The Lights Go Out in Lychford Page 5

  “It was the only dress that wasn’t in the wash,” said Autumn, sitting down with Lizzie at a small table in the Bowls Club lounge, two halves of 6B in front of them. Neither of them had felt able to give up their drink of choice since they were students for the lure of a small glass of sweet sherry. “While I’ve been wondering how to protect the world, laundry’s been piling up.”

  Lizzie, as always, was in her black shirt and clerical collar. Autumn, she reflected, always seemed, by association, to make her feel like she was on her way to a costume party.

  They made small talk, Lizzie keeping her eye on the door. It wasn’t long before Maitland Picton entered, that supercilious look on her face once more. She was greeted with smiles and hugs, but, satisfyingly, when she saw Lizzie and Autumn, her face fell.

  “Maitland, over here!” called Lizzie, taking more pleasure in this than she should have allowed herself.

  The woman, or being, came over. “I . . . didn’t expect to see you here. This must be Autumn.”

  “Yeah,” said Autumn, “it must be, because something’s going to fall.” And she actually landed that, which Lizzie didn’t think she herself could have managed. “Boo.”

  “What?”

  Autumn stood up and pointed at her. “Boo!” She said it long and low, changing it this time from a noise of surprise into a noise of criticism, and as she did so, she slipped onto the table a beer mat that Lizzie had earlier watched her impregnate with a powder she’d burned in a frying pan, which had included cayenne pepper, white pepper, dill, and—less Cordon Bleu and more worryingly—sulphur. At the same time, with her right hand, Autumn began swiftly tracing a diagram in the air which, she had told Lizzie, should trick the people nearby into seeing the reverse of what was actually going on. This had seemed, to Lizzie, to be beyond anything Autumn had tried before, but the apprentice had assured her that she’d been practicing hard. Besides, how welcome at the Bowls Club did they want to be? Which had turned out to be a rhetorical question, because by the time Lizzie had started to say that “really pretty welcome” was her preferred answer, Autumn had already been reaching for her coat.

  Lizzie looked to the other patrons, who were smiling at them. Presumably, they were hearing “boo” as applause, or something similar. Now it was time to play her part. Objects and gestures were just for focus. So she didn’t use them. She breathed to put herself in the correct mental attitude for prayer and asked for courage and protection. She had been told by her Lord that she would fear no evil, and Maitland Picton was not the shadow of death. Looking at her now, she felt her God and believed in her own courage and felt sorry for Picton. Which was better than feeling pleased at this being’s discomfort. Indeed, Lizzie now felt she couldn’t join in either the booing or the series of carefully structured insults that Autumn had started to call out, pointing at Picton with each one. “Unwanted. Useless. Meaningless. Leave good folk alone, trickster. You are discovered. You are nothing.”

  “In a moment, you should find you have to leave,” said Lizzie, startling Autumn out of her prepared routine. “Why not talk to us instead, come to some understanding? If you need something, maybe we could help you get it. We don’t have to play games.”

  Autumn looked frustrated at her for a moment, and then nodded. Lizzie knew that Autumn had come to find the notion of borders around the town that just kept everything out, without negotiation or compromise, deeply awful. If her friend had room for mercy now, Lizzie was sure she’d use it.

  “Understanding?” barked Picton. “I am what I am! Either do it or don’t, but don’t toy with me! I’m only here to play my games. I’m a cappy, it’s what I do! I’m not hurting anyone! I wouldn’t!”

  Lizzie hated the pleading tone in the being’s voice. And that little speech had been a bundle of mixed messages. At least they knew now that Judith had been correct about the nature of this creature. And that they genuinely didn’t have much to fear. “If you can only see one way to play the game,” she said, “we’ll play our part and send you home. We won’t hurt you in doing it.”

  “Then get on with it!”

  Lizzie looked to Autumn and nodded. Mercy enough had been offered.

  Autumn finished up her list of curses and lowered her finger like she was striking the air with a sword. “Done and can’t return!”

  With a cry of frustration, Maitland Picton blurred into a shape which was suddenly out of the door and gone. The door slammed behind her. The other patrons clapped as if delightful pleasantries had been exchanged. “Phew,” said Lizzie. “I can’t believe I was that scared of her.”

  “And we can even come back to the Bowls Club.” Autumn looked to the beer mat, which was on fire, and quickly dropped it into her pint. She took a quick breath in, which snuffed out the last of it. Then they both let out a long breath. Autumn’s smelt slightly of sulphur. “I can’t believe,” she said, “that it was so easy.”

  Lizzie couldn’t quite believe that either.

  * * *

  Autumn found that she also was very wary of believing they’d actually done it. Any sense of pride she ever felt these days, following what had happened with her collapsing the borders, was always now tempered by the thought that it would soon be followed by a fall. So they did a bit of checking. An entirely different house now stood where Maitland Picton’s had been. The electoral roll now didn’t show her name. Everything checked out. So when, a couple of days later, Autumn knocked on Judith’s door, she was looking forward not just to checking in on her, but also to sharing with her that she had done the job of a wise woman and done it well. She couldn’t manage “smug” these days, but she hoped Judith might find the news reassuring.

  Judith, in her pinny and rubber gloves, opened the door and stared at her. “Yes?”

  “Hi, Judith. It’s me. Can I come in?”

  “If you’re collecting for charity, sod off, I don’t have any money.”

  Autumn felt her heart sink a little. She realised that from inside the house she could hear the sound of running water. “Have you left the tap on?”

  Judith looked awkward. “What were we going on about?”

  Autumn took a risk and gently stepped past her. Judith didn’t try to prevent her. Autumn stepped into a kitchen where the floor was covered in water. It was already soaking her shoes. She ran to the sink, where a vast pile of dishes stood in a plastic bowl, and turned off the taps. She turned to look at Judith, who, suddenly, horribly, looked on the verge of tears. “Oh, Judith . . .”

  “What have I done?” She said it like the world was coming to an end. “Listen, it’s good that you’re here, I’ve summat to show you. You and the reverend. Urgently.”

  “But what about—?” Autumn gestured to the water.

  Judith blinked, as if seeing it for the first time. “Brain of mush,” she said. “I’ll clean it up. After.” And she marched off into the other room.

  Autumn quickly followed. Judith’s lounge, thankfully, in the way of these old places, was on a slight rise from the kitchen. She pulled out her phone and texted Shaun, asking him to come over, as Judith went over to an old . . . well, some sort of enormous combined radio and record player . . . and picked up a pile of papers and brochures on top of it. “Here you go,” she said, and dropped the pile triumphantly onto the coffee table.

  Autumn looked at the top page of the file. “Ashdown House Retirement Home.”

  “It’s where Shaun is planning on putting me away.”

  “Judith, it’s not like that—”

  “I don’t mind him getting ready for that. Except I can still run my own home. But read the bloody thing.”

  Autumn flipped some pages. And was startled to find them stinging her occult senses. There was a bland promotional picture of a sunny hallway inside the retirement home . . . and it was yelling at her that here was some hidden supernatural evil. “Oh my God.”

  Judith slumped in her chair and put a hand to her face. “You believe me.”

  “Yes, I do.” On e
very second page of the prospectus there was something that screamed out at Autumn. “When did you notice this?”

  “Shaun brought that over yesterday. He’s wanting me to go for a visit. I’m thinking we all should.”

  “Absolutely. Do you think this is some sort of . . . trap? I mean, has this all been set up because something’s realised Shaun’s considering this? Or has this always been there?” She couldn’t remember feeling anything on the many occasions she’d walked past the place.

  “Don’t know either way. But we need to do summat.”

  “Is it all right . . . if Lizzie and I did something, and then reported back to you?”

  Judith took a breath, and an angry look flared on her face. But then it went again. “Probably for the best. Especially if it’s a trap for me. But in the meantime, there’s summat else you can do. Could you stop Shaun from thinking about putting me there? Because I’m going to forget about this, don’t argue, you know I am. I might let him.”

  Autumn felt for the sudden helplessness in Judith’s voice. She put her hand on hers. “Don’t worry. We’ll make sure that doesn’t happen.”

  * * *

  Lizzie couldn’t believe the news that Autumn had hammered on her door to tell her. She also couldn’t believe that Autumn never remembered that the Vicarage had a perfectly functional doorbell. “Ashdown House? I’m there every other day!”

  Autumn plonked a brochure into her hands. It buzzed so hard with dark magic that Lizzie nearly yelled and threw it back. She gingerly turned over the pages. Familiar places were pictured that now reeked of badness. Even staff she knew seemed to be cackling and hissing like fiends.

  “Do you want to get your stuff for an exorcism?” said Autumn.

  “I don’t do those. I have a number I can call for the diocesan delivery minister. Unsurprisingly, given he doesn’t know what’s really going on in this town, I’ve never called it. But yeah, let’s get over there, right now.”

  * * *

  They walked through the alley past the nursery, and under the arch that led into the marketplace. Ashdown House was up Sheep Street, past the chip shop. Lizzie didn’t need to ring the bell, she just waved through the glass to the receptionist. She looked to Autumn and saw that there was nothing about this place that was setting off her extra senses either. Which was very weird, given what they’d seen in the brochure. She shook her head. “You really have someone you can call?”

  “I’ve been waiting all this time,” said Lizzie, as the receptionist buzzed them in, “for you to use that line from Ghostbusters. But now you never will.”

  * * *

  They explored the place, on the easy pretext of Lizzie visiting some of the residents, and bringing her friend with her to talk about, err, close-up magic. Which Autumn, when Lizzie pressed her, decided to indeed talk about rather than demonstrate. “I don’t know the stage show version and I’m not risking doing any minor workings when we might be standing in the magical equivalent of an explosives factory,” Autumn whispered, after they’d had a lovely chat to a third thankfully rather wandery old person.

  “It was all I could think of for you to be here to do a lesson on. I mean, what’s more plausible, that or fashion advice?”

  “Ouch.”

  “But do you seriously get the vibe from any part of this building that there’s any kind of powder keg going on here?” They walked past a fresco made by local schoolchildren that, in the paperwork, had definitely come over as an evil fresco. But now Lizzie couldn’t feel any emanation from it other than cuteness. Autumn looked around to make sure nobody was watching and put her palm to it. From the look on her face, she didn’t sense anything. She popped out her cheeks and made a tense little noise.

  “What are you doing?” asked Lizzie.

  “Buttock clench, pulse of inquiry through my lower spine, into my hand, sort of like radar. Poking it really hard.” She stepped back from the wall, clearly puzzled. “It was just like talking to, well, a brick wall.”

  They said their goodbyes, headed out again, and went to the coffee shop that sold the world-famous brownies. There was a garden out the back where, at three o’clock in the afternoon at least, with their coats on against the cold, they could talk in secret. “What is this?” said Lizzie.

  “It’s definitely something,” agreed Autumn. “We’ve had a minor being who tried very hard to have their weirdness only sensed in the paperwork, and now a . . . I don’t know, a haunting? Which, again, can only be sensed in the paperwork.”

  “I’m going to make sure that Shaun doesn’t sign Judith up for that place, anyway. I don’t have to lie about finding out something real world awful about it, I think he’d take our magical word for it. Plus, he’s still not ready to go for it, even after the flood incident.”

  Autumn had been nodding along, her thoughts clearly elsewhere. “The cappy thing turned out to be true, so might this. Maybe our senses are somehow on the blink?”

  “Oh no,” said Lizzie.

  “Yeah,” sighed Autumn. “I think it’s time we re-upped our dose.”

  * * *

  The walk to the well in the woods wasn’t something either of them were used to doing without Judith. Autumn felt strange to be the one leading the way along that path, which slowly became of impossible length and went in directions only the magical or unlucky would tread. Still, the season after which she was named was making the surroundings beautiful, with every tree this afternoon showing its gown of brown and gold. And yet being out in nature, actually having time to think, made Autumn aware of how little money she was making from the shop at the moment, how being free to see all this during the afternoon made her feel not liberated, but unemployed. The battle against evil was soon going to require her taking out an overdraft.

  The signpost that pointed out the footpaths to nearby villages, and to other routes, those that could only be navigated by those that knew, was a familiar feature of this walk, but this time there was something different about it. This time, wrapped around it was . . .

  “A poster for the Festival,” said Lizzie, inspecting it. “Wow. To even get out here someone must have got very lost. But they brought Sellotape.”

  “It’s kind of worrying,” said Autumn. “Maitland Picton on the Festival committee, Festival poster out here . . .” She put a hand to the poster. “But it’s not like it’s made it an evil signpost. I can still only sense the promise of the directions. Still, better safe than sorry.’” She took a small pair of scissors from her bag, cut the poster from the sign, and put it in her bag. “The Festival wouldn’t get much in the way of take-up out here anyway.”

  They continued on their way and made it to the well in the woods without further incident. Nothing there seemed amiss. The well stood in its isolated glade as it always had, in impossible lands on the borders of so much that went beyond impossible. The leaves had covered the wooden lid over the well itself. Autumn grabbed the lid and hauled it off, freeing the rope that led down to the bucket. “Ready?”

  Lizzie shook her head. She put on the ground her shopping bag containing two enormous fluffy towels. “I’ll wait until the water’s here. I’m not going to strip off before I have to.”

  “Your catchphrase.”

  Lizzie stuck her tongue out at her. Autumn grabbed the handle that turned to pull up the bucket and heaved at it. It didn’t budge. She remembered Judith doing this without exertion. Wow. Were old lady muscles really that powerful? Lizzie saw what the problem was and came over to help. Together, they tried the wheel again, but it wasn’t budging. “Is it stuck?”

  Autumn looked down into the well. She could just see the bucket hanging freely at the end of the rope. But what else could she see down there? At the same level as the bucket, there was something stuck to the walls of the well. Four things. Were those . . . ?

  “Lizzie,” she said, “there are Festival posters down there.”

  Lizzie looked down there and said something very unclerical. They both grabbed the rope itsel
f and heaved on it, but it resisted them. The bucket didn’t budge. It was held there by what must be supernatural forces. Which were somehow connected to the posters. And yet Autumn couldn’t feel anything out of the ordinary.

  Looking amazed, Lizzie took a step back, and took up a posture which Autumn had come to know. “No,” Autumn said quickly, “don’t bless the well.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, it’s sort of . . . the basic source of magic around here. What if you kind of . . . get rid of it?”

  “I don’t think my belief system erases yours.”

  “Historically—”

  “Please don’t use the H word, you know what I mean.”

  “Okay, try it.”

  Lizzie did. But it made no difference.

  Autumn tried a couple of easing and unlocking charms, but nothing was working, the bucket didn’t budge. “These posters,” she concluded, stepping back from the well and wiping her brow, “are enemy action.”

  * * *

  Lizzie watched as Autumn smoothed the poster back out again onto her workbench. “I don’t think this is anything to do with the Festival people themselves,” Lizzie said.

  “No,” said Autumn, “I’m thinking this is something Maitland Picton did before we got rid of her. Something she left behind.” She showered it with various powders, wiped them away with no visible results. “We’re going to have to assume we won’t be able to feel the effects. So, when it comes to this stuff we need to rely on our tools.”

  “Would you object to some holy water?”

  “Just because I didn’t want you erasing a well doesn’t mean that . . . wow, we get to say some odd sentences.”

  So Lizzie got a cup of water from the tap, blessed it, and, urged by Autumn not to use too much, dotted it onto the poster. Nothing. “Without our extra senses, could we even tell if these tools are working?”