The Flower and the Serpent

by Madeleine D'Este

  ***

  THE DARK HAND

  You are not the first person who needed my help.

  Many have taken up my offer.

  Some names you may know. Famous names. Infamous names.

  Thousands of names you will not know.

  But they were all like you. Disrespected. Misunderstood. Rejected. People who needed a friend. Someone they could trust.

  You are smarter than the rest of them. You can see the possibilities and the truth.

  Don't deny yourself this chance to make everything right.

  You know you deserve to get what you want.

  But I cannot act alone. I am only a conduit...

  All I do is help bring out the power you had within you all along.

  You are bigger, greater, wiser, stronger than you know.

  You can show them all.

  With my help.

  Imagine your life if you let me help you.

  Nothing would stand in your way.

  Everything your heart desired would be yours.

  Ready for the taking.

  I am here.

  By your side. In the corner. In the shadows.

  Waiting.

  All you need to do is welcome me fully, and we can show them all.

  Together.

  Just say the words.

  Chapter 9

  VIOLET

  With the rehearsals over for the day, Violet and Lila followed the boys out of the school building and into the cold.

  ‘Idiots.’ Violet scowled at the back of their heads.

  ‘It's not true, is it?’ Lila whispered, her eyes wild.

  ‘Don’t listen to them,’ Violet said, but it was hard not to.

  Jason shook his head and continued. ‘Nah, man. Peter the Butcher only goes for couples getting it on in cars. So, you're safe,’ he said, pointing at Wayne. ‘No girl is going anywhere near you.’

  ‘You're the one who's been watching too many videos, mate.’ Wayne grabbed at Jason’s finger. ‘He goes for anyone. Especially on the full moon. My brother's mate's cousin escaped from Peter the Butcher. The man himself. Peter left him with this scar right across his head and the hair won't grow back. The cops spent days scouring the whole hill, but they found no sign of Peter. I heard he escaped from those religious freaks who lived here before they built the school. The Nathans or whatever they were called.’

  ‘The Nathair.’

  ‘That's them. They messed him right up with their Jeffrey Dahmer Silence of the Lambs shit. Now he's sitting in the bush. Watching and waiting for his next victim.’

  ‘The Nathair was like a hundred years ago, you fool.’ Jason rolled his eyes. ‘Peter’s some butcher's apprentice who went mental after his girlfriend cheated on him. One of my dad's mates from the footy club went to school with him. He went bush but he's still got his knives. If you listen on a still night, you can hear him sharpening his blades on the boulders at the top of Beacon Hill. S-s-hing.’

  Lila shuddered and whispered to Violet. ‘Do you know if it's a full moon?’

  ‘Ignore them. Although...’ Violet chewed on her lip. ‘Have you seen the hooded man with the dog?’

  ‘No,’ Lila said, fingers in her mouth. ‘Did something happen to you?’

  ‘I've seen him loitering around. Probably some perve.’

  ‘You should tell the police. Maybe Rowan didn't run off with her boyfriend? Promise me you won't walk alone in the bush.’

  Violet lifted her chin. ‘I'll do what I like. Some perve is not going to stop me.’

  ‘You've always been braver than me,’ Lila said, stripping a hangnail off with her teeth. Violet flinched at the sight of Lila's bloody finger.

  Lila hid her hands behind her back and changed the subject. ‘You're in a better mood.’

  ‘Things have become much clearer.’

  Lila narrowed her eyes but Violet didn't elaborate. She didn't expect Lila would understand.

  ‘So, practice round at yours?’ Lila said, bouncing on the balls of her feet.

  ‘Sorry. I've got stuff to do.’ Violet shrugged.

  ‘I don't mind. I'd be really quiet. We could get some hot chips. Or a block of Top Deck?’ Lila looked at her with puppy dog eyes. ‘You've got all those new lines to learn. I can help – not that you need any help.’

  Violet wasn't surprised that Lila was looking for excuses not to go home. If she was Lila, she wouldn't want to go home, either.

  ‘Tomorrow?’

  Lila pressed her lips together. ‘I've got my own stuff to do, anyway.’

  ‘I'll call you later.’ Violet waved and turned away and pulled up her hood.

  ‘You're not walking, are you?’ Lila asked.

  Violet swivelled back with a grin. ‘He doesn't scare me.’

  ‘Be careful. Please.’

  ‘Nothing's going to happen to me.’ Violet said as she walked backwards. ‘Oh, and I forgot to say, thanks for your note.’

  Lila smiled. ‘I'm always here for you. No matter what.’

  Violet left Lila at the bus stop with the boys and headed across the car park. Walking was perfect for thinking and Shakespeare was the ultimate inspiration.

  Let us make medicines of our great revenge.

  ***

  BRIDGET

  Bridget found the book squeezed in between the hardback Reader's Digest Repair Manual and an out of date street atlas. A Short History of the Nathair: the devil cult of convict Van Dieman's Land. She opened the slim volume. A blurry sepia photograph of bush and wooden settlements in the bush was on the white cover. She'd bought it for a dollar from one of the temporary stalls at Salamanca Market on the hill towards St David's Park. The author was suspiciously named Stuart Dynnyrne, a pseudonym if there ever was one. When she made other enquiries around town, no one else had heard of the book or the publisher. It was the only reference book she'd ever found on the first European settlers of Beacon Hill, but what was fact and what was fiction?

  'The notorious Nathair were a religious group originating from the Scottish borders but their practices were frowned upon in conservative Peebles. The townspeople gossiped about the group’s alleged fire and flagellation ceremonies and claimed they were inviting the devil into their parish. Local kirk session records showed accusations of cattle mutilation and blasphemy but the 17th century’s witch trials were over and there were no records of public rebukes. Nevertheless, the people of Peebles were happy to see the group of sixteen men, women and children leave their community.

  They migrated to wild Van Dieman's Land in the early 1800s alongside convicts, civil servants and other fortune hunters escaping oppression.

  The group renamed themselves the Nathair on the long sea voyage from the port of Leith. They settled on a small mountain overlooking Hobart Town and set about practising their religious beliefs freely but secretly in the bush.

  All went well for the Nathair for decades and the community grew to almost one hundred people who lived self-sufficiently on the hill and rarely ventured down into the main settlement of Sullivan's Cove.

  But rumours spread, just as they had in Peebles and the wary Hobart townspeople told tales of ungodly worship and human sacrifices on the hill. They claimed the ground in Beacon Hill was stained black with blood, that the Nathair pegged human skins on their washing lines alongside their sheets and shirts.

  Men went missing from Hobart Town on a regular basis: mainly freed convicts and itinerant workmen with no immediate family. The Colonies were a transitory place in those times, and at first, their disappearances were not considered suspicious. But when William Piggott, the son of a local magistrate, who became obsessed with finding the truth disappeared, Governor du Cane demanded an investigation.

  According to the diary of Constable John Murray, on 23rd June 1874, the Territorial Police raided the Nathair settlement and arrested fourteen men, including their leader, Father Peter. However, evidence of the legal proceedings could not be located despite extensive searching in the Tasmanian Arch
ives. It appears the men of Beacon Hill were tried in secret and sent off to Port Arthur.

  The Governor cleared Beacon Hill of all inhabitants in late 1874 and the Nathair were homeless once again. The remaining women and children relocated to a property outside the current township of Leslie Vale and renamed themselves the Kindred. They rejected any association with the former Nathair of Beacon Hill.

  The land was left empty for almost a hundred years and while the suburb of Beacon Hill grew around it and attracted many freethinking residents, no one was willing to build on the site. Eventually, the Council couldn't ignore the value of the land and at the time of writing this book, there were plans to build a new high school on the same ground where the Nathair performed their demonic ceremonies.’

  She flipped ahead and removed a yellowed clipping from The Mercury dated 1981 which was hidden inside the book when she bought it.

  Fourteen Dead in Tragic Fire at Religious Community.

  Last night, a fire blazed out of control through the Leslie Vale property of the religious community known as the Kindred. Seven adults and seven children perished in the blaze. The cause of the fire is presently unknown. Police are continuing their investigations.

  Bridget closed the book and rested her eyes. Did she expect to find something new in the words she’d read a hundred times before? She rubbed her forehead. She was no closer to the truth and the dread in her belly grew colder.

  ***

  VIOLET

  The walk in the bush was supposed to clear Violet’s head but she was bombarded by their accusing faces, looping through her mind. How could that blonde bitch fool everyone? Her shoulders were hoisted around her ears as she trudged down the path.

  She needed to think clearly but the headache was still burrowing in her brain, and then words replaced the mishmash of angry faces.

  'One of you will shine like a star.

  One of you will invite darkness into her breast.

  One of you will depart forever.'

  Monday afternoon seemed like forever ago. Violet stopped on the path. There was one person who could help.

  She took a short cut between two houses, walked underneath a lone weak streetlight and through the timber bollard fence, and ended up at a deserted bus stop on Beacon Hill Road. Violet checked her watch.

  Headlights pierced the fog like yellow glowing eyes. Violet flagged down the bus and stepped onboard with a stack of questions on her lips.

  Then she slumped.

  ‘Where's the lady driver?’ she asked, as her ticket clunked in the validating machine.

  ‘What lady?’ the bearded fat man behind the wheel grunted.

  ‘The woman with the foreign accent. She was on this route on Monday arvo. Curly hair? Coffee-coloured skin?’

  ‘I don't know what you're talking about. This is my route. I was here on Monday. I'm always bloody here.’

  Violet frowned and wandered up the aisle of the near empty bus. She avoided eye contact with Jason and the other boys at the back.

  Where was Lila?

  Violet rubbed her forehead as she collapsed into a seat. Why was the bus driver lying to her? A woman was definitely driving on Monday. Violet scraped her fingers through her hair. What now? If Violet didn't come up with a plan tonight, Angelika would win. They would all win. Why was everything going so wrong?

  The bus slowed to a stop and Violet lifted her head from her hands. She grabbed her bag and rushed towards the door.

  ‘Wait a sec,’ she yelled at the driver, then squeezed through the concertina doors before they slammed shut.

  Stepping onto the footpath outside the shopping strip, she passed a bicycle covered in black signs. The bike was always there outside the shops, Violet often wondered who owned it. The signs strapped to the bike were all different sizes, painted with Biblical phrases in white childish handwriting. The largest one read ‘You cannot drink from the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons.’

  From the outside, The Three Torches looked closed. The red velvet curtains were drawn but Violet cupped her hands over the window and peered inside. Behind the window display of animal skulls, pinecones and plum-coloured candles, a thin sliver of light peeked through the join in the curtains.

  Violet flinched as she sensed movement. At the end of the shopping strip, a person in a black hood stepped into the light. Violet gulped. She pressed her palms over 'The Three Torches' sign, painted in flowery script on the glass and shoved. The door popped open and Violet half-tumbled inside to a tinkle of bells.

  She squinted and closed the door behind her. The light inside was dim, like dusk when the ordinary is blurry and unnerving. A chorus of hypnotic female voices drifted in the air. Violet chewed her lip. She'd never visited The Three Torches without Holly before.

  ‘Hello, new face. Are you here for Circle?’ A pixie-like woman with spiky dyed red hair and a black shaggy jumper sat behind the till, knitting swiftly on fat wooden needles. ‘Your timing is perfect. One more row and I was going to lock the door.’

  Circle? Violet's stomach fluttered. She suppressed a little grin. ‘I'm looking for Dahlia,’ she said, smoothing back her hair.

  ‘She's here somewhere. Go through to the café and join the others. I'm Anthea, by the way.’

  ‘Violet.’

  Anthea nodded and pointed to the back but Violet knew the way, past the cabinets filled with daggers and crystal hippy jewellery. She loitered by the display of candles, inspecting them with fresh eyes. She ran a finger over their waxy surfaces; fat and thin, long and short, every colour of the rainbow as well as black and white. What did the colours mean? And more importantly, which colour would get her what she wanted?

  ‘And done.’ Anthea put down her emerald-green knitting. ‘I'll lock the door and come with you. Out of the way, Thoth.’ The enormous grey cat mewled grumpily as she pushed him aside.

  Anthea flipped the sign to 'Closed' and ushered Violet past the bookshelves and through to the café, she barely reached Violet’s shoulder.

  ‘You new to the craft?’ Anthea said.

  ‘About a year.’

  ‘Sole practitioner?’

  ‘Yeah, from books.’

  ‘I remember I was nervous as fuck at my first meeting. But don't worry, we don't bite. Much.’ Anthea chuckled. ‘I'll introduce you to the others.’

  During the day, the café bustled with gossip, squirming toddlers and constant cappuccinos. Now it was haunting music, fluttering tea lights and perfumed smoke rolling up to the ceiling. Violet sucked the scent of Christmas trees and lamb roasts into her lungs and for the first time in days, her headache was gone. At the other end of the room, underneath a poster for a Winter Solstice party, a silver goblet, a crystal vase and a large dagger with an engraved hilt sat on a piece of pearl-coloured velvet that covered the small stage. It looked a lot like the altar at St. Patrick's. Except Father Mendoza's altar was missing a human skull with a red rose stuck through the eye socket.

  Was this real witchcraft?

  Violet's shoulders slumped as she glanced at the four women sitting around the only occupied table. This was a circle of witches?

  ‘This is Violet,’ Anthea said.

  ‘Welcome Violet,’ the four women replied.

  ‘Take a seat. They call me Yaya.’ The old woman’s hair was ice white and short and her dark eyes disappeared under folds of skin when she smiled. ‘New members are always welcome. What brings you to our humble circle tonight?’

  Violet perched gingerly on a chair at the table, while a plump blonde woman poured her a cup of tea and pushed a plate piled with golden biscuits towards her. Violet took one and carefully chose her words as she crunched on the buttery biscuit. She'd never believed in fate before but she suddenly felt she'd been drawn here for a reason and there was no time for pussyfooting around.

  ‘I'm interested in black magic,’ she said.

  Anthea barked out a throaty laugh that crackled with nicotine. ‘No messing around with you.’

  Yaya f
rowned, deep divots lining her forehead.

  The others raised their eyebrows and tutted.

  ‘I know the basics,’ Violet lied. ‘From books I bought here. And now I'm ready to learn more.’

  ‘Black magic is not a toy. It's very dangerous in the wrong hands.’ Yaya pursed her lips. ‘One needs maturity and experience.’

  ‘Crap,’ said Anthea. ‘It's all about balance,’

  Yaya sucked her teeth.

  ‘No offence, Yaya, but the goddess is not all sunshine and lollipops. She is the dark as well as the light. Both sides need to be taught.’

  ‘One must walk the well-worn path,’ Yaya said firmly.

  Anthea rolled her eyes. ‘Stale old tradition.’

  ‘Black magic is never appropriate in my view,’ said a third woman in a crisp white shirt and pearls with greying hair. She was dressed more for a game of bridge than a group discussion on witchcraft. ‘May I remind you of the golden rule?’

  ‘The golden rule is flexible, Jacqui,’ Anthea said.

  Jacqui shook her perfectly blow-dried hair. ‘Not in my opinion. It's the very core of our beliefs.’

  ‘You have a point,’ Anthea curled her lip and turned to Violet. ‘The ‘why’ is important.’

  ‘It's legit.’ Violet bit into another biscuit. ‘Someone has taken what is rightfully mine.’

  Anthea tugged at her bottom lip. ‘And you need to make their life difficult?’

  Violet leaned forward, her eyes wide. ‘You can help me do that?’

  ‘Stop.’ Yaya held up her hand. ‘We know nothing about this child. The craft is not for petty revenge.’

  ‘Sorry everyone.’ Dahlia burst through the swinging kitchen door. ‘I got caught on the phone with our vegetable guy. He's trying to stuff me around on tomatoes.’’