The Spook's Bestiary - By Joseph Delaney Page 0,28
a lamia witch in her domestic form, and that it was my duty to bind her in a pit. I dragged her to its edge, but finally could not bring myself to do it. Love binds a man tighter than a silver chain.
We walked away hand in hand and lived together for one happy month in my Chipenden house. Unfortunately Meg was strong willed, and despite my advice she insisted on visiting the village shops. Her tongue was as sharp as a barber’s razor, and she argued with some of the village women. A few of these disputes developed into feuds. No doubt there was spite on both sides, but eventually, being a witch, Meg resorted to witchcraft.
She did no serious harm to her enemies. One was afflicted by nasty boils all over her body; one exceptionally house-proud woman suffered recurrent infestations of lice and a plague of cockroaches in her kitchen. At first the accusations were little more than whispers. Then one woman spat at Meg in the street and received a good slap for her discourtesy. It would have stopped at that, but unfortunately the woman was the sister of the parish constable.
One morning the bell rang at the withy-trees crossroads and I went down to investigate. Instead of the poor haunted farmer that I expected, the stout, red-faced parish constable was standing there, truncheon in his belt and hands on his hips.
“Mr. Gregory,” he said, his manner proud and pompous—had I been a poor farm laborer, the weapon would already have been in his hand—“it has come to my attention that you are harboring a witch. The woman, known as Margery Skelton, has used witchcraft to hurt some good women of this parish. She has also been seen at midnight, under a full moon, gathering herbs and dancing naked by the pond at the edge of Homeslack Farm. I have come to arrest her and demand that you bring her to this spot immediately!”
While Meg always gathered herbs at the new moon and did indeed dance naked, she had the power to ensure that, unless she wished it, nobody could see her. So I knew that the last of the charges was a lie.
“Meg no longer lives with me!” I said. “She’s gone to Sunderland Point to sail for her homeland, Greece.”
It was a lie, of course, but what could I do? There was no way I was going to deliver Meg into his hands. The man would take her north to Caster, where no doubt she’d eventually hang.
I could see that the parish constable wasn’t satisfied, but there was little he could do. Being a local, he dared not enter my garden for fear of the boggart, so he went away, his tail between his legs. I had to keep Meg away from the village from that day forth. It proved difficult and was the cause of many arguments between us, but there was worse to come.
At the insistence of his sister, the constable went to Caster and made a formal complaint to the high sheriff there. Consequently they sent a young constable with a warrant to arrest Meg. I was concerned for his life—he was an outsider and might be stubborn enough to enter my garden. I’d been warned about this by the village blacksmith, so I was ready. With the smith’s help I managed to persuade him that Meg really had left the shores of the County forever.
Disaster had narrowly been avoided—but that decided me. My former master, Henry Horrocks, had left me another house on the edge of brooding Anglezarke Moor. I had visited it just once and found little about it to my taste. Now it could be put to good use. In the dead of night, very late in the autumn, Meg and I journeyed to Anglezarke and set up home there.
It was a bleak place, wet and windy, with the winter threatening long months of ice and snow. Even though I lit fires in every room, the house itself was cold and damp—not a place where I could safely store books. We made the best of it for a while, but eventually the same problem reared its head when Meg insisted on doing the shopping.
I managed to persuade her to avoid Blackrod, a village where I had family, but she started to have problems in Adlington.
It began in a similar fashion to the difficulties in Chipenden. A few words were exchanged with the local women: accusations of using curses; a