The Wicker Slippers

by Jon Jacks

  Max’s eyes were wild as she glared at Greg for doubting her.

  ‘It’s ridiculous, I know! There has to be a me and you! I’ve felt so sure of it since I met you! But the cards say no – we won’t ever be together. And I don’t want to believe it, but I have to! Because I know the cards aren’t lying!’

  ‘Well if it comes to proving those stupid cards are wrong, how about this Max!’

  Stepping forward, Greg swung his arms tightly around Max’s waist and back.

  He moved his lips towards hers – and kissed her.

  Suddenly, he was struck by a massive blow to his side.

  He was sent flying ungainly across the floor, the tarot cards falling around him like a colourful snowstorm.

  ‘The cards said you wouldn’t be together!’ Lee snarled, hovering over him, his fists clenched, his teeth bared.

  ‘What? Lee?’ Greg was dazed, confused.

  Had Lee just barged into him?

  ‘Lee!’ Janet was aghast. ‘What’s got into you?’

  Max flew to Greg’s side, crouching down beside him as she glared back at Lee.

  ‘How dare you Lee? What gives’ you the right to break me and Greg apart like that?’

  ‘The cards, the cards said…’

  He trailed off, embarrassed by such a weak attempt to explain his crazy behaviour.

  ‘The cards are wrong!’ Max said sternly, as if she had finally broken free of the spell-like trance she had seemed to be in while dealing out the tarot.

  ‘Look, I really think I should go,’ Janet said, moving towards the kitchen’s back door. ‘This isn’t at all what I expected it to be.’

  ‘Janet, no, please!’ A shamefaced Lee stepped towards Janet. He held out his hand in a conciliatory gesture. ‘I’ve been acting odd, I know. I don’t know wha–’

  ‘Odd?’ Janet glowered back at him. ‘Lee, you’re nothing like the person I remember! I don’t know what’s got into you since you left here. I think we can dismiss one of those futures Max saw; there won’t ever be a Lee and Janet! Which is what you wanted anyway, isn’t it Lee? I hope you and Max will be happy together.’

  ‘Max?’ Lee said it drowsily as if, like Max, he was waking from a dream-filled sleep.

  ‘I’ll give you a lift Janet,’ Greg offered as he nimbly rose to his feet.

  ‘Oh thanks Greg,’ Max scowled. ‘So it’s okay to leave me here with crazy Lee, right, but poor little Janet needs seeing home?’

  ‘Janet, look, please; I know I’ve been acting stupidly!’ Lee sheepishly apologised once more. ‘I really don’t know what came over me. I’ve treated you badly, I know that now; please forgive me.’

  His eyes were pleading for forgiveness, Janet could see that.

  What had happened to him over the past few years?

  Sure, when they’d been younger, he’d managed to remain blissfully unaware of the feelings she had for him; but he’d never been deliberately unkind to her.

  He’d just been so full of life that there hadn’t been as much time for her in his social whirl as she would have preferred.

  ‘Lee, let’s face it; you obviously didn’t really want me here,’ she said, reaching for the door’s handle. ‘I should leave.’

  She tried to twist the door handle, but it was too stiff for her to turn.

  ‘Here, I’ll do it,’ Greg said, gently removing her hand and trying the handle himself.

  The handle still refused to move.

  ‘Damn! Those workmen must have damaged it!’

  ‘I suppose we’ve only used the front door up until now,’ Lee pointed out, nodding towards the hallway leading to the front door.

  ‘I’ll get the workmen to look at that lock when they’re back on Monday,’ Max said to Greg as he and Janet strode past her into the hallway.

  But the handle on the front door was just as stiff and unmovable as the one on the back door.

  ‘This is ridiculous!’ Greg growled in frustration as he strained hard against the handle. ‘What have they done? Put some super-strength glue in here?’

  ‘Looks like you’re going to have to clamber out of the window I’m afraid Janet,’ Max declared gleefully.

  When they all moved to the living room’s main window, however, they soon found that that wouldn’t open either.

  ‘Max!’ Greg stormed. ‘I know you just dress these houses up to look nice for the competition, but they are supposed to be liveable in!’

  ‘The front door was fine earlier!’ Max protested. ‘That’s how we got in here, remember?’

  ‘This window won’t open either,’ Lee shouted back from the rear of the room, where he’d gone to try one of the other windows.

  ‘This is all getting a bit weird, don’t you think?’ Janet said worriedly.

  ‘Oh nonsense, Janet!’ Max scoffed dismissively. ‘It’s just the workmen messing up yet again! They’ve probably gone overboard with the glue, as Greg says, rather than using screws and nails like they’re supposed to.’

  ‘Well this window’s firmly shut too!’ Greg said flatly as he vainly tried to open yet another window. ‘So just how much glue do you think your guy’s have been using, eh Max? These are old window frames too; there’s no real reason why they should have touched them, other than just putting a lick of fresh paint on the outside.’

  ‘It’s the house.’

  Janet glanced about her at the house’s confining walls, her eyes bulbous with fear.

  ‘The house is trapping us inside.’

  *

  Chapter 11

  ‘The house? Hah! Ridiculous!’

  Max appraised Janet disdainfully.

  ‘You just don’t know my workmen, my dear,’ she added. ‘Incompetence comes as standard.’

  ‘Well none of the windows I’ve tried open.’ Greg rubbed the dirt off his hands as he pulled away from the last of the windows he’d tried.

  ‘Me too,’ Lee agreed, striding back into the room after quickly trying the kitchen windows.

  ‘Upstairs,’ Max said brightly. ‘Knowing my workmen, they’re far too lazy to have even touched the upstairs windows.’

  ‘Upstairs?’

  Janet said it doubtfully, even fearfully.

  ‘Yes, upstairs dear.’ Max eyed Janet scornfully. ‘I take it you have an upstairs in your house, right?’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course; but, I just mean here.’

  ‘Oh yes, yes, I forgot, didn’t I? The monsters under the bed?’

  ‘I can’t get a signal on my phone.’ Greg was slipping his mobile back into his pocket as he spoke.

  ‘Me neither; it must be a dead spot.’ Lee, his phone clamped to his ear, shook his head in disappointment.

  ‘I’ll use the landline,’ Greg said, looking around the room for the phone. ‘What’s the number for the head of your workmen, Max?’

  ‘Ah, we haven’t had the phone connected yet.’

  ‘That’s it then; I’m going to smash a window,’ Greg said resolutely, now looking around the room for something he could use to break the pane. ‘They can repair it when they’re back.’

  The workmen had swept a pile of rubbish into a corner of the room. It included bits of the materials they had been using or replacing while making their repairs, such as off cuts of wood and odd pieces of brick.

  Grasping a crumbling piece of brick, and shading his eyes with his other hand, Greg threw it at the window.

  The brick bounced back, painfully striking Greg on his leg.

  ‘Ooucch! What the? What are these windows made of? Plastic?’

  ‘I told you it’s the house,’ Janet said blankly.

  ‘The house! Can you stop going on about the house, like it’s alive or something?’

  Max made the most of her growing anger, smashing a long piece of wood she’d picked up against one of the larger window panes, striking it with all the force she could muster.

  ‘Arrrgghh! God, that hurt!’ she screamed.

  The window once again remained firm, reflecti
ng the energy back down the beam into Max’s hands as a jarring vibration.

  Lee flung a cannonball-sized section of stone against the window, only for this to be also successfully rebuffed by the window.

  ‘This...this is crazy!’ Greg exclaimed in awe. ‘Just what did they use to make windows when this place was built?’

  *

  Chapter 12

  ‘Upstairs; we haven’t tried upstairs,’ Max pointed out. ‘My workmen won’t have bothered fixing anything up there they didn’t have to.’

  ‘We’ll have to jump down,’ Greg said. ‘I know it’s not exactly a tall house, but you could still injure yourself pretty badly.’

  ‘I could do it,’ Lee said. ‘I’ll climb down some of the climbing plants–’

  ‘Have you seen the thorns on those things?’ Max grimaced as if she were imagining the thorns cutting into her. ‘Would they hold your weight anyway?’

  ‘What about the bush that saved you when you jumped out of your window?’ Janet said. ‘Is that still there?’

  ‘Nope, it’s some sort of plastic bush now,’ Greg said. ‘Besides, what saved a three-year-old isn’t necessarily going to save a grown boy like Lee.’

  ‘Blankets then; we’ll use blankets to make a rope.’

  Max wasn’t waiting for any more comments. She headed for the steep flight of boxed-in wooden stairs that, rising up from the rear of the short hallway, used the broad chimney breast as support.

  ‘We haven’t got any blankets–’

  ‘That’s enough negative thinking thank you Greg!’

  The stairs sharply angled back on themselves. Max found herself on the small landing offering a choice of two doors.

  ‘We’ll try your room first Lee, right?’ Max asked, pushing the door open and entering the room without bothering to wait for any reply.

  The others quickly followed her. The room’s floors were uneven, bared floorboards that creaked under their slightest movement.

  ‘I can’t open this window either,’ Max said miserably, turning back from the room’s rear window to face the others as they filed into the room. ‘So, unless we can get the other windows open, the fact we haven’t got any blankets is pretty irrelevant, eh Greg?’

  Greg ignored her. He’d quickly moved to the window at the front of the house.

  He shook his head; no, this window wasn’t going to open either.

  ‘Just what the heck’s going on in this bloody house Lee?’ Max stormed. ‘Is this some kind of trick you’ve arranged so– Janet? Are you all right?’

  Janet had been the last to enter the room. She was still standing by the door, her face frozen in fear.

  ‘Janet?’ Lee turned back to her

  ‘Can’t you see?’

  ‘See what?’

  She pointed to a spot just by Max and the rear window.

  ‘The boy; a ghost!’

  *

  Max glanced worriedly towards the spot Janet was pointing to.

  ‘Ghost? There’s nothing there!’

  Even though she sounded both certain and irritated, she backed away from where she was standing.

  ‘Yes, yes there is,’ Janet insisted.

  She was drawing closer towards where she said the ghost boy was standing. Her face was no longer filled with fear. Instead, her eyes were now wide with amazement and curiosity.

  ‘I know him! I recognise him, recognise the boy!’

  ‘Oh this is ridiculous Janet!’ Max snapped. ‘Are you making out that this is some other power the witch’s slippers have granted you? That now you can see ghosts we can’t see?’

  ‘You’re the one who’s still got the slippers on Max,’ Greg pointed out with an amused grin. ‘Does this mean you’re beginning to believe in witchcraft after all?’

  ‘I mean, I don’t even feel cold!’ Max persisted. ‘Aren’t you supposed to feel cold when a ghost’s around?’

  ‘Who is he?’ Lee asked Janet curiously.

  ‘It you Lee,’ Janet answered. ‘You as a young boy.’

  *

  Chapter 13

  ‘This is totally ridiculous!’

  Max glared at Janet.

  ‘Lee’s here, in the room with us! So how can it possibly be his ghost? And that’s even if there is a ghost there, rather than it just being one of your country-bumpkin tricks or silly beliefs!’

  Janet ignored her. She stared instead, open mouthed, towards Lee.

  ‘It’s you as I remember you, only, perhaps, even younger. An age before I’d first met you.’

  ‘So it’s your imagination playing tricks, you mean?’ Max scoffed. ‘How come you’re the only one who can see him?’

  ‘But how Janet?’ Lee said sympathetically. ‘As Max said, I’m here; I’m alive. I didn’t die here.’

  ‘But you could have done, Lee, remember? If you hadn’t been saved?’

  She swung around to face Max, a possible answer dawning on her.

  ‘It’s like your reading of the tarot, Max! Where you were seeing different futures?’

  ‘They were just a pack of silly old cards Janet!’

  ‘You didn’t seem to think of them that way when you were reading them Max!’ Greg said irritably.

  ‘Don’t you see Lee?’ Janet turned to face Lee once more. ‘In one version of your life, in one possible future, you didn’t survive; you died in the explosion!’

  *

  Max stormed past Janet and strode out of the room.

  ‘There is no ghost, Lee!’ she cried back over her shoulder. ‘I’ve had it with all this mumbo-jumbo! This house isn’t haunted, or plagued with witchcraft! It’s just plagued with incompetent workers, who have left me with a house like this before!’

  ‘Before?’ Greg followed on behind Max. ‘You mean they’ve ended up gluing everything shut before? When was that?’

  ‘Oh, I can’t remember exactly when!’ Max shouted as she angrily descended the stairs. ‘But they’ve left me with plenty of cockups like this to sort out, believe you me!’

  ‘Even if we can’t get out, someone will be here soon to help us,’ Lee yelled out after them both, making his way to the top of the stairs.

  At the doorway, he halted briefly to anxiously glance back at Janet.

  ‘Janet; are you coming? Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ she replied, shaking her head as if waking up from a dream. ‘He’s gone now; the boy’s gone.’

  ‘What do you mean, someone will be here to help us soon?’ Max demanded, having spun around at the bottom of the stairs.

  ‘I mean Janet’s mum and dad will read the note Janet left them, and come looking for her.’

  ‘So there we are then,’ Max said triumphantly. ‘Even if this bloody house is haunted, Janet’s mum and dad will be coming to the rescue any second now; so can we all just please relax, and forget all this childish nonsense about witchcraft?’

  ‘Max, I don’t think any of us had seriously thought this house was cursed or anything!’ Greg edged his way past Max. ‘It’s just bad workmanship trapping us here; we all know that. And Janet’s just remembering Lee as he used to be when she used to play in that room with him, that’s all.’

  ‘That’s not true, thank you Greg!’ Janet said, making her way down the stairs just behind Lee. ‘I really think it was Lee’s ghost.’

  ‘Janet, I’m here, remember?’ Lee chuckled in exasperation.

  ‘Oh, but aren’t you forgetting that our resident teenage witch has already come up with an explanation for that, Lee?’ Max sneered, peering back up the stairs. ‘It’s just one of the possible futures awaiting you. Though as all that’s actually way back in the past, I’ve absolutely no idea how that’s supposed to work, have you?’

  ‘Neither do I Max!’ Janet retorted irately. ‘It was just a feeling, a sense I got that that was the explanation. I’m sorry, but I really can’t explain it any more than that, thank you!’

  ‘Well naturally Janet, you don’t have to explain it any more than that, do
you?’

  As Janet reached the bottom of the stairs, Max glowered at her.

  ‘If it’s a “feeling”, a “sense’, why shouldn’t we believe you that you’ve seen the ghost of someone who we all know is alive and well, eh?’

  ‘Look, can’t you two just stop all this?’ Lee said. ‘If we’ve got to stay here until Janet’s mum and dad raise the alarm, we might as well all try and get on, okay?’

  Lee cringed as both Max and Janet angrily whirled on him.

  He was only saved by Greg excitedly shouting out from the kitchen.

  ‘Hey, would you all come and look at this!’

  *

  Chapter 14

  Leading the way as they filed into the kitchen, Max gasped when she saw Greg on his knees on the floor, aggressively wrenching at and pulling back a loose floorboard.

  ‘Hey, we’re supposed to be repairing this place, not pulling it apart, remember?’

  ‘Oh sure Max; that’s why I almost broke my neck tripping over this loose floorboard, right?’

  He pushed the floorboard aside with a satisfied grunt.

  ‘That’s doesn’t mean you have to wreck the place!’ Max wailed.

  ‘Not even for this you mean?’

  Reaching into the dark space beneath the house he’d revealed, he proudly pulled out an ancient, filthy book.’

  ‘Oh my God?’ Max said. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Don’t tell me it’s a book of spells!’ Lee laughed.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Greg admitted, flicking through the mouldy pages with a disappointed frown. ‘I just knew there was something odd in here when I looked back to see what had tripped me up. I saw something glinting in the gap.’

  With the touch of a finger, he indicated the book’s brass corners.

  ‘But I wasn’t expecting a book.’

  ‘Let me have a look at it Greg,’ Max said, holding out a hand for the book.

  ‘There’s something else in there,’ Lee said, crouching down beside Greg. He pointed off to one side of the gap, where he could see something else dully glinting in the dim light.

  Taking the book off Greg, Max opened it up to a random page.

  She couldn’t understand why Greg couldn’t make any sense of it.

  It was perfectly easy to read.

  ‘It’s not a book of spells,’ she said. ‘It’s a book of potions.’