Her mouth had worked like a fish in a bowl, bewilderment in her eyes. She was who she was, beaten down, utterly reliant on a violent man for basic survival. Really, I knew nothing about Maud. Only that her parents had both been killed in the First World War.
I was fluctuating wildly, picking at one of the sores on my arm, all the fire of moments ago now doused with guilt.
This illness really could be food poisoning, and all the other symptoms due to stress and malnourishment. And maybe Dad’s house purchase had fallen through or something? Or he and this woman had separated? My mother was probably ill in some mental hospital… and my crazy dreams were because I was… well… crazy! I’d been crazy since I was eight years old, and it was all because of what I’d seen at that funeral. That was it. It’s what any adult would say by way of explanation. Well, maybe they wouldn’t use the word crazy – but whatever they said, it would amount to the same thing.
What was real and what was not? That was the difficult bit.
The sore oozed with blood when the scab broke off, and the release of that felt good. But even as that one popped, a fresh batch itched and rose on my back, spreading like the pox.
These sores were real enough. Being raped was real, as were the bruises to prove it. Being slapped hard across the head by an iron-fisted man twice my size was real. My dad living around the corner when he’d said otherwise was real. That he’d left home at sixteen because of his father’s violence was also real, and the fact he’d abandoned his daughter to the same fate, knowingly, and never come back as promised. All real. Mrs Dixon had said it – this wasn’t food poisoning.
What about the voices, then? The whispers and shadows, the nightly visions of a life not my own, the people, cities, towns and languages all foreign in every way yet implicitly understood? Total madness?
Ah, the poppet! Of course, yes. The poppet was proof. From under the bed, I pulled out the rucksack used for a school trip and tipped out the crow doll. Still here. Solid. Real. My mother had seen it, confiscating it to burn. So, yes, the Bavarian funeral had happened – I had been there and flown over that mountain with the hut clinging precariously to the jutting rock at the top. In addition to that, I’d done well in school and had a true friend who loved all the same things I did. I was no crazier than anyone else. The difference, the only one, between me and most other people was the legacy. The magic.
The poppet seemed to purr and throb when stroked, like a warm, sated cat. The tiny amethyst glittering on its chest glinted in the light, the feathers silky, fluttering gently as if caught in a breeze.
I wondered, though… Could this theory be taken a step further, if only to satisfy my own mind that I was not insane but truly in the possession of a spiritual gift?
In my rattan sewing box were hair ribbons. One tied around the poppet’s neck would turn it into a pendulum. Well then, here was a surefire way to see if an external force really did exist – a test to decide once and for all. Was this illness due to demons, or had I inherited nothing more than a legacy of madness?
The use of a pendulum had been brought to my attention by a gang of girls at school, way back when we were about thirteen. This gang, they would huddle together, plotting the downfall of other girls as a way of life. Nicknamed ‘The Coven’, they’d succeeded in frightening the entire third form. Each could fix an evil stare, and mutter under her breath about how your card was marked, thus instilling both terror and control. One girl in my class wet herself just from one look! They had not one jot of supernatural power, I can vouch for that, but their rule was unquestionable.
The trick was to stay off radar. But one day, in the cloakrooms, my eyes met those of the coven’s leader.
“What the fuck you looking at?”
A bitch.
She stared back for the longest time. The other two flanked her, and the three of them manoeuvred me against wall.
Around that time Lenka had been telling Heinrich about projecting thoughts into someone else’s head, so while the coven leader glared and jabbed at my shoulder, saying my card was marked, I sent her an image to think about – really just to see if it worked. Next day she was subdued, not quite herself. And shortly after that, when I walked into the girls’ toilets and the three of them were in there, intimidating whomever was inside the cubicle, well, it was clear the little high priestess wasn’t well.
It was kind of hard not to smile. Bloody hell, it had worked! I’d sent her a black mamba. Had it slither under her bedroom door just as she was dropping off to sleep, muscling over the floor towards her bed, where she lay paralysed with fear as it climbed up the pale pink sheets, forked tongue flicking in and out towards her face and her hair…
She wasn’t sleeping, had terrible nightmares. So we eyed each other that day. My lips twitched ever so slightly; I couldn’t help it. And she paled. Somehow she just knew. They didn’t pick on me again, anyway, and Nicky never had her blazer ripped again either. But I couldn’t be sure I had the power – it could just be I’d had the nerve to eyeball her back – and there was this thing, a caution, if you like, about how black magic rebounded. Threefold. Or was it tenfold?
But to get back to the pendulum. I was walking home through the woods one afternoon when I caught them using one. All three looked up and glared.
“Fuck off, Ginger Spaz!” That little high priestess – God, she was terrified. The pounding of her heart was nearly audible.
They’d been asking it yes or no. If the answer was affirmative, the pendulum would swing side to side, back and forwards if negative, and if not known, it was to spin around in a circle. The question had been whether Gary Nicholl from the fourth form fancied the little high priestess or not.
It did nothing. The one with the Suzi Quatro haircut made it swing, but anyone could see she was forcing it.
All three glowered at me. “Piss off! You deaf?”
“Okay, I’m going. Although the answer, if you want it, is yes – he does!”
Oh, how they’d wanted to know more, but pride forbade it. Three kids from neglectful homes, two of them with violent fathers. How badly they’d wanted to find some kind of power in a world in which they had none. But they were dangerous, too, because they were damaged, merciless and just as cruel as the bullies who’d taught them the rules.
“How did you even know the question?” Suzy Look-alike shouted.
I glanced over my shoulder. “Dunno.”
“She’s a witch,” the little priestess said. “Don’t pick a fight; she’s a fuckin’ witch, I’m telling yer.”
Would the pendulum work for me now, though?
Whatever it was we connected with was real, and, believe me – you don’t ever want to meddle with the black arts. Not ever, Eva. You got to burn that poppet, and you don’t bring it into this house, either, do you hear?
I closed my eyes and held the poppet in the warmth of my hand until our spirits merged, my life force pulsing into the inanimate object. Then, keeping my hand steady, I dangled it on the ribbon until it settled.
My heart rate picked up a little. The room was still, the house silent. Had Grandma Hart rushed out to find Earl? Or was she sitting downstairs rigid with shock? It seemed a little too quiet.
“Okay – side to side for yes, back and forwards for no, circles if you don’t know… Spirit please tell me – shall I curse my grandfather for what he has done?”