| Stanley Part 3 - Witchcraft |
1690
“Where are we?” asked Bunny, holding on tight to Gracie’s hand as they wandered through the landscaped gardens they now found themselves in.
Gracie looked across the lawns towards a large stone building with many heavily leaded windows. Hades Hill stood proudly in the distance behind it. She could clearly see a rookery in the trees to her right and Heyleigh dell was behind, as well as to the left of her. If her sense of direction was correct, the building she was now looking at should be Heyleigh Hall; the home of the Theawickes. The one she was seeing was not half as grand or half its size.
“Is this what happened to you, Gracie?” Bunny asked excitedly. “I’ve always dreamed of an adventure. Our Alan says going t’shop and back is about all the adventure I’ll ever get. He’s wrong, isn’t he, Gracie?”
“I suppose he is,” Gracie replied, staring down at the milky stone she was holding in her hand. It must be a magic pearl! She had seen ladies wearing pearls but she had never seen a real pearl up close before, nor had she heard of one with magic powers. She never imagined she would get to hold a magic pearl...or a magic anything come to that.
Gracie hadn’t expected pearls to be warm. All the stones she had known previously had been cold -– stone cold. This one, however, warmed the skin touching it. Where could it have come from? She didn’t have time to think about that now. The best idea would be to put it back in her pocket for safe keeping before it had the chance to do any more damage.
Shouts rang out over the gardens accompanied soon after by the unmistakeable chorus of baying dogs. Gracie and Bunny looked in the direction of the house where they could now clearly see an old man shouting orders at a young boy who was holding two straining dogs by their large and elaborately jewelled collars.
“C’mon!” exclaimed Bunny, dragging Gracie off towards the edge of the dell with him. “They're going to set those mutts on us! Run!”
Gracie did not need to be told twice. They both ran like the wind, but failed to make it further than a clearing in the trees at the edge of the dell before the excited hounds all but closed the distance between them.
“We’re not going to make it!” Bunny screamed over his shoulder. The terrain beneath their feet became steeper with each stride. “Can yer not get us out of here like yer did before, Gracie?”
Gracie reached for the stone in her pocket just as Bunny tripped over a fallen branch and crashed to the ground.
The dogs were upon them!
Bunny instinctively turned from where he lay face down on the ground and valiantly attempted to wrestle one of the ferocious blond-haired hunting hounds snapping at the space around him. He grabbed the animal’s ears and tried to push the frenzied creature away in an attempt to prevent it from savaging his already swollen and blooded face.
Horror-stricken, a helpless Gracie watched as the other hound approached her determinedly. Overwhelmed by panic, she turned and fled.
Gracie had not run much further than a few yards when she passed another fallen branch on the ground. Turning full circle, Gracie bent down hurriedly to snatch it up with the intention of using it as a weapon against her attacker. A living trap of sharp fangs and saliva sprang and sunk deep into her outstretched arm ripping the flesh apart.
Screaming in agony, Gracie lashed out at the second hound with the hand holding the stone. The animal instantly transformed into a skeleton, all flesh and life stripped from it.
The vicious snarls of Bunny’s fearsome combatant morphed into a half-strangled yelp as it turned tail and ran back in the direction from which it came.
Gracie wasted no time in running back to her brother and helping Bunny get back up on his feet using her uninjured arm with the magic pearl held tightly in her palm.
Bunny began to sob like a baby. His tears mingled with dirt and blood to give his usual baby-face a more sinister appearance.
Gracie studied his split lip and bloody nose, then plucked up the courage to confront her own injuries. The ripped flesh was puce, the puncture marks from the dog’s teeth were raised and weeping. Everywhere stung like crazy and seemed to be bleeding.
Despite their injuries, Gracie could not help but think that they had both got off lightly. She gave Bunny a cuddle and his sobs began to lessen. He is never going to grow up, not really, she thought to herself.
Gracie did not know how they had managed to get where they were, but they needed to get out of here and find some help fast. The thought of the damage the magic pearl was capable of scared her. Gracie was torn between the idea of throwing it away and using it again to somehow get them home.
They both heard crashing footfalls and panting as the young and unusually dressed boy joined them expectantly. He glared at them and then his expression turned to sheer terror and disbelief as his eyes fell upon the jewelled collar and bleached skeleton of the dog lying several feet away.
“Witchcraft!” The boy whispered under his breath and crossed himself.
Two other, similarly dressed and older men quickly joined him. Both echoed the boy’s reactions and actions. Still shocked from their experiences so far, Gracie and Bunny remained grounded where they stood.
“It tried to kill me,” offered Bunny in explanation. “We were doing no wrong. We only just got here and he,” he pointed a trembling finger at the young boy, “set them on us!”
Bunny looked like he was going to break into tears again.
“Yer were trespassing on His Lordship’s land!” accused the boy. “
“Wasn’t!” replied Bunny sticking out his tongue.
Gracie watched the exchange, unsure how they were going to get out of the predicament they now found themselves in. Things appeared to be going from bad to worse.
“I’m sorry about your dog,” she said apologetically to the boy. “I’ve no idea what happened to it but it were nothing to do with us,” she lied.
The smaller and more robust of the two men grabbed hold of Bunny. “You’re coming with us! Master Zachary knows how to deal with your kind!”
Bunny’s bottom lip trembled and terrified he turned to Gracie for help. “Don’t let them hurt me, Gracie,” he sobbed. “Use your magic to stop ‘em!”
All three men gasped with shock at Bunny’s words. Gracie had no choice, she would need the stone if she was to help Bunny. She reached into her pocket.
PrevLabels: 1690s, Gracie, Refuge of Delayed Souls, Web Fiction |
posted by Miladysa @ 22:40  |
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| Stanley Part 1 - Return |
1907
Gracie lay still on the ground listening to the low gathering moans of a bitter wind. A thousand or more icy fingers crept across the exposed skin of her spindly arms and legs and scratched her awake.
She tried to open her eyes a little; it was so dark that she was unsure whether or not she had succeeded. Slowly, her eyes grew accustomed to the murky darkness and she was able to make out a few scattered stars in the inky night sky above.
Though uncomfortable, the damp ground beneath her petite frame felt reassuringly solid. Hesitantly, she turned onto her left side and recognised the eerie silhouette of Heyleigh Stones, standing upon the barren moor, as if they had been specifically formed to greet her when she woke.
Gracie was relieved to discover that she was in one piece. The relief departed even more quickly than it had arrived when she remembered that she was supposed to have met up with her brothers, Alan and Bunny, and they should all have arrived home together in time for tea.
No doubt her mother would be worried sick after she had failed to return home as planned. Gracie could easily picture her siblings being read the Riot Act before being sent to bed without any tea. She definitely was not going to be in anyone’s good books after this.
Despite her eagerness to leave Hades Hill and return home, Gracie decided the best way forward would be to let common sense prevail and stay where she was until it was light. She really would be risking life and limb if she tried to make her way down its rugged slope in the darkness.
***
Alan Regan entered the kitchen of the small terrace house and rubbed his arthritic arm furiously, as the cold temperature wrapped around him. He swore and walked over to the black cast iron stove. A medium-sized liver and white mongrel dog left the place where it had been sleeping and joined him. It watched intently as he struggled to get the stove going, and cowered nervously as colourful language, and flying objects, peppered the room until a weak orange flicker appeared.
Alan retrieved a half-smoked cigarette from behind his ear. He lit it upon the now robust open flame and then placed a heavy kettle on to boil. The dog lied down to share the heat source, seemingly relieved although not entirely relaxed. He rested his head on his paws and looked up surreptitiously as his master inhaled the cigarette through pursed lips whilst rubbing his aching lower back with both his hands for several minutes.
The dog leapt up and darted to the rear of the room a split second before the cigarette tip and tube of ash dropped onto his master’s threadbare jumper.
“Basket!”
Swearing and half-demented with rage, Alan swiped at his chest and inadvertently stubbed his toe on the cast iron stove. This time he shouted out in pain and hopped around the room like a possessed frog, rubbing his injured foot.
The latch on the back door rattled, and the wooden door opened and closed firmly behind him. Alan ceased his administrations and reached for two pint-sized, blue and white hooped pots which were on hooks above the wooden kitchen drainer.
“Eh! Talk about timing! Kettle’s on.”
With his back still turned to the rear door, Alan limped over to the pantry and reached inside for some tea.
The mongrel growled and backed as far away from the visitor as possible.
“Shut the fook up!” Alan growled back at it with venom. “It’s only our kid! What the hell’s up with yer?”
He looked from the dog to his younger brother. The small bag of tea fell from his hands and onto the slate grey floor. A shower of black tea leaves fluttered to the ground and settled over and around his bare feet. He continued to stare, his mouth agape and a day’s full growth of whiskers standing to attention on his chin.
“Where’s me mam?” Gracie asked wide eyed, trying to catch her breath from the sprint down the street.
“Mary, Joseph and Jesus!” Alan managed to squeak before reaching for support from the kitchen table.
The latch rattled once more and the door barely had time to creak before the frantic hound dashed out of it and into the distance beyond.
Bernard ‘Bunny’ Regan stood rooted to the spot, the freshly baked loaf of bread he had been set to fetch, clutched tightly to his chest and mangled by his left hand. The only thing holding him upright was his other hand firmly fastened to the iron latch of the open door.
His questioning eyes darted back and forth between his older brother and sister. The two years between them had increased by a lifetime. Gracie’s physical appearance had not aged a single day since the last time they had seen her -- twenty years earlier.
“What?” she cried out, suddenly looking frightened and frantic.
Bunny closed the door then fell back against it. He covered his eyes with one of his hands leaving only a shock of red hair and his mouth and chin visible. He removed the hand and gulped audibly several times before he managed to get a word out in answer.
“Mam’s dead...,” he announced with tears in his eyes. “Dad and our Katie too...our Alan looks out for me now.” He nodded toward the other man in the room.
A perplexed Gracie frowned at the two men.
“It’s been twenty flaming years, Gracie!” A purple faced Alan shouted furiously, shaking the tea from his feet and searching behind his ears in the vain hope of finding another cigarette stashed there.
“What are you talking about? Stop larking around!” Gracie cried, her temper clearly rising and a fight brewing within her.
Bunny, now standing beside her, nodded his head in affirmation as Gracie looked to him for reassurance.
“He’s right,” he confirmed verbally. “Where the heck have yer bin?”
***
Gracie sat on one of the rustic kitchen stools and searched the sparsely furnished room as if looking for answers in the plaster cracks or splintered wood, but finding none.
The tea Bunny had made her cooled within its chipped cup. Alan stared at her with disdain, as though she was one of the bottled specimens in the travelling circus, which visited every autumn. She had no doubts that the man leaning against the wall glaring at her was her older brother. She was, however, finding it difficult to come to terms with the way both Alan and Bunny had seemingly aged overnight.
Bunny knelt down on the cold, hard floor and took her hands in his. They were old and calloused, more fitting her granddad than her younger brother. She studied his face. In the shadow of the man he had become, she could still clearly see the boy he had been.
“Did me mam find yer? She said she would,” Bunny said excitedly.
Alan scoffed behind him. Gracie shot him a disapproving look. He stared back at her with empty eyes. He was even colder and meaner than he had been yesterday.
“What a load of shite,” Alan snarled, filling the kettle and putting it back on the stove. “It can’t be Gracie! Think about it, soft lad. It’s probably some kid dressed up to look like her. Some sick idiot down at the pub trying to put the wind up us!”
Bunny looked hurt. Gracie instinctively reached out to ruffle his hair then pulled back.
“Have yer been away with the fairies?” Bunny asked enthusiastically, taking her by surprise with his change of mood.
Had she been away with the fairies? Gracie tried to remember what had happened on Hades Hill after she looked through the hole in the stone. The only thing she could remember was waking up last night and longing for morning to come so that she could return home.
Gracie tried to hold back her welling tears and failed. She reached into her pocket for her handkerchief and as she pulled it out, something cream-coloured and almost egg-shaped plummeted to the floor, spinning off in the direction of the stone kitchen sink. Alan reached it first. Creaking with arthritis he bent over to retrieve it.
“No!” proclaimed Gracie, rising to her feet and holding her right hand out. The object shot forwards and fell effortlessly into her palm with a slap.
“What the hell?” exclaimed Alan, walking menacingly towards Gracie and Bunny.
Bunny started to tremble.
“Keep yer distance,” warned Gracie, stepping in front of Alan and grabbing hold of Bunny’s hand firmly. Alan continued towards them and stared in amazement, as well as into space, when Gracie and Bunny suddenly disappeared into thin air.
Labels: 1907, Gracie, Refuge of Delayed Souls, Sidhe, Web Fiction |
| posted by Miladysa @ 23:00 |
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| Billy Part 22 - Hades Hill |
1887
“Mind you stay together, you lot! Make sure you’re back before it gets dark and don’t go far! You hear?”
“Yes, Mam,” echoed the trio of children huddled around the door of the small terraced house before setting off down the street and making their way to the lane leading up to Sky Pond, their tongues wagging and jam jars clanging when their clogs made contact with the cobblestones.
Half way up the lane, the mood changed as the rules for the afternoon were laid down. “We don’t want any whinging from you, our Gracie!” the tallest boy snapped, pointing a bony finger into the chest of the frail-looking girl in front of him. His other arm lay limply by his side. “If me and our Bunny find a docker and want to share it, we will. If you go telling our mam, we’ll have yer guts fer garters!”
“I know better than to tell me mam, Alan,” Gracie snapped back at him. “I’ve still got the bruises from last time!”
“Right then. Don’t say I haven’t warned yer.“
“Don’t think Gracie should be going up Hades on her own. It might rain,” the younger boy quipped hesitantly.
“It might rain? It might bloody rain? Listen, soft lad, it might rain every blinking day! Like our dad says, if it ain’t raining it’s just about to!”
The face of the younger brother flashed as red as his hair and Gracie came to his aid. “Don’t worry about me, Bunny. I’ll be fine. I only want to go up t’stones and dance with the fairies fer a few minutes. I’ll be straight back down,” she bent down to his level and gave him a reassuring smile. Bunny gave her a reluctant one in return.
“Yer can come with me, if yer want?” Gracie added, wide-eyed.
“He's not going chasing fairies,” proclaimed Alan sarcastically. “He’ll turn into one -– he’s already half way there! He’s coming with me -– I need him ter help me catch the taddies.”
Bunny’s face crumpled when he heard Alan’s words. He wiped his nose across the sleeve of his threadbare jumper several times and then hitched up his short patched trousers.
“Right, make yersel’ scarce, Gracie,” ordered Alan, walking on and dragging Bunny by his clean sleeve. “Up ter top, five minutes and straight back down to meet us by t’pond.”
“Righty ho,” said Gracie, breaking away from them and giving Bunny a wave.
“An’ don’t be late!” shouted Alan. “Or I’ll...”
“Have me guts fer garters!” shouted Gracie, pulling a funny face that only Bunny caught sight of. She started running, laughing with excitement as she did so and occasionally turned around to watch the minute figures of Alan and Bunny trotting off in the opposite direction towards the deep black sparkle of Sky Pond.
Part way up, Gracie lost sight of her brothers and sat down on the gorse and heather-clad hillside and surveyed the mill town at its foot. The crowd of smoking giant chimneys of the cotton mills below reminded her of the dragon that St. George must have fought in the pace egg play. She shuddered. It was no secret how hard it was in those mills.
Her older sister Katie had aged years since she’d started work there. And now that Gracie was ten, she only had a couple of months to go before she would join her, as Alan’s gammy arm had prevented him from taking his turn first.
She wished she could be like Miss Annabella Templeton and go to school until she was grown up, or be a doll like Lady Caroline Theawicke! Mind you, she didn’t want the curse that Lady Caroline had to live with, no way! She would rather be friends with fairies than devils!
Perhaps Ma Crabtree was right when she’d read her mam’s tea leaves last week. “There will be no mill for Gracie!” Maybe she would be lucky and fall for a job as a servant instead?
A dark cloud passed overhead and Gracie looked up. Bunny was right, it looked like rain. She smiled when she noticed the full moon in the afternoon light -– there would be fairies today -– definitely! She ran on gaily.
***
Panic swept the whole street. Men stood on the corners talking earnestly, women sobbed silently so as to not scare the children. They were all scared though. Every last one of them. Young Grace Regan had gone missing up on Hades Hill and her brothers claimed she was away with the fairies!
Ma Crabtree believed them, as did many of the older members of the community, such as Fanny Parkinson who had gone through the tor ring backwards when she had failed to conceive after eight years of marriage. Ma had told her what to do and her belly had been full within the year. Fanny’s child had the ability to see things others couldn’t, too, just like Ma.
Ma waited for the knock at the door -– she knew they would come. When the hilltop had been searched and no body had been discovered, they would seek her out and she would tell them what they already knew but didn’t want to believe -– not yet. After a while, she knew they would want to believe it for anything would be better than thinking the child was dead.
Mind you, she had seen it in the cups and had told the mother that there would be no mill for Gracie! The mother had taken it that another occupation would call instead, but Ma had a good idea at the time that it had something to do with the stones. She hadn’t expected them to take the child away though, it had been a long time since that had happened. Since before her time.
The knock came, just as she knew it would. She put the kettle on and answered the door. They already knew where Gracie had gone, but they had to hear it from someone else, someone who knew about these things.
PrevLabels: 1880s, Gracie, Refuge of Delayed Souls, Web Fiction |
| posted by Miladysa @ 18:45 |
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