by James Rhodes
Hettford Witch Hunt: Series Two
James Rhodes
Copyright 2014 by James Rhodes
SmashWords Edition
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The Hettford Witch Hunt:
Series Two
By James Rhodes
Hettford Witch Hunt: Series Two
© James Rhodes, 2014
This edition published January 22, 2014
e-Vent Publishing
Distributor: SmashWords
Contents
Episode One – The Strange Luck of Gary Turlough
Episode Two: Three for a Girl
Episode Three: A Conspiracy of Ravens
Episode Four: Goin’ to the Chapel
Episode Five: Buffet the Witch Slayer
Episode Six: The Mad Monk
Episode One – The Strange Luck of Gary Turlough
1.
Dawn did not break gently through a crack in the curtains, it burst through the window like a flood of raw sewage as they wrenched open. Gary stared at Alison; as if a sheer effort of will might get her to stop tidying his bedroom. Alison appeared to be making as much noise as humanly possible whilst dusting and hoovering the room. Pulling the covers over his eyes, Gary tried to choke down the anger he felt at Alison showing up all of a sudden and waking him up by cleaning.
“You need to get out of that bed,” Alison told him.
“What for?”
“I need to change the sheets.”
Gary would be damned if he was going to submit to that level of bullying.
“I’ll change the sheets when they get dirty,” he told her.
“I want them to be fresh.”
Gary's hopes rose. He let his eyes sneak out from under the covers.
“Are you moving back in?”
“No.”
Gary swung his legs out of the bed, taking the covers with them. Gary stood up, feeling entirely self-conscious that he was only in his underpants.
“Bollocks to this,” he declared.
With that, Gary left the room. He stomped his feet as he descended the stairs. Then, a thought occurred to him and he stomped back up to the room.
“Don’t go in my drawers,” he cautioned Alison.
“Well, they’re all going to have to be emptied,” she told him.
“Oh, it’s that day is it? I thought you said I had till June.”
“That was when I thought it would make you get your shit together and get a job.”
“I had a fucking job Alison but it wasn’t good enough, remember?”
“I do remember and it wasn’t good enough, not even close.”
Gary folded his arms.
“Well, it was better than having no recourse against being evicted by my ex-girlfriend. You could have at least warned me you were coming.”
“How would I do that Gary? You don’t have a phone, you don’t have the internet.”
“I have a fucking letter box.”
“I didn’t know I’d be coming until yesterday.”
“Well then, I guess you should have sent a telegram; or do they not have them in Leeds?”
Alison ran her finger across the top of the dresser.
“When was the last time you dusted this?”
Gary thought about it.
“Oh, fuck off,” he answered.
“Charming.”.
Gary adopted an irony laced aristocratic accent:
“You’ll have to excuse me; we have become unaccustomed to company.”
“Really, I’d have thought you’d have had Julie over here in flash.”
“Well, hold the front page – you were wrong.”
“So what? You’ve just been moping here, jobless, friendless and sexless?”
“And food-less, don’t forget food-less.”
“You’re a sad act Gary; I can’t believe how pathetic you’ve become.”
Gary clucked his tongue:
“Well, you’ll be spoiled to Neville now.”
“I am.”
Gary shook his head.
“Of all the names, Neville…”
“You don’t know anything about him.”
“I know he’s a cunt.”
“No you don’t. He’s really funny, you’d like him.”
Gary twisted his face in undisguised disgust.
“I’m sure he’s wonderful, everybody loves smelly Neville.”
“Don’t call him that.”
Gary flinched at the hurt in Alison’s voice.
“Really?”
Alison stared at him.
“I couldn’t wait for you to get your life sorted forever and I have been paying your rent for the past few months.”
Gary took a deep breath.
“Have you got a few quid? I’ll use it to buy bin bags to put my belongings in.”
Alison handed him a twenty pound note.
“Can you buy me some bacon too?”
As soon as Gary left the house, Alison opened his drawers and began to read his notebook.
2.
Twenty pounds went a long way at Discount News: Gary had bacon, eggs, bread, sausages, beans, bin bags and a newspaper.
“That will be eight pounds and ten pence,” Paul told him.
Gary handed Paul the money but his eyes moved up to meet those of Tajel.
“Have you won the lottery or something?” she asked him.
“Definitely something?”
“How is Shelley?”
Gary gave her a blank look.
“You mean Alison.”
“No, the new tenant. Alison’s cousin. You do know about her, right? She was supposed to be moving in today.”
“Of course, I know. I’d just forgotten her name; with you around, Tajel, it’s hard to remember other women exist.”
Tajel laughed.
“So you didn’t know then?”
“No.” Gary admitted.
Tajel laughed even harder.
“She sounds nice, my dad spoke to her on the phone; apparently she’s dead brainy.”
“Brainy and nice,” said Gary, “she’s sure to be a looker then.”
Paul gave Gary his change.
“Will that be all?” Paul asked.
“I assure you Paul, I’ve got more than I expected.”
Gary turned to leave the shop.
“Let me know what she’s like,” cooed Tajel.
3.
Dan held aloft a small Thermos flask with a paternal pride that could easily have been accompanied by Elton John singing The Circle of Life.
“What is that?” Milton asked.
“This,” replied Dan, “is genius.”
“OK, but more specifically, what is it?”
“It is my greatest invention to date.”
“A shop bought Thermos flask.”
“Not one shop bought Thermos flask, six shop bought Thermos flasks.”
“OK and it’s your invention because no-one has ever brought them together before? The six pack Thermos for the teetotal mountain climber out on the town.”
Dan reddened:
“It’s not the flasks that are the invention. It’s what’s inside them.”
“And what is inside them?”
“Milk.”
Milton paused and shook his head, almost imperceptibly.
“You’re right; that is quite, quite
brilliant.”
Dan crimsoned:
“Stop taking the piss, I’m serious.”
“Well then explain it.”
“It’s all about milk triangulation.”
Dan’s calm voice belied his underlying frustration.
“Milk triangulation?”
“Yes.”
“I think I’m going to need a cup of tea before you explain this.”
“No you won’t,” barked Dan, “it’s perfectly simple.”
“Can I get a cup anyway?”
“No, listen: we put the milk in the flask, we put the flasks in the woods and then we leave the milk there.”
Milton walked to the kettle and turned it on.
“I’m still listening,” he said.
“That’s it.”
“We just leave milk in the woods, that’s your invention.”
“No, I told you, it’s milk triangulation.”
“Perhaps it’s me Dan. Perhaps, I’m just not getting it.”
“Well, what happens to milk when a witch is near?”
“It sours.”
“So, if we place the milk around the wood we’ll be able to get a fix on which part of the wood the witch is in.”
“And then?”
“Then we can focus on the areas with sour milk, until we isolate a small search area.”
Milton shrugged.
“I suppose it’s worth a go. You’d need a test Thermos to stay in our garden to maintain the scientific process. Make sure that the milk wasn’t souring on its own. We want to be scientific about it.”
“Good thinking,” Dan told him.
4.
The inviting smell of bacon filled Alison's nostrils and distracted her from reading Gary's notebook. However, she did notice that Gary's notebook was filled with, mostly quite bad, poetry about her. She wandered down the stairs to find Gary placing the crispy bacon on to an awaiting slice of white bread.
“Did you get any lettuce,” she asked.
“Salad doesn't live here anymore,” he told her.
“Looks good anyway.”
“It does, now who the fuck is Shelley?”
Alison took her bacon without being the least bit phased by the comment.
“Shelley is my cousin.”
“And she's coming to live in the house isn't she?”
Alison nodded.
“Well, it's just as well there's nobody else living here.”
Gary let the comment hang in the air for a moment and then continued.
“Wait a moment... I live here don't I?”
Alison pulled a face: it was the face that Alison made when she knew that Gary had already lost an argument. Gary wasn't about to put up with that now they were no longer a couple and sex wasn't at stake. He didn't give her time to speak:
“I suppose I can just set out camp in the yard. Don't worry, I'll be fine. I've read Stigg of the Dump.”
“If you'll just shut up long enough, I can tell you exactly what's happening.”
“Me shut up? You're the one who says I don't talk enough.”
Alison's triumphant face took on a look of stern reckoning, that wasn't to be reckoned with. Gary shut up.
“I went to my Aunt's for dinner: her and my uncle asked about you.”
“I've never even met them.”
“We were together a long time; they have heard about you.”
“I should fucking hope so! Have they heard about smelly Neville?”
“Can I continue?”
“Sure.”
Alison sighed.
“OK, so I was telling them about your witch-hunting thing. I was making fun of it, to be perfectly honest.”
“Nothing new there.”
“And I mentioned that the witches were burned in the Eighteenth century. Whereupon, my cousin Shelley said they couldn't have because the English didn't burn witches and the last trial was in the Seventeenth century.”
“Shows what she knows.”
“Well, she's a Ph.D. student in history, she wanted to come and investigate it.”
“And you thought, you'd just kick me out of my house and give it to her?”
“No, I thought that it might make my life easier if she paid you the rent here: with an extra twenty pounds so that you can eat or whatever.”
“She's taking over the rent?”
“Yes, and paying it directly to you. You'll have to give it to the Patels and keep the change.”
“Oh, I guess that's OK then. But where am I going to sleep?”
“In the study?”
“Does she know that I never pay the bills?”
“Yes, she's willing to pay them if you work as a research assistant.”
“How does she know that I'm willing to do that?”
“Because, if you don't I'll fucking murder you.”
Gary's eyes widened with obvious appreciation.
“Thanks, I could kiss you; except we've broken up.”
The tiles of the kitchen reverberated with the hum of the fridge; a steady note that hung in the air. The hum was not quite loud enough to drown out the silence that followed Gary's last remark. Gary fancied that Alison's eyes had the glimmer of tears in them as she looked up at him and said:
“Keep remembering that.”
5.
Dan was out of breath and sitting on a rock wall that didn't look fully capable of taking his weight. The capillaries of Dan's face were delivering blood to it with such efficiency that his cheek bones looked capable of generating electrical power. Dan folded his arms over his gut and took controlled breaths to mask his discomfort.
“Can’t Carrie come to pick us up?” Dan asked.
Milton shook his head with an air of implied superiority. He began to stretch his hamstrings, as if to rub salt into the wound.
“Carrie is at work Dan. Come on, this was your idea.”
“This used to be a lot easier when Gary had a car,” Dan mumbled.
Milton sighed out of sheer, frustration. Dan was looking at Milton as if it were anyone's fault except Dan's that Gary was no longer part of the Hettford Witch Hunt.
“We suspended Gary, remember?”
“Yes, but he could still pick us up.”
It took Milton a second to repress his irritation at Dan's suggestion; especially when he took into consideration the state that Gary had been moping around the village in.
“I think his phone has been cut off, besides Alison took the car.”
“I thought it was his car,” said Dan.
“It was, she took it anyway.”
“What a bitch, I always said she was a bitch.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Well, I must have thought it at least.”
Milton frowned. A part of him suspected that Dan was trying to cause an argument so that he didn't have to walk any further. He bit his lip and measured his voice carefully:
“It wasn’t Alison who suspended Gary from the hunt, Dan.”
“Well, he might be a witch; we can’t just have him hunting witches.”
“He’s not a witch.”
“He did witchcraft. How does that not make him a witch?”
Now that Dan's voice was not contracted from a shortness of breath, it took on an arrogant tone of certainty. It was the tone of voice that awoke Milton's inner child. Milton felt his shoulders tighten as he fought to maintain an adult level of control over his emotions.
“Look, doing witchcraft once doesn’t make you a witch. Carrie did witchcraft to summon the witches to our house.”
Dan sneered at the mention of Milton's girlfriend:
“I’m saying nothing mate.”
“Carrie did witchcraft to summon the witches to our house. On your suggestion.”
“That was different, we were fighting witchcraft with witchcraft.”
Milton gave into the frustration. He raised his hands in the air as if he were trying to grasp at Dan's sense of rationality.
/> “Gary didn’t even write the spell,” the pitch of Milton's voice raised an octave.
“He still used it.”
“So what are you saying? He would be OK to drive us to witch hunting locations so long as he didn’t get out of the car.”
Dan scratched his nose calmly.
“I’m just saying, this would be a lot easier if you would learn to drive.”
“I can drive.”
“Bought a car then, can’t you buy a car?”
“Don’t you get a bus pass for being on disability?”
“You and I both know that I no longer qualify for that.”
Dan’s voice took on a threatening edge as he spoke.
“Yes and you and I both know what that means for me.”
Dan tugged his forelock.
“Oh and what does it mean squire.”
“It means I can’t afford to run a car.”
Dan scratched his neck.
“Fair point,” he said.
Dan sprung to his feet and set out walking.
“Are you coming?”
Milton sighed and stepped quickly to catch up with his friend.
6.
Alison was resting against the kitchen sideboard. Her bottom pressed against the curvature of the plywood and taunted Gary who, prior to her arrival, had not spoken to anyone for six days: let alone had a chance to ogle them.
“What’s the mark on the floor?”
Gary looked down at a spot where a grass snake had fallen and left a mark in the linoleum. He knew instinctively that explaining the set of circumstance that lead up to the stain being on the floor was more hassle than it was worth.
“I dropped some spaghetti and it stained the floor. That’s what I get for buying expired bolognaise sauce.”
“Are you sure? It looks like you’ve drawn the letter g in crayon. Badly.”
Gary nodded.
“Yes I’m sure, quite aside from the fact that I’m not four frigging years old, do you really think I have money to blow on crayons?”
The shake of Alison's head had nothing to do with his question about crayons: It was more like a complete and total disavowal of Gary and everything he stood for. Gary, who had been living off a cold soup he had invented: consisting of dried pulses, salt, water and Worcester sauce, was too moved by the taste of bacon to crave her approval.
“Look down on me all you want Alison,” he said, “but it will cost you dinner too.”
Alison let the thought sit for a minute.
“I have missed you, you know?”
Gary shrugged, he wanted to make a gibe about Neville but he also wanted to cry and beg her to come back to him. He scrunched his face in ambivalence.