Witch Dust

by Marilyn Messik

  “Are you telling me, this whole ruddy documentary thing, isn’t genuine? I was getting angrier by the minute; after all, the documentary was one of my main business plan props. “And who exactly is it you think has ‘sent’ you?” She didn’t answer either question,

  “Go away.” She said, “Get lost. Go back where you came from. Do not even think of returning here and we’ll leave you alone, leave all of you alone.” I gripped the chair-back and opened my mouth to start detailing some of my thoughts, but Etty turned her head and stopped me,

  “You need to listen to what she’s saying.”

  “I’m sorry,” I snapped. But I really don’t respond too well to bullying.” Murray, leaned forward,

  “For Gawd’s sake girl, will you for once stop digging yourself in even deeper. Whatever crazy stuff is going on here, this isn’t the way to handle it.” I ignored them both.

  “Neither.” I said to Charley, “Am I very good at taking orders. You want me to do something? You ask me, don’t tell me. You want me to leave? Then explain nicely why, don’t try nasty little scare tactics, all smoke and mirrors. And now, before you say another word, hand that baby back, or deal with the consequences.” No, I don’t know what I had in mind to do either. There was a concerted intake of breath and someone, not sure who, muttered something, not sure what, and then things went a bit pear-shaped.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

  Charley didn’t move, she carried on smiling and jogging the baby on her knee, but suddenly, something infinitely older looked out from her eyes and I felt a stinging pain in mine.

  The agony and the shock of it was such that both hands immediately flew to my face, a belated and useless protection. Temporarily and terrifyingly blinded, I was aware of all sorts going on round me, then Murray on one side and Bella on the other, moved me into the chair behind which I’d been standing. I couldn’t immediately see, but knew they’d then stationed themselves either side of me, because I could hear Murray cursing to himself and Bella had a hand on my shoulder. She was holding me down.

  Through tears still streaming, I saw that a shocked Roland and Ophelia were also on their feet. Etty remained seated, unmoving and seemingly unmoved. Turning my head to the left, forcing open what felt like vastly swollen eyelids, I saw Mimi, also still seated, looking straight at me. She shook her head briefly whether in admonition or warning, I had no idea.

  I don’t usually lose my temper, I get cross, become irritated but it’s always been important to me to never lose control. After all, I’d grown up watching my parents do it and knew what foolish, oft regretted things could be said and done under the influence. I also knew that going red in the face and screaming until your throat was raw, wasn’t productive. But what was rising in me now, was something rather different. Not hot but cold. Cold and knowing.

  I shook Bella’s hand off my shoulder, Murray’s off my arm and stood up. Charley immediately stood too and as she did, Devorah seized the moment, darted forward and snatched the baby.

  “I don’t know exactly who or what you are,” I said slowly, “Although I understand what you want from me, because you’ve made that very clear. However, I have also made it clear that I will not be intimidated by whatever it is you think you have up your sleeve. I will leave here, as and when I choose. My timing, not yours. I don’t appreciate scare tactics and I will not have you threatening my family. Take your camera; your microphone; your team and your inflated idea of your own importance in the scheme of things and get the hell out of here.”

  Charley looked across the room to Karl and Max, they were standing too now, and between them they held Ffion, who appeared to have passed out, maybe all the excitement was just too much for her. Whatever it was, she was being held by the arms, dangling between them like a piece of washing on the line. Charley looked back again, but not at me this time – at Mimi, and suddenly Mimi was on the floor. Very still. There was a concerted movement from the others towards her, but Charley held up a hand and stopped them.

  “Not yet.” She said, looking at me. And without knowing what I was doing, yet knowing completely what I was doing, I lashed out at her. I didn’t touch her, but she doubled over and pitched violently forward. I heard her head hit the rug with a surprisingly loud crack – of course, the rug was worn and not very thick and the parquet flooring beneath was unforgiving. She lay, face-down in front of the cheerfully burning fire and like Mimi, she wasn’t moving. Neither was anyone else for a beat or two, then as if someone had murmured ‘Action, take one,’ everyone got going.

  Bella and Murray reached Mimi first, but she was already regaining consciousness. Typically Mimi, she seemed no more or less dazed than usual, although she was already looking apprehensively to where Roland was bending over Charley. He looked up sharply, in shock and disbelief.

  “I think she’s dead.” He said. I sat down abruptly in the chair I’d only recently vacated.

  “Can’t be, don’t be so daft.” Murray moved from the body that was now sitting up rubbing its eyes, to the body that wasn’t doing anything of the sort. He turned her over so she was on her back, then bending lower, put his cheek almost over her mouth. After what seemed like an age, he straightened, his normal ruddy complexion paled to a sicklier shade.

  “She’s not dead, but I think she’s in a pretty bad way. What the hell did you do to her, Sandy?” From the other side of the room, where Devorah had retreated, Simona started to whimper. I felt like joining her. I looked up and met Etty’s eye. She and I were the only ones still sitting so were on a level. I opened my mouth, but she shook her head imperceptibly, as Mimi had done earlier. I had no idea what that meant but obviously, whatever Etty was thinking, there were steps that had to be taken.

  “I’ll call an ambulance.” I said.

  “I don’t think so.” Said Ffion.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

  I suspect, engrossed in the Charley situation, most of us had almost forgotten Karl, Max and Ffion. But something was happening to the woman who’d been slung limply between the two men. Impeccably coiffed, and dressed in business-like black skirt and short, double-breasted jacket, with something colourfully Butler and Wilson on the lapel, her face, as she raised it to look at us, still bore the slightly shocked imperturbability that botox brings. Then it began to change. For a moment, I was reminded of the melting features of the doppelgänger and thought irreverently, she’d probably want words with her aesthetic facial specialist and a refund, then I realised – not melting, re-forming.

  Now, beneath the blonde, sharply defined and deftly highlighted bob was incongruously, a far older face, dominated by fleshily broad lips, a heavy jowl and hooded wrinkled lids over a green glint gaze that wasn’t unfamiliar. The new face was disproportionate to its body, it really wasn’t a combination that worked, and the discrepancy was unpleasantly disconcerting. She looked around, chuckled briefly and phlegmily at our expressions, then frowned as the baby started crying again.

  “You,” she said to Devorah, “Get that out of here, now.” Devorah looked across at Bella, then me as if to say what did we want her to do. Bella made a shooing motion with her hand and I nodded quickly. Devorah backed to the door, opened it and slipped out, the fear on her face the last thing we saw, as she closed it quietly behind her.

  Ffion – well not Ffion, but in the absence of introductions, Ffion would have to do for now – nodded in satisfaction. “That’s better. Can’t stand the noise, grates on my nerves.” Her voice now wasn’t Ffion’s modulated presenter’s tone, but something far rustier. She turned the new head stiffly on its neck and looked directly at Etty, who looked impassively back.

  “Etty Goodkind,” said re-formed Ffion, “I’m sorry it’s these circumstances we meet under, especially after such a long time.” Etty, inclined her head.

  “Indeed.” She said.

  “You do understand,” said Ffion, “There is no personal animosi
ty involved. This is pure contingency.” Etty, hands folded and still on the bird-headed cane, was equally polite but similarly firm.

  “And you don’t seem able to understand what has already been extremely clearly stated.” She said. “My Great-Granddaughter has neither intention nor inclination to stay here. She wants nothing to do with anything we are. Is a word from one of my family, no longer worth anything?” Ffion threw her head back – I hoped it was firmly attached to its new neck – and laughed.

  “You always were the idealist, Etty Goodkind. You’ve seen, we’ve all just seen.” And she indicated with a perfectly manicured index finger, Charley prone in front of the fireplace, “What she is. What she can do. We can’t, are not prepared to take any risks. In fact,” she paused thoughtfully, “I’m starting to wonder whether her leaving here, might not now be enough.”

  “Enough?” Repeated Etty, and she rapped the cane sharply once on the floor. Ffion’s face appeared to want to grimace, but force of circumstance and the botox were against her, so she settled for an odd little head wiggle which should have been comical, but somehow wasn’t at all.

  “Don’t pretend ignorance Etty Goodkind.” She hissed, “You and I have both been around long enough to know what’s what. We, the remaining families, all have a place in the hierarchy. In the past, you’ve chosen to slink away, lie low, not practice the art, and that’s entirely your choice – as long as it stayed that way. But did you honestly believe we wouldn’t notice what you are doing now? The status quo is set, but this,” she waved her arm to take in all of us, “This gathering says something else altogether.”

  “Oh, for goodness sake,” I said, hauling myself to my feet again. The stinging in my eyes was dying down, although not the anger at this ridiculous, crazily melodramatic stand-off. “Here we go again with the gathering.” In my frustration, I moved towards Ffion, then thought better of it and stopped where I was. “I… we’ve told you the truth. You’re putting two and two together to make five. Who the hell do you think you are to come here and put on this absurd performance?” Out of the corner of my eye I saw Ophelia start forward, her hand out in a ‘stop it now’ gesture, but my gaze was riveted by the cold green one before me.

  “I’ll show you who I am.” Said Ffion softly and as I watched, the face changed again, and again, and again, slip sliding from one set of features to another, each completely individual. Different eyes observed or glared, individual mouths twisted in bitterness or sneers, morphing swiftly if not always smoothly, from one to another, to another – too many to count, it really was most unpleasant to watch. And then the thing that had been Ffion was back, spitting triumph.

  “Did you honestly think I would risk coming alone? I stand here with the strength of the many, the mind of the majority.” And interrupting as Etty, standing now, started to speak. “No, Etty Goodkind, save your breath, you were always mistaken, it was never a sisterhood, only alliances of convenience.” As she turned back to look in my direction, I felt the full force of whatever she was – it went through me like an electric shock and the hairs on the nape of my neck rose in atavistic response. I was moving slowly forward, not sure what I had in mind to do, when the door of the library was flung open with some force – he always knew the value of an impressive entrance – and there stood an irate Adam with Sasha still attached to an arm.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

  He may have been a past master at a showy entrance but he was, as ever, impervious to atmosphere.

  “Serenissima,” He boomed in best baritone. “What do you think you’re playing at? I had to bloody-well pick the lock to get us out of that room you left us in. What on God’s good earth is going on here?” Then belatedly, looking around, even he picked up on the fact that this wasn’t your normal social situation.

  Ffion’s head swung, slow and snakelike in his direction and in that instant, most of us in the room knew what she was going to do. I moved quickly but Ophelia was quicker, she flashed out of one spot and re-appeared in front of him, lips drawn back in a snarl of defiance, arms spread wide as if creating a defensive screen. I was taking the more prosaic route across the floor, so was too slow to stop what happened next.

  Ffion spat out a phrase, jerked her head and Ophelia was flung backwards against Adam with such force that we heard the breath knocked out of them as they collided. Arms and legs tangled, they fell heavily. Sasha screamed once, loudly. I don’t think she’d been hurt, but she dropped as fast as they had, I think she’d fainted dead away, which was probably for the best.

  I was bending down, with dreadful trepidation towards my immobile parents, when a dismembered arm flew heavily over my head, so close I felt the weight and wind of its passage. Ducking reflexively, I turned to look behind me, then wished I hadn’t. Heading into the library was what looked like an army of the dead, and they weren’t all in one piece. I guessed this might qualify, in Alfred’s phraseology, as situation normal even more fouled up!

  Hurtling at speed, and unerringly hitting their now cringing, flinching targets were arms and hands, so many hands, not to mention truncated torsos and disembodied heads – bone-white, petrified clay, yet full of vicious intention and attrition and seemingly moving of their own volition. Ffion, Karl and Max were being herded into a corner of the room by the swirling, heaving mass around them; limbs and bodies hitting limbs and bodies, crashing, batting, lethally swiping.

  Felicia, pink-quilted to the neck, was standing in the doorway, her own hands folded primly before her.

  “I waited,” she said acidly, “For someone to bring up my afternoon tea. But everyone was obviously too busy to bother.” She surveyed her family reprovingly, letting her eye run over Charley, still comatose in front of the fire, Adam, Ophie and Sasha piled up by the doorway and then the three, besieged in the corner and shook her head.

  “Honestly!” She said and moved back towards the stairs. As she turned, the swirling, twisting hands, arms, faces and figures began to smash to the floor, the air was filled with noise and clay dust.

  “Wait,” I called out, as nobody else seemed inclined to stop her. She turned to look at me. “Thank you.” I said. She sniffed,

  “Down to you now, Ophelia’s girl. I’ve done my bit, given you a breathing space, but you know it’s not finished. Now get your act together, or pack and go, you’ve brought nothing trouble to this house. I’ll be in my room, should anybody want me.”

  Murray, Roland and Bella were busy with my parents and Sasha.

  “Spark out,” reported Murray. “Like her.” He jerked his head at Charley. He looked terrible, his mouth drawn down by worry and fear and he shook his head slowly at me. “Can’t be doing with all this business Sandy, heart won’t take it.” He put a pained hand to the offended organ as I stepped in front of him and the others, facing the three in the corner. Enough was enough, it was time to defuse the situation before things became even more lethally horrifying.

  Etty had remained seated and impassive throughout – did the woman have no nerves? I looked over briefly at her and she met my eye and raised an eyebrow, but that wasn’t a road I had any intention of going down. I turned away, I’d do it my way, not hers, on my own.

  Ffion straightened up slowly, as did Max and Karl, either side of her. Neither of the men had been particularly remarkable before, in fact Max’s receding chin and overlong, pointed nose had previously lent him a slightly silly, rodent-like air, but now neither he nor Karl looked harmless at all. Their expressions were a combination of fury and deep, deep affront. Ffion’s impeccable bob was no longer quite so impeccable, and she impatiently blew an irritating strand of hair away from her nose. She should have looked slightly ridiculous, she didn’t at all, rather she was all green glinting malevolence. This seemed to have turned into something of a power struggle and I sensed it came with the heft and accumulation of years of similar struggles. But for God’s sake, this was the twenty-first century a
nd wasn’t it about time that sheer common sense and self-preservation prevailed.

  I held up my hand, the dignified effect of which was immediately spoilt as I was nearly knocked off my feet by a weight hitting the side of my legs. There was a bit of heavy breathing, both his and mine as I regained my balance and Rostropovich, still leaning protectively against me, growled low in his throat. I raised my right hand again and let the left one rest on the wolf’s head, it was a convenient height, and to be honest at this point, support wasn’t to be sneezed at and I was kind of getting used to having him around.

  “This stops here.” I said. Ffion sneered which I didn’t take as a good sign that negotiation might be on the cards. She circled her head on her neck as if it was stiff and needed kinks removing. Then she made an odd little moue with her mouth and a wasp slowly crawled out.

  For a moment, it hung there on her lower lip, then took flight, lazily circling above her head. I tried to keep my face immobile but don’t think I successfully hid my instinctive revulsion. Ffion smiled and opened her mouth again, expelling several more large wasps. The circle grew bigger and more crowded and in the silent room, the ominous buzzing of busy wings was audible. Next to me, Rostropovich growled again, I could feel the deep reverberation run through his body under my hand. He made to move forward, but I said softly,

  “No.” And he instantly stopped, you’ve got to love a well-trained wolf. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Charley, beginning to stir in front of the fire. Great, just what we needed, someone else to join the party. I wanted to step back and away from the widening wasp circle, but knew instinctively, that would be seen as weakness. I was holding Ffion’s gaze and she was drinking in and relishing my reaction. As wasps continued to crawl lazily, one by one out of her mouth, I could feel a sapping of my strength alongside growing dizziness and nausea. I staggered a little, and the animal beside me adjusted his weight so he was supporting me better, I now had my hand twisted in the thick fur at his neck and hung on gratefully. But I could feel something odd happening to my mind, it was that sensation you often get as you fall asleep, a slipping away of reality to be replaced with another equally strong reality that makes no sense whatsoever, before you drift away from that too.