Witch Dust

by Marilyn Messik

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  I had made it my business to introduce myself as the hotel manager (more or less accurate I felt), and I let myself be casually engaged in conversation by Jonathan Harper when I cleared his soup plate. I was relieved to see he’d finished, so it must have been reasonably OK, although I couldn’t tell what it had been and Elizabeth had taken his order.

  “Not that busy tonight?” He asked, I cast an eye round the dining room, averting it swiftly from Devorah who was making, when-can-we-go faces at me and trying not to let it linger on the Three Degrees in the middle of the room, who’d taken their role properly to heart and were chatting and laughing loudly, to show what a wonderful time they were having. Roland looked across at me, grinned, winked and gave me a little wave. I ignored him.

  “Bit of a relief, to have an easy evening for once, to be honest.” I said, “We’ve been rushed off our feet, but we had a group coming in tonight who cancelled at the last minute.”

  “So I understand. Have you been here long?

  “Long enough.” I said, with feeling.

  “I hear that you’ve had… ,” He paused, casually buttering what remained of his roll, “…one or two unusual things going on here recently.”

  “I don’t think so,” I said repressively. “Who on earth told you that?” He smiled smugly,

  “I have my sources.” I was relieved he didn’t tap the side of his nose, which would have been naff in the extreme. Contrary to expectations, his voice wasn’t too let down by his appearance. He was early forties with straight dark hair flopping over his eyes, in a way he probably imagined to be boyishly attractive, although it immediately made me want to utilise a hair-slide.

  “Of course.” I said, “This is a very old building, you know, lots of creaks and groans and things and sometimes, I expect, people’s nerves get the better of them.” I was busily doing that thing waiters do with the napkin to rid the table of crumbs, although I don’t think I was doing it well, because most of the mess was ending up in his lap. However, I thought it politic to let him deal with that on his own.

  “Oh, go on,” he said, lowering his voice, “You know you can’t keep this sort of thing quiet for long, word gets out, people talk.”

  “Well,” I said reluctantly and in an undertone, “You might mean Polly.”

  “Polly?”

  “Never seen her myself,” I admitted, “Others say they have, although as I said, that’s probably more down to over-active imaginations and bad lighting than anything else.”

  “You mean there have been actual sightings?” He leaned forward.

  “Suppose you could call them that.” I agreed grudgingly. He smiled up at me and I could see him setting up headlines in his head.

  “You said Polly?” He asked, “How do you know that’s who she is – was?” I took a breath to launch into Polly’s CV, but was saved by Elizabeth bustling in with his main course. Over his head, I raised an eyebrow and she nodded reassuringly, Gladys was obviously holding her end up in the kitchen. Elizabeth placed an impressively professionally displayed plate in front of our guest and re-filled his wine glass. I seized the opportunity to move away sharpish, bearing the soup bowl and at the same time deciding how indeed we knew Polly was Polly. It was the unexpectedness of the question that had thrown me, but then I decided it wasn’t that complicated at all, there can’t have been hordes of housemaids doing away with themselves over the years, so if a ghost pitched up, it was odds on to be the one that had. Stood to reason.

  As I left the dining room and made my way back to the kitchen, I was overwhelmed with a wave of tiredness, it had been a long and busy day and the thought of bed, even with my Mother and Ink, was suddenly very tempting. I made a swift resolution that the wisest course of action might be to let sleeping dogs or in this case housemaids, lie for a few hours, get a bit of much-needed sleep, set my phone alarm and then put on a show in the wee small hours.

  I think, as I made my way upstairs a little later, I might have felt the teeniest bit smug. The sooner I got things sorted here, and there was no doubt, substantial strides had been made in that direction, the sooner I could haul Ophelia back to base and start getting things sorted there. Under the circumstances, I felt I’d achieved rather a significant amount in an amazingly short time.

  ***

  I woke up in the early hours, far earlier than planned because someone was suffocating me, although after a moment’s panic-stricken flailing, it turned out to be Ink who, looking for somewhere warm to settle, had opted for my face. I’d set my phone for just after 3.00 and it was now 2.45, but it seemed silly to wait. Shoving aside one petulant cat, I got up quietly. Ophelia was snoring softly on the other side of the room, but enough moonlight was coming through the well-worn curtains to let me locate the shapeless, long black dress I’d extracted from the cupboard upstairs. It smelt decidedly musty, as did the white cap into which I stuffed my hair. Still, I reckoned Polly couldn’t have been expected to be that fragrant after all this time, and anyway, she was only going to be putting in a fleeting appearance.

  Ophelia didn’t stir as I slipped out of the room and down the corridor, walking near the wall to minimise floorboard creaks. We’d put Jonathan Harper in the first room to the left of the staircase. I straightened my little white cap and knocked, three judiciously spaced but gentle raps on his door. The plan was he’d wake, stumble slowly and sleep-befuddled to the door and open it, just in time to see the back of Polly, turning into the darkness of one of the alcoves further along the corridor that housed a linen cupboard. I calculated, by the time he’d gathered his wits, I could be back in my room, sleeping the sleep of the just for the remainder of the night, job well done.

  It was disconcerting therefore that I’d hardly finished my three sepulchral knocks, before he opened the door with a book in his hand and stepped into the corridor.

  “Hello.” He said, “Is there some kind of a problem?” It’s not often I’m lost for words, but I was a bit stumped.

  “I, um, thought I heard something.” I said. I know, feeble in the extreme, but give me a break.

  “What?” He asked with interest. Well, he had me there.

  “Erm, someone moving around, I was worried one of the guests might have been taken ill or, or… needed something.”

  “I didn’t hear anything.” He said.

  “Everything’s OK in here then?” I said weakly.

  “Thank you. Yes.” He gestured with his book, “Dreadful sleeper, can’t get my head down till the very early hours.”

  “Ah.” I said, “Me too, but the other way around, a few hours from midnight then that’s me done.” There was an awkward pause, which I urgently felt the need to fill. “I like to use the time to catch up on stuff that doesn’t get done during the day.” I said. He nodded politely,

  “Diligent.” He said. “Always work to be done behind the scenes, isn’t there?”

  “Oh absolutely,” I agreed. “And,” I indicated my cap which was feeling more ridiculous with every second. “I hate dust getting in my hair.”

  “Understandable.” He nodded. Straight-faced but only just, I didn’t know what he was thinking but suspected I’d been well and truly sussed.

  “Right,” I said, “I’ll just get on then, I’ll…” I stopped, his expression had changed. He wasn’t looking at me now, but over my shoulder and along the corridor.

  “Holy shit.” He said, and colour drained from his face. A shiver ran right up my spine, because genuine fear is instantly contagious. For a few seconds I was as frozen as he was then slowly and with an enormous effort, because I really didn’t want to, I turned my head and looked behind me.

  So swiftly had I been infected by his shock, I honestly didn’t know what I expected to find leering at me. The fact that it was only Ophelia in a long, floaty white gown, now turning away from us and drifti
ng slowly away back down the hall, was both a relief and a further complication. I swivelled back to Jonathan Harper.

  “Please don’t worry,” I said, seizing the moment, “It’s only Polly, nothing to be scared about. She’ll vanish in a second or two, that’s what she does.” Flickering in and out like a bad television picture, clever of her to add that touch I thought, the figure in flowing white had slowed and stopped.

  “Yes, indeed,” I repeated, louder, “She’ll just disappear.” But she didn’t disappear. No such luck. In fact, she slowly and gracefully collapsed to the floor and lay there, an unmoving, white heap, a few feet away.

  “What the hell… ?” Murmured Jonathan Harper as much to himself as to me. I was silently grinding my teeth and making my jaw ache. I had no idea what she was doing. My bloody Mother, trust her to stick her oar in and muck things up so thoroughly that I hadn’t the faintest notion what to do next. The one thing I was certain of was we couldn’t stand there gawping all night. Honestly, the one time, the one and only time I’d actually wanted her to do some of her funny stuff and vanish and she wasn’t obliging.

  I started down the corridor towards her, I was just going to have to play it by ear. Maybe she really wasn’t playing silly buggers, but had collapsed or something equally awkward. I could hear Jonathan Harper from the doorway, breathing unevenly behind me. I bent towards the motionless heap of silky cloth, topped with long blonde hair, and put a hand on her shoulder.

  “Come on Ophelia, don’t give me grief.” I muttered under my breath, “Do something for God’s sake.” And she did.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  As she began to uncoil and slowly rise, I automatically straightened up too. She still had her back to me, but she started to turn. Her heavy, long blonde curls were curving, fetchingly as usual, either side of her face, except it wasn’t there – her face I mean. I was looking at a completely blank, dead white, featureless mask. Behind me, I heard a thump as Jonathan Harper slumped heavily against the wall. I didn’t blame him I felt like a bit of slumping myself.

  “For pity’s sake Ophelia,” I hissed. “Tone it down a bit can’t you? I just want to give him something to write about, not a bloody heart attack.” I didn’t dare turn to see if he was OK, but she was certainly scaring the pants off me. I’d never seen her do anything quite as dramatic as this. She’d even managed to lower the temperature somehow, and as well as goose-bumps rising up and down my arms, my teeth were starting to chatter, it was freezing and I was fast losing patience.

  “Now just stop it, this minute.” I said, giving her a sharp, back-handed slap on the shoulder, which oddly enough, was higher up than it should have been. Yup, the wretched woman was doing some kind of stretching trick, rising taller and taller above me, so I was now looking up instead of across at her. I was dimly aware of a couple of doors opening farther down the corridor, but didn’t have time to deal with any other troublesome family members right now. What did catch and hold my attention though was Ophelia, emerging from our room near the end of the hall, rubbing sleep from her eyes and tying the sash of her silk dressing gown.

  “Serenissima?” She said,

  “Oh shit!” I muttered, echoing Harper and pulling my attention back to what was now looming over me. I didn’t think even Ophelia’s many and varied talents extended to being in two places at once and the face with no features was even now, morphing in front of my eyes. A vivid red gash of a mouth was suddenly slashed across the white. It was yawning wide, rimmed impossibly with viciously sharp, tiny teeth and then, swift as a snake, she bent and struck.

  I had no chance to move back out of range, and felt the agony of every single one of those teeth as they sank deep into the flesh of my shoulder and then withdrew – every bit as painfully – and she reared up and back again. Eyeless she may have been, but I knew, without a shadow of doubt, she’d find my throat next.

  I was dimly aware of Ophelia, running down the hall towards me, followed by others, but things had suddenly acquired that unnatural black outline which means you’re well on the way to losing consciousness. I could feel myself sliding slowly down the wall, I hoped to goodness I wasn’t going to leave a blood-stain, they’re so difficult to get out. As I hit the floor, I realised someone had interposed herself between me and the thing that definitely wasn’t Ophelia. I looked up to see who’d come to my rescue. It was Mimi. Great!

  Against the looming threat, she looked more insubstantial than ever, I struggled to get to my feet again, but without looking, she pushed me back to the floor with surprising strength. The thing in white, that no longer really looked like a woman at all, hissed harshly and swayed from its impossible height, mouth agape, teeth scarlet with my blood. Mimi, still holding me with one hand, extended the other, fingers spread wide and muttered something, very low, very fast. It reared back from her and in one sinuous move, whirled round to face Etty, who’d pushed her way past Ophelia. Goodness me, I thought vaguely, what a crowded corridor this was turning into, lucky we didn’t have any more guests in residence right now.

  Etty, night clad, didn’t look that different from during the day. Buttoned to the neck in starched white, green gaze glinting she had her stick with her, but was standing fiercely upright. She looked at what swayed above her and spat out a phrase, extending her right hand as Mimi was doing. In an instant, the shape beneath the material was shrinking, shrivelling in on itself to become once again and unbelievably, a heap of unmoving white cloth on the floor. Etty poked it once with her stick, wrapping the material around the end and shifting it disdainfully to one side. She looked at Mimi and briefly nodded, in some kind of acknowledgment, then she looked down at me,

  “I hope you’re satisfied.” She said icily. And she swung on her heel and made her way briskly back along the hall to her room. Halfway there, she stopped.

  “Tomorrow morning,” she said without looking round. “8.00. In the library. I want you all there.”

  Still on the floor, I was holding the agony that was my shoulder and didn’t have the faintest idea of what to do next. Luckily I was surrounded by busy-bodies who did. Ophelia swept past me towards our journalist and I heard her murmuring to him as she shepherded him back into his room and closed the door behind them. Then there was a sudden heavy breathing in my ear, and an oddly comforting if massive weight against my uninjured shoulder as Rostropovich made his presence briefly felt, before being kneed firmly aside by Bella.

  “You’ve been keeping that animal in your room again, haven’t you Mimi?” She chided absently, as she leaned down, put both arms around me and lifted me swiftly and efficiently to my feet. Mimi humphed guiltily at her niece and winding her fingers into the thick fur at his neck, pulled the wolf away with her, holding up her pink flannelette nightdress with the other hand, to avoid tripping. I spotted the label on the outside, maybe this inside out thing was no accident, more a fashion decision. I chuckled, heard myself, and stopped abruptly, because it had in it more than a hint of hysteria. Roland moved up on my other side and together he and Bella got me along to her room.

  “Devorah and the baby?” I asked.

  “Fine, I checked in on them, both sound asleep,” Bella said, “Devorah could sleep through the Second Coming.”

  “And the others, upstairs?” I asked. She shook her head,

  “Probably didn’t hear anything, nobody’s come down.” My teeth were chattering again and I was still freezing. Roland grabbed a blanket from the bed as they sat me down, and put it over my knees. I looked up at both of them, one on either side of me,

  “What the hell just happened?” I said.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  They exchanged a look over my head. Roland, elegant as ever in paisley silk pajamas and Bella, bursting out of a low-cut black lace nightie, beneath a matching negligee. For the first time, I realised they looked as shaken as I felt. Bella shrugged weakly,

  “Blowed if
I know.” She said, “Roland?” He shook his head slowly, ruffling his hair from back to front with one hand.

  “Beats me. Look, we need to deal with that shoulder.”

  “Must have been… some kind of illusion.” I said. Goodness knows, I’d seen enough unlikely and seemingly inexplicable stuff pulled off on stage, this must have been just more of the same. Bella had unbuttoned the back of my black dress and pulled it gently down.

  “Looks real enough to me.” She said grimly. I twisted my head to where, just on the edge of my shoulder, raw, red, deep and perfectly defined, was a complete set of tooth marks. The pain of the bite had subsided for a brief while with so much adrenaline shooting through my system, but now it was hurting badly again and still-welling, blood-filled bites weren’t part of any illusion I’d come across before. Bella brought a dampened towel from the bathroom and cleaned the wound carefully, while I did a lot of swearing and moaning, no stoic, me. Roland meanwhile followed her directions and dug out a first aid kit she kept in her bedside drawer,

  “Kids were always doing something or other to themselves.” She said, “Always good to have it handy. Nothing ever quite as dramatic as this though.” She patted a hefty amount of stinging, antiseptic cream onto the wound and then carefully placed a gauze dressing over it, held in place by a couple of strips of sticking plaster. I think we all felt better once it was out of sight.

  “Does she need stitches, Bel?” Said Roland, looking dubiously at the results of her handiwork. She shook her head,

  “Don’t think so, there are so many punctures it’d be nigh on impossible to stitch and anyway, think of the questions if we took her to hospital. We’ll get Etty to look at it tomorrow.” I flinched,