat tear rolled down her cheek, reflecting the stars and the moonlight. Mup realized that it had been a long time since she’d seen her mam cry – not since Aunty Boo had first got ill, and that was a very long time ago indeed.
“Oh, Mam,” she said softly. “I’m sorry you’re sad.”
That seemed to crack something inside of Mam, and she sobbed, a big, hard, unexpected sob, like a stone, heaved up from her chest. She slid a fraction from the witches’ arms. Mup stepped forward, reaching, but Aunty pushed her gently aside, and took her place. “Stay back, Pearl.”
Aunty took a deep breath and lightly grabbed Mam’s foot.
The witches didn’t fight. Mam just slithered through their grasp, and they let her go with nothing more than a curious tilt of their heads. Mam folded gently into Aunty’s arms, and together she and Aunty sank to their knees on the m
oonlit grass, where Mam wept and wept, and Aunty cradled her.
“Oh, she can’t leave,” said the tall witch with mild surprise. “How completely useless of her.”
“Yes, Magda,” hissed Aunty. “You go back and tell the queen that. Tell her there’s nothing here for her to fear. Stella will never go back across the border.”
The witches were blending with the tree shadows now, drifting backwards on the sound of the river. “You can’t make that promise, Duchess. Only the heir herself gets to choose that.”
Aunty’s arms tightened harder around Mam. “She chooses to stay here!” she shouted. “Tell the queen that! Her daughter chooses to stay here!”
“Yes!” cried Mup. “My mam’s staying here!”
Magda gave one more half-smile, and turned away. The silver streak in her hair was the last thing visible in the darkness, then even that was gone.
Something nudged Mup in the back and her knees nearly buckled from the fright. But her hands were immediately warm as a great black head lumbered up under her arm and a warm wet nose snuffled her neck. She threaded her arms around Badger’s deep chest and buried her face in his doggy-scented fur. The witches were gone. That was certain. There was no taint or tincture of them to the night, no trace of them in light or shadow. Still Mup scanned the darkness, not ready yet to trust it.
Cradled in Aunty’s arms, her face wet with tears, Mam was also staring into the trees.
“They’re not offering you anything, Stella,” said Aunty. “Believe me. It’s a trap. Anyway, your life is here.” Aunty closed her hand on Mam’s wrist. “Your responsibilities are here.”
Aunty and Mam looked across to Mup. Mup didn’t like the way Mam’s body slumped at the sight of her, the way she sighed and hung her head before getting to her feet. But then Mam held out a hand, and Mup ran to her, and she was in Mam’s arms, her arms clenched around Mam’s waist, her face buried in Mam’s jumper.
Begone the Raggedy Witches Page 2