All stories

It was a bitch having the Sight – eating out was a kitchen horror show, and the things that happened in toilet cubicles. But there were pluses, one of which was watching from the ladies as Kal slipped something in her drink.

Sandra sighed as she washed her hands – she had the worst luck with random internet hook-ups.

It was good shit he’d used though. She was woozy within minutes, then she was stumbling in his arms down the lane to her cottage within the hour. Once again as she was dragged up her own stairs she made a note to get a softer carpet fitted. It wouldn’t hurt to buy some clothes with easier buttons, the way his fingernails scraped as he pawed to get her naked.

A couple of quick spells later and Sandra was at the top of the stairs as Kal began his conquest. The man was whooping as he high fived himself. She wrapped a towel from the bathroom around herself as she waited for Kal to start screaming.

She opened the bedroom door. Kal was naked, hopping on one foot as he tried to get back in his jeans, but at the same time unable to tear his eyes away from the man in the bed. Though not a whole man. Half a man, a merman – top half fish, and bottom half just smoothly anatomical enough to have tempted him.

Kal looked pleadingly at her. ‘What the hell is that thing?’

The merman waved his winking bum at Kal then blew a fish lip kiss. ‘That’s the question you’re worried about?’

Naked Kal bundled past Sandra and barrelled down the stairs. She let him get his fingers on the front door handle before she caught him in a spell of Holding. It was a Shift spell to get him into the kitchen, and then a bunch more Holdings to get him pulled tight into a star shape.

Sandra picked up her boning scissors and showed them to him. She went behind him, Kal twisting his head both ways, trying to see as she put a frying pan on the gas then opened the fridge.

She said, ‘You know what I do to rapists?’

‘Please, please, no, I didn’t!’

She showed him the scissors once more, closing them slowly in front of his eyes. He began to whimper as she sank slowly to her knees. His begging ceased to be words and became a high-pitched whine as she wrapped her left hand around his cock and pulled it taught.

‘Snippy, snippy…’

He screamed blue agony when she put the heel of her foot hard into his balls. It was a scream of pity and horror when she stood and showed him the pork and apple bronze medal winning sausage, snipped end dipped in ketchup.

He passed out when she threw it in the frying pan and it began to sizzle.

The witch's house

In the woods near the beach, past the fairy cave and over the rickety bridge is where the witch lives, is where the witch waits.

Don’t go playing in the trees where the sun can’t reach, because that is where the witch sets her traps to catch little children. She turns them into fat pink sausages and roasts them on the fire for her supper.

Don’t go into the sea in the moonlight, because that is where the witch’s hair spreads out in wait to snare little feet and drag you down under the surface of the sea with the rib-cages of ships. Your unheard screams will lull her to sleep with the shushing of the waves and the threnody of the drowned.

Don’t go near the pretty cottage in the woods with the flowers twining around the door and the water wheel, turning, creaking and the curling sinews of smoke twisting from the chimney, because that is the witch’s house. It is beautiful. She seems beautiful. She might invite you in, offer you something sweet to drink, but once you go inside you’ll see it’s built of bone and hair and then it’s too late for the likes of you.

That twist of light - there! That spreading shadow; the movement you almost caught; that growing tangle of uncertainty and confusion inside your chest. That is where the witch hides.

That tap tapping against the glass at night as you lie awake turning the day over and over in your sleepless mind: that’s the witch’s fingers gently reminding you she is still there. That she can come inside whenever she chooses, because she knows you will let her.

That slow-burning dread that creeps up from nowhere and stops you in your tracks before you’ve begun: that’s the spindle finger bars of the witch’s cage holding you fast.

All the things you’ve said that haunt you in those wakeful dawns, curling and sinuous as smoke, twist through your thoughts to poison them against you. Your creaking hesitation turns relentlessly, inexorably, so you never forget there’s a part of you that crossed the threshold of her house and a part of you that can never come back out again.

The witch’s song has led stronger men than you to their doom. She will drown you if you won’t fight her. She validates your passivity and triumphs in it.

In the woods near the beach, past the ancient caves and across the chattering stream is where moonlight and seaweed weave witches out of the nameless fears of children.

Three witches stood on top of the cliff, arms wide to the sky as it slowly turned from blue to grey, to an unworldly black. The wind whipped up and the sea began to churn. Waves boomed and exploded in high arches of white spray. The witches’ chanting got louder as they pointed to where a small fishing boat rolled back and forth dangerously, dwarfed by the mountains of water rising up around it. People could be seen scurrying across the deck like ants, clinging onto the railings. Waves rushed to the witches’ command and surged forward over the boat, trying to claw it down into the blackness. A shrill cackle echoed across the sky as the boat went under for the second time. Then a phone began to ring.

‘Nerys turn that bloody thing off’ Mair shouted over the wind. Nerys was scrabbling around in her cloak pocket, one arm still outstretched to the sea. Olwyn rolled her eyes.

‘I told you to leave it at home’ Mair screeched as the phone continued ringing. Olwyn concentrated her efforts on the fishing boat, trying to drown out the bickering in the background, but sunlight was starting to break through the clouds and glint off the tops of waves. She threw up her hands in defeat and trudged off. The black cloud suddenly dissipated and the sea settled, a distant cheer went up from the fishing boat. Mair scowled at Nerys and turned to follow at Olwyn’s heels. The phone was still ringing. Nerys answered it.

‘Oh er Nerys, I wasn’t sure if you were going to answer…it’s Clive, from Jones & Jones?’

‘Clive, of course’ Nerys purred. She knew the other two would forgive her for disrupting the drowning when they found out what she had in store for Clive. Clive was the dull-eyed Estate Agent who had sold them their current hovel – ‘a charming rustic cottage’. Even witches seemed to be powerless when it came to Estate Agents. Clive had been particularly unresponsive to any of their complaints, so Nerys had come up with a plan to ensure she got his attention. Nerys had transformed herself into a demure beauty and taken her issues to him personally. She’d sat opposite and focused all of her attention on him until he was shifting uncomfortably in his shiny trousers and dabbing at the sweat from his brow. When she invited him up to cliff-side cottage he’d almost leapt out of his chair.

That evening, when Mair and Olwyn were out scouting the cliffs for passing ships, Nerys had taken Clive on a quick tour of the cottage, ending at her bedroom door. She looked up at him invitingly, slowly reached up for his tie and pulled him towards her. Clive squealed. His sausage fingers fumbled with her buttons, Nery muttered a spell and her clothes flew off. Clive threw himself upon her and just as he looked up from hungrily kissing her neck, Nerys revealed her true self. Clive screamed like a banshee and bolted out of the cottage. Shirt flapping and trouser-less he raced down the garden path and hurtled straight over the cliff-edge. Nerys cackled gleefully from the doorway.