The Witch Who Killed Christmas Page 2

  Stan shrugged. “It can be a bit hit and miss. You know how it is, limited resources. They start with the main routes out of the city, and concentrate on A roads, and larger towns.”

  That meant the tiny village of Whittlecombe would be well down the list. My heart sank.

  “I caught the weather forecast on Breakfast TV,” said Stan. “The presenter was forecasting more of the same. And what was especially weird? He couldn’t explain where this weather front had suddenly come from. It just developed over the south west coast and it appears to be drifting inland.”

  “So they’re forecasting more snow?” I asked.

  “Followed by freezing rain. You know, they said it could be like the freezing ice storms they have in North America from time to time.”

  “Oh no!” I couldn’t help my dismay. It looked like my first wonky Christmas would have to be cancelled.

  “Arr,” Rhona drawled, seeing my face. “Chin up, Alf! You know what the British weather is like. All this will be gone tomorrow! It could be worse.”

  She’d hardly finished the sentence when the electricity went out.

  The abrupt silence seemed oddly loud. The fridges and freezers clicked off, the lights died. The till went black. I could feel the absence of electronic vibration in the air.

  “Now you’ve done it,” Stan said quietly to his wife. “You were saying?”

  Rhona opened her mouth to protest but then closed it again.

  We stood looking at each other in the semi-darkness, waiting for the electricity to return. Nothing happened.

  I closed the shop door to keep the warmth in. Rhona walked around to my side of the counter and turned the swinging door sign to ‘closed’.

  “This is not good,” I said.

  “No,” she murmured. We stood together looking out of the window, glancing up and down the road. People started poking their heads out of dark cottages to check that everyone was in the same boat. Neighbours chatted to each other, and gestured towards the shop. The shop was the hub of the community and the community would pull together. I was glad of that.

  “Do you have plenty of wood available for stoves?” I asked Rhona.

  She thought for a moment, then nodded. “Some.”

  “Maybe you’d better ration it. What do you think? Make sure everyone who needs it has enough? With no electricity, some folk will have to rely on wood stoves as their only source of heat. Charge it to the inn if you have to, Rhona, if people are short of cash. I’ll settle with you.”

  “Do you have plenty up there at the inn?”

  “I have a pile in the wood store. Enough to last a few days if I’m careful. I was expecting an inn-full of guests over the next few days, so I had plenty in but was expecting a delivery. Unless this weather clears up, I probably won’t see any guests anyway so I won’t need all I have.”

  My stomach twisted again. Still, there was no point in feeling morose. I had to make the best of it. “As you say, it could be worse.”

  We smiled at each other and I prepared to take my leave.

  Stan waved. “If the ploughs get through, I’ll make sure you get what you need, Alf.”

  “Thanks, Stan, I appreciate it. And if this weather continues and you hear of anyone struggling to cook on Christmas day, send them up to the inn. I’ve an oil-fired range in the kitchen. We’ll be eating well, whatever the weather!”

  “By candlelight, maybe?” Rhona said and I laughed as though the idea was quite absurd.

  Stepping outside, I made my way along the cleared pavement. Mr Bramble had been working hard. He winked at me as I went past and I complimented him on a good job well done, and told him not to overdo it. One glance at the low sky, heavy with the promise of more snow, convinced me poor Mr Bramble might be fighting a losing battle.

  Heading back towards the inn took me past Hedge Cottage. One of the prettiest and snuggest cottages in the village, it belonged to my friend and fellow witch, Millicent Ballicott. It didn’t surprise me in the slightest when she appeared on her doorstep and hailed me as I approached.

  “What are you wearing?” she asked as I stamped up her drive.

  I sniggered in amusement. Millicent, a well-cushioned lady in her early sixties, was not exactly renowned for her own fashion sense. Today she appeared to be wearing navy blue slacks, with a pair of rainbow coloured Nepalese woollen socks pulled over her trousers and coming up to her knees, along with several misshapen jumpers in varying shades of mustard and beige, and a Russian ushanka-hat with the earflaps down.

  “This was all I could find at the inn that was suitable for the weather,” I said. I pulled the wellies from my feet and left them in her porch before stepping into her warm living room. A fire burned brightly in the grate and she had a few candles in jars, providing a surprising amount of light in the dark cottage. The overall effect was cosy. Jasper, her large lurcher, lounged on the sofa. He wagged his tail lazily when he spotted me but didn’t bother getting up. I wanted to throw myself down with him, cosy and warm, and demand we be served tea and cake, instead of heading back to the cold inn.

  “I can’t stop,” I said reluctantly. “I’ve left Charity with the ghosts. Our boiler is out of action. Stan was just saying this weather is set to get worse.”

  “Yes,” Millicent nodded. Her face grim. “About that.”

  “About the weather?”

  “It’s not right Alf.”

  I wanted to laugh. Well no. Of course it wasn’t right, but it was December. December is winter in the northern hemisphere. It can snow. It has been known. But I knew Millicent, and she was no harbinger of doom without good cause. Besides, deep down, in my gut, I knew she was right.

  “I heard about something like this, many years ago. This weather anomaly. It was on a smaller scale, but it didn’t occur naturally.”

  “What caused it then?” I asked curiously.

  “Maybe a witch or wizard gone rogue.”

  I did a double take. “A witch gone rogue? Really?” I couldn’t imagine that one of our kind would have the power to single-handedly trigger a chain of catastrophic weather events and cause so much disruption. Unless…

  “Not The Mori?” I asked. A cold knife sliced through my insides and I shivered. I’d hoped we had seen the last of The Mori after the Battle of Speckled Wood, my rude awakening at Whittle Inn earlier in the year.

  “No,” Millicent put her hand on my arm, patting me like she might Jasper on Guy Fawkes night. “Not them.”

  “Oh. Thank goodness. You scared me then.” I exhaled, releasing the tension I’d been holding. I’d nearly lost everything at their hands. I didn’t want to face them again.

  The wind rattled Millicent’s old window panes and we both glanced outside. The sky was a slate grey and snow, as I had expected, had started to fall again. Poor Mr Bramble.

  “I’m going to send a query to Wizard Shadowmender, and remind him of an incident I’ve heard of in the past.” Millicent was the witch version of neighbourhood watch. Forever writing letters to the local papers here in Devon, and the Council of Elders in London. “I’m sure he won’t have forgotten. Then perhaps he can cast light upon this occurrence, and get back in touch with us.”

  “Alright,” I said, turning for the door. “I really think I must get back.” Unease spread through me; a heavy sensation of dread, a tingling that started on my scalp. Millicent was right, something was off with this weather.

  “Alf, wait. Before you go, I want you to take this.” She handed me a large bundle of clothing tied with thin rope.

  “What’s this? Clothes? Give them to a charity, Millicent, I don’t need these.”

  “I have a feeling you do,” Millicent said, and although she smiled, there was a glint of steely determination in her eyes.

  My ghost crew had been working hard. The lane was partially cleared when I lugged Millicent’s bundle up towards the inn. The snow threw itself down, unrelenting and heavy, and I turned the ghosts for home, struggling to follow them as they moved with
ease ahead of me, leaving no tracks where they trod.

  The main room of the inn was warm and cosy. A huge fire crackled in the grate with an enormous log burning in the centre of it. I shed my top layer by the front door and nodded at Zephaniah. “That’s nice. Keep this fire going please, all day and all night for now,” I said. “And ask Florence to make sure the range and the fire in the kitchen don’t go out. We may have visitors from the village.”

  “Will do, Miss Alf.” Zephaniah glided rapidly away with his new instructions.

  Over at the bar, Charity was chatting to someone on her mobile. As soon as she finished the call, it rang again.

  “Whittle Inn, good morning. Charity speaking, how may I help you today?” she sang. Then listened. “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. Yes. Yes. Alright. We will hold your booking open of course, so if things improve just let us know you’ve changed your mind. We will. Thank you. And you. Merry Christmas!”

  She put the phone down and stared balefully at me. “Sorry, Alf. Cancellation after cancellation. Our guests are finding it hard to leave their own homes, let alone travel into the depths of rural Devon. Is it really that bad out there?”

  I blew my cheeks out, sighing heavily. “Yes. And it’s set to get worse. Well, there is nothing we can do about it, Charity, apart from keep the bookings open. You never know, conditions may improve and people will change their minds at the last minute.”

  However, in my heart of hearts, I knew there was no hope of any festive frivolity this Christmas in my wonky inn.

  I spent the rest of the morning taking an inventory of the supplies we had available, on the off chance that guests did make it through, or we had visitors from the village. We had food enough to last a few days, including several turkeys hanging in the cold store and numerous other joints of meat in the deep freezer. I instructed these to be taken out to defrost and set Florence and her willing spirit kitchen helpers to begin prepping vegetables. Again, I had no shortage of frozen items, but I had expected the fresh ones to be delivered today and tomorrow.

  “Do what you can with what we have,” I said, with no choice but to leave her to it. We had candles and fuel and more or less everything we needed for 48 hours, but no gifts, no decorations, no fresh fruit or vegetables, milk or other dairy, and no chocolate, nuts or treats or clementines, which I personally considered particularly disastrous.

  “It could be worse!” I repeated the mantra slightly hysterically, resisting the urge to rock back and forth in the corner of the room, remaining instead at the window in the bar for some time, so I could monitor the weather. The wind had increased in strength since I’d returned home. I could just about make out the trees that lined both sides of the lane. They bowed in the wind, first this way, then that, their bare branches shaking and dancing. One moment snow buffeted against the windows, then when the wind changed direction, and the snow sped away from me. I could see drifts beginning to build. The path the ghosts had cleared earlier had already been covered over.

  Florence offered me a steaming bowl of leak and potato soup for lunch. I sat in an armchair, by the fire, and watched as the flames twisted one way and then another, caught by random draughts, before they leapt up the chimney. The soup warmed me through, and my body slowly melted into the leather of the armchair. Lulled into comfort I placed my tray on the floor, and closed my eyes.

  I must have fallen asleep because I was startled out of my reverie by a falling log. Zephaniah appeared by my side and scooped the burning log up, flinging it back into the fire with his one available ghost hand.

  “Careful,” I said, although I knew he couldn’t feel pain.

  I blinked and stretched. The wind howled around the building, whistling through cracks in the wood of the doors, window frames and floors. Whittle Inn is an old building, structurally sound, but definitely not air-tight. “What time is it?” Outside the sky hung dark and dense, an impenetrable blanket, and it was impossible to guess.

  “About four.” Ah, that would be right. The shortest day in the calendar year had only just been and gone.

  “This came for you, ma’am.” Zephaniah indicated a brown parcel wrapped with string, on the floor by the hearth. It was a box, about 12 inches square.

  “Somebody brought this up the lane?” I asked, my hopes soaring for a moment. Deliveries were getting through?

  “Not exactly. There was a tap on the door, and this had been left on the step outside…”

  “But no-one was there?” I finished for Zephaniah.

  He nodded. “No, ma’am.”

  I picked up the box, surprisingly light for such a solid looking object. Perhaps a jumper from Millicent. But no, turning the box first one way then the other to inspect it, I could only watch as the cord that bound it undid itself like a snake untying its own knots, then dropped to the floor. I pulled the paper off. Inside I found a plain white box. Lifting the lid exposed newspaper shavings. I shook them into the fire until I uncovered a snow globe.

  Ostensibly it was a snow globe. As soon as I moved it, snow billowed inside the glass. But I instantly recognised the item for what it actually was. An orb. A scrying orb. I’d seen Wizard Shadowmender using one.

  My mouth dropped open. After a lifetime of largely ignoring any of my witchy skills and powers, I had only recently re-subscribed to the lifestyle and begun working with the craft once more. I had endeavoured to learn and practise as much as I could, but I had a long way to go to meet even minimum proficiency. Shadowmender’s extraordinary gift clearly demonstrated his faith in me. More than I had in myself probably.

  I hoped I could live up to his belief.

  The question therefore appeared to be whether there was a link between the orb and Millicent’s message to him? Where Shadowmender was concerned, it seemed unlikely that the two factors were a mere coincidence.

  I turned the orb upside down and righted it again. Once more a blizzard swirled within the glass, but this time as it began to clear I thought I could make out trees. I turned the orb on its side, twisted it about, catching the firelight, enabling me to see more clearly.

  Definitely trees.

  And a small wooden cabin.

  I held the orb still, but the snow exploded again, obscuring my view. I turned it upside down once more, watching the flurry go crazy, then righted it and let it settle. Quite clearly I could see the cabin, and a tiny prick of light. When I moved, the light disappeared.

  I held the glass orb still in front of my eyes and turned myself around. Then again. And back once more. The light could only be seen when I faced a certain way. It glowed like a tiny star in a dark sky, within the miniscule world it inhabited in the orb. I walked forwards, heading through the kitchen where Florence was busily making a crumble, and towards the back door. I opened the back door. The snow had drifted and piled high against it, so I didn’t venture outside, but I could clearly see the light in the orb glowing more brightly when I held it in the direction of Speckled Wood, the private wood I owned located behind the inn.

  Shadowmender had quite clearly sent a message.

  I had to follow the star.

  “You’re not intending to go out in that?” Charity’s incredulous voice followed me back into the bar.

  “I am,” I replied, walking away from her. “I have to.”

  Charity paused in the doorway, her hands on her hips, slowly shaking her head. “You have to? There’s a little light in a snow globe and you think you need to follow it? I’ve heard some crazy things in my time, most of them since coming to work at the inn with you, but that pretty much takes the biscuit.”

  “Look.” I handed the orb over to her, and she took it in both hands, tipping it gently, left and right. “It’s not a snow globe.”

  “I can see snow in it.” She shook it harder and watched the blizzard clear. “Oh. Wait. You’re right. There’s no liquid like you would usually see. It’s more like…” Charity screwed her face up. “Like a fortune teller’s ball or something.”

  “A crys
tal ball. Yes. That’s pretty much what it is,” I replied, heading for the entrance where I had abandoned my mackintosh and wellingtons. Millicent’s fat bundle caught my eye. I tugged at the rope she had bound the clothes with and watched what unrolled. A downy snow jacket in dark green had been wrapped around heavy waterproof trousers, snowshoes, thick wool socks, a thick multi-coloured fleece cardigan with a matching scarf and hat, a thermal vest, thermal leggings, and a waterproof rucksack. I stared with interest at the miscellany of items.

  Had Millicent known in advance that I needed to go on a journey? Why hadn’t she said so?

  I pulled the items apart and held up the leggings and vest. My size. Not Millicent’s size. The trousers were a size too large, as was the snow jacket, but given the number of layers I’d be wearing, they would fit me perfectly. This collection of oddities would be far better suited for this weather than the overlarge gents’ rain coat I had been sporting earlier, and the ancient wellies from the shed.

  I opened the rucksack. Empty apart from a torch. I checked the batteries. They were working. There were no other clues as to what I should be doing or where I should be going.

  Charity joined me. “Where did this lot come from?”

  “Millicent.”

  Charity sniffed. Then folded her arms and regarded me obstinately. “She’s in on this too, is she? I see.”

  I hid a smile. Charity was part of the mundane life of the village, a mortal with no supernatural powers. She managed the inn, and to a large extent me, very well. She took the weirdness that encompassed our daily lives completely in her stride. Initially wary of the ghosts, she now treated them as friends – and irritants – which seemed an altogether healthy way of dealing with them to my mind. She remained polite, courteous and professional to our guests at all times, regardless of who they were or what their peculiar penchants and peccadillos might be.