Killer Witch in Westerham

by Dionne Lister

  I put some plastic over my Nikon so it wouldn’t get wet—leaving a gap for the lens and viewing hole—grabbed my bag, which had the crime-scene photo inside, and trotted downstairs. I needed Angelica’s car again, which meant driving in the atrocious weather. Unfortunately, I was leaving before I’d had a chance to see Liv. Surely she wasn’t avoiding me on purpose? Maybe she’d had stuff on after work or had to work late. Yep, that must be it. Positive thinking was what I needed right now. Getting down on myself wasn’t going to help me or Jeremy.

  I sprinted the short distance from the house to the car, the freezing rain biting my face and neck. Gah, I should have worn a scarf. Oh, I still could. I grinned. Being a witch had its great points. Once I was snug in the car, I magicked my scarf to myself, right onto my neck. How skilled was that? Out of all the things I could do with my magic, this had to be one of the most satisfying, which was probably crazy of me, but whatever. Being a forgetful person, magic was making my life a lot less disappointing because when I left the house without something I needed, it didn’t matter.

  I had a forty-minute drive ahead of me, northwest. St James’s Church in Cooling, the place where Trudie’s body had been found, was a quaint little church on a small plot in a rural setting. The village only had a few hundred people, if that, and my Google search earlier today showed it was surrounded mostly by fields. There was a house on one side, but that was it. I plugged my phone into the car charger and punched in the address. At least I’d have Siri’s company on the trip. Let’s not get into how pathetic that was. I started the engine, then turned right out of my driveway.

  The drizzle of earlier had turned into steady rain, and fifteen minutes into my trip, it increased to a downpour. I switched the radio off—it was that or turn it to near-deafening levels to drown out the thrum pounding on the car roof and the thunk, thunk, thunk of windscreen wipers. I drove below the speed limit, leaning forward, straining my eyes to see better. My jaw ached from my back teeth being jammed together with the stress of concentration. I probably should have done the drive in the daytime, set a landing spot, and travelled there tonight. Live and learn. Although, I’d never set one before, and I’d probably do something wrong and end up in the middle of a field ankle-deep in mud, or on someone’s roof, or in the middle of the road just in time for a car to hit me. Yikes. Okay, so driving was probably the way better option.

  My phone rang, and I started. Gah, I needed stress management classes. My damn phone was going to give me a heart attack one day. “Hey, Siri, answer the phone on speaker.”

  “Answering the call on speaker.” Thanks, Siri.

  “Hey, Lily, it’s Imani. I’m just checking you’re okay.”

  “Hi, Imani! I’m fine, thanks. How are you?”

  “All right, love. I just had a weird feeling and wanted to check on you.”

  “I’m driving in the rain, but other than that, I’m safe.”

  “Oh, where are—” The phone crackled, and whatever else she said came out garbled.

  “Hello? Imani, can you hear me? Imani?” No answer. Gah, stupid connection. It was so spotty on these country roads. The line finally cut out altogether. No gobbledegook. Nothing. Well, at least she knew I was okay, and I didn’t have the brain power to call her back while navigating these narrow, slick roads. The tightness in my chest loosened a tad when Siri announced my destination was coming up on my right. I slowed. I was going to drive past the church and check out the guard situation, then turn around, drive back, and park towards where I’d originally come from. There were a few spots cut into the area off the side of the road.

  Just before the road dog-legged to the left, around the church, my headlights shone on the side of a parked police car, revealing the silhouette of someone inside. The car was parked parallel to the church’s fence and partly blocking a farm driveway. Yes! As much as running about in the freezing rain wasn’t going to be fun, the weather had provided the best outcome—I was less likely to be noticed. I couldn’t know whether the person in the car was a witch or not, so my no-notice spell might not be effective. The cover of rain would hopefully be just as good. I was sure whoever was in the car didn’t expect anyone to be wandering about tonight and hopefully wasn’t paying much attention. With some luck, they were having a nap.

  There was a quick right turn as the road snaked around the church. A row of trees obscured most of St James’s, but I caught glimpses of it as I crawled past.

  I drove down the road for a bit before finding a place to turn around. As I did that, I cast my no-notice spell—I should be out of range of police detection. The perfect parking spot sat about fifty metres from St James’s, right in front of a vacant plot of land. It may have belonged to one of the houses next to it. It was hard to tell in the dark. Across the road, fields sprawled into the darkness. No wonder the killer had chosen this place to dump the body—it was unlikely you’d run into someone in the middle of the night.

  I wrestled my raincoat out of my bag. Oh, crap. It was bright yellow. Of course it was. Idiot, Lily. I couldn’t wear that. Angelica had a clear one. I should have thought to borrow it, but now I couldn’t magic it to me because I didn’t know exactly where it was—she could be wearing it for all I knew—and I didn’t want to use magic, just in case anyone nearby was a witch and picked up on it. I shook my head at my stupidity. It seemed it was never-ending. Shame there was no spell to make it go away. I knew a few people who could have used an anti-stupidity spell too.

  Time to suck it up. I’d be done in ten minutes, and then I just had to brave a five-minute drive before I could dry my clothes magically, right? I gave myself a firm nod, grabbed my camera, and hopped out.

  I ran, head down, through puddles that drenched the lower part of my legs. Gumboots would have been good. Note to self: plan better next time. Goosebumps popped up along my arms, and I shuddered. There was only one street light shining from across the road and no light coming from the church—creepy much?

  I climbed the low stone fence and carefully picked my way through headstones, my breath misting in the cold. I headed towards where the body had been found—behind a bush that was about halfway from the fence to the stone church. Yellow-and-black police tape cordoned off the area from there to the church in a wide arc. CRIME SCENE — DO NOT ENTER repeated along the tape. The law-abiding citizen in me was all too willing to obey, but I had to do what I had to do. I’d already broken the law a couple of times this week; what was one more? And there it was, the slippery slope we were all so close to sliding down. As I ducked under the tape, I wondered how much further down the law-breaking hill I was going to slide before this was over.

  I lifted my camera and turned it on. “Show me the killer dumping Trudie’s body.” The image that materialised wasn’t as dark as the previous ones, and in fact, there was more light in the picture than I had in real life. Still dressed in black and with a balaclava covering the face, there was nothing obvious about the person with their arms hooked under the victim’s underarms, as they set Trudie’s body down. The killer was at the victim’s back, facing the church. I snapped some shots, then moved my camera from my face so I could check the ground out. There wasn’t much to see in the dark, but it looked as if Trudie had been dragged at least part of the way to this spot.

  I raised my camera again. “Show me the killer again.” This time, the killer was standing above the body, gloved hands on hips. I really wasn’t having much luck, but maybe I could get the PIB to check out whether they had any gloves in evidence. If Jeremy had been the killer, chances were, he’d still have the gloves. If they couldn’t find any at his place, maybe that would be a point in his favour.

  Something caught my attention. Oh. My mouth dropped open. I could see the killer’s shoes, and this time, they weren’t sneakers, or boots, or anything gender-neutral. They were dark court shoes, women’s shoes with a low heel. I zoomed in and clicked.

  “I don’t know what you hope to find, missy photographer, but you’ve just snapped
your last shot.” I froze, recognising the voice.

  Whatever came next, I couldn’t have anyone discovering my photos. I turned and whispered, “Camera of mine, go back home, to the dining-room table, where someone will find you alone.”

  I was about to mumble a return-to-sender spell, but I was too late. A vortex gripped me, and St James’s disappeared. Nausea scrambled up my throat, and just as I was about to give in to it, I was falling through the air. As I slammed into the hard ground, pain sliced through my arm and head, but it wasn’t for long because everything faded to black.

  Chapter 15

  “Wake up, Lily,” the voice whispered.

  I groaned. Pain squeezed sharp, relentless fingers around my head. The nausea I’d blacked out to was still there but seemed minor in comparison to my headache. I lay on my side, on something uncomfortably cold and hard.

  “Lily? I need you to wake up. Please.” The voice was near to tears. Was I in hospital? No—no hospital bed was that uncomfortable, unless I was already dead and on a slab in the morgue. The person sniffed, then said, “If you’re awake, please answer me.” Did I have amnesia? I didn’t recognise the woman’s voice, but surely I knew them if they were that upset that I wasn’t waking up. Plus, she knew my name. I supposed I could just open my eyes and find out.

  I blinked. Light came from a lamp across the room, but it wasn’t bright, which was a good thing. But… I was viewing it through bars. I gasped. What the—

  “Oh, thank God you’re awake.” The voice came from behind me. I slowly shifted to my back and to my other side. Um, I was in a cage, surrounded by steel bars. I reached out to touch them, confirm I was seeing what I was seeing.

  “Don’t touch them!”

  I stopped and looked up. Holy crap, this wasn’t good. Well, maybe it was good because if you were going to be locked in a cage, you may as well have company. Jeremy’s first solicitor, Florence, sat in a cage next to mine. So that’s where she’d disappeared to. “Um, you picked a weird place for a holiday.” I didn’t smile, but at least my sense of humour was trying. Not much was truly broken in my brain, it seemed. The pain was probably nothing a couple of ibuprofens couldn’t fix. The cage was another matter.

  “The bars are magicked to give you an electric shock if you touch them or try and perform any magic.”

  “Ah, like the PIB ones.” I considered sitting up, but the way I felt, I’d need to lean back on something, and, well… not happening.

  “Why are you in here? You didn’t have much to help Jeremy’s case.”

  Last time she’d seen me, I was a witness. I’d need to tell her everything that had transpired, but first, I needed to confirm who’d put us here. “I didn’t really get a good look, but I recognised her voice last night. It’s Jeremy’s mother, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. Jeremy’s innocent. Look over there.”

  There was a steel table, like the ones you’d see in an operating room, and, above that, three rows of steel shelves that ran half the length of the brick wall. I squinted my eyes, shut them, opened them, blinked, but nope, I was seeing what I was seeing. “Oh, my God,” I whispered. So many emotions exploded within me at once: fear, anger, disbelief, and absolute horror. My mouth went dry, the moisture moving to my palms, making them sweaty and clammy. “Sweet, sweet, Jesus.”

  Jars lined the bottom shelf, which sat just above the height of the table. Hearts suspended in liquid were visible through the glass containers. On the shelf above the jars, one for each jar, was a row of busts that would normally be used as hat stands. Vomit shot to my mouth. I sat up quickly and made it to the edge of my cage in time, depositing dinner onto the concrete floor. “I’m so sorry.” I wasn’t sure if I was apologising to Jeremy’s lawyer for the vomit or if I was apologising to the victims whose faces stared back at me from those busts.

  Our own private horror movie.

  “How are they so lifelike? They don’t look dead.”

  “Magic. Catherine’s put some kind of spell on them.”

  “But why? Why would she do this?”

  A door squeaked open, and footsteps clicked on the floor. “Why, indeed,” Catherine’s smug voice replied. “You stupid bitches come sniffing around my boy, but you can’t have him. He’s mine. I gave birth to him, nurtured him, gave him everything. It broke my heart that he wouldn’t stay here by choice, so I had to make him. He has yet to learn that Mother knows best. Now everything he has is mine. Including you.” She smiled, lunacy blazing from her eyes. It was then I noticed she was wearing a plastic apron and gumboots. Wasn’t that what butchers wore to work?

  Adrenaline flooded my body. My breaths came quicker, and my heart raced—but my flight or fight response was wasted. All I could do was sit in my cage and glare.

  Catherine laughed. “Oh, poor, poor photographer. I’m crying for you, boo hoo. I saw the way you watched my son, salivating, waiting to get your claws into his fortune. You only have yourself to blame… oh, and Jeremy. If he knew how to keep it in his pants, we wouldn’t have this problem, but he just doesn’t listen to his mother. And that stupid Amanda. I cared for her in the beginning, lovely girl she was. She promised if I supported their relationship, she’d get him to stay, but then I discovered they were going to move to the US. That whole thing was upsetting, to say the least. Now he’s in jail, he’ll have a long time to think about what he’s done wrong.” She shook her head and tut-tutted. How had Jeremy turned out so normal, nice even, after having this evil witch as a mother? Maybe he was adopted.

  “I’m so disappointed in both of you. I’d thought you’d have more to say for yourselves.” I had a lot to say, but I didn’t think it would make any difference. I could stick up for her son, myself, Florence, but she would just argue. Although, the longer we kept her talking, the less time she had to rip our hearts out and faces off. Maybe it would give me time to think of some way to get out of here.

  “What can I say, other than you’re right. You got me. I loved that Jeremy was famous and had lots of money. Photography’s a hard gig to make money out of—so much competition and all that. He’s lucky to have a mother like you to look out for him.” Thank goodness Pinocchio wasn’t a real thing, because my nose would be sticking a foot out of the cage by now.

  She narrowed her eyes. Why couldn’t she be stupid as well as crazy? “Really, you’re changing your tune so quickly? You denied you liked him before.”

  “Look, I don’t like confrontation. I didn’t want Marcia to cancel me from the shoot, so I lied and said I didn’t like Jeremy, but the moment I met him, I wanted him. I mean, good-looking, famous, and rich? Sign me up.” I smiled through the pounding in my head. And to think, some women were really like this.

  Catherine walked past my cage and stood in front of Florence’s. “And then there’s you, Miss Hotshot Lawyer. Not only did you want to sleep with my son and leave your taint on him, but you were going to charge him four-hundred pounds an hour. I won’t have my son wasting his money like that.”

  “You mean your money, don’t you? You don’t give two figs about your son. You want him in jail so you can keep everything he’s worked hard for all his life.” Thank goodness Florence had some spirit. Unfortunately, I didn’t think it was going to help. Unless she managed to prod Catherine into a lunatic rage, although that could go either way. It might help us overcome her, or it might make everything worse.

  “It’s my money, missy. He made me suffer when he left me alone, so it’s only fair he pays me back, and he wouldn’t be where he is today if it wasn’t for me.”

  “What, in jail? You disgust me. Those women you killed weren’t after his money. You’re the leech, not them.” I was so jealous. She was making some great points. I guessed that was why she earned the big bucks.

  Catherine smiled and shrugged. “And this is why you’re going to be next. I don’t take kindly to those who disagree with me. Your attitude is intolerable.” Florence’s anger melted away with the retreating blood flow from her face. Catherine turned
to me. “You get to watch as I take out her deceiving heart and tear her beauty from her skull. She won’t tempt anyone after this. And in a few days, it will be your turn.” Catherine cackled, fulfilling the witch stereotype with gusto.

  I swallowed bile and resisted the urge to flinch. I had to stop this. What the hell could I do? My thoughts raced even faster than my heart. Think, Lily, think. There had to be a way. Florence had moved to the back of her cage, as far away from Catherine as she could get. But it wasn’t going to be nearly far enough.

  Catherine mumbled, and bolts of electricity zapped from bar to bar, from cage ceiling to floor. I didn’t feel the warmth I usually felt when it came to the power, but maybe it was because I was trapped in the cage and blocked off from my magic.

  “No!” I screamed. “Stop!”

  Florence’s body flopped around like a fish desperately clinging to life. The sizzle of power stopped, and she collapsed and lay still. My breath sawed in and out, as if I’d just sprinted a hundred-metre race. Was she still alive? Please, don’t be dead. I leaned forward as far as I could, careful not to touch the bars. Her chest rose and fell ever so slightly. I let out a huge relieved breath and looked up at Catherine. She smiled her evil smile and leaned into the cage.

  Catherine gripped Florence’s ankles and dragged her out of the cage, her head clunking on the floor as she exited.

  Was anyone coming for us? No one knew where I was. And even if I’d told Imani where I’d gone, she wouldn’t have found me there. For all I knew, I was in France or Ireland. Catherine could have sent me anywhere when she’d thrown her doorway around me, and she must have set it near the ceiling so I fell out and smashed into the ground. That made sense. My eyes widened. Is that what she’d done to Trudie? Thrown a doorway around Trudie’s doorway and sent her here, and in front of all of us? Could someone even do that?