The Woodhead Witch (extract from a novella)

Memories of childhood – there are bittersweet returns in exchange for such recollections. The Eden of my childhood was an orchard – in fact, a strip of wasteland, adjacent to the working men’s club car park. Although most of the trees still extant were those of the boundaries, the orchard yet retained the title of its former description. The land was part of the Woodhead estate, an island of the past, besieged by encroaching council estates and a shopping centre. The Woodheads of old must have been immensely well off and lorded it over the village, but the transfiguration of time had seen the city stretch without its walls to absorb the surrounding area.

In reality, the orchard was ours – it had been neglected for so long that it became the accepted playground of the local children, a secret world where we could do as we pleased, regardless of grown-ups. Parents tolerated our use of the orchard as a second home because it kept us from under their feet and they knew where we’d be. Finding us, however, depended entirely upon whether or not we wished to be found. Rarely, if ever, would parents enter the orchard. Where tarmac met earth, a hedge of thorn emphasized the boundary between two worlds.

From the safety of the orchard at night, we would watch the drunks stumble out of the club. I thought adults so clumsy and stupid then, thinking it was no wonder they died so much. If the drunks caught our stifled laughter, they would approach the boundary with slurred threats, but step from the tarmac they would not. The trees and shadows were our domain, granting us a form of invisibility. Our familiarity with the terrain and dark allowed us to traverse places at night, which for an adult, even with a torch, would have been hazardous.

It was an autumn evening when I began to notice the magic, or that’s how it seemed to me. That was the first time I visited the Woodhead house.

The dark was closing in and perhaps an hour or so remained before the deadline of home time. I was on the grass verge of the club car park, playing stretch chicken with the Penn brothers and a penknife. The game was unfair, because both brothers had legs like giraffes compared to mine. I was ready to chicken out when the persistent crying of an unseen kitten won over our curiosity.

We entered the orchard near the old holly tree – half hewn through the trunk yet still resisting our efforts to bring it down for Guy Fawkes Night – moving through the long grass, avoiding nettles, thistles and various debris strewn about during the afternoon’s battle of Japs and Commandos, a highly dangerous affair involving the clan splitting into two groups, usually the eldest versus the younger, with the latter drawing the low ground and playing the Japs.

Missiles were gathered and stacked in trenches shielded by barricades of old doors and corrugated iron sheeting. After the preliminary taunts, and a formal declaration of war between the Imperial Japanese Army and the limey commandos, we commenced bombarding each other’s positions with rocks, half bricks and bottles. To be inside a trench during such a bombardment was an incredibly terrifying experience. Occasionally, someone would be injured, transforming the battle craze into guilt and worry.

The kitten was finally traced to the hillock where our den was situated, its jet-black coat proving hard to spot until a beam from a headlamp in the car park was reflected in its eyes. Having found the kitten and teased it to vexation, we were at a loss as to what to do with it and adjourned to the den to ponder the situation.

The den was a large pit excavated into the top of the hillock and covered with a roof of old doors, earth and turf, with a worn out lorry tire marking the entrance. It was a place of sanctuary when threatened with retribution for mischievous deeds. On one such occasion, a copper actually stood on the roof while we hid inside. We could hear his controller talking about us on the radio, as though we were criminals. After shining his torch around for a while, he walked away none the wiser.

We slipped down through the tire and Craig produced the stashed box of matches. A small fire was soon burning, fuelled with bits of cardboard.

‘I reckon that moggy’s one of Woodhead’s,’ Daz began. ‘She’s got loads of ’em in that house.’

‘Have we to take it back to her, then?’ I asked.
Craig looked worried. ‘Don’t fancy that, her being a witch… and it’s getting dark.’

We sat in silence for a while, looking at the flea-bag.

I was relatively new to the area and had only seen the old woman a couple of times – once as she walked down Front Street in her slippers and pinny, clutching a bread knife and the other time in the confectioners when she was buying cakes, knife still in hand. During apple raids, I’d ran past the rear of the old house on numerous occasions, only finding the nerve to pause and look at it once I’d reached the safety of the path to the orchard.

From the first time that I saw it, the house stimulated my fertile imagination. Although nowhere in the league of stately homes, it was nevertheless a veritable mythical castle to a boy from a council estate. It wasn’t size or grandeur that gave the house its appeal, but some lingering magical presence of the past. To learn that an actual, real witch lived there made the house seem all the more fascinating.

‘Does she live on her own?’ I broke the silence.

‘Yeah,’ Craig informed me.

‘But she’s got a son,’ said Daz. ‘A doctor – in Africa, I think. He’s probably a witchdoctor.’

‘But she’s all right,’ Craig assured me.

‘Sometimes, in summer, we clean the pool out for her; she gives us a sixpence and some lemonade.’

‘Yeah, but we’ve never been there after dark,’ Daz added.

You couldn’t actually swim in Woodhead’s pool; it was circular, perhaps seven feet across and four deep. No more than a glorified paddling pool, really.

I had an idea, ‘Maybe we can collect a tanner, if she’s so fond a cats?’

‘Maybe, but her minds gone these days – what if she carves us up into cat food, or turns us into toads to keep her pool clean of flies?’ Craig made us laugh with that, our laughter echoed faintly in the tomb-like den, tinged with nervousness.

Outside, the dark had set in. Our morbid imaginations thrived on the flickering firelight. We used those imaginations to explore every conceivable horror that could possibly befall us should we risk a visit to the old house. This was weighed against the chances of the kitten surviving the night alone. The prospect of reward was mentioned several times, not to mention the thrill of visiting a witch in her lair. A mixture of pity and greed finally prompted us into a unanimous decision to risk bewitchment.

Somehow, in leaving the den, the kitten ended up in my care. We set off, myself at the front with the brothers slightly behind. The sudden shift of responsibility triggered my paranoia, convincing me that the brothers were holding back regarding the old witch’s evil reputation. We pushed along a narrow passage between overgrown privet hedges, feeling our way through the darkness in close Indian file.

At the end of the passage our territory was left behind – everyone becoming subconsciously stealthier. Having reached the glassless greenhouse and stables, we paused beneath the pear tree at the corner of Woodhead’s back garden.
The open moonlit lawn of the big house stretched out before us, the size of a football pitch. Bathed in the unrealistic shades of moonlight, the house had lost its timeworn aspect revealed in the harsh light of day. It loomed before us ominously imposing, like the opening scene from a Hammer horror film.

After some mutual reassurance, we left the comfort of the shadows and stepped tentatively on to the naked lawn. I felt so vulnerable, as though God was spying on us from a cloud.

With nervous expectancy, we mounted the steps to the terrace and stood furtively before the French windows. Through a grimy pain of glass, I could discern the faint flicker of candlelight contrasting with the scarlet glow of an open fire. One of the brothers rapped on the window. The sound of a bolt being drawn back caused me to start. Turning slightly, I was just in time to see the heels of my companions disappear behind the greenhouse. I wanted so much to drop that cat and follow them, but fear transfixed me to the spot.

‘Hail Mary, full of grace.
Our lord is with thee.
Blessed art though amongst women,
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb,
Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
pray for us sinners,
now and at the hour of our death.
Amen.’

As I waited, expecting the windows to open, another bolt shot back, then another, perhaps a dozen in all. I was about to throw in an Our Father for good measure, which I don’t usually do, when the window began to slowly creak open.

The witch stood before me, bread knife in one hand and a poker in the other. ‘Yes, lad…? What you after, then?’ she crooned in a weak, broken voice.

‘Mrs Woodhead, I found this kitten crying, and I thought perhaps it were one of yours.’

The old woman peered around the terrace, confirming that I was alone, before beckoning me into her parlour. The last thing I wanted right then was to go in that house, yet in my fear, I dared not refuse her invitation. I remember thinking how it was all too much like in a spooky film, like when I’d plead with the actor, 'No – don’t go in there stupid!'

I entered the parlour like someone entranced, all twelve bolts snapping shut behind me. In the struggle to come to terms with my imminent doom, I just managed to hold back the tears of self-pity swelling within.

My captor indicated for me to sit by the fire, with my back to the exit. I settled on the edge of the large leather armchair – Mrs Woodhead shuffled opposite. Sitting down seemed to take her an incredibly long time, as though she was stuck in perpetual slow motion. A sigh of relief escaped my lips as the poker was replaced in its stand; the knife, however, was retained as always.

She indicated for me to pass her the kitten and I obliged. Sat there, with her thin snow-white hair, liver-spotted hands and scalp, the old woman looked so frail and helpless – but you couldn’t underestimate the strength of a witch, I thought. She was completely absorbed in the kitten, caressing it and crooning as though it was a baby. Wild, paranoid thoughts raced through my hyperactive mind: what if she forgets that I’m here, and upon noticing me, asks, ‘Who are you? What are you doing here?’

The witch was miles away, so I tried to occupy my buzzing mind by surveying the interior of the room. The parlour was dimly illuminated by a single large candle and the flickering flames of the log fire, leaving most of its extremities engulfed in shadow. The walls were adorned with cavalry sabres, hunting trophies and grotesquely carved wooden masks. About the fireplace, carved wooden statuettes continued the African connection.

At last, she tired of the moggy and put it down by a saucer of milk. She was saying something to me; I had to lean forwards to read her lips. ‘Would you like some cake, lad?’ she repeated.

I’d been looking at the fantastic display of cakes on the dining table at the rear of the room; half a dozen cats were busy licking the cream from them. Politely declining the cake, I wondered if there were any sixpences to be had. My mind was skipping between trivia and terror.

‘I’ll have to get going, Mrs. Woodhead,’ I managed to blurt out. ‘My dad, he’ll kill me if I don’t get home soon.’

She gazed straight into my eyes, an amused expression playing on her wizened countenance.

‘You think me a witch, don’t you, lad?’ She burst into a short-lived cackle – it terminated in a fit of coughing and wheezing. Recovering, she spat in the fire and stared straight at me once more, ‘Maybe I be a witch – it’s convenient that folks think so – saves disturbance.’

Perched on the edge of the chair fidgeting, I gazed into the fire attempting to avoid her piercing gaze.

‘Maybe I can show thee a portion of my power, a premonition, perhaps. Do you like this house, lad?’

‘Yeah, I think it’s magic.’ I was sincere.

‘Mark my words, lad, afore long this house will be gone and a supermarket will stand in its place.’

‘They couldn’t do that to a house like this.’ I was aghast.

The old woman just laughed, but gently this time. In what seemed like an eternity, she shuffled to the windows and began drawing back the bolts. Having sensed by now that I wasn’t going to be harmed, I looked at her with altered perspective, feeling somewhat akin to the innocent, childish qualities she possessed. Mrs Woodhead was not at all like any adult I’d met. The windows opened and freedom beckoned. I then felt rather embarrassed for some reason and ran out of the house without a backwards glance.

Sometime after my first adventure in the old house, Mrs Woodhead was seen no more. Some claimed that she was dead, others that she’d been taken away. I preferred to believe that she had given up the ghost, which remained to protect the house from the supermarket chains.