Witch Dust

by Marilyn Messik

  She’d pushed through the swing doors of the kitchen and, as Bella had done earlier, I saw her take in every aspect and implication of what was happening, with instant understanding. She narrowed her eyes and raised an index finger. The scissors flew out of Cyril’s hands, landing noisily on the tiled floor. She used her index finger again, sharply lowering it this time and he slumped down bonelessly, right next to them. Bella moved away swiftly, her hand over the bleeding nick in her neck.

  “Glad to see you can still make yourself useful.” She said, a little breathlessly to Ophelia who’d stepped daintily over the body on the floor and was now putting the kettle back on to boil. Ophie looked back over her shoulder at her cousin,

  “You could have done it yourself?” She said.

  “Scissors. Neck!” Exclaimed Bella.

  “Hmmm. So,” said Ophie, again stepping carefully over the unconscious body, but this time with a coffee in hand. She pulled out a chair, “What’s going on then?” I rapidly emerged from temporary, fear-induced paralysis.

  “You tell me Ma, you bloody tell me what’s going on. You’re the one who hauled me down to this madhouse. And now,” I continued, gesturing fiercely at the still unmoving Cyril, “He’s tried to murder Bella and I’m going to have to call the police and what’s that going to look like, with the tv crew arriving?” Ophelia added sugar generously to her coffee, stirred and shook her head firmly.

  “You can’t phone the police.”

  “Of course I’m phoning the police, we’ve got an unconscious, homicidal maniac on the floor who could wake up at any time and do God knows what – how else would you suggest we handle it?” Ophelia sighed,

  “He’s just befazed.” She said.

  “I know that,” I snapped back. “Bella’s already said, but I’ve actually no idea exactly what that means, who’s done it to him, why they’ve done it, nor what he’s going to do next – he might just fetch an axe and chop us all up into little pieces.”

  “Look, it’s probably my fault.” Bella was holding a damp cloth that Elizabeth had given her, against her neck, and when she took it away the cut looked a lot less frightening. “I thought he’d played out, didn’t realise there was more to come – careless of me.” I looked from one to the other of them in frustration.

  “Aren’t you rather missing the point here Bella? He nearly slit your throat, and if what you say is right, someone or something primed him to do it. I don’t think,” I added sourly, “Careless really covers it. Anyway, what are we going to do with him? He can’t stay there and we don’t know what he might do when he comes round, and,” I paused again because another, even more awkward thought had just occurred. “He will come round won’t he? What exactly is it you’ve done to him, Ma, he’s not dead is he?” Ophelia sighed again, she had a range of sighs she could call upon, and this was the one that reduced me to the status of a tiresome offspring.

  “Well of course he’s not dead, my sweet. What do you think I am?” I really couldn’t think of anything polite to say to that, so kept quiet. “I simply wiped away whatever was done to him.” She continued, “I assure you he won’t remember a thing about it. “He’s one of those chappies keeping an eye on you, isn’t he?” She turned to Bella, who nodded.

  “Then,” said Ophelia, “Best just put him back outside where he came from?” Bella nodded again. They both briefly closed their eyes and Cyril suddenly wasn’t there any more.

  “Where is he?” I asked wearily. Bella inclined her head towards the window and I got up to look. Sure enough, our Cyril was in the process of scrambling back behind the bush where I’d first seen him. I turned away from the window and took out my notebook again. It felt like the lunatics had taken over the asylum and a well-constructed ‘To Do Next’ list might be the only thing, at this juncture, to keep me together.

  The unpleasant Cyril incident, threw into sharp relief the fact that our current situation divided itself into two halves of a whole. One half was the purely practical issue of getting the hotel kick-started with a hefty dose of ghostly notoriety. I was confident that if we could get that particular ball rolling, it would run and run and once the initial publicity died down, we’d get a follow-up boost from the tv programme when it was shown. The other half was more problematic, not to mention increasingly hazardous.

  It seemed though to be based on a simple misunderstanding, by person or persons unknown who apparently believed there was a sinister motive for the family convening. We needed to establish who it was who thought we were up to goodness-knows-what, make contact and explain they were laboring under a misapprehension. We needed to establish that far from this being a gathering of the clan for nefarious purposes (as if), our intentions were purely for commercial gain. Therefore none of the unpleasant and scarily violent stuff was the least bit relevant or necessary. Once we did this I felt, we’d have things back on track and certainly, breaking it down that way, made me feel it was a lot more manageable and in reality not too much of a problem at all.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  Not unnaturally, one of the things Charley was most keen on, was talking to all the family and staff – she was after candid trains of thought and reflections, off the cuff, as they were going about their business. Not unnaturally, one of the things I was keenest on was that this shouldn’t happen unsupervised. I was aware that preventing it could prove a little tricky, but thought I had a solution. I caught up with her on Monday morning on the pretext of making sure they were happy with their rooms, that the late breakfast we’d laid on, had been to their satisfaction, and that Charley herself was as relaxed as it’s possible for a stressed-out researcher to be.

  “Look,” I said, “Don’t know if it will help at all, but I’ve made up a list for you of who’s who, and where and when you’re most likely to find them – thought it might save you some time.” We were at the door of her room and I could see, glancing over her shoulder, that she was of the Ophelia school of unpacking, as all available surfaces were now obscured by clothes and toiletries.

  “Wow!” She said, as I handed her the list, “You are a truly wonderful woman, I think I love you?” With enthusiasm, the rising tone at the end of each sentence was even more exaggerated than before. She leapt forward and hugged me enthusiastically. Released from the woolly hat, her hair was a mass of exuberant chestnut-red curls and until she let me out of the hug, I was swamped. Released and able to draw breath again, I smiled modestly, I did in fact feel the list was rather helpful.

  I’d divided it into staff and family, given room locations where necessary and had added short explanatory notes, detailing who was related to who and how, and where there were minor eccentricities to watch out for – that had taken a little time and thought. I’d wanted to put down enough to keep Charley and Co. enthralled, but not so much as to alarm them unduly. I’d left Felicia off the list completely on the assumption that if she hadn’t been downstairs in twenty years, she probably wasn’t going to start now. Charley had flopped down on the bed, shoving aside a pile of clothes to peruse the details, suddenly she jumped up again and shrieked. I jumped too, my nerves were a bit on edge I think.

  “Ophelia?” She said. “Ophelia Adamovitch – the Ophelia Adamovitch?” I nodded.

  “Oh. My. God! I think I’m going to pass out, here and now.” She said, “I sometimes do that when I get over-excited you know.” I took a cautious step forward and she put out a hand, “No, I promise I won’t this time, I’m doing deep breathing, but I can’t believe it, this is the most wonderful thing that’s happened all year. Max will just adore me, she looked at me in awe, “She’s actually your Mother, your Mother?” I conceded that indeed she was my Mother, but by this time Charley had continued down the list and found Bella, which produced several more shrieks, an excited little dance on the spot and some more deep breathing, after which she grabbed me and pulled me in for another hairy hug.

  “Bel
la Belinfante? Shut Up! I don’t believe it. It is, isn’t it? Bella – Bella Donna?” I nodded again, extracting myself.

  “Well, yes. Yes, it is, but you know there were a few small problems…” I paused delicately, “Nothing Bella was to blame for, you understand, but she’s just taking some time out to work on more research, before releasing anything else on to the market, so maybe…” I stopped again, there were so many questions I’d rather weren’t asked, I didn’t know where to start.

  “Okey dokelah,” said Charley, “Gotcha, I can see what you’re concerned about, but discretion’s my middle name, not to worry.” I smiled at her, completely un-reassured, I knew full well, when it came to impressing an audience of any kind, discretion was usually the first thing that flew out the window.

  ***

  I’d made a duplicate of my list, and had tried to establish with Charley the sort of order in which she might like to meet people, and what kind of schedule they might have in mind when it came to the filming, but she’d done an emphatic curl-shake.

  “Sorry, sorry, sorry. No can do. Max is, you know, a bit of a law unto himself. He’s so, so, innovative he just kind of marches to his own drum – it’s like, he sometimes doesn’t even know what he’s going to be doing next, until he’s doing it.”

  I personally felt that for a director, that was really no way to run the show but there you are, some people are anally organised, others not so much. I’d been introduced earlier to Maxwell Fearnstill, who looked far less arty, farty than I’d expected. He had wavy sandy hair, a rounded face with a softly receding chin and an oddly long, pointed nose – like a Mr Potato Man on which someone had stuck the wrong feature, but hadn’t yet got around to remedying it. The nose seemed to bother him too, even during the brief time we were speaking, he kept pulling at it absentmindedly, as if astonished it went on for so long.

  “Thing is,” Charley continued, “Max, well, he absolutely loathes, I mean hates, hates, hates to be tied down in any way, won’t have it – has to go as the mood takes him – makes for some amazing footage and lets him dig really, really deep. Although,” she allowed a small frown, “That doesn’t make life any easier for moi! Still, that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? But not to worry, I’m sure your family hasn’t got too many dark secrets?” We both laughed heartily, although I was perhaps a little less hearty than her, realising I’d definitely have to do a continuous mad dash around, making sure everyone was as fully briefed as they could be, before they got in front of anybody’s lens.

  I had also (belts and braces) taken the precaution of running off a short crib sheet for everyone, with some underlined warnings as to what they were supposed to be saying and what was verboten, although my thoughtfully executed instructions had received a typically mixed reception.

  I caught Henry in the kitchen, along with Elizabeth and Gladys. Turned out it was half-term so he wasn’t in school, which I felt was an added and un-needed complication. I briefly explained to the three of them, the importance of everything going right when it came to the documentary, emphasising if this didn’t come off as planned, they might have to be thinking of finding somewhere else to lay their heads in the not too distant future. Henry, passing me on his way to the fridge to grab a sandwich, made the mistake of grabbing a quick pinch of my bottom too. I rounded on him and gave his hand a good hard slap.

  “That’s exactly what I mean, keep your hands to yourself you little shit.” I was livid. “Do that to anyone else and you’ll find yourself with a sexual harassment charge slapped on you. I made an educated stab in the dark. “I bet Etty doesn’t know about some of your revolting little habits, does she?” Henry paled. “Right,” I said, “You just mind yourself and we won’t say any more about it. But one more single step out of line and I’m going to take you by the ear and drag you to see Etty, and you can discuss it all with her. Do I make myself absolutely clear?”

  Elizabeth meanwhile had been digesting the crib sheet I’d produced for her and Alfred,

  “Nothing here that’s not plain good common sense,” she grumbled. “Not stupid are we, know which side our bread’s buttered. Been with the Goodkinds more years than you’ve been on this earth young lady, never put a foot wrong in all that time, no cause to be doing that now.” And she grabbed a pile of just-ironed table-cloths and stalked out. Gladys was shaking her head, mournfully.

  “I’ll try my best dear, you know I will, but I can’t always be responsible for my actions, not if there’s someone coming through.”

  “I know,” I said soothingly, but you’ll see I’ve made a suggestion or two, should that happen. She read on and nodded doubtfully,

  “You think that would be all right?” She asked. My thought had been, should she feel any of her regular visitors about to put in an unscheduled appearance, she should immediately claim a crippling migraine, and go and lie down on the nearest flat surface with her eyes tight shut, totally incommunicado. This may have been a bit extreme, but was the best I could come up with at short notice. I also felt I’d covered a lot of bases by putting in brackets next to her name on Charley’s list (excellent cook, but please note, highly eccentric!).

  Leaving the kitchen, I went in search of Bella and Devorah, tracked both down in the annexe and was surprised to find Ophelia with them. I went through the same speech and handed out the crib sheets which were received in much the spirit I’d expected. Ophelia laughed, Devorah shifted baby Simona to an alternative hip, grinned and called me OCD, while Bella tutted did I think they were all complete morons.

  Roland I wasn’t so worried about, I wasn’t sure whether he’d actually be around much while filming was going on, and I trusted him enough to think he’d know exactly what to say and not say. As he’d already proved, when it came to amateur dramatics, he could out-perform anybody and I suspected he could carry off what I wanted, better than the rest put together. But it did occur to me that perhaps I should have tackled Mimi first, next to Gladys, she was probably the loosest cannon we had. And then of course there was Etty, I wasn’t looking forward to that. I was on my way upstairs to find both, when the screaming started.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  Funny isn’t it, and I’m sure I’ve said this before, how we try to rationalise things, struggle to make them fit known parameters?

  I must have remained frozen for a good minute or so on the stairs, trying to make sense of what I was hearing. Perhaps Gladys was having a bad recipe experience. Perhaps Elizabeth had found the agency hadn’t done the cleaning as well as she wanted. Perhaps a treatment of Bella’s – colonic irrigation sprang to mind – had gone terribly wrong; but somehow none of those eventualities, any one of which could have brought on a noisy reaction, seemed to fit the bill or the decibel level. I turned and belted back down. I had my list of dos and don’ts and screaming wasn’t on it.

  At the bottom of the stairs, I ran slap bang into my Mother, Bella and Devorah. For once it seemed we were all singing from the same song sheet, we paused only to exchange baffled looks then, in a body, made for the living room, which was where all the noise was coming from.

  There were several people standing around, but only one of them was doing the screaming, which I suppose was something to be thankful for. Mimi (damn, they’d got to her before I did) was standing by one of the dark brown leather sofas, wringing her hands anxiously. Charley had her arms around Ffion Sykes, who was the screamer, Maxwell Fearnstill was looking horrified and massaging his nose anxiously, while Karl, the camera guy was busy filming what I could instantly see would make great tv. At first I couldn’t spot what the problem could be and when I did, I could make no sense of it.

  On the other side of the large room, opposite the door through which we’d just burst, were the two, beautifully proportioned, high arched windows, with sills deep enough to feature seating cushions. The windows were either side of double doors, leading into the gardens. On the outside of one
of the closed doors, a black cat was swinging slowly back and forward. For the first few seconds, I thought it was Ink and could hear Ophelia’s gasp behind me, but it wasn’t, it was far too thin.

  The unfortunate animal was upside down and there didn’t seem to be much doubt that it was very dead indeed. As if to underline that, the body, moving with the wind – its tail was attached to a piece of rope – rotated slowly and hit the window again with a dull thwump. I was tempted to join Ffion and do a bit of screaming on my own account, but I had my hand clamped tight over my mouth and enough sense left to realise, doubling the noise would do no-one any good.

  I looked across swiftly at Mimi, she caught the glance and its implicit question and shook her head in bafflement. Ophie, chalk white from the initial impression it was Ink, also shrugged imperceptibly as did both Bella and Devorah. Great, nobody knew what the hell was going on. By now Ffion, shrieking more softly had collapsed on to the nearest sofa, Charley still holding on to her. I remembered her saying her prime role, a lot of the time was taking care of the Talent. She was doing her best now, under trying circumstances.

  “Right.” I said briskly, relieved to find my voice was still working. “Well, I’m really very sorry about this,” I forced a laugh. “Honestly,” I said. “What is he like?” Everybody turned to look at me with varying degrees of bemusement. “Roland.” I said, chuckling some more. “That man, he’s never grown up has he, the only teenager I know who’s hit his forties. Except sometimes, a joke can go just that bit too far, can’t it and doesn’t that ghastly thing look real?” Everyone turned their gaze back to the window. I hoped to God, no-one was planning to go out and check. Ophelia, bless her for once, caught on and pitched in,

  “My brother,” she said, adding her own light laugh, “I’m afraid it’s a long-running thing, we’ve done it since we were kids, we’d all try to scare the pants off each other.” She looked at Bella who nodded enthusiastically, “This time though,” Ophelia went on, “The silly sod’s gone a bit far, hasn’t he?” Bella continued nodding agreement,