by Syd Moore
‘Oh,’ I said, wondering if the plural extended to my dad. If so, they were the first positive words I’d heard in relation to his childhood home.
Dull light was coming in from a window at the top, barely illuminating a flight of stairs. I followed Sam as he ascended through the cobwebs and soon came out into a very large attic room. It seemed to have also been, at one time, used as a bedroom. By a female of the species. There were dormer windows in the roof that sloped to the rear and overlooked the land behind the museum. In front of them, a large dressing table that had probably once been white was gathering a layer of dust. Despite the window there wasn’t much natural light in the room. The sky outside looked dramatic and ready to burst. I groped at the wall and found a light switch, which I fiddled with until it clicked. The light bulb in the middle of the room came on then fused with a small bang.
‘Bugger,’ I said.
‘Hang on.’ Sam called. ‘I think I left a torch the last time I was up here. It’s down by your feet, I think. Go on, have a feel around.’
I bent down and soon located a thin cylindrical object, which I switched on. It wasn’t very strong but certainly helped visibility. Now I could see over in the corner a smaller window, which was circular, and a French-style bed with a lilac eiderdown. Opposite it was a big white armoire, slightly open. I caught a glimpse of pink taffeta peeping out of the door. It looked like the same dress Ethel-Rose had worn in the family portrait downstairs. Wouldn’t it be fab if it fitted?
In the distance thunder rumbled.
‘Storm,’ said Sam. ‘Hope the Cadence wing holds. This will be the new roof’s first test.’
‘I’m sure it’ll be fine,’ I said. ‘But we’ll go and get the buckets ready after this, just in case.’
I wasn’t ready to rush down yet, though. The torchlight had fallen over waist-high bookshelves and a coffee table with a Dansette record player. It seemed to be a listening/reading corner complete with nylon bean bags. There was junk piled up on every inch of available floor space. It looked like a hoarder’s paradise: stacks of old magazines teetered on armchairs and stools. A telescope pointed out the window beside two mannequins, one wearing a frilly dress, another laden with a dozen mesh hats and silk flowers. There were a bunch of lampshades, a chaise longue with the stuffing coming out, two single bed frames. A dresser had been shoved in front of the fireplace and was covered with fortune-telling paraphernalia: phrenology heads, a crystal ball, palmistry hands, teacups, some weird-looking Morph creature that Sam said was a ‘golem’. At one end, rectangular parcels of black velvet were laid out on tins – tarot cards apparently. Several paintings and pictures were propped against the wall, beside a miniature puppet theatre and a whole heap of cardboard boxes piled in towers. There were more books, of course, but in the far corner, next to the armoire, a tall box-like shape loomed beneath a dust sheet.
‘Here,’ said Sam. Somehow he had got behind me. I flashed the light on him. ‘We could move this desk downstairs to start with.’ He was pointing at a slim wooden table that still bore signs of study – a full pen pot and several jotters.
‘Was that Celeste’s?’ I coughed. It was so dusty up here. Actually, it was dusty everywhere in the museum. I should get a cleaner in.
‘Looks like it, doesn’t it? Do you mind?’
‘’Course not. This was her room, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes, but as you can see there a lot of Ethel-Rose’s personal effects in here too.’
It felt peculiar. Almost intrusive. Some bits and bobs looked like they had not been touched since Celeste walked out the door on her last day of life.
There was a strong sense of both women – the faded scent of rose petals, baby powder; an open Cosmopolitan on the bed, cut-glass perfume bottles half full set beside a hand mirror and brush that had a couple of long black hairs still in it.
Until now, they had been only characters in the story of my family but in this room, among their things, I was confronted by the reality that they had been living and breathing and here. And, for the first time, I was touched by a spasm of grief. My own, for them, having never been acquainted, combined with an acute almost painful wave of sympathy for Septimus and his great loss. A wife and a daughter. How agonising. Dad too had suffered the trauma of a losing a mother and a sister. Quite unexpectedly, I felt myself well up.
Hiding my face from Sam, I turned away into the dimness. ‘What’s this then?’ I said, to distract him from my emotion. ‘Under the sheet?’ and shone my light on the big object in the middle of the room.
In the distance thunder rumbled.
Sam replied with a grin in his voice, ‘Why don’t you see? Take the covering off, go on.’
I did as instructed and whipped it away, dropping the cloth at my feet. A sheet of lightning lit up the windows and illuminated a fortune-teller machine.
‘Whoa,’ I said, stepping back. Not what I expected at all. It was the kind of thing you see on piers and in amusement arcades: a large box made of glass and wood that was decorated to resemble the velveteen interior of a gypsy caravan. Across the top was a wooden sign in a circus-type script that read Madam Zelda. Beneath it, the upper half of an automaton bent over a crystal ball. It was dressed in a bodice with long flowing sleeves and a large gold-link necklace. Black hair fell down beneath a fringed headscarf. Her eyes were heavily lined, her lips ruby red. Attractive, as far as dolls went.
Lightning struck something outside, a couple of miles away, and again the room blazed white.
I laughed with delight as a light came on above the gypsy’s head and flickered.
Something clicked noisily.
Zelda’s eyes flashed green and opened as she whirred into life.
The head rotated clunkily towards me, her hand juddering over the crystal ball now illuminated. Big hoop earrings jangled. Her chest moved as if she was breathing and a voice rang out of the speakers, female, layered with an ‘exotic’ Eastern European accent.
‘A dangerous coupling,’ she trilled, ‘that is not resolved, leads to fatal decisions. Beware. Be astute in your judgement of people you encounter. They may not be all they seem,’ she finished. The lights darkened.
I turned and looked at Sam with a sardonic nip on my lips. ‘Pfft,’ I said. ‘Very well planned. How did you do that? Remote control? Tripwire?’
In the torchlight I could see his face was kind of frozen. After a long moment, he looked at me and grimaced and said, ‘I didn’t do that.’
‘Kidding?’ I returned.
He shook his head.
I copied his movement and said in a lightly mocking tone, ‘This place, honestly. If I didn’t know better I would say it was trying to tell me something.’ Then I waited for a disparaging comment.
We spent the next few seconds in silence, for on this occasion Sam said nothing.
Eventually he pointed at the floor near my feet. When I shone the torch at the space I saw the plug lying there.
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Really not you then? But if it’s not plugged in, it can’t get electricity, so …’
‘I realise that,’ Sam said at last.
I took a long hard look at him, then had to turn back again.
In her fortune-teller’s cabinet, Zelda had started to laugh.
Thunder rattled the casements.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Elizabeth Brownrigg did indeed carry out the crimes outlined in this book. She was a midwife for the Saint Dunstan’s Parish and, as such a professional, was given custody of several girls as domestic servants who came from the nearby Foundling Hospital. I’m sad to say that she was not the only abusive adult who exploited vulnerable children and young women. She became a pariah in the popular press and was executed at Tyburn on 14 September 1767, after being found guilty of torturing her female apprentice, Mary Clifford, to death. The house where she lived and where these crimes took place was in Fleur de Lis Court, also known as Flower-de-Luce. This was situated to the east of Fetter Lane and north of Fleet Street b
ut was absorbed into Fetter Lane between 1848 and 1851.
It’s very easy to relegate these incidents to the past or treat them as an unfortunate episode of our history, however, we know that human slavery exists today. Young women and girls are at present subject to a worrying pan-global phenomenon which sees them kidnapped, raped, groomed and trafficked, and at worst murdered. Much of this goes undiscussed, the victims forced into silence for fear of retribution. We have to start speaking out and stating clearly that we value girls just as much as we value boys. And so too must we challenge any prejudice we come across, regularly, no matter how small or allegedly ‘jocular’ it may seem. There are, of course, many charities and groups trying to address this problem, but by raising these issues and talking about them openly, in this small way we can effect change by ourselves. I think that’s how we make a better world for everyone.
21 May 2017
For more information, check out:
Act for Girls – https://plan-uk.org/act-for-girls/
Anti-slavery – www.antislavery.org/slavery-today/slavery-uk/
DINNødhjælp (Your Help Needed) – http://dinnoedhjaelp.dk/
Safe Child Africa – www.safechildafrica.org/
Women’s Equality Party – www.womensequality.org.uk/
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
As always, multiple thanks go to Sean and Riley without whose support my books would be impossible to write. The magic beans will grow!
My editor, Jenny Parrott, is THE BUSINESS! Where would I be without her astute judgement, boundless energy and irrepressible spirit? Not here, for sure. She is an absolute peach. More Oneworld notable mentions must include Margot Weale for her brilliant campaign for Strange Magic. Here’s to the next two, Margot, and lots more Essex Girl cocktails. Thanhmai Bui-Van walks a great and rather sassy walk with the sales malarkey. Ilona Chavasse does strange occult things with rights and everything associated therewith. Cailin Neal and Mark Rusher talk the marketing talk with grace and zeal. Paul Nash, James Magniac and James Jones are responsible for turning the manuscript into a physical thing – and those gorgeous covers too. Emma Grundy Haigh gets her hands dirty with the copy-edit and makes the words work. Becky Kraemer does all of this all over again in the US. Thanks also to Juliet Mabey and Novin Doostdar.
I must also thank Robert Longhurst for his most invaluable help and advice regarding all things optometric and for the detail on visual processing disorders. It was our initial conversation, while I was having my eyes tested, that led to a discussion about Charles Bonnet syndrome which partly inspired Strange Sight.
John Gurel gave me a lot of advice with respect to occupational hazards and habits which was so insightful. While paranormal investigator and author Richard Estep got me through some of the very technical bits. Thanks to Twitter buddy Julie Haves, for introducing us. For a sceptical take on ghost-hunting you could do no worse than visit Hayley Stevens website www.hayleyisaghost.co.uk.
Friends in the Fourth Estate who have been incredibly supportive of my bursts into publishing deserve a thank you too – Kelly Buckley, Darryl Webber, Louise Howeson, Emma Rice, Chris Hatton, Steve Neale, Sasha James. And I have some great literary supporters to whom I am also very grateful – the Essex Book Festival, the Forum in Southend, Sarah Perry, Cathi Unsworth and Travis Elborough, Jo Good, thepool.co.uk, Bluebookballoon, Crimesquad.com, thecrimewarp, TheQuietKnitter, Gateway, Lucy V. Hay.
Thanks to everyone at Metal. A great bunch of people who are very understanding around publication and kind and nice and just amazing colleagues. A special shout out goes to Nicky Bettell in particular, for the Sandra face. She doesn’t have one, but she entertained me for a hysterical half hour describing it and let me insert the phrase into Rosie’s vernacular.
I wrote parts of this book in Australia and have to thank my Oz kin for their interest and encouragement – Des and Kath, Simon and Jo, Xave and Genevieve. Darren and Wendy too. And also my lovely Australian friends Jo Todd and Justin Le Gouilon, without whom my life would have gone in an entirely different direction. Can I also point out to Gabrielle and John that I did rise to the challenge of getting both Gabrielle and a donkey in the same paragraph, thank you very much.
Thanks as always to Mum and Dad, Pauline and Ernie, and my family and friends who are great. Too many to mention but you know who you are. Kate Bradley and Steph Roche, however, get special mentions as they have done so much for me with my literary efforts.
And thanks to you the reader. You make it happen.
‘Strange Magic is that rarest of things: a book which sets out unashamedly to entertain, and does so with wit, style, and erudition. I gleefully submitted to a tale of witchcraft, feminism, mysterious strangers, historical atrocities, plucky heroines and ghastly apparitions – and came away more proud than ever to be an Essex girl.’
Sarah Perry, author of The Essex Serpent
Book 1 in the Essex Witch Museum Series
STRANGE MAGIC
Syd Moore
Rosie Strange doesn’t believe in witches. No, not at all. It’s no surprise therefore when she inherits the ramshackle Essex Witch Museum, her first thought is to take the money and run. Still, the museum exerts a curious pull. There’s the eccentric academic who demands Rosie hunt for old bones, those of the notorious Ursula Cadence, a witch long since put to death. And there’s curator Sam Stone, a man Rosie can’t decide if he’s tiresomely annoying or extremely captivating. Her plans to sell the museum might need to be delayed, just for a while.
Finding herself and Sam embroiled in a centuries-old mystery, Rosie is quickly expelled from her comfort zone, where to her horror, the secrets of the past come with their own real, and all too present danger, as a strange magic threatens to envelope them all.
A Point Blank Book
First published in the United Kingdom, United States and Australia by Point Blank, an imprint of Oneworld Publications, 2017
This ebook published 2017
Copyright © Syd Moore 2017
The moral right of Syd Moore to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
All rights reserved
Copyright under Berne Convention
A CIP record for this title is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-1-78607-205-4
ISBN 978-1-78607-206-1 (ebook)
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Oneworld Publications
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