by Jodi Taylor
Rushby is a pretty place. The sea was bright and calm. The fishing boats were chugging home and there were just enough people around to give the streets a lively atmosphere without too much overcrowding.
We wandered around, exploring the harbour and watching the fishing boats unload their catch. We peered in shop windows, and explored promising looking alleyways, until he asked me if I was hungry and I discovered, to my surprise, that I was.
We walked up the hill until we found a pretty café with a red and white striped awning and matching table cloths.
‘Inside or out?’ asked Jones.
‘Oh, outside, I think. This is so nice.’
And it was. The place was a little suntrap, and all the way up here we had a lovely view down over the town.
Jones took a great deal of care over his choices.
‘I’m hungry,’ he said simply, and continued to pour over the menu, eventually going for soup and two toasted sandwiches which confused everyone.
‘One for you and one for the lady?’ said the waitress.
‘No, two for me and the lady will choose her own.’
‘So you want two toasted sandwiches?’
‘And the soup.’
‘But only one soup?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you want soup?’ she said turning to me.
‘No, thank you, I’d like …’
‘So, soup and a toastie?’
‘No, soup and two toasties. Please.’
‘Two separate sandwiches?’
I began to lose the will to live.
‘Yes, but you can put them on the same plate?’
‘But you want two separate sandwiches?’
‘And the soup.’
I tried again. ‘And I’d like …’
‘Two toasted cheese and ham?’
‘No, actually, I think I’ll have one toasted cheese and one toasted ham and tomato.’
‘So, two separate sandwiches?’
‘But on the same plate. But not the soup.’
‘You don’t want the soup?’
‘I do, but not on the same plate as the toasties.’
‘I’ll have a toasted teacake,’ I said firmly. ‘Just one. No soup. And a hot chocolate.’
She wrote that down, flashed Jones a look as if to say, ‘See, that’s how it’s done,’ and whisked herself and the menus away.
Jones took out his phone, checked the screen and laid it on the table.
‘Problem?’ I said, the trauma of ordering lunch still fresh in my mind.
‘I’m expecting to hear from Jerry,’ he said vaguely, and I knew better than to ask.
I sat back in my chair and looked out at the glittering sea, enjoying the warm sun on my face.
‘Cage.’
‘Mm?’ I said, not really paying attention.
‘Cage, could you pay attention, please? I have something very important to ask you.’
My heart missed a beat and then thumped painfully. I turned to face him. ‘Yes?’
He pulled his chair forwards and leaned across the table. ‘Well …’ and stopped.
I waited. ‘Yes?’
He sat perfectly still for a moment and then his colour curdled around him, an unpleasant mix of dirty red and gold, before whipping off to one side as if caught in a sudden, violent draught. And then he just got up and walked off. Back up the street. Without a word or a backward glance, he just got up and walked away.
I sat, paralysed. What just happened? Where was he going? Was it something I’d said? Now, too late, I remembered what Jerry had said about his tendency to wander. I sat like an idiot, mouth open, until I suddenly realised he was near the end of the street and if he turned the corner I could easily lose him in the summer crowds.
I jumped to my feet, rummaged frantically in my handbag, left a random amount of money on the table, grabbed his phone and set off after him.
I had no idea where he could be going, or why, but he wasn’t difficult to keep in sight. For a start he was a good half a head taller than most people so he was easily visible as I struggled through the dawdling crowds. I honestly expected him to head back to the hotel. Perhaps he’d suddenly felt tired or unwell and wanted to lie down, but he didn’t. He headed away from the hotel, climbing up through the town. The houses stopped huddling together in terraces and became larger and more modern. Gardens and garages began to appear. He passed the last building – the very posh Grand Hotel with its wonderful views over the sea to the front and the open country behind – picked his way over a cattle grid, and suddenly we were up on the moors themselves.
I looked around at great rolling sweeps of coarse grass and bracken, just beginning to turn golden. An emptier landscape I’d never seen.
I wasn’t dressed for this. I was dressed for wandering around town, poking around interesting looking shops and finding somewhere nice for lunch, not yomping over the moors on my way to heaven knows where. What was he doing? I’d ask him if I could catch him but try as I might, I couldn’t get any closer. He was taller than me, fitter than me and wearing more sensible shoes than me. He was still limping slightly from his recent injury, but so was I and although I did my best, even my best speed couldn’t close the gap between us. I tried shouting but I was breathless and my feeble cry was whipped away by the wind. It was all I could do to keep him in sight. I was hot, frightened and thirsty. My open sandals were no protection at all against the prickly coarse grass stabbing at my feet. I was never going to catch him. I tried shouting again, but if he could hear me he was paying no heed.
I risked a quick look around. The landscape was empty. There were no trees, no buildings, no paths, not even any sheep. There was complete silence other than the wind and an occasional bird call. I shivered. This was a very lonely place.
I was beginning to worry. This is how people die on the moors. Inadequate clothing and footwear, no maps, no water, and then a mist comes down and they’re lost. Then nightfall happens, the temperature drops or it starts to rain, exposure sets in, and then they’re dead.
I became aware I was still clutching his phone. Trying at one and the same time to keep him in sight, look where I was going and scroll through his contacts, I eventually found Jerry’s number.
It rang for a long time. I didn’t hang up. Jerry was my only hope. I remembered what he’d said about letting it ring. There were a series of clicks in my ear and I thought I’d lost him, and then the ringing began again but this time with a different tone. Then another series of clicks. Then silence. This time I did think I’d lost him.
And then a voice said very quietly and very cautiously, ‘Hello?’
‘Jerry? Jerry is that you?’
‘Course it is,’ he said, in a reproachful whisper. ‘What’s the problem?’
I tried not to gabble. ‘Jerry, I need you. He just got up and walked off. He was talking to me and he stood up and left. He’s up on the moors. I’m not sure he knows what he’s doing. I can’t stop him. I can’t even catch him. I don’t know what to do.’
‘Slowly, slowly, missis. Tell me again.’
I drew a deep calming breath and, as best I could, explained what had happened. At the end there was a long silence and I thought he’d gone again or I’d lost the signal or something.
‘Any idea where you are or where you’re headed?’
I squinted into the low afternoon sun. We were heading west.
‘We’re walking directly into the setting sun. Away from the coast.’
‘Not Rushford, then?’
I had a sudden flash of inspiration.
‘Jerry – hang on a moment.’
I tried to rummage, one-handed, through my handbag, failed miserably and, in frustration, upended the whole lot onto the grass. Yes – a piece of luck. Just for once. I clean out my handbag as often as most women do and I still had the Woodland Trust leaflet. Creased and crumpled and with one or two dubious stains, but intact. I turned it over to the map and smoothed it out.
The na
me leaped out at me. I felt sick. How could this be? Carefully, I tried to align the tiny map with the sun, hoping … but no. I knew. I just knew.
I could hear Jerry’s voice. ‘You still there, missis?’
I swallowed hard and found my voice. ‘Jerry … Jerry … I think he’s trying to get back to Greyston.’
I was scrabbling my stuff back into my bag as I waited for his scornful comment.
It didn’t come. Instead, he said cautiously, ‘Because …?’
I was listening to him, watching Jones and trying to zip up my bag all at the same time. Not looking where I was going, I tripped over a tussock of coarse grass. ‘Dammit.’
‘You all right?’
I made myself slow down. If I hurt myself up here then both I and Jones were finished.
‘Yes, yes, I’m all right.’ Ahead of me, Jones was cresting a low rise and slowly disappearing down the other side. I tried a kind of running walk that didn’t really cover the ground any more quickly and, at the same time, searched for the right words to convince him.
I closed my eyes and remembered. I wasn’t alone on the high moors in the sunshine. I was down in the cold darkness of Greyston, surrounded by baying women, feeling the pull of the stones and their dark powers. My mind filled with the hysteria of that night, the shrieking women, the anticipation of violent death, the sweet taste of the blood. The desire for death …
I pulled myself back and swallowed hard. I had to concentrate. I had to make him believe me.
‘Jerry, two reasons … One – they still want him as their Year King. The silly sod went back on New Year’s Day and they’re calling him back somehow.’
I paused to get my breath back and then ploughed on.
‘Or, he’s the bait and it’s me they want. Either to join them, or for punishment. Could be either.’
‘Why now?’ he said, breathing heavily as if he was exerting himself.
‘I don’t know,’ I said, trying not to panic, because I didn’t know. ‘Perhaps they couldn’t get to him before. Sorensen had him, remember? He was heavily drugged and all over the place. And,’ I said, suddenly remembering, ‘you told me to keep an eye on him because he kept wandering off. Perhaps it wasn’t because of Sorensen’s drugs after all.’
I thought again. ‘Or perhaps they were somehow … weakened …’ I saw Miriam’s stone fall, ‘…after what we did to them and they’ve only now got their strength back. Or there’s some other reason I don’t know anything about, but I’m more and more certain that’s where he’s heading. I’ve got a kind of map here and there’s nowhere else around.’ I could feel my panic growing. It was a struggle to remain coherent. ‘Jerry, I have to stop him and he’s moving too fast for me. I can’t catch him.’
I was beginning to pant and cry and my foot was throbbing quite badly. Just another of the disasters I’d suffered recently. And then I remembered all the other things that had happened to me. My dreadful run of bad luck. And that of those around me. When everything I touched broke, or crumbled, or fell over, or went wrong … Ted’s pension. My falling down the steps.
Everyone and everything.
Everyone and everything …
My feet slowed of their own accord.
Everyone and everything ...
Despite the urgency, I stood still and thought. How many people would have a reason to dislike me?
There was Sorensen, of course, always at the top, but he was very quiet these days.
Then there was Thomas Rookwood from last year. As far as I knew he was still miles away up in Northumberland. Besides, he had a lot to lose if his secrets ever came tumbling out. I mentally crossed out his name.
The vengeful spirit of Clare Woods. Jones’s ex-partner and girlfriend who had been executed in a grimy basement in Droitwich. I shivered in the sunshine, but again, she wasn’t very likely.
And then there was Veronica Harlow. And Becky Harlow. And, if she was still alive, Miriam Harlow. And the Three Sisters themselves. We’d done them irreparable damage. Dealt them a possibly fatal blow. I closed my eyes and saw the stone fall. Saw Granny drop to the ground. We’d wrecked their ceremony. The ceremony that went back who knew how many centuries. The ceremony that ensured their continuing long life and prosperity. We’d destroyed a millennia old tradition in just under thirty minutes.
They might still be powerful. I remembered the moment our car was dragged backwards. The handbrake was on – there was no one in the driving seat and still the car moved. Back towards the place of the stones. For them to take their revenge.
And there had been that moment. I saw, suddenly and with horrifying clarity, that moment at the stones, Veronica crouched over Granny. I saw her slowly stand and face me. I saw her murderous colour. I saw thick blue and purple spikes stabbing towards me. I felt the sudden viciousness of her attack. Felt my heart fail … When the world darkened around me. I needed to think.
‘Jerry, give me a moment …’
I didn’t need a moment. I knew already. I felt a stone-cold certainty. We’d thought we’d got away, but we hadn’t. It had taken them a little while but they’d found us. They were all powerful women. Miriam Harlow was old and sick now – she might even be dead, but what had she been in her youth? Becky was young, undeveloped, but I bet she’d grown up a lot over the last few months. And she’d hated me even before I’d destroyed her way of life. And Veronica, Veronica was a formidable woman who had been baulked of her prey. Twice. Both the Year King and I had escaped her clutches that night. And we’d damaged the stones as well.
But, possibly, we hadn’t damaged them enough. Had there been enough power left for her purpose? The answer would seem to be yes.
Veronica Harlow and the Three Sisters. I’d been cursed by Veronica Harlow.
It all made perfect sense.
When looked at individually, my fall, the microwave, my lethargy, the electrics, my keys, Mrs Barton’s fall, the problems with Ted’s pension, Jerry’s car accident, perhaps even the disappearance of the Painswicks, everything had a reasonable explanation, but lump it all together and it was beyond the bounds of coincidence.
I’m not clumsy. I don’t fall down. I’m very careful with my keys. My microwave was new. Well, newish, but I take care of it. I take care of all my possessions. I don’t microwave teaspoons or tin foil or eggs. I have the electrics and gas serviced annually on one of those schemes. I probably have much more insurance than I need. That’s the sort of person I am. That so much could go wrong all at once was … unlikely.
I stood in the lonely silence and let my mind drift a little … just a little … but there was nothing there. I gave myself a little shake – of course there wasn’t anything there. People don’t get cursed – not in this day and age. And if anyone could sense such a thing then surely it would be me.
And yet, I was very bad at reading myself. I can look at other people and their colour and know all about them, but I don’t even know what my own colour is. I can’t see it. Why I can’t see it I don’t know but I can’t. Perhaps I don’t have one although that seemed unlikely. Everything living has a colour. Those of plants and animals are faint and not easy to see and I generally don’t bother – except for Old Man Yew, of course, whose malevolence had generated a colour so strong I was surprised no one else could see it. But just because I couldn’t detect a curse didn’t mean it wasn’t there.
But what of Mrs Barton? She wasn’t there the night we destroyed the ceremony. Nor were Mrs Painswick and Alyson. Was the curse powerful enough to touch those who touched me? Was I the cause of all this? The epicentre? Was the curse damaging not only me but all those around me?
‘You still there, missis?’
I didn’t mean to blurt it out – it just happened. ‘They’ve cursed me, Jerry. It’s the only explanation.’
He sounded amused. ‘Well, no. I can think of plenty more likely explanations that that.’
I brushed that aside. ‘How soon could you get to Greyston? You can intercept him.’
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br /> ‘A fair while. I’m a bit busy at the moment.’
‘Doing what? What could be more important than this?’ I hadn’t meant to shout.
‘Nothing,’ he said soothingly, ‘but I’m actually half in and half out of a third-floor window and the gizmo neutralising the security cameras isn’t going to last forever.’
I stopped dead. ‘Jerry!’
‘I’ll get to you as soon as I can. Ring that long thin streak of wind and piss. See if he can make himself useful again.’
‘Iblis?’
‘That’s the one.’
Not a bad idea.
‘OK.’ I rang off.
Ahead of me, Jones was not stopping. Not even slowing down. I couldn’t run and talk any longer. One thing at a time. I sat down on a lumpy tussock of rough grass and rang my own number. It rang twice and then a voice uttered dramatically, ‘It is I who speaks. Iblis.’ I never knew whether he was just winding me up or whether he habitually announced himself in that manner. I did know I was in no mood for theatrics. I could hear my TV in the background. I’d obviously interrupted his afternoon soap session.
‘Iblis, I need your help. I’m up on the moors. There’s something wrong with Jones and I can’t stop him heading for Greyston. I think either the stones want their revenge on us or he’s to be their Year King. Neither is good and I need you. How soon could you get there?’
‘I am on my way,’ he said simply. ‘Stay out of sight. You must not let them see you.’
‘Why not?’
He hesitated. ‘If the man Jones is to be their Year King then he is in no danger. You, on the other hand ….’
He stopped.
I felt my heart grow cold. ‘What about me?’
‘Have you ever heard of a witch’s ladder?’
‘No,’ I said, my heart jumping about all over again. ‘What’s a witch’s ladder?’
‘I found one concealed in your porch,’ he said, not really answering the question at all. ‘It can be used as a focus for ill will.’
I stopped dead. The wind blew suddenly chill and I suddenly realised I was miles from anywhere and I was completely alone.