Open day at the Witches' Home 1/10

Eve was standing at one of her upstairs windows looking down into the Bell's garden. “Adam, come here a moment will you?” she called, before going down stairs to wait for him to come indoors.

“Do you think you’d be able to carry me upstairs using a fireman’s lift?” she asked.

“Perhaps I could have done a few years ago,” said her husband, “but with due respect old girl, I don’t think I’d want to try these days!”

Eve lead the way upstairs to the back room. “You see young Jennifer Jane down there playing with the cat; well does she look strong enough, to be able to carry me up a fifty foot high cliff on her back?”

I’m sure you must have imagined it all,” he replied, “perhaps you didn’t fall as far as you thought and she only helped you up the last few feet to the top.”

“No, my fall was broken by lots of bushes and undergrowth, but I ended up at the bottom all right. I’m certain there’s something strange about that young lady. I’m not too sure there isn’t something unusual about her mother as well.”

Eve paused for a moment before continuing her story.

“Do you know, the other day I went in for a cup of tea and a chat and she apologised for not having any cake. We had our talk over our drink, then just as I was coming home through the side gate, I remembered that I’d meant to ask her if she’d like to come to our next ‘magic’ meeting.”

“But she’s not a member,” interrupted her husband.

“That’s not the point,” said Eve and continued talking about Mary’s cake. “I could only have been gone two minutes and as I popped back into the kitchen, I surprised her taking a freshly baked cherry cake off a piece of grease-proof paper, there wasn’t a cake tin to be seen. She said she’d only just made it and offered me a slice. Do you know it wasn’t even warm! Now what ever would make her say she didn’t have a cake one minute and then offer me a slice the next?”

“There has to be an explanation,” said Adam, “why on earth would she tell tales over something as ordinary as a cake?”

Eve still thought Mary had been doing something unusual and said so. She went on to tell Adam about the occasion when she’d found Jennifer Jane and her father trying to carry a large grindstone, that they’d found in the woods.

“It was so heavy that it had sunk into the mud two or three inches, yet a few days later I found them carrying it quite easily between them!”

“I’m sure you’re imagining things,” replied Adam, “after all what else can it be? They can’t have superhuman strength or do magic or anything, can they!”

“Well I’m going to be in the woods and see if I can’t follow them for the next few days. That’s where the girl in particular always seems to be playing and everything unusual that’s happened seems to have occurred when I’ve met her there.”