A Spell in the Country

by Heide Goody

  “I think the cow kind of wins that one,” said Jenny.

  “That cow looks sad.”

  “I think that’s just their natural look.”

  “We should make it happier.”

  Kay skipped ahead and brushed a hand across the cow’s ears.

  “What was that?” asked Jenny.

  “Look,” said Kay.

  The cow raised its head and gave a series of sharp, bark-like sounds.

  “Is this cow laughing?” said Caroline, eyebrow raised.

  A sparkling rainbow nimbus developed around the animal’s head.

  Jenny stopped walking and looked at Kay, conscious that her mouth was, yet again, hanging open. “You’re a witch!” she said.

  “We’re all witches, poppet,” Dee called back to her.

  “But why on earth didn’t you say?”

  Kay put a hand on the cow’s flank and looked back at Jenny. “You never asked.”

  Chapter 3 – Witches Brew

  It was odd, Caroline reflected as she walked across the rear lawns to the summer house cum teaching hut for the morning’s seminar. It was odd how quickly all six of them had fallen into a routine. Mealtimes, lessons, exploratory visits to the local marshes, field and woodland, more lessons, private study or magical research in the teaching hut or the rows of individually allocated sheds at the far end of the garden – because Effie did not want the witches practising untried magic or charms in their living quarters. And even though certain relationships still had rough edges to be smoothed off, they were, by and large, getting on with one another. All in all, it was quite enjoyable, even if the fenland retreat had so far been a complete sexual desert…

  “Ooh, hi tech,” said Shazam as she sat.

  Effie had set up a screen and a computer projector in the classroom, and there were printed notes on the students’ chairs.

  “We’re in for a treat today,” said Jenny. Caroline was pretty sure she was being sarcastic.

  The title on the screen, in a square, no nonsense font, was The Business of Witchcraft – How to Make Witching Pay. Effie stood proudly beside it, dressed in that self-consciously kooky look she was determined to rock. Today’s T-shirt was a Jimi Hendrix print asking the all-important question, Are You Experienced?.

  “All here. Five, six, seven. Kay, there are seats near the front. You don’t need to get anoth— Oh, you have.” Effie smiled brightly. “Right, ladies, today I want to discuss one of the key points of this course: the fact that you’re all criminally underselling yourself. I’m going to be brutally vulgar and ask how much did you earn from witchcraft in the last year?”

  All around Caroline, women gasped, tensing up.

  “Um, well, I’m between jobs,” said Jenny.

  “I’m not even eighteen,” said Kay.

  “Charitable work is its own reward,” said Dee.

  “The rewards of witchcraft are mostly … intangible,” said Caroline with a salaciousness that made Shazam blush.

  “Ur, I couldn’t even begin to guess the stock dividends we’ve received this year—”

  “Not earnings in general,” said Effie, interrupting Sabrina. “How much does witchcraft make you?”

  “Well, it’s a dashed impertinent question,” said Norma.

  Effie nodded. “It is. And I’ll admit that I myself am probably no richer as a witch than I would have been if I were a mere woman.”

  “Witchcraft isn’t meant to pay.”

  “And yet—” Effie clicked the remote. An image of a medieval illumination of dead eyed medieval folk doing something indecipherably medieval flashed on screen. “In times gone by, witches were respected and revered and handsomely paid for their services.”

  “Um,” said Shazam. “Don’t you mean persecuted and burned at the stake, Miss Fray?”

  Sabrina smirked. “Ur, I think you’ll find that hanging was the preferred method of execution.”

  “I’m not talking about the persecution suffered by innocent women, non-witchfolk almost all, at the hands of religious zealots,” said Effie. “I wish to discuss the high rewards witches reaped from their socially beneficial work.”

  “That’s just danger money, really,” said Caroline.

  “Ur, I’d certainly want large cash sums up front if I thought Matthew Hopkins might try stringing me up,” said Sabrina.

  “If I may return to my point—” Effie looked at Dee, who was sitting attentively with her hand in the air. “Dee. We’re grown women. We don’t need to put our hands up.”

  “I have a question,” she said.

  “Is it about earning money from witchcraft?”

  “No. Sorry. But maybe you can settle an argument.”

  “Yes?”

  “Are there such things as wicked witches?”

  Sabrina sniggered.

  “That’s off topic, Dee,” said Jenny. “Let’s get back—”

  “Well, it’s sort of relevant,” said Dee, rearranging her cardigan assertively. “It’s wicked witches that have given the rest of us a bad reputation.”

  “There are no such things as wicked witches,” said Effie with assurance.

  “There are,” said Norma flatly.

  “I mean, there are obviously sisters who use their powers for something other than the public good—”

  “I don’t mean that,” said Dee.

  “No, wicked witches do not exist,” said Effie firmly.

  “You’re wrong,” said Norma, firmer still.

  The gazes of the oldest women in the room locked furiously.

  “Are we gonna see a witchy smackdown?” Caroline heard Kay whisper.

  The room darkened, although a boring person might argue that it was just a cloud passing in front of the sun. When Effie spoke, it was in a quiet voice of jaw-lockingly controlled fury.

  “In ages past, there may have been certain twisted creatures who, whilst superficially appearing to be like us, were in truth magical or demonic creatures which might narrowly and glibly be described as evil or wicked. But that age has passed. And anyone foolish enough to bandy around words like ‘wicked’ and use them to persecute, harass or harm women is likely to find themselves in trouble with both the law and their fellow witches.” The air crackled.

  “You and I have seen things,” said Norma darkly.

  “And done things,” replied Effie.

  “I was only asking,” said Dee, very, very quietly indeed.

  Abruptly the light returned to the room and Effie looked round at the assembled witches with a sudden smile. The presentation flipped to an image of a bearded man with an enormous frilly collar.

  “But witch lore and myth are topics for another time, yes? This morning’s seminar is about the payments you should expect to receive for your services. For example, did you know that King James I here paid Agnes Sampson eighty pounds to help him with, um, marital performance issues? Now, I’ve done some calculations and as this next graph shows … yes, that’s equivalent to more than two hundred thousand pounds in modern money.”

  “That’d buy a nice sports car,” said Caroline.

  “Bugger that,” said Shazam. “That’d buy a house.”

  “Ur, wasn’t Agnes Sampson garrotted and burned at the stake?” commented Sabrina.

  “Point is,” said Effie. “The point is, witchcraft should be able to make any one of us wealthy and self-sufficient.”

  “That’s olden times,” said Jenny. “The world’s moved on since then, hasn’t it?”

  Effie sped through a number of slides to a corporate logo. “Possibly the most successful tech company in history. How many of you have their phones or tablets or i-wotsits?”

  There were several hands in the air.

  “Why?” asked Effie. “They’re more expensive than any of their competitors.”

  “Ur, they’re the best,” said Sabrina as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.

  “Really? How do you know?”

  “Everyone knows,” said Shazam.
<
br />   Effie pointed at Shazam, her point made. “‘Everyone knows’.”

  “Witchcraft?” said Jenny.

  “There’s an entire coven in Silicon Valley.”

  “Witches help sell products?” said Jenny.

  Effie nodded. “You know that irritating I’m lovin’ it thing they do on the burger commercials?”

  “Really irritating.”

  “It helped boost their market share by five percent.”

  “Witchcraft?”

  “Witchcraft. And do I even need to mention a certain ‘Secret blend of eleven herbs and spices’?”

  “And you said witches were in danger of dying out,” said Norma with a scoff.

  “Oh, but they are,” said Effie. “With few exceptions, witchcraft is being commoditised and exploited. I’m sure you’ve all heard of – what do they call it? – cultural appropriation. Well, this is magical appropriation. It is taking the benefit of witchcraft, applying it to areas for which it was never meant, and then not giving the rewards back to the original witch.”

  “So, why are you showing us this?” asked Caroline.

  Effie picked up a booklet of printed notes. “We’re going to change that. Our focus for the next few days is going to be on creating our own witchy product or brand, and planning how to market it for our own benefit. Now, if you’d all turn to page two, there’s a lovely quote from that delightful hoover-salesman James Dyson which I think sums the whole thing up…”

  At least, thought Dee charitably as she struggled to follow the lengthy notes and lecture, it was nice to see Effie Fray had a passion. It didn’t matter Effie’s passion was for turning the least business-minded section of society into the corporate sharks of tomorrow, or that the tool she was going to do this with was a set of ideas and principles openly cobbled together from sources as diverse as a gas-fitters manual, a BTEC Child Care course textbook, the Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth, and snippets of wisdom from the likes of Gerald Ratner, Anita Roddick, PT Barnum and General Leopoldo Galtieri. It didn’t matter because the whole activity was doing Effie the world of good. So Dee told herself.

  She could see that the lecture, and perhaps the entire course, was a way for Effie to get stuff off her chest. Wide-eyed and innocent though she knew herself to be, Dee suspected what they were all witnessing was a rebound reaction to some recent trauma. Without a doubt, women of a certain age had done stranger things after a divorce or bereavement. Setting up your own intensive programme for unfocused and directionless witches was no madder than moving to rural France, joining a commune in the Western Isles or getting a tattoo; or buying a scooter and starting a torrid affair with a pipe-smoking geography teacher.

  By the time Effie had come to the end of her rambling lecture, Dee had already painted a mental image of Effie trapped in a boring and sexless marriage to a Pringle-jumper-and-moccasin-wearing man who knew the price of everything and the value of nothing. He’d seen the writing on the wall and had abandoned his ever-patient and forgiving wife in search of adventure and lost youth. Dee had even given him a name.

  “And so this brings us again to our four guiding principles.” Effie pointed to the items listed on the screen. “Find a need and fill it. Operating expenses will be higher than you expect. Open up your mind to any marketing opportunity. Face the future – and embrace it. F.O.O.F. If you forget all else, don’t forget your foof. All ideas should be foofy.”

  “Amen,” said Caroline, stifling a yawn.

  “Your tasks then,” said Effie. “I want each of you to independently design, devise or produce a product or idea that might create a sustainable income for you.”

  “What kind of product?” asked Dee.

  “I think that wholly depends on your individual specialisations. It could be a charm, an enchantment, a potion or an even more intangible service. What it needs to be is something that will make money, and is based upon your skills and knowledge of witchcraft. I also want you to carry out a SWOT analysis of your finished product and present it to the whole group.”

  There were a number of groans at this last one.

  “Like a presentation?” said Jenny. “Standing up in front of people?”

  “Yes,” said Effie. “Cheer up, Jen. At least this task doesn’t rely on teamwork. Not your strong suit, eh?”

  Of all the laughs at that, the loudest was from Kay. Jenny scowled at the teenager.

  Dee could see, plain as day, that Jenny and Kay had fallen into the roles of mother hen and less-than-gracious child, even though she guessed they weren’t related and hadn’t even known each other for long. It was cute to observe, but made Dee all the keener to ask certain questions.

  “As an enticement,” Effie was saying, “Mrs du Plessis is offering a day at the spa for the two who create the most promising product.”

  “Oh goody,” Sabrina whispered, just loud enough for them all to hear. “Like good puppies, we’re performing for treats.”

  Effie either did not hear or chose to ignore her. “Although this is not a secret project, let’s respect each other’s privacy and stick to the workspaces we were allocated earlier in the week.” She gave a final nod of dismissal and they responded with scraping of chairs, stretching, yawning and a general shuffling towards the door.

  Outside, the mid-morning sun played peekaboo through the wide clouds. A pair of wading birds flew eastward along the edge of the lawn.

  “They are real,” whispered Norma.

  The others had either gone up to Eastville Hall or their work sheds and Dee hadn’t realised Norma was there.

  “Pardon? Oh. Wicked witches… Yes, I didn’t mean to cause a ruckus in there.”

  “That wasn’t a ruckus,” sniffed Norma. “That was just two old friends not seeing eye to eye.”

  “Oh, right. I was asking about them because you do hear rumours.”

  “More rumour than fact,” agreed Norma. “But that doesn’t change the truth. They’re real, they’re a danger, and there are some who’d rather stick their heads in the sand than face reality.”

  Dee looked around suspiciously. The door to the teaching hut was shut, Effie still inside. “You’ve seen them? I mean: for yourself, with your own eyes?”

  “Met them,” said Norma. “Barely escaped with my life.”

  “Cor.”

  Norma leaned in even closer, to the point where Dee needed to turn sideways to avoid being sumo-barged by Norma’s titanically scaffolded bosom. “I’ve got a book you might like to read,” she whispered.

  Those exact words had been whispered to Dee once before. Back then the book in question had been The Female Eunuch and the whisperer had tried, three nights later over a glass of red wine, to involve Dee in a husband-murdering plot with Thelma and Louise overtones. Dee had since learned to view conspiratorial book lenders with scepticism.

  “A book?”

  “A book about witch hunting.”

  “Oh, I’ve read most of those already,” said Dee. “I read the Malleus Maleficarum when I was thirteen.”

  “This one’s different,” said Norma.

  “Oh?”

  “It was written for witches by a witch. A proper witch at that, a personal heroine of mine. I had hoped to meet her one day but…”

  “But?”

  “Died. Disappeared. Who can tell with these Nordic types? Probably went off to play with the elves. Anyway I’ll lend you my copy of her book if you’d like…”

  The dozen or so sheds along the far edge of the lawn, now serving as witches’ work sheds, were remnants of an earlier age. Their original purpose was uncertain. Perhaps they had served as the clubhouses of a vigorous bowling or croquet club. Perhaps they had been placed there by a previous owner with enormous foresight who was simply waiting for rising sea levels to bring the seaside to Eastville. Or perhaps they had simply been the garden sheds for a gardener with a lot of tools.

  Whatever the case, Jenny’s work shed, whimsically painted with green and white stripes like a giant mint, bric
k built to knee height and wooden panelled above, was a fine space for her to think, read, and learn those witchy skills of potion-making and herbalism which she had mostly avoided her adult life.

  Jenny inspected the wart on her neck in a small wood-framed mirror. She had zapped it earlier in the week and it had blistered nicely.

  “Just tell ’em you’re a wicked witch,” said Jizzimus. The imp was filing his tiny horns to sharp points with one of Jenny’s emery boards.

  Jenny looked at him. “And then what? They’ll either kick me out or have me sent to … witch prison, or whatever.”

  “Or,” said Jizzimus, pointing the nail file, “you can roast ’em wiv witchfire and cackle madly as you dance in the ashes.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “It’s easier than it looks, guv. The trick is in the breathin’, innit. A good cackle comes from down ’ere, in your balls.”

  “You don’t breathe with your balls.”

  “Nah, but I knew this yogi guy who could drink tea through ’is knob. I’ve been practisin’, but no success yet.”

  Jenny considered asking the imp if he’d been practising in her tea but she didn’t want to hear the answer. “I meant, I can’t tell them, and I’m not killing anyone. We’re laying low; for Kay’s sake and mine.”

  Jizzimus glowered at her before, holding the emery board like a guitar, he did a Chuck Berry duck walk along the table. “Well then, boss, you’d better start dreamin’ up some killer product so Lord Sugar don’ kick you off the course.”

  “I was trying to, but a certain imp keeps interrupting me with nonsense about cackling and knobs and—”

  “Porn!” yelled Jizzimus.

  “What?”

  “Imp porn!”

  “What?”

  “No one’s done it before.”

  “I don’t think there’s much of a market for it,” Jenny said kindly.

  “There’s an ’ole internet community out there wiv an ’ole in their life that can only be filled by dirty movies of imp action. An’ oo am I, Jizzimus Long-Dong Silver, to deprive ‘em, guv?”

  Jenny sat down on the workbench. “Putting aside the fact that presenting imp porn to the world would be an admission of what I am, you’ve forgotten that you are invisible to the rest of humanity.”