The poppet did nothing. It hung inert, exactly the same as for the girl with the Suzi Quatro hair.
Ask it an easier question!
The advice came as a thought insertion, nothing more. But I was learning to act on those. “Is my name Eva?”
The poppet twitched but not enough for affirmation. Look, if nothing happened, I was a lunatic, pure and simple – a badly disturbed teenager who needed to get well and get a grip. I had a future planned – it was just a case of getting healthy. Mrs Dixon was going to sort out a doctor and… But even as my thoughts raced, the blisters rose and spread like plague buboes, and my whole back began to prickle.
Offer it drink – liquor!
Now that was a crazy thought but an insistent one, so in the absence of a better idea, I crept downstairs. No one was in, after all. So she had gone to find him, then! Right, well, time was now of the essence. His whisky was in the Welsh dresser along with some miniature glasses for liqueurs. Quickly I poured out a small measure, then ran back upstairs.
“The drink is yours. It’s on the desk!” The poppet dangled, swinging lightly before stilling. “Okay, now here’s an easy one – is my mother’s name Alexandra?”
This time, the poppet twitched more definitively. No, I had to be making it happen. I mean – how the fuck?
It moved, you felt it, it jumped with life… you did… you felt it!
Stilling it once more, this time resting my elbow on the desk so there was no room for error, I asked again. “If I curse my grandfather, will I get well again?”
The pendulum swung from side to side without any doubt whatsoever, cutting, in fact, a ninety-degree angle. Nor would it stop. It was like a live thing in my hand. My heart jittered wildly. Was this telekinesis? Uri Geller did it like a parlour trick, causing objects to move or bend with the force of his mind. They said it was energy, something like that. Yes, that was all. I bet a scientist could explain this away.
But what if I asked something I didn’t know the answer to?
I steadied it once more. “Right, is my mother alive?”
Immediately it swung from side to side. No question. Its motion was far stronger, the poppet quivering before eventually calming on its own.
“Is she in a mental institution?”
Affirmative. My eyes must have popped like organ stops. It was swinging widely, and so strongly it felt as if it might fly from my fingers! Oh, freak! The room was empty, I swear – there was no one and nothing there. And not a breath of air.
“So she is alive and in a mental hospital?”
Side to side.
The air was electric, crackling, daylight flickering as if a storm was coming. I think my heart rate must have shot up to a hundred and ten. Who was making this happen? Was someone standing beside me? Someone I couldn’t see?
“Is someone here?”
As if in answer, a cold breeze wafted against my face as softly as if a bird had flown too close.
Muss i’ denn…
Muss i’ denn…
A terrible fear got a hold of me then. It shivered up and down my back. I had to get out of there, out of that room.
What had I done? Holy Christ, what had I invited in?
I could barely breathe. My head pounded, and my heart felt like it was about to give out, sweat pouring off me. It was like the worst case of flu and food poisoning all mixed in. Frantically, I stuffed all the possessions I had into the rucksack. I had to get to Mrs Dixon’s. A new life beckoned. Medical help. A fresh start… I wished I hadn’t done this, really wished I hadn’t.
Eva, Eva… give us work…!
It was at the last moment, just as I was scanning the room for anything left behind, that I saw it and remembered. On top of the sewing box lay the screwed up tissue containing Earl Hart’s toe clippings. For a second I hesitated. Was there time?
Gran had gone to fetch him.
I could see his face while she was telling him at this very moment what he was accused of… saw his eyes dilate to black, his teeth visible through the beer glass as he drained his pint before slamming it onto the bar.
“Right, I’m ready for you, you bastard!” Rage, that perfect channel for evil of the most powerful kind, came riding in like a devil on horseback. And not a damn thing could stop it.
Knocking back the poppet’s whisky and glad for the burn of it, without further thought, I took one of the candles kept in the desk drawer for blackouts. Memories replayed in quick succession as I worked – every hard slam against the kitchen cupboards, every single painful thrust over and over and over, the lies, the betrayal, the deceit, the interminable self-righteous rants, temper, punches and slaps…
Uttering words not known to me, my mouth worked as if pulled by the strings of a puppeteer: “Nema Olam a son arebil des menoitatnet ni sacundi son en te. Sirtson subiotibed sumittimid son te tucis, artson atibed sibon ettimid te. Eidoh sibon…”
Tipping the toe clippings inside a piece of notepaper, I folded it into a small envelope, drawing onto the front an inverted pentagram filled with a black sun surrounded by rays. The only photo there was of him was in their bedroom. I darted in, grabbed it and cut out his body to fix to the front. And when the little package was ready, I took a pin from the sewing box and repeatedly stabbed him in the groin with it.
Every thrust of the excruciatingly painful rape correlated with every stab of the pin. And with every stab came the satisfying image of his cock shrivelling to black necrotic tissue, wizening with disease as rip-roaring ball pain consumed his every waking breath. He couldn’t walk, couldn’t pee, his red-veined eyes as terrified as a bull realising too late it was lined up for slaughter.
And when the hexing was done, I held the paper over the candle flame and burned it. “This is my Will!”
Would it work?
Blowing out the candle, I speedily cleared away the remnants of the evil deed. The whole thing had taken less than two minutes, but it was two minutes too long. He’d be back soon. All hell, as they said, was about to break loose, and it hit me now what he’d do when he found me gone.
Shit, I can’t do that to Mrs Dixon and Nicky, can I? Think… think!
Flying into the front bedroom, I flung open the top drawer of his bedside table. That’s where he kept his winnings from the horses. Gran had a tin on the mantelpiece containing a meagre amount of housekeeping for the Co-op and a once-a-month visit to the hairdresser. I would never take that. But this was Earl’s betting money – cash he really ought to have given to her – and my eyes bulged at the amount he’d stashed. Lousy git! He could have replaced her threadbare overcoat, taken her to Blackpool for a weekend, something she said she’d love to do. But no, it was hoarded. And there was at least seven hundred pounds.
His footsteps pounded in my head along with my heart.
They were halfway down the street…
Separating the wad, some went into my jeans pocket, some inside my shoe and the rest in my underwear. Then, thundering downstairs as Earl Hart was still stomping down the road from the working men’s club, several feet in front of his bustling, hand-wringing wife, I slipped out the back door into the yard – trusting that within hours he would be unable to even think about revenge.
Or anything at all. Except the searing pain of his rapidly decomposing cock!
Chapter Thirty-One
It was only later I realised just how fast my recovery actually was. Barely had I reached the end of the street before the banging headache cleared and the stomach cramps stopped. Funny how you can live with pain day in, day out, praying for it to end, but the precise moment it goes can pass unnoticed.