[Brenda & Effie 00] - A Treasury of Brenda and Effie Read online

  In my small ironing room, unobserved, I held baby Brigit in one arm, and cradled the back of her head on three fingers. I stood below the frayed cord of the electric light and reached up with the fingers of my other hand. I grabbed the naked wires, and tried not to scream. The light bulb burst as electricity coursed through my ancient body. A familiar but unwelcome pain made me scream as though I too were one of the young mothers whose wretched life had brought them to this godless establishment. Before I fainted from the pain I looked and saw the child’s body flinch as the galvanic force triggered a reaction from her tortured frame. Finally, she too cried, finally she lived. As I fell to the floor I made sure she landed on me rather than be subject to any more indignities.

  For a moment I was confused. A strange tingle suffused my body and I was once more back in the present.

  “Brigit,” I croaked, my voice a feeble echo of its normal vigour. “Brigit.”

  “Congratulations,” Nancy said, stood beside the other witch circle. “I wondered if you might remember. It was some years ago.”

  “You don’t look fifty years old,” I said, trying to catch sight of Effie. I tried to sit upright.

  “Now don’t struggle. The circle has you now. It won’t be long.”

  While she talked I could see Nancy (or Brigit as I now knew her to be) was putting the last details to the damaged runes marked out on the floor. She was using a small stick of charcoal she’d kept secreted in a pocket. The same stick I think she’d been using to draw the spirit traps with Effie.

  “Besides,” the woman said as she finished and rubbed her hands together to wipe them of charcoal, “I’m not the only one here who doesn’t look their age, am I?”

  I remained quiet, but I needed to keep the woman talking if I was to buy time for Effie to wake up and help me make an escape. I needn’t have worried.

  “In my case the secret is simple,” she said. “Sacrifice.”

  She paused for effect, or perhaps to scare me as the meaning of her words sank in. It would take more than Nancy to frighten more, or so I thought. I still found it hard to be sure she was really twice the age she appeared.

  “And how does that work?” I asked, though I had already guessed.

  “Every five or ten years I find a woman to sacrifice to my father’s servants,” she said, smiling a smile that made me wish I had never started the conversation. She was clearly mad, evil and enjoyed flirting with the dark arts rather too much.

  “So that’s why you befriended Effie?”

  Nancy nodded.

  “It helps if they have some traces of the arts themselves, and Effie is quite talented in that direction. I was looking forward to making a gift of her those beyond when she introduced me to her good friend Brenda.”

  I couldn’t help but smile. There was Effie referring to me as her good friend, and there was I lying here all but helpless. I did have the beginnings of an idea though. Something involving a distraction and Effie’s own skills with the magical arts.

  Nancy continued.

  “Even though we’ve never met, I knew all about the woman who’d electrified herself to help me live when my mother died. I knew she was called Brenda, how she looked and some of her manners. Once I found a picture in an old newspaper and it showed some of the nuns and staff. There at the back was a woman keeping out of the way, but her face still clear. It was your face.”

  “But what happened to you?” I asked. “You were only hours old when you were adopted. I never thought to see you again.”

  “Never is a very long time,” Nancy said. She seemed happy to talk.

  “After you saved my life as a baby, the nuns sent me out to live with a family in Cork. They meant well, the O’Hollorans, but there was always a sense of something wrong. For years I thought I was their child but odd comments made me wonder. By the time I was a teenager I was what they call difficult. When I was fifteen a cousin, Simon, tried to touch me. I hit him and said I’d tell my mother. He just laughed and called me names, and said my real mother had died in Dublin. He tried to touch me again so I screamed and my so-called parents came and found us. I think they blamed me.

  “I left them as soon as I could and never went back.”

  As she spoke Nancy lifted her face towards the church ceiling. She looked like a nun herself, praying for guidance, or perhaps a blessing.

  “I went to Dublin and checked old newspaper records. I found the story of the girl who’d died before Saint Valentine’s Day. I found the building where I’d been born and traced those who’d been there in the 1960s. Many were dead, but not all. Some of them still remembered my real mother. Some of them even remembered the story of the strange woman, Brenda, who’d saved my life.”

  I looked at the woman and felt sorry for her. Sorry how she’d never had a chance, even before she was born. I was angry at the way she’d been treated, but if there’s anything I’d learned in all my years, is you can still make your own choices. Her beginnings were no more ill-omened than my own, but I don’t go round sacrificing people.

  Nancy was in full flow, and continued her story.

  “I moved to England in the 1980s and found a group in the Cotswolds who still knew the true ways. When I was 25 I offered my first sacrifice and since then have aged but slowly. Each time I get closer to my father, each time the spirit is stronger.”

  While she spoke I could see the Moon appearing in a window at the end of the church and a silver light moving across the walls. I remembered Nancy talking about the ghost and the full moon, and knew the creeping light spelled doom. It would only be minutes before it struck the circle Nancy had drawn.

  “Just because you’ve done evil things, doesn’t make you the child of evil,” I said. I was hoping to make her see sense, realise it wasn’t too late to turn her back on darkness.

  “You’re one to talk,” Nancy said. “I know your secret, Brenda. I know why you’ve aged even less than me. And that’s what makes you the ideal sacrifice, the ideal gift. Tonight I will finally meet my real father.”

  Before I could speak I felt a chill wash across me. The candles flickered and even before I turned my head I knew it was too late. The Moon’s silver light now lit up the neighbouring circle and I could see a dark figure appearing in the gleam. It was roughly man-shaped, and perhaps five feet tall. Its size was no threat, but the two short horns protruding from its glistening forehead made its nature clear. An almost human face with eyes glowing a faint red and a short tail sprouted from its back. It was entirely naked and androgynous. There was also a distressing smell of rotten fish, but I didn’t think it worth mentioning, not at the time.

  Nancy dropped to her knees and bowed her head before the spirit.

  “Speak,” the creature said in a voice not loud, but clear and one that rang throughout the room. I could see Effie begin to stir. Perhaps she could still help, but then again maybe she was better off not having to face this latest demonic apparition. Perhaps if she was lucky she might be ignored altogether, and escape with her life. At least one of them would survive to help protect Whitby in years to come.

  “I bring another sacrifice that one day my father might notice me and take me to him.”

  The creature looked first at me, then back to Nancy.

  “Why this one?” the creature asked.

  “She was there at my birth,” Nancy replied, her hair flying loose and a mad smile on her lips. “She is the one who gave me life when those nuns had failed. She allowed the spark to penetrate her body and left these marks on my neck.”

  She turned, lifted her hair to make her point, then turned back to face the spirit. She pointed at me as I struggled to move with no success. For a moment I thought Effie was stirring, but in the flickering light of the candles I was unable to be sure. I had to think, somewhere in my memory was a clue. Even though Nancy looked nothing like her real mother, something stirred in my old mind. The face of Sister Amelia blocked my thoughts, the look as she turned back to Joan after passing me baby Bri
git. Something she did next. I shook my head but nothing came.

  As I tried to clear my thoughts the dark figure looked once more at me and its eyes seemed to look into me, looking for something it couldn’t find, and instead a sense of puzzlement followed by interest.

  “Yes,” the spirit said. “This one is not like others, but I think she will do. Your father will be pleased.”

  It reached out with its dark, twisting arms and as I looked they stretched and came nearer and nearer. The fishy smell grew stronger and I had a sense of being pulled out of my body for the second time that evening. The creature’s clawed fingertips brushed against the scarf Effie had given me only two days before. If this was to be the end, the least I could do was to stare death in the eyes. I stared at the red eyes, the mouth torn like a slit from the cloth of the demon’s face. The mouth seemed almost to be smiling, as though enjoying a joke only it was aware of.

  And then I knew.

  I laughed. First a chuckle, then a proper laugh.

  “Poor Nancy,” I said, forcing the words out as I chuckled. “Poor baby Brigit.”

  “Don’t call me that,” the woman said and she spat in my direction. “Why are you laughing?”

  “It’s so easy to blame others isn’t it? It’s so easy to do the wrong thing.”

  “You can laugh now, but no matter,” Nancy said, a look of confusion bordering on what I like to think was mild panic crossing her face.

  “What would your mother say?” I asked.

  “She’d be proud.”

  “I’m not so sure,” I said. I’d stopped laughing and while I had Nancy’s attention the spirit paused. The Moon still shone on the tableau, three figures arranged in a dark scene, one mad, one foul and one scared. For a moment I wasn’t sure which was which.

  “Enough,” Nancy said, her voice croaking. “I don’t need to hear any more. I’ve the rest of my life to live. You are just one of many who have helped me on my journey. Another morsel for my father.”

  I laughed again, just the once.

  “Your father,” I said. “Do you know who your father really was? He was a boy named Patrick. Patrick was a friend of Joan’s brother, a tall lad two years older than Joan, his family had money and he was the promise of escape from her life. Her mother was a cleaner, her father a drunk who scraped by as a night-watchman getting work where he could.”

  Nancy’s eye’s widened.

  “No. My father was a demon. My mother gave herself to him and she gave birth to me.”

  “No,” I said. “Your mother made that story up to scare the nuns. She told me all about Patrick when we were working on the laundry. I used to share my food with her. She really believed Patrick would come for her once the baby was born. She thought they might move to England, make a family in a new home. She was just a girl who wanted love. Don’t we all?”

  Nancy stepped back.

  “No,” she said, her voice quaking now. “You’re lying.”

  “I was at your mother’s funeral. A priest and me and nobody else. Her family couldn’t spare the time to see their own child buried. If anyone deserves condemning, it’s them. Not me. The priest sped through his words and I stood by the grave as she was lowered in. She had a cheap coffin, and the only flowers were ones I’d taken from the garden of the asylum, small white flowers I didn’t even know the name of. It wasn’t until the end I saw a young man stood to one side, trying not to be seen. He matched the description Joan had given me of Patrick.”

  “You’re lying,” Nancy said, pleading now, no confidence in her words, her earlier arrogance long gone.

  “No. I’m not. Ask your friend.”

  Nancy looked at the dark figure she’d summoned. Its arms were still outstretched but now they came for Nancy. The woman seemed older somehow, her previous poise had deserted her.

  “No wait,” she said. “She’s lying.”

  Nancy tried to move back but all she managed was to stumble so as to kneel before the foul creature.

  The creature’s eyes glowed a brighter red and a smile played over its lips. He embraced her gently as a lover might, and as its dark arms reached Nancy they entered her flesh and she shrivelled and turned to a wispy smoke. She and the spirit both turned to a dirty, twisting spiral of smoke. With a sudden puff of air, they vanished, and a final swirl of air snuffed out the candles and wiped away the circles. The smell of rotting fish had also gone. I have to say I was particularly pleased at that.

  It didn’t take me long to wake Effie once I got myself up from the cold, dusty floor. She was confused and asked after Nancy.

  “Don’t worry about her,” I said. “She’s where she belongs.”

  “What about Red Peter?” Effie asked. “Did he appear?”

  “No, and I don’t think we’ll see him again.”

  Effie twisted her neck to loosen it.

  “But what happened? My poor neck. It feels like somebody stood on it.”

  “Come on,” I said. “Let’s go have a nightcap. I’ll explain everything over a nice cup of cocoa. Perhaps a sherry would help as well.”

  I stood up and wrapped my scarf around my neck. The end where the creature had brushed against it seemed faded and worn. Perhaps I’d put the scarf somewhere safe when I got home. I was sure Effie would understand.

  “I do feel a bit wobbly,” Effie said. “Perhaps some fresh air would help.”

  With that Effie walked towards the door. I took one last look round the old church. There was no sign of the evil I’d seen; no trace of Nancy, and only my memories of baby Brigit and poor Joan. Maybe this time I’d remember her for longer. For now, though, cocoa was the order of the day.

  The Scottish Flap

  Andrew Lawston

  Whitby Pavilion is old, grand, and sticks out like a sore thumb, a red-brick palace clinging to the stark grey rocks of West Cliff. Inside there’s shows, concerts, films, even business conferences, where young fellas in carelessly-pressed suits push cards into each other’s hands all day and wait for the bar to open. It’s like an iceberg, hidden depths stretching along the cliff, when from the front it looks like nothing more than a slightly upmarket Victorian guesthouse. There’s even a resemblance to my B&B, which makes it feel like a home from home to me.

  On this dreary December evening, most of the building is dark. Colourful posters advertise the Whitby Amateur Dramatics Society production of Macbeth. The posters are a bit too colourful, if you ask me, given the play, but there we are. I bustle up with Effie scurrying along in tow, ready for action. We’re there early for opening night, but I have to tell Effie what to do, and I want the place to be empty in case the old stick gets uppity.

  We step inside the wonderful old building, and I thrill as the sounds of the street and the sea are cut off. A mismatched jumble of parts, modern veneer trying to hide the fact it’s over a century old. When I first went backstage, it felt like stepping into my own house. If there was space to get my bobbly green armchair into the cramped dressing rooms, I swear I’d never leave. I drag Effie towards those dressing rooms now, excited to show her the mirrors which really do have light bulbs all around them! Not to mention the television on one wall which shows the actors what’s happening on stage so they know when to go on.

  The minute we get there, though, Effie starts poking into corners to find mouldering old props, and starts muttering about what filthy beggars actors are. Fair enough, it’s all a bit shabbier backstage, all fire doors and safety notices. I bite my tongue, though a bit hurt she wasn’t more impressed at entering through the stage door, no less.

  “Would you look at the state of this shirt?” she says, holding up an admittedly threadbare garment. I tell her it was worn by Colin Firth in 1987. She wrinkles her nose but changes the subject.

  “I still think it’s rich they dragged you into this amateur show, rather than me. Passing up the chance to have a real witch in Macbeth?”

  I try not to smirk as I put out the bits and bobs on the dressing table. The sponges and
the brushes, and the twelve different types of foundation. They all have to be in just the right place, even though half the actors insist on bringing their own as part of their little rituals.

  “I’m sorry, love, they just knocked on the door saying they’d heard I was handy with a needle and thread, and could I patch up some of the costumes? And you can’t say the name of the play in here, Effie, it’s bad luck.”

  To my alarm, the lights flicker as I speak, but Effie doesn’t seem to notice. “But they’re doing Mac – that is, that’s the play they’re performing!”

  “Even so. We’re not to speak its name outside of the performance itself. They’re especially touchy about it on account of the ghosts that haunt the Pavilion’s galleries.”

  Her lip curls at the theatrical superstition, but she and I have defended Whitby from the forces of darkness for too long to take foolhardy risks with even the most ludicrous supernatural foibles.

  “What’s my job, then?” She’s aimless, and it’s odd to see Effie out of her depth when I’m feeling so comfy here.

  I wave over at a rack of suits. “I’ve finished the costumes, unless we have to do running repairs, so really we’re just helping the actors into costume, putting a bit of slap on them, and telling them they look a treat before they go on.”

  “Brenda! Have you dragged me down here to change fellas in and out of trousers?”

  I consider my options, and choose an open answer. “It’s a very important job. Left to themselves, they get flustered with zips and then forget their lines.”

  Her lips twitch into the merest hint of a smile that she’d never admit to, and I realise I needn’t have worried. She’s a dark horse, that one. “Well, ducky, I’m sure I’ll do my best not to let you down.”

  I shake my head, but before my daft old head can blurt out anything that might spoil the good mood, in walks our first customer.