Warm Food Cold Body

by S. Y. Robins

  She took his hand, noticing that now his skin felt warm and dry to the touch, as a human hand should. She could feel his pulse beneath his skin as well so he wasn’t really a zombie, just a bit senseless at the moment. She hadn’t done a completely horrible job, after all. She just needed to figure out how to restore his mind, the essence of the man, the part that made him speak and think.

  “Marpf.” He said mournfully, lying down on the floor of the cellar. He looked so despondent.

  “I’m sorry Marpf, I really am. I swear, we’re going to sort this, somehow.” Helena promised, taking the man upstairs now that he’d calmed down and stopped trying to leave. She settled him in a chair in her kitchen and started a meal for herself. She passed him the bits from the vegetable she was chopping and he quietly munched on the ends of an onion as she stirred the chopped vegetables in some butter. He didn’t really eat the vegetables so much as he chewed on them like a drone before being forced to swallow by instinct.

  He cheered up, however, when she brought out some strawberries for dessert. He really liked those and ate 15 of them before he settled back in his chair and sighed.

  “Marpf.” He said reassuringly.

  “Yes they were good, weren’t they? Now, let me eat my soup and maybe we’ll go for a walk yeah?” Helena said, seeing that it was dark out now. It was still foggy too so perhaps nobody would see them.

  After she finished washing up she tied a bit of string around the man and they went for a walk, along the street and then back to her house. He seemed more relaxed when they settled in her sitting room for the evening. A murder mystery was on the telly and Marpf seemed interested. By the time it ended and the wife was revealed to be the murderer Helena’s new friend was excitedly repeating the word 'marpf' over and over.

  Helena noted the response and thought perhaps it was a clue. The man still couldn’t speak however and Helena wasn’t certain if he was responding to the film or to the strawberries in his tummy. She really hoped it wasn’t the strawberries.

  She didn’t notice that he smelled or anything, but perhaps she should give him a shower? Or something? Oh, I can’t do that, she thought as she cringed. No, I simply can’t do that!

  Helena heard a tap on the front door and went to answer it, hoping it as Oona.

  “Oh my, am I glad to see you! Do you think he needs a shower?” Helena asked as Oona walked in. “And would you like a cup of tea?”

  “Yes, and no. Or no and yes. Let’s have a look at him and yes I’d like a cup of tea.” Oona said, walking over to Marpf.

  “Helena, I don’t think he needs a shower, darling, but we can give it a try if you’d like.” Oona called into the kitchen as Helena prepared tea.

  They bundled him into the bathroom after their tea and managed to strip him down with some creative use of towels to protect his modesty. For his part, Marpf seemed keen to get into the shower and picked up the soap and sniffed at it before he started lathering himself up and singing a broken tune of 'ungh' and 'marpf'. Getting him out was the most difficult part besides trying to get him back into his clothes. He flat out refused to put his trousers back on so they put him into Helena’s pink fuzzy bathrobe.

  “Well, he’ll have to hope nobody takes his picture but he’s clean now and seems much happier. Where are you keeping him for the night?” Oona asked as they drank a second cup of tea.

  “I guess I’ll put a chair in my room and see if he’ll stay there. If not he’ll have to go in the basement. I need to rest tonight. I didn’t sleep well last night at all.” Helena said, the dark rings under her eyes the proof of her exhaustion.

  “I’ll come by in the morning, see if you need some help. If you need me, call, alright?” Helena asked as she stood up.

  “I will and thank you.” Helena said as she kissed Oona goodbye on the cheek.

  She took Marpf into her room, put him in the chair, and then settled into the bed hoping for sleep. She quickly fell into a dreamless sleep but shifted as someone settled behind her, a slight “marpf” letting her know it was him. She took the hand he put over her waist and let him settle there. She was too tired to question his presence in her bed or to care. If he was quiet she was sleeping and that was good.

  3

  Two days later Helena finally found some information on Marpf. One of her friends shared a post on social media asking about a missing man. The guy in the picture looked like Marpf and when she saw the man’s name she looked over at him, feeling like a total spanner.

  “Mark? Mark Davis?” Helena asked him. “Is that your name?”

  “Marpf,” he said shaking his head. He went back to his dejected position on her sofa, staring out of the window. This was how he spent his days now, sleeping on her bed, sitting on her couch, disconsolately repeating 'ungh' and 'marpf'.

  “There’s a number here, do you want me to call it?” Helena asked, still uncertain about revealing she had the man with her. Well, most of him.

  Marpf, Mark, just bobbled his head around. He didn’t seem to care.

  “I’ll just see what she has to say, shall I?” Helena said, feeling guilty for not alleviating this family’s worry in any way.

  Helena dialled the number and cringed as a very sweet sounding woman answered the phone. She had the kind of voice the NHS should use on their nursing services, soothing and calm.

  “Hello, my name is Gene, um, I think I may have seen your husband in, erm, Chesterfield, can you tell me about him?”

  “Oh, bless you! I’ve been so worried about him! He disappeared last week. I assumed at first that he was either off on another bender or with one of his strumpets but he’s not come home and nobody’s heard from him. Were you certain it was Mark?” The woman asked with tears in her voice, almost hopeful through the tears.

  Whoa! Looking over at Marpf, Mark, his name is Mark, she told herself, she couldn’t see him as a drunkard but perhaps a womanizer.

  “Marpf” he said low and whispery.

  What a tosser! Leaving his wife on a bender and always out with other women. Lowlife!

  “Marpf!” he said more loudly.

  “Erm, yes, I’m certain it was, he looked like the man in the picture anyway. Well, I’ve reported it now so I’m going to go. I hope you can find him. He was over by the cathedral earlier today so he may still be there.” Helena winced at her lie but couldn’t think of what else to say.

  “Thank you very much, that means so much! Have a nice day!” The woman said as Helena quickly hung up. She hoped the woman didn’t have a way of seeing her phone number.

  “Ungh!” Mark said from her sofa.

  “Yes, ungh. Well, let’s hope this shock to your system changed you buddy. Imagine, being such a philandering, asinine man to such a sweet woman. Men! This is why I steer clear of the lot of you! Tossers every one of you.”

  Mark just sat on the sofa, locked in his own world. He wouldn’t eat anything at all now and he barely drank at all. Hopefully her spell was working to keep him alive because his bodily functions didn’t exist. She’d brought him back to life, good or bad, and she was responsible for him.

  Right then, she thought, three more days. How am I going to get through three more days? The best I can, she thought, as she went to the door to let Oona in.

  “Anything?” Oona asked as she came in, taking her coat off.

  “Yes, we found out who he is at least. Apparently all those Marpfs are him saying his name, Mark. His wife reported him missing finally.” Helena said, going in to put the kettle on.

  When she came back Oona was sitting beside Marpf, stroking his hair.

  “What are you doing?” Helena asked, curious.

  “Just trying something. Shhh.” Oona said. “I’ve been doing my own research.”

  “Oh. Alright, carry on then.” Helena responded, watching as Oona closed her eyes, whispering something.

  Helena sat in a chair to watch her friend. Finally, Oona stopped what she was doing and looked defeated.

  “I guess we’ll
just have to wait and see what happens on Halloween night. I hope that works otherwise the poor man is going to be stuck like this.” Oona finally relented.

  “Well, I always needed a baby posing as a grown man in my life. Wait, isn’t that most men in general?” Helena asked her friend with a grin.

  “It would seem so, nowadays at least. Do you need to go out? I can stay here with him for a while if you need me to.” Oona offered.

  “No, not that I know of. Want to stay for dinner?”

  “Sure, I might as well. What we having?” Oona asked as the ladies walked into the kitchen.

  Helena and Mark managed to get through the next few days without annihilating the entire population of their village or each other. Mark was growing glummer by the day but Helena knew there was little she could do about that. She was the worst witch in the world, perhaps even worse than Franny Carmichael and she’d blown up an examiner’s exam room when asked to produce a pastry!

  No, as the days passed and Mark grew more depressed Helena’s confidence dived even further into the negative range. This man, good or bad, was stuck like this because of her and her shoddy skills. She had to make this better, somehow.

  Halloween night Oona came and she helped Helena herd Mark back up to the stone circle. It was just after 10 pm and the night was as black as an abandoned coal mine shaft. Oona and Helena both used their mobiles as torches and they finally made it up to the stone circle. Oona stopped her before she came in.

  “We bid you good eve, oh king of the moor.” Oona recited before curtseying at a stone. At Oona’s nudging Helena followed suit. Marpf sat on the king stone, looking bored or dead, perhaps both.

  Helena still thought all of that was just a bit of malarkey, talking to a stone indeed, but followed through with a curtsy. Oona then went to each stone, repeating a greeting, followed by Helena, until they made it back to the first stone. Oona clapped her hands together before clasping them together and started to recite some kind of litany. Helena had been raised knowing she was a witch but she’d never gone in for all of the mumbo-jumbo that went along with it. Perhaps she needed to rethink that, she thought as a blue light started to glow from the ground spreading upwards until Helena could see a dome of light covering the stone circle.

  The light was clear, she could have put her hand through it, she supposed, but fear of losing the hand stopped her. She looked over at Marpf to see he was still just sitting there, looking like his usual self. Helena sent her gaze back to Oona as a sound, a crackling sound, filled the air.

  “What is it you seek, Oona of the fey?” A deep male voice boomed out.

  Oona of the fey? Helena wondered. Oona was a fairy? That might make sense.

  “I seek answers, great king. I need your help, if you would be so kind.” Oona responded letting her hands fall in front of her, clasped in a way that was meek but not.

  “I’m going to have to practice that move.” Helena thought.

  “What answers do you seek? And who are these miserable beings you’ve brought with you?” The voice asked.

  “This is Helena,” Oona said, waving Helena over as she stared in the direction of the king stone. “And that is Mark.”

  “Ah, I see. Helena is the witch that can’t do witching. You don’t plan on producing a cake anytime soon do you?” The voice asked in a worried tone. Helena thought she’d also heard a muffled chortling.

  “No, I don’t, um, your majesty.” Helena answered not sure of how to address the voice or where to look.

  “See that you don’t. Your answers lie within yourself, I can increase your powers but you are strong enough, if you’d only believe in yourself. You are the only thing stopping you at this point.” The voice decreed.

  So much for help!

  “As for the man, Helena will have to fix what she has created. I can do nothing for him but give him true death. If that is your wish, I can comply.”

  “No!” Both women cried out.

  A loud startled “marpf” came from Mark’s direction and the ladies and the voice all took that as a no as well.

  “Then so be it. Helena, only you can repair the man to his full faculties. After that, you must aid him as he regains his life and his memories. It will not be an easy task but should prove that you are a true witch. You can do it, just believe.” The voice said as the blue light disappeared and the crackling noise disappeared.

  “Right then!” Oona declared loudly. “Zap him!”

  Helena acted on instinct and flung a finger out in Mark’s direction. The man stiffened as a white hot light engulfed him and then fell to the ground.

  “There you go, you’ve killed him. Problem solved, let’s go home.” Oona said, taking Helena’s hand.

  “No, wait! Look, his hand is twitching!” Helena cried, pulling her hand free and running to kneel at Mark’s head.

  “Ohhhh, so you haven’t killed him. Let’s see what you’ve done then.” Oona replied with a throaty laugh.

  Oona may have been a surrogate mother to Helena and Helena’s very best friend but she was never very emotional about other people. Helena suspected it was a flaw in Oona’s character but overlooked it most of the time. She wasn’t the most compassionate human being herself, after all. Well, until lately anyway.

  “Mark, are you alright?” Helena asked, reaching a hand out to the man.

  “Mmph.” Was his only reply.

  “Hey a new word in his vocabulary! That’s progress my girl!” Oona exclaimed with a laugh.

  “Hush, Oona!” Helena looked up at her friend crossly before looking back down to Mark. “Mark, it’s Helena, are you alright?”

  “Soooooooo…” Mark moaned as he tried to sit up.

  “Mark?” Helena asked, worried but hopeful now that he’d spoken something like an actual word.

  “Let’s help him up.” Helena ordered Oona.

  Oona looked down at her normally timid friend and grinned while giving a perfunctory curtsy. “Yes, mistress, right away mistress.”

  Helena shot another dirty look at Oona and then put her arm under Mark’s shoulder.

  “Sooooo…” he repeated again.

  Helena raised his head from his chest and looked into his face with the light from her mobile. His eyes were still a bit vague but there was recognition there now and a lot of pain and confusion. Helena put her hand to his cheek and felt that his skin was cool but that was more from the cold damp air, she could feel living warmth beneath the coolness.

  “Let’s get you home, thaw you out a bit, shall we?” Helena asked as she and Oona helped him to stand.

  They walked back to Oona’s car, Mark walking as if he’d been on a right booze up. His staggering made the walk back much more difficult but they eventually got him back and loaded into the backseat.

  Once they had him in the house Mark looked around as though it were the first time he’d been in the place, then rushed off in the direction of the bathroom, pushing the women holding him up out of the way.

  As he ran off Mark called out. “Weeeeeee!”

  “Well he may not remember who I am or where he is but he remembers the bathroom and bodily functions finally.” Helena observed, looking off in the direction of the bathroom before going in to put the kettle on.

  “It seems he does.” Oona said as she followed her friend.

  “I think I’ve fixed him! I think I’ve really done it! The king voice-y thingy said it would take time but I think I’ve actually done it this time.” Helena cried out, jumping a little with joy.

  “Give me a vodka then.” Oona asked, holding her hand out.

  Helena tugged on her ear and a tall glass of vodka appeared in Oona’s hand.

  “Change it to rum and cola please.” Oona made another request.

  Helena pulled the other ear and the liquid turned brown with two pieces of ice.

  Oona frowned at the glass then up at Helena. “I didn’t ask for ice.”

  Sticking her tongue out at her friend Helena grinned as the ice disap
peared.

  “Alright, that’s enough, now you’re just showing off!” Oona said.

  “I think I’m cured, Oona!” Helena said giddily.

  “No, well, in a way. You could always do it my darling, you just needed the confidence to” Oona replied with a smile before tasting her drink with a grimace. “We’ll teach you proper mixology later. Now, about this man?”

  The pair of women went to stand at the bathroom door. They heard the shower running and looked at each other.

  “He’s come round enough to know he needs a shower and how to work the thing.” Oona offered as a good sign.

  “Yes, but can he speak?” Helena wondered aloud.

  “Of course, I can speak.” The man said from the other side of the door. “Have you got anything I can wear besides this pink robe? It’s not my shade.”

  The women looked at each other with astonished looks and then Helena ran off to find the man something to wear. Going back she handed the man a pair of green fleece trousers and a fleece top through a crack in the door. When he came out the two women giggled as they looked at his barely covered legs and the arms that were too long for the sleeves by at least 6 inches.

  “That’s some way to treat a man that’s been murdered then brought back to life. I tell you, women these days, no clue about how to treat a fella do they?” He asked as he went through to the kitchen, still using a towel to dry his hair.

  “Murdered?” the women replied in unison, following along behind him.

  4

  “Yes, murdered.” Mark continued as the women followed him into the low-ceilinged kitchen.

  “Would you like a cup of tea? Something to eat?” Helena asked carefully. She wasn’t quite sure how to treat the man.

  He could be angry with her, after all, or depressed, or just completely mental. She stood well away from him as he looked around the kitchen.