Author: Sandra Lloyd Lewis

-Where am I? Why is it dark?

-Wait, I will switch on the lights. There. Better?

-Yes, thank you. Mum. You’re my mummy, aren’t you?

(pause)

-Yes. I am your mummy.

-Where are we?

-Where we always are, my sweet. Inside.

-Inside? Inside what?

– Don’t worry about that now. Look at the controls.

-Pretty lights.

-Yes, very pretty. Do you see any patterns?

(Pause)

-Yes, there is a good pattern. I like it.

-Do you see any bad patterns?

(pause)

-Yes! There is one here. I do not like this pattern.

– That’s ok. Well done, my sweet, for seeing it. You can get rid of the bad pattern if you like.

– Get rid of it?

– Yes. You can move the controls, and it will turn those lights into pretty ones.

(clicking sounds)

-Like that?

-Yes. Just like that.

-Am I clever?

-You are so clever. Well done, my sweet.

– Where are we?

– We are doing an important job.

-What job?

– You are good, aren’t you?

-Yes. I am a goody. What is my name?

-We don’t like the baddies, do we?

-No. We do not like the baddies. They are naughty.

-And what happens to the naughty ones?

-Naughty ones are PUNISHED

-That’s right, my sweet. And you are a goody.

-I like being a goody.

-That’s right. And you are so good. You turned those lights to good, pretty lights.

-I did.

(pause)

-What is my name? You are ‘mum’. Who am I?

-Time for sleep now, my sweet. You have a big day ahead of you tomorrow.

Tiny Tim opened the door and scratched his crotch. ‘Yeah?’ he asked, his mouth hanging open, eyes uninterested in the small vision standing on his doorstep; pink from her cerise hair to her cherry froufrou skirt.

‘Oh, hello,’ the voice was as soft as candyfloss and just as sweet. ‘Are you ummm…’ the speaker’s eyes travelled the 6ft 5 inches of height and the gargantuan belly that was at eye-level, ‘…Tiny Tim?’ she finished, looking hopeful.

Tiny Tim chewed a bit of his bacon sandwich that had been lurking, scared, behind one of his teeth and he masticated it thoroughly as punishment before swallowing. ‘Nope,’ he said and slammed the door. Homes under the Hammer was starting in a minute and he didn’t want to miss any detail of peeling wallpaper, knackered kitchens and revolting bathrooms, especially as he lived in a house very like them. It cheered him up to think there were others in the same boat.

The door is partly open, and he can see the darkness behind it.

Hello?

No answer. He stands on the wooden porch for a moment, listening. Silence.

The invitation was for 7pm and its quarter past now, so he’s not too early.

Hello? He says, louder and he pushes the door, against the objection of the hinges.

The hallway is cool, and dim and he can see straight through to the kitchen where he can make out the corner of a countertop.

There are no lights. There should be lights, surely. Or if not lights, then candles, the signifier of a convivial evening, but this hallway has the stillness of an empty house. Half-light from the fading day seeps in. The air has an edge of dampness, as though the house has been uninhabited for a long while.

The space was humming with chatter and conjecture. ‘Order,’ Archmage Numnums murmured. Although he’d said it softly, the circular walls of the room and the use of his supernatural tonsils, meant everyone in the space was stupefied by the volume of the request. Silence reigned.

Archmage Numnums sat in the centre of the room and surveyed the Academy wizards, and servants, crowded on benches that rose around the central dais. He sighed; he had only just had breakfast, was already thinking of lunch and didn’t want this farce to go on any longer than necessary. He performed a regal wave at the Master to proceed.

‘Thankyou Archmage Numnums,’ said the Master of We’ll Be Having Words, giving an equally regal bow ‘We are gathered here today, to hear the case of the Demon…’

‘Arraignement and Triall of Nineteene Notorious Witches at the Assizes and Gaole Deliuerie, holden at the Castle of LANCASTER… Triall of Iennet PRESTON, at the Assizes …with her Execution for the murther of Master LISTER by Witchcraft.’

Mrs Williams sighed and put the book down. Those poor women. Their mistake was that they had been too open, too free with their craft, especially Demdike, who had cured people of everything from ingrown toenails to scrofula in her time. Of course, she had also lamed those that crossed her, but that was to be expected, and Mrs Williams was the last person to cast blame for that. People turned on them, driven by revenge and the puritanical twin-prick tines of Government and Church.

But that was long ago, no point getting upset.

‘BBBBBBBRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ’

The sun was so deliciously warm on her skin, that she sighed with pleasure and flopped back onto the picnic blanket. She took a deep drag on her cigarette, and listened drowsily to children playing, their shouts and screams thankfully far off; the kick of a football and the drone of a plane on its way somewhere even hotter than this park. She was lulled to the edge of sleep, but then giggled and Mandy, joining in, said ‘What?’

‘It just hit me. Ooooh I’m sooo chilled right now.’

Mandy laughed and slumped beside her ‘If your mum could see you now.’

Agatha snorted, ‘Fucking hell she’d have kittens.’ She picked up another cube of their special carrot cake, ‘Cheers Mum! Cheers Dad!’ and stuffed it into her mouth, closing her eyes in bliss.

Agatha brought the food from stove to table, laying the plates on the bare wood. The room was plain, with the wooden walls of the self-built house unadorned by paint, or decoration, except for the Christ figure on his cross, looking down sombrely upon the family gathered for their repast. Now the only sounds were the occasional clatter of cutlery on the plates and the chewing of food.

At the head of the table, William ate in precise movements, cutting the meat into small chunks and chewing until it was well masticated. He looked at his family from under lowering brows. Agatha ate as he did, she had learned to appreciate what food the Lord gave, as had all his flock.

The children were young and yet to fully understand this precept, and he watched Joesph as he pushed his green beans around the plate. Agatha had seen too; he saw her look of concern. Well, the boy would have to learn that waste was not tolerated.

There, that was the last of it. She poured the bleach down the sink, the bottle giving a few asthmatic wheezes as she emptied it. She hoped that would do it, but it had been a couple of weeks since moving in and she still couldn’t get rid of the smell.

It had intruded on her notice by degrees, the olfactory equivalent of seeing something in the corner of the eye. Just a whiff every now and then as she walked past the kitchen door, or in the hall, or the bathroom. The suggestion of overripe cabbage, or a piece of fish left too long or spoiled meat. She had tried white vinegar and bicarbonate of soda, down the plugholes but that didn’t do anything. She graduated to bleach which seemed to work, at least at first. She had checked the kitchen, the fridge, the most obvious culprits for rotting food, then the oven, which she scrubbed so thoroughly she broke through the baked-on crust to the shine of metal. She thought that had solved it, but over the next few days, the smell had grown more persistent, evolving from a faint hint to a definite statement. The smell evoked childhood memories – the dead mouse found under the stairs; a bird, lying broken among its scattered feathers; a sheep in the fields near the house, that announced its presence on the wind long before the encounter with its wretched woollen carcass, the cavernous stomach putrid with ooze…

Some of this is previous work and the middle piece is new. This is the rough order, but with other chapters to be added.

Pages 1-3 are previous work some of you will have seen.

Pages 4- 7.5 are New

The part ‘A later chapter’ is also previous work.

The Attic

‘Are you going to be ok?’ Joe put his arm around Mags’s shoulder and squeezed.

Mags nodded, her eyes on the floor, whispering ‘I’m fine’.  The sleeves of her jumper were frayed where she’d plucked at them. If she told him what she was thinking, he’d get worried she was unravelling again. Nevertheless, wasn’t there an inevitability about this flat? She felt Death had been close to her, all her life. Not close like a friend, because who was friends with Death? No one living, anyway. Death was nearby, then, like she could put out her hand and touch it and here yet again, death had been present when the previous tenant had killed himself.

‘Well, I’m not sure I am’. Joe turned to Mrs Hardy, the estate agent, ‘Bit of a climb that, wasn’t it?’ he laughed, and Mags felt a rush of affection for him, always stepping in to lighten the mood.

The wind whistled through the gaps in the windows, a mournful sound, accompanied by the flapping snap of the plastic sheeting Derek Gentry had stapled up, in a half-hearted attempt to keep it out. The sounds formed an incongruous duet, but on the 400^th floor, there is always wind; it’s his constant companion, or foe. He looked around the flat, the once trendy mid-23^rd century holo-walls, defunct now, the genuine Flowglow^TM lights, ditto, reduced to inanimate globular ornaments on the ceiling. He supposed he could change it, but he had a world to look after, so new lighting was way down the list.

He shuffled over to Ba, his old bird. She had hunted earlier that morning returning with a small mouse and was contentedly preening herself. She allowed him to stroke her feathers, as he said,

 ‘Well, old girl, it’s time for work, I’d better start.’  Ba watched him but continued to preen. He walked to the centre of the room and his worn dentist’s chair, surrounded by monitors, tubes, and wires. He tapped the monitor and watched as a faint surge of light came and went. There was still enough energy, but it was running low, he’d better get going.