Hangmans pond, p.10
Hangman's Pond, page 10
part #2 of The Brackenford Cycle Series
‘Her name is Dorothy Walcott,’ Granddad replied. ‘She is, or was, a witch.’
‘A witch.’ Trev shook his head as if to clear it. ‘A witch?’
‘That’s what they called her at the time, anyway,’ Oscar said. ‘These days she’d just be someone with unusually strong Sight.’
Trev stared at the cat, puzzled. ‘I don’t follow. Is she really old or something? She can’t be a vampire, because vampires can’t have the Sight, can they?’
‘Well technically she died in sixteen forty-six,’ said Oscar, ‘but she didn’t go quietly, you might say.’
‘Can’t one of you two just explain this in simple terms?’ Trev snapped. ‘Is she alive? Dead? A ghost? A zombie? What?’
Granddad held up a calming hand. ‘Her… means of existence is rather unique. Have you heard of Matthew Hopkins?’
Trev nodded. ‘The self-styled “Witchfinder General”.’
‘Yes. His name is infamous, even now. But his activities were just a sideshow, a front, for another man, Isaiah Sneade.’
‘Never heard of him.’
‘Very few have.’ Granddad stroked his beard. ‘Like Dorothy Walcott herself, Sneade was very strongly Sighted. He was also intensely religious, and used his abilities to fight against beings he deemed to be “evil”. Spirits, Shades, lycanthropes, vampires. And witches, of course.’
‘So he was kind of a Custodian?’ Trev asked.
‘He was a loony,’ Oscar said. ‘But a powerful loony. Nowhere in recorded history has that ever been a good combination.’
‘He encouraged Hopkins to make as much noise as possible and build a fearsome reputation,’ Granddad continued. ‘With everybody worrying about the “Witchfinder General”, Sneade was able to operate more or less in secret.’
Trev rubbed his chin. ‘Sneaky. But what about all the innocent women Hopkins had executed?’
‘Sneade believed that if they were innocent they’d end up in heaven, and as such Hopkins had done them a favour. If they were sinners, then they’d got what they deserved,’ Oscar explained.
‘Sounds like a lovely bloke. I bet he was a winner with the ladies.’
‘Oh yeah. He was voted “Most Eligible Puritan” three years running.’ Oscar grinned.
‘In early sixteen forty-six Sneade came to Brackenford in search of “dark forces”,’ Granddad said, picking up the tale. ‘The townspeople had already executed a few witches themselves, imitating Hopkins’ methods. Dorothy Walcott had recently moved to Brackenford from East Anglia, ironically to avoid Hopkins’ purges there. We’re not entirely sure how she came to Sneade’s attention, but he realised that she had the Sight and denounced her as a witch.’
‘Why do that? She could’ve helped him with his fight against “evil”,’ Trev said.
‘We’ll never know,’ Granddad replied, ‘but it was probably motivated either by jealousy or the belief that a woman shouldn’t have that sort of power.’
‘Can I retract my comment about him being a winner with the ladies?’
‘I think that goes without saying,’ said Granddad.
‘So what happened?’
‘They tested her to see if she was a witch. Of course she failed, so they hanged her.’
‘So how is she sending birds to write on your door?’
‘She didn’t want to go. Her body was dead, but her spirit tried to remain behind. She was powerful enough to cling to the mortal realm.’
‘So she’s a ghost, then. Like Agatha?’ Agatha was a Victorian spirit who often worked with Granddad and Oscar. She had an opinion of Trev so low that people in Australia often tripped over it.
‘That’s what would have happened without Sneade’s intervention,’ Granddad said. ‘He realised what was happening and tried to banish her spirit using his own power. They were evenly matched. The end result was that part of her spirit moved on, and part of it remained bound to the mortal world. To the very earth itself.’
‘That sounds… uncomfortable.’ Trev furrowed his brow, trying to imagine what it would be like to have his soul torn in half. He couldn’t, but as just trying to imagine it gave him a headache, he decided that it would be less than pleasant.
‘Yes. More so when you consider that both parts of her are aware of the other, and one is now outside of normal time and space while its counterpart is firmly bound to our world,’ Oscar said.
‘What does that mean?’ asked Trev.
‘It means that she’s crazier than a crazy thing that’s just been deemed crazy by a doctor specialising in the diagnosis of craziness,’ said Oscar. ‘It also means she has visions of the future from the part of her that’s wandering outside normal time and space.’
‘Which is how she knew you’d be here now, Trevor,’ said Granddad.
‘Me?’ said Trev, confused. ‘Hang on, are you saying that the “him” in the “BRINGE HIM” on your door is… me?’
Granddad nodded. ‘Undoubtedly.’
‘She could’ve meant Oscar,’ Trev protested.
‘No chance,’ the cat said. ‘The fact that I’m another being who really shouldn’t be on this plane of existence kind of freaks her out. She won’t have anything to do with me.’
‘Can’t blame her for that,’ Trev agreed. ‘After all, you are a mouthy little twat.’
‘I prefer the term “outspoken”,’ said Oscar. To Trev’s irritation the cat had proven himself to be impossible to insult. He just laughed off any abuse.
He gave Oscar a dubious look and switched his attention back to Granddad. ‘So where are you supposed to bring me, and why?’
‘Why? Because she’s had a vision of your future that she wants to share with you.’
‘Right. I wasn’t expecting that,’ said Trev. ‘And where?’
‘We’ll find her at Hangman’s Pond,’ said Granddad.
Trev sat in the passenger seat of Granddad’s car and stared blindly through the windscreen as Granddad drove them back out of the town centre and onto Boundary Road which, as its name suggested, ran around the outskirts of Brackenford.
Just when things had begun to seem normal again, he reflected, the supernatural had barged back into his life. Already he had the feeling that events were in motion over which he had no control, and he had little option but to try and stand his ground with the hope that he’d still be upright and breathing at the end.
‘Have you any idea why this Dorothy Walcott is interested in me?’ he asked Granddad.
‘None,’ the old man admitted. ‘She hasn’t made any predictions for years, and in all honesty the ones she used to make were so cryptic and vague that we never understood them until the events they foretold had already happened. She’d always give us three predictions, all similar but only one correct.’
‘So what’s the point?’
‘Our understanding was that she made her predictions to tease and frustrate the Custodians. To her eyes, we’re the modern equivalents of men like Isaiah Sneade. But you aren’t a Custodian, so why does she want to see you? I can only think this fits into the ongoing events centred on you.’
‘I wish these “ongoing events” would on-go away,’ Trev muttered. He sighed. Part of him was intrigued at the thought of getting an insight into his own future, although the more cynical part of him – i.e. most of him – was convinced that whatever the prediction was, it wouldn’t be good.
Granddad parked the car in a lay-by and they got out. The sun was low in the sky and Trev reflected that any chance of salvaging something from his day off was now gone.
‘I brought Sarah here on her first day at SmoothMove,’ he remembered aloud. Crap, he mentally added. I was going to call her and see how she was. Need to do that later, if I’m not dead or anything.
‘Showing her the town?’ Granddad asked. Trev nodded.
They followed a narrow path that led from the lay-by across an area of grassy waste ground and around a copse of gnarled trees. As they rounded the copse Hangman’s Pond came into view.
Trev had always noticed that the area immediately surrounding the pond seemed strangely bleak, as if there were something leaching the life out of the plants that grew there. He now had an idea of what that “something” might be.
The water’s surface was glassy and smooth, rippling only a little in the breeze. Despite the stillness of the water it was not clear. Trev couldn’t see the bottom, even close to the edge. A lone weeping willow stood on the opposite bank, its branches trailing into the depths.
Granddad put a hand into the wiry grass next to the pond and pulled out a worn wooden sign that had fallen into the foliage. It read – just about legibly – DEEP WATER. NO SWIMMING. Granddad did his best to push it back into the ground so that it stood upright again.
‘Pointless,’ said Trev. ‘If you decide to swim in that, you’re obviously so bonkers that you’d need a SWAT team to stop you, not a sign.’
‘People have to be given fair warning,’ Granddad said, straightening the sign. It slumped sideways as soon as he let go of it.
‘What now?’ said Trev. He zipped up his jacket and shoved his hands into his pockets.
‘We let Dorothy know we’re ready to speak to her,’ Granddad replied. ‘You might find her appearance… unsettling. Try to stay calm. She won’t touch you if you stay out of the water.’
‘Um, OK,’ Trev replied. He waited for Granddad to turn away and took a step back from the water’s edge. ‘I’m staying calm. That was a calm cowardly step backwards,’ he murmured to himself.
Granddad bent and picked up a small stone. He held it in the fingers of his right hand and concentrated. Energy flowed out of his fingers, making the stone glow. Granddad allowed it to get to a warm brightness and then tossed it into the pond. The water closed over it with barely a splash.
There followed a few moments of complete silence and stillness. Trev found he could no longer hear the traffic on Boundary Road, or any birds, or even the wind in the grass. He resisted the urge to take another step away from the water.
A clump of bubbles gurgled out of the middle of the pond, breaking both the smoothness of the water’s surface and the silence. More bubbles followed, this time closer to where Trev and Granddad were standing.
‘All right, just remember to stay calm,’ said Granddad.
‘I am,’ Trev replied. ‘It must be someone else’s teeth you can hear chattering.’
A third eruption of bubbles came up about six feet from the water’s edge, releasing a foetid, gassy smell that sent Trev’s nose into spasm. The water parted and a shapeless brown mass emerged. It took Trev a moment to realise that it was mud from the bottom of the pond, forming itself into a roughly cylindrical shape. Water poured off it, along with a number of water-borne bugs, worms and other startled creepy-crawlies.
The column of mud rose maybe three feet out of the water and stopped. Its surface rippled and the column changed shape like a lump of clay on a potter’s wheel, forming itself into an approximation of a human torso. Brown, rotting rush leaves sprouted from the head in place of hair, and the dripping arms extruded crude fingers made from twigs.
Three holes opened in the muddy face, creating eyes and a mouth, the latter containing small pebble teeth. The head turned to regard first Granddad and then Trev, before the thing that had once been a woman called Dorothy Walcott spread its hands in a mocking gesture of welcome.
‘Greetings,’ it said, in a gurgling voice that sounded like a gallon of chip fat being poured down a plughole.
‘Good evening, Dorothy,’ said Granddad, as casually as a man making small talk at the church fête. ‘How are you?’
The thing made a distressing sound that Trev guessed was laughter. ‘Such manners! I am trapped in this place, bound to the very mud and filth and slime here, and he asks me, oh so courtly, how I am?’
Granddad nodded, conceding that it had been a daft question. ‘We received your… invitation.’
‘How good of you to come and visit poor Dorothy,’ the muddy apparition replied. ‘Two guests to entertain! I am fortunate indeed.’
‘Our pleasure,’ said Granddad, trying to show no irritation at the creature’s mockery.
The hollow-eyed face fixed itself on Trev. Something squirmed at the back of one of the eye-sockets. ‘How sad that one of them seems mute,’ it said. ‘What ordeal could have inflicted this loss of speech?’
Trev cleared his throat. ‘Um, hello,’ he croaked. It was taking every last shred of his self-control to not bolt for the car. He was glad he hadn’t had time for any lunch, because if he had he was pretty sure it would have made a guest reappearance on his shoes by now.
‘Ah, he speaks at last! Shy, perhaps, in the face of my great beauty?’ The thing laughed again. Trev gritted his teeth and tried to think happy thoughts.
‘You requested our presence,’ Granddad said, trying to steer the conversation back on track. ‘Do you have something to tell us?’
‘Oh yes, yes indeed,’ came the reply. ‘I have foreseen the future for this quiet one. Would you like to hear it?’
No, thought Trev, though he didn’t say it aloud. His curiosity was long gone, driven into hiding by his first sight of Dorothy Walcott. He was convinced that this creature would never make a prediction of benefit to the recipient. Her manner reeked of cruelty and bitterness.
And she reeked in olfactory terms, too, which didn’t help.
‘Please,’ said Granddad. The old man was projecting a relaxed air as best he could, but Trev could see the tension in his posture.
The slimy head returned its attention to Trev. The mouth flexed in a chilling parody of a smile, and one arm lifted to point a dripping twig-finger at him.
‘Trevor Irwin,’ the thing said. Trev flinched at its use of his name. ‘Hear my first revelation: you will die on the twenty-third day of the month of November.’
‘What?’ gasped Granddad.
Trev went cold. ‘What year?’ he whispered.
Dorothy Walcott said nothing. The stony smile became a leer.
‘This year?’ Trev asked. ‘This November?’
‘Yes,’ said the thing.
‘But that’s this coming Sunday,’ said Granddad. ‘That can’t be right.’
‘Hear my second revelation,’ Dorothy Walcott continued, ignoring the interruption. ‘Trevor Irwin, you will die on the twenty-first day of the month of November.’ It leaned closer. ‘Of this year.’
‘That’s Friday,’ Trev said. He felt numb and wondered if he might faint. In fact, fainting seemed like a much better option than hearing the third prediction.
‘Hear my third revelation,’ the creature said, leaning closer still. ‘Trevor Irwin, you will die on the nineteenth day of the month of November, of this year.’
Trev blinked.
‘That’s tomorrow.’
Twelve
Trev perched on the edge of a squeaky armchair in Granddad’s study, sandwiched in between two of the giant floor-to-ceiling bookcases that ran along all four walls. He’d been given some strong tea and he took a sip, the cup rattling as he put it back on the saucer.
‘Up until now, Dorothy’s always made one true prediction in each group of three,’ Granddad said from behind his desk and over the top of a large Scotch, ‘but that doesn’t necessarily mean that she can’t, or won’t, make a wrong prediction if she chooses to.’
‘You think she might just be winding Trev up?’ Oscar asked. He shook his head. ‘I think you’re clutching at the proverbial straws on that one. We have to assume that one of those predictions was genuine, if you ask me.’
‘And do what?’ snapped Trev. ‘Because it sounds like you’re telling me I should just accept that I’ll be dead by Monday morning. And that’s the best case scenario. The best!’
‘First order of business is to call the Custodians,’ said Granddad. ‘You need protection.’
Trev held up a hand. ‘No bloody chance. We already know that there’s a wrong ‘un in the Custodians. They’re probably the person that kills me after I go to them for “protection”.’
‘We know no such thing.’ Granddad put his tumbler down on the desk with a bang. ‘That’s just your latest excuse for avoiding having to ask for help.’
‘Bollocks,’ Trev replied. ‘You’ve got a massive blind spot where the Custodians are concerned, admit it.’
Granddad was about to reply but Oscar got in first. ‘Are you really going to force me to be the voice of reason here? Because the last time I had to do that, I think it caused the fall of the Roman Empire.’
‘Go on then, impress us with your insight,’ Trev said. He put his cup of tea aside and sat back with his fingers steepled.
‘Cor, you’re moody,’ Oscar said, unmoved by Trev’s attitude. ‘It’s almost like you just had your own death predicted three times in the space of a minute, or something.’
‘No shit,’ said Trev.
‘All I was going to say was that getting snippy with each other isn’t going to help,’ said Oscar. ‘We need to try and look at this objectively.’
‘Easy for you to say, you’re not the one with a thirty-three percent chance of being dead in twenty-four hours,’ Trev shot back.
Oscar cocked his head to one side. ‘Thirty-three point three recurring percent, by my maths.’
Trev just stared at him.
‘Right, maybe we’ll leave the maths for a happier occasion,’ the cat said. ‘Once this is all over we’ll celebrate with a bottle of vodka and some quadratic equations.’
‘Oscar, do you actually have anything to add to the discussion?’ asked Granddad. ‘If you don’t, Trev and I may as well get back to shouting accusations at each other.’
‘Well, that would be pretty funny,’ said Oscar. The pair of withering looks he received in response suggested that he was alone in this opinion. ‘Or not. Look, it’s like I just said. We have to be objective. Work with the facts.’
Trev shrugged. ‘Go on, then. It’s not like it’ll make things any worse.’
‘OK then,’ said Oscar. ‘Bernard, isn’t it unusual for Dorothy to make such blunt predictions? Isn’t she usually much more cryptic?’
