The Wicca Woman

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The Wicca Woman Page 9

by David Pinner


  ‘Have none of you three brought Lulu anything, then?’ Scarlet demanded.

  ‘No, we thought you’d bring her something, so we didn’t bring her nothing,’ riposted Tom and Bella in chorus.

  ‘Well, I have brought her something,’ Scarlet snapped. ‘But with no help from you lot!’

  ‘So wot you brought her, then?’

  Before Scarlet could reply, the night sky was illuminated by a bolt of lightning, which flashed between the crooked chimneys of Lulu’s cottage.

  ‘There’s going to be a terrible storm,’ Bella exclaimed, removing her troll’s mask as a second lightning-bolt electrified the surrounding wood.

  In the grove where the lightning had struck, a chestnut tree flared like an incandescent torch as gusts of smoke puttered up between its leafless branches.

  ‘That lightning could’ve hit one of us!’ Alfie cried, wrenching off his devil’s mask.

  ‘You’re right,’ cried Tom, grabbing Alfie’s torch. ‘So let’s run home while we can.’

  ‘Wot about my treat for Lulu?’ Scarlet exclaimed, producing a Mars Bar out of her coat pocket. ‘See, this is wot I bought her. And I’ve made a card for her, too.’

  As if in response, three thunder-cracks cannonaded behind Lulu’s cottage like the opening salvo of a war.

  ‘So why don’t you go and stick the Mars Bar and your card through her letterbox?’ Bella shouted. ‘Then we’ll leg it outta here before the storm gets us.’

  ‘OK, I’ll post ‘em through her door,’ Scarlet said, wrenching open Lulu’s garden gate, and running up to the cottage.

  As she shoved the Mars Bar and the crumpled card through the letterbox, she saw there was a bulging sack by Lulu’s front door. Scarlet was about to peek inside the sack when something inside her head told her not to pry. The next moment, the image of the sack was wiped from her memory, and it was if the sack had never existed.

  Two more bolts of lightning screeched over the cottage roof. Now terrified, Scarlet pulled off her witch’s mask. She flashed her torch at the retreating backs of her friends as they continued running down the road without her.

  Waving her witch’s mask, Scarlet shouted at the three of them, ordering them to wait for her, but the booming thunder obliterated her cries. Shaking her head in disgust, she pounded down Lulu’s garden path, and then she raced after them. In her panting efforts to catch up with her friends, Scarlet dropped her witch’s mask on the grass verge, which she ignored, as she ran on.

  Scarlet was unaware that Lulu was watching her diminishing figure through her cottage window. And also the running girl didn’t realise that it was Lulu, who had wiped the image of the bulging sack from her memory.

  Once Lulu was satisfied that Scarlet had forgotten what she had seen, she refocused her aquamarine eyes on Jimmy, who was gazing intently at Lulu’s silhouette, in the wake of the latest lightning-flash as it illuminated the ship-beams in her cottage’s low ceiling.

  ‘On any other night but this, I would have invited Scarlet to come and join us, Jimmy,’ Lulu murmured. ‘But tonight is your night.’

  ‘D’you really mean that?’ Jimmy said, moving towards her.

  ‘Yes…and in more ways than you can possibly imagine.’

  As the lightning glare faded away, Lulu threw another log onto the fire in the grate. Then she smiled bleakly at the hovering farmer.

  ‘I’ve brought a pen and a pad, like you said I should, Lulu,’ he muttered uncertainly. ‘And they’re in a plastic bag like you wanted. Also I’ve done exactly what you asked me to do in Truro, and I’ve left the sack outside the front door, so…’

  ‘So you’ve said more than enough!’ she snapped.

  ‘OK, OK, Lulu. But the question still remains – why the hell did you want me to do all that?’

  ‘It will become apparent soon enough.’

  ‘So while we’re waiting for it to “become apparent”, sweetheart, why don’t we make…well, some loving-use of the time?’ he asked, opening his arms, and moving towards her.

  Lulu shook her head, waving her forefinger at him as more lightning zigzagged across the night sky. Decisively she turned towards the window, peering in the direction of the storm-illuminated wood, while the lightning’s after-flash transformed her blonde hair into a corona of fire.

  Jimmy was about to speak when he was silenced by a thunderclap that rattled the tiles on the cottage roof. There was another gigantic bolt of lightning, followed by a stereophonic bang.

  A moment later, most of the lights in the cottage flickered like guttering tapers in the wind. Then all the lights went out together, and the cottage parlour was plunged into darkness, with only the fire in the grate providing an intermittent glow.

  ‘Jesus, that last lightning bolt must’ve hit your power-line,’ Jimmy said, advancing on her.

  ‘Don’t worry, Jimmy. I’m always prepared for such things,’ Lulu said, crossing to a mahogany desk, and pulling open a drawer.

  She took out four candles, and thrust them into brass candlesticks. She lit the wicks in the smouldering embers of the fire. As she placed the last candle on a side table, she realised that Jimmy was looming over her.

  When she saw the carnal fever in his eyes, she tried to back away from him. But he was too quick for her. He surged forward, seizing her by the shoulders, and ramming his mouth against hers. For a moment she responded, and she thrust her tongue between his lips. In ardent response, he grappled his hands around her breasts, and rapaciously squeezed her nipples. Yelping in pain, she wrenched her mouth away from his. Then she drove her knee like a piston into his hardening groin.

  ‘You fucking, prick-teasing bitch!’ he screeched as he staggered back, clutching his testicles.

  Lulu leapt to her left, and grabbed the candlestick from the side table. Still cradling his crotch, Jimmy stared at her in hateful disbelief as Lulu passed the candle flame close to his eyes, in a hypnotic motion. At first he didn’t react to her ritualistic movements. Roaring with pain, he flailed towards her like a gored bull. With a sinuous dancer’s skill, again Lulu swayed to one side, while she continued to weave the ensorcelling candleflame in front of his eyes.

  A heartbeat later, with his pupils dilated, Jimmy stopped in his tracks. Then his eyes glazed over, and his legs crumpled beneath him. Giddily he lurched away from her, and whimpering he slumped down into the armchair beside the fire. Expressionless, Lulu observed his bowed head as the farmer cradled his groin impotently, mewling like an abandoned child.

  There was one other silent witness to Jimmy’s distress. It was the bearded figure of Paul, who had just materialised outside Lulu’s cottage window. But Paul only saw the farmer subsiding into the armchair, so the writer had no idea as to why his rival had collapsed.

  In the hope he would discover the reason, Paul pressed his face even closer against the windowpane as another electrical-flash lit up the garden, momentarily blurring his vision. This was followed by a thunderclap.

  When Paul was able to refocus on the candlelit-parlour, he realised that Lulu was bending over Jimmy’s desolate figure, and she was whispering urgent commands into the farmer’s ear. In turn Jimmy seemed to have forgotten about his aching groin, and now he was nodding like an automaton.

  What the hell is she up to? Paul mused, frustrated because he couldn’t hear what Lulu was saying.

  In an attempt to comprehend what was happening in the cottage, Paul rubbed his eyes fiercely. Again he peered through the window, only to discover that Jimmy was no longer sitting submissively in his chair.

  The farmer had lurched to his feet, and his six-foot-three frame was towering over Lulu, who seemed immune to his proximity. Jimmy’s eyes glittered in the candlelight as he pulled a pen and a small notebook out of his jacket pocket. Lulu nodded and smiled. Then she ushered the farmer towards the open door.

  Shoving his pen and the notebook back into his pocket, Jimmy strode out into the hallway, with Lulu following close behind him.

  Outside the cottag
e, the storm had begun to recede. Now there was only the occasional flicker of lightning and a distant thunder-growl. As Paul crouched below the window, he realised that his rival was about to leave the cottage. Swiftly the writer skirted along the wall, and hid himself behind a holly bush. He didn’t have to wait long before he heard the front door opening, but he still couldn’t hear what either Lulu or Jimmy was saying. Determined to discover the truth, Paul crawled across the garden, flattening much of the vegetation.

  Suddenly a torch beam lanced through the garden’s darkness. To avoid being spotlit, Paul ducked under some felled ash branches in the far corner.

  Jimmy thought he heard a suspicious noise, and he flashed his torch around the garden again. When the beam revealed nothing untoward, the farmer clicked his torch off as Lulu whispered something to him.

  ‘So, Lulu, do you really believe that my destiny is out there among the trees?’ Jimmy asked, now levelling his torch-beam at the wood.

  ‘Yes, and deep inside yourself, Jimmy, you have always known that the truth is awaiting you in the wood.’

  ‘Well, if you’re wrong, Lulu, I’ll be back. And then, God help you! Because I certainly won’t,’ Jimmy rasped as he grappled his fingers around the neck of the large heavy sack, which he’d left by the front door.

  After heaving the sack over his shoulder, he shone his torch full into Lulu’s sea-green eyes, which for the first time were redolent with desolation.

  ‘So you really do care…for me, Lulu, don’t you?’ he whispered.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, moving towards him.

  In order to readjust the sack’s weight on his shoulder, he bent down slightly, and he switched off the torch. To the farmer’s surprise, Lulu stood on her tip-toes. Then she kissed his inclining forehead. Jimmy tried to embrace her, but abruptly she stepped back into her hallway.

  ‘He is waiting for you, Jimmy. As always. So now is the time,’ she commanded.

  Before he could reply, she closed her cottage door. As he heard the bolt being thrust home, Jimmy realised that she had locked him out. Now he knew that he had nothing to look forward to but Purgatory.

  Impulsively he took his sack off his shoulder, and he thrust it down at his feet. The sack’s bottom jarred on the path, but he ignored the metallic clink-clink-clin. Instead he flicked on his torch, and stretched out his right arm, shining the beam onto his open palm. He smiled grimly as he pictured the witch in her garden twenty years ago, when Gwynne Spark had offered to read his palm. He recalled how he had run out of her garden because he didn’t want to know his future.

  Then as the farmer stood on Lulu’s front path – much as he expected – once again, Jimmy heard the challenging voice, calling to him from the wood. In response, he gazed down at the web of spidery lines in his torch-lit palm.

  ‘Now we’ll see who’s right,’ he said as he transformed his right hand into a threatening fist, which he shook at the night sky defiantly.

  Snarling he grasped the neck of his hessian sack, and he swung it over his shoulder. Then he hurried off towards the wood, thrusting the beam of his torch like a blow-lamp at the nearest trees because now he was consumed by a manic desire to burn the wood to the ground.

  While Jimmy was tramping under the beech trees, he heard the storm returning. He nodded because he’d always known that the storm would come back. And the lightning in the sky was very much like his headache, which, once again, was electrifying the inside of his skull, and transforming his mind into a torture chamber. But although he felt as if his brain was being fried, Jimmy could still hear the voice in the wood, summoning him to the oak glade…to face his ultimate destiny.

  11

  As Jimmy’s torch-beam was flickering through the undergrowth, Paul was following his rival at a discreet distance while the storm ranted around them.

  Jimmy was so intent on maintaining his relentless passage into the bowels of the wood, he was unaware that Paul was shadowing him. Despite being tormented by his execrable headache, and being disorientated by the lightning, the farmer’s mind was still in thrall to the insistent voice in the wood. The voice was compelling him to thrash his way onwards through the undergrowth towards the oak glade.

  After switching his bulging sack onto his other shoulder, Jimmy lanced his torch-beam between the enshrouding trees because now he knew that he was very close to the glade. Cursing he stumbled over a fallen branch, and then his torch shot out of his hand. When he recovered his balance, he realised that he couldn’t see where his torch had landed amongst all the night-blackened brambles.

  ‘The bloody beam’s gone out!’ he fumed, raking his fingers through the shredded autumn leaves in his hair. ‘It means the bulb’s bust, and that’s the last bloody thing I need.’

  As if in heavenly response, a lightning-bolt ripped across the night sky. Momentarily the wood seemed iridescent. And again the voice resonated inside Jimmy’s head with its stentorian demands.

  As Paul continued to stalk his rival, the writer slithered cautiously around a silver birch, while a hunting owl hooted to his right. Then Paul saw that Jimmy had stopped moving, and the farmer was listening to something intently.

  To avoid being seen, Paul hunkered down in some waist-high ferns. He registered that the motionless farmer was now staring into the infamous oak-grove.

  As Jimmy stepped into the grove, stealthily Paul crept forward again. In the shimmering wake of another lightning-flash, the writer watched Jimmy removing the heavy sack from his shoulder.

  Again sensing he wasn’t alone, Jimmy glanced towards Paul, who instantly ducked down behind some storm-felled branches. After shaking his head, the mystified farmer turned back to the oak-tree. Out of his hessian sack, he lifted a small metal stepladder, followed by a spade, and he propped the ladder and the spade against the trunk of the oak. Then Jimmy crouched down on his haunches, and from the bottom of the sack, he pulled out what appeared to be a long, lifeless snake, which he threw onto the grass. But because of the darkness and the distance between them, Paul was uncertain as to what the ‘snake’ really was.

  A further barrage of thunder detonated above the grove. Instantly Jimmy clapped his hands over his ears as the storm was exacerbating the horrendous pains in his head. Then his protective fingers probed the dent on the back of his skull. And again the famer remembered being hit by a falling slate, in that other storm, twenty years ago.

  Yes…and that was on the very same night that Don went off to London, mused Jimmy. I was returning the horses to their stables, when – in a storm just like this – a thunderbolt sent that slate crashing down onto my head. And it gave me the very worst headache I’ve ever had – until this one tonight, which is even worse.

  As the mental lightning continued to electrify his brain, Jimmy began to shake his head violently, at the clump of flattened grass beneath his feet. Still nodding like a dervish, the farmer grabbed the spade that he’d leant up against the tree. Then he stepped back, and he drove the spade’s cutting-edge into the flattened patch of grass, on which he had been standing.

  More lightning screeched across the grove. Briefly it highlighted the frenzied figure of Jimmy as he began digging grassy sods and heaps of soil, followed by flints, pebbles and dank clay, out of the ground. Within minutes, his seemingly-demented endeavours had created a large, oblong hole, with mounds of freshly-dug earth flanking its four sides.

  Abruptly he stopped digging, and he clutched his forehead with his free hand. Whimpering he threw his spade to one side, and he jumped into the hole. He went down on his knees, and he started digging frenetically with his hands. His fingers clawed more and more earth out of what seemed to be an ever-deepening pit.

  Then, with a shudder of horror, Jimmy pulled something out of the soil.

  In his hiding place, Paul couldn’t discern what Jimmy had unearthed, so he watched as the farmer rubbed the dirt off the small, narrow object in his right hand. When Jimmy had finished cleaning the object, he let out a cry of anguish as he held it aloft b
etween his quivering forefinger and thumb. But Paul still couldn’t understand why the farmer was so distraught because - from the writer’s perspective - Jimmy seemed to be merely holding a gnarled twig.

  Instantly the grove was lit up by another electric bolt, and its irridescence revealed to Paul that the farmer wasn’t holding a twig. Now it looked more like a chalk-coloured talon.

  Paul was about to move further forward to ascertain whether he was right in his assumption, when suddenly the writer’s nostrils were assailed by the salty-scent of the sea.

  Then it seemed to Paul as if…eight lunar-pale fingers were wreathing themselves…over his eyes. The next moment, the writer found he was lying on the grass, and now he was drifting into a deep sleep…in a sumptuous palace of dreams…where he was reclining…on a divan…and he was being voluptuously entangled in the licentious limbs of…a succubus. But as he thrust his spearing tongue into the enticing mouth of the succubus, in disgust she wrenched her delectable lips away from him. In rampant response, he tried to plunge his serpent into the depths of her loins, so he could shoot his venom into her womb. But adroitly the succubus rolled away from him, driving her knee into his groin as she…faded into…the mist. Screaming in pain, Paul fell back against…the divan…

  *

  Then…in what seemed to be…only a few moments later…in Paul’s nightmare, his infernal headache returned to torment him.

  Soon the conflagration inside his cranium was blazing up to the Heavens in its wrath. And in the midst of the raging furnace inside his skull, Paul could see that Lulu was being…burnt alive at the stake…like a condemned witch. As the flames in his brain continued to rise higher and higher, and their white-hot talons engulfed the screaming-and-pain-convulsed figure of Succubus Lulu, the writer felt totally ecstatic. Simultaneously the horrendous heat in his skull started to melt Lulu’s flesh, while he continued to applaud the hellish vision. Then when her aquamarine eyes began popping out of their sockets like exploding chestnuts, Paul clapped louder and louder and louder because now the Succubus was paying in full, for denying him rapacious access to…her lascivious limbs…

 

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