The Celtic Witch And The Sea

Harkin And The Snake’s Servant

A short story from the Celtic Witch Mysteries

Chapter One

Tell Tom Tildrum that Tom Toldrum is dead.

When you’re the local healer, like I am, you get used to being woken at odd hours of the night. At least, I think I’d be used to it, if only I got woken up in an otherwise normal way - you know, a shake of the shoulder, someone calling my name, the smell of coffee brewing, that kind of thing.

What I don’t think I’ll ever get used to is the sudden slamming of a raggedy cat right onto my chest, his fuzzy face pressed up against mine, breathing his fish-breath into my mouth.

Ahh! Harkin! I sat upright and he tumbled off my chest and into my lap, clinging to my pyjamas with his claws. He was unrepentant as I squeaked in protest. He got back onto his feet and continued to stare at me.

My bedroom was all tones of grey. I slept with my curtains open, and there were no street lights to colour my view. Light pollution isn’t much of a problem in rural Wales. I could see Harkin as a dark grey shape in the light grey room, and his eyes were grey, pale and intense.

What? I demanded.

I need to point out that I am not psychic and nor is my cat. He can’t speak to me through some mysterious telepathic waves. As for me, half the time I generally don’t understand what people really mean, even when they speak out loud to me, in actual words and everything. However, my cat can send images, impressions and rough feelings to me. Mostly it’s a feeling of my belly is empty and I haven’t been fed for an hour and you must hate me and I am going to leave home but sometimes it’s something important.

This time, it was important.

I was sent an impression of darkness, and something - no, someone - who was lost. There was a slithering, and a hint of dry scaliness. Wings beat in the no-place between the worlds. A man called out.

He was dead, and that wasn’t the problem right now. It had been his time to die.

So he was dead, but his soul had not moved on.

***

I raced downstairs in bare feet, and stumbled through the kitchen. There was a small utility room on the back of the kitchen which housed sick animals, wellington boots, large jackets, random boxes, a washing machine, a bag consisting of nothing but other plastic bags, and - at the moment - a bucket with a creepy broken doll in it. That last item was probably one of my mad Aunt Dilys’s projects.

I plunged my feet into the least-spider-filled boots that I could find, and went outside to the garden. Already the sun was lightening the sky though it would not appear over the horizon for a little while longer. I headed to my willow cave.

And here I guess I ought to explain a few things.

There are many types of witch. It would be cool if I had grown up into one of those witches who shoots sparkly power from her hands, like on the fancy greetings cards you can buy in hippie shops. I am not sure they exist, but come on, wouldn’t it be great? Unfortunately the Fates decided I’d be best as a Hedge Witch, which is low on the whole shooty-sparkly-power thing, and really pretty high on "let’s sit alone in a cold damp cave and do battle on an unearthly plane with actual dead things." No one will ever see, out here in the real world, what I do.

I just look like a nutter.

There’s no use moaning about it. I had a job to do. I reached the little cave I’d crafted out of living willow withies. It was guarded by a hawthorn and rested right in the broken-down part of a stone wall that separated my garden from the wild hills beyond. Hedge witchery is all about boundaries, edges, hedges and crossings. I slipped into the cave and sat down, cross-legged, and immediately the cold dampness of the earth seeped through my night wear. Harkin jumped into my lap and nudged my chin.

He was no longer panicking.

He purred.

The sky lightened further.

The call of the soul in distress had faded.

I was too late, this time.

Chapter Two

My early-morning dash through the house had woken Maddie, my American cousin who had been living with us for a few months now. She was a notoriously early riser, anyway. Her Californian upbringing had given her some strange ideas about healthy lifestyles - i.e., that you should try to have one - and she was dressed in running gear and drinking something that was thick, green and gloopy.

What’s going on? she asked.

Dilys came in as I began my explanation. Unlike Maddie, who was exuding bright cheeriness, my aunt was layered in black clothing, set off by accents of black, and complemented by a general blackness, with carefully chosen black accessories. She eased onto a chair and sighed and groaned until I made her a cup of tea. I told them both what had happened.

Sounds like a soul can’t progress, Dilys said to me confidently.

I had said that in my explanation. I had literally said that, more than once, in those exact words. She had heard me. But she was old, and also could do curses really well, so I agreed with her remarkable insight. I set the cup of tea down and she began to complain about the lack of disgusting saturated fats in her diet so I was just about to fry up some bacon when someone knocked at the back door, and opened it, calling out a welcome as they came in.

That’s normal. People just wander in and out of other people’s houses here, generally. I once came downstairs to find the postman sitting at the table reading The Cambrian News.

What was less normal was who the visitor was: it was Horatio, our local Church in Wales vicar, and he didn’t often visit a house full of witches, even though his small and ill-attended church actually bordered part of our garden.

No, said Dilys to him straight away. She’s about to do me some bacon.

I haven’t said anything yet, Horatio complained. He filled the doorway; he was tall and he was also wide, fleshy and corpulent, and all in black just like Dilys.

Yet he was poles apart from my witchy aunt.

Dilys sighed. I will wither away in my dotage, I will. Starved, I am. I’d be better fed in a funeral home. Go on, then.

What? I was confused.

Bronwen, my lamb, would you step outside with me? Horatio said, shooting a dark and unreadable look at my aunt.

I looked to Maddie but she put her hands in the air and evaded my offer of the frying pan. Gotta run, see you! she blurted, and followed us out of the house. She dashed off on her self-imposed torture,