The Pudding Lane Witch, page 4
“Okay, Robbie.” She smiled tightly, trying to go along with his disgusting advances in the hopes he wouldn’t become aggressive.
“Now then, I’ve paid for a room across the road in the whorehouse, but I don’t want any of them dirty skanks, I want pure, fresh, young meat.”
He grinned towards his table of fellow foul-smelling, drunken idiots as he tightened his grip, sliding his hand further down Gweneviere’s waist towards her bum while swigging mead in his other hand. Gweneviere jumped up, not being able to take anymore, causing him to spill his drink everywhere, soaking his crumb filled beard and shirt. As his entourage laughed, Robbie became embarrassed and ultimately, angry. His cheeks flooded red, and his eyes turned to Gweneviere.
“Right, that’s it, wench, you’ve just sealed your fate, get here now!” he roared, his voice filling the whole tavern. “I’m going to take you, and some of my pals here, to teach you a lesson on being a man-honouring woman.”
“Fuck off, Robert. I’m not going anywhere with you, especially not over there,” she shouted back.
Robbie stormed over to her and grabbed the back of her hair with one hand and her waist with the other. He sniffed her sweet scent as he inched closer to her face. He pressed his hard member into her stomach through layers of cloth, but it was still enough to make Gweneviere feel sick inside. She closed her eyes as she wriggled and squirmed in his clutch, too scared to watch what he would do to her next. To her surprise, she felt his small prick pull away from her stomach, and her hair slip through his fingers before he unclamped her waist and she was finally free. She opened her eyes to see her father towering over Robert. He had tapped him on his shoulder, provoking him to turn around.
“Who are you?” Robert slurred. “Me and my missus are about to go and have a good time, aren’t we, lads?” he announced to the whole tavern, causing a few of the men to cheer.
Harold’s jaw clenched so tight it looked like his skin might tear. “You’re not going anywhere with her,” he growled, squaring up to Robert, or rather down, considering Harold was a good foot taller than him.
“What’s it to you, big man?” Robert laughed, looking to his mates cockily.
“She is my daughter.” Harold grinned menacingly, knowing he was about to enjoy kicking the guy’s arse.
Robert swallowed a gulp of saliva, before sobering up slightly in fear.
“Go on, Robbie, you can take him,” his mates shouted.
Robert turned around for a split second to Gweneviere, taking a good look at her breasts, disgustingly thinking that was what he was fighting for, before turning back and sucker-punching Harold in the jaw. Harold’s face flinched slightly by the weak jab. Harold turned back to Robert and spat the blood that filled his mouth in Robert’s face, partially blinding him. Harold then headbutted the man on the nose. He grabbed a disorientated Robert by the wispy bottom of his wet beard and dragged his face to the table, smacking the wood with great force before grabbing the very glass tankard he’d been drinking from and smashing it over his head, rendering the man unconscious. Harold didn’t want to waste punches on such a pathetic man, it wasn’t worth the risk of damaging his skilled blacksmithing hands.
Harold turned to Robert’s mates with a growl, asking, “Well? Anyone else want some?”
As they took one look at Robert’s unconscious, blood-coated, disfigured face flat on the table, they all quietly shook their heads, realising that Robbie was supposed to be the strongest among them.
“Oi, you, out!” the landlady shouted across the tavern at Harold.
“With pleasure. Oh, and consider this my daughter’s resignation,” he shouted back, before grabbing Gweneviere under his muscular arm and walking out.
“Dad, what are you doing? We need that job!” Gweneviere argued, once they were out of sight of the tavern.
“Gwen, I know life isn’t great at the moment—”
“Well, that’s an understatement,” Gweneviere muttered.
“But,” he continued, “I didn’t bring you all the way here, away from those kind of townie men, to be treated like that. I’ll do some extra shifts at work until we can find you a job where you don’t have to be ogled at by filthy men all day.”
“Thanks… Dad.” She smiled, wrapping her arms around his waist, as she squashed her teary-eyed face into his chest.
“You don’t need to thank me. I know I’ve not always been the best dad, but I promise, as long as I’m around, you won’t have to deal with men like that.”
He pressed his lips gently to the top of his daughter’s head as he held her, breathing in the smell of her hair, as if she was still his little baby girl. With their arms around one another, the pair of them walked home to their tiny apartment to figure out how they would find Gweneviere a decent, more wholesome job.
As the weeks went by, Gweneviere was having no luck finding another job. Any other bar work was off the table as word spread about her father’s outburst, and any job that required a slither of intellect was reserved for men, most of whom didn’t even possess the required brain power. Even with her father working any extra shift he could get, they still weren’t making enough to healthily sustain their life in London. Harold was beginning to look gaunt, a look Gweneviere had never seen him sport before, he was always so brawny and strong. Now, though, he was a mere shadow of his former self.
They were starting to get a few weeks behind on paying the rent, and to make matters worse, the plague had hit London. With each passing day, more and more fell ill to the gruesome disease and died. It was spreading like wildfire, thanks to the awful personal hygiene and rampant rat population. With Gweneviere still needing a job, she took it upon herself to try and learn her mother’s remedies. She scanned through her mother’s grimoire so that she might be able to brew and sell some potion as a pain reliever to the plague sufferers. Harold was very set against the idea, fearing that she would meet the same fate as her mother. It was bad enough that the locals were blaming witches for the plague, they didn’t need any more ammo to start another witch hunt. To Gweneviere’s disappointment, she was unable to replicate her mother’s gifts. She felt useless, and struggled to think of what else she could do to help. She felt especially guilty when she heard through the grapevine that witches were immune to the disease. Apparently, the plague was indeed started by a witch, a satanic one though. Some sick devil worshipper that viewed humans as worse than the vermin that ran through the streets. Although Gweneviere wasn’t exactly sympathetic of the mortals, who were so small minded that the slightest odd-looking mole was enough to kill for, she certainly didn’t agree with the way this satanic witch went about solving the problem. It only fed and supported the mortal’s fearmongering.
As more weeks passed, men, women, and children were dropping like flies in the streets. There were many buildings boarded up and branded as plagued houses. The quarantine only did half the job, though, as people at the time hadn’t realised that the witch had spread the plague through fleas that lived on the millions of rats in the city.
Gruesomely, Gweneviere’s father had gotten a promotion due to his predecessor falling victim to the plague. The extra pay also came with extra work and Harold became weaker and more tired each day that went by. Gweneviere had to help clean and clothe him most days, which was the least she could do under the circumstances.
One day, on his way home from work, Harold spotted a job advertisement in a window for a bookkeeper. He couldn’t wait to return home to tell Gweneviere about it. Upon opening the door, he called out for Gweneviere to tell her the exciting news. He knew his bright daughter would be more than smart enough for the job.
“Gwen?” he shouted, as soon as he opened the door.
“Yes, Dad?” she called from the bedroom.
Harold closed the door behind him and, before he could take another step, he dropped like a sack of potatoes. The loud thud that ensued grabbed Gweneviere’s attention and she ran into the living space. She entered to see her father lying face down on the floor. She used all of her might to flip him over onto his back, and as she did, his shirt ripped slightly, revealing part of his chest.
“Dad! Dad, can you hear me?” she shouted, before noticing that his flesh was covered in boils and scabs. He had asked her the past few days to allow him to wash and dress himself, she did think that it was weird at the time, but now it made sense. He was trying to hide that he had the plague. “Dad, what have you done?” she cried into his chest.
Without hesitation she conjured up a fire ball and slung it into the dainty fireplace, causing it to roar to life. She swiftly filled a large pot with water and placed it on the fire. She dragged him as close to the fire as she could before stripping him of his shirt. She soaked a cloth in the now warm water before gently brushing it along his sores, trying her best to clean them and soothe the pain. Once she had finished cleaning him, she placed a pillow beneath his head and laid beside him in the hopes he would soon awaken.
An hour or two later, he finally woke.
“Dad, are you okay?”
“Yeah, I think so,” he replied, dazed, and having forgotten about the job that he was so excited to tell her about.
“Why didn’t you tell me you had the plague?” she asked.
“Because I knew you’d want me to stay home so you could look after me, but if I don’t go to work, we’ll be out on the streets in no time,” he confessed, wheezing.
“Yes, but, if you carry on like this… well, you’re going to die. You need to stay home at least for a few days to try and allow your body to fight through it and heal. I will scour Mum’s spell book again until I find something to help, okay?”
“Fine, you’ve got two days, then I’m going back to work,” he agreed stubbornly.
“Now, here, I made you something to eat,” she said, holding out a bowl of broth.
“I’m not hungry.”
“Dad, you need to eat something,” she demanded, acting as if their parent-child relationship had been reversed.
“Ugh fine, it’s just that… you didn’t exactly inherit your mother’s cooking skills, either.” He sat up, chuckling, before the pain crippled him back to reality, and the floor.
“If you weren’t on your deathbed right now, I’d slap you,” she lovingly joked. “Now, eat your slop and get some rest.”
Gweneviere spent the rest of the night examining every inch of her mother’s texts in search for a cure, or even just something to boost his energy to help him fight off the violent disease. Late into the night, Gweneviere pried her eyes open in order to keep researching. Finally, she stumbled on something that she believed would help. Gweneviere leapt from her bed to tell her father the good news.
Still asleep, bless him, she thought to herself as she entered the room and saw him cosied up to the fire. She leant down beside him and began to gently shake him awake. “Dad, wake up, I think I can help.”
After there was no response, Gweneviere tried again and again, but as her father remained silent, she became more vigorous with her shaking before she placed her ear to his chest.
“No, Dad, please don’t leave me,” she sobbed into his chest, but the only response was a faint echo of her own voice in the otherwise silent room. “Dad, please, I need you. I’m not ready to be alone, I can’t do this.”
But she was too late. Her father had passed.
Gweneviere sat there with her head on his chest as the tears dripped onto his stomach. What would she do? She had no one.
Gweneviere wanted nothing more than to give her father the dignity that he deserved in death, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to do so. There would be no funeral, no eulogy, not even his own grave. She didn’t even truly have time to mourn. She knew she couldn’t get any help with disposing of his body: if she told one of the watchmen or searchers, they might suspect her to be a witch for lack of the disease being prevalent in her. Even if they didn’t suspect her of being a witch, she would have gotten into trouble for not notifying them in the first place as any house with a plagued person would’ve been sealed, with her in it.
Her mother burned and father soon to be tossed into a pit of rotten corpses. How had her life come to this? A year ago she would have been frolicking in the spring meadows near their home, and now she was devising a plan to dispose of her father’s remains.
Gweneviere, instead, had to do the unthinkable, and in the cover of night no less. She had to dispose of her father’s body. She reluctantly sneaked him onto one of the plague carts which, come sunrise, would ship all of the bodies on board out to the nearest mass plague pit. She’d found a spell in her mother’s book to aid her in transporting his hefty body. Even though he had become much scrawnier in the past few weeks, his height alone made him too heavy and awkward for Gweneviere to manoeuvre. It broke her heart to leave her father alone in death – no one deserved that, especially him.
Upon returning to her home, she sat in the spot where he had passed and lit a candle with her finger. She sat silently in a lonely vigil, promising her parents that their deaths wouldn’t be in vain, that she would make something of herself and make them proud.
Two weeks after Harold’s passing, Gweneviere was evicted by the landlord, as the last of her father’s earnings had dried up and he had never managed to tell her about that job that he was so excited by. Gweneviere was all alone in London and had nowhere to go.
Well, that wasn’t completely true, she had one place she could go. The Crone’s school.
CHAPTER 3
Back to School
Though Gweneviere despised the place and its ideologies, the Crone’s school was her only option. Her father had worked so hard for her to have a second chance at life, and in honour of his memory, she couldn’t waste it. So she put her grievances aside and went back to the school in the hopes they’d at the very least provide a roof over her head.
She once again walked through the dreaded street, knocked on the door, and waited for one of the witches to appear.
Sensing who was at the door, the Crone answered herself. She opened it while donning her hooded robe and hid half her body behind the door. “Back already, are we?” she croaked, sarcastically.
“Yes,” Gweneviere sighed. “My father has passed from the plague, and now… now I have nowhere else to go.” She broke down, inconsolable – not that it would do her any good to cry. The Crone wasn’t the caring type.
“I’ll allow you to stay, if you take our classes and keep an open mind to what we do here,” the Crone proposed.
“Yes, I can do that.” Gweneviere thanked her appreciatively as she sniffed and tried to wipe her eyes. In all honesty, she was just glad to have a bed to sleep in.
“Right, very well. I’m not one to hold a grudge. Follow me, then, and I’ll show you to your room.”
Gweneviere followed in the Crone’s footsteps, to a bedroom with four single beds inside, three of which had been made up and one laid bare, with just a mattress seemingly made of straw.
“First things first. All of the girls here make their own beds and are expected to clean their linens every Friday. Understood?”
“Er yes, Ms Crone,” Gweneviere answered shakily, uncertain what she should call her.
“Ahh yes, we shall nip that in the bud now. To the outside world I am known as the Crone, not a name that I appointed myself or am particularly fond of. Nevertheless, it was the name that was given to me by the lovely citizens of London. To the girls who reside within these walls, however, I am known as Matriarch. You are now forever a part of my flock, and may confide in me, but you will always refer to me as Matriarch, and you will not question my final say on any matter.”
“Yes, Matriarch.” Gweneviere paused, then asked warily, “May I ask how they have not discovered your magic after all the years of residing here?”
“Well, you see, Gweneviere, I can control minds. That was my natural born talent, as yours is pyrokinesis. Unfortunately, I can only control that of mortals, as a witch’s mind is too strong. Strangely, though, I did attempt to do so with your father on that first day, but it didn’t work. Hence why I raised my voice, I believe your mother must have reinforced his mind years ago to protect him from anyone with gifts such as mine. Perhaps she was a better witch than I originally gave her credit for. Anyway, to answer your question, if someone ever cottoned on to me or one of my girls, a quick chat with me and I could make them forget all about it.”
“I see, and does anyone know your real name?” Gweneviere asked, out of interest.
“No one that’s not already dead,” the Crone replied, ominously.
It was quite obvious that the Crone’s life hadn’t been an easy one and she had clearly lost loved ones just like Gweneviere, though the Crone hoped that Gweneviere would one day become more powerful than herself, much more.
“Right, now then, make yourself comfortable. Supper will be at seven in the food hall, and if you get lost just ask one of your dormmates. I’m sure you’ll get on like a house on fire.” She croaked a laugh at the unintended pun. “I’ll have one of them bring your designated bed linens shortly. You may wear your own garments during the day, however, at evening meals and other occasions you are to wear a dress made of your own volition. Girls are expected to make these in their down time and, once completed, must be vetted by myself or one of the other senior tutors. If it does not meet the high standard in which we set, then you will have to revisit the garb until it is satisfactory. In the meantime, I’ll also have the girls provide you with a dress that the juniors wear while they make their dresses.”
