Prophesy: The Immortal Witch (2)

Part one at: https://www.abctales.com/story/marandina/prophesy-immortal-witch-1

Marie Tudor was a single parent who needed to work to make ends meet. Her son Billy looked forward to summer holidays like most kids his age. By the time term had reached mid-July, he was inevitably worn down and ready to leave school behind for six weeks. At least six weeks; much longer in an ideal world. Only his recess was different from most of his friends. Marie hadn’t the time to keep an eye on her son during the holidays so, every year, he would be packed off to Brean to spend the break with grandparents (every year without fail).

Marie knew it felt like an old-fashioned thing to do; a throwback to wartime evacuations. Someone had once told her stories about the Blitz and stuff; young tykes spirited away to boltholes in the countryside – places like Wales, for example.

On the upside, Somerset was a picturesque, bucolic place far removed from the industrial bilge of Birmingham. Marie grappled with the juxtaposition of a beautiful location and that, for an eleven-year-old, there was more adventure available in the big city, as dirty as it was. She accepted that Billy didn’t make new pals easily and was a solitary, lonely figure a lot of the time. This would invariably draw both her and her mother’s chagrin alongside the inevitable rebuke that her boy should get out there and spend less time on his phone.

The journey down the M5 might have been deemed uneventful but for the incident at services outside Gloucester. Stopping for a break, on getting out of the car Marie’s eyes had been drawn to several large rooks perched on top of metal signs. Distinctive with large grey-hooked beaks, she couldn’t recall seeing such a proliferation before. There were always birds scavenging for food at places like this but not such a sub-population of big corvids. It was odd but quickly forgotten. For a while, at least.

After tracking down the toilets (which came with the usual whirligig of wet floors and missing lavatory attendants), Marie paid for burgers and cokes at one of the food outlets. The same cynical thought always crossed Marie’s mind about the loos being at the far end of facilities meaning having to walk past all of the shops and eateries resulting in the inevitable subliminal desire to spend hard-earned money.

They ate in relative silence. Billy seemed happy watching people milling about when he wasn’t looking at his phone. Marie thought about how service stations always brought people together, their popularity rarely seemed to flag. They were like outposts on the edge of civilisation, separate entities from everything else. And yet, almost soulless; a form of Purgatory where folks existed but were faintly incorporeal.

On the walk back to the car, Marie had managed to find a space where there were no vehicles next to them on either side. Stumbling unceremoniously, she dropped keys onto the floor. Stooping to retrieve them, as she rose a strange sight caught the corner of her eye. Focusing, the anomaly became more apparent:

A line of black birds - crows and rooks - were perched on both of Billy’s arms making him look like an urban scarecrow. People continued going about their business seemingly oblivious. It was an oddly surreal moment, a glitch in the day’s timeline. Marie considered it bordering on messianic. Billy’s eyes were closed as though accepting reverence from the black harbingers.

Close by, a man in a red Liverpool football shirt sat shovelling a cheese and tomato baguette into his mouth. Mouth agape, he gawped out of his parked Prius’s windscreen shocked at the bizarre sight of the boy and the birds, food dribbling down his flabby chin.

After a few seconds, the avian gathering flew off, wings flapping in a manic motion, fluttering noises accompanying an exodus into a service station sky. Marie wondered whether she had actually seen anything untoward after all or was simply very tired. This wasn’t the first curious incident involving her son. It wouldn’t be the last.

“What was that?”

“What was what, mum?”

“That….with those birds.”

“A game, mum. Just a silly game.”

Marie side-eyed her boy, brow creasing in annoyance. She knew how recalcitrant Billy could be when it came to explaining incidents. For his part, at times Billy never really fully understood the difference between what was considered normal and what was thought to be outside the realm of conventionality. He was beginning to make more sense of it these days.

With that, the conversation was considered over. It seemed clear enough that no further comment was forthcoming. Billy had looked away then promptly got into the car. Marie squirrelled the events away at the back of her head to be discussed again later. There was a right time and a place for further analysis and this wasn’t it.

Marie’s Vauxhall Astra was nippy enough to navigate the weekend flow of cars.  Lines of HGVs headed south like swallows migrating for the winter. Billy loafed on the back seat playing Minecraft on his mobile.

Neil Diamond’s Sweet Caroline was played on the radio. Marie mumbled along with the chorus including the obligatory so good, so good which didn’t actually feature in the lyrics (everyone knew that but sang the words anyway). It made her feel better about the world. It always did.

Traffic swarmed past at regular intervals, the inside lane being a slower but safer option as the journey progressed. Marie stared into the rear-view mirror, her eyes peering at the young boy behind. She reflected on how he had grown so much over the last twelve months. With ash-blonde hair flopped over on one side, his glow-in-the-dark jellyfish tee-shirt and navy blue shorts creating an illusion of increasing maturity yet it was still obvious how pre-adolescent he was. Billy could flit between being utterly juvenile and overtly sensible in the blink of an eye.

Marie thought her son’s wiry long arms were seemingly fused to his phone. Billy’s freckles on either side of the bridge of his nose and light complexion made him look like a boy scout; his alluring blue eyes adding to a sensation of looming adulthood. Marie hated parting with him in this way each year. Maybe this would be the final time. Maybe being only a couple of years from his teens, the age of twelve would be acceptable to stay at home alone. It would save a lot of time and effort. Her mum would understand (she hoped).

Her glance shifted to gazing at her own appearance. Her inner critic was in session; it told her she looked tired, skin beginning to sag, pallid underneath sapphire eyes. Jewels from the sea bed her ex had always said. She was very much Billy’s mum with boyish features that appealed to the opposite sex. There was never a shortage of suitors interested but, of course, they wanted different things in different ways at different times. A makeover was overdue. Perhaps she would go blonde instead of brunette.   

As a thirty-something she still had plenty to offer although if things didn’t materialise on the new partner front, she was philosophical. As much as the old cliché of a single mum carrying around a child like a manacle wrapped around an ankle was for other women, it didn’t matter too much if that’s how people saw her or she saw herself.

Marie thought that dressed in a light cream jacket from Next, white blouse and black jeans, she appeared casually suave in a way that belied her status. She had to big herself up somehow. It was an ongoing battle fighting the good fight of self-doubt. What was it the ads said? Because you’re worth it. She hoped so.

Traffic through Bristol was heavy. Once on the other side, things thinned out again. That final navigation to Brean would be a little more straight-forward. Marie’s grandmother lived in a cottage near the beach by the Downs. By the time the Astra was pulling onto gravel to park up, an amber sun was dipping down to its nadir ushering in the coming night.

Part three at: https://www.abctales.com/story/marandina/prophesy-immortal-witch-3

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