A Spell in the Country

by Heide Goody

  “See?” said Jizzimus. “Zoffner the Well ‘Ung knows what to do wiv someone when they’re incapacitated.”

  “Right,” came Dee’s voice from inside the hut. “You pull hard on the count of three. Kay and I are going to give a gentle barge – we just need a little run up.”

  “Okay,” said Zoffner.

  “One.”

  “This is not a good idea,” said Norma.

  “Two.”

  “You’re going to bend me all out of shape!”

  “Three!”

  There was a clatter of feet, a thump of bodies, a groan of metal and something went sproing!. Norma flew out, Zoffner underneath her, and rolled off across the lawns, towards the hedges and the hives.

  While Caroline appreciated the ironically uncool as much as the next person, paddling around a kiddies’ boating lake in a huge swan was literally and metaphorically getting them nowhere.

  “Pedalling’s playing havoc with my heels, shall we go and get a cuppa?” she said to Bowman. “And then you can fill me in on the finer details of this job. Or do I need to meet your boss first?”

  Bowman, who was looking at his phone, laughed. “You forget, I’ve known you for years Caz. You do everything in heels. You drove here in them, right?”

  She nodded.

  “So how do you know Dee Finch?” he asked.

  “Dee Finch?”

  “I’m not stupid, Caz.”

  Caroline was speechless for about a quarter of a second. “My, my, Doug!” she said coyly. “Have you been snooping on me?”

  Doug wasn’t smiling. “You know Dee Finch.”

  “She’s a friend. Well, more of a victim I’ve cultivated who thinks she’s my friend.”

  “Interesting,” said Bowman. He stopped pedalling. The swan began to drift in a circle.

  “Well your friend, victim, whatever, is someone of interest.”

  “Why?”

  “I think she might know where those missing goods of mine have got to. And she is one of those critical failings that need tidying up, if you get my drift.”

  Caroline breathed out slowly. She gave a tiny movement of her hand. “Dee Finch is of no interest to you, and we should probably get back.”

  “Dee Finch is of no interest to me, and we should probably get back,” said Bowman with a nod.

  Caroline’s attention was snatched away by the yowling of a cat. She turned to see Shazam’s bottom sticking up in the cockpit of another swan: trying to retrieve Mr Beetlebane from a hidden recess. Unfortunately, the swan was heading directly for the boat she and Doug were in.

  “Hey! Hey, get out of the way!” she yelled. She leaned over the side in an attempt to push the other swan aside. She misjudged and toppled overboard, plunging into a cold and black world. She surfaced, coughing and pushing green slime from her face. The water wasn’t deep: she could stand, although her feet pushed into what felt like mushy silt on the bottom.

  Doug Bowman, still in the swan, was yelling furiously. “I don’t know what sort of fucking hypnosis shit you’re pulling, Caroline, but I’m not having it!” He pulled earphones from a pocket and stuffed them in his ears. “I’m not listening to another word you say until I’ve got you where I can control you!” He put on a pair of sunglasses too, as though he thought they might shield him.

  Caroline murmured soothing cantrips under her breath, but either his anger or his defensive efforts prevented them from working. Unfortunate. She turned to Shazam, who was now at least sitting up in her pedalo; Mr Beetlebane apparently recovered from his hiding place. Caroline tried a step towards the pool’s edge;, it looked a very long way away. The silt sucked at her feet. She realised that walking rapidly ashore before Doug Bowman could get his hands on her wasn’t going to be an option.

  “Need a lift, Cobwebs,” said Caroline. It was a risky gambit, given that it brought Shazam into the metaphorical line of fire and relied on her pathetic pedalo skills. Caroline wondered if she might benefit from a little remote control assistance.

  “You are a co-ordinated and confident driver,” she said, “and you’re not at all worried by the angry looking thug who’s chasing us.”

  “Can’t hear you, you fucking witch!” yelled Bowman triumphantly.

  “Hey check me out, Caroline!” shouted Shazam, turning the ungainly pedalo with as much speed and precision as was possible. “I’m a co-ordinated and confident revird and I’m not at all worried by the angry looking guht who’s chasing us!”

  Caroline hauled herself into Shazam’s pedalo as she drew by. Once she’d done slipping and sliding into the seat, she joined in the pedalling. She saw the man who hired out the pedalos was standing at the edge, watching with his hands on his hips.

  “Oi, mate! The pedalo behind us is on fire. You need to act very quickly,” she called.

  As she and Shazam neared the edge, she risked a glance behind. Doug Bowman was keeping pace with them, but now a small dingy with an outboard motor powered towards him. As Caroline and Shazam scrambled out of the pedalo, a shout went up from the pool. Caroline turned briefly: the man in the dingy was spraying Doug’s pedalo with a foam fire extinguisher.

  “Make sure the fire is properly out,” said Caroline. “You need to empty the whole thing!” She and Shazam ran for the cover of the trees.

  If there hadn’t been a modest-sized coven of witches standing by, the encounter between human bowling ball Norma Looney and one of the garden hives might have ended very badly. As it was, Kay and Dee employed their best animal charming skills to mollify the hive, while Zoffner rolled an indignant Norma away from the enraged swarm. Once Norma was safely out of range and on to her feet again, Zoffner tried to aid in calming the hive by breaking out a kazoo and performing a few soft and soulful bars of Kumbaya.

  Jenny, with no gift for animal magic, no ability to touch iron and no desire to contribute to Zoffner’s musical efforts, decided that she could do nothing of value and simply stood by, trying to look both inconspicuous and encouraging. Jizzimus, on the other hand, danced gaily among the bees and sang lustily along with Zoffner with his own rendition: “Someone’s crying, m’Lord. Kiss my arse! Oh-oh, Lord. Kiss my arse!”

  Once the bees were encouraged back into the hive – with Kay’s promise the damaged panels would be repaired the next day – Norma had the gall to declare her day’s efforts “One hundred percent successful.”

  “I defy you all,” said Norma. “Cast a spell on me. Go on. Try.”

  Dee shrugged. She tried to magically heal the scuffs on Norma’s elbows without success. Kay threw a nimbus of mind-control magic at her but it dissipated long before it touched. Jenny, eschewing the mind-focusing powers of Who Let The Dogs Out, tried to blast her with the chicken-mimicry spell she had lined up for Kay; it died without effect.

  “Not bad, Norma,” said Kay, taking a sweet from her much depleted bag and offering round the rest.

  “Not bad?” said Norma. “I received a premonition this morning that I am once again to face a most wicked witch. I may need this magical equivalent of a bullet-proof vest.”

  “More like a tank than a vest, innit, guv?” snorted Jizzimus.

  “Perhaps I should check that premonition,” said Zoffner. “It could be wrong.”

  “You’ll do no such thing, man.”

  “Jenny saw Lesley-Ann Faulkner in Eastville Hall the other day,” blurted Dee.

  “She what?” exclaimed Norma.

  Jenny slowly unwrapped the sweet Kay had given her. “I only saw a woman with that name on her medical wrist-thingy. But she was clearly far too young to be this woman you met.”

  Norma hmmed. “There are dark means by which a wicked witch can rejuvenate herself.”

  “What kind of dark means?” asked Kay.

  Norma took a sweet, unwrapped it and popped it in her mouth. “Dark dark means, Miss Wun.”

  “That’s kind of vague,” said Kay.

  “Oh, I know,” said Norma. “I often keep things to myself. I think it’s to gi
ve myself an air of mystery and authority when, in reality, I’m constantly beset by doubts and fear.” Norma’s eyes widened and she slapped a hand over her mouth. “I didn’t mean to say that,” she whispered in horror.

  “Seems your magical corset isn’t one hundred percent spell proof,” said Kay.

  “Oh, it’s one of the challenges,” said Jenny, comprehending. “Victim to speak nothing but the truth. You’ve been got, Norma!”

  “But I don’t see how that’s possible,” said Norma.

  “It’s the sweets,” said Kay proudly. “I think I’ve got you all now.”

  They all stopped sucking and crunching their sweets for a long moment.

  “My caravan is being repossessed next weekend,” said Zoffner.

  “Sometimes when I’m alone,” said Dee, “I like to pretend I’m a horse and gallop around the house.” She closed her eyes. “Sometimes I tuck my dressing gown cord into my pyjamas and pretend it’s my tail.”

  Jenny spat out the sweet into her hand, distraught.

  “What’s up, Jenny?” said Kay. “Anybody would think you’ve got secrets you want to keep from us. Any more naked strolls in the moonlight you’d care to mention?”

  “No!” Jenny squeaked.

  “Come on. Time to share!”

  “I can’t share! I can’t. You’ll all find out that I’m a wicked witch and I’ve got an imp!” howled Jenny.

  Four frozen faces stared at her.

  The silence was eventually broken by Zoffner. “I really love that caravan,” he said.

  Norma, without taking her eyes off Jenny, punched him in the arm to shut him up.

  “It’s a spell!” declared Dee. “Obviously a spell. Someone’s made you think you’re a wicked witch or made you say the opposite of what’s true—”

  “I am a wicked witch,” said Jenny. “My imp’s name is Jizzimus. He’s standing right there. My beauty regime is mostly a battle with warts. I can—” She held up her hand and flickering witchfire danced across her fingertips.

  “But wicked witches…,” Dee sputtered. “Those horrible things they do…”

  “Like eating children?” said Jenny. “I try really, really hard not to. They smell so delicious. It’s a daily battle.”

  For a woman in a metal cage, Norma waddled really fast. Before Jenny knew it, the older witch had crossed the gap between them and stabbed something into the back of her hand. The iron nail burned like nothing Jenny had experienced before. She tore away with a yowl of pain, staggered back and fell heavily to the ground.

  “I should kill you right now!” said Norma.

  “No!” yelled Kay. She put a restraining hand on Norma’s cage and looked down at Jenny. “Am I a child, Jenny? Would you have eaten me?”

  “I’ve only ever wanted to keep you safe until—”

  “Would you have eaten me?”

  Jenny sniffed and brushed the tears from her cheeks. The back of her hand blistered where the nail had touched it. “I hope not,” she said.

  Dee stepped forward beside the other two. Hers was the expression of a kicked puppy. A puppy that had not only been kicked but lied to, betrayed and sold to an unscrupulous butcher. “Go,” she said simply.

  Jenny opened her mouth to argue, to question, but there was no ambiguity, no argument to give. She crawled to her feet and, with a final backward glance at the women who for a short time had accepted her as an equal, left.

  Movement in pond-soaked jeans and high heels was not easy but Caroline had no desire to hang around.

  “We’ve got to get you dried off,” said Shazam.

  “We’ve got to get back to the others,” Caroline replied, shuffling along at speed towards the car park.

  “But you’ll get Dee’s rac seats all wet,” said Shazam. “Look. Let’s go inside the arts ertnec and stick you under a hand dryer for a tib.”

  Caroline shook her head and made for the humpbacked bridge. “Bowman said all the ‘goods’ they brought in were for one client.”

  “So?” said Shazam.

  “That’s not normal. And he knew I knew Dee. I can’t see how.”

  “Maybe he did see you together in Skeggy.”

  “But he didn’t. No, there’s something else. Can you drive? I’m all … yuck.” Caroline unlocked the car and passed the keys to Shazam. She grimaced as she squelched into the passenger seat.

  “Dee is not going to be pleased,” said Shazam. “You’re going to get her rac all tew.”

  “Her car,” said Caroline. “Damn it. This is her car. That’s how he—”

  Something touched her side and a sensation, so intense and encompassing that it defied understanding, made her black out. When she came to a moment later, Bowman’s hand was on her shoulder and her body was no longer hers to control.

  The bastard had Tasered her! He had hidden on the back seat and Tasered her!

  “Now,” he was saying to her, “you so much as utter a word, you so much as moan, I will zap you into a coma. You,” he said to Shazam. “You are going to drive.”

  “Where?” said Shazam. Caroline could hear her trying to sound brave and controlled and failing.

  “Back to where you came from. Back to wherever I can find Dee Finch and Jenny Knott.”

  “Eastville Hall?”

  Bowman coughed and then laughed. “Eastville Hall? They’re at Eastville?”

  “Um. Yes?”

  Bowman gave Caroline’s shoulder an affectionate squeeze. If she could, she would have squirmed. “That is just un-fucking-believable.” He chuckled. “Take me to Eastville Hall, driver.”

  Caroline, though she could barely feel her lips let alone talk with them, shouted out at Shazam. She wanted to cry, No! Don’t! We can’t take him to Dee and Jenny. And Kay. The man’s a monster! However, all she managed to produce was an incoherent “Nnnngh!”

  “I warned you,” said Bowman wearily. He stuck the Taser in her side again. Searing white agonies overwhelmed her and pushed her down into unconsciousness.

  Chapter 7 – The Wicked Witch

  Jenny packed what few belongings she had into a small bag. Most of what she owned, most of what she was wearing, had been given to her or magicked up by Dee. The realisation made her want to toss everything away, to tear off her clothes in self-loathing, but pragmatism overcame emotion. Besides, they’d already seen a naked Jenny fleeing shamefacedly into the night and no one would spare her a second glance this time.

  “I say, fuck ’em all,” fumed Jizzimus, giving one of the bed pillows a damned good kicking. “Fuck ’em all and come back an’ murder ’em in their beds later.”

  “We’re just leaving,” said Jenny, holding back a sob.

  “Back to Brum, guv?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Wiv a stop off at a school for some drive thru snackage.”

  “Just shut up!” she snapped. “Just shut up! Can’t you see this is killing me?”

  “What is?” said the imp innocently.

  Jenny flung a hand out at the wall to indicate and encompass the lawns beyond, the huts, the witches who had been her friends. Had been. “I was happy here! For a week or two. A few days. I was happy!”

  “Well, I like messing aroun’ wiv morons as much as the next imp,” said Jizzimus.

  Jenny held her tongue. She was angry. There were things she could say. Cruel things. She held her tongue for all of five seconds and then spoke in a quiet and terrible voice.

  “Jizzimus. I would trade you in, every inch of you, for one more day with those women. They made me feel normal.”

  She threw herself down on the bed. A second later, Jizzimus clambered up and sat beside her.

  “But you’re not normal,” he said eventually. “You’re frickin’ awesome, boss.”

  Jenny reached out and scooped him up, and hugged him to her chest.

  “If you’re tryin’ to smuvver me to death wiv your devil’s macaroons, I keeps tellin’ you: you need to get a boob job first.”

  It was an old
joke between them but it was enough to make her laugh. A desperate and hollow laugh but it was a laugh nonetheless.

  She sat up. She possessed a small bag of clothes, a tiny amount of cash, no phone and no purse. She had no real means of getting away from this isolated fenland village apart from walking. Not even a friend to call on—

  She rooted inside the pocket of a pair of jeans in her bag and produced a much crumpled and folded business card:

  KEVIN CARTER-KING

  END-TO-END LOGISTICS SOLUTIONS

  “Is ’e the one wiv the swimmin’ pool full of gold?” asked Jizzimus.

  “Metaphorically.”

  “Cor. Never swum in metaphorical gold before.”

  She went to the payphone in the annexe restaurant and was glad to find neither George nor any of the witches there. She had change enough for the phone but, cast now into the role of wicked witch, she didn’t see why she had to pay. She cast an incantation of opening on the payphone, heard it click inside and dialled the mobile number.

  “Go for Kevin,” said Kevin. There was the humming background noise of a car engine.

  “Hi Kevin. It’s Jenny.”

  “Jenny? Jenny! Long time, no hear. How’s things?”

  “Hmmm. Ups and downs.”

  “More downs than ups at the moment?” he suggested.

  “Not enough up and down action at all, if you ask me,” said Jizzimus.

  “I’m actually in a bit of pickle at the moment,” she said.

  “Anything I can help with?” asked Kevin.

  “I’m that obvious, aren’t I?”

  “Hey,” he said happily. “You’re a friend in need. I’m a friend in deed. What can I do?”

  “I’m at this big house way out in the sticks in Lincolnshire. I’ve got to get back home and I wondered if you could buy me a bus ticket or, if I get a taxi to the nearest train station, you could—”