Shamanka Part 5

"Do you think Kitty would talk to me?" asks Sam. "Even if my father has moved out, she might know where he went. Does she still live at the warehouse?"

Bart has no idea. We're talking years ago, but Sam could always go and see. The warehouse is near Docklands. She'd need to get to West India Quay. He pulls out a piece of paper and draws her a map. She thanks him for everything, especially the pudding and pie, and he walks her to the station. He seems sorry to see her go.

"I won't kiss you goodbye," he says. "Georgie Porgie did that and made the girls cry. I don't want to see you cry. Anyone would think I was made of stone." And he gets down on one knee, clutching his hand to his heart. A tear rolls down his dusty cheek and sets like concrete. In a split second, Bart morphs from emotional to motionless.

Sam doesn't look back. She has a quick look at Bart's map but she's in such a hurry, she fails to notice it's drawn on ancient, hand-pulped paper. Mind you, the light is fading.

She changes trains several times. The warehouse is a long walk from West India Quay and by the time she arrives, it is dark. She's not at all sure this is where she should be. There's no warehouse just scorched earth, scrubby wasteland and rubble.

Hang on ... maybe this is the right place. There could have been a warehouse; she can make out where the old foundations used to be but why isn't it here any more? The wasteland is deserted. There's an ominous chill rising from the wharf. Sam s.h.i.+vers; this is a warehouse grave. Kitty is no longer here, there's no point in staying. She decides to retrace her steps back to West India Quay, catch a night train and sleep at St Pancras station. She'll catch the first train to Mrs Reafy's in the morning.

It's late and dark, and she has a long way to go, so she begins to run. But something in the soil doesn't want her to leave; it trips her up. She falls, grazes both hands and cuts her knee open on sharp metal. As she crouches down to examine her wound, a hunched figure slips out of the shadows and moves quietly about its business.

It's coming towards her.

HOW TO TEAR A COIN IN HALF.

You need: A large coin, tin foil, an envelope 1. Cut the corner off an envelope so you have a square pouch.

2. Cover the coin in tin foil and press so the coin is imprinted on the foil.

3. Open the foil, take out the coin, then refold the foil so it looks like a solid coin.

4. Show the fake coin to the audience, put it in the pouch and rip it up they'll think you've torn the real one.

RUTH ABAFEY.

Sam stands as still as Bart Hayfue to make herself invisible to the warehouse ghost. She sighs with relief as it brushes past her: this is no spectre; it's a tiny woman, scratching in the dirt like a shy night creature. A Moon Lady. She hasn't noticed Sam and talks softly to herself.

"Ah, milkweed! Milkweed in full bloom and it's a full moon."

She pulls the herb up by the roots, blows the soil off and places it in a woven basket. Sam wants to ask her about the warehouse, but if she speaks suddenly, it might scare her away. She decides to sing a lullaby; a lullaby is never threatening unless it's sung by Aunt Candy.

In order not to frighten the Moon Lady, Sam sings airily, so that the words sound like night breeze or the patter of moth's wings. "Rock a bye baby, on the tree top, when the-"

The woman c.o.c.ks an ear and mutters softly to herself. "Hark! Is that the call of the Torresian crow? Or is it the wind? No, it is a girl's voice!" She straightens up like a rabbit trying to guess where the vixen is lurking. "Girl? Show yourself! Come out of the shadows and show yourself."

Sam waves her hand slowly. "Here I am... I hope I didn't scare you."

"No, no. Not scared just wary until I get the measure of you." She shuffles closer. She's so short and hairy, Sam wonders if she's stumbled across a goblin. The woman looks her up and down. "Stay standing still, just like that. Then I can get on with it."

"Get on with what?"

"Measuring you, of course! Name, name, name?"

"Sam Sam Khaan. What are you going to do with that?"

The Moon Lady has pulled a length of red cord from her pocket. Is Sam about to be strangled? She steps back, but the woman reaches out to her.

"Don't panic, Sam Khaan. I wouldn't hurt a fly. Do harm to none that is the Wiccan Creed, the rules by which witches must abide." She smiles brightly.

Sam has got the measure of her too; she has nothing to fear. "Is that what you are? A witch?"

Yes, indeed. Her name is Ruth Abafey and she's a solitary hedgewitch. She has nothing to do with the devil, nor is she p.r.o.ne to dancing naked round a cauldron; she's a white witch.

She takes her red cord, measures Sam's right arm from shoulder to wrist then measures the left arm. She ties knots in the cord and asks Sam to remove her ringmaster's hat.

"Why?"

"To measure your skull, what else?" She climbs onto a pile of broken bricks to reach Sam's head and as she starts to measure, she notices the curious blonde streak in her hair.

"Hmmm," she says. "Well ... that's hereditary."

To mark the circ.u.mference of Sam's head, she ties two knots in the cord, then she holds the knots together. "Big, but not big enough," she exclaims.

"Not big enough for my hat?"

"Not big enough to be a witch. Never mind, you'll grow."

Sam has no intention of becoming a witch, but then she remembers the putty doll she made and with great enthusiasm she tells Ruth Abafey how she bound the ankles together to stop Aunt Candy chasing after her.

"I ran away from home. She was very cruel. She got rid of my-"

The witch throws up her hands in horror and warns her about the dangers of playing with such dolls. "Beware of using a fith-fath against anyone, Sam Khaan! Whatever you wish for others, it will visit you three times over."

"I'm not sure the doll worked," Sam insists. "I just copied the idea from an old book."

"Books can be very dangerous things especially old ones," tuts Ruth. "If your fith-fath was a good one, your aunt might have tripped and broken her neck."

The idea that she could have killed Aunt Candy never crossed Sam's mind.

"Think on!" says the witch. "If you wished to break her neck, that wish will revisit you three times over. You'll be looking at life in a wheelchair at the very least." Ruth replaces the ringmaster's hat back on Sam's head. "What are you thinking, dear?"

"Do you really think I've killed Aunt Candy? I hate her, but I wouldn't want to kill her. I'd never kill anybody."

The witch pats her hand. "Listen, Sam Khaan. The good news and the bad news is that your aunt is still alive. I'll prove it if you like. You fell, didn't you? Show me your hands and knees."

Sam rolls up her trouser legs and holds out her palms. The witch examines her wounds.

"Ah, yes. Two little cuts and a graze. Three minor injuries that's payback for temporarily paralyzing your aunt's ankles. I imagine she tripped, laddered her tights and possibly broke a nail. If you'd killed her, your head would have fallen off by now. Now lift your arms. Lift ... lift!"

Sam lets Ruth pa.s.s the cord around her chest, all the while thinking how odd it is to be standing here in the dark allowing a tubby little witch to measure her.

"Am I dreaming, Ruth?"

"Who knows, dear? It is not for me to say." She hands Sam the knotted cord. "For you. Keep it with you at all times. It represents the umbilical cord that connects you to your mother and the Mother of Everything."

"I haven't got a mother," says Sam flatly. "She's dead."

Ruth Abafey invites Sam to stay the night. She lives just over there a short walk. It's far too dangerous for a girl to sleep in St Pancras station, she says. There are thieves and murderers, tricksters and junkies, legless beggars and merciless muggers. Even worse, the police might send her back to Aunt Candy.

It has to be safer to stay with Ruth. Tonight, Sam will ask if she knew anyone who lived in the warehouse. Tomorrow, hopefully armed with more clues, she'll go to Mrs Reafy's.

They walk the length of a disused railway line until it parts at the end like a giant zip. The witch takes such small steps that Sam has to walk in ridiculous slow motion to stay by her side. Suddenly, a ghostly reflection in the water catches her eye. She stops.

"Why do you stare?" asks the witch.

"Look at the moon!"

It's floating, face-up and mouth open, beneath the black surface of the wharf.

"It looks just like the face of the drowned woman I see in my dreams," says Sam. "I've had the same dream many times. It begins with a feeling that I'm falling, but I don't know who the woman is."

Ruth squats down and fishes for the moon with her fingers. "The moon is in the sky, yet it is in the water. It's an illusion, Sam Khaan. But the drowning woman in your dream was really in this wharf. I pulled her out myself. She was washed up against the reeds, where the moon is floating now."

It happened during the Summer Solstice was it twelve years ago? Ruth was cutting bulrushes when she noticed the woman's body. She'd waded in up to her neck and dragged her onto the bank.

Was she dead? She had no pulse. Both nostrils were plugged with mud. Ruth had turned her over to drain the water out of her lungs but still she wouldn't breathe, so she gave her the kiss of life. Full of witch's breath, the woman spluttered and opened her eyes.

Not only was she half-drowned, this woman, she'd been badly burnt. In places her long brown hair had been singed to the scalp. She couldn't remember who she was or what had happened. She was in such shock, she'd lost her power of speech; she couldn't say where she'd come from.

"She must have jumped into the wharf from the top window of the burning warehouse, hit her head and floated downstream," says Ruth.

"The burning warehouse!" exclaims Sam. "How did the fire start?"

Ruth doesn't know. She'd smelled smoke and gone to investigate. No one else had noticed it; there were no houses nearby. The warehouse hadn't been used for storage since just after the war; it had been left to rot in the wasteland. There was no power supply, so the fire couldn't have been caused by an electrical fault.

On several occasions, Ruth had seen candlelight in an upper window and heard voices. Whoever lived there, she respected their privacy and they respected hers; she never saw them.

"But when you smelt smoke, you hurried and called the fire brigade, didn't you?"

Ruth stares hard at Sam, conscious that she's being accused.

"No, I just let it burn... Of course I called them! Honestly, the way you're looking at me, anyone would think it was your nearest and dearest trapped in that fire!"

Sam goes pale. She feels sick and dizzy and suddenly her legs buckle. Ruth tries to support her under the armpits, but it's like a duck trying to hold up a deer.

"Up you come! Have you been skipping meals? Don't worry, we're almost home. Try not to faint until we get inside. Deep breaths, dear. That's it, on we go!"

HOW TO LIGHT A SPENT MATCH.

The masked magician searches for a match but can find only a dead one yet when it is struck against the matchbox it lights as if by magic. How?

THE SECRET.

It's all in the preparation. Simply take a new match, dip it in black ink, allow it to dry then dip it in some ash to create the illusion that it's been used.

THE SILVER RATTLE.

They arrive at a wrought-iron shelter situated on a platform which is sinking into the earth. It's an old waiting room; it hasn't been used by the public since 1942. The clock stands still at three minutes past three.

Ruth bundles Sam inside and steers her into a wicker chair. Sam stares wide-eyed and clammy as the witch lights an oil lamp. The illuminated room is clean and neat and smells of drying herbs. A few coals glow in the grate. Ruth gives them a prod with a poker. "Why so weak and wan, dear? Is it lack of food? Or was it something I said?"

Sam is hungry and tired, but that's not the reason for her sudden collapse; she's afraid that the woman who jumped from the burning warehouse was Kitty Bastet the one person who knew where her father might be. Did he die in the fire? She can't bring herself to ask. Ruth places a pot on the embers.

"I will heat up this soup and, by and by, you will unburden yourself to me, Sam Khaan."

The soup fills the waiting room with an intense, musky perfume; it's just plain old field mushrooms. Nothing odd, nothing hallucinogenic, but something is loosening Sam's tongue.

"I met a man called Bart Hayfue today. He had a friend who lived in the warehouse."

The witch stirs the soup and waits for Sam to continue.

"I came here to find her. She might be the woman in the wharf. Where is she now?"

"Who knows, dear? I brought her back here and nursed her. Physically, she improved but mentally? Even if you found her, I'm not sure she'd make much sense. She used to sit for hours, pencil in hand, like a poet waiting for inspiration, but it never came. She never wrote a word or spoke, but I tell you this; she wasn't mute."