'Mrs Wagstaff, back off!'
What was the old biddy doing here alone? Where were the Mothers' Union, when she needed back-up?
'Mrs Wag ... Don't ... don't look ...'
Moira stumbled.
'Don't look at it,' she said miserably, for Bridelow Moss had got her left foot. Swallowed it whole, closing around her ankle, like soft lips.
White eyes.
Black, horned head, white eyes.
'It's thee. It were always thee.'
Ma Wagstaff growled, stabbed at it one last time with her stick - the wood was so hard that the metal tip of the stick snapped off.
'Mrs Wag—'
Woman's voice screaming in the distance.
Nowt to do wi' her. Ma's job, this.
She moved away, like an old, experienced cat. Bait it. 'Come on, show thiself.' A dry, old rasp, not much to it, but she got it out. 'What's a tree? What's a bit of owd wood to me, eh? Show thi face. 'Cause this is as near as tha's ever going to get to Bridlo'. We seen to thee once ... and it'll stick.'
Backing away from it, and all the muck coming off it in clouds. She was going to need some help, some strength. It'd take everything she'd got - and some more.
And not long. Not long for it.
All-Hallows soon. The dark curtain thin as muslin.
Dead tree out of the Moss, and made to live, made to thresh its boughs.
Him.
Taunt it.
'You're nowt.' Words coming out like a sick cough. 'You're nowt, Jack. You never was owt!'
Dead tree writhing and slashing itself at her, and though she was well out of range by now, she felt every poisoned sting.
Get it mad.
'Ah ...' Ma turned away. 'Not worth it. Not worth me time. Bit of owd wood.'
But her heart was slamming and rocking like an old washing-machine.
Black horned head, white eyes.
Dead, but living in him.
White eyes.
CHAPTER III
There was a metallic snapping sound followed by a faint and desperate wailing.
'Mrs Wagstaff...'
The voice was familiar. But it didn't matter.
This was a funny little house, bottles and jars on every ledge, even on the edges of individual stairs. Sprigs of this and that hung from the ceilings and circulated musty smells.
The witch's den.
He sat in silence at the top of the stairs. Unperturbed.
'Please, Mrs Wagstaff ... let me in ...'
Then silence. He smiled. As children, they'd clustered by the church gate and whispered about the witch's house, not daring to go too close. See the curtain move ... ? It's her. She's
coming ... '
It hadn't changed; only his perspective on it. The wicked witch. Perspectives changed. Now it was cool to be ... wow, wicked! But Ma Wagstaff wasn't authentically wicked, never had been. Ma Wagstaff, let's face it, wasn't quite up to it and wouldn't be now. She'd conned them, generations of them.
Now I'm really rather wicked, he thought. If there's such a thing. Or at least I'm getting there.
He didn't move. His body didn't move.
The reason it didn't move was he didn't want it to. Suddenly, he had true self-control, and this amazed him. Or rather it amazed him to reflect on what a bag of dancing neuroses he used to be, so untogether he couldn't even regulate the sounds coming out of his own mouth.
Sher-sher-Shaw. Ster- ster-stuttering Shaw.
Amusing to imagine what he'd have been like if he'd been given this present task even a month ago, when he was still unconvinced. When he used to say, It's, you know ... bad, though, isn't it? It might be fun, it might be exhilarating, but it's bad, essentially. Surely.
And were you good before, Shaw? Were you good when you were stuttering and dithering and letting your father dominate you? Is that your idea of what it means to be good? In which case, how does it feel to be bad'
Terminology. Nowadays Bad was cool, like Wicked. A step in the right direction.
How's it feel? Feels good. Alive. Quite simply that. I didn't know before what being alive meant. I said to her, haven't you got to be dead to be undead? And she said, what makes you think you aren't?
So I was dead and now I'm alive. I know that when I pull the handles, turn the switches, press the buttons ... something will happen.
They'd told him he'd seen nothing yet. They'd told him there would be a sign. And now there was. And what a sign. Once again, Shaw couldn't resist it. He allowed his right hand to remove its leather glove and brush its palm across the top of his head.
A delicious prickly sensation.
The first time he'd felt it, he'd wanted to leap up and squeal with joy. But there was no need to do this any more. He could experience that joy deep inside himself, knowing how much more powerful and satisfying the feeling was if he didn't allow it to expend itself through his body, dissipating as he hopped about like a little kid, punching the air.
So Shaw Horridge's body remained seated quietly at the top of the stairs in Ma Wagstaff's house while Shaw Horridge's spirit was in a state of supreme exultation.
His hair was growing again! He was alive and he had made it happen.
Just a fuzz at first, then thicker than a fuzz - almost a stubble. He'd heard of men going to Ma Wagstaff for her patent hair-restorer, some claiming it worked. A bit. But not actually sure whether it had or not.
Not like this. No doubt about this. Where there'd been no hair, now there was hair.
All around him were Ma Wagstaff's bottles full of maybes. Maybe if the wind's in the right direction. If the moon s full. If there's an R in the month. Quite sad, really. A grey little world of hopes and dreams. No certainties.
Hair-loss was natural in some people, his mother said. But it had taken Therese to prove to him that you didn't have to accept something just because it was supposed to be natural. Acceptance was just spiritual sloth.
Being truly alive was about changing things. Changing people, situations. Changing your state of mind. Changing the 'natural'.
Being alive was about breaking rules with impunity. Men's rules. Also the rules men claimed they'd had from God. 'Natural' rules. This was what she'd taught him. Learn how to break the rules - for no other reason than to break them - and you become free.