The Wicca Woman

by David Pinner

  ‘It is not my forgiveness you need,’ she said pointedly. ‘So I’ll see you at my cottage tomorrow just after seven. And as your farm is relatively near, make sure that you come on foot.’

  ‘OK, if you want me to walk, I’ll walk! And I’ll be there on time, God help me.’

  ‘It may be too late for that,’ Lulu said as she moved off swiftly into the mist. ‘Now don’t follow me!’ she ordered. ‘Oh, and when you get home, Jimmy, you should scrutinise yourself in the mirror. And, afterwards, perhaps you will be able to decipher your destiny – in the palm of your hand.’

  Jimmy stared after her until she was swallowed up in the sea-fog. In the vain hope that his headache would lessen, he clutched his forehead. Then he dragged his reluctant, sodden feet up the incline of the beach in the direction of his farmhouse.

  9

  Fifteen minutes later, Lulu was approaching her cottage, and she was relieved to find that the mist wasn’t as pervasive as on the beach. Although she wasn’t pleased to discover the hunched figure of Paul, who was sitting on her front doorstep, in his mud-spattered tracksuit.

  When he saw Lulu, he pushed himself to his feet. As the conflagration inside his skull roared on unabated, the writer clutched his forehead in despair.

  ‘Where have you been, Lulu?’ he rasped, feverishly massaging his temples with his fingers.

  ‘That’s none of your business, Paul.’

  ‘You’ve just been with that sadist again, haven’t you?’ he asserted, moving down the path towards her.

  ‘I repeat; it is none of your business.’

  ‘Yes, but anyone who’s done what Jinmmy Vaughn did to you; he needs locking up! And once they’ve got him inside, they should never let the sick bastard out again.’

  ‘You had best go home, Paul, before things go even further awry.’

  ‘You know what I feel about you, don’t you?’ he said as he opened the front gate for her.

  Passing him, she nodded curtly while producing a bunch of keys.

  ‘Yes, Paul, but I do not have the same feelings for you.’

  Shaking his head, Paul pulled several five-pound-notes out of the pocket of his tracksuit bottoms, and he thrust the money under Lulu’s nose.

  ‘I have never accepted payment for it, either,’ she said sardonically, selecting the front-door-key.

  ‘I don’t mean it like that!’ he snapped. After massaging his brow, he softened his tone; ‘But if you remember, Lulu – before I spent all those weeks in rehab in Truro – you told me on the phone that you would try to cure me of these infernal headaches,’ he pleaded, stroking his furrowed brow with his free hand. ‘And now as I’m suffering with yet another of my terrible headaches, well, I want to pay you properly to get rid of it.’

  For a moment Lulu peered into his dilated pupils. Then she inserted her Yale key into the lock. When she had pushed open the door, she turned back to him.

  ‘And you are certain that that is all you want of me, Paul?’ she queried, with a wan smile.

  Paul scratched the itching underside of his beard.

  ‘No, in truth, Lulu, I wish that you would…’ He trailed off while his tongue moistened his parched lips. ‘Listen, as God is my witness, I swear to you that if you do let me come into your cottage, I will only look at you adoringly. In return, all I ask is that you make my headache go away. Please, Lulu, I beg you to help me!’ he pleaded, once again extending the money to her.

  ‘You can keep your money.’

  ‘Won’t you help me, then?’ he cried, crumpling the notes in his fist.

  ‘I will try to help you, Paul. But I never accept payment unless I succeed.’

  ‘So sometimes you do actually doubt your own powers, Lulu?’

  ‘On occasions. And in your case, my powers are limited, Paul. Indeed, in regard to your habitual headaches, I can only provide you with a temporary palliative.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Follow me, and you will see why,’ she said as she went through the open door into her cottage.

  Paul was quick to accept her invitation. Once he was inside the hallway, he shoved the money into his back pocket, and he closed the door. Lulu turned to watch him, but as he had his back to her, she couldn’t see the incandescence in his eyes.

  *

  While Paul was following Lulu into her low-ceilinged parlour… the eight-year-old figures of Tom and Alfie were taking turns at swinging on St Peter’s ancient graveyard gate in the middle of Thorn Village.

  Although the rusting hinges were protesting, and much of the rotten panelling was cracking, the exuberant boys continued to maltreat the graveyard gate. They were abetted by Scarlet and Bella, who were their cheering spectators, and who were egging the boys on.

  Then a man’s angry voice echoed across the misty village green.

  ‘What the devil do you lads think you’re doing to that churchyard gate?’

  Instantly Scarlet recognised her father’s voice, as did Tom, Alfie and Bella. After the children exchanged worried looks, without hesitation they scampered through the open gate into the graveyard. As they legged it between the stone crosses, the four of them knew that Vince Townley wasn’t the fleetest of foot. Soon they were leaping over the graves into the mist, in the certainty that Scarlet’s father would never catch them.

  Once the four of them had clambered over the graveyard’s furthest wall, they ran across the field, and past the cattle, skirting around various dung-pats. Intuitively the children veered to their right as they headed for one of their favourite hiding places; a dilapidated barn that was already camouflaged by the mist-wreathed brambles.

  Whooping with relief, the children charged into the barn, and together they collapsed on a pile of mildewed straw. After catching her breath, Scarlet nodded to Alfie, who nodded back. Then Scarlet crawled on her belly across the earthen floor to the barn’s entrance. She peered into the field. All she could see and hear were the silhouettes of dozens of munching cows. There was no sign of her father.

  Relieved Scarlet jumped to her feet, and grabbed a handful of cornstalks from the side of the barn. She crouched down beside Alfie and Tom, and she waved the cornstalks pointedly at them, while Bella looked on in bewilderment.

  ‘D’you remember how we stuck those knitting needles into that straw-dolly last night?’ Scarlet said, flickering the cornhusks under the boys’ noses.

  ‘Yes,’ the boys replied, disconcerted by what she was asking.

  ‘Then you know how much awful pain we caused Lulu, don’t you?’ Scarlet asserted.

  The boys nodded shamefacedly.

  ‘Well, the good news is Lulu has forgiven you two for wot you did to her. Yes, and she’s forgiven me and Bella, too. And Lulu says she’ll always be friends with the four of us.’

  Relieved and delighted by the news, the boys waved their fists in the air.

  ‘So why don’t we give Lulu a big Halloween-Surprise tomorrow night?’ Tom cried.

  ‘Yeah, and instead of tricking her, let’s go round to her cottage and give her a real treat,’ Alfie concurred.

  ‘But now we’d better go home fast,’ Bella exclaimed, moving towards the barn’s opening, and pointing across the field. ‘While we can still see our way through all that shitty mist.’

  *

  ‘Put your hands on your thighs, straighten your back, and close your eyes.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Paul, if you want there to be any hope of your headache subsiding; just do as I say.’

  ‘How will that help to cool the inside of my skull, Lulu?’ Paul protested, pressing his fingertips against his feverish forehead. ‘It’s like Hell’s Inferno in here.’

  ‘I can imagine.’

  ‘You can’t possibly imagine what it’s like inside my head!’

  ‘Oh but I can,’ Lulu nodded, standing by her latticed window. ‘You see, you and your rival have quite a lot in common.’

  ‘Look, I’ve got nothing in common with that sicko, Vaughn. See, my headaches
make my brain feel as if it’s being perpetually fried in a furnace. Whereas according to Vaughn, his headaches are more like his brain is being…well, it’s like the inside of his head’s being electrified by bolts of lightning. Mind, that’s just what the cruel bastard deserves!’ Paul exclaimed, pushing his protesting chair back across the wooden floor.

  ‘If Jimmy deserves his headaches, Paul, you certainly deserve yours, too.’

  ‘No, that’s not true,’ Paul yelled, leaping to his feet.

  Momentarily Lulu didn’t respond. Instead she looked out of the window, and she watched the advancing fog, which was encircling her cottage. Shaking his head vehemently, Paul moved closer to her. Still with her back to him, Lulu continued to peer at the swirling whiteness as it enveloped the trunks of the silver birch and the beach trees.

  When Paul was barely two feet away from her, tentatively he touched her shoulder. Her spine stiffened. Then she turned round to face him. Quickly he withdrew his hand. As Lulu scrutinised his ardent features, he stepped back.

  ‘Why are you so beautiful?’ he whispered, aching to touch her again.

  ‘I only wash in moonshine,’ she murmured, moving to one side. ‘But, more to the point, you are not keeping your promise, Paul.’

  ‘I’m trying to, Lulu, but you’re so…well, you’re so lovely. And my headache’s driving me crazy.’

  ‘Yes, and, what’s more, the bonfire that is burning your brain will continue to torment you – like Jimmy’ headaches will habitually torture him – until the two of you face up to the underlying, and the deeply-disturbing reasons, which are causing you both to suffer your on-going, mental-anguish.’

  ‘Rubbish. Like I keep telling you, Lulu, my headaches are totally different to Vaughn’s. For a start, there’s nothing sinister about my headaches.’

  ‘Really?’ Lulu queried, raising a sceptical eyebrow. Then she peered out through the window into the seething fog as she said; ‘Although it is true that tomorrow Jimmy will come face to face with the source of the lightning in his cranium. As for you, Paul; the reasons that you have such a conflagration inside your skull; they will also make themselves apparent, and much sooner than you think.’

  ‘Look, will you please stop bloody prophesying, and just put out this godawful fire that is frying my brain!’ Paul pleaded, cradling his forehead.

  ‘Then stop trying to touch me, Paul, and sit down.’

  Morosely Paul slumped into a chair.

  ‘Now place your hands on your thighs, straighten your back, and close your eyes.’

  ‘OK, OK,’ he nodded, obeying her. ‘I’m sitting, and I’ve closed my eyes. So now what the hell are you waiting for?’

  ‘I am waiting for you to con-jure up the image of the Full Moon, in your mind’s eye.’

  ‘You want me to do what?’ he demanded, with his eyes still screwed shut.

  ‘I want you to forget the fog, which is cloaking my cottage. And, instead, in your mind’s eye, I want you to con-jure up the Moon’s Celestial Sphere in the Heavens.’

  ‘My head’s on fire! How can I possibly do that?’

  ‘You’re a published writer, Paul. So all I am asking of you, is that you use your writer’s imagination, combined with your considerable powers of recollection. You see, I am sure that you can remember gazing at the Moon’s Radiance on Midsummer’s Midnight, in the St Peter’s graveyard. So now I want you to re-envisage how She totally enthralled you that night.’

  ‘Yes, yes, you’re right…now I can see…the Midsummer moon,’ he said as his eyelids flickered over his closed eyes.

  Lulu moved behind his chair, and she placed her outstretched hands either side of his head.

  ‘Now ask for the Moon Goddess’ forgiveness, Paul, and then you must promise Her that you will no longer pursue your evil dreams.’

  ‘Look, I’m a devout Christian, for Christ’s sake,’ he blustered, clenching his fists. ‘You can’t possibly ask me to bow down to your godforsaken moon. Now, please…I beg you, Lulu…just put out the everlasting furnace that is raging inside my head.’

  ‘Paul, I can see that you are still not prepared to face the truth about yourself. But you will have to, and very soon. However…in the interim,’ she whispered in his left ear, ‘I will do as you ask. And now I will give you a foretaste of the peace that could dawn, when you pay the Goddess all your dues, and you acknowledge the darkness in your soul.’

  ‘None of that sacrilegious stuff with your goddess will never happen. Never!’ he rasped. Then he lay back on the sofa, and he closed his eyes again. After a long moment’s silence, he nodded numbly, and whispered; ‘Although, it’s true, strangely….I suddenly do feel that I’m…well, that I’m still being…bathed in the Midsummer Night moonshine just before midnight. So now all I ask you to do, Lulu, is to…bring me…some peace.’

  ‘Yes, Paul, but very, very soon….you will have to come face to face with the dark reasons that are causing those roaring flames in your head. And then you will understand everything. But now – as I promised you – you shall have some transitory peace - because “Peace comes dropping slow”,’ she murmured as her fingers enclosed his burning cranium.

  Then she began to massage his temples, and almost immediately a smile began to soften his lips.

  ‘Please don’t stop,’ he begged, with his eyes still closed. ‘Your fingers are like…the cooling rivulets in an everlasting stream. Yes…yes…and you have already…put out the inferno in my head…and, thank Heavens, all the flames are dying…dying… And now all the horrific heat has gone… Instead…there are wondrous…soothing…snowflakes falling on…my soul.’

  ‘So has all your pain subsided?’

  ‘Yes…and for the first time today, I’m no longer on fire. And I do feel the beginnings of…peace.’

  ‘Good. Now you can open your eyes.’

  Again he obeyed her. Then he rose from his chair to thank her, only to discover that already she had moved towards the door. As he followed her, he pulled several five-pound-notes from the back pocket of his tracksuit, and he offered them to her. Lulu shook her head, while she opened the door.

  ‘How can I possibly repay you for bringing me some peace, Lulu, if you won’t accept…?’

  ‘You can repay me by not following me around like an unwanted shadow,’ she said, overriding him. ‘And, more importantly, Paul, you must leave Jimmy to me.’

  ‘I can’t! See, Vaughn’s too bloody dangerous. No, I’m being serious, Lulu, because next time, I’m sure he’ll do you some permanent damage.’

  Shrugging, Lulu ushered him into the passageway, and as the writer headed reluctantly towards the front door, she followed him.

  ‘And, Paul - vis-à-vis Jimmy - if you have any sense at all, you should seriously heed my warning, and leave him to me.’

  ‘No way. I’m going to protect you, Lulu, whether you like it or not,’ he retorted, opening the front door. Then, abjectly, he turned back to her; ‘See, if I don’t protect you; who is going to help me with my dreadful headaches?’

  ‘As you will., Paul. But in return, you must promise me one thing.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Promise me that you won’t follow Jimmy tomorrow night.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Lulu, but we’ll just have to see what tomorrow night brings, won’t we?’

  Then he pulled her into his arms, and he kissed her voraciously, thrusting his tongue between her teeth.

  As she wrenched her mouth away from his in disgust, he cried, ‘God help me, but I love you, Lulu. And I always will!’

  ‘No! All you feel for me is lust,’ Lulu riposted, with her raised forefinger keeping him at bay. ‘And, believe me, the feeling is not reciprocated.’

  ‘The others were right about you, Lulu. You come to me every night in my sleep. Just like you come to the rest of them.’

  ‘That’s utter nonsense. It’s just more lewd, wishful thinking on your part. As it is on theirs. But now, Paul, I want you to go,’ Lulu commanded, holding the fro
nt door open.

  ‘Well, whatever you say, Lulu, and whether you like it or not, I’m always going to be there to protect you.’

  ‘And you’ll do that “whether I like it or not”? Yet you have the temerity to call yourself a devout Christian?’

  ‘Well, I am a devout Christian, so it’s my absolute duty to protect anyone who is being victimised - like you are.’

  ‘I don’t need protecting,’ Lulu countered. ‘Now get out.’

  Paul shook his head vigorously, and scratching his beard, he ran off into the fog. As he dwindled into a vaporous shadow in the fog’s tentacles, Lulu shivered. Then she turned, and she went back into the house.

  After closing the front door, she leant against the wall in the hallway, and she massaged her taut forehead wearily.

  During these last few days, once again, I have not been functioning as well as I should, she thought. ‘Fact I seem to have failed in most ways. But then recently I have felt so inordinately tired. And I do find Paul disturbing, as well as unappealing. That is probably the reason I am unable to read his heart and his mind – because there is definitely something about him that I’m missing…

  Simultaneously, in her mind’s eye, Lulu glimpsed the almost-full moon.

  Then the moon whispered to her; Eternity can be tiring beyond belief. Yet tomorrow, Lulu, you will still find the strength to bring another destiny to its long-awaited-and- fearsome fruition…

  10

  It was the evening of Sunday 31st, October, 1999.

  Despite the rumblings of approaching thunder that could be heard along the cliffs, Halloween was already in full swing.

  Scarlet paused to adjust the elastic at the back of her grimacing witch’s mask. Waving her torch, she raced after the retreating figures of Bella, Tom and Alfie, who were also wearing masks as they strolled towards Lulu’s cottage. When they heard Scarlet’s running feet behind them, they stopped. Then Alfie turned, and shone his torch on Scarlet6 as she raced up the grassy slope, where the three of them were waiting for her.

  ‘So, Scarlet, wot are we going to give Lulu as a treat?’ Alfie asked.