Witch Hunt

Chapter Twelve




There are things in the darkness with me, moving around: skittering claws on stone, scurrying in the straw and filth.

Why won’t he let me go back to the others?

I promised to do what he desires.

Something crunches and stops outside the door.

A step. A breath, coming heavy from sick lungs.

A pause, then a scrape of metal on the old wooden door.

Another step. A shove, a scrape.

Please God, don’t let him come upon me again. I cannot bear to feel his hot stink upon my face, his claw-like fingers on my breasts. And the cruel reek of the bone pipe he used on old Mother Clarke, to bleed her, find her mark.

I am so afear’d he will turn it on me. No, it cannot be. I cannot endure …

The door creaks open wide and I see his eyes, red, come inside.

‘No more. No … Please.’

I was upright again. In bed. Another nightmare still had me in its grip.

This one stayed with me for a full minute before it started to recede into the impermeable darkness of my mind.

The room was black. It wasn’t yet morning. Outside, the cloudy sky blotted out any starlight.

Beads of sweat trickled down my forehead. Fast noisy panting laboured my chest, drowning out other sounds. Though as they slowed I picked up another noise in the flat. A sort of cooing, like a pigeon trapped up the chimneybreast. Though it was louder than that – with more strength. I listened to it.

Was it sobbing?

Following me from the dream?

I tracked the direction of the sound out to the hallway.

What was it?

A wounded dog? I listened intently and prayed that there wouldn’t be another sound.

But there was.

A yelp. It was definitely coming from my front room. The suggestion flashed across my brain that there was someone up my chimney.

No, that was impossible.

But the voice kept on sobbing.

I swivelled my legs over the side of the bed and considered the situation. Perhaps I should phone Joe? I was too worried now to give a toss about how I came across to others. I looked for my mobile on my bedside table. It was too dark to see anything and I didn’t want to make any noise for fear of drawing the weeping thing’s attention.

‘No.’ The word echoed through the living room into the corridor to me, sitting rigid on my bed.

Okay, that was real. That was human. There was someone in here.

I fumbled around for something heavy. Nothing came to hand but a stiletto shoe. It’d have to do.

Slowly I eased myself off the bed. Should I switch on the light or might that alert the intruder? No, darkness could be my cover. Stiletto in hand, I inched across the room. The black fog of night made it hard to navigate but soon I felt my bedroom door and opened it onto the small corridor between the living room, bedroom and kitchen.

The sobs were getting louder. More gut-wrenching. Like someone was becoming hysterical.

The living room door was the nearest to me. Silently I squeezed the handle and crept into the room.

At first everything appeared normal; the room was empty. But then my eyes cast over the far wall and stopped.

Something strange had happened to the mirror.

There was a glow, a sort of greenish luminosity, emanating from it.

I stared at it for a long moment, trying to take on board the unreal sight. My first thought was that it could be some kind of optical illusion caused by the glow of the streetlights outside, so I closed my eyes and changed position slightly.

When I opened them it was just as before.

Then the sob came again. From directly behind the mirror.

Curiosity briefly overcame terror and I stumbled forwards. Now I was in the middle of the room facing it.

Inside the mirror it was pitch black.

I couldn’t see any kind of reflection.

Then came the voice, ‘Who’s there?’

I scanned the mirror. Nothing. Only a depth of jet black. Yet it seemed like the sobbing had come from within.

This is stupid, I told myself. I’m dreaming.

I took a Bambi step forwards and suddenly a face rushed up into view – ghostly white features with terrified coal eyes, surrounded by wild twisted hair.

I shrieked. She shrieked.

I jerked back and hurled my shoe at it. The mirror

fractured on impact. Swiftly, I turned on my heel and dashed out of the living room back to the bedroom.

Did I imagine it or did I hear a voice say ‘I’m sorry’?

I didn’t know.

I was too strung out. Whimpering and crying, I hugged myself in the middle of the bed, pulling the duvet over my body, tense, waiting for the thing in the mirror to get me.

It never came.