Witches of Lychford by Paul Cornell

Author:Paul Cornell [Cornell, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates
Published: 2015-09-07T23:00:00+00:00

“After I came back to the . . . the real world,” Autumn was saying to Lizzie, “I was in a psychiatric hospital for a while. I made the mistake of trying to tell people about the impossible beings I’d met.”

“That’s why you never got back in touch,” whispered Lizzie. She didn’t know what to make of what she was hearing. It was clear that, from what Autumn had told her about her “visit” from some sort of supernatural being today, and the dire, if vague, warning he’d delivered, her friend now believed utterly in the story she’d just told about where she’d been all that time. Was the bit about the psychiatric hospital the only thing that was true? Were their roles now going to be reversed, with Autumn the believer and her the sceptic? Her training had given her insight into how to deal with mental illness, but she didn’t like the idea of having to apply that training to Autumn.

Autumn smiled the wry and somewhat bitter smile that Lizzie had seen when she’d come to see her, earlier—when she’d failed, she realised, to tell her about all this. “When you told people about the impossible beings you’d met, they gave you a job.”

“Is this why you didn’t want to step inside my church? Oh. You’re not going to tell me you’ve become a . . .” She’d started to say the word and realised she had to finish, making sure she did so with every ounce of her attentiveness and positivity. “A vampire?”

“What? Of course not!”

“Of course not. Right.”

“You’re the one who thinks wine turns into blood!”

“Well, I don’t, didn’t, actually, in my brand of . . . and now—”

“It’s just there’s something about your church. When I walked up to that threshold, I . . . felt something. In those moments when I let myself believe in it, I’ve sometimes felt my time in that other world changed me, tainted me—”

“Oh no, oh no, that’s so the opposite of what we . . . I . . . stood . . . stand for. You felt welcome when you stepped in, didn’t you? Please tell me you did.”

“I felt . . . like that building is . . . connected to something, and I can feel it. I sometimes feel it at other places in Lychford.”

Lizzie blew out a long breath. She didn’t know what to believe. “Perhaps I should show you this money.”

“Was it maybe something to do with Cummings himself?”

“Well, he is a being of tremendous power and evil,” said Judith, sitting down beside Lizzie and placing her pint on the table in one movement. “You get on your way, shopkeeper, I need to talk to the grown-up.” By which she meant Lizzie.

“Sorry,” said Lizzie, “we’re in the middle of—”

“No time for that. My name, Reverend, is Judith Mawson. Did your predecessor tell you much about this town? Did he mention my name?”

“No.” Lizzie had heard of the old woman, from a number of terrified parishioners.

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