Tanners Dell: Darkly Disturbing Occult Horror (2 page)

                      
 
Chapter Two

Woodsend Village

June 1972

Seventeen year old Rosella Locke closed the caravan door softly behind her and padded barefoot across Drovers Common into the woods. An ethereal mist lay across the valley below, while stars and the scythe of a new moon still glittered over the moors, the fuchsia streaks of dawn yet to break through.

Ahead lay the gloom of a dormant forest, and fleetingly she looked over her shoulder. Good. No one had seen her leave. She picked up pace. This must be done before the sun came up.

The dew on the grass beneath her feet tingled icily. Pale-faced from sleep, she carefully picked her way along the path looking for a suitable place. Eventually she came to a small clearing and her eyes widened: a ring of stone boulders shone in the moonlight, a summer canopy of leaves rustling overhead as silkily as a duchess’s gown. It was as if the scene had been set just for her: a magical place and host to a thousand pagan rites. Rosella swung around and around, checking repeatedly for watchers – one in particular – but all was quiet; without even the disturbance of a bird at this perfect veil in time between the dark and the light.

Quickly she set to work, etching a circle into the ground with a stick, before arranging the necessary herbs and a few nettles onto a large, silk shawl, along with scribbled-on notepaper, candles and various other artefacts. The midsummer sun would soon dawn and there was no time to lose. Hopefully, please God, it wouldn’t be too little too late. She sat down cross-legged, checked the immediate area once more and then began to meditate.

By the time gentle warmth bathed her shoulders in misty light, the deed was done, and a few moments later she opened her eyes to a cacophony of crows exploding into the dappled treetops.

A damp chill had seeped under her skin, seizing the muscles, and she stumbled slightly, hurrying to brush away evidence of the circle she’d drawn, scramble together her belongings and hasten back to the camp. She would say she’d been gathering herbs for dinner tonight. In that case she ought to find some…down by the river path there should be plenty, although it would have to be lightning quick because that’s where the witch, Ida, collected hemlock. She pulled a boline from her skirt pocket in readiness as she walked, hoping for parsley and garlic. Mala, her mother, would be pleased. God, how she hated deceiving her and the rest of the family – it left a bad taste casting spells and spying on people – but what choice was there with someone like Ida in the camp?

***

As true Roma gypsies they had a strict code of honour and should never have taken Ida in, but it was too late now. Ida had been evicted from another camp, or so she said – abandoned to fend for herself due to the unfairness of a quarrel with an elder. Thrown out, more likely, Rosella thought sulkily, but she’d given Mala a sob story and Mala had a soft heart. Said come along with us! She’d thought her mother was smart. Obviously not smart enough…
Unless Ida had played dirty tricks on her too
?

Right from the off there had been something suspicious about that woman, who could have been anything from fifteen to thirty with those dark, watchful eyes and gleamingly strong, peasant skin. Fit and muscular looking she could turn on the charm in the flash of a smile and just as quickly snuff it out. She flitted in and out of different personas to suit the company she kept: creeping from caravan to caravan at all manner of hours; dancing for the men at night; ingratiating herself next day with the women by fixing their hair or helping with the cooking, until they began to wonder how they’d managed without her – sitting back in the sunshine while she boiled, fried, baked or stirred one delicious meal after the next. And then there were the herbal remedies for pain relief in childbirth, calming asthma, and soothing swollen joints. In a very short time she had made herself invaluable. It seemed everyone was fooled except herself.

One morning shortly after dawn, Rosella followed her, watching from a distance as Ida selected flowers, leaves and stalks. But then, and it was most peculiar, the scene in front of her had frozen as if it was a video-still, and the air crackled with static. She tried to move but her feet were leaden, stuck fast in the ground; nor could she breathe in. But just as the panic rose inside her the spell was broken. Birdsong burst into her ears again and her legs crumpled slightly.

A voice directly behind said, “Hello Rosella!”

Rosella swung round to find Ida directly behind her. Those eyes – she would never forget those eyes as long as she lived – had no irises, no pupils and were entirely white. Rosella stared open mouthed, transfixed…
No, no, this couldn’t be
…
it had to be an illusion or magic
… Gradually she backed away, and then she was running like hell with the sound of echoing laughter ringing through the forest.

There was something so not right about Ida. No one knew where she’d come from, which camp she’d been with before the last one, or why she was alone in the world; and the longer it went on the more the others deemed it ungrateful to ask.

Why couldn’t her mother, Mala, see through Ida? The woman was no good and bore them ill, Rosella was sure of it; some of the women had become ill – new mothers with impaired vision, nausea and headaches, causing them to snap at and shun their husbands. There had been more arguments recently too, with several of the women in low spirits and a couple of fights breaking out amongst the men. And all the while Ida flirted and danced and glowed more radiantly than ever, serving up meals and administering medicines or poultices. One evening shortly after the incident in the woods, as they sat round the camp fire, something – she couldn’t quite say what it was – caused Rosella to glance across the flames to where Ida sat smoking roll-ups and laughing. A tall shadow was hovering over her like a dark-cloaked gatekeeper. Mesmerised, she watched as it then coiled into a plume of black dust and vanished into the wood smoke.

She had always been able to see auras, right from being a small child – and mostly people had white or misty fields of energy around them, sometimes a hint of blue or green, occasionally yellow or gold. But Ida’s was a cloud of sludgy, dark brown that clung to her like a bad smell. If she tried to talk to her mother about any of this, though – anything to do with the occult, in fact – Mala would fly at her in temper. And so for weeks Rosella had lain awake at night alone with her suspicions, haunted by a creeping fear that traced her skin like cold water on a hot day.
What was it? What was coming?

And then the nightmares began, her dreams becoming spiked with terror. At first it was an inexplicable feeling of dread that would build and build until the need to get out of the caravan became overwhelming; yet any hope of escape was impossible because she was unable to move so much as a limb, much less wake up. Very rapidly this then escalated to visions of black shapes forming from the darkness into demonic creatures with faces that peered directly into her own, false pity oozing from cavernous black eyeballs in a stench of human excreta that made her retch even as she slept. When finally she came to, it would be in the early hours, coated in sweat and gasping for air. Night after night this continued, wearing her down until the days became drugged stupors, her appetite dried up and her energy drained away.

And how Ida grew rosy on it.

Something had to be done.

The answer came on a day Mala had been shouting at her for lying in the long grass again instead of doing her chores. Overhead a biplane hummed and the sun warmed her body on the scent of a summer breeze.
Do something
… Her drowsy mind turned over the facts: if Ida was poisoning her then how? Rosella only ate her own food and she watched the woman like a hawk.

Was there a hex on her then? Is that what the woman had done?

Above her a kestrel hovered and far, far away a children’s nursery rhyme carried on the wind.

‘Ring-o’ Ring o’ Roses
…’

And then the solution came riding in.

A night not so long ago she’d gone to a fairground with some other girls and they’d got drunk on cider, hiding behind one of the caravans to the drone of the generators while they swapped ghost stories and tried to scare each other. One thing you could do if attacked by demons, said one of the quieter girls, was to put anise seeds in a little pouch under your pillow at night; another was to smudge sage smoke and hang white heather and holly outside the caravan. She’d spoken as if she believed it and become upset when the others hadn’t taken her seriously and said it was old gypsy women’s rubbish.

Well it was worth a try, so that night she put anise seeds under her pillow.

Next day though, she could almost see the smirk on Ida’s face as she walked past Mala and herself hanging out washing.
Nice dreams, Rosella
?

None of the other stuff had worked either. And so Ida’s hex - because that’s what it must be - had to be reversed.

***

So now the deed was done
.

They were not supposed to do these things. Apprehension and guilt prickled away at her conscience as she walked ever quicker towards the river…
The sun’s coming up… Hurry, hurry...
Pagan worship, Christian worship, any religion in fact – was fine. But witchcraft, no. Never.

When she’d learned about it from those girls that summer, and subsequently told Mala who had been skinning a rabbit at the time, her mother had turned on her with a knife still dripping in blood. “Don’t you ever, do you hear me, don’t you
ever
bring that kind of dark magic into our home! It doesn’t leave you once you’ve invited it in, Rosella. Ever. Don’t play with what you don’t understand or it’ll haunt you for the rest of your days.”

Her mother still spoke in a heavily accented Yugoslavian tongue. The family had been in England for most of Rosella’s life but the memory of densely wooded hills and richly fruited orchards still rolled in on blue sky days like that one. Rosella had nodded, chastised, and backed out of the caravan. The day had been sunny but clouds scooted in from nowhere, chilling the air, and she’d heeded the warning.

Until today.

She stepped out of the woods onto the river path. The mist had now lifted to reveal crystal clear water, which bubbled and sparkled as it surged over shiny rocks. For a shard of a second Rosella’s mood lifted. It was so beautiful here. She almost smiled, when suddenly the crack of a twig stopped the breath in her chest. Turning, oh so slowly, in the direction of the sound, her eyes straining into a myriad of tree trunks still shrouded in mist, she held herself rigid.
Someone was there
.

With heightened senses her nostrils flared, every nerve-ending static with alertness while she scanned the scene. But there was nothing – just the softly lit canopy of trees and a few crows cawing in the distance. For a full minute she waited.

Gushing water.

Nothing else.

Time to get back.

Then came the faint but unmistakeable whiff of tobacco on the air. Her heart rate picked up, thudding loudly in her ears. Was it Ida?

Run…run now…you need to run…

But exactly as before, her feet failed to move. In fact both her legs were completely paralysed and no sound would come from her throat. Once again the atmosphere seemed electrically charged, the scene before her playing out in slow motion. A man had stepped out of the shadows onto the path - an old man with a white widow’s peak and the palest ice-blue eyes imaginable. She stood hypnotised. He had a look about him that was older than time, exuding an almost inhuman chill; his skin wizened like a reptile’s, lips wet and full as they pulled back from yellowing teeth into a leer. The smell of him was rank like he hadn’t washed in months; the white hair combed back in greasy strands. But there was something a whole lot worse than any of that. Far, far worse than the way he looked…

Revulsion lurched into her throat, her insides loosening as he walked towards her.
Don’t look down… Oh God, don’t look
…

His trousers were undone at the zip.

Helpless, she kept her eyes fixed on his, unable to move or utter a single syllable, yet knowing precisely how this was going to unfold. There was a splinter of a second, just a sparkling flash in time, as a brief image of Nicu, her eighteen year old fiancé, with his shiny brown hair and dancing green eyes, faded from her mind as any kind of future possibility… before the stinking old monster moved in, one hand snatching at her skirt, the other smashing her throat with staggering force. And as the powerful shove rammed her spine into a tree trunk, cracking her head, a searing pain shot through her body. After which she lost consciousness. 

***

When she woke up it was night. From somewhere outside an owl hooted, and there were little scratches and rustles like trees scraping at a window.
Where was this? Back in the caravan? Doesn’t smell the same…mould…

She drifted in and out of consciousness. Next time she surfaced it was to the sound of boots thudding heavily upstairs – workman’s boots – coming closer and quickly.
Not the caravan then
… She leapt back, slamming into the wall behind, the sudden movement causing a sickening pain to rip through her insides so violently it took her breath. Hot liquid gushed from between her legs – blood?
–
and cold sweat surfaced all over her body as she fell sideways onto the bed clutching her tummy. With pressure swelling inside her brain like the worst of hangovers she struggled to open her eyes.
Was someone there? Who was it? What was happening?