by M. V. Stott
‘If you’ve finished gawping and rubbing your eyes like a cartoon mouse,’ said, Eva, ‘follow me.’
She stepped into the fault in reality and began to walk down the impossible, insane alleyway. I suspect most people would have fallen to their knees at that point. Collapsed like an overdone flan as their brains objected to this obvious glitch in the matrix, but I’d been attacked by octopus men and held conversations with talking foxes, so weird really was my wheelhouse now.
‘Okay. Okay then. Impossible alleys nestled between nothing. Of course.’
I walked in after Eva.
Inside the impossible alley itself, the “walls” to either side of me were just the surrounding countryside, but warped. Twisted. Stretched. Ahead of us lay a two-storey building made of large blocks of stone. Eva paused at a green metal door.
‘Here it is then. Home sweet home.’
I felt odd looking at the place. Like it was trying to whisper things to me that I once would have been able to hear. Which I know makes little to no sense, but then most of the last few days had been a confusing whirl of nonsense.
‘I’ll be honest,’ I said, ‘I kind of assumed you didn’t have a home.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘Well…’ I tried to find a tactful way to say, “You look like a tramp,” then gave up and gestured at her general mad, homeless person appearance.
‘It’s really very hard not to keep punching you,’ she said, unlocking the door and stepping inside.
‘And what is it with all that?’ I asked. ‘The punching and the name calling? Eva?’ I made my way in after her, wary that a fist might erupt from the gloom and break my nose.
It was warm inside. Warmer than I’d expected. I’d prepared myself for a tomb-like chill, but it seemed the ancient place had pretty decent heating.
The floor was bare, dark wood, and a staircase to my left stretched up to the next floor, its steps nude but for an inch of dust. It seemed that Eva didn’t venture from the ground floor often.
At first I thought someone had thrown pots of dark paint randomly against the walls of the corridor, then, upon closer inspection, realised that the large blotches more resembled scorch marks. Fire damage?
The atmosphere within the building was… well, I’m not really sure what it was. But it was something. Not unpleasant, but almost as though the air inside was thicker than outside. I felt as though I’d stepped into an invisible river, and that I could feel the currents rushing past me. I also felt something else.
I felt like I’d been there before.
‘Come through to the main room,’ said Eva from further inside the house. ‘And close the fucking door, were you born in a barn? Wait, scratch that, I think you actually were. Near some pigs, wasn’t it?’
I closed the door as requested then moved down the corridor and into what she called the “main room.” It was large, with an open fireplace dominating one wall. An old metal cauldron hung there, and a large, square piece of slate was fixed to the floor before it. Eva stumbled through from another door that looked like it lead off to a very rudimentary kitchen.
‘Here,’ she said, tossing a can of lager my way, then she flopped onto one of the tattiest, rankest smelling couches I’d ever laid eyes upon.
‘Thank you,’ I replied, opening the can and taking a sip.
Eva retrieved a remote control from between the sofa cushions and pointed it at the far wall. A click, and a screen parted to reveal a truly ginormous TV screen. A Fawlty Towers repeat came on. This place was literally a burnt-out hovel, but the TV was worth more than my car.
‘So,’ I said, breaking the heavy, heavy silence, ‘I like what you’ve mostly haven’t done with the place.’
Eva snorted.
I perched on the end of the couch and we both watched as Basil crouched, holding his head and hopping around in anguish.
‘I’ve been here before, haven’t I?’
Eva nodded. ‘Say hello to the Cumbrian Coven. Used to look a bit grander in the old days, but it’s still standing.’
‘Coven?’
‘Coven.’
‘That’s a witch thing, isn’t it?
‘Yup.’
‘Are you a witch?’
‘Nope.’
‘Oh.’
‘You’re a witch,’ she said.
There was quite a bit of silence then as my face did some rather spectacular expression gymnastics.
‘Or warlock, if you like. Some of you male witches prefer that. All the same thing though. Except for the tits.’
A witch. Or warlock. Okay. Well. Hm.
‘So I’m a warlock witch thing?’
‘That’s right, idiot.’
‘Okay, I see, and tell me why I should believe a word you say? Who even are you? You’re just an admittedly quite magic-savvy mad woman. How do I know you’re not feeding me a load of old crap, like that fox?’
Eva turned to me, her eyes wide. ‘Fox?’
‘There has been a talking fox, yes.’
‘And a woman? Have you seen a woman with red hair?’
‘Yes. Why are you looking at me like that?’
She moved fast, did Eva. Before I’d had chance to blink, I was on my back on the floor, looking up into her furious eyes, a hand around my throat.
‘What did she offer you?’
I choked and burbled a bit until she loosened her grip so that I could actually breathe.
‘Rubbish,’ I squeaked. ‘She just talked rubbish, and I’m pretty sure it was just some sort of weird dream, anyway.’
Eva bared her teeth. ‘If you ever see her again, you tell me. You tell me everything. And if I find out you haven’t told me everything, I’ll fucking kill you. You understand me, idiot?’
I shrank back, which is difficult to do as the floor prevented me from going backwards even an inch. ‘Got you,’ I said.
Eva grunted in anger, stood, then flopped back on the couch. I sat up, rubbing at my neck.
‘That’s one punch and a partial strangulation now,’ I said. ‘Just keeping a tally of abuse there.’
‘Get out,’ said Eva.
‘But if you are telling the truth, then tell me more. What’s my real name? What happened to me? Why can’t I remember my life?’
‘I’m going to sleep now,’ she replied, and lay back. Within seconds, she was snoring like an overweight truck driver after a three-day haul.
‘Eva? Eva!’
But it was no good, she was dead to the world.
It was at this point that I remembered an earlier invitation.
‘Oh shit.’ I looked at my watch. It was almost ten. ‘Oh shit with some extra shit on top.’
I looked back at Eva, wondered if I should continue to try to wake her up and attempt to get some clear answers to my questions, then thought about how many times she might punch my face if I disturbed her. I had a feeling there’d be plenty of time for more of that.
I ran from the house. From the Cumbrian Coven as Eva had called it. I sprinted down the crazy wrinkle in reality and back into the solid everyday, the Uncanny Wagon there to greet me.
I was supposed to be at Chloe’s place by seven. Eva had the right name for me.
I was an idiot.
24
After leaving the coven behind, my phone sprang to life and vomited up a tide of messages and missed phone calls it had been hiding from me.
Chloe was more than a little confused as to why I seemed to be avoiding her.
‘Hey, Chloe, it’s me. Joseph. An idiot, I’ve been reliably informed.’
‘Where have you been? I thought we had a date, Joseph. And what’s this Big Marge said about you having another stay in a hospital bed?’
‘Fine. It’s nothing. I just found another dead body and, I suppose, passed out. Manly.’
‘Jesus, are you okay?’
I nodded furiously, then realised that this was a phone call and head movements in the affirmative were not going to move this conversation along any.
‘Yep. Yes. I’m oh so good.’ Which was a clear lie, but I think I sold it well enough.
‘You don’t sound good, you sound weird.’
Damn.
‘Just, you know, finding another dead person. It’s sort of, weirded me out a little, that’s all.’
‘Are you coming over?’
‘Yes. I am on my way.’
‘Good.’
And through the country roads towards Carlisle and Chloe’s home I sped.
Okay, so, it seems my tardiness had not put the mockers on things. I was still allowed to darken Chloe’s door. This should have made me happy, but I was currently full to the trembling brim with all the new information I’d been given, jostling with all the other weird-to-the-point-of-insane sights and sounds I’d collected over the last few days.
I’ve investigated the paranormal for a long time, but this was the first hand evidence I’d seen that any of it was true. Finally, the weird had decided to pay me a visit, and it had brought the whole family.
Monsters.
Witches.
Magic.
My past life.
Alternate worlds.
Talking animals with a fondness for battle axes.
Any one of those would have been enough to make a man question his sanity. Question how real this so-called reality really was. And here I was trying to cope with all of them at the same time. It’s a wonder I wasn’t curled up in a ball on the ground, babbling in tongues.
It was like life as I had known it, as I had accepted it, had revealed itself to be only one part of the story. Look here, under this sheet, see all of this other secret stuff, some of which is going to try and chew your face off with a large fucking beak?
I realised I was sweating, my heart was beating too fast, my hands white-knuckling the steering wheel.
I needed to calm down.
Everything was fine.
Well, everything wasn’t fine, everything was on the terrifying side, but I was going somewhere normal. Somewhere that magic didn’t exist and I was plain old Joseph Lake: a gangly, well meaning doofus with terrific hair and the hots for a very nice woman.
Thirty minutes later, as Chloe opened her front door, I could see in her eyes that I must have looked insane.
‘Joe, what’s wrong?’
‘Nothing. Nothing’s wrong, do you have water? Ha! Of course you have water, who doesn’t have water? Actually, that’s insensitive of me, there are many countries in this world where on-hand, potable water is a problem. Thoughtless of me, I apologise.’
Chloe ushered me inside and I tried my best to get my shit together.
‘Get your shit together,’ I actually said.
‘What was that?’ asked Chloe, who was stood right next to me.
‘Just a normal thing. Normal words.’
She handed me a glass of water, which I gratefully accepted, then downed in three large gulps.
‘Ah! Okay, that’s better. Now I am calm. And relaxed.’
Chloe looked down at my right leg, which was jiggling like a loon, as though trying to beat out a machine gun rhythm on a bass drum. I gave it a little slap.
‘Joe, where have you been since you checked yourself out of the hospital?’
‘Just around. Driving. Trying to clear my head after all the unpleasantness. Did Big Marge mention the latest victim was the woman who hired me to find her missing cat? Because she was. That was the woman who died.’
‘Shit. No, she didn’t say that.’
‘Well, it was. So that’s shit. Well, even if it hadn’t been her, it would’ve been shit. Because dead person. Murdered person.’
I felt Chloe’s hand slip into mine.
‘Joe, calm down, you’re okay.’
‘Not really, for many reasons that I can’t really divulge at this moment.’
Jesus, was I screwing this up. The past few days had been building an unsteady pile of bricks on top of me, and I thought I’d been handling things reasonably well, but nope, down fell the bricks, and there I was, sweating and trembling in the front room of the woman I was hopelessly in love with.
‘Joe, I’m here. I’m your friend. You can tell me anything.’
She looked up at me with those big eyes. Eyes full of empathy and understanding. Eyes that made me feel weak at the knees.
It was at this point I did a very stupid thing. I began to tell the truth. Well, not tell as much as purge the truth in one eruption.
‘Okay, okay, well, it’s just been…. you know! These last few days, with the murders, and my being attacked—’
‘You were attacked?’
‘Yep, attacked, lied about that, said I just crashed the Uncanny Wagon, but no, attacked, and then there were the monsters with big floppy octopus arms that I haven’t told anyone about, and a talking fox with an axe!’
Chloe pulled back, alarm on her face at my crazy unloading.
‘Talking fox? Did you say a talking fox?’
‘With an axe! And that homeless woman isn’t actually homeless, but she is magic, and she lives in a big old house hidden in a wrinkle in reality and she tells me that I am, apparently, a witch.’
‘A witch?’
‘Or warlock. Witch warlock, that’s me, that’s apparently what I was before Joseph Lake, I was a witch or a warlock, or whatever, and life is very strange, and very frightening, and, oh dear, you’re making a very not good face at me. Shit.’
Shitty shit.
Chloe let go of my hand and walked slowly over to the couch, then sat down.
‘Chloe?’
She didn’t answer, didn’t look at me.
‘I didn’t mean any of that. That was all a joke. Ha! Fooled you, you big, you know, idiot.’
I squirmed on the spot, heartbeat loud in my ears.
Moron, moron, moron.
‘Look, I’m sorry. I’m just a little… overwhelmed by recent events. Been hit on the head one too many times and I’m talking rubbish. I’m sorry. End of rubbish. I’m not a witch and foxes obviously can’t talk and they certainly don’t wear helmets. Can we start again?’
Chloe looked up at me, then at her feet, then back up at me.
‘I’m actually feeling pretty tired.’
‘Oh. Yes, of course. Me too.’
‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’
‘Tomorrow it is. Not tonight, tomorrow.’
‘Tomorrow.’
‘Beautiful.’
Beautiful? Christ, I’m an idiot.
‘I’ll just be off then. Here I go. Off.’
I turned and headed for the door.
‘Get some rest, Joe,’ said Chloe.
I turned, saluted by way of an answer, and wondered why I’d just done that. Who salutes? A tool salutes. I then left Chloe’s home, got into my car, and drove home, loudly calling myself some very impolite names.
25
I woke the next morning with a groan.
It’s not often I wake feeling quite so thoroughly depressed, but then it’s not every day I wake from having made myself look and sound like a basket case in front of the woman I want to like me in a sex way.
I reached for my phone and checked to see if she’d sent me any messages.
No messages.
I checked three times just to make sure I hadn’t gone message-blind, which I decided to pretend might be a thing in order to make myself feel better.
I stared at my message stream with Chloe for several minutes, debating what to send. And if I should send anything at all. After typing out numerous different possibilities, and then deleting each before I had the chance to hit ‘send’, I finally went with ‘Hey’.
Send.
I waited for a reply.
Twenty minutes.
No reply.
Damn and also bugger with a side dish of balls.
I dragged myself up out of bed and shambled miserably into a hot shower, hoping to blast the worst of my mood away. You always feel better after a shower.
So. The big qu
estion that I still needed to try and answer for myself. Did I believe what Eva had told me? Did I believe that I was some sort of a witch? A man-witch. A warlock. Eva certainly had abilities that were out of the ordinary. She also lived in a house hidden in a wrinkle in the fabric of reality. Or something. So, either she was messing with me, or she was telling the truth and I was a magic man. Or, third option, she thought she was telling the truth but was in fact wrong about me, because although she herself was magic, she was also completely bonkers.
Three options.
I’ve always hated options.
Too much choice turns me into a ditherer.
But the fact was, I did feel something at her home. At the coven. Like I’d been there before. Like I belonged there. Like the very air inside the place knew me. And then there was the fire. Not the sort I’d seen in the dark lakes, in what may have been a delusion, but the fire that erupted from my hands as the three octopus men readied themselves to pounce and sucker me to death. Or beak me to death. Or a combination of the two. I’d seen Eva do that sort of a thing when she’d punched her fist through one of the creatures’ skulls. She did it, she was magic. I did it, somehow, so maybe I was magic too. Maybe Eva was telling the truth. Maybe I really was a warlock.
And then there were the strange visions and feelings after touching Detective Samm. After touching the dead cat. More evidence for the prosecution.
One thing was for sure, I needed to find Eva again and wrestle some answers out of her.
I turned off the shower and pulled back the curtain to reveal Eva, stood looking at me.
‘Morning, idiot.’
I may have screamed, jumped back, slipped, and crashed down into the bathtub, jarring my bum-bone something rotten.
‘Ha! I like that, because you fell and hurt yourself. That’s just good stuff, love,’ said Eva.
‘Why!’ I said, then added a few more for good measure. ‘Why, why, why?’