The Pudding Lane Witch, page 1
Copyright © A.W. Jackson (2024)
The right of A.W. Jackson to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
First published by Cranthorpe Millner Publishers (2024)
ISBN 978-1-80378-234-8 (eBook)
www.cranthorpemillner.com
Cranthorpe Millner Publishers
A Note from the Author
This story is a modern magical twist on the classic tale of the Great Fire of London. It exists within the same universe as Madame Voodoo, but is still very much a standalone story that can be enjoyed without having read Madame Voodoo.
If you are reader from Madame Voodoo, however, I must warn you that there is a darker tone to this story. While it tackles many of the same themes and issues as Madame Voodoo, it does so with some very real examples.
The content of this story is very dark, with parts which some individuals may find triggering. These include domestic violence, sexual abuse, and extensive racism.
If you are suffering from any of the issues raised in this story, then please do seek help. Do not suffer in silence!
Now, without further ado, please immerse yourself in the story of Gweneviere Baxter – The Pudding Lane Witch.
Sincerely,
A.W. Jackson
PROLOGUE
June 1665
Amongst the dark, dingy streets of London lay a wayward school for young orphaned and abandoned girls, or rather, witches. A school where the headmistress was referred to as Matriarch by all students and teachers. She created this safe space for them, and in return she demanded the respect she so rightfully deserved. She fed them, clothed them, protected them, but, most importantly, she taught them how to blend into a society that would rather see an innocent witch hang than a guilty man slapped on the wrist. The Matriarch was known to the outside world of mortals as the Crone. Anyone who dealt with her face-to-face knew exactly what she was, and those who found out through chance would surely not know for very long.
One particularly gruesome night there was a mighty thunderstorm overhead, and the girls had been instructed to return to their dormitories early, meaning they missed out on dessert. The streets outside, however, were still full of the drunken and ‘fearless’ men that traipsed them. The unfortunate reality of funding such a secretive school for witches meant that it was amongst a rather unsightly neighbourhood. Stuck between brothels and taverns, the school was often a front line for batting off the unwanted attention of sad, filthy old men.
It was midnight, otherwise known as the witching hour, and all about the school were abed. The Crone and senior teachers had placed a spell of protection upon the school in a bid to evade any lightning strikes that might start a fire. Afterwards, they decided to get some rest too, as there was no need for them to sit up worrying all night. Besides, graduation was soon approaching, and there was much to be done.
“Ahhh!” a young student screamed from the cafeteria like a banshee.
The Crone rose from her bed into an upright position with ease, as if the scream had sparked some youth back into her. Though her body reacted with haste, her mind was still hazy as she briefly remembered dreaming of a young girl with auburn hair. She couldn’t remember anything else about the dream, just the girl, but as her mind slowly caught up with her body, she remembered what had awoken her in the first place and made her way to the cafeteria.
The Crone, being rather old and hunched over, hobbled through the cafeteria doors to find the girl quivering in shock. The poor child must’ve been about eight years old.
“What are you doing out of bed?” the Crone croaked.
“I was still hungry, so I came looking for something to eat… and then I saw a… monster, over there,” the girl stuttered in fear, as she pointed to the pantry door.
“Well, it’s a good job monsters don’t scare me,” the Crone replied, leaving the girl alone while she went in search of what had caused her such terror.
As the Crone approached the pantry door, she grabbed a candle to take with her. She could hear the rest of the faculty catching up behind her to see what the fuss was about. The Crone struck a match to light the candle before gently pushing the door open. All of the teachers’ eyes immediately scanned the room at their natural height, only to see nothing, but as the Crone smelt a foul stench in the air, she lowered her candle to the ground to see something truly unsightly.
“Is that what I think it is?” a teacher muttered over the Crone’s shoulder.
“No, it… it can’t be,” another whispered behind them.
“I’m afraid so, ladies. It is a rat king,” the Crone said, confirming their suspicions, and fears.
A rat king occurs when a pack of rats become entangled in one another’s tails. Unable to free themselves, they remain trapped, ghastly thrashing, until they all starve to death. To the people of 1665, this was a bad omen indeed.
“You, discard of it,” the Crone instructed, pointing at one of the teachers. “And you, take the girl back to bed,” she said, pointing at another. “Don’t fear, ladies, though there are clearly trying times to come, I will see us through. Remember to stay vigilant, even more so than usual.”
With that, the Crone headed back to her room. She laid in bed contemplating what this could mean for the future of the school, or the future of witch-kind, for that matter. Not before long, she drifted off, her ongoing inner rambles tired her mind once more. As she fell back into a deep slumber, her dreams of the girl from earlier in the night returned. Only now they were much clearer, and the Crone saw it to be less of a dream and more of a vision. A vision that showed the Crone who would be the witch to save all witches from further trials and tribulations.
A witch named Gweneviere.
CHAPTER 1
Trial by Fire
Nine months later, in a small village north of London.
Gweneviere laid in her bed as her thick, curly, auburn hair swallowed her tatty pillow. The rich colour was a beautiful blend of her mother’s coppery locks and her father’s deep brown coif. She had a pretty face, with a more olive skin tone than most Britons of the time, luscious rosy lips, a cute button nose, and bright, silvery blue eyes. The only thing she lacked was social skills, as her’s were horrific. Watching Gweneviere attempt to make friends was like witnessing a bad improv, with nothing but an awkward silence filling the air. It also didn’t help that when people spoke to Gweneviere, she often found herself getting lost in her own mind – in a self-induced trance from her own thoughts.
The eighteen-year-old beauty stared at the ceiling, contemplating the fairness of her life. Gweneviere was coming into her witch-hood in a time when women were being trialled, or more accurately, publicly murdered for being witches. There was a common misbelief that all witches were malevolent and Satan worshippers. The reality of the situation was that most witches were peaceful creatures who used their magics to provide remedies and services to the local women. This didn’t mean satanic witches didn’t exist. There were indeed some satanic witches who did the dark lord’s work by kidnapping children and bringing about plagues. They were never the ones trialled, though, as they were far too crafty and nefarious to be caught. Instead, the majority of women that were trialled were simply that: mortal women. Women who were strong minded and unlucky enough to sport a birthmark that didn’t sit well with their local pastor.
Platoons of misogynist, incompetent men would scour villages for witches where demonic witchcraft had been present – or areas where the women had become too vocal and independent. They would, under their pastor’s guidance, look for any women who had a mole or birthmark of a certain look or size. Pastors would often try to verify their reasonings with ‘visions’ and ‘messages’ from God that, conveniently, only they could receive. The punishments included being hung or burned at the stake in the town square, and those who were lucky enough to live near a body of water would be drowned. The gruesome test was to drop a tied-up woman into a lake and see if they would sink or swim. Of course, any ordinary women would have passed the test by drowning, therefore too late to be saved. Any witches taking place in the test, however, had a decision to make – free themselves and face being hung or burned alive for proving their identity as a witch, or purposely drown in the hopes their captors might realise what a barbaric practice it was. The only winners of these trials were the sick pastors who profited on growing their following and demonising outspoken women. Also, of course, the satanist witches who could do the Devil’s bidding whilst getting off scot-free.
Gweneviere’s mother was a gorgeous young woman despite having lived for centuries. It was a rare trait amongst witches to have longevity such as hers. The ma
Gweneviere’s mother was a witch who practiced healing magics. She created medicines and remedies for women of the town. She was a modest woman and, in most cases, worked for free or whatever they could afford. She also dabbled in aiding suffering women with certain potions that would tame their abusive husbands. She felt sorry for the women who had such sleazy men for partners, knowing that her own husband would never lay a finger on her. All the women she helped were extremely grateful for her gifts and kept her abilities secret as thanks.
One woman, however, couldn’t keep that secret any longer…
One evening, a man on the other side of the village caught his wife sneaking a potion into his evening supper. He tossed the bowl of food that his wife had slaved for hours making to the ground. He grabbed the poor woman by her hair and dragged her to the open fireplace, where he snatched the fire stoker from its resting position.
“Where the hell did you get that from?” he growled, his spit drenching her face.
“Please, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the poor woman cried, trying her best to play dumb.
“The potion!” He shook her by the hair, causing a lock to come out into his hand. “Where did you get it from?!” he screamed, now foaming at the mouth.
He pulled her face closer to his, so that she could smell the foul mead on his breath. He’d spent all afternoon in the pub after being fired earlier that morning; it was safe to say that she would be the outlet of his anger. He had been holding the iron fire stoker deep into the flames long enough that the tip had become red-hot. He turned her face to it. He didn’t have to say much else, it was pretty clear what his next steps would be.
“No! Please, NO!” she howled, as he shuffled up her dress and pressed the burning metal into her thigh, searing her skin. It practically carved a chunk out of her leg – he had pressed down that hard. Steam and the smell of burning flesh filled the room.
“Now, tell me. Who gave you the potion?” he whispered into his whimpering wife’s ear, as he retightened his grip on her hair.
She reluctantly answered him with a shaky voice and tears flowing down her cheeks. He threw her to the ground and headed out to gather a few of his burly pals to hunt down the witch.
Gweneviere’s mother.
A solitary tear slid down the side of Gweneviere’s face, dropping into her ear as she laid in her bed looking up. She turned onto her side and looked out of her bedroom window to see the night sky void of stars as dark grey clouds blanketed the town. Her father was surely on his way home from work by now, though he often worked late to make enough money to provide for his family. They lived on the edge of town in a farmhouse, with a couple of animals and crops for their own use. There was nothing plentiful enough to be able to sell at the market, therefore her father had to work the long days as a blacksmith. It was worth it to come home to his beautiful wife and daughter, even if he and Gweneviere didn’t always see eye to eye. Alas, tonight, he would only be coming home to Gweneviere.
The reason Gweneviere was so torn up was because she had witnessed her mother’s public execution just a few hours earlier.
Gweneviere and her mother had been browsing the market for some meat for the night’s supper when a swarm of potbellied, balding, toothless men stormed through the market and swept Gweneviere’s mother off her feet. Gweneviere screamed and tried her best to free her, but it was no use as one of the beefy men smacked Gweneviere to the ground.
“MOTHER!” Gweneviere screamed.
The men carried her twenty metres down the road to the stake in the town square. It was surrounded by the town’s most treasured buildings: the church, the town hall and the mayor’s house, where the mayor stood awaiting the show on his balcony. The pastor rushed out from his parish and took charge of the ‘trial’.
“Here, another one of Satan’s foot soldiers. Tell us, honorary gentleman, what are the crimes of this particular wench?” the pastor asked, condemning her.
“She bewitched my wife to slip poison into my broth!” he shouted, slurring his words slightly.
“No, I promise, I didn’t do that. I wasn’t trying to poison anyone. I swear it!” she called out, trying to plead her case to a mob of uneducated men – and women, who were too scared to go against the status quo.
Gweneviere’s mother noticed the woman who had ousted her at the back of the crowd in tears, with a black hood over her head to hide her newly mangled, patchy scalp. Gweneviere’s mother didn’t blame the poor woman as she knew this world wasn’t ready for strong women, though she hoped that Gweneviere would live long enough to see a day where it was.
The mob of ‘townies’, as Gweneviere often referred to them, began to heckle and slander her as she was tied to the stake by the other two idiotic men who had aided in her capture. Gweneviere’s cries became quieter but no less intense. Her mother had spotted her in the crowd and pursed her lips together as if to hush her. Her mother knew they would turn on Gweneviere if she didn’t silence her tears.
Gweneviere’s innate magical talent was control over fire, making her a pyrokinetic witch. What played out next felt like a cruel form of poetry, as her mother was set alight at her feet. Gweneviere watched as her mother’s hair became lost in the roaring flames that engulfed her slim frame. As the tears flowed, Gweneviere couldn’t help but feel angered by her mother’s injustice, but her anger slowly personified itself. The fire that had burned her mother to a crisp began to spread to the surrounding grounds. The townies screamed as they got a taste of their own medicine when a few of their cloaks caught on fire. Gweneviere turned and ran home before her anger got too out of hand and she burned the whole village to the ground.
As her tears continued to soak her pillow, Gweneviere heard the clunky sound of her father’s boots hitting the doorstep. Her father, Harold, was a tall, husky man with a full head of dark brown hair and a fully sculpted jaw line that made all the women who saw him instantly lose their train of thought. He was the seventeenth century equivalent of a DILF, with his large, puffed out, hairy chest and beefy arms. Harold grew up extremely poor, as an only child, whose parents worked their whole life, until they died of a ripe old age of fifty or so. He had learnt his unrivalled blacksmithing skills from his father. Harold, however, wasn’t respected by his employer, and spent most of his days in the very back of the shop whilst the owner’s son worked the market front. The owner’s son was in his twenties and, though his looks brought the ladies in, his blacksmithing ability was far less than average, and he took the glory of adding the easy finishing touches to all of Harold’s pieces. Having spent all day taking shit from his boss and slaving away at the back of the shop for mere pennies, all Harold wanted to do was sit with his family and enjoy a meal expertly cooked by his wife.
Gweneviere heard a knock on her bedroom door, her stomach twisted in knots as she couldn’t comprehend how to break the news to her father.
“Gwen? You in there?” his husky voice carried through the door.
“Yeah,” Gweneviere breathed, as she tried drying her eyes.
He opened the door slowly and, as he entered, asked, “Gwen, where’s your mother?”
Gweneviere sat up in her bed and turned to answer her father, but no words came from her lips, just splutters as she began to sob again. The crevasse of her ears had already been filled with tears from laying down, but now so did the dip in her collarbone as the salty water flowed without break.
