[Brenda & Effie 07] - A Game of Crones Read online

  ‘But then – something odd. The witches held their breath, horrified, as Angela went to him, pliantly, wearing an ermine cloak that had arrived as that morning’s present. An exact copy of the cloak worn by the living doll. She clutched to her all the gifts he had given her: almost too many to hold.

  ‘There was nothing her sisters could so as they watched Angela being swept up into the saddle with that bad man. And here comes the tragic part, Brenda. I could see my favourite of those sisters being taken away and all I could think was that there’d be no more fishy tributes from deep beneath the sea. And so I found myself springing and hissing at the Erl King.

  ‘I shot through the air making a hullaballoo, just as he was about to turn and gallop away. He fetched out his great flaming sword and he ran me through. Right there and then, at the front of our house.

  ‘The witches froze with shock. On the instant I lost my ninth life, sliding off his hot sword like melting butter onto the cold cobbles.

  ‘The blizzard was just beginning as he spurred his stallion and they thundered away up the hill of Harbour Street, and out of town. There I lay, curled up, quite still – and glowing slightly from his fiery blade. And this is how – all that time ago – I became a ghostly puss.’

  He goes quiet at this point, mulling over his final demise. I’m not quite sure what to say. In my previous meetings with supernatural beings, I’ve found it’s best to keep mum and let them tell you things at their own pace. Otherwise, if you get peremptory, you can scare them off. Or they can get the hump. At last I ask:

  ‘You said you have a mission, Harold?’

  ‘I do! I do! And you can help, Brenda. Now that you are here in Whitby, you can help me! You will, won’t you? You’ll do what you can to help me?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Tell me first, what it is you want me to do.’

  Suddenly he’s full of energy and glowing even brighter. For a moment I’m scared he’s going to set light to my new sheets.

  ‘You will know what to do when the right moment comes! I’m sure you will know exactly what to do! Good Brenda! Clever Brenda! Lovely Brenda!’

  And then he is bounding towards the window again.

  ‘Wait! What about the rival fish shops and the vat of hot oil? Where does that fit into your story?’

  For a moment he pauses.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about!’

  ‘But… you’re the Crispy Cat, aren’t you? The feline scourge of Whitby’s back allies? Mauler of old ladies?’

  ‘I am nothing of the sort! Who told you this?’

  He whirls about haughtily and then he’s gone. Out of the window and down the fire escape. I can hear his light scamper as it fades across the rooftops and then I can hear a snatch of his ludicrous song…

  La, la, la, lah…!

  Before I return to sleep I believe I hear his voice floating back into my attic…

  A new life, Brenda. I’ve been promised the chance to live again! As a real cat of flesh and blood and fur! If only I can succeed in this little mission of mine..!

  I am lying on a very hard bed. It’s made out of stone, I think. The whole room is freezing.

  I’ve woken up in the middle of an operation.

  An operation someone is performing on me.

  Lightning roars. Thunder crashes. Ooh, the ceiling of the operating theatre is open to the elements. Rain lashes in as I lie there. There’s nothing I can do. I can’t pull myself together. Am I drugged? I can’t feel my limbs…

  Herr Docktor… the brilliant surgeon… he’s leaning over me. His breath smells rank. He’s drinking Schnapps as he works. He mutters to himself… feverishly. He sews like a champion seamstress. Black cat gut. Pulling the sutures taut. Making soft skin pucker. He runs his dirty fingers over my fresh scars. His work is hasty and careless. He isn’t making a masterpiece this time.

  He swears and shouts and protests. He is working under duress. In terrible conditions. Ghastly lamplight. Dirty implements. I wake in the middle of the operation into a world of pain and my screams are just horrible to hear…

  And up at the window – watching these proceedings with glee – is the hideous face of the creature. The monster. He’s watching my birth. His awful face is full of eagerness, excitement…

  I twitch… I tremble… my senses are stirring…

  I awake with a screech of sheer horror.

  Oh.

  Just that nightmare again.

  The recurring dream.

  The one I’ve had for two hundred years.

  It always comes back with redoubled strength, whenever I move to a new place. It’s as if it’s telling me – you can’t simply start again. You can’t leave your heritage behind. You might have forgotten huge swathes of your life and times – but you can’t forget who you really are. You can’t forget your roots, Brenda.

  I push all the nightmares aside and throw myself into work. It’s the only way.

  The following afternoon sees me out with Effie as she introduces me to the splendours of the Christmas Hotel. It is a once-grand edifice on the West Cliff where, according to Effie, it is Christmas Eve every single day of the year. There they are, busloads of pensioners brought in each week, to enjoy festive revels of the most shameless kind. There are trimmed trees and swags of glittering tinsel everywhere. We take high tea in the conservatory, with a beautiful view of the ruined Abbey, and even there we are beset by Christmas Carols coming through the loudspeakers.

  We are tended to by a mardy-faced waitress called Jessie, who brings us egg and cress sandwiches and miniature tartlets. Effie takes little bird mouthfuls, trying all the while to enlist me into traipsing the streets with her in the middle of the night.

  ‘Think of it as your civic duty, Brenda,’ she says.

  ‘I’ve only just arrived,’ I tell her.

  ‘But I need your help, Brenda. I can’t face that vicious creature alone.’

  I wonder why she doesn’t alert the proper authorities. I mean, if there’s a dangerous beast on the prowl, is it usual to let two elderly ladies go out to fettle it?

  ‘What about the RSPCA?’ I wonder aloud. ‘Or the Cats’ Protection League?’

  Effie tuts and crams a sponge finger past her pursed lips. ‘They don’t deal with paranormal creatures. Believe me. I’ve tried before.’

  ‘Erm, Effie,’ I say. ‘You get mixed up in magical and spooky affairs like this quite a lot then, do you?’

  She nods, almost proudly. ‘Oh, yes. It’s in my blood, you see. I feel like something of a custodian to this town.’

  ‘Do you, now?’

  ‘I do. And that’s because I belong to a very honourable matriarchy, you see. Witches, Brenda. All my relatives were witches.’

  I nod. ‘I do know.’

  Her eyes widen. ‘Because it takes one to know one?’

  ‘I’m no witch,’ I tell her harshly, and the fruit scone I’m buttering crumbles into bits. ‘But I do know the type. And you’ve got magic running through your veins like the name of this town through a stick of pink rock.’

  She shrugs modestly. ‘I’m not such a dab hand with the spells and the hexes, mind. All my aunties are long gone, leaving me alone in this world, with nothing to show for my heritage but a houseful of old grimoires and cupboardfuls of arcane objects.’

  ‘Really?’ I say. ‘I must have a gander some time.’

  ‘You’d be welcome, Brenda. I can’t make head nor tale of most of the spooky stuff that’s been passed down to me. You say that you’ve got some experience of the… you know, the uncommon and unearthly?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ I tell her. ‘But all that’s behind me now.’

  She shakes her head. ‘Not when there’s something amiss, ducky. When there’s magical shenanigans going on, then it’s up to us with the knowhow to be up and at ‘em. So – will you join me tonight on my hunt for this killer moggy?’

  I realise that I’ve no choice but to be Effie’s back-up. After I promise and we finish up our pot of
Assam, plus the last of the dainties, we head home across town. Effie has a spring in her step at the prospect of company during tonight’s macabre safari.

  I dress in an old fisherman’s gansey, a fleecy anorak, a heavy scarf and stout shoes. I draw the line at pulling a balaclava over my newly-set wig, however. When I pop round Effie’s Antiques Emporium I’m amazed to find her glammed up to the nines in a wine red frock and covered in theatrical jewellery.

  ‘Just because we’re on a mission tonight, doesn’t mean we can go all frumpy,’ she says, eyeing me up and down.

  A mission. I can hear my spectral pussy using just the same term. I wonder to myself why I haven’t confided in Effie yet about that curious nocturnal encounter. Could it be that I don’t completely trust my neighbour yet?

  She’s rabbiting on about some form of magical defence that she’s whipped up for us, but I’m not really listening. We’re in her sitting room at this point and my whole attention is caught up by the monstrous painting I helped to put up on her wall.

  It has changed.

  Now, don’t think me crackers. That’s what I think at first, too. That perhaps something in the sea air has turned me doo-lally or maybe the cream in my sticky buns this afternoon was on the turn. Yet I must conclude that the picture is quite altered. It’s even darker and more sepulchral. The man on the stallion is riding off into the far distance and can hardly be seen. I peer closer to make him out. In the foreground the cat has completely disappeared and the creepy child is sitting down, looking even more miserable now, wearing an even dowdier frock. Her lank hair is longer and I realise the child has aged a little.

  I cry out, startling Effie.

  ‘Whatever’s the matter with you?’

  ‘Look!’ I gasp. ‘Can’t you see?’

  I stand aghast before the painting, quite sure that she will see at once what is amiss. But Effie simply stares at me. At the picture, and then at me again. It’s obvious that she doesn’t have a clue what I’m on about.

  ‘You’ve had a schooner or two of sherry before coming out tonight, Brenda. Dutch courage, eh?’

  I can’t believe what I’m hearing. ‘Your blummin’ painting is possessed! It’s different!’

  She creeps closer to the blistered surface of the paint, thrusting her beaky old nose right in there. ‘It’s in exactly the same condition as it was when I won it earlier this week at Danby’s Auction Houses. I swear to you.’

  She looked so sane and convinced I just have to give in. It’s me who’s cracked, I’m thinking. I’m the one, after all, with the troublesome gaps in my recollections.

  Effie starts showing me the little magic efforts she’s made this afternoon, following our discussion in the conservatory of the Christmas Hotel.

  ‘You made me feel I should make more of my latent gift for enchantment,’ she tells me, and then brings out – with great ceremony – an old plastic tea tray. On it lie the curled up corpses of five mice. They are desiccated, she says, because she found them underneath her boiler. She has stuffed them with magic spell stuff – cobwebs and glitter, dried scabs and herbs – and she hexed them until she was blue in the face. We are to use them as bait, she says. For luring savage cats into the open.

  Looking at her horrid offering I can feel my gorge rising. Effie urges me to stow them away in our handbags, but I’m beggared if they’re going in mine.

  So – then we’re off on our first supernatural investigation together. Our very first evening traipsing the chilly ginnels and vennels together as a duo. And I get a queasy feeling in my water, as if it’s to be the first of many.

  We clatter across cobbles and totter on paving stones slimed with sea water and lichen. We find winding staircases cut into the rock, passing old cottages clinging precariously to the cliff face. We disturb courting couples, a treeful of noisy starlings, several hundred squealing bats, an old tramp and hordes of rats that scatter down by the docks. We come face to face with several cats, but some hours pass before we meet with one that glows.

  It comes about when we are in the oldest part of town, rattling about in the empty lanes near the 199 steps. We have split up for a few moments when I wander off alone to take in the magnificent view of the harbour mouth. Here you can see the two curving piers closing in like pincers and the lighthouse feebly glowing in the pitch dark night. I’m having a lovely peaceful moment when I suddenly hear Effie shrieking her head off.

  I find her near the famous kipper smoking shop and she has cornered a poor cat up a dark dead end. She has flung every single one of her enchanted mice at it.

  Now the cat is gulping them down greedily. Grinning at her.

  ‘Oh, look at it, Brenda!’ she cries, clutching my arm. ‘Look at how the nasty thing glows! It’s the Crispy Cat! So the legend is true!’

  But I have recognised that cat at once. ‘It isn’t what you think, Effie,’ I bellow, elbowing her out of the way. ‘His name is Harold, and he happens to be a friend of mine.’

  I am too late to prevent him gobbling up the magicked mice. I try to warn him, but suddenly he’s lying there, flat out. Dead to the world with his glow dimmed somewhat. ‘Harold?’ says Effie. ‘Brenda, what are you talking about?’

  ‘Quick. Help me carry him home. You’d better be able to reverse that silly spell of yours. Can you?’

  ‘Why, of course.’

  ‘Come on, then. Help me with him. He isn’t the creature we’re hunting. He wouldn’t do anyone harm.’

  Effie moves to help me, perplexed as anything.

  Harold fits snugly into my handbag and I fret about him as we hurry back across town. He hasn’t done any harm, has he? All he’s done is come back from the dead and spoken cryptically about being on a mission.

  Effie hurries along beside me. ‘Are you saying that there’s a second glowing cat haunting the streets and you already knew about it?’

  I nod grimly. ‘I’ll tell you everything I know.’

  ‘I should cocoa,’ she snaps. ‘The thing is, if we’re going to work together as supernatural investigators, then we have to pool our resources. And that means transparency and honesty.’

  I can’t be doing with her mithering right now. I point out that I’m not actually keen on investigating anything, supernatural or otherwise. This shuts her up for a few moments. As we cross the harbour bridge into our part of town I’m trying to work out how this whole thing fits together. Harold once belonged to Effie’s aunties, didn’t he? That’s what he claimed. So, perhaps it’s Effie’s he’s really come back to haunt, and not me, after all? Maybe his mission concerns Effie and he simply got the address wrong?

  All of this I’ll have to explain when we get back indoors. Though first she’ll have to do something about reversing her spell with those mice. Maybe she’s killed Harold? But can you really kill a ghost?

  It’s as we’re taking a shortcut through a rather unpleasant alleyway at the back of an unsavoury pub that we become aware of the noise. An unsettling, deep-throated growl. The throbbing noise of a hungry predator. I check my handbag, but Harold is still senseless. Effie grabs my arm and I can feel her bony grip even through my anorak.

  ‘Oh help,’ she gasps.

  For there, jumping down from a wall beside us, nimbly hopping over the razor wire, is a second phantom cat. One who could only be described as crispy. It bares its fangs at us and we both feel its red hot breath on our faces. Hot as bubbling oil. He hisses at us and it sounds like a deep fat frier.

  Effie starts shrieking her head off. ‘It’s real! It’s real! The flamin’ thing is real!’

  Then the golden battered beast springs at us. It lands claws-first on me and luckily I’m well-padded, though I won’t be for long, the way the beast is thrashing away.

  ‘Effie, get him off me..!’ I cry, and she dithers about, looking for something to hit it with. But there is nothing. The cat is screeching in my face and I’m whirling like a panicking fool, thinking: is this what it all comes to? A life as long and full as mine, and I end up
mauled to death by a wild and ghostly cat?

  He’s quite a size. As big as a puma, I’d say. I pummel him and shake him off, but he isn’t budging an inch. Effie comes running with the wheelie bin, dragging it across the cobbles and sends it careering into us both. We’re both knocked flying, which dislodges the cat. But then he’s got his claws into my wig and he’s yanking it off my head.

  At this desperate moment my handbag bursts open. I flung it into the shadows when the beast first attacked, and maybe it was the jolt that woke up Harold. Or maybe Effie’s mousey spell has worn off. Either way I’m most grateful, because he comes springing out into the alleyway, shining an extra vivid fiery orange, with sparks shooting out of his fur. He looks like a vengeful spirit returned to do battle with the forces of evil.

  The Crispy Cat turns on him with a venomous hiss. Soon the two are locked in mortal combat. Effie seizes the now-tattered arm of my coat and pulls me away from the deadly fight. I can hardly hear what she’s saying because of all the racket. I always hate to hear the noise of fighting cats. They don’t know how to stop themselves once they’ve begun.

  ‘Come on, Brenda! Let’s leave them to it!’

  Yet I can’t. They are a blurry ball of teeth and fangs and fur flying all about the place.

  Effie covers her face with her hands, but I can’t. I watch until the bitter end, until both cats are battered and bleeding and exhausted. Then the Crispy Cat slinks away into the darkness, leaving Harold lying there, breathing hard.

  I kneel beside him. ‘I thought you were a ghost. How can you be hurt?’

  Effie creeps closer, holding her breath, just in time to hear Harold’s shaky reply.

  ‘I’m not a ghost. I’ve been allowed to come back in bodily form. By my master the Demon Lord. I’m as solid and as real as you are, Brenda.’