Spook's Stories: Witches, The by Joseph Delaney

Author:Joseph Delaney
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Horror, fiction
ISBN: 9781862309876
Publisher: RHCB
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

A WITCH YOU'LL ALWAYS BE

Witch Dell was north of the Devil's Triangle, the three villages where the Malkins, Deanes and Mouldheels made their homes. It was a clear night, the moon waxing to three quarters full. Pendle Hill to the west was bathed in silver light, and so bright was that moonshine that only two stars in the sky were visible.

When I reached the dell, it was less than half an hour before midnight so I couldn't afford to dawdle and walked straight in. It was gloomy, a patchwork of dappled moon-shadows, the gnarled roots like ogres' fingers clutching the ground. But last year's autumn leaves were heaped thickly around the trunks of some of the trees. That bothered me. They could have been blown there by the wind, but a dark alternative wormed its way into my head.

They could have been piled there by dead witches, couldn't they? Dank loamy beds to rest dead bones under on a chill night; leafy lairs from which to strike, grasping the ankles of unwary travellers before dragging them down for a blood-feast.

Had to trust what Lizzie had told me though - that they wouldn't hurt me; that the dead forgot clan enmities. But I'd not gone more than a hundred yards when I heard something heading my way, feet shuffling through the leaves. Something nasty was approaching…

So I sniffed her out. It was a dead witch all right, but there was something odd about her. It was only when she stepped into a shaft of moonlight that I saw that she didn't have a head. She was carrying it under her arm like a big pumpkin. So I knew who she was right away!

It was Grim Gertrude, the oldest witch in the dell.

Years earlier, the witch assassin Grimalkin had sliced off her head. Best thing to do in the circumstances. That had slowed her down all right! Story goes that it was almost a month before she finally found it again. So she wasn't going to let it go now. Gripping it really tightly, she was.

Gertrude turned so that she was facing me, her eyes watching me. The glassy, rheumy eyes glistened in the moonlight and the pale lips moved, but no sound reached my ears. The head wasn't connected to the neck so her voice-box didn't work. But I could read her lips and knew what she was saying:

'Who are you? What clan are ye from? Speak while you've still breath in your scrawny body!'

'My name's Alice Deane, but my mother was a Malkin.'

'As you're half Malkin, I'll let you live, but you're not welcome here, child,' mouthed the lips. 'The living don't come here - not if they know what's good for them!'

I began to tremble. Lizzie had lied to me. She'd not wanted to risk coming to the dell herself after dark so she'd sent me to risk my neck.

'Bony Lizzie sent me to get something, she did. It's a jug buried near the biggest oak in the dell…'

Gertrude stepped nearer to me and suddenly reached out to grab me by the arm.

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