by Mark Cassell
As one, these phantoms raised an arm. Clumps of shadow and filth dripped from sleeves. They pointed at Pippa.
Still I couldn’t advance, couldn’t help her. She struggled in the embrace of a thickening darkness, stitched into the shadows. She writhed, jerking her head back and forth. “Leo!”
Beneath her the ground bulged.
I lunged forward and smaller vines whipped up. A billowing cloud of spores filled the air. And again, I backed off.
The ground shook and through the tangle of nettles near Pippa’s kicking feet, a barbed trunk as thick as a telegraph pole burst upwards in an eruption of earth. The vine slumped against the wall, smashing through brick. Hundreds of barbs scraped the brickwork, rasping as they reached for her.
The scene brightened as moonlight finally peeked through the clouds. Its ambience weak yet managing to break through the darkness and roiling shadows.
It highlighted everything.
“Shit!” I shouted.
From the immense trunk, a barb had extended, longer than the others...closer and closer towards Pippa...and it pierced her wrist. Blood trickled.
Her scream filled my head.
Again, I charged forward and again the barrier forced me back. Pathetic sparks dripped from the Witchblade—still the damn thing was useless. Something was draining its energy.
One of the phantoms, her face glistening in the silver light of the moon, pointed to her wrist. The others stroked theirs, too. A few even nodded. Their freaky, faceless heads bobbed up and down in a stuttering blur. Even more grotesque now they were lit up by the moon.
“I can see that!” I shouted. I knew that barb had pierced Pippa’s wrist. What did they want me to do?
A phantom shook her head.
“No?” This was insane. But fuck, I should be used to this.
The same phantom slapped her wrist, so hard I almost heard it. Slap-slap-slap-slapslap... No, it wasn’t her wrist, but her forearm.
“What?” Then I knew. I knew without a doubt what these dead witches referred to. I pulled back my sleeve to reveal a scar where once I was branded in the shape of the same sigil Pippa had painted.
I shouted at them, my voice a roar: “This?” I held up my arm. The skin itched and burned like fresh sunburn. What precisely were these phantoms telling me?
Pippa still thrashed in the embrace of the shadows and coiled vines. Another barb had pressed into her other wrist, and blood trickled down her hands to drip from clawed fingers. Her clothes were filthy, smeared black with mud and fungus.
At her feet, in front of the slithering vines, the shadows bloomed and opened up.
An image flashed.
I blinked.
The unfolding darkness lightened and wavered like a poor-quality video. Then sharpened, in and out of focus to show something familiar: Pippa’s scattered paintings and spilled paints. I watched as I had earlier, the Witchblade—the Witchblade from the past—write HELP ME. Only this time a ghostly hand visibly gripped its hilt, the knuckles gnarled and arthritic, liver-spotted and wrinkled. The image panned back to reveal the frail and hunched form of another witch. Her stained clothes, no more than rags bound by frayed rope, were caked in mud, thick like clay. Across thin shoulders draped a dark patchwork shawl, leathery and rumpled. She released the blade and as before, it dropped to the floorboards. The crone stepped back and turned and looked directly at me.
I jerked and coughed, and I hoped to hell I hadn’t inhaled any of those spores—although their clouds had calmed now I’d stepped further back.
Tiny eyes, darker than the surrounding shadows, glared through a mass of spider-web hair. Her nose was a fleshy lump above the thin slit of a mouth that curled into a twist of scar tissue. Once upon a time she’d been burned. Badly. I thought of Pippa’s market square painting; the one where the witch writhed in roaring flames. Was this her whose form now shimmered as she reached the edge of the shadows? Was this a portal?
The darkness shuddered. She stepped through into the present.
Shadows sucked at her and there she stood. Nettles smouldered and shrivelled, crumbled dead at her feet. Even the earth blackened. Smoke and shadow curled into the air. She lifted her head and eyed the Witchblade in my hand. Her lips twitched, the webbed scar silvering beneath the moonlight. Twitch-twitch, twitch. Was that a smile?
The Witchblade—the Witchblade of the present—jerked and a warmth spread up my arm. Traceries of white fire spat from the blade. Still its power was limited. I gripped tighter. The same white energy skittered across the crone’s shawl, weaving with the stitches between each patchwork section. It seemed to writhe, charged with new power.
Then it all made sense.
“You crafty bitch,” I shouted.
Already having sufficient power to snatch the Witchblade from me in Pippa’s studio—somehow twisting time, too—this crone had harnessed its energy. Leading me here, she’d then channelled the energy so to transport herself from the death, the hell, she came. The way her form shifted and shivered, edges fuzzy one moment and sharp the next, suggested this was only part of her resurrection.
Another piece of this puzzle was Pippa.
She was still framed by the great hulks of vine, barbs secured into veins. Waves of shadow braced her shoulders and bound her arms. Her head lolled, her eyelids droopy as though she was drunk. Soft moans drifted towards me.
Seeing her like that made me feel so damn helpless.
The crone, of all the other witches, was undoubtedly the most powerful; evidently the only one present with such power to cheat death, even though she’d been burnt at the stake. Her shawl moved as though the wind was fiercer than it was. A patchwork of fabrics…brown, dark, stained. And it moved, contradicting the crone’s own movements as she approached Pippa. It was alive, pulsing. Breathing. The darker patches reminded me of the Shadow Fabric, the way it shifted like spilled diesel. The crumpled sections, some kind of animal hide, had been stitched with it.
Then I knew precisely who this crone was. How she’d accomplished all this I hadn’t a clue, but I had no doubt of her identity.
Belle Mayher. A woman who was said to have lived beyond the age of 250, noted to have stitched the largest sections of the Shadow Fabric. The very Fabric that would later be unleashed across London in 1666, before the Great Fire. Her powers were unparalleled and included the unique ability to absorb others’ powers and abilities. She had been—still was?—in league with an entity known as Clay, Demon Stitcher of Shadow and Skin. Human skin, not animal hide (to demons we are animals). Selling your soul was not a myth; she’d done precisely that. And she wore proof to the fact.
I could only assume she was at this very moment absorbing Pippa’s artistic skills. To what gains, I had no idea. I knew for certain, however, she was even now absorbing the Witchblade energy; that’s why its power was weak.
A cold wind bit through my clothes and I shivered.
The other phantoms had retreated. Some huddled against each other. The one with the baby shook uncontrollably. Fungus grew from the rags she cradled. The closest phantom whose feet dripped dark water, frantically waved her forearm and it was as if I heard her yell for my attention…even though she had no mouth. She made sawing motions across her forearm.
Was she telling me to cut myself?
I raised the Witchblade.
She stopped sawing and her faceless head jerked in affirmation. Dark splashes flicked upwards.
I didn’t want to cut myself, that was absurd. My scar, shaped like an hourglass, had become part of me and this dead witch wanted me to cut it. Not a day had passed when I didn’t drag my fingertips over the lumpy twists of skin, thinking, remembering... I guessed I’d always be connected to the darkness that we humans are so ignorant towards. It’s always been there, and always will be.
The crone, Mayher, had grasped Pippa’s head in one hand and a barbed vine in the other. Blood gushed from her serrated palm. Her lips moved, chanting some witchcraft bullshit. Her shawl surged and writhed about her sh
oulders, energised.
Moonlight reflected from the blade I held before me. I could only guess that cutting myself would somehow reenergise the Witchblade, to steal the power back from Mayher. I pressed it, warm, vibrating, against the scar and quickly sliced along the outer edge of the sigil.
A thin line blossomed red, oozing. Entirely painless.
From across the ruins, the crone’s dark gaze struck me. My hand froze. Her lips peeled back over broken teeth and she hissed louder than the wind.
Now I bled, having done what I’d been instructed—advised by a dead witch, for God’s sake—what the hell was I supposed to do now?
I lifted my arm and shook it.
Blood spattered and disappeared onto the blackened ground.
The fungus quivered, the grey heads lightening, breaking apart. I waved my arm around, the blood pouring out—worryingly a little more than I’d hoped. But it worked. The fungus shrivelled and crumbled. Swiftly, quicker than I would’ve expected, the clumps dissolved. The air no longer tasted as tainted as before, and I stepped forward over the dead ground. Blood dripped down my forearm, my fingers now slick.
Pippa’s body no longer moved. I hoped I wasn’t too late.
The shadows had even retreated.
“Ha!” I yelled into the swirling masses as they drifted away.
I ran towards Pippa and Mayher. Fungus puffed into harmless dust beneath my pounding boots. The nettles and brambles and grass broke away with the crumbling fungus, leaving dead ground, mud and dirt.
The crone’s scar twisted ugly and she glared at me, eyes a wicked Stygian darkness. Her shawl seethed around her shoulders, the patches squirming and glistening. She shrieked.
It drilled into my brain and I staggered. Colourful zigzags pressed in on my vision, threatening to yank me into the shrivelled tangles of blackened nettles and grass. Witchblade fire spat and charged, red and orange and yellow flares lit my way. Finally, I had control; I had the blade’s power back in hand. My muscles flexed and I straightened.
Still Mayher shrieked, hunched and buckled over as the faint energy drifted across her shoulders and down to clawed hands. White charges spat from her fingertips. She’d lost control of that stolen power.
I leapt and booted her in the chest.
My foot passed through her…but slammed into the shawl. It flew from her and slapped the brickwork. It fell, twitching in the still-dissolving fungus.
Mayher staggered backwards as though I’d succeeded in kicking her. Her ephemeral form shifted and slid from focus, merging and churning with the broiling darkness. Her shriek was now dampened, subdued by the retreating shadows. Through weak, grey eyes she looked down at her shawl.
Part-flesh, part-shadow, the foul garment writhed on the ground. Patchwork sections had come undone and the flesh seethed, rippled. Blood oozed from torn stitches, and frayed ends of shadow squirmed as though desperate to be threaded once more.
Defying the shadows that embraced her, Mayher rushed for me. The darkness shredded.
She yelled and swiped at me.
I crouched and swung my arm up to block, ready to thrust with the Witchblade. Her gnarled fingers passed through me.
Hair rose on the back of my neck.
Behind her, the darkness thickened. Dense tendrils whipped around her neck and torso to snatch her backwards, her heels digging into the ground yet leaving no mark. Her eyes flared. The shadows were determined to take her back into death. She struggled, throwing glances at her shawl that bled into the cracked earth.
Pippa still hadn’t moved. Still the barbs were rooted in her veins. The shadows that bound her wrists drifted away yet the vine held her upright. They hadn’t dissolved with the rest of the fungus. Being as trunk-like as they were, I guessed they’d be the last to respond to whatever power my blood contained. This was new to me; all this was a different kind of weird.
I reached Pippa and stabbed those massive trunks. Witchblade fire, white and brilliant, rushed towards the barbs that punctured her skin. Black filth bubbled and oozed from the wounds and the barbs slid free. Harmless to us, the fire roared and enveloped the trunks. The thick flesh blistered, stinking and smouldering. They thumped the ground and deflated, shrivelling into twisted coils of muck.
Pippa flopped into my arms. I propped her against the wall. Her eyelids flickered and she murmured something.
Mayhar’s scream pulled me upright.
The phantoms were all now animated, their faceless heads turned to the crone as she kicked at the shadows. The other witches were clearly fearful of Mayher which led me to believe she’d somehow collected them here to reinforce her resurrection. I could only assume she’d absorbed their abilities and crafts even in death.
Mayher had somehow reached her shawl, now clutching its patchwork remains together. Gore dripped from it in clumps, black threads dangling.
I jumped up. Witchblade fire erupted from the blade and I rushed towards her as again she attempted to strike me. A darkness flickered behind her eyes as though energised once again by the shawl. White energy flared from the blade and shot into her face. Again, this witch burned. 350 years beyond her death, after a failed resurrection, fire ate into her skin once again; Witchblade fire she failed to control.
Her scream tore through the countryside.
I swiped the blade downwards into the shawl. It sliced through the fabric. Shadows bubbled and flesh bled. The crone retreated. She flailed, desperate to hold on to the garment. Again the shadows snatched at her.
Pippa was pushing herself to unsteady feet.
“Go!” I shouted at her.
She scrubbed the blood and filth from her arms and succeeded only in smearing it. Her hair obscured her face.
The shadows were diminishing, and the fungus shrank to become little more than grey goo. So too were the remaining vines, crumbling to dust.
The phantoms whipped the shadows into clouds and as one, they swarmed Mayher. A blur of ghostly rags and skinny limbs flew down on the crone. Glimmers of faces, eyes and noses and mouths appeared—some of them were attractive, or had been in their day. Pretty faces, whether innocent of witchcraft, whether practitioners of white or black arts, they had been released. No longer were they the forgotten faces of the 17th-century witch trials.
Mayher struggled beneath the onslaught of phantoms and deeper shadows that surged around them all. A wall shook and collapsed in a rush of brick dust and lingering shadow. I had no idea what the ground would do given that the fungus was shrivelling and the vines crumbled.
“Run!” That word had become too familiar. Ever since the evil behind the shadows had returned, ever since the hell that had occurred at Periwick House, I’d shouted that a lot.
So we ran. With a final glance over my shoulder I saw Mayher and the phantoms vanish in a vortex of shadow.
Moonlight swamped the area, cleaner, fresher. A dust cloud caught on the wind.
We sprinted across the fields. When we were safe, I looked at Pippa.
Just like the phantoms, she had no face.
DUE SOUTH
The barbed wire tore across the back of Robert’s hand and he staggered away from the fence. He watched blood rise and pool along the wound. Somewhere nearby a crow cawed as though laughing.
Mud sucked at his boots.
It was his own fault. He should’ve walked further, keeping to the fence and eventually a stile to cross. At least he still headed due north. He pocketed the compass and map, and pressed a thumb to the wound. Mabley Holt was still an afternoon’s hike away. It had been a long time since he’d met up with Carl. In fact, Robert guessed the last time they’d seen one another had been his fortieth birthday. Carl had booked a table at a restaurant called Periwick House, a retreat apparently known for its excellent food.
Blood smeared the back of his hand pink but the wound no longer bled. He grunted. Perhaps it hadn’t been as deep as he first thought. He squinted at it; now more like a scratch.
Careful to avoid more barbed wire, Ro
bert squeezed through the splintered fence and into the next field. As he followed the jagged chasm of tractor tyres, he puzzled over the wound. It itched. He rubbed it, glaring as though willing it to cease the irritation. Should he be worried about tetanus?
On he pressed, treading through woodland where autumn had already stripped the trees naked. As he walked, he swigged water and occasionally made certain the compass needle still pointed north. Such was the light, each time he checked his course he brought the compass closer to his face.
Eventually hunger tugged his stomach. A Mars Bar cured that.
Heavy mud clung to his boots and caked a stile as he pulled himself up. Straddling it, he stuffed the chocolate wrapper in a pocket. Ahead, nothing but fields and woodland. Beautiful.
He dropped to the other side and scratched his hand—something had irritated the other one now. Perhaps he’d caught it on brambles or nettles and not noticed. Some kind of allergy maybe. He rubbed his hands, his knuckles, and knotted his fingers together. More scratches—were they scars?—what the hell was this?
A glance at his watch revealed 2 p.m. But that couldn’t be right; it had been that time when last he looked. So his watch had stopped—bloody brilliant. He took out his phone: 5 p.m.
His stomach lurched. How had the time passed so quickly?
Given the surrounding hills and rocky countryside, he wasn’t surprised to see there was no phone signal.
Off he trekked again, now at a faster pace.
Soon a darkening sky pressed in. He had planned to reach the restaurant before nightfall but that was not going happen. There were still five, maybe even six, miles to go. This was crazy. Perhaps over the next hill he’d get reception and then phone Carl. Thinking of Carl annoyed him further—it had been his choice of venue, the retreat in Mabley Holt. Granted, Robert took this as an opportunity to get into hiking again after several years away from it, but even still…if only Carl hadn’t chosen a village in the middle of nowhere then none of this would be happening.
Robert squeezed the back of his neck. He really should’ve driven like most people.