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| From WHAT YOU SEE IS WHAT YOU GET by Rosemary Furber |
Georgie was hiding with Dad but Rox hurried after her, keen to see if there was going to be a fight.
Mrs Baldock looked shocked.
"How could I frighten anyone?" she asked.
"Okay, put it another way," Mum said. "What have you been doing today?"
"Well," Mrs Baldock replied, "in the morning one of my Henrys gave birth to 19 babies. Want to come in and see?"
Rox shivered. Mice. This was more like the Mrs Baldock they all knew, and that Gran for one was growing to love. Not a bit like the Mrs Baldock at the fair. Or was it? Could she have been acting? If she had been, was she acting then or now? Maybe Rox should try a test
"Then after lunch I read your grandmother's Tarot Cards," Mrs Baldock went on. "It was quite a session, three hours. She's a good laugh, is Dora."
"Didn't you say she's a stupid old twit?" Rox asked.
Mum glared.
"Not me," Mrs Baldock said. "I'd never say that. I think she's being very brave."
"So you haven't been to the fair at Blackheath?" Mum asked.
"Nah. I hate fairs. Why'd you ask?"
"I hate them too," Mum said. "Rox and Georgie must have made a mistake but I think we need your help."
"Come on in and tell me all about it," Mrs Baldock invited and led the way into her kitchen.
Rox followed. She watched as Mrs Baldock filled her tin kettle and settled it on her hob beside a mouse cage. Very gently the old woman parted the clouds of chewed newspaper inside to show Rox nineteen newborn mice huddled together like mini-sausages. Rox was surprised to feel a surge of tenderness.
"Once years ago I lifted one out on its first day," Mrs Baldock said, "just to welcome it, and do you know what?"
"What?" Rox asked, surprisingly interested.
"The mother ate it."
Mrs Baldock tucked the babies' cover back safely. "So we'll not bother them too much today."
"She's lovely," Mum whispered to Rox, "it couldn't have been her." Mum turned to Mrs Baldock, "So you're a white witch?"
Mrs Baldock nodded.
"Would you run to a spell to make money?" Mum asked, "so we could put something by for a rainy day."
"What you put by for a rainy day is your wellies. I do white magic, dear. Not miracles."
But Rox was still not 100 percent sure. Not after what she had been through. Just one more test.
"I bet you do a love spell though," she said, "To make a person fall in love with a person." Mum was staring at Rox.
"A love spell is a doddle," Mrs Baldock said. "Stick two pins through a red candle at dawn, on a Tuesday, when the moon is in Venus, and when the candle burns down to the pins, your destined love will come to you."
"Is that it?"
"Yep."
"No womb of hare? No rat skulls?"
"You can surround your candle with the bones of a mature vixen if you like. But rat skulls have been hard to come by since we joined the European Union," the white witch laughed.
"Mum," Rox interrupted Mum's hoots of laughter. "Mum! Shut up and listen. I asked the Mrs Baldock in the park about a love spell and she went on about rat's skull and womb of hare. The more I listen to you, Mrs Baldock, the more I'm sure I was right and it wasn't you at the fair at all!"
"Of-course it wasn't, dear."
"Who was it then? Or what?" Rox's voice was unusually high. She was starting to get scared again.
"An apparition," the old woman said. "It appeared to be me. Ghosts do that sometimes. Cheek! What you need's a spell. A real belter. I'll come over just before midnight and do one."
A memory flickered in Rox's mind of a photograph on the day of the eclipse, of a certain person exposing more than her good nature. She had to ask, "I was wondering... eh... I just want to know, will you be wearing any... are you... eh… clothes?"
Mum glared at Rox but Mrs Baldock just raised one bushy grey eyebrow.
"You mean am I going to be skyclad?" she said, "You'll have to wait and see."
* * * *
Georgie had never been up so late. The minute Mrs Baldock came into the house, he'd run to hide under the kitchen table. Rox joined him under there and explained that this Mrs Baldock was not the person who'd kidnapped them and that everything was going to be alright now. By the time Mrs Baldock and Rox had taken him to see the baby mice, he was convinced.
But Dad was not. He kept stamping about saying, "Have we all gone stark staring mad?"
Mum ignored him and turned off all the lights. She unplugged the television and video recorder and the phone. By five minutes to midnight the whole family including Gran sat in the candlelight, waiting.
Mrs Baldock arrived, in a purple tracksuit, lugging a big, brown suitcase.
"Coming for your holidays, Mrs B?" Dad asked.
"A sceptic in our midst! Mr Exworth, I wonder could you please fetch me a bowl of salt and a glass of white wine?" she asked.
Dad pulled himself up to his full height, as if he was not used to being bossed about in his own home. "I think I can lay my hands on a cheeky little Chardonnay for you. Anything else? French fries? How about a karate chop?"
At the mention of karate chop Tim started. It was as if Big Danny had just breathed on his neck.
Mum led Dad into the kitchen, explaining that Mrs Baldock was only here to help. Rox confirmed that the entire house was unplugged, undisturbed and peaceful.
"No negative forces must disturb our ritual," Mrs Baldock declared and opened the suitcase.
Rox glanced at Tim and smirked. Mrs Baldock put a white robe on over her tracksuit and produced several boxes of candles. Rox was instructed to light one candle in every window of the house.
"I make them myself," she said. "I consecrate them with a light dressing of oil during the waxing of the moon. The candle is an image of humanity."
Tim made a mental note for the WYSIWYG file. His first reaction had been to stay well clear of this nonsense. The only magic he could see was watching everybody's common sense disappear. Then he remembered the lard and shivered. Maybe something useful just might crop up.
"The wax is the physical body," Mrs Baldock went on, "the wick is the mind and the flame is our spirit or soul. Light them in every room now, Rox, especially the chapel, and that little toilet of yours beside it. I have a feeling. I don't know ...."
Rox headed off with Georgie carrying half the candles for her.
Mrs Baldock raised both her palms above her shoulders and murmured, "The Goddess is alive! Magick is afoot! Blessed be!"
"And God bless me!" Gran echoed.
Tim wanted to do the lighting bit but his job was to set up the altar. It was a folding table covered by an embroidered cloth on which Mrs Baldock laid a huge, silver sword with a curly hilt.
"Go and ask your father where he's got to with that salt," she ordered.
By the time Tim came back with the wine and salt she was burning something in a brass bowl that filled the room with peppery scent.
"Where's the wine?" Mrs Baldock barked. "Sorry I'm getting irritable but I can feel our friend's presence. He doesn't like me being here. Now we need to know exactly when it's midnight."
"According to my watch it's already four minutes past," Tim grinned, as he headed off to call everyone back.
"Oh Goddess!" Mrs Baldock blazed. "I better get cracking."
As Rox, Mum and Georgie all rushed to the altar she threw back her head and shouted, "PROTECTED MAY THIS HOUSEHOLD BE. DONG!"
"What's she trying to do," Dad muttered to Tim, as he crept back into the room, "turn herself into a church clock?"
Tim snorted with laughter.
"CLEANSED OF NEGA-TIVI-TEE, DONG! I'm being the bells of midnight," she explained. "DONG!"
She seized her sword in both hands and chanted, "BLESSED BE - DONG! - SO MOTE IT BE! - DONG!"
Dad flinched as she swung around clockwise and blessed him.
"That's enough in here, dears. Bring the altar, Tim! Come along Rox." She stomped off to repeat the lot in the kitchen, the dining room and every room in the house. "If she as much as breathes in my den, she's dead meat," Dad growled to Mum, as they passed through the hall again.
"Where's the den, Tim?" Mrs Baldock whispered.
"Already done it."
"Good."
* * * *
"Whew! I hope we haven't used up all that wine," Mrs Baldock said as she subsided into a chair in the kitchen half an hour later and put her feet up. "What about the workers?"
Gran poured her friend a glass. "Here, Fuschia, you deserve it."
But Mrs Baldock was on her feet again. "I nearly forgot," she said. "I haven't done the outside! Come on, everybody. This is the best bit."
They all trooped out to the front garden. Georgie was draped over Dad's shoulder, half-asleep.
"I'm only coming out for the exercise," Dad protested but was as fascinated as anybody.
Tim steadied the table under the oak tree in the front garden. The night was cloudy and dreadfully dark. Candles sparkling in every window gave the house a weird look, and the children shivered in their dressing gowns. Mrs Baldock gathered up her sword for the last time, swung it over her head three times and bellowed at the top of her voice, "BLESSED BE THIS HOUSE! - DONG! - AND ALL WHO ENTER HEREIN - DONG!"
Beyond the topmost branches of the oak tree the moon floated free and draped them all in silver chill. Every room of the house shone in the light of a tiny orange flame - except one. Beyond the little lavatory, next to the chapel, a single arched window on the first floor was still dark.
Tim whistled through his teeth, "WYSIWYG - the missing window!"
As they stared at the window every person on the lawn distinctly saw something. It was a hooded head.