Off With the Witches!

Hung up my keyboard yesterday and disappeared into Lancashire’s moorland wilderness for a spot of mental recharging. Took my camera, folding chair, gas cooker, frying pan, three sausages, two eggs, bacon, bread, flask of coffee and Jones the dog, and from beneath the flip-up rear door on my van, watched the rain hammer down on purple hills.

Won’t start waxing lyrical, but autumn suits our fells and becks. The grass leans away from the wind and the trees grab hard as they can on the more-rock-than-soil hillsides and it howls over stone walls, the wind I mean, and Jones’ ears flip out sideways when the wind catches him poking his nose at the weather. I parked alongside the same road used by the witch finders back in the seventeenth century; bunch of sad old ladies sent to greet the hangman’s rope in Lancaster for the heinous crime of keeping a black cat or giving the king’s tax collector the curse of the vertical finger. Poor sods; how kind the human race; how convenient for those who did not like them. Imagine the mayhem if the villagers back then all had mobile phones...

Speaking of ‘witch’, tagged on my little story; a few minutes of ghoulish entertainment for those of you with nowt better t’ do!

Legacy

‘As a sickly child, Pendle’s high moor looked down, dank and pallid-faced from its darkling Lancashire sky. For most it was a time of heartache and hardship; though for some, it was a time of merciless opportunity...’

Pendle Hill, 1613

‘Take your brat, your pigs and whatever you may carry. Be gone from these parts before sunrise or I shall have you taken before the next summer assizes at Lancaster.’

‘And the Devil’s pox upon you, Robert Moresby, for more’n a hundred years my mother and them before her roamed their pigs on Pendle Hill. Where would I go? Where would old Jennet Device find food and shelter if it were not here?’

‘The hangman’s rope’s still warm, Device, out there on Gallows Hill, but a short cart ride from Lancaster’s Witches’ Tower. It waits for you, Device, just as surely as the Devil waits for your mother’s soul to rot itself free of the grave.’

‘Murderers! You and that Roger Nowell and more’n a dozen others. My family lies in hell because of your doings.’

‘Sunrise tomorrow or by all that’s holy I will send you after them.’ Moresby glared down from the saddle; the stallion, black as Satan’s eyes arched its neck, from flared nostrils steamed the breath of a cavalry warhorse – pale plumes, ghost-like in the mist. On stiff legs the horse trembled, agitated by Device’s scent; unwashed flesh and peat smoke – the raw, cancerous smell of poverty.

‘Then I will be waiting,’ said Device, ‘and rather that I die on Pendle’s fair slopes than as food for crows that crowd the hangman’s gibbet at Lancaster.’

‘Sunrise, then.’ Moresby turned the stallions head. ‘If you are still here, witch, I’ll see that you get your wish.’ 

*

‘There’s smoke in the chimney, squire. Device is watching for you – the hag’s done little or nothing to heed your warning.’

Moresby angled his hat to ward off the rain. As well as from the chimney, smoke seeped out through gaps in the thatching. The walls, built of Pendle grit stood awkwardly corner-on to a dawn wind. A sow with her piglets grunted for slops near a woodpile, their skin chapped pink by the cold. A single, tortured hawthorn bent its back before the wind.

Moresby slid from the stallion’s back and thrust the reins at his game keeper’s lad.

‘Wait outside for me, William. Whatever happens, stand firm, do not move unless I bid you do so.’

‘I shall stand my ground, squire, though my flesh is that of a plucked goose from knowing the hag is there behind that wall.’

‘You fear her?’ Moresby smiled at the boy’s uncertainty. ‘As frail a woman as Jennet Device?’

The boy leaned in close to Moresby’s stallion, its great size protection enough; in his mind’s eye the air itself was filled with malice.

‘She has been marked by the Devil, sir. I knows of those who’s seen it. You m’n watch yourself, squire or Device’ll put the evil eye on yer.’

‘Then let her try, William.’ He dropped his hand to the pommel of his sword.  ‘The hell hag will take on more than she has bargained for.’

Six stone steps led up to the open doorway; from inside, the stench of pig fat and piss rolled as a pungent wave to greet him.

‘Come on out, Device or be judged where you lie.’

‘As you are judged already, Moresby, can you not be feeling my mother’s breath inside that fancy shirt o’yourn? You have the devil hi’self inside you, sir – I see him standing there, his lips on yer pap, sucking on yer, Moresby. Do you not feel him? Do you not feel him drawing the life from yer!’

‘I say again, witch, come on out or on God’s word I’ll ferret thee out with the point of my sword!’

‘Damn you, Moresby. Leave me be, or as sure as you killed my sister and old Anne Chattox, one at a time I’ll take yer family wi’ me.’

Scarf-like, the drizzle wrapped about his neck; Moresby shivered, for the cold had come upon him as a curse. The sounds that came from the dark were neither animal nor human, but somewhere in between. It was then he felt the first, tiny insects of dread scuttle beneath his shirt. He reached for the sword and with the heavy blade unsheathed, forced himself to step inside the hovel.

‘Show yourself, Device and keep your witches’ spells for the judge at Lancaster.’

‘There’ll be no judge, squire Moresby and forewarned you are.’ Like glass on steel, Device’s voice keened through the darkness. ‘What you do this day will not go unrewarded. Look to the boy, Moresby, or have you left him there alone with that horse o’yourn! See the beast, Moresby. Black as Satan’s eyes for is it not so that you yourself ‘as named him Lucifer?’

With a ventriloquist’s skill she flung her voice back and forth across the room; behind and then in front – from the floor and up inside the soot-covered eaves above his head; that of a girl then that of the harridan. From a deep, bell-like bass to an effeminate, reedy tremble, winsome then fey her voice wavered.

‘Look to the boy, Moresby,’ now the voice of a man, but deep and hideous – that of Satan himself it echoed about the room, ‘what mortal fool would stand alone in the company of Abaddon and Barghest?’

‘Save your tricks for the children, Device. Your witches’ voices hold no threat for me.’

‘Not so for the lad!’ now the voice of a girl, without substance, flimsy as the mist and fine rain it flew about his ears.

 The hag has been marked by the devil the boy had told him, and it was then that Moresby felt the first, leaden hands of superstition drag at his legs; when he heard the cry, he spun on his heels and ran outside.

The lad’s eyes were wide open, those that had glimpsed beyond the edge of hell itself. The stallion stood over him, its great neck arched – the veins along its throat were black snakes beneath the skin, the beast’s eyes blacker than a Pendle night. An inch behind his left ear, the boy’s skull had been stove in. Moresby swung the sword underhand, less than an inch from the stallion’s throat. The sound it made was that of a falcon’s wings at a full stoop.

Like an addict freed of the opiate’s veil the stallion quietened and stepped away. Now, with soft eyes it watched its master cover the terrible wound with the boy’s own cape – the animal’s breathing steadied – the evil had left it.

Beyond the cottage doorway, the smoke inside was thicker now, flames as yellowed fingers reached up waist high from the open hearth. Moresby screwed his eyes and shouted through the fog, for other than that created by fire he could see no movement.

‘A curse on you, witch, you have killed the boy and for that you will pay with your life.’

‘And the likes of you and Nowell have killed my kith and kin. The boy is but the first of many, Moresby; you and others will follow.’

He took a long slow breath, and then, with his sword drawn stepped inside the hag’s reeking parlour.

‘By the rights bestowed on me by the High Sheriff of Lancaster, I will make you pay, Device! As sure as I live and breathe I will leave you dead within these walls!’

From the hearth he lifted a red-eyed ember and plunged it deep inside the roof thatch. Within that same minute, flames blossomed, feeding on the dry grass – quickly they found the apex.

Moresby stepped back through the doorway; silhouetted against a rain sky he peered through the smoke; from inside of it, wraithlike, Jennet Device seemed to float above the floor.

Moresby was struck dumb by the spectacle, his feet frozen to the stone step on which he stood. Backed by fire, as a spirit trapped between the worlds of life and death, Jennet Device came towards him, her voice that of a shrieking wind from Pendle’s high collar.

‘Hell’s torments seize thee, Robert Moresby! Though you have done me of my life I say to you of two things! The first – that within this next hour you, yourself will join me amongst the dead. Already your likeness burns away in this very place you have destroyed. These hellish flames will take you, Moresby and nowt shall stop them!

Inside, the fire turned wild and as some devilish vortex roared ecstatically, yet Jennet Device came on. From about her form the flames ate off her rags; as carded wool her hair stood up on end then flew as a thousand sparks from the roasted casket of her skull. Yet she showed no signs of pain and as some charred immortal thing came on for the man who stood in her doorway.

‘The second I pass to you as a foresight. When the time is right, Moresby, I shall return to Pendle Hill. Upon your children’s children will befall the hellish ghosts of Chattox, Device and others of Malkin Tower. Those of us you persecuted; those you sent to Gallows Hill at Lancaster.’ The light had gone from her eyes and yet living words still came out from her mouth. ‘They will perish as we have done. I, Jennet Device speak for all my kin – thus I curse your line, Moresby.’

Unable to shake himself free of the horror, Moresby gathered his weight and drove his sword through the harridan’s shrivelled chest. For an arm’s length the steel leapt from between her shoulder blades – only when her breastbone crashed to the sword’s steel hilt did she fall against him, her sudden exhalation foul as the devil’s own breath upon his face, her lips drawn back by the heat in a grinning rictus of death.

Still his feet refused to carry him from harm’s way. Held in the witch’s thrall, he watched the flesh fall from her face – his own clothes took fire, like cats’ claws the pain crawled over him, as though it were alive the inferno wrapped about his legs and drew him down inside the flames.

*

Rough Lee, Pendle Hill – October, 2014

Jack Moresby stood with his back to an open fire, through the living room window he watched a busy wind pick up leaves and whistle them down the driveway. The cloud was high enough for him to glimpse the ominous, upper slopes of Pendle Hill. But the dark was wheeling in; soon it would be black as a witch’s cat outside. Anyone blessed with a modicum of common sense would be inside, as he was, in front of the fire with the back of his legs burning. All Hallows’ Eve, another hour and its magical aura would be well and truly cast over Pendle Hill; mysterious to some, to others, exciting and spooky – perhaps intimidating – frightening even. Defender headlights lit up the driveway. The front door slammed shut against the wind and Jack’s sister blustered into the room.

‘The car parks are already full of wannabe witch finders, they’re a bloody nuisance, literally had to force my way between the cars.’ Karen dropped her waxed jacket on the settee and made for the drinks cabinet. ‘I need a brandy – do you want one?’

Jack nodded his head. He accepted the pleasantry, though as Karen’s adopted brother shared little common ground with her. Karen seldom let him forget that he was still the Moresby cuckoo; her father’s past philanthropic leanings had already proved a drain on her inheritance. Jack spoke to her without looking away from the window.

‘Your horse all rugged-up and bedded down?’

‘As best I could with all this wind. I’ll give the weather an hour to settle before I finish up.’

‘I can lend a hand if you want?’

Karen cocked an eye at him. ‘We’ll wind up fighting. Horsey women and their non-horsey, adopted siblings just don’t get on.’ She handed him a brandy, ‘If it’s all the same to you I’ll manage on my own. Twenty minutes and I’ll be back for a fireside supper and a nightcap.’

Karen flopped down on the settee, parked her drink then retrieved a book from the coffee table.

‘Not like you to do any voluntary reading, what brought this on?’

‘Buried in my desk drawer. Some of your grandfather’s ramblings.’

Karen recognized the plain, leather-bound cover; she had seen the book before. Though as a self-confessed fiction addict, showed only mediocre interest in its contents.

‘Not my scene, documentary type books bore me silly. Dad raved about it, swore his father’s literary prowess ran neck-and-neck with Alfred Wainwright’s.’

Randomly, she thumbed back the pages and then stopped at a sketch of Pendle Hill. The quality of the artwork caught her attention.

With raw talent and the diaphanous influence of soft-leaded pencils, the old man had captured the heart and soul of Lancashire’s ancient skyline, recreating that which was real through his artist’s world of pencils and paper. Now, snared by his genius, Karen’s imagination began to run free. In a portentous, pencilled sky she watched rain squalls shrug themselves free of the clouds; finely veiled in moonlight. Hurried along by the wind they followed the humps and swales of tumbled walls and flooded sphagnum mosses. Through that innermost eye of the gifted artist the book revealed the capricious intent of deep autumn, the loneliness of the moor and though silent upon the page, that doleful voice of a north wind. What Karen saw invoked in her a strange feeling of déjà vu; a slight movement of cool air brushed the nape of her neck so that she shivered.

‘Grey goose walked over my grave.’

‘Halloween jitters.’ Jack rolled his eyes theatrically. ‘The witches are after you.’ He fed the fire; flames licked up the chimney. ‘The old man seems to have had a natural affinity with the macabre; all his sketches are borderline scary.’ He sat down next to Karen and drew her attention to a particular point on the page. ‘The cottage – look at the light coming from the doorway.’

Karen leaned in closer and scrutinised the drawing. ‘Could be way off line, but I’d say the cottage was on fire – and there’s someone stood in the doorway – doesn’t make sense.’

‘And over here,’ Jack went on, ‘what do you see?’

‘Good God, Jack! That could be my own horse, Satan.’

Almost buried by deep shadow, a stallion, wet and black as Lancashire coal reared against the skyline; though drawn to a small a scale, Karen was quick to pick up on the beast’s aggression – the madness a fire in its eyes; illuminated by the cold, the stallion’s breath billowed as grey steam.

‘Read the caption at the bottom.’

Karen screwed her eyes at the text; the old man’s writing, from sixty years of storage was barely legible. Forced to take her time, she read aloud;

They will perish as we have done. I, Jennet Device speak for all my kin – thus I curse your line, Moresby.

She dropped the book back on the table and reached for her glass.

‘Clap trap. Why Moresby? Why use the family name?’ Superstition breathed inside her collar. ‘How could the old man have possibly known what was said?’

‘Made it up,’ Jack proffered, ‘a bit of provenance to go with his writing. Even more disturbing – I found out that the house father left to us was built with stone from Device’s ruined cottage.’

‘Jennet Device – of the Lancashire witches?’

Jack nodded his head. ‘She died in the fire. What you saw in your grandfather’s drawing actually happened. I went online and checked your ancestry; the story goes, John Moresby worked hand-in-glove with a chap called, Roger Nowell – one of Lancashire’s more notorious witch hunters.’

Karen’s eyes widened – her voice reflected her abhorrence of Jack’s revelation.

‘He burned the house down. This house – the one we’re living in now?’

‘Along with its tenant, Jennet Device – roasted her alive. Your forebear, the Moresby guy, died with her. His body was found just inside the doorway.’

Karen looked about the room. ‘I wish I had known what happened before I moved in here. You would never have got me within a mile of this place.’

‘Perhaps your grandfather’s stories are pure hearsay.’ His eyes glittered; green in the firelight.

Karen stood up and shrugged on her jacket. She drained her glass and turned for the door.

‘I’m going back down to the stables, maybe the wind will blow some sense into what went on here.’

‘There’s a storm coming, let me come with you.’

Karen dismissed the idea, the tone of her voice resentful. ‘No need. I can manage. I’ll be back when I’m good and ready.’ She scowled at him. ‘And get rid of that book of yours or I’ll burn it.’

Jack stood at the window until the Defender’s headlights disappeared, the night outside still wildly unpredictable. Taller hedgerows bent and whipped like shirt tails, wind hissed and howled as wolves hunting the dark slopes of Pendle Hill. He crossed the room and felt inside the bottom drawer of an oak writing bureau.

The photograph had been shot in black and white; to a background of high moor, rows of orphaned children stood statue-like for the camera. Ranked along both sides were the austere images of their guardians. The children’s names were listed at the bottom – from left to right and again, all were neatly aligned in corresponding order. The grey patina of age dulled the text.

One by one, Jack read off the names, remembering those that had stuck in his mind. Some had faded completely, all of those wan and sickly children, like himself, discarded by a malicious society. Most were already long dead.

Habitually, he traced the print with his fingertip, settling it over his own likeness. The fire licked and crackled excitedly; driven by the oncoming storm, the wind howled inside the chimney pot.

On the photograph’s sombre moorland, hidden from the casual onlooker by cloud shadows, a woman had stopped to catch her breath; looking back through the rain it seemed as if she resented the presence of the picture-taker. Her limbs were crippled with age and a veil of poverty and terrible hardship hung about her. Jack nodded his head, the smile on his face now thin with malice. He spoke with slow deliberation, the voice coming out from his mouth not his own.

‘They will perish as we have done. I, Jennet Device speak for all my kin – thus I curse your line, Moresby.’

On the fire, the photograph curled and blackened; the face of the old woman and that of Jack Device disappeared. He waited another hour before driving down to the stables.

Karen lay on her side; Jack pressed his fingertips to her neck, but there was no pulse, already the life had fled from her. The side of Karen’s head had been stove in; the stallion stood alongside her, its eyes quiet – the madness had left it.

Jack reached for his phone.

‘Emergency services. Which service do you require?’

‘Ambulance, there’s been an accident.’

As a malevolent silhouette, his likeness, thin and hawk-like stood to the far wall, though his eyes were bright, green as sea glass – pin sharp – the eyes of the necromancer. Beyond the stable door, portentous winds bickered amongst the hawthorn.

Like a warm breeze, Satan’s breath ruffled the fine hairs at the back of his neck. Jack turned about and for long moments peered deep inside the stallion’s eye. As would a quiescent yearling foal, so the stallion nuzzled his shoulder; softly, Jack spoke to it, his choice of words thick with local accent and defunct colloquialisms of old England.

‘Get thee gone, Jennet Device. Trouble my house no more for your legacy is well spent.’ He threw open the stable doors and a half moon managed a look through the clouds. On Lancashire’s bleak moorland, not far from the castle at Lancaster, dark shadows danced a jig on Gallows Hill – their voices stripped away by the wind.

*