by Robin Jarvis
"Nathaniel," they whispered, "Nathaniel, Nathaniel."
"No!" Jennet cried as finally the vile truth dawned and a sickening horror swept over her. "This isn't happening!"
She pulled her hand from Pear's grip but the older girl caught hold of her again.
"Don't be afraid!" Pear assured her. "You're one of us now. Come—dance with us around the flames."
As the other witches began to move about the bonfire with slow and careful steps, Pear pulled Jennet after them. Nathaniel's name was still pouring from their mouths and gradually the whispering mounted as the movements grew swifter until everyone was shouting at the top of their voices.
"Let me go!" Jennet begged.
Pear tugged and dragged her, spinning the girl in the terrible reeling dance. Around and around the roasting fire she stumbled, the passionate shrieks of the others deafening and terrifying her.
"Relax," Pear cried, "this is your great chance! You said you wanted to change your life—well, this is it! This is the ultimate freedom. Nathaniel has given us the means of our deliverance. We can cast aside the cares of this miserable world and unleash the full ferocity of our inner selves. That dark corner which we keep hidden and secret can be embraced and released."
"No," Jennet implored, "stop this!"
Pear laughed. "Don't struggle," she told her, "seize hold of your destiny and run beneath the moon with me. Come tear through the grass and bound over the moors."
"Never! You're all raving mad!"
As though attuned to the essence of the bonfire, the witches were now leaping like tongues of flame. Their heavy black robes whipped about them, their arms stretched up to the hollow sky and their gaping mouths screamed for their beloved.
It was an infernal scene. Sweat streamed down their maniacal faces and each of them grasped the primitive necklace at their throats.
"Tonight!" Pear shouted deliriously. "Tonight the brides of Crozier will be unchained!"
Even as Jennet stared, a hideous change crept over the others. The faces that shone in the bloody firelight twisted and stretched. The flames were no longer mirrored in their eyes for now a brighter, hellish blaze was burning there. Within each of the witches a suppressed, barbaric nature was struggling to break loose, and the whoops of delight that issued from the transforming mouths degenerated into guttural howls. Before the flickering, broiling light, their forms blurred as all that was human was cast aside and the untame wildness of their profane, wanton souls took control.
The witches' hair shrank into their skulls, and hackles bristled down their necks as their backs buckled and they fell to the ground as hips snapped and curved inwards. Flesh rippled and bulged into tough sinew and bitter claws spiked from shrivelling hands. The hindering black robes were thrown down and, naked in their growing fur, the contorted creatures pranced about the circle, baying at the moon.
Jennet tried to scream, but her own voice was choking and to her terror only a yammering whine came out. The necklace of beads constricted and though she tore at it with her fingers the thread could not be broken. The blood pumped fiercely through her veins, throbbing violently in her ears like the harsh beating of pagan drums, and she felt her willpower drain and seep away.
The dense, burning woodsmoke filled the girl's nostrils and, as if that was a trigger, a dark memory flashed into her panic-stricken mind. It was the Fifth of November and Nathaniel was telling her of heathen times and chilling sacrifices, taunting her brother with heinous threats and controlling her absolutely. Before her wild, round eyes, a vision was forming, rising from her subconscious, and she howled as the image took shape in her thoughts.
The bearded face of Nathaniel Crozier was mocking her from the past and his commanding control came stabbing out at her. Jennet tried to drive the sinister man from her mind. She knew it was fatal to remember the sound of his compelling voice and the deadly force of those glittering, murderous eyes and yet it was impossible not to.
A searing pain sliced through the girl's stomach as all over her body the skin stung and needled. Throwing back her head, Jennet let out a shriek of pain and horror, for the transformation had begun.
"That's right," Pear encouraged, "give yourself up to it—surrender your will, let the beast free."
In her strange new voice, Jennet howled and her cheek bones melted into a new and different shape. Her long hair was already dwindling and her ears becoming silken points when suddenly and with a tremendous effort, she wrenched herself from the fiery ring and fell backwards on to the spongy ground.
"I can't!" she managed to yelp. "I can't!" and before Pear could reach her, Jennet sprang to her feet and fled the lurid scene as fast as possible. Over the moor she dashed, pelting blindly through the heather, too frightened to glance round, too terrified to hear the angry cries of the coven behind.
"Jennet!" Pear called. "Don't! You must come back—you'll put yourself in terrible danger!"
Pear looked to Hillian who alone amongst the others was still partly human.
Retaining much of her true shape, Hillian Fogle was a ghastly spectacle. Her face was a hybrid jumble: a great slavering snout protruded from her brows, yet her spectacles were still balanced precariously across the furry muzzle. Her short dark hair still curled behind her ears but they were huge and alert, listening to the sounds of the night and following Jennet's frantic movements through the darkness.
Before her voice became lost in the rabid snarlings of the savage animal she was rapidly becoming, Hillian growled at Pear and snapped, "Get you after her—bring the fool back... gggo noooww!"
The witch shuddered and fell on all fours, shaking with the horrible power of change.
Pear looked at her, then at the others who were now almost completely mutated into immense and ferocious black dogs whose great rolling eyes were ablaze with a harsh scarlet glow. The coven barked and shrieked, tearing around the bonfire and biting at the heat haze that pulsed from the flames. In the mad scramble of fur and teeth, the girl could not even identify her mother and she stepped back cautiously. Then, catching sight of Jennet's shimmering dress in the moonlight, she tore after her.
Jennet ran swiftly, driven by her abject terror of the fiends she had left behind. As soon as she had abandoned the frenzied circle, her bubbling bones had settled and reformed within her face and her tingling skin was soothed by the cool breezes.
She had no idea which direction to take but found herself heading for the camper van and then beyond into the wildness of the vast moorland. Through the bracken she crashed, desperate to put as much distance between herself and those evil, monstrous women as she could.
The satin dress which in the daytime had been so sickeningly pink was a ghostly grey in the moonlight, and its voluminous folds flapped madly about her ankles. Jennet grasped great swathes of it in her hands to keep from tripping and, like a scared and hunted rabbit, over the rough and bleak terrain she raced.
Closing on her, with her bare feet flying through the grass and heather and the black robe streaming behind like the great dark wings of a swooping predator, came Pear.
Calling for Jennet to stop, the witch girl bore fleetly down on her young friend. Her legs streaked ever faster, lessening the gulf between them until she could hear the breath rattling in her quarry's lungs and the large gulps of air she gasped and swallowed.
"Wait!" Pear shouted. "You must wait!"
Without turning around, Jennet bawled back at her, "Keep away from me! Get back to those disgusting filthy... things! Help! Help!"
But Pear had caught up with her. She clutched and tore at the satin dress and leapt at Jennet—throwing her off balance and hurling her sideways. The girl screamed and pushed the other away but Pear pushed her to the ground and jumped on to her stomach.
The breath wheezed from Jennet's windpipe and she squirmed beneath Pear, clutching her belly, unable to speak or cry out.
"Where did you think you were going?" Pear demanded. "Why did you run?"
Coughing and splut
tering, Jennet choked in sheer disbelief. "You're... you're crazy!" she sobbed.
"Me?"
"Oh please," Jennet cried, "let me go, just let me go."
"Hey," Pear exclaimed in concern, "there's nothing to be scared of." She leaned forward to put her arms about her but Jennet pushed her off and scuttled over the ground to escape the embrace.
"Don't touch me!" she yelled.
"Jennet! What have I done? I thought you understood—you're one of us. You knew Nathaniel, you loved him the same as the rest."
"I didn't!" Jennet screamed. "He was an evil, foul man! I'm glad he's dead! He cared about nothing but himself!"
Pear scrambled after her. "That's not true!" she hotly denied. "Nathaniel was the most wonderful man I have ever known. He liberated us all. Most of those women back there were dying in miserable, dreary lives before they met him."
"Women?" Jennet snorted. "Didn't you see what happened? They're just like Rowena!"
"We're a family!" Pear shouted. "Nathaniel gave us a purpose and united us—you don't know how happy we've been. To run free beneath the moon, pursuing the wind and bounding over fields, it's a feeling unlike any other—the ultimate achievement and his great gift to us."
Jennet shook her head. "Don't be stupid, you're not free—it's an illusion. He used and repressed you and he's still doing it. Can't you see that you were just his slaves like I was once? At least I discovered what he was like in time."
Pear pulled at the beads around Jennet's neck. "You're wrong," she said, "and you know it. You don't really hate him or this wouldn't be so tight. It's your cherishing of him that keeps it there—bound close to your skin."
"That's rubbish."
"Oh no, I'll tell you what's rubbish. It's this game you're playing—denying what you know is right for you. You're not really happy. How could you be, living with an old cripple who hardly notices you and a brother who's always had all the attention. How much longer do you want to be trapped in that drab existence where you don't fit in? If you come back with me you can belong to a real family again."
Jennet turned her face away. "Stop it!" she snapped angrily. "You're trying to trick me. Well, it won't work. I'll never listen to you again. I thought you were my friend but you weren't. You only pretended to be to lure me into this! I hate you!"
"That isn't true," Pear insisted, dismayed by the accusation. "I am your friend, honest. I only wanted us to be sisters, I never..." She broke off and lifted her head. The night was filled with the vicious baying of the coven and the sound was growing nearer.
"No," Pear whispered anxiously, "they're coming this way."
"I won't join them," Jennet declared, "ever!"
But the other girl's face was troubled and almost fearful. "You don't understand," she mumbled. "Hillian should've stopped them, kept them by the fire."
Jennet listened to the fierce clamour of the approaching pack and turned ice cold with dread. "What... what will they do?" she stammered.
"When the primitive half is in control," Pear muttered, "there is no reason, no sanity. Savage instinct spurs them—it's too late for you now, Jennet. If they catch you they'll tear you to pieces."
"What can I do? I can't outrun them!"
"I wish you'd been ready," Pear wept. "Oh Jennet, listen to them. I know their voices, they're howling for blood. The dancing was too intense, they won't be satiated until they've killed tonight. They're hungry for flesh. I'm sorry—so sorry."
Great tears splashed down Pear's face and the riotous uproar of the pursuing, snarling dogs came blasting towards them.
Thinking quickly, the witch girl gave the petrified Jennet a desperate hug and whispered, "I am your friend, please believe that. I'll draw them off, lead them on a false trail."
"You?" Jennet breathed. "How?"
"Don't argue, just run and keep on running—I mightn't be successful but it's the only chance you've got. The road lies over there—hurry."
Jennet staggered to her feet. "What about you?" she asked. "Won't they kill you?"
"Just go!" Pear raged. "And if you make it safe home, and I pray to your god that you do, then don't speak of this night to anyone."
"But... but..."
"Quickly! Get out of here!"
"I don't know how to thank you."
"Just go!"
Jennet stumbled forward, yet she could not resist glancing round to take one final look at Pear. But the girl was already running towards the baying hounds and as Jennet watched, the black robe fell from her friend's body and her human shape vanished as she too transformed into a sleek black dog that sped away into the distance to lead the others away.
"Oh God! Oh God!" Jennet cried, tearing through the scrubby grass of the desolate moor.
To her relief, the frightful yammering began to recede into the distance and she silently thanked Pear once more, but after only a few moments the sound changed and the fury of the pack was terrible to hear. Louder and louder it grew and Jennet realised that the witch girl had failed.
Over the undulating ground the foul brides of Nathaniel dashed. They had caught Jennet's scent on the air and it thrilled and tantalised their questing nostrils. Hot was the blood that pumped through their altered veins and hot was the tender meat that they desired and lusted after. Their steaming breath billowed around them in a rank vapour and their glaring red eyes shone balefully into the gloom, searching for their prey.
The smallest of the vicious and growling hounds ran reluctantly at the rear of the pack. With Pear's mournful tears running down the creature's snout and a cruel and savage bite bleeding on the animal's flank, it whimpered as it followed the others.
Flying before them, Jennet's heart thumped and quailed against her ribcage. She couldn't run much further, yet the horrendous noise of the witch beasts grew louder with every passing second. She knew that it was only a matter of time and a grim thought told her that she was probably giving them splendid entertainment by fleeing. What better sport than a chase? Soon they would be biting at her heels, snapping at her calves and tearing the dress to shreds to feast upon her. The hellish fiends would leap from the darkness and drag her down where those mighty jaws could rend and crunch.
Despairingly, she remembered Rowena Cooper and the old friends of Aunt Alice that the evil woman had murdered. These witch creatures were unbeatable and as her legs became ever more weary and aching, she realised there was absolutely no escape. Here in the wild, in the dark vastness of the empty moor there was nowhere to run to and no one to help her.
Pushing herself onward, she cursed the day she heard the folk band and damned herself for listening to their lies and believing they were different to anyone else.
The pack was very close now. Soon she would feel the first panting breath upon her and then it would be nearly over. Jennet could not stand it any more and she screamed.
"Aunt Alice! I'm sorry! Oh Ben, forgive me!"
Bracken and gorse scratched her legs and shredded the satin but still she fled and then, when her lungs were near to bursting, she lurched through a low, straggly hedge and abruptly the soft springy ground disappeared beneath her feet.
Blinking in confused astonishment, Jennet found herself upon the tarmac of the wide road, yet her instant relief was swiftly curtailed.
The road stretched for miles in either direction but no cars were travelling upon it and no headlamps glimmered in the distance.
"Then I'm done for!" the girl cried. "I'm as good as dead!"
The barking tumult was horribly close now. Soon the savage dogs would burst through the hedge to pounce on her. Forcing herself to lumber on, Jennet tried to run but it was all in vain and her exhausted muscles finally gave way and she collapsed on to the hard surface of the road.
Suddenly a bright light clicked on and the girl's prostrate form was caught in a wide, dazzling beam. Jennet lifted her head but the light blinded her.
"Help me, please!" she cried. "You must!"
And then, to her amazement, she heard a
familiar voice which she had always ridiculed. But the mere sound of it in that desperate and bleak spot brought an overwhelming sense of joy and salvation to the girl and her pounding heart leapt.
"Don't just stand there gasping like a goldfish! Jolly well climb aboard."
There, straddling Miss Boston's old bicycle, with one large foot on the ground and the other raring to go on the pedal—was Sister Frances.
Jennet did not hesitate, and rushed over to her.
"Quickly," the nun urged, "sit on the handlebars. I used to give my brother Timmy rides like this—'course he was only five and yours truly twelve. Do hurry, Jennet. Oh sweet Lord, listen to those fiends!"
From the hedge the first of the hounds came charging. Bursting on to the road, its sharp claws clattered and slithered and the huge dog slid and tumbled, unable to stop itself careering into the hedge on the opposite side. But immediately it sprang up and scrabbled towards the two defenceless humans, preparing to leap at them.
"Hang on!" Frances shouted, pushing away with her foot and pedalling like mad.
With her legs dangling either side of the front wheel and her hands gripping the handlebars for dear life, Jennet felt the nun's head press into her back as Sister Frances strained on the pedals.
Behind them the rest of the pack came spilling over the road and furious growls and barks filled their ears as the infernal beasts gave chase.
The wheels of the bicycle whirred and hissed over the road as the nun's woollen-stocking legs revolved and pumped at an astonishing rate. But jostling and loping swiftly behind, the brides of Nathaniel unerringly came.
Their foaming jaws snapped, lunging for the rear wheel, and the demonic fires of their malevolent eyes shone in the reflector on the mudguard and made the whirling spokes shimmer with a red blur.
"Get thee jolly well behind me!" Frances puffed. "And stay there!"
But the pack's endurance seemed limitless and down the winding road they tirelessly pursued the zooming bicycle.
Jennet's hair streamed in the wind and when Frances raised her head to see where she was going it blew into her face and she had to peer around the girl's side to see anything at all.