by Katie M John
“I’d say, quite a lot …” Fox echoed her sister’s hand gesture and they laughed.
“But seriously, Fox, you’ve got to go to the police with what you’ve seen. Do you know for certain if she is dead?”
Fox shook her head. “Not yet, but I have a feeling it is going to be soon. The moon is waxing and tomorrow she will be at her most powerful.”
“Then whatever you tell the police has got to help.”
“How about I tell them who’s taken her?”
Swan’s eyes rounded with surprise. “You know that?”
“Yes, but when I tell you, you really will think I’m crazy!”
“Who is it? Do we know him? Oh, my, I don’t think I want to know.” Swan breathed in deeply. “Okay, tell me.”
“It’s not a him, she’s been taken by the Ravenheart sisters.”
“No!” Swan shook her head. “I know they’re a bit out there but… really?”
Fox nodded her head. “Really. They’re planning on using her as part of a ritual to call forth The Ancient Ones.”
Swan didn’t respond at first. The atmosphere had turned so heavy that it compressed the lungs making it hard to breathe. She fixed Fox’s eye and something ran between them, some elemental bond of understanding. Until that moment, Fox had never realised she and her sister could communicate telepathically; she’d always assumed Swan had been astute, sensitive. She never knew that all this time, her sister had been able to dance around her thoughts and steal every secret. It hadn’t been highly sensitive hearing, it had been thought reaping. Now, Swan’s voice spoke loud and clear in Fox’s head despite no sound coming from her mouth.
“Don’t ever mention the Ancient Ones in voice. Do not speak of this with anybody, especially our mother. I am with you. Share your vision with me.”
Fox’s mouth hung open, her eyes wide with new knowledge. Swan’s thought-voice was stronger than Fox could ever have imagined. It resonated strength and courage and was in complete contrast to Swan’s exterior delicacy.
Fox shook her head and began to speak from her mouth but Swan placed her finger over Fox’s lips and commanded her through thoughts, “Think-speak. If we are overheard we’re in mortal danger. The Ancient Ones have ears everywhere.”
Fox focused hard, hearing her own voice in her head, forming the words carefully, watching Swan’s face for a reaction that showed she was receiving. “Can you hear me?”
Swan nodded.
“I can’t call forth the vision. I feel so weak.”
“You must. Close your two eyes and open up you third. Feel the eye taking in the light so it can see.”
Fox felt strangely submissive under this new awesome voice of her sister and she did as she was bid. It was hard; she didn’t really want to open her eye. The sense of horror still felt like a dark stain. She felt her heart beat rise and a dull ache settle in her chest.
“Don’t forget to breathe, Fox!”
Fox gasped for air and found herself hurled back through her consciousness into the realm of visions. Her visions pounded past her, as if they were running away from something terrifying. The overall effect was that of a film on fast forward and they added to her sense of disorientation. She felt sick. Sounds layered upon sounds. Screams and chants, hollers and weeping all rolled together boisterously. Bright, white lights flashed like Morse-code so that she was forced to back away squinting. There was no clarity to any of it. There was no hope she could work out from all the psychic mess where Martha was. There was no saving her.
“It’s no good!” Fox cried. “Everything is such a jumble. There’s more than just Martha. It’s like a whole history trying to be heard.”
“Don’t be too hard on yourself, Fox. It takes time to cultivate your gifts. I have something else we can try when we go nettle picking later.”
Fox looked at her sister in a new and strange light. Until now, Swan had always appeared mostly normal, apart from her slightly whimsical ability to entice small woodland creatures into her hand or the way she sang to the four winds, but now Fox understood her sister had much stronger powers than she’d yet displayed, and Fox wasn’t entirely sure as to how she felt about this; part of her felt slightly afraid - after all, the mind talking stuff was pretty crazy shit.
Fox stood and gathered her stuff. Her sister seemed surprised Fox should be about to continue her usual Wednesday routine and cocked her head in question.
“I’m fine!” Fox said defiantly. “I just want to try and go on as normal as I can.”
Swan flicked her golden hair and a waft of jasmine perfume erupted from her. “Okay!” she sighed. “I’ll catch up with you later.”
Fox smiled. “Laters!” As she walked out of the door, she heard Swan’s voice loud and clear in her head.
“Be safe, sister.”
A chill ran up Fox’s spine.
7
Fox reluctantly took the last seat on the school bus next to Jeremiah, which considering they had at least a two-hour study date ahead of them, shouldn’t have bothered Fox as much as it did. He, on the other hand, seemed really pleased fate had worked to bring them more time together. As the engine started, sealing Fox’s fate, Bunny couldn’t resist turning around and flashing Fox a big, cheesy grin. If Jeremiah hadn’t been attempting to engage her in an intensely energetic conversation about the Heargton lay-lines, she would have replied with the highly mature response of sticking out her tongue.
“So, what I’ve discovered is – Heargton rests exactly on the intersection between two lines.”
“You discovered that, did you?” Fox couldn’t help the mocking tone.
“Well, I read it.” He rolled his eyes in minor exasperation. “Do you know what the consequence of that is?”
Fox shook her head. “Why don’t you tell me?”
“It means Heargton is the perfect portal for paranormal activity!”
“Really?” Fox replied in her most bored tone.
“What? Like those bloody idiots that ‘av been taking out the eyes of Bartly’s mares?” Smithdon asked from the driver’s seat.
“My mam says it’s the work of Satanists,” said Jimmy, a rather loud-mouthed Year Eight who had the unfortunate look of a far too closely-mixed gene pool.
“Satanists?” Jeremiah asked, practically leaping out of his seat with excitement before leaning forward between the front seats. “Hey, Smithdon, is it true what Jimmy says, that they think there are Satanists in the area?”
Fox was somewhat surprised by the sudden excitement the idea created in Jeremiah.
“Put your belt on!” Smithdon snapped. “You elder ones are meant to be settin’ a ruddy example.”
Fox smirked at Jeremiah being put so unceremoniously back in his place. Jeremiah fell back into his seat and clipped his belt, muttering something inaudible under his breath before pulling out as much belt as possible and swinging around in his seat.
“Hey, Jimmy,” Jeremiah called, but Jimmy had stuck his earphones in and was blasting himself to premature deafness. With no one else to turn to, he turned his attention back to Fox. “So, Satanists? Well it wouldn’t surprise me. These transecting lay lines are like honey to a bee for those weirdos.”
“Pollen.”
“Pardon?”
“Bee’s make honey, they’re not attracted to it – they’re attracted to pollen!”
Jeremiah stared at her, his mental cogs whirling. His brows knitted together and then he dipped his head into her personal space and whispered, “Where do you get off being such a bitch?”
Fox recoiled, surprised by his quickly changing mood. “I…I…” she stammered.
“No, I’ve had to put up with your shit all day. You’ve been rude, cold, and condescending. What exactly is your problem, Foxy?”
“It’s not me that has the problem!” she snapped, bringing the fleeting attention of those sitting around her.
Expecting Jeremiah to retreat, she was surprised to feel him close in, his lips brushing her ear and his br
eath hot on her neck. “Is it because you want me to kiss you and you just don’t know how to ask?”
Fox’s heart thumped. Adrenalin coursed through her body. She felt a great swell of anger and she wasn’t sure she had the strength to contain it. Before she could fully register what she was doing, the sound of a crack startled her. Jeremiah clutched his cheek, rearranged his jaw, and smiled.
Fox felt the eyes of the whole bus stare at her.
“Wow, lady – you sure know how to slap!”
If it had been anybody else, she would have collapsed into an apologetic heap. She’d never hit anybody in her life, and yet she couldn’t get over the fact Jeremiah had totally deserved it.
“Everything all right back there?” Smithdon asked, clearly amused that the cocky Yank had got his come-uppance.
Fox caught Swan staring at her in the rear view mirror but she had decided to stay well out of it – not even a crazy mind message. Bunny was grinning from ear to ear, soaking up the drama.
Fox glanced at Jeremiah sideways. He was still rubbing his grinning jaw, playing on the drama of it but Fox also saw that when he thought she wasn’t looking, he winced with genuine discomfort. The thought of it made her feel good.
He spent the rest of the journey sulking. Fox left him to it and retrieved her headphones from her pocket. Two could play at the no-speaking game, and she certainly wasn’t going to apologise. He was being a complete ass - the only thing you need to apologise for is not hitting him harder, the internal said in her haughtiest voice.
When Smithdon pulled up outside The Green Man (the stop for most of his passengers) Jeremiah bundled out of the bus after Fox.
“So you’re still on for a study date, then?” Fox asked.
He flashed her a tight smile and rubbed at his jaw. “I thought I’d brave it out.” He laughed and Fox’s smile betrayed her.
Fox hadn’t really put much thought into where they should go to study. All she did know was, she didn’t want Jeremiah in their home. It wasn’t that the small cottage embarrassed her, more she felt protective over it, which was silly as Jeremiah posed no threat.
With typically awkward timing, Wren was watering the flower baskets either side of Moonstone’s door. Seeing her daughter, she raised a hand and waved, then she saw Jeremiah and an unreadable emotion passed over her face, but it was so fleeting Fox couldn’t rightly interpret it. She half raised a hand back and smiled.
“Is that your mum?” Jeremiah asked casually enough.
“Yeah.”
“Does she work there?”
“It’s our shop.”
Fox knew he was looking at the shop sign with its golden pentagram and at the crystals, which made up most of the shop window display.
“Very… New Age!” he said distractedly. Fox blushed. The way he said it made it all seem slightly silly. “There are loads of shops like that down in the Village. My sister, Lucia, is quite into all that…” his sentence trailed off, unwilling to define exactly what it was.
“Anyway,” Fox sighed, “I guess the library is a good place to start. They close at five so we’ve only got an hour and a half.”
She turned and walked off in the direction of the library but Jeremiah continued to look at the shop with a fascinated curiosity before shaking his head and following after her.
The library was empty except for the lady who Fox recognised as the crazy bat who spent a lot of her days sat on the well at the center of the village, feeding the pigeons. When their mother had caught Fox and Bunny saying cruel things about her, she had sent them both to bed without their supper; a surprising display of hard discipline from their otherwise soft and gentle mother. In the morning, Wren had told them “that crazy old bat” was called Mrs. Higgins, and she had once been young and beautiful, just as they were now. She went on to say something terrible had happened to her, which had sent her into a great sadness from which she had never returned. She told them they should think on that next time they were tempted to mock her. Wren had refused to tell the girls what exactly had happened to Mrs. Higgins and so in retaliation, Fox had continued to think of the old woman as the crazy old bat. But today, when she looked on the sad, wretched figure of a woman, Fox felt a pang of remorse. Fox had spent five minutes staring at her, lost in her thoughts whilst Jeremiah had been flicking through the pages of a local history book.
“Did you know Heargton is reputed to be one of the most haunted villages in the world?”
“Um ha!” she offered, still focused on Mrs. Higgins, who was now nibbling on a sandwich, which she was attempting to hide in her handkerchief. Fox hoped it was clean.
“And the village has long been associated with witchcraft! That is very interesting – especially in light of…” He trailed off, noting Fox was not paying him hardly any attention. “You’re not listening to a word I’m saying, are you?”
Fox pulled her attention back to him. He was sat with his hands laced, his fingers tapping against his lips.
“Are you still upset with me for what I said on the bus? You know I was only teasing, don’t you? I wouldn’t have said it if I thought you weren’t going to find it funny.”
Fox looked at him. She really didn’t believe he’d meant it to be funny. He hadn’t been in a joking kind of mood. She wasn’t sure what kind of mood he’d been in.
Fox nodded. “Of course!”
“Then why did you slap me?”
“You deserved it!”
“What for? Because you thought I was flirting with you?”
“Yes!”
“I thought you’d be flattered!”
Fox almost choked on her cough.
“What’s so funny?” he asked, genuinely surprised by her reaction.
“You!” she managed to cough out.
“You’re really not in the mood for this are you?” he said.
Fox screwed her eyes together and wrinkled her nose. She was trying her best to focus on the project, but her thoughts were all over the place. It seemed totally wrong, sitting here working on schoolwork when poor Martha was suffering unimaginable terrors. She was also increasingly disturbed by Jeremiah’s interest in Heargton’s more paranormal past. She had hoped it would be at least a few weeks before he discovered the darker aspects of the village history – a history far too closely connected to her own. She shook her head and sighed heavily.
“I’m really sorry. I’ve got a hideous headache,” she offered.
“Are you unwell?”
Fox screwed her face back up in question.
Jeremiah continued, “It’s just that you’ve been having those fits and now you have a headache; perhaps you should get checked out.”
She was about to offer a snappy response telling him to mind his own, but then she saw he seemed genuinely concerned about her welfare.
“I’m fine. I think I just want to go and have an early night. Can we reschedule?”
“Of course. Why don’t you come to mine Sunday afternoon?”
Fox stood and packed her bag. She nodded and offered him a smile.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said, returning to his book. Fox was surprised he wasn’t going to head off himself. She didn’t really have him down as the library-mole kind.
She headed out into the village and saw the parish council had been busy preparing for the New Light Festival – a strange local tradition, which had been revived with increasing enthusiasm, and opportune commercialism, in recent years. The New Light Festival involved a quaint craft market, a bonfire, the local business club running a mulled wine stall, and late night openings for the handful of stores in the village. There was also a procession headed by one specially selected village girl, who would visit each house of the village on the night of the first full winter moon. She would be dressed in the ceremonial robes of the Queen of the Flame (which also served as the Angel Gabriel’s costume at the annual St. Ursula’s Nativity service.) In procession, she would carry a lit taper to each house and light the “receiving candle,” wh
ich occupants left out on their doorsteps.
Traditionally, when all the houses had had real fires, the owner would light the fire from the receiving candle, which served to bless the house for the coming year. Now, most of the house owners just took the candle (often placed inside a jam jar) into the home and put it on the dining table. Wren used it to light Meadowsweet Cottage’s yule log, combining the two ancient rituals into one powerful blessing spell.
Fox was hit by a sense of sadness as she recalled that this year it had been Martha Paisley who had been selected to be The Queen of the Flame. Fox watched the parish committee continue their preparations regardless of Martha’s disappearance. Fox recalled how grumpy Bunny had been that she’d been overlooked for another year. She was desperately aware that if she didn’t get selected next year, she would miss her chance. The Queen of The Flame had to be under seventeen years old. Swan had been chosen when she was just nine years old but Fox, thankfully, had avoided the humiliating spectacle of being dressed in a white dress and ivy headdress.
The small ceremonial fire from which the taper would be lit, with great ceremony and usually to the soundtrack of dodgy microphone feedback, had been set on the elevated stone in the middle of the well trough.
Heargton Well wasn’t the wishing-well type, but was a large structure consisting of four sturdy stone pillars and a red-clay tile roof. A rectangular stone basin took up most of the floor space, into which natural spring water pooled. One side of the basin had a channel cut into the side, allowing the water to run down and overflow into a round metal grid inserted into the stone floor. The grid denoted the well. A reputedly endless stone chamber, which led straight to Hell itself – or so the children’s tale went.
It had originally been built as a place for the animals to drink and for the women to wash clothes and gather drinking water (they weren’t particularly bothered by the notion of hygiene and it was preferable to the lanolin polluted stream that ran to the side of the village.) Now, the well had become the center of village life and was often decorated with flowers, bunting and small ceremonial fires. People had almost forgotten the well had once also been used for far more macabre rituals; that way back in Heargton’s history, the large oak beams which supported the roof, had once been used as gallows, and that several infamous locals had lost their lives there, including the highwayman Bob Tussock and the Heathmoor witches.