A Change In The Weather

Chapter 53: Once upon a time…

31 March, 2008 – 10:57 am

It was the twenty-third of August in the year 1363 and in the field opposite Bracken Wood, the gently swaying wheat basked in the morning sunshine of a gloriously late summer.

Fox Tufford hopped across the path and into the field to check an ear or two of wheat. Plucking one, he rolled it in his hand, checking it with great care before finally brushing his hands together with satisfaction. Perfect, he thought. This year will be a fine harvest.

Which just so happened to be the exact opposite of the previous year, which had brought the curse of the Cockatrice.

The foul monster had blighted crops and poisoned the water supply, killing cattle and townsfolk aplenty. If it hadn’t been for the old hermit who lived by Bracken Wood, and who had divulged to him the method to kill it, the village would now be lost. To his credit, he managed to slay it, albeit with the loss of most of his livestock. And so, in recognition of his services, the lord of the vale had granted him some land and a small pension, which he put to great use with the planting of more crops.

He allowed himself a smile as he remembered, and took a step back to the path towards his wife and sons.

But as he did so, something strange happened.

Fox Tufford disappeared into thin air!

To his wife and sons who were waiting by the path, it was all quite disturbing. But even they didn’t realize that it would be the last time that they’d ever set eyes on him.

To Fox Tufford though, it would turn out to be the strangest time of his life.

* * * *

Fox Tufford stopped walking because he’d found himself in total darkness.

Not the kind of cold, expansive dark that he’d known from outside. No. There was dampness and warmth here; the sort of claustrophobic dark that could only come from within.

‘God’s teeth!’

He blinked his eyes a few times. It revealed nothing. So he tried rubbing them instead, but it didn’t help.

And so he tried listening.

But he heard nothing except the sound of his own erratic breathing.

He knelt down, and discovered the floor, which was made of cold, hard stone. More scrabbling around revealed a wall made of bricks, his fingers traced a line along the brickwork and around the crumbling mortar.

And then a terribly obvious thought occurred to him: What if he’d become blind? With that thought in mind, he continued to feel his way around the wall, but couldn’t shake off the rising tide of panic that was welling up inside. Nausea rose up within him, making him break out in a cold sweat. And so, he just sat there trying to fight it, trying hard to resist the urge to vomit.

But, thankfully, as his eyes became accustomed to the dark, a thin crack of light appeared in front of him, and the feeling of panic subsided; at least it meant that he wasn’t blind after all.

A fine rectangle of light lay before him. Was it a door? It certainly looked like one. The light went all the way around the doorframe – if, indeed, that’s what it was.

He stumbled over and pressed an ear against it.

And so finally, after hearing nothing and seeing nothing, and after waiting in desperation for nothing in particular, he pushed the door open.

* * * *

Outside the cottage, Cordelia Ragweed was tending to her herb garden, completely unaware that there was an intruder in her cellar. She casually picked a sprig of rosemary and plucked some thyme, and placed them into her wicker basket. The morning sun had risen just above the trees of the savage forest, and she turned to walk back to her home.

But a sound from inside made her stop dead in her tracks, and she carefully pulled out a knife from the folds of her long black dress. Even though she was adept in the ways of magic, she found that a lot could be said for the simpler, old fashioned methods.

Carefully and quietly, she pushed the door open.

Surprisingly, she came face-to-face with a man who seemed to be just as surprised as she was, and he jumped back with an alarmed shriek, and fell over.

* * * *

‘Now tell me again dear. Where was it that you said you’d just come from?’

‘The village of Blakeby?’

‘No. Never heard of it. Where is that near again?’

‘Ketton?’

‘No. Name doesn’t ring a bell. The only place nearby is the Windings. And they’re over ten miles down the road – a fair old trek if truth be told.’

Fox Tufford frowned. He’d never heard of anywhere called the Windings before. It only served to remind him that something out of the ordinary had happened, but he wasn’t in the right frame of mind to try to make any sense out of it now. It could just be that these Windings, or whatever they were called, were a small hamlet just outside Blakeby. Wherever they were, he couldn’t be very far from home — not that he’d been well traveled before though.

‘Can’t say it rings a bell with me either.’ he said, rubbing his chin in contemplation.

But for Cordelia Ragweed — who’d had a few people turn up unexpectedly before in her cellar — this hadn’t particularly surprised her. And anyway, she’d dealt with them in her own particular way; most of them she’d used as ingredients in her potions, whilst others she’d turned into the most foul creatures imaginable. She had a rough idea in her mind as to where they’d come from, but it seemed that from what she’d learned, they were all one-way journeys only. Rather frustratingly there didn’t seem to be a way back to the other side — to the world of Man. Of-course, she’d heard about these so-called Man-holes before, but hadn’t had any luck in locating any that went the other way.

This man intrigued her. He was different to the rest. This one seemed genuinely lost. Still, no matter, a dead man was better than a live one.

‘Fancy a cup of tea dear?’ she asked politely, racking her mind trying to remember where she’d put her pouch of wolfsbane.

‘Oh yes, that would be wonderful.’ he said, staring absently about the kitchen. ‘God knows I need it.’

‘Indeed.’ she muttered, quietly.

It was then that Fox Tufford noticed the human skull, casually hidden within the plants that decorated the windowsill. And then he noticed the various wicked-looking blades that hung on the wall. As he stared at them something brushed past his leg, and he shot up, unable to conceal his fright.

The old woman chuckled.

‘Oh don’t worry about him dear, that’s just old Diablo.’

He nodded absently. Did she just call the cat Diablo? He looked around. There was a dark shape in the corner of the room which stared at him with big cat-like eyes, but he couldn’t be totally sure whether it was a cat or something else. It was then that he realized that he was probably sitting in the kitchen of a witch. It’s a familiar, he thought. And I’ve got a feeling that something awful’s going to happen.

‘Erm, where am I then, exactly?’ he asked, his voice faltering slightly.

She wheeled around to face him.

‘Why, you are mid-way between Here and There, opposite the great forest of Tannith, home to the dreaded Dire Wolves of Faerie.’ she said with a smile. ‘Where else would you be, dear?’

She returned to her crooked kettle, which was warming over a fire.

‘Ah yes. How silly of me.’

Fox chuckled nervously and returned the smile, but deep down inside he wanted so much to run out of the door and not stop running until he was back safe at his farm in Blakeby.

She took the kettle and filled up the cups with tea and surreptitiously sprinkled the wolfsbane into one of them, stirring it thoroughly in. Then she shuffled back over to the table with the drinks.

‘Now, tell me young man, do you have any idea where you are? Or, for that matter, how you arrived?’

Cordelia could tell that something was troubling him, and she realised that maybe he’d figured out that she was a witch. About time, she thought. To anyone else with even a smidgeon of common sense it would have been blatantly obvious.

Fox shook his head.

‘I see, well that’s no good to me I’m afraid. You’ll find that we hags charge a pretty penny for our precious time. Still, drink up and be on your way then.’

She watched him intently, as he tentatively picked up the cup and moved it closer to his lips. She waited, willing him to take a sip. She knew that the poison wouldn’t take long to be effective, and so she raised her cup up also, and held it to her lips.

It was then that fear overcame common sense and he panicked, hurling the contents of the cup at her. Some of it went into her open mouth and she gurgled a scream, cursing as she spat it out, and dropping the cup that she held in her hand.

At the same time, he bolted for the door. It was closed, and he just hoped that it wasn’t locked too.

As he staggered to his feet, everything seemed to happen too quickly.

The cat – assuming it was a cat – launched itself from across the room at him in a flurry of claws. He managed to grab one of the knives from the wall, and impaled the animal with it in one swift move, and instantly, it fell to the floor silent and still.

But as he plunged the knife into the cat, the old woman also collapsed with a shriek, writhing around on the floor in agony clutching her stomach.

Hardly needing any more excuses, he fled the house.

* * * *

Hiding in the trees outside, he waited, watching the cottage, half-expecting the old woman to come rushing out at any minute with a knife, hell-bent on his bloody murder.

But there was nothing, and the longer he waited it seemed, the more intrigued he became as he pondered what had happened. Maybe, he reflected, by killing the cat, he’d somehow killed the witch too. Maybe they had been one and the same.

He shook his head - it was a stupid theory.

But even so, it didn’t stop him from going back into the cottage…

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