A Spell in the Country

by Heide Goody

  “No,” said Norma, “I’m—”

  “Norma Looney,” said the woman. “And you’d be Dee Finch. Part of Effie’s group. That’s a fetching cardigan, Dee.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I like the…” The woman pointed directly at the pocket containing the silver rings. “The little rats sewn onto the pockets.”

  “They’re hedgehogs.”

  “Of course they are. I’m Natasha.”

  “A pleasure to meet you, Mrs du Plessis,” said Norma and held out her hand to shake. Natasha du Plessis plucked a folded leaflet off a stand and placed it in Norma’s outstretched hand.

  “Our prices.”

  Natasha opened the door, indicating with a sweep of her arm that they should leave the room. But as the two witches made to leave, she stopped them. “What things?”

  “Sorry?” said Norma.

  “What good things? About the rhassoul mud massage?”

  “Oh,” said Norma. “Just that it was very, ahh—”

  “—muddy,” offered Dee.

  Good!” smiled the woman. “We always enjoy feedback. Now, if you’d follow me…”

  As they emerged from the office, a man hurried up to Natasha. “I’ve brought back Black and Jaye and put them in the basement room next to—”

  Dee and Bowman recognised each other in the same instant. Bowman gawped. Dee froze.

  Norma shoved Natasha hard into Bowman, pulling Dee back into the office. She had the door shut and a filing case wedged against it a split second before something hammered violently on the other side.

  Jenny stood up. It was a bold and decisive kind of standing up. Her mind was in turmoil and confusion and it felt good to do something decisive even if it was only standing up. “Here’s the plan.”

  “I loves a plan,” said Jizzimus. “Does it involve cunning disguises?”

  “No. We’re going to get out of here and—”

  “I want one of them rubber face disguises like Tom Cruise.”

  “We need to rescue Sabrina.”

  “You know, like when Tom Cruise rips his face off and you see it’s not really Tom Cruise.”

  “Or maybe I ought to warn the others first,” she wondered.

  “Actually, I’d just like to rip Tom Cruise’s face off. Hang on, why are you gunna warn those evil cocknoshers what just unfriended you?”

  Jenny gasped as a thought struck her. “Effie is having dinner with Natasha right now!”

  “A right slap up feast, yeah. Ideal opportunity to sneak out.”

  “And Madison just brought her all those completed questionnaires.”

  “And?”

  She stared at her imp, wishing he was quicker on the uptake. “All those names and addresses of witches. Witches whose blood Natasha du Plessis can drain. We have to get that list. That’s priority number one.”

  “We’re going to the feast?” said Jizzimus.

  Bowman was throwing himself against the door but – God bless the building standards of their historical forebears – the wood was showing no sign of giving.

  “That’s him!” said Dee. “The bent copper.”

  “And she’s got our friends in the cellar,” said Norma.

  “Mrs du Plessis? But she seemed so nice.”

  “You heard him!”

  There was a bang and some muffled voices from the other side followed by a polite knock. “Norma? Dee?” it was Natasha. “Would you open the door please?”

  Neither moved to open it. Norma had drawn her file with one hand and held her bee-in-a-jam-jar in the other. Dee was considering possible escape routes.

  “We’d just like to talk,” said Natasha.

  “And lock us up too?” shouted Norma.

  “It’s all just a misunderstanding,” said Natasha reasonably.

  “Misunderstanding?”

  “You do know you have wicked witches staying here, don’t you?” shouted Dee.

  Norma waved her iron file around, gesturing at the plastic filing cabinet, the stone doorknob and the distinct lack of any iron or steel office paraphernalia in the room. “Yes, Miss Finch. She knows.”

  Jenny walked along the corridor, nodding and smiling at the staff she passed. There seemed to be some sort of thumping and commotion going on somewhere to the rear of the house and the staff were, thankfully, more than a little distracted.

  Trying to guess where she’d keep a dining room if she owned a stately home, Jenny progressed through the huge house. When she found an open door from which candlelight and polite conversation radiated, she performed a smug but entirely imaginary victory dance.

  “Look,” she said, pointing to a serving trolley covered with a heavy cloth. “Perfect.”

  Checking there was no one in sight, she ducked under the cloth and curled up on the bottom level of the trolley. “This never fails to work in movies,” she whispered as Jizzimus hopped up beside her.

  “You and I watch different movies,” he said.

  After what seemed like an aeon of wiggling, poking and experimental prodding, Caroline levered the lock tumbler round a quarter turn, a half turn and— Click!

  “Oh, well done,” said Shazam. “I’m impressed.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I thought you were just pretending you could do it. You know, to keep my spirits up.”

  “Cheers, Cobwebs.”

  Despite the eager gyrations of the creepy stone in her hand, Caroline did not move with haste. She eased the door handle down and opened the door slowly. There were no assailants waiting for them on the other side, but nor was there freedom.

  It was another subterranean room, differing from the cell in a number of key aspects. For a start, it was longer by a good twenty feet. Furthermore, the door at the far end appeared considerably more formidable than the one they had just come through. Additionally, the floors and walls were not bare concrete or brick, but covered in clean and shiny white tiles. There was a window, quite long but only six inches tall, high up on one wall. Most noticeable of all, the room contained a dozen hospital beds, each with a woman bound to it.

  “My creepy-o-meter has just gone up a notch,” said Caroline.

  Many of the women appeared to be asleep or drugged. A number of them looked pale and unwell. Of those few who were awake, some only looked at Caroline with sad and weary eyes. A couple attempted to raise themselves, to speak, to draw her attention. Caroline realised they weren’t only bound to their beds with restraints: flat, jaw-encompassing gags were fastened across their mouths.

  “Oh, this is some Guantanamo Bay shit,” whispered Caroline horrified.

  The suddenly-less-creepy-than-everything-else stone tugged at Caroline’s hand, pulling her along the row of beds, past a parked wheelchair and trolleys of medical equipment.

  “We’re not just leaving them here,” Caroline told it. But the stone had no intention of leaving.

  It pulled her to the foot of a bed. The woman there was awake, staring with furious intent, her fingers weaving magical circles, plucking at the stone she was controlling with her telekinetic spell.

  When someone came along and wheeled the trolley into the dining room, Jenny felt thrills of both fear and excitement. She gave Jizzimus a silent thumbs up. He gave her a crazy double thumbs up in return. Below the inch-high gap between floor and concealing cloth, Jenny could see chair legs and shoe heels.

  “Can I top up your drink?” asked a waiter.

  “No thanks,” said Effie Fray’s voice. “Otherwise I will be three sheets to the wind before the starters have even, well, started.”

  “I am sure that Mrs du Plessis will be along shortly,” said a woman.

  “She is a martyr to her work.” That was Kevin Carter-King. “Top up me, feller. Toot suite if you will.”

  “Ah, speak of the devil,” said another woman.

  There was a rustle from the direction of the door.

  “Do forgive me all,” said Natasha. “A minor emergency in the office.”

  T
here was good-natured laughter.

  “I will be joining you all in just one moment but I wonder if – Lesley-Ann, Agatha – would you be able to help me with something. I have need of your talents.”

  With a scrape of chairs, two women made their apologies and rose.

  Jenny twisted round to look at Jizzimus and presented a very clear mime to indicate that he should sneak out and get the pile of questionnaires from Effie, wherever they might be.

  “You want me to twiddle my fingers, emerge from my burrow an’ draw down the rain an’ shove it in my pants?” he said.

  Jenny scowled and tried again.

  “Go out? Go out and stick it up ’em? Dig? Turtle? Touching cloth? Look around? Look around. An’ then what? Yank? Pull? Pull down the…? Is it knickers? Knickers? I can do knickers. Awright, awright. Keep yer ‘air on. Not pull down knickers. Get something? Fetch something? Fetch what?”

  Jenny gave him a furious tight-lipped glare.

  “The papers?” he hazarded. “The spikey-haired bint’s papers? Right. No problem.” He slipped out under the cloth.

  Shazam took hold of Sabrina’s hand, killing the spell on the piece of stone in Caroline’s hand. “Oh, dear, what happened to you?” said Shazam. “How long have you been here? Who did this?”

  Sabrina gave her a look which clearly and patiently said, I’m wearing a gag. I cannot speak.

  “I know,” said Caroline, sympathetically. “But her heart’s in the right place. What is all this stuff, Cobwebs?”

  Shazam looked at the sigils and symbols drawn on the bonds and gags in what looked like permanent marker. “Oh, that’s Montesque’s Nullification Ward. It’s mentioned in Mr Zoffner’s book. It renders the object impervious to magic. These straps can’t be moved, destroyed or affected by magic.”

  “Then how do we get her bonds off?”

  Shazam unbuckled and unwound the restraint on Sabrina’s wrist. “Without magic, silly.” She rolled her eyes at Sabrina. “I know. But she does try.”

  The office window was stiff, possibly even varnished shut. With a bit of magic mending Dee managed to twist the handle and force it open. Although the office was notionally on the ground floor, the sloping of the land towards the rear of the house meant it was a good eight feet or more to the ground.

  Before Dee could express her concerns, Norma said, “You first then.”

  “I thought you’d all be for staying and fighting,” said Dee.

  “Regrouping and recharging,” said Norma. “Our girls are in the basement and we can’t get to them from here.”

  She unscrewed the jam jar and shook the bee out the window.

  “Now go,” said Norma. Dee didn’t know if Norma was talking to her or the bee but she hoiked her less than athletic legs up onto the window sill, stood unsteadily and jumped. She screamed a little as she leapt, thinking it perfectly reasonable in the circumstances. She hit the grass and rolled in a move she hoped was like an expert paratrooper, but suspected was more like a sack of spuds falling over. She came up poised and alert, remembering to move aside a second before Norma landed heavily in the spot where she had just stood.

  The bee had already disappeared.

  “Can bees fly at night?” asked Dee.

  “Bees have a very can-do attitude,” said Norma. “And if we don’t make it back, how else will Kay know we’re in danger from wicked witches?”

  Jizzimus scaled the curtains to get a good view of the room. There was a sheaf of papers sticking out of Effie Fry’s handbag. He could hop over and get them now, but he’d likely be noticed. He needed something to make everyone look in the opposite direction. A wooden clock on the mantelpiece caught his eye.

  “A bit of ding dong action to draw the ladies’ eyes,” he said and leapt effortlessly over to the mantelpiece.

  There was a little door in the back of the clock. Jizzimus opened it and surveyed with glee the row of little hammers and chime bells.

  “Move over Big Ben. See ‘ow a true pro does it.”

  Effie looked up. “Does that clock always play that, er, tune?”

  “I can’t tell what tune it is,” said that fat wanker, Kevin Carter-Wotsit.

  “It sounds a little bit like Who Let the Dogs Out?,” said Effie. “But that can’t be right, it’s an antique clock.”

  Out on the lawns, green fire exploded from the building, aimed at Dee and Norma. Dee ducked. Norma clapped her hands and shouted, “Pharpus!” A sudden gust of wind ripped past Dee and blew the fire sideways before it could strike them. There was a shout behind them: Dee saw a woman running towards them along the rear of the building, witchfire in her hands, ready to hurl. From somewhere else, Bowman shouted.

  “Flanking us,” said Norma. “Run!”

  They fled down the long lawns.

  Oh!” said Effie. ”Did anyone else hear that?”

  “Hear what?” said Natasha.

  “A sort of bang from outside. An explosion. No?”

  “Probably the pipes,” said a woman. “The plumbing in this place thumps and rattles like nobody’s business.”

  “Now, now, Bette. Any and all complaints must be presented to the management in writing.”

  The assembled wicked witches laughed. Before it had faded, Jizzimus had ducked under the trolley cloth and hopped up next to Jenny’s curled up body, clutching a bunch of papers bigger than himself.

  Jenny gave him the biggest smile and would have kissed him if there was room to reach him. Jizzimus piled the papers against Jenny’s side and leaned on them with one elbow. There was a victoriously smug look on his face.

  With perfect timing, hands took hold of the trolley and wheeled it from the room. All they had to do was wait for the trolley to stop, hop out when no one was about. and go warn the other witches.

  The trolley came to a halt. Jenny stayed still and quiet. There were feet stood beside the trolley. They didn’t look particularly like the feet of waitressing staff. That pair looked like work boots and that pair looked far too elegant to be—

  “You can come out now, Jenny,” said Natasha.

  “What shall we do, boss?” said Jizzimus. “Shall I open a can of whup-ass on them?”

  Jenny momentarily considered doing nothing, but the trolley was hardly a hiding place and they knew she was there. She considered coming out fighting, but it wasn’t possible to spring into a fighting pose when she was presently curled up on her side in the foetal position.

  “Now, if you would,” said Natasha. “I am neglecting my guests.”

  “Okay,” said Jenny and rolled out onto her hands and knees.

  Natasha du Plessis’s expression wasn’t one of anger. If anything, she looked disappointed. Bored and disappointed. George the handyman who, curiously, was wearing his amber-tinted carpenter’s goggles gave her a little smile of greeting.

  “I take it you’ve decided not to join us,” said Natasha.

  “It’s witches’ blood,” said Jenny as she stood.

  “The cornerstone of our ethically sourced diet. Not to mention, the basis of our rejuvenation therapies. Sanguinem veneficae bibit.”

  “Watch out, boss, she’s speakin’ Latin. That’s demon-summonin’ shit that is.”

  “No,” said Jenny, thinking. “Dee mentioned it. It means ‘The witch drank their blood’, or something.”

  “I can see you’ve not had a classical education,” said Natasha. “It’s ‘She drinks witches’ blood’.”

  “Yes, but…” Jenny stared at Natasha’s face. She had suspected on their first meeting Natasha was a bit older than she appeared. Jenny realised that she was wrong. Natasha du Plessis was a lot older than she appeared.

  “The papers, Jenny,” said Natasha and held out her hands.

  “You’re harvesting witches.”

  “Harvest is an interesting word,” said Natasha.

  “The only reason you gave Effie free use of the place was—”

  “So we could select those we needed. We don’t want to wipe out witchkin
d, do we? Just a strong and stable population to feed from.”

  “And these?” said Jenny, clutching the papers tightly.

  “All farmers tag their herd.”

  Jenny produced witchfire in her free hand. “I’ll burn them.”

  As quick as a striking snake, Natasha reached down and grabbed Jizzimus around the waist, pinning his tiny arms to his side.

  “Oi!” he yelled. “You can’t do that. I’m invisible!”

  Natasha blinked and smiled. For the first time Jenny noticed Natasha’s amber eyes were the same colour as George’s goggles.

  “Magic contact lenses?” said Jenny.

  “Give the papers to me, Jenny, or I’ll rip his little legs off.”

  “You can’t kill an imp. They’re indestructible. Sadly.”

  “Yes,” said Natasha. “That’s true.”

  She glanced at George. Before Jenny even saw him move, he’d socked her across the cheek with a powerful fist. She gasped in shock. He came at her immediately with a right uppercut. It slammed her jaw closed and knocked all sense from her.

  Dee was not enjoying fighting real wicked witches. They were scarier than wicked witches made of animated wood – although, in all honesty, on a par with giant flaming tree monsters. Not that they were doing much fighting: mostly running. Dee felt she had made it quite clear to the universe that she wasn’t built for running; it was jolly unfair of the universe to throw her into situations where running was required.

  There were at least two witches chasing them, although they were only identifiable by the blasts of witchfire being flung. Some of the blasts were wildly off target, some seemed to be deliberate misses, but some had come bloody close. When she had time to stop and look, Dee wanted to check if the back of her cardigan was currently aflame.

  “I think,” she huffed, “that they’re toying with us.”