Here is a little story about the perils of Black Magic!

I was in the middle of my lunch when I was called by a human, using a pentacle. He had got everything correct or I would not have appeared. I live in a very technically advanced culture and find human beings very irritating!

He had made the pentacle extremely strong so I could not get at him to rip him in two. I was twice the size of the upstart, but there I was, stuck.

"What do you want, human?" I asked.

The idiot danced up and down in a jig of satisfaction and said, "You can give me my youth back. I want to be back into my early twenties!"

"I can do that," I replied, "but I will have to return to my world to do so."

"If I let you do that you will not return, so what will make you come back?"

"The pentacle, you fool opens a doorway into my world. It will only stay open for a while, say a thousand years of my time and I do not want a hole in my house for that length of time. So you must give me your word that you will rub out the lines after I give you what you have asked for!"

The human thought for a bit and then agreed. So I returned to my home and found what I was looking for. My lunch had gone cold and dead so was not worth saving and that added to my bad humour.

I reappeared in the pentacle and tossed the item to him.

"These pants are made from indestructible cloth so it will last for thousands of years and it will keep you young. Try them on," I suggested.

The idiot did that and was amazed to find himself no longer a silver haired balding, fat old man, but a handsome young man in the peak of fitness.

He danced around his room with joy and snuffed out the candles of the pentacle, scrubbing out the marks on the floor.

I considered eating him there and then, but I felt that my gift would give me more satisfaction as it was.

I returned to my world and made sure that my lunch would not be interrupted again, but not before I enjoyed listening to his howl of anguish when he discovered what would happen if he removed them!. I wondered just how much excrement and urine he would be willing to carry around with himself before he took them off!

The Haunted Lock.

 The Haunted Lock.

All across England there is a network of canals, most of them still navigable, but many of them had fallen into disrepair. Many years ago I fished the canal as a teenager on the stretches that still had water in them. There was one lock that we fished nearby during the day, but in the evening we tended to avoid without knowing why.

As the years went by, the full length of the Kennet and Avon canal was restored and boat traffic recommenced and in my later years I had the chance to buy a narrow boat called the Hilary Jane. She was forty-four feet long and could be turned on the odd spots where the canal was just wide enough to dig the nose into one side and turn the boat without grounding it. I returned to the areas that I fished as a teenager and explored mile after mile of the canal system. My mooring was at a village known as Great Bedwyn and was next to a winding hole, so turning was no problem there.

Having a chat in the local public house, known as the ‘Cross Keys;’ I chanced to hear about a tragedy that had happened long before I had fished on that canal. It was some time in the early sixties when the canal was derelict and not used.

It was during the summer holidays and the children of the village would play by the disused canal, which has now been restored to its former beauty. One day, some bigger children from the village were walking along the very overgrown towpath to see what the younger children were doing. They could hear the noise that they were making some way off. The younger children had found in the long grass a very old windless. This was used to open the paddles to the lock gates to let in the water and fill it, so that the boats could continue on their way up and down the canal with their loaded cargo.

The younger children were not strong enough to use the windless, as the locks had not been used for some years. This one had fallen into disrepair. One of the older boys who was stronger than the others, said that he could wind down the old paddles and fill the lock. The younger children thought this was a great idea. They had some trouble getting the back gates to move to close the lock, but once they began to give, it was quite easy. Once unstuck, they moved quite easily.  Soon both back doors were closed, with the paddles down. Now the front paddles could be undone and the lock rapidly filled to a depth of twelve feet. It was a very hot summer’s day and the curious cows had come to the fence to see what the noise was about! In just a few minutes the derelict lock was full and the fun could begin.

All the children took off their cloths and began to jump into the lock for a swim and to cool off. The bigger children kindly helped the smaller ones in and out of the water. Running down the side of the lock was a rusty steel ladder used by the boaters when they were inside the lock to get in and out.

The children were using this ladder and as their confidences grew they used it more and more to jump in and to climb out of the lock. No one saw that the ladder was coming away from the side of the wall, until it was too late. A terrifying scream was heard from a small boy as it gave way. One of the smaller children who couldn’t swim very well had swung out on the ladder and it had come away from the wall and trapped his foot. The rusty ladder sank, taking the boy to the bottom. He vanished into the cloudy water.

The water in the lock was very deep and gloomy; all the children were screaming, “Do something!”

One of the larger boys jumped in to try and find him, but could not as it was too deep and dark. The young boy’s older brother jumped in as well to try and see if he could find him even though he was not a good swimmer and he to disappeared into the depths. The story ended with both brothers drowning in the lock, one by accident and one through bravery on that beautiful summer’s day many years ago.

This is now a lovely part of the restored canal and a very nice place to moor a boat on a summer evening to chat over tea and biscuits. I was short walk along the tow-path to the pub in the village for a cold drink of beer. Most people, however, get very uneasy towards the late evening at this part of the canal. It gets a little colder than the other parts and very gloomy under the trees. When it’s pleasant or seasonally cool on the rest of the canal this part is icy with an eerie chill.

Boaters have told each other of strange things that happen at night in that area, when the boats are moored up. They hear scratching noises under the hull and the boats move as if something has climbed aboard! Sometimes a child is heard crying in the darkness and a feeling of misery and loneliness fills the soul. A feeling of being watched through the windows on the canal side comes over people. The boat starts to smell of a damp and musty scent as if something has decayed under the floorboards, but most frightening of all are the small wet footprints on the deck and roof. Small handprints appear on the windows and sometimes the ropes are untied and the boats drift off in the darkness.

Boaters seldom moor there twice!

I scoffed at this story and decided that I would moor up just upstream of the lock as good fishing could be had during the dawn at that place. As the evening dipped towards darkness I found that I was not alone. There was nothing I could see and nothing I could touch, but that feeling of being watched by mischievous eyes persisted. I switched on the lights inside the boat and went inside to brew a coffee. Suddenly the boat dipped towards the canal side and I felt someone come aboard, followed by something lighter. I know that I heard a giggle from the bow and childish whispering. There was a bump from the roof as a child climbed up and again the boat rocked. I suddenly realised that both ropes had been undone from the mooring pins and I made my way quickly aft. I switched on the headlight and could see that I was now in mid-canal as I stood upon the hold. Frantically my finger searched for the start button and pressed it home.

That rapidly fired up the diesel engine and I felt the propeller bite and push me forwards. In the torchlight I could plainly see a double row of wet foot-prints making their way towards me along the steel roof. There was nothing to see above those prints of heels and toes, but I knew that two children were there.

My mouth ran dry as they stopped halfway towards me. I could smell the musty smell of old water and bones and gagged on that stench. The boat surged forwards and I had the presence of mind to haul in the rope at my end so it did not foul the propeller. I must have taken the boat out of their ghostly range as two splashes into the canal from that midway point caused the water to ripple and the waves of their entry could be seen. I heard the sound of childish laughter from the dark waters and pushed the engine hard causing an illegal wash to spread the banks.

I soon came to where the other boats were tied up along the tow-path with lights shining and managed to find a space big enough to moor up with a spare set of mooring pins. As far as I was concerned the old pins could stay where they were, at least until the sun was well up!

After a while my heart slowed down and I sat under the starlight wondering just what had I seen and experienced? Whatever now had possession of the lock was not wicked, but more mischievous, as a child would be frozen in time. Like many narrow-boat owners I never moored in that spot again. I promised myself that a malt whiskey at the Cross Keys would suit me fine and I had a tale to tell!

The following day I visited the graveyard where they lay and added some flowers to the untidy heap on the dual mounds. I knew they were not there, because I had been where those restless spirits still played.

Barry E Woodham.

 

The picture on the wall.

I first noticed the two pictures over forty years ago, when I first started to court my wife. They hung on the front bedroom wall at my in-laws house. They were both the same scene of a seaside view, one of a boy and the other of a girl of about eight years old. The figures were close up and behind them was a cliff with a calm sea washing along a sandy beach. They were both stood, looking straight out at you, cut off from the waist. By the clothes that they both wore I would have said that they were from the nineteen thirties. The colours were softly depicted and not distinct and the style of the paintings or prints was not something that struck out at the eye.

They were part of my wife’s childhood and had hung in her bedroom all the time that she had lived with her parents. She had never liked the pictures and declined to say why. That was until our own children had grown up enough to stay with their grandparents for the odd weekend. We had three boys that grew up and finally left home to make homes of their own. Each of them stayed with Janet’s mother and father many times over the years of their childhood. My mother-in-law was a north-country woman with little patience for imagination and nighttime fears. She was kind and a good grandmother whose baking was a triumph, but her mind was closed to certain things. My boys loved to stay and always looked forwards to the Christmas celebrations.

When the inevitable happened and my wife and I had to depose of their estate we tried to give each son something to remember them by. We eventually arrived at the disposal of the two pictures. I asked if any of them would like one of these childhood memories. The all shuddered and declined.

When I asked why, they looked at each other and replied that the pictures were strange.

“The boy moves, when you are not looking at him,” said my youngest son who is in his early thirties.

“His arms move and he points at you,” my eldest stated flatly.

“The girl’s head turns and she stares at you,” said my middle son who is father to two girls.

I turned to my wife and looked her in the eyes and I asked her, “Did this happen to you when you were a little girl?”

She smiled and nodded, “Yes, all the years I lived there. Some times they would whisper to each other. I never could quite make out just what they were saying. I would hide under the bedclothes and close my eyes tightly.”

“Did you not tell your mother?” I asked.

“You know what she was like. No, even when I grew up we could never talk about such things. She had a closed mind.”

I wrapped the two pictures in newspaper and put them away in a drawer and that is where they still lie to this day.

This is a true story!

The Cellar.

 

The Pub was not particularly old. It had been built over the foundations of another drinking house and dated back to the origins of the village. The only part of the Pub that was really old was the cellar. This underground room was clad with slabs of grey stone that had been so well built that there was not a trace of mortar between them. So tight were the slabs that not so much as a cigarette paper could be slid between them anywhere over the walls.

The flagstones on the floor were just as well placed and showed centuries of wear as generations of publicans had walked the floor to empty the barrels that were stored down here. A chute had been replaced many times at one end that had an opening to the road outside where the beer was delivered. Horse drawn carriers had stopped here over the years while the draymen had wrestled the barrels down the chute and into the cellar. Summer or winter the temperature never varied down here, it was as cold as a grave.

Amanda had always had an uneasy feeling when she went down the ladder into the depths of the cellar to change a barrel over. She felt watched! It was a certainty that apart from her, the cellar was empty. Never the less there were times that she just knew that there was someone behind her. No matter how quickly she turned, she never glimpsed a sight of the watching presence. But ---- she knew that she was not alone.

It was the middle of the after-noon and the dinnertime drinking session had closed. One of the pumps had begun to stutter, showing that down in the cellar a barrel was approaching empty. She would have to go down there and undo the pipes, flush them through and connect to another cask. Amanda was on her own as the children were being collected from school by her husband, as it was a short day at school, due to half term. She pulled the ring on the trapdoor and the cantilevered flap opened easily to show the yawning hole down into the cellar. She turned round to switch on the light and climb down the cellar stairs.

As always the chill of the cellar hit the tops of her legs as she climbed down, leaving the warmth of the pub behind her. The hairs on her arms stood up as goose bumps popped up between her wrist and elbows. Once again she could feel the watcher behind her as she reached the bottom of the stairs.

This time she felt all of her suppressed fear bubble to the top and she cried out, “I know that you are there. What do you want?”

A whisper scurried about her and answered, “Peace!”

As she stood stock still, she felt a bony hand upon her shoulder and almost wet herself with fear. Shuddering with suppressed terror she turned to at last see the watcher from the darkness and saw a young girl just visible in the light of the single lamp.

The girl could be no older than fourteen as she was just developing a figure. She was dressed in dark clothes with a broad white collar around her neck and shoulders. Amanda’s motherly instincts overwhelmed her and pity replaced the fear. The child’s long blond hair fell all about her back and chest. There were no ribbons in her hair or any adornments to her dress. The eyes that stared beseechingly at hers were light blue in colour and without malice. She was just tall enough to reach Amanda’s chin and stood in the full light of the cellar lamp, casting no shadow.

The child leaned forward and clasped her hand and the cellar vanished. She found herself outdoors, stood in front of a small cottage at the side of a country lane. There was no trace of the road or the pub to be seen. Behind the cottage was a field that was planted with various food crops, laid out in rows. Amanda could see rows of potatoes with the green shades of cabbages and beans climbing sticks, cut from the hedgerows. Rough curtains of sacking were shading the inside of the cottage from the warm summer sun. A woman was picking raspberries from the front garden helped by a young child. It was the girl that had brought her to this place. She was much younger than the pale shade she had met in the cellar.

While the mother of the child was busy gathering the fresh red fruit, the little girl held up her hand and a robin flew out of the hedge and landed onto her outstretched hand. She whistled bird cries to the nervous creature and listened to its returned cries.

The child turned to her mother and said, “Father is coming!”

With a whitened face, her mother answered, “Martha! Stop doing that. Cast the bird away from you. Say nothing to your father about it.”

She stood straight and fearful and watched the lane that wandered down from the village. Sure enough, soon she could see the top of her husband’s head as it topped the hedge. She wrung her hands in despair and worry as she saw the others with him. The robin fled into the field behind the cottage and roosted among the ivy growing around the stone stumps of the remains of the old abbey.

Amanda was aware of the elfin touch of the child’s hand in hers as she watched the group of people approach the cottage. It was obvious that they could not see the two of them, as the father led the way to the front door. Their clothes were dark with white collars around the necks. From watching various historical films, Amanda realised that they were dressed in the style of the puritans some four hundred years ago. She was viewing events that had taken place a long time ago. One of them carried a large black book that could only be a bible. He was dressed in much finer garments than the others who walked with him.

His face was full of anger as he pointed at the young girl and said, “Is this the ungodly child?”

The mother’s face drained of what little colour she had as she cried out to the small group, “She is not ungodly! Please remember that she is a little girl of no more than ten summers!”

“Do you take it upon yourself to argue with me, the very word of God? Let us go inside, out of the heat of the sun and I will decide what is to be,” the minister replied.

The grip of the child tightened and the days flashed forwards to another time when the child was several years forward. Amanda watched with amazement as Martha called the deer from the wood at the edge of the field to her side. She whistled birdsong and a small flock of nuthatches and great-tits flew around her head. Some perched upon her outstretched fingers and continued to sing to her. Amanda could see that the child was making the change into puberty and becoming a young woman.

At the edge of the field, on the other side of the hedge, were a group of village children watching her. Their eyes were full of fear and they were silent as they watched. Martha turned and stared at where they were hidden and sent the birds to see who watched her. At this the children fled screaming with terror.

A still quiet voice whispered in Amanda’s mind, “I meant them no harm. All I wanted was to be friends!”

It was several days later and this time the mob that approached the cottage were not bent on mercy. Leading them was the minister holding a crucifix in front of him to ward off the evil eye. Torches of fire lit the way through the dusk to the cottage.

 “Bring her out John! Bring out the young witch and we will do God’s will,” the minister cried.

“Have mercy, Minister Ezra! She is but a young girl, barely into her teens. What harm has she done to any of you? You said years ago that she was just a young girl with an affinity with animals. She is no danger,” Martha’s father implored.

Someone from the back shouted out, “She is no danger now. What danger will she be when she becomes a woman and calls Satan’s black imps into the village?”

“Give her up John, or we will set your home alight!”

Now Martha’s mother, Elisabeth begged them from the doorway, “Please don’t do this terrible thing. You are killing a child, for God’s sake. She has attended church with you all ever since she could walk the distance. Would the Devil’s child be able to do that?”

“The Devil is ever the deceiver, Elisabeth. Bring her out or die with her in the purifying flames that will take her soul to the Lord,” shouted the minister.

A rustling in the trees around the cottage made the crowd look up and gasp with fear. Hundreds of birds had gathered onto the lower branches and were calling in distress. Swooping down from the skies came hundreds of bats that tangled themselves in the hair of those that were hatless. A stag walked into view tossing his antlers and lowering them to charge followed by several more. The farm horse and dog also appeared to menace the crowd.

“So be it,” cried the minister and tossed his flaming torch onto the thatched roof.

At that action many more followed, with some kept to ward off the gathering animals. The dry thatch soon caught alight and the heat built up around the building. Soon the animals scattered, as Martha lost control when the roof fell into the bedrooms. The crowd watched as the cottage continued to burn in the late evening and the walls caved in.

They waited until first light to see that all was destroyed and there was no chance of the family escaping. When the ruins had cooled down enough to search them the men sifted through the smouldering heaps for the bones. They soon found John and Elisabeth’s charred remains and kept them separate to be buried in the churchyard. In the remains of the kitchen they found the small bones of a child soon to be a young woman. These they kept separate and put them in a sack and left them by the front doorway.

The scene blurred and Amanda found herself in a churchyard watching as the congregation buried the remains of John and Elisabeth. Once the ceremony was over, the group walked away. Some of them made their way back to the ruins of the cottage. They swept the rubbish away from the kitchen floor and found the slab that covered the cellar. This had once been part of an abbey that had been sacked by Henry the eighth. Many of the stones had been used locally in the building of the village and the cottage had been built over the cellar that had been constructed by the monks. As they lifted the slab, the vision blurred and once more Amanda found herself back in the cellar at the present day.

The child released her hand and beckoned Amanda to the corner of the cellar where old worn-out things had been stacked. From the state of the rotten wood that was underneath the sacks, nothing had moved here for a very long time. The little girl pointed to the corner and faded away. Ignoring her wet state Amanda pulled the accumulated rubbish away from the stonework and brushed the flagstone clean. She retreated to the shelves at the other end of the cellar to pick up the big torch that was always kept there and returned to the forgotten corner. There she knelt down and wiped the stonework clean until she could just make out old lettering chiselled into the stone.

Amanda placed her finger and traced the first letters of the first word. There was a large Y and a small e together. Next she found a letter s with an h the rest of the letters obscured. Gradually other letters began to be discernable and she spelt out the words ‘suffer’ and ‘live’ at the end of the inscription. Amanda tried to make out the letters in the middle of the tablet and realised that the word seemed to be something ‘itch’. As she ran her finger over the large letter at the front she suddenly understood what the inscription was telling her.

Ye shalt not suffer a Witch to live.

Amanda was looking at a tombstone and she was sure that she knew what lay under it! With a sense of mounting horror she withdrew from the corner with the promise in her mind that she would return with a spade and her husband. Amanda quickly climbed the stairs and changed her clothes upstairs in her bedroom. There she waited for her husband to return with her children.

When he returned she told him everything and they both went down into the cellar and removed the flagstone with the inscription. Underneath they found the delicate charred bones of a child. These were buried in the local cemetery in the same grave that John and Elisabeth had been interred, with a service held by the local vicar, attended by Amanda and her husband.

After this, she never felt watched again when she changed over the barrels in the cellar.

 

Barry E Woodham.

April 2009.

 

The House in the Wood

by Barry Woodham

I had been on my own for a long time. My children had settled down with families of their own and lived their own lives, as families do. I still saw them all from time to time, but now that Marie had passed over some twelve years gone, I tended to wander the country on various tours. Booking up in a Bed and Breakfast was easier for one, than for two and once more I felt the urge to travel.

For some time I felt pulled towards where I had lived as a boy. Just recently I had constantly dreamed of a place that I had long forgotten. This was a place where I had played as a young boy, before my father had moved our family on, in his need for work. I must have been about seven or eight when we moved. It was after that I changed schools and learned to live in a town and forgot about my secret place in the country. My younger brother and sister had come into my life just before we moved. They had never been included in my solitary wanderings in the old wood at the edge of the village where we lived.

It took some time before I could find a way of getting to my boyhood village. It took a train journey and two bus rides before I found myself, case in hand at the door of the Old Kings’ Rest, country inn. Fortunately they did not seem to mind letting a room to an old man who on his own and the meals were good, as I found out.

“How long will you need the room for, Mr. Bridges?” asked the innkeeper as he read my signature in the guest book. “Will you be staying over the Christmas?”

“Yes, about a week or so,” I replied. “I used to live here when I was a small boy, maybe more than seventy years ago. I used to play in the wood at the edge of the village. Is it still there?”

“Oh yes; it’s still there for the moment.”

“Why for the moment?”

“The usual thing; - development with more houses in the new year,” he replied sadly. “There are a lot of us who do not want the wood to go. You are lucky it’s still here after such a long time.”

I went to bed saddened and determined that I would walk through the village to the wood on the following morning. That night I dreamed again of the old wood and the secret place that I had found, as a very young boy. There was something else waiting for me, but I could not remember just what it was. All that I knew was that once it was a happy place. It was so long ago and yet now it seemed like yesterday. I had spent many days there with a packed lunch, in those far off days of innocence. My mother knew that I was not far away, as the wood was at the edge of the garden. A footpath passed by and she was content that I was safely out of the way, whilst she busied herself with the chores that mothers do!

As I dozed off I heard my name quite clearly, just once.

“Martin,” a small child whispered in my ear. “Hurry up and find me. She is here with me.”

I sat up and looked round the room. It was quite empty! I settled my-self down and cuddled my blankets around me.

After a restless sleep I woke that Christmas-eve morning, trying to remember the dreams I had during the night. My whole body was filled with a sense of urgency and my mind would not settle. Breakfast was soon over and it was time to start my walk back into memory lane. The aches and long accustomed pains of this old body of mine seemed to diminish as I made towards the door.

“Will you be back for lunch, Mr. Bridges or would you like a packet of sandwiches to take with you?” the innkeeper asked.

“Thanks. I will take your offer of the sandwiches. I move slower these days and I may not be back in time for lunch. I shall be in the woods up by the cottage.”

I had remembered at that very moment where I was going. At my reply the innkeeper shot me a puzzled look, as I quickly walked through the door.

I thought I heard him say to himself, “What cottage?” as I closed the door.

I walked down the road towards where my increasingly better memory told me I should go. My parent’s old house was still the last one in the road and next to it was the wood. As I stopped and stared, it looked smaller somehow. The footpath was still there running down the side of the garden and I made my way along it. Some way into the wood, well away from the road I at last came to my secret place.

Shrouded amongst the ancient trees and hunched against the cold weather, was the old derelict thatched cottage. It had been here long before I was born and had not been lived in for longer than that. I walked up the weedy unkempt path and pushed open the front door. To my surprise it opened easily.

Once again I looked into the darkened hallway and the years slid away. As I walked in I gazed in renewed wonder at the polished and carved wooden panels that made up the walls. Friendly smiling faces looked back at me with wooden smiles. This was a happy place. Open doors led off from the hall and showed low ceiling rooms, held aloft by great wooden beams. From the shuttered windows, a watery sunshine made its way through the chinks in the boards, illuminating the old wooden furniture.

I walked through the hall to the kitchen, boards creaking beneath my feet. A blackened Aga dominated one wall and a pump was situated by the window, next to a bucket. Cooking utensils hung from iron hooks hammered into the beams. A lone saucepan sat over a hole in the cooking range. It was as if I had stepped back in time to when the cottage had been lived in and then I realised that there was very little dust to be seen. The inside of the house was clean and kept tidy and did not reflect the age of the outside at all!

“You came! I knew you would. I told her you would if I called,” a child’s voice said clearly from behind me.

I turned round and there stood looking up at me was my secret friend from long ago, Amelia. Hours we had spent together in my childhood. She had been my dearest friend; - my first love. Stood by her side was another girl that I did not at first recognise and then I realised.

“Marie!” I gasped and walked towards her and looked into her dear face at her own level, leaving the empty husk on the soiled kitchen floor in the ruined house. Outside the ruins, the wind began to blow gusts of rain against the few stones left standing. Now and again childish laughter could be heard as the birds tugged at the packaging around the discarded sandwiches.

©2012 Barry Woodham. All rights reserved. Do not use or reproduce without permission. 

The Touch

by Barry Woodham

The first time I felt the cold touch of death, was when I knelt down by the entrance of the churchyard to tie a loose shoelace. I had climbed the steep hill and was out of breath. A small child from behind a twisted gravestone was watching me intently. I straightened up and saw that it was a thin, lightly clothed girl. There was something not quite right about her and I could not reason just what it was.

Just then a bitter breeze rustled the dead leaves around my feet and I realised just how cold it was. The black iron railings were white with frost along the front of the graveyard and the unkempt grass along the path to the church, were also decked in tiny fingers of ice. The little girl had no coat upon her scrawny shoulders and as she moved away from behind the old, lichen covered headstone, no shoes! As I met her gaze I found myself looking into two black pits where I expected her eyes to be.

I stumbled in shock, looked away and she was no longer there. I walked inside the open gates to where she had stood and shivered in apprehension. There was no imprint in the bright frosty grass and no sign that she had ever been there. The poor gravestone she had stood behind was dedicated to a J, something and his wife, who had departed this life more than a hundred years ago. The oldest graves at the churchyard were the in front of the church and situated along the pathway. This headstone had worn away with the years of neglect and the fact that it was of a cheap, soft, stone.

I turned towards the church and wondered whom she might have been and why she had made herself known to me? The entrance of the church had been decorated with the usual Nativity scene, just inside the front set of doors that had been left open. Behind these, was the internal set of carved heavy doors that led to the inside of the church. There had been something about the child that had stuck with me in our fleeting encounter. She was in need! What she wanted I could not even guess, only that it was something that I knew that I alone could help her with.

On some strange impulse, I walked up to the entrance to this gathering place of the faithful. It was the usual cold and grey-stone building, with little welcome to such as I, as I was not of a religious bent. Never the less, I could appreciate that those who were would like to come here and congregate together. I had been in such places as a child, driven there by my parents’ belief and knew enough about these buildings to know my way around. I opened the large carved doors and went inside.

The child was there, waiting for me. Once more those dark pits, where eyes should be, fixed me with a cold longing. She beckoned and I entered, closing the doors behind me. The inside of the church lit up as I did so, with the flickering light of hundreds of candles. Most of the pews were full of kneeling people who were following the prayer recited by the priest in his pulpit, in total obedience. They were dressed in clothes from a bygone age. My ghost child had gone; to be replaced by a living girl dressed poorly and in the company of similar children, all sat at the back of the church.

I guessed that these were the orphans of the parish. They were life’s unwanted and they were sat with a well-dressed couple of women, who looked as if they had never been hungry in their life. Sat at the end of the row was a fat, red faced man dressed in tightly fitted clothes and fancy lace cuffs to his sleeves. He carried a whippy cane in his tight stubby fingers and a three cornered hat. As he followed the preacher’s empty words he flexed the instrument of pain as if anticipating future usage.

None of them could see me!

The little girl could. This time, eyes of deep brown looked beseechingly at mine.

Her mouth framed the words, “Help us!”

Now all of the children became aware of me, stood just inside the door and they showed no fear. It was as if I had been expected. Each face shone with hope and I knew that somehow I had to be connected to their salvation.

The congregation got off their knees and stood to receive their blessing from the priest, before they braved the cold winds blowing outside the churchyard. These few children were not dressed for the cold and I could see that they were not looking forwards to the journey back to the parish orphanage. The people from the front pews were the first to exit the church and strode away without a backward glance at the cold and hungry boys and girls sat at the back. Although money clinked into the collecting box, none was offered to those whose duties lay with the children. I had an object lesson here of the parable of the rich man and the eye of the needle. It was apparent to me that these people were quite oblivious to the suffering of these young boys and girls. I mused on the facts that this religion taught the tale of a warm and compassionate god that in real life had not one wit of benevolence, bestowed onto the needy.

This ghost of the little girl on this cold and bitter Christmas Eve had somehow pulled me out of my time, to change the series of events that had terminated that poor child’s life. She had looked for me, found me and brought me back to alter the past. I knew that this night or the next, the little girl would die, cold and hungry if I did nothing. Others of her little group would follow over the years.

“Well,” I thought, “I would see about that.”

The children were the last to leave and huddled into the clothes that they had against the bitter wind that blew around the cold stone tombstones of the churchyard. The fat man raised his cane to induce a little more speed from the group in venturing out of the shelter of the doorway. In my anger, I reached forwards and wrenched it from his chubby fingers, snapping the cane in two. I could touch these people, even though they could not see me! The fat man’s eyes almost popped from their sockets as the broken cane was hurled into the night. There would be more to come! I marshalled the dark powers of death and pinched him by his earlobe. He shrieked once, like a kicked pig and ran out into the night, holding his ear and leaving the two women staring after him in shocked surprise.

I followed the small group outside, as the ladies hurried the children along to a grey building just outside the churchyard gates. The fat man was nowhere to be seen, but the door of the parish orphanage hung open. Inside, some flickering candles illuminated a grim kitchen, where a black leaded range was alight. From the oven came the smell of roast chicken.

The curtains had been pulled shut to make some effort to keep out the winter’s night. One of the women lit an oil lamp and pushed more wood into the stove. Soon a little more heat began to empty into the room. The children had removed their thin coats and now all sat at the empty table, with their hands folded into their laps. There was no excited chatter from these cold and hungry boys and girls. They waited quietly, casting the occasional glance at me and also at the range where the other woman was putting a saucepan of water over the heated hob. She had placed a several large bones and some tired looking vegetables into the pan. This was their evening meal! I looked in vain for anything else to supplement this meagre offering. 

One of the women opened the oven door to show a big roasting chicken, surrounded by potatoes and parsnips. I could also see that other saucepans had freshly prepared cabbage, carrots and cauliflower ready for cooking. Soon the range was radiating heat and all the pans were boiling, sending steam into the air. The shorter women made some suet dumplings and tossed them in with the watery stew. I found that I could move through solid objects with ease and although I could sense the heat of the range, it did me no harm.

I found that I could stop time for the women and everyone froze where they were.

I opened the oven door, removing some of the roast potatoes and parsnips from out of the oven. I put them into the stew, crushing them so that they would thicken up, while the cook’s back was turned. Some of the cabbage, carrots and cauliflower I swapped from the boiling pans and added to the stew. I tore off the legs and wings from the nearly cooked bird and added them to the mix, allowing the stew to cook. When the oven was opened there would be quite a surprise! All this time the two women were frozen, facing the door, waiting for the fat man to come into the kitchen. They looked worried and concerned when I released them, while the children watched me intently. I smiled at them and they smiled back from behind their hands.

At last, giving up their vigil for the fat man, the taller of the two women heaved the saucepan of stew onto the bare wooden table and removed the lid. She began to spoon out the contents into the bowls that each child held up to her. The look of surprise on her face was a picture. She tried to stop spooning my fortified stew into the bowls, but I would not let her stop. Each child got a dumpling each and plenty of meat and a mixture of vegetables in the thickened up stew. With one of my hands upon her serving wrist and the other holding the one grasping the saucepan, she continued to fill the bowls until all the stew was gone. Only then did I release her from my cold bony grasp and allow her to escape.

Clutching her wrists she sat weakly down on a chair by the range where her companion was staring into the oven at the depleted roast chicken with the missing wings, legs and roast vegetables.

“Sara!” she cried, “Most of our chicken is missing. Also a lot of the roast potatoes and parsnips have disappeared.”

“I fed them to the children, Agnes, in the stew,” she replied with eyes filled with terror. “Something held my wrist and made me spoon it all into their bowls, until it was gone. We have been judged!”

This was when the fat man reappeared at the doorway. As he entered the kitchen I tripped him and watched him go full length onto the floor. Before he got unsteadily to his feet I noticed that where I had pinched his ear it had gone black!

The two women were staring round the room trying to see if anything was there. They still were not able to see me, but the children could! For the first time in their short lives they had eaten a good filling meal and were not hungry. I waited to see what would come next and wondered how they saw me? I was dressed in a black coat and dark trousers so would have been difficult to see in the poor light, yet these children were not afraid. They seemed to know I that meant them well and that the little girl had fetched me here. Her face was one big smile and I knew that things would change.

“Are you alright John? You seemed to trip over nothing,” Sara said and stared at the fat man’s ear. What has happened to your ear?”

“At the church, when I was going to move the children on with my stick, something broke my cane and pinched me by the ear! You said that we have been judged. I think we have been visited by one of the Lord’s angels. We have lived well off the parish taxes for years, by feeding and clothing the children at a minimum expenditure. I tell you we have been humbled and brought down. I say to you now, make sure that the children have enough warm blankets on their beds to keep out the chill. Light a fire in their bedrooms. Increase the amount of food that we feed them and make sure that if they go hungry, then we are hungry too. We have been placed in a position of trust. If we break it, we may incur the wrath of this angel again!”

“I think you are out of your senses, John Smithers,” Agnes replied. “We have a good living looking after these unwanted children, why change it?”

This was too much and I lent over and laid death’s icy touch on her ears by pinching them tightly. Agnes screamed with fear and I shook her head from side to side and in my anger they caught a glimpse of me dressed in black.

“He is still here! The Lord has sent the angel of death to us as a punishment! Look at Agnes’s ears! They are as black as mine. The three of them went down on their knees and beseeched the empty air for forgiveness.

The air was empty, as I was gone from that place of reckoning and back to my own time. The cold wind blew once more around the churchyard and I found myself stood by the side of John Smithers’ headstone. It was now made of good marble and deeply carved. A stone as expensive as this had to have been paid for by many people.

I read the inscription that I’m sure was not there before.

Here lies John Smithers, Beadle of this parish

for twenty-six years.  1803-1878

and Sara Smithers.     1805- 1881

They were the Refuge of lost children.

A good man and well loved by many an orphan.

May they lay in the arms of the Lord.

It seems to me that I made a difference.

I often wonder where she went and the life that she led, that child that came to me as a ghost of what was and became what was to be. I only know that for a short while I was drawn into an existence where I became the angel of death, in a world that I once believed in.

©2012 Barry Woodham. All rights reserved. Do not use or reproduce without permission.