Petronella & the Trogot

by Cheryl Bentley

  When Petronella was sure it wouldn’t move anymore, still keeping her head down, she made for the door. Once she was out on the landing, she locked up the room. She promised herself she would never go in there again. Never.

  Back to her housework she went. Dusting, polishing and tidying up. She had to busy herself to keep her mind off the mysterious secrets of Charis Cottage and its woods.

  Chapter 5

  Wedding bells chimed merrily in the steeple of the village church as the newly married couple stepped out into a shower of rose petals. The guests followed Molly and Jake to their reception in the marquee. Everyone in Fort Willow had been invited - except Petronella, of course. But, Maalox was there, amongst the cats sniffing about in the field round the marquee. Some cats had noticed the hole in the peat. Others gathered round to find out why all the interest. Maalox kept quiet. Looking down into the soil, he saw what looked like a human hand sticking out of the peat.

  The other cats jumped in and started digging, too. Soon the hand was clawed free of peat and dragged up onto the grass for all the cats to see. Then they went back and started digging some more. They dug and dug bringing out more limbs, heads and torsos, lots of them: parts of human bodies to be pieced together like a puzzle.

  Two bridesmaids sneaked out of the wedding reception for a breath of air. They strolled round to the back of the marquee for a good gossip and a giggle in private. They stopped dead in their tracks. To their horror, they saw this most creepy heap of bones. Clogged with soil and grass sticking out of them. One of the bridesmaids stood there as if frozen stiff. The other rushed back into the marquee screaming in shock: “Oh, God! God! I’ve just seen something disgusting: skulls, skeletons, bones everywhere!” The guests all hurried out to get a look. What a sight!

  “We must call the police,” said one man, “this is the most gruesome thing the village has ever seen.”

  A woman fainted and another one was sick, right there in the field. Molly and Jake stood still in terror. How could this happen on their wedding day? On what is supposed to be the happiest day of their lives? Their wedding reception had been ruined. People started sitting round the edge of the field to watch from a distance. The best man asked the guests to go home, but nobody moved. One of them said that a family had gone missing from the village, suddenly, overnight. “Could it be them?” Voices began spreading that the bones were for sure those of the strange Phillips family, whose son Phillip was suspected of torturing animals, and whose daughter, Alice, was the most spiteful girl ever to live in Fort Willow. A woman added that it is only to be expected that outsiders bring trouble to their peaceful village:

  “I always said that Phillips family was strange, didn’t I? If we didn’t have new people here, we wouldn’t have any crime at all. Look at that weird woman who lives in the woods. She’s not one of us, is she?”

  A couple shook their heads in agreement: “No, she certainly is not,” the husband said.

  “And, have you seen that cat of hers,” added the wife, “I reckon it’s a cross between a cat and a dog, if you ask me. The devil’s doing.”

  “Really!” exclaimed another listener, “I always thought that animal had the devil in him. After all, it can’t be normal for a cat to be that size.”

  “She’s so ugly she could be the devil’s wife,” shouted someone else.

  Just about everyone had to have a say in this:

  “Oh, my God! The devil’s wife! You know she never goes to church on Sundays, she’s out barefoot at night and in the pouring rain looking for bugs, mushrooms, snails...”

  “Gathering all sorts of weeds, berries and the like, probably boiling up potions, conjuring up evil...”

  “She’s put a curse on us.”

  “She put a spell on our village. She’s brought evil to our village by waking up wicked spirits.”

  “Yes, don’t you all remember when she left the summer ball, she said she would put a curse on all of us...”

  “She wants to spite us because Farmer Giles didn’t agree to marry her. It can’t be a coincidence that the bodies are right here in his field...”

  Three of them bolted over to Constable Bellamy:

  “Excuse me, officer. We wanted to warn you that there’s this weird woman living in the woods who’s really strange - you’ve got to check up on her. The Phillips family went missing just after she came to live here. She hated the two Phillips kids because they went to play near her house, and they’d hide and throw stones at her when she came out. Petronella’s her name. Petronella Chewnik.”

  “Thank you,” Constable Bellamy said, “we’ll look into it. We’ll do everything we can within our power. I promise you.”

  Chapter 6

  It was evening by now, Petronella was wondering where her cat had got to. Maalox was never late for supper. As she was thinking about going to look for him, he turned up.

  “Maalox, where have you been all this time?” she said.

  At the same time, a loud knock pounded on her front door.

  Who can that be? Who would come to Charis Cottage? Not many people came to this neck of the woods. Was it that they didn’t want anything to do with Petronella? Or was it the black tree they were afraid of? She wondered. Whatever, Petronella would never understand this place. She opened her front door a crack to see who it was.

  “Hello, we’re sorry to disturb you, madam,” began one of the plain-clothes detectives showing her his warrant card. “But we need to ask you a few questions, if you don’t mind.”

  “Well, I’ll help you if I can.” Petronella invited them in.

  “Miss Chewnik,” Detective Chief Inspector Vettel began.

  Petronella noticed that he knew her name.

  The Detective went on: “we’re visiting houses in the area, just routine work, you understand? We’re carrying out investigations into the discovery of bodies. You might have heard about the bodies found buried in a field in the village. We’d like to know if you have anything to tell us, anything at all, which might help us with our investigations.”

  “What! That’s incredible, what, right here in this sleepy village?”

  “Yes, some of the villagers said it might be a family who disappeared suddenly just after you came to live here.”

  “Oh, my God. I didn’t know anything about that. What family would that be?”

  “The Phillips family. They had two kids...”

  “I remember them very well. Awful children. Badly behaved. They used to come to here and shout nasty things at me: ‘What are you boiling up today, hag?’ ‘Go away you ugly witch’ ... things like that. Yes, horrid children. Thankfully they left the village soon after I arrived. Mind you, there are still a lot of cruel kids and adults here who hate me.”

  “Do you mind if we take a look around your house and garden, Miss Chewnik?”

  “Of course not, Inspector, please feel free.”

  The house was inspected carefully, but the policemen didn’t look under the coal in the scuttle. Petronella followed them out into the garden. Constable Bellamy drew the Inspector’s attention to the snail bunker. “Over here, gov. Come and take a butcher’s at this.” They stood around the bunker and saw all the trails of slime left by the snails glittering in the pale morning sun. They were so disgusted their stomachs lurched. The policemen left vowing never to go near that cottage again.

  Petronella had a strange feeling something was not quite right behind her. She swung round quickly only to see that the tall black tree had disappeared.

  Chapter 7

  After his supper, Maalox sneaked out again. Night was beginning to fall. While Maalox was away, Petronella was too afraid to sleep, or to go out snail hunting. She didn’t want to meet the creepy black-hooded horseman again. Neither did she want to go and see if the tree had come back.

  So she bolted her doors and all the windows. Except for the window in the spare room. No way was she going in there. She lit a candle and took a book from a pile in the corner. She glanced around he
r to make sure nobody was lurking in the shadows or behind her furniture. She had two mismatched and worn armchairs, a large pine chest, a crooked carved oak cabinet, given to her by her grandmother, Giacinta, and a sturdy marble-topped table with three chairs.

  Petronella carefully placed the candle on the wide ledge of the bay window. She pulled an armchair close to it, sat down and pressed her head against the glass. All was quiet outside. The candle flickered in front of her. She could only feel safe if she kept watch. The book lay flat open on her lap but she watched the flickering of the candle rather than reading. White squiggles appeared out of the darkness behind the candle. Shapes that looked like TCO. ‘No, it must be my mind playing tricks again,’ thought Petronella. Soon after she began reading the badly-lit pages, she felt drowsy. She yawned, she nodded and closed her eyes. The letters kept swimming around in her head.

  The sudden sound of a screeching owl startled her. It was a chilly night; she could burn a few logs. But her firewood was stacked up outside against the wall of her cottage. Too afraid to go out in her garden, she decided to start a fire by lighting some sticks and then burning the smaller pieces of coal she had in the scuttle. The flames burned brightly, making that cosy crackling sound and throwing off sparks. Reaching into the coal scuttle, she pulled out the three smallest pieces of coal and put them on the burning wood. Maybe that would be enough, she just needed to get rid of that nip in the air. She shivered. It could have been the howling wind outside that made her tremble or it could be that she was afraid. There in the darkness on her own.

  Settling down in her armchair again, she sat and watched the branches of the trees swaying around in the moonlight making black and white dancing shadows in her living-room as well as scratching her window panes. A branch kept beating on the glass. Placing her hands on the arm rests, she pushed herself out of the armchair then went towards the window to close the heavy curtains and shut the eerie night out.

  She noticed the branches were now still, the moonlight stopped shining and pitch black came down over Charis Cottage. The window panes were blackened out. The only light was the feeble flame of the melting candle dripping onto the ledge. She couldn’t quite work it out, but she thought she saw a shape in the form of a hooded cloak. But black on black makes it difficult to distinguish. Quickly, in one swoop, she drew the curtains. Her heart was pounding fast as somebody began knocking on her window: “Pe...tro...ne...lla,” she imagined a faint voice calling her. “Pe...tro...ne...lla,” there it was again. She froze where she stood - there, just in front of the window. Then she heard the sash window creep up: “Pe...tro...ne...lla,” for the third time and louder. The gusty wind swelled the curtain into her face, then it flew upwards above her head. A hooded figure stood there. She moved back. The cloak and hood stepped through the window straight into her living-room. That’s all there was: a hood and cloak - no legs, no head - yet, it moved.

  Petronella didn’t know she could be so brave. She found it within herself to speak: “Who are you? What do you want from me?”

  “Pe...tro...ne...lla, I be the soul of The Hooded Horseman. Ye hath myn head and torso in thy cottage. The rest of me be in the village. In a field there, together with the bodies and souls of the folk who liveth with me in myn time. Pe...tro...ne...lla, I know ye hath a beautiful soul. I be sure ye shall helpeth me in the difficult task that lies before me.”

  “What do the letters TCO stand for?” Petronella said, “and what am I supposed to help you with?”

  “I cannat tell ye now,” he said. “But, please, Pe...tro...ne...lla, I beggeth of ye giveth me permission to cometh back and speaketh to ye tomorrow night. Giveth me the chance to telleth ye exactly what ye can doth to helpeth the civilisation of The Strincas. I hath to goeth now, Pe...tro...ne...lla. I must needs flee. All shall be revealed to ye tomorrow night when I shall cometh back.”

  “Very well. You can come back and talk to me tomorrow evening when dusk falls,” the kind Petronella said.

  A strong gale stirred up making the curtains swell up again and blow right up to the ceiling. And, as they moved back down again, it was as if they pushed The Hooded Horseman out of the window and into the thick blackness.

  Silence fell over the room. Nothing moved in the quiet night. Petronella kept staring at the space where the black-hooded knight had been as she heard a horse gallop away outside. The candle on the window ledge had gone out. The only light shining was that of the moonbeams through her window.

  “Nothing could be scarier than this. Not even the tree,” she said to herself. Still trembling she went upstairs towards the small spare bedroom to make sure the tree had gone for good. But when she looked out into the blackness, she could just about make out the outline of the tree. Only now it was nearer to her cottage.

  Chapter 8

  The next morning, Petronella pulled on her everyday army camouflage boots and marched to Farmer Giles’s field. She wanted to know what he had meant by the black tree gobbling her up. But to her surprise the field was full of camera tripods from different TV channels. They had been positioned in three spots all pointing to the field and the bones. It looked like all the people of Fort Willow were there. The cats were there, too, on the edge of the excavations. Maalox sat apart and kept careful watch.

  A journalist from a 24-hour-a-day news channel was going around the on-lookers asking what they thought. They nearly all agreed that the bodies must belong to that weird Phillips family who suddenly disappeared from the village. The journalist reported this back to the TV studio while the news channel showed pictures of the family. The journalist, one Judy Junkins, kept talking and talking:

  “Here in Fort Willow experts have started digging to unearth bodies, just a few metres from where I’m standing.” She looked as if she’d been up all night waiting for the excavators to turn up. “The villagers agree that the bodies may be those of a family who lived here and mysteriously disappeared. A certain Phillips family. Police have launched a major investigation into their whereabouts. It is known that the parents together with their teenage children were not happy here. They lived in a modest house just round the back of where I’m standing. I have the new owner of that house right here. Hello there! Did you know that the Phillips family had lived in your house before you?”

  “Yeah, I bought the house from them, didn’t I? They looked alright to me when I saw ’em. Thought they was going away or something.”

  “Thank you for the interview. I’m just going to speak to another resident,” Judy Junkins told viewers at home, looking straight into the camera. “Hi there, did you know the family personally?

  “It’s not like I had much to do with ’em, but I used to see the father going for walks over these fields. They had this dog. And...”

  “Just a moment,” interrupted the journalist, “I have some breaking news. At least four bodies have been found, yes, at least four. And also the remains of a cat and a dog! I’m just walking over to interview the chief excavator. Hello, excuse me. Could you confirm that you’ve found the bodies of a family and their pets?”

  “Well, we’ve found remains but I cannot say who they belong to at this time.”

  Petronella steered her way through the crowd towards the journalist. “Hello, hello!” Petronella shouted from a distance. The journalist didn’t hear her. Petronella finally reached Judy Junkins and tapped her on the shoulder. “What’s that ugly thing on the screen?” a newscaster said to the other in the studio. “Oh, my God! How did she get to be there?” When Judy Junkins turned around she got the fright of her life. Then, coming to her senses, she said: “Get out of here, we’re on air!”

  “Miss, miss, The Hooded Horseman said that the...”

  “Get out of the way, I tell you.” Waving to the cameraman, she shouted: “Turn that thing off, do you hear?”

  The camera was shut down and the screens went blank at home. As Petronella was led away by two heavies, she was shouting: “Stop them digging! Stop them digging!”

  Cha
pter 9

  Meanwhile on a remote Scottish island somewhere in the North Sea, Phillip Phillips kept calling his mum. She couldn’t hear him because she was in the kitchen and the extractor fan was on. “Mum, mum,” he shouted over and over, “mum come here quick, look they’re talking about US on the telly.”

  “For God’s sake, can you stop shouting from one room to another, get your feet off that coffee table, NOW, and give that TV a break,” Mrs Phillips said in one breath after rushing into the living-room.

  “Mum, we’re on the box, really, honest to God. Look!” Phillip insisted.

  “Well, for all the tea in China, that’s a picture of us alright. Oh, my God!” said Mrs Phillips.

  Having heard all the noise, Alice, Phillip’s sister, rushed into the room leaping down the stairs two-by-two. “Mum, that was us!” she yelled, having seen it all on her own TV in her bedroom.

  “Quiet, quiet, can’t hear a thing!” said their mother.

  They sat there agog, listening to Judy Junkins going on about how their family may have just been dug up, and their remains (and that of their cat and dog) were on their way to the morgue for tests. In the background, Petronella could be seen being taken away shouting something about a hooded horseman.

  “Wow, look, it’s that yuk of a hag, we used to make fun of.”

  All three of them laughed.

  “Never thought we’d see her again, did we?” said Alice. “Ugly witch.”

  “So, if it’s not us, mum, must be someone else,” Phillip said.

  “You’re so clever! Course it’s other people if it’s not us, you dumbo,” Alice answered.