Here Be Witches

by Sarah Mussi

  ‘BE PATIENT!’

  Be patient?

  I need to get out of here.

  How could Rhiannon do this? After everything I’ve done to help her!

  And where’s Henry?

  And where’s Oswald?

  I need a cup of tea.

  After what seems like ages – at least three or four hours – a policewoman comes back and says they’ve tried ringing my house repeatedly and there’s no reply. Is there somebody else they can contact?

  I sigh. ‘I’ve told you already, my mum’s gone off to a conference.’

  ‘What about her mobile?’ she asks.

  ‘I don’t know her mobile phone number off by heart.’

  And I can’t look it up, because it’s on my phone and you’ve taken my phone and put it in a sealed plastic bag, you idiot officer.

  ‘It’s on my phone, which you have.’

  ‘Oh. Well then, we’ll have to wait for the arresting officer to get the details.’

  Grrrrr.

  Imagine if I was a real criminal, and I needed to try and sort out my defence.

  Anyway, now I come to think of it, it’s probably a good job that Mum is away. I don’t think it would be very nice for her to get a call at the conference, saying that her daughter’s in a police cell. Besides, she won’t even have got there yet. And it would take a while for her to get back. So, great, I might be locked up here until tonight, by which time the station will be closed, and who knows what will happen then.

  Then I get a brainwave.

  Gran.

  That’s Granny Jones. George’s gran, actually. They’re our neighbours. She’s an Appropriate Other too, isn’t she? She could come for me.

  And what’s great is, I know her phone number off by heart. That’s the thing about landlines – people have had them for so long – and when their area code is exactly the same as yours, you kind of learn them without trying. Mobile numbers you don’t – even your own.

  I tell the female officer that I want her to ring Mrs Jones of Cwm Brwynog Bwthyn. ‘She’s my gran,’ I lie, ‘and I want to speak to her myself.’ I seem to remember you get allowed one phone call. It was on Real Police Chases or something on TV.

  At last, she lets me out of the cell and takes me back into the charge office to use the phone. ‘I’m going to call your grandmother first,’ she says, ‘and then you will have the chance to explain yourself.’

  ‘OK,’ I say.

  So she dials the number and after it rings a few times, I hear George pick up.

  ‘This is Caernarfon Police Station. We need to speak to Mrs Jones,’ says the charge officer.

  I hear George say, ‘Yeah, yeah, and this is The Vatican and I’m the Pope’.

  There’s the sound of a scuffle. Gran must’ve grabbed the phone. ‘Hello,’ she crackles.

  ‘We’ve got a young Miss Arabella Morgan in the charge office here,’ says the police officer. ‘She’d like to have a few words with you. She has named you as someone she’d like to contact.’

  ‘Yes,’ says Gran, impatiently. ‘Put her on immediately,’ almost as if she was expecting the call.

  The police officer hands me the phone. ‘Gran,’ I say, ‘I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m here in the police station, please can you come? You can borrow Mum’s Land Rover. There’s been an accident and – ’

  ‘ARE YOU HURT?’ bawls out George in the background.

  I hear a scuffle for the phone again. Gran wins.

  ‘Well, what are you being charged with?’ she asks. Just like Gran. Straight to the point.

  ‘Nothing yet,’ I say, ‘but, well, there’s been an accident at Dinas Emrys, and – ’

  ‘ACCIDENT?’ I hear George yell.

  ‘Shush!’ says Gran fiercely.

  ‘DINAS EMRYS!’ hollers George.

  ‘Don’t mind, Sior,’ says Gran. I hear a hand go over the mouthpiece. ‘Go and sit down, Sior,’ Gran orders crossly, ‘before the mountain cuts us off.’ The hand comes off the mouthpiece.

  ‘Continue.’

  I take a deep breath. ‘I’m being interviewed about pushing a girl into the cavern.’

  ‘Are the police completely insane?’ enquires Gran. And then, cryptically, ‘Well, I’m not surprised’.

  ‘The girl died,’ I whisper. ‘I wasn’t there and I didn’t do it, and I don’t know what to do.’

  ‘Of course you didn’t do it. This is the work of something much more powerful than you.’ Gran Jones is far too sensible to ask how I managed to end up in the police cells.

  ‘That’s what they’ve wanted all along: blood and sacrifice. Poor girl. I’m coming there, right now. We’ll borrow your mother’s Land Rover. Yes? I know where the keys are,’ she says. ‘George will drive.’

  ‘If you can get hold of Mum – ’ I say.

  Perhaps I should interrupt her conference.

  ‘I’m not going to bother your mother,’ says Gran. ‘She knows nothing about High Magick and will just get in the way.’

  ‘BLOOD AND SACRIFICE?’ screams George.

  ‘OK,’ I say.

  ‘WHERE’S ELLIE?’ George wails in the background.

  George probably thinks it’s Henry who’s putting me in danger, again. Not that he’ll say as much. He never does. He won’t even roll his eyes. Not at me anyway. He’ll just be even sweeter than ever and offer me the last few crisps left in his bag. And I hate roast chicken flavoured crisps. Or his last piece of gum. I like gum, but how can you take someone’s last bit? So I’ll refuse, and then he’ll look sad.

  I hate it when he looks all sad.

  Either way, I’m going to end up feeling really horrible.

  ‘OK,’ I say again.

  Everything is already horrible anyway.

  I hand the phone back to the police officer who has been standing there waiting and listening. ‘Thanks,’ I say.

  I overhear Granny Jones say in her sharpest voice ever, ‘You can expect me there within the next hour’.

  ‘Please bring identification with you,’ the police officer replies. And with that she puts the phone down.

  I’m offered a cup of coffee. The policewoman seems kind.

  ‘What’s going to happen now?’ I ask.

  ‘I don’t know, love,’ she says.

  ‘Please?’

  ‘I don’t know what kind of a scrape you’ve got yourself into. I can’t discuss the details.’

  ‘I know,’ I say, ‘but what’s the normal procedure, then? What happens in general?’

  ‘Well, if your grandmother comes,’ says the police officer. (I don’t confess she’s not actually my grandmother.) ‘If there is an option to have you bailed, we can sort that out at this police station. But it depends on the charge, love – if it’s very serious it will have to go before the magistrate, if there is one; it’s a holiday you see, here in Caernarfon – St David’s Day. Sometimes they can get an on-call, but if it’s beyond the magistrate’s remit, it has to go to the High Court.’

  ‘When … where?’ I ask.

  ‘And that’s really a custody matter.’

  A custody matter!

  ‘Well, the magistrate can set bail. So best to be ready,’ she says. ‘Either way, it will definitely be sometime this morning that you’ll find out. Your grandmother does need to get here quickly though.’

  Her police radio beeps. A tinny voice crackles out: ‘Defendants to court three.’

  ‘Right, where were we? It appears they’ve got an on-call magistrate. That was a call to get the lads from last night into the vans.’

  Cripes! I’m going to be in ‘the vans’ with a lot of hungover boy racers from Bangor!

  ‘If your grandmother gets here in time, maybe we can sort this out and/or get you down to the courts before midday.’

  It’s all very confusing. And I don’t really understand. I try asking her more questions, but I don’t get very far.

  ‘I can’t really discuss your case with you now,’ she says. ‘If you like
, we can contact a welfare officer to visit? You could talk to her.’

  ‘No need,’ I say. As if a welfare officer is going to believe in dragons and magic and witches.

  I’m shown back into my cell. The minutes drag by. No mobile to play on. I sit staring at the white wall. Why did Rhi say I’d pushed Fiona? And that breath of death thing she described. Was that Oswald? Is the White Dragon on the loose again?

  And will he come after me?

  And that’s when I see it.

  I mean it!

  The figure of a nun – I swear it – a nun – and I am not even joking. I am not making this up. She walks right through the wall across the room and straight towards me, swerves, then passes out through the wall behind me. As I watch her go, she turns her head and fixes me with a look.

  Immediately I feel a pressure around my neck. I start to choke. I can’t breathe. My hands fly to my throat.

  I struggle, try to gasp in air. My fingers brush against the charm that was my real grandmother’s, a silver moon with a constellation of tiny stars set in diamonds. The pressure eases. I am able to suck a few sips of air into my lungs.

  I know what you’re going to say. Go on, say it.

  That did not just happen.

  Ghosts do not exist, and if they did, they wouldn’t haunt a police cell.

  You were not suddenly, psychically, attacked by a dead nun.

  That’s stress.

  Overtiredness.

  Mental derangement.

  A dead girl, nun or otherwise, cannot strangle a living one.

  I sit down on the bench thing. I breathe slowly. I blink. My heartbeat shoots way up.

  Just stay calm.

  There must be an explanation.

  None of this is happening.

  You just saw a ghost.

  In broad daylight.

  Get. A. Grip.

  I get up and cross over to the wall. I run my hand over it. Maybe it’s some kind of trick; a stray beam of light. I check the window.

  It doesn’t happen again, but I don’t let go of the silver charm. My heart rate gradually gets back to normal.

  At last they call me back into one of the offices. The policeman who interviewed me to begin with is sitting there with Granny Jones and George. I never knew how pleased I’d be to see them. My heart jumps, but this time in a good way and my eyes tear up.

  ‘Well now,’ the policeman begins. ‘Isabella (I don’t correct him), your grandmother here (I don’t correct him again) is ready to stand bail and offer an address to bail you to, but the charge is very serious. You’ve been accused by a number of witnesses of reckless premeditated behaviour, which brought about the death of a young lady. This is possibly a manslaughter or even a murder charge. At the very least, we cannot actually process your grandmother’s application at the moment. So we are going to take you down to the local magistrates’ court now and arraign you. Your grandmother and your brother, George (I am never, ever going to correct him about anything), are welcome to follow us there.’

  George shakes his head. Sends me an unhappy smile.

  ‘Murder?’ I whisper.

  Gran reaches out her hand, lays it on mine. ‘Steady child,’ she warns.

  ‘Once there, the magistrate will hear the indictment against you,’ continues the officer, ‘and then we can proceed with bail, on the terms decided by the court, and after that, if everything goes well for you, we will be able to allow you to go home, pending our further enquiries and investigations as to what actually went on last night up at Dinas Emrys.’

  George grabs my hand, squeezes it.

  The policeman mutters something about needing to arraign me quickly, as it’s St David’s Day and we’ll be lucky if the magistrate does more than one sitting.

  I hang my head. I don’t know why I feel so guilty. I am totally not guilty. I don’t know why I don’t feel angry, why I’m not shouting and cursing Rhiannon, but I’m not.

  ‘We’ll get you out of here,’ whispers George. ‘Trust me.’

  I just don’t understand it. I don’t understand any of it, and my head hurts, and I’m tired, and I haven’t slept the entire night, and now I’m being haunted too. And I’m so worried about everything. I can’t think straight, even when I try.

  And where is Henry?

  After the officer has shown Gran and George out, I’m taken back downstairs and into an underground car park. I’m put in the back of the police van with half a dozen twenty-something lads and one older man who smells a bit ripe. They all look like they’ve got hangovers.

  Today has to be officially the worst day of my entire life.

  EIGHT

  OK, so here’s what happened: we got to the magistrates’ court, and we were led to some cells at the back, downstairs. That is the only way I can describe them. They were definitely cells. And someone had definitely been in them before. Possibly very many people, because there were a lot of scratches and swear words all over the walls.

  Like I said, I am not going to put swear words in my story. So I’m going to code them here. The code I’ll use is .

  I can tell you, on those walls there were words like , and the and . Those last two are extreme coded words. I will leave you to imagine the rest.

  Anyway, I was the only girl in the cells, which is presumably why I was put in a cell all by myself. I don’t think it was because they suddenly decided I was a mass murderer, and must be kept away from others. Or at least I hope not.

  —

  When I am taken upstairs, I’m led straight into court. I have to go and sit on a bench and wait my turn. In front of me are two others. One of them has been accused of smashing a shop window and inciting racism by shouting revolting words at the place, which happened to be owned by an Indian family. The judge is not very sympathetic when the guy says he was drunk. He gets remanded over, and put back in the cells, because apparently he has done this before. A lot.

  He doesn’t look very sorry, when he tries to say sorry, either. I don’t think he convinces anyone, not even his legal counsel, who keeps frowning at him, plus he didn’t even stand up promptly when the magistrate needed him to.

  Mental note to self: Stand Up Quickly And Properly And Look Suitably Humble And Sorry When Addressing The Magistrate.

  The second person – the older man – has been caught in possession of some drug or other. Apparently he has a long string of offences for carrying drugs. The magistrate is a little more sympathetic with him. She asks his counsel why they have not yet set up the intervention that apparently was agreed upon the last time he appeared before her.

  The person defending him launches into some long-winded bureaucratic story. Even the magistrate taps her fingers. She seems to be more lenient towards this man, though. She extends his bail and reminds him that he must live at the address he has given the court. He looks grateful. And then it’s my turn.

  It is all over very quickly. She hears the police indictment. She is given some papers. She takes a cursory glance at them. She asks the police when they think a plea can be entered. The officer reminds her that it’s a local holiday today, and he can’t get the necessary people in to see to the necessary things that need necessarily seeing to.

  Then she turns and addresses me directly. She says, ‘We will give you a date when you can enter a plea. Do you understand?’

  I nod my head. I say, ‘Yes, your honour’.

  She says, ‘This court does not look lightly on matters of the occult, particularly when they result in loss of life. You are not to leave the area, and you will need to report to the police station to help them with their enquiries if necessary. Do you understand?’

  I nod my head. I say, ‘Yes, your honour’.

  The magistrate turns to my counsel. ‘Meanwhile is there anyone who can provide bail for her? Is there an address that can satisfy this court – that she can be bailed to?’

  Somebody who has been appointed to speak on my behalf says, ‘Yes,’ and reads out Granny Jones’s address an
d gives her name.

  The magistrate says, ‘That’s all then’. She turns back to me. ‘You must live at this address and you must not commit any further offence if you do not want to appear before me again. We will see you in roughly three weeks’ time.’

  She nods to the clerk. He looks in a ledger, whispers something back to her.

  ‘We will see you on 20 March to hear your plea.’

  They give me back my stuff and that’s it. Suddenly I can just walk away, walk outside and I do – out through the glass doors and into the waiting area.

  And there’s Granny Jones and George. Gran takes me by one arm, George takes me by the other, and then we are outside the building and there’s Mum’s Land Rover parked on the street, and I’m getting into it, and I don’t know why, but suddenly I’m crying and saying, ‘thank you, thank you, thank you!’ And my breath is coming all rushy, and George has put his arm around me, and I’m burying my head in his shoulder, and Gran is tutting and saying, ‘You can’t drive and cuddle her, Sior. We need to get her home.’

  ‘Hey, Elles,’ says George. ‘It can’t be as bad as you think; we’ve been in worse places.’ (Hugs, squeezes.) ‘Come on, give us a smile.’

  I pull myself together and bite my lip and nod my head, but I do not trust myself to speak.

  Instead I pull out my phone.

  ELLIE’S PHONE 1 March 12.30

  Status: Unavailable Foreva (well, seventy-two years)

  Recent updates:

  Rhiannon

  I’m sorry. I really am.

  Mum

  Bye darling, have fun with Rhiannon, and I’ll call when I have a chance, but don’t worry if I don’t, it’s going to be an intense three days. Love you. Kisses. Mum. XXX

  Sheila

  Where are you – you old hag-bag?

  Meryl

  Hon, what’s happening? You aren’t picking up.

  Meryl

  You OK?

  Meryl

  Shall I come over?