The Wicca Woman Read online

  Then he raced down the hall, wrenched open the front door, and ran out into the garden, slamming the door behind him, while the pain-stricken Lulu stumbled into the kitchen, desperately flicking on the light switch.

  On her third attempt, she managed to turn the tap on in the sink. Intent on bathing her burning eyeballs, she thrust her face under the gushing water. Then she heard someone banging on the front door, but she was in too much pain to respond.

  Furiously Paul continued to clatter the knocker. When Lulu didn’t answer, he hammered his fists in frustration against the front door’s central panel.

  In the kitchen, Lulu was still splashing handfuls of tap water into her brandy-tortured eyes, while Paul’s pounding went on unheeded.

  *

  As Lulu was bathing her enflamed eyes… in Gwynne’s cottage, the four children were putting their final touches to their life-size, straw-effigy.

  Young Bella Rowbottom bent her second stick of liquorice into the shape of a woman’s eyebrow. Then her agile fingers stuck the liquorice-eyebrow above the effigy’s eyeball. The eyeball was a jelly-baby, with a large biro-blackened pupil in its centre, which had been devised by her best friend, Scarlet Townley.

  While the children were completing their masterwork, the mothers looked on in consternation. They were deeply perturbed about what was going to happen next. Whereas Gwynne went on applauding her protégés’ efforts by clicking her needles together as the crimson scarf, which she was knitting, continued to grow in her lap like a serpent shedding its skin.

  ‘Why d’you keep knitting that red scarf, Mrs Spark?’ Scarlet asked, after she had inserted her second jelly-baby eyeball into the other socket of the straw-woman’s head.

  ‘I’m knitting the scarf, Scarlet – like Madame Defarge knitted her scarf, during the French Revolution – because now it is very close to guillotine-time.’

  ‘Wot’s a guillotine?’ Alfie asked.

  ‘A guillotine is the best way to remove a woman’s head from her reluctant shoulders, Alfie dear. More to the point; the moment has come for you kids to wield your own Madame-Defarge-needles,’ Gwynne said, placing her knitting on the dresser, and crossing over to the fireplace.

  After she had tossed another log into the flames, she picked up a jar of knitting-needles from the blackened mantelpiece.

  ‘Now each of you take a couple of these needles,’ she said, placing the jar in the midst of the children.

  ‘Yeah, but wot we supposed to do wiv them needles?’ Tom and Alfie chimed in chorus.

  ‘You have to shove your knitting-needles into the arms and the legs of your straw-dolly.’

  ‘Why?’ demanded Scarlet.

  ‘It’s the only way, dear, that you’ll find out whether you have made your life-size-dolly properly.’

  ‘Of course we’ve made her proper!’ Tom clarioned.

  ‘Yes, but Mrs Spark’s right,’ Alfie shouted. ‘We should all give our dolly a few stabs in the right places just to make sure.’

  With his knitting needles raised high above his head, Alfie charged towards the straw-effigy.

  ‘Oh dear God!’ Mary Rowbottom gasped. ‘I should’ve known something like this was coming.’

  ‘Yes, although she won’t have guessed that it’s coming, Mary. And that’s all that matters.’ Gwynne laughed, waving her knitted-scarf like a banner in encouragement as the whooping children converged on the straw-effigy, brandishing their raised knitting-needles.

  ‘But Crescent is certainly going to find out what’s coming her way now!’ the witch screeched triumphantly.

  *

  In despair Paul stopped pummelling on Lulu’s front door. He raced round to the rear of her cottage where he tried to wrench the backdoor open. Then he discovered the door was locked. In desperation, he pressed his face against the kitchen windowpane, and he was horrified to see Lulu on her knees by the sink, with streams of water cascading around her.

  However, Lulu was no longer obsessed with the alcohol searing her eyes. Now her trembling fingers were clutching her forearms in an attempt to dispel the sudden agony that was knifing into her limbs. In despair she started to massage the tops of her thighs, although she still couldn’t prevent the stabbing pains from electrifying her body.

  Again Paul hammered his fists against the kitchen window, and he begged her to unlock the door and let him in. But as Lulu was impaled in her own maelstrom of suffering, she was unaware of his presence. She felt that she was being crucified alive, while sadistic hands were hammering nails into her pain-contorted arms and legs.

  After emitting another scream, Lulu staggered out of the kitchen. Despite her intense, physical distress, she managed to turn on the switch in the hall, and she began to clamber up the stairs. When she reached her bedroom, she tumbled herself onto her bed. Then she drew herself into a foetal position on the green duvet, and as she felt more nails being hammered into her spasming limbs, Lulu cried out in extremis.

  In her garden, Paul gave the kitchen window a final bang. Cursing himself for his inability to help Lulu, he ran off towards the wood, frenziedly scratching his beard.

  I don’t know where Vaughn is in this godforsaken wood, he thought as he raced under a cluster of leafless silver-birches. But I know the cruel sod is in here somewhere. And when I find Vaughn – as sure as there is a just Lord of Hosts in Heaven – I will make the bastard pay in full for what he’s doing to her!

  7

  In Gwynne’s cottage, the witch had joined the children on the carpet. With a mordant smile, she clapped as the kids continued stabbing their knitting needles into the punctured arms and legs of the straw-woman’s effigy.

  After exchanging despairing looks, Mary and Sue decided they couldn’t take any more of their children’s violence, and they moved forward to intervene. In response, Gwynne raised her hands imperiously over the heads of the manic children, who were still slicing and ramming their needles into the straw-woman’s limbs.

  ‘Enough, kids! That’s enough,’ ordered the witch, clapping her hands.

  Like puppets-on-strings, with one accord, the children stopped their furious wounding. Instantly they drew back from the straw-effigy, although they still left their knitting needles implanted in the life-size-doll’s arms and legs. Then the children turned to Gwynne in anticipation.

  The witch’s smiled broadened as she bustled across the room, and she snatched her handbag from the table. Mystified, Mary, Sue and the other mothers watched Gwynne flicking open the clasp of her bag, and rummaging inside it. Eventually the witch produced a hand-mirror from the cluttered depths of her bag.

  Simultaneously the excited children converged on Gwynne. They thought she was going to tell them a story about the ‘magical’ mirror that she was brandishing. Still smiling, the witch shook her head, while she pointed at her hand-mirror, which was now glistening like a mist-stained ruby in the candlelight.

  Scarlet and Bella took this as a cue to slip under Gwynne’s arm because they were intent on gazing at their own faces in the mirror. Then Alfie and Tom ran forward, and they joined the girls, jostling with them in an attempt to glimpse their reflections. Then when the four children discovered that they couldn’t see themselves in Gwynne’s mirror, in disbelief, they all drew back. With an encouraging smile, the witch induced the children to come and take another peak in her glass.

  Once again the four of them moved forward, and in silence, they peered into the depths of the mirror. To their dismay, they discovered that the looking-glass was filled with a young woman’s blurred face, which was framed by the tangled halo of her flaxen hair. But as the mirror was seemingly shrouded in carmine mist, the children couldn’t be sure who the woman was. Then while they continued to peer at the woman in the mirror, they realised she was in excruciating pain, and also she was screaming at them, while her limbs were thrashing about on a dishevelled bed.

  Fearfully the children lurched away from the nightmare in the witch’s looking-glass as the phantasma continued to pursue t
hem. But wherever they looked, the children couldn’t escape the woman’s tortured image, with her tortured arms and convulsing thighs.

  Suddenly the carmine mist in the mirror, which was blurring the woman’s image, began to evaporate. As the mist retreated, in horror, the children recognised who the woman was. It was their friend, the lovely Lulu, and she was suffering terribly while she gazed at them with her beseeching eyes.

  From the depths of the looking-glass, Lulu waved her hands in the direction of the cinder-scarred mat behind the children. In fearful response, the four of them turned round in order to discover what she was pointing at. Then they saw that their knitting needles were still protruding from the straw-woman’s arms and thighs like barbed arrows.

  At that moment, the four children understood that they were responsible for causing their friend such unremitting distress because they had stabbed her effigy with their needles. Appalled by the enormity of what they had done, the children’s eyes welled up with tears as they stared at Lulu’s contorted face in the mirror. Imploringly they all turned to Gwynne, who answered them with another of her malefic smiles.

  ‘The kids are right, Gwynne. And you’re wrong!’ Sue cried, snatching the mirror out of the witch’s hand. ‘So no more of your filthy sorcery. You must put a stop to all this needle-stabbing now. Well, surely even you can see that the poor cow’s suffered more than enough?’

  Gwynne shook her head dismissively. Then she pulled a packet of cigarettes out of her handbag, and she lit one of them with a candle.

  ‘No, Gwynne, you can’t just shrug it off like that,’ Mary yelled, thrusting her face into the smoke that was erupting from Gwynne’s sardonic lips. ‘I know Lulu’s a slut. But Sue is absolutely right. What we are doing is pure evil.’

  ‘How can you possibly say that, Mary?’ the witch asked incredulously, after taking another prolonged drag on her cigarette. ‘When you know very well that Lulu Crescent has been sucking the sexual life out of your Jimmy - and your Vince, Sue. What’s more, she’s been doing that to them both every God-forsaken-night since the beginning of July.’

  ‘Yes, but what you’ve made our kids do to Lulu…well, it’s just too horrible, Gwynne,’ Mary cried.

  Then all the children rushed towards Gwynne, shouting, ‘Yeah, we’ve got to stop hurting Lulu, Mrs Spark. She’s our friend, and she’s in terrible pain. So stop it now. Please stop it!’

  Their mothers nodded vigorously in agreement. Then they started ripping the knitting-needles out of the straw-woman’s arms and thighs. With cries of approval, the children ran between their parents’ legs, and together they pulled out the rest of the needles from the mangled effigy.

  ‘You bloody fools,’ screeched Gwynne, pointing her arthritic forefinger at Lulu’s image in her mirror. ‘If you don’t believe me, come and see what you morons have just done between you.’

  Mystified, the children and their parents encircled the mirror, which Gwynne was brandishing in front of them. As they peered into the looking-glass, they could see that Lulu was no longer crying out in pain. Instead she was sitting up on her bed, and with the beginnings of a smile, rhythmically Lulu was stroking her forearms and her thighs.

  ‘You see! What did I tell you?’ screeched Gwynne, pointing at Lulu’s upturned lips. ‘And now she will not only be all over your Jimmy again tonight, Mary,’ the witch crowed as she rounded on the other women. ‘But she will be equally rampant with the rest of your dumbo-men in their sleep as well.’

  ‘No, I’m sure Lulu has more than learnt her lesson now,’ Sue said, seizing her daughter’s hand. ‘And she won’t be doing any more hanky-panky with our boys,’ she insisted as she turned back to her friends. ‘Listen, girls, I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m going to take Scarlet home now. And if the three of you have any sense, you’ll get your kids out of here smartish, too.’

  Nodding the other women grabbed their children’s hands, and together they headed for the door. Mary pulled Bella across the room. As Mary reached for the door handle, Gwynne waved the stub of her cigarette at the women’s retreating backs.

  ‘The four of you are making the biggest mistake of your lives by not finishing that slut off!’ the witch shouted. ‘And although it’s only Friday, I prophesy that before the weekend is over, the four of you will be back here, and you will all be begging me, to help you destroy the whore. Yes, and, furthermore, by then, the only thing that will really satisfy you all, is the death of that stinking succubus.’

  As the four women, with their children, surged out into the cleansing light of the October moon, they refused to listen to the witch’s predictions

  *

  In her cottage bedroom, the exhausted Lulu pulled the duvet up over her breasts, pressing its comforting softness around her neck. With a soul-felt sigh, she nestled her head against the pillow, and she closed her still-smarting eyes.

  Why, in the Goddess’ name, have I allowed things to come to this sorry state? she mused as the stabbings in her body continued to recede. How could I have possibly fallen prey to that witch’s toils in such an asinine manner?

  But one thing is certain, Lulu thought, after involuntarily rubbing her closed eyelids. It shows that my guard has been down for far too long now. And like so many occasions in the past, I have totally lost sight of my purpose here. What is worse, I have allowed my love of sensual pleasure with Jimmy, to overwhelm my better judgement. And as a result of my weakness,, I have forgotten my mission. Yes, and I’ve let this happen, even though I have known all along that Jimmy is a truly lost-soul. Like so many others before him…

  Determinedly Lulu forced her head up from the pillow, and she opened her eyes.

  Now I have no choice but to make amends. But then, ‘To endure is all’. And even though I’ve already endured far more than anyone ever should, I know I must continue to endure; in order to ensure that there will be hope for all the others.

  Resolved she sat upright in the bed.

  So…I will only see Jimmy one more time. Or twice, at the most. And once his destiny is resolved – as it will be by Halloween – I will re-focus on my mission, and on the poor confused children, whom I have woefully neglected.

  As the moon framed itself in her bedroom window, Lulu lay back on her pillow, allowing its celestial light to play upon her flickering eyelids. She smiled dolefully while she whispered to the moon.

  ‘Yes, I know what You perpetually expect of me. I just wish I wasn’t so eternally tired. Then it would be much easier to do what I know I must do.’

  Still with her head on her pillow, Lulu continued to stare at the window because she was aware that there were two human-predators prowling under the moon-washed boughs of her wood.

  But unfortunately I’m much too tired to stop them. So they also must do what they will do, and events will take their violent course, she mused, closing her aching eyes again. Then she nestled her head further into her pillow. Moments later, and for the first time for many weeks, Lulu slid gratefully into the deepest of dreamless sleeps.

  *

  While Lulu was breathing serenely in her slumber… Gwynne was stubbing out another cigarette butt in her ash-strewn hearth. Again she winced as her arthritis re-enflamed her swollen knuckles. Despite being in constant pain, and after a great deal of effort, she managed to pick up the life-size straw-woman.

  Laboriously she dragged the effigy across the frayed carpet, and over to her rocking-chair. After she had wedged herself onto the chair, clumsily the witch lifted the effigy into her arms, and she nuzzled her mouth into its halo of straw-hair. As she rocked the straw-woman in her arms backwards and forwards, Gwynne thrust her parted lips against one of the slices of lemon, which the children had used to represent the effigy’s earlobes.

  She whispered into the effigy’s ear; ‘Sleep while you can, Lulu Crescent, for your days are numbered. You see, very soon; it will give me immeasurable pleasure to usher you into the bowels of Hell, where – for all eternity – you will pay for your countle
ss crimes.’

  Gwynne stared into the dying embers in the grate, while she swayed in her rocking chair, and she recalled her own terrible losses. Especially she remembered her eight-year-old daughter Dian, lying dead under the oak, clutching a sprig of garlic in her hand.

  ‘And very soon afterwards; my very beautiful Anna, you were strangled on the beach by that monster of monsters,’ she rasped, with tears streaking down her yellowing cheeks as she rocked backwards and forwards, forwards and backwards, with the severely-punctured straw-woman as her only companion.

  *

  At the very moment that the grieving witch was rocking the effigy of her enemy on her chair… in the depths of Lulu’s wood, Jimmy was also rocking backwards and forwards.

  And for the first time for many years, the farmer had tears coursing down his cheeks. He was seated on a moss-encrusted oak-stump, but because of his troubled spirit, he was unaware that the dampness from the moss was soaking into the seat of his trousers. As he hugged his knees disconsolately against his chest, he continued to sob.

  God help me, he mused, I haven’t wept like this for years. Not since my twin deserted me. Although it’s not you, Don, that I’m crying for now. No, I’m crying because it was my rabid jealousy tonight, which made me behave in that monstrous way to my beloved Lulu.

  Still weeping, Jimmy considered whether he should run back to Lulu, and beg her to forgive him. Although he knew that she would never allow him to come into her cottage, so, in despair, he remained seated on the tree stump.

  ‘What makes it even worse, my darling girl, is that you were right all along,’ he whispered as more penitent tears dripped onto his wrists.

  Yes, there was absolutely no way, Beloved, that you could have been sleeping with all those men in the village, while you were sleeping with me, he thought. I’ve just got to face it. I’m nothing but a sick little shit to have believed those boasting bastards at the pub, when I should have believed you. And not only have I been wrong in every way, but then, God help me, I threw that glass of brandy into your eyes. So there’s no chance that you’ll forgive me tonight. Yes, and perhaps you will never forgive me. It’s why I deserve every damnable thing that’s coming to me.