Won't Somebody Think Of The Children

For Maisie it was Halloween that did it; her three all demanding to be witches, even little Robby. She had read them Harry Potter and never seen any harm in it but the obsession with witches rankled at her. Surely witches were supposed to be bad?

For Jill it was more serious. At fourteen a switch seemed to have flicked inside Jenny's head. Always such a pretty girl, she had dyed her hair black and started dressing like something freshly pulled from a drain. Her taste in music had changed too, from baby-faced boys in sportswear to greasy androgynous leather-clad things that screamed. There was talk of piercings, and not just in the ear, and Jill could foresee a future of long-haired boyfriends on motorcycles, and dark unhygienic nightclubs, and obviously no decent job looking like that, and maybe even drugs and (God!) tattoos.

They both decided that church should be attended more often. Maisie dragging her three, sullen and fidgeting, Jill smarting from her own daughter's blunt refusal.

It was not until after the service that they met. The vicar, always keen to see new faces, was happy to chat and was sympathetic, but said it was a phase, and probably harmless, and nothing to worry about. Jill, recognising common purpose, joined the conversation and invited Maisie back for a coffee.

And so Mothers Against The Occult was formed.

They began in a small way, Jill designed and printed out some leaflets and Maisie passed them around outside the school gates. The following week they had three more members: Mrs Hemphill, a perpetually angry neighbour of Jill's whose twin boys, though long grown up and moved away, were still the stuff of legend for the trouble they caused on the street and were commonly blamed for a series of arson attacks on the sea-front; and two women from the estate, Nana, a smiling black lady who brought a stack of full-colour glossy fliers from the Nigerian church in town; and Sandra, a doughy faced woman in sweat-pants who arrived possessing an eight year-old crew-cut menace in human form called Xander who, left unwatched for just two minutes, locked little Robby in the bathroom cupboard and told him there were spiders in there.

Their first action, the Mothers decided, should be to attempt to stop the Battle Of The Bands show due to take place in three weeks time. It would, they suspected, propagate an unhealthy interest in devilry featuring, as it did, a number of worryingly named acts: The Sumerians, The Blood Of The Zombie, and one called Satan's Love Custard who openly described themselves as Dark Pagan Metal.

To this end they approached the vicar, as it was the church-run youth club that was organising the event. The vicar was sympathetic, and agreed that the names they had picked out were a little strange, but it was probably harmless, and just a phase, and nothing to worry about. The mothers went away angry and held a council of war over coffee at Jill's. Jill, who had been reading articles on-line about how to run a protest group, said that their next action should be to create a petition in order to show the strength of feeling in the community. A statement was drawn up, and a form was created, and several copies were printed and distributed to all the members.

Response from the community was mixed however. The Mothers approached all their friends, and went from door to door in their neighbourhoods, but encountered a lot of sorry not interested, a surprisingly large amount of I would but my son is really looking forward to it, and a depressing quantity of to be honest, I don't feel that way. At the end of the week they had not amassed even a page worth of names, even, they calculated, if they reformatted to fourteen point text.

At this point Mothers Against The Occult could well have withered and died as an organisation, their best efforts thwarted by the complacency that surrounded them, and indeed that is probably what would have happened had it not been for a chance remark of Jenny's at the dinner table that a boy in the sixth form was scared because a Ouija Board had told him the date of his death.

Jill immediately demanded to know who, and where, and when, and what was the extent of Jenny's involvement; and Jenny, who had thought the story nothing more than a mildly amusing anecdote, promptly clammed up, and then -slamming every door on the way- retired to her bedroom.

Harsh interrogation techniques were deployed, you know I love you so much was wheeled out without delay, followed swiftly by I'm so worried about you these days, and then when that had no affect, we used to be such friends you and I. Finally Jenny broke and the truth came out that a group of sixth-formers had been using a Ouija Board in the church graveyard at midnight, and, justifying all the Mother's original fears, one of them was the bass player from Blood Of The Zombie who was the only girl in the band and the best artist in the school and had once complemented Jenny on her painting of Lonely Bats and was so cool and Jenny did not want to play the clarinet any more she wanted to learn the guitar instead.

An emergency meeting was called the following day where Jill related all. Nana wailed hysterically that they were trying to raise the devil, and Sandra quaked, and Mrs Hemphill scowled, and Maisie suggested they should call the vicar. No, said Jill, he had had his chance. There was no doubt now that Jill, having the only kitchen table that could seat five, and being the best with a computer, and now having found this critical piece of intelligence, was the de-facto leader of the group, and nobody disagreed. They decided that Mrs Hemphill, who could see the churchyard from the window of her back bedroom, should keep a sharp eye out every night, and that the Mothers should all be ready to mobilise at midnight if needed.

They did not have to wait long. Three nights later, the following Friday, Mrs Hemphill rang to say that she had seen torch lights and heard voices. Phone calls were made, and excuses given to husbands, and the group rendezvoused at Mrs Hemphill's house. No particular plan was formed, only that they should investigate.

The moonless night was on their side, as was the fact that the teenagers were distracted by giggling and passing around a two litre bottle of Diamond White, and the group quickly managed to sneak into positions where they could observe everything. Jill looked for the female bass-player who Jenny so admired and almost immediately recognised her when an unruly mop of bright crimson hair turned around and revealed a startlingly pretty girl underneath. Jill recognised her as Mrs Shaw from Yoga Group's daughter, who -she knew- was not only a shoe-in for the art prize but had recently been offered a place reading veterinary science at Cambridge.

For a moment, just a moment, Jill started to wonder whether, if Mrs Shaw from Yoga Group's daughter, a girl with an offer to read veterinary science at Cambridge, was doing something then that something could surely not be all bad, and she remembered some of the things she got up to as a young girl that were not so different. Then a portal to hell opened.

The teenagers had been sitting in a circle holding hands while one of them was reading something out from a book, occasionally interrupted by the entire party dissolving into fits of mirth, when there was a rumble, and the ground shook, and the earth in the centre of the circle belched out a puff of sulphurous steam and revealed a large hole that glowed with distant firelight and from which issued the undeniable wailing of the damned.

There was a strange moment where nobody did anything, and then a general commotion of screams and teenagers running backwards and turning to gape, awestruck, at what they had done. Jill looked around and saw Maisie looking back at her in utter shock, behind her Sandra was shaking like a leaf, Nana was crossing herself, and Mrs Hemphill was gripping her walking-stick and looking angrier than ever.

Something reached a taloned claw out of the hole and pulled itself up into the world, something with horns, and bat wings, and the hind legs of a goat, something so terrible that all the teenagers and all the mothers could only look at it through their fingers. Words were spoken that were difficult to catch, something about a contract, and something about a sacrifice, and then there were screams and the thing from the hole picked up Mrs Shaw from Yoga Group's daughter.

It was Mrs Hemphill that reacted first, she ran, with a turn of speed that surprised everyone, over to the thing from the pit and hit it about the head with her walking stick. The thing, not even pausing to put down Mrs Shaw from Yoga Group's daughter, swatted Mrs Hemphill with the back of its claw and threw her clean over two tiers of tombstones to land, crumpled and still, against a third. It then turned and stepped back into the hole from whence it had come, which proceeded to close up behind it.

What possessed Jill to dive in after it was never clear, perhaps she was thinking of Mrs Shaw from Yoga Group, or perhaps she was thinking of her own daughter's wide-eyed admiration for the girl the thing was abducting, perhaps she was not thinking at all. Whatever it was she dashed across the churchyard and leapt, head first, into the rapidly closing hole.

With a hiss the hole closed over, leaving only unmarked grass and a bad smell, and the churchyard went very quiet and very dark. Then the remaining teenagers, without a word, picked themselves up and ran away into the night.

Maisie went first to Mrs Hemphill, who was breathing fitfully and scowling furiously but asked only to be helped up. Maisie told the remaining two women to help the old lady back home and, leaving them to it, examined the site of the hole. She picked up the book the teenagers had been reading from, thinking it might be useful.

It was a cowed and stunned Mothers Against The Occult that sat drinking hot chocolate half an hour later in Mrs Hemphill's lounge. Mrs Hemphill herself had been stretched out on the settee and was shivering underneath a blanket; Sandra had gone the same colour as the china teacup she could not hold still; and Nana was fidgeting nervously at the leaves of a bible. Only Maisie seemed to have her wits about her, she was working methodically through the book the teenagers had dropped, The Penguin Guide To Witchcraft And Wizardry, a week overdue from the school library.

Maisie had never been someone to leap at responsibility. In most matters she deferred to her husband, and in all others to a carefully chosen quorum of women's magazines and Daily Mail weekend supplements. But now, with Jill gone, and Mrs Hemphill out of action, and the other two ladies clearly in shock, she realised that if anything was to be done then she would have to be the one to arrange it and chivvy everyone else along.

Sandra suggested that they should probably call the police, or maybe the army, and Nana said they should definitely pray for guidance but Maisie disagreed. There was not time, she said, to bring in help from outside, and nobody would believe them anyway. If they were going to save Jill they had to do it now and then she pointed to the page she had found in the book, and said that had to summon the thing back. Both the other women started to disagree, Sandra stating categorically that she would never set foot in the churchyard again, but Mrs Hemphill, in a loud voice, cut them short and said that if they did not do it nobody would, and in her day they did not cut and run, they knuckled down and got on with it, and look at Dunkirk, and her mother had always told her that that's for that as butter for fish, then she pushed herself upright on the settee with such obvious pain and effort that none of the other women dared disagree with her.

Maisie showed them the book and said they needed a sacrifice, and that was where the teenagers went wrong. Mrs Hemphill said they could use her cat, Queenie, because she was old anyway. Maise pointed out that they might need a second sacrifice to trade for Jill and the young girl and Mrs Hemphill offered up her other cat, Jackson, who was young and healthy but kept eviscerating rabbits on the landing carpet. Both cats were gathered up and put in the cat carrier, and the group, slowed by Mrs Hemphill who still required help to walk, headed back to the churchyard.

On arriving however, it was discovered that Nana was no longer with them. Maisie had thought she was helping Mrs Hemphill, and Sandra, who had been helping Mrs Hemphill, thought she had gone on ahead with Maisie. Mrs Hemphill kept her thoughts to herself but scowled with renewed vigour. Sandra offered to go back and check but Maisie, who guessed that Nana had panicked and fled and was worried Sandra might do the same, said no. The book was pretty clear that they needed to sit in a circle, and though a triangle would probably do in a pinch, just two ladies sitting opposite each other might not cut it. She saw, however, that Sandra's supply of courage was running perilously low, and she needed to do something, so she pretended to call Nana on her mobile phone.

She had Nana's number, they had all exchanged numbers at their first meeting, but she doubted that she would get an answer and indeed she did not, instead she let it go to voicemail and then held a pretend conversation saying yes, and OK, and I understand, then she announced that Nana had gone to get help but there was no time to waste and they needed to get on with the ritual. Thankfully this ruse seemed to satisfy Sandra.

The three Mothers Against The Occult returned to the place where the hole had previously opened and arranged themselves into a circle, or triangle, placing the cat carrier, according to Maisie's instructions, in the middle. The ritual, performed properly and by the book this time with no giggling or Diamond White, only took a few minutes, and, with the now familiar stink of sulphur and rending of earth, the hole opened and the terrible thing climbed out.

It picked up the cat carrier and eyed the contents with a certain amount of disdain, then it eyed the three women with a certain amount more and asked them what they wanted.

Maisie stood up and, her voice cracking a bit, said that they wanted Jill back, and the girl, and that the thing could have the two cats instead.

The thing looked again at the two cats, and laughed.

Maisie held up The Penguin Book Of Witchcraft And Wizardry, and said that the thing was obliged to give them what they wanted in return for the cat, and she pointed to the precise paragraph that said so, and she said that they wanted Jill and the girl back and that they had thrown in an extra cat for free so it could jolly well do what it was told.

The thing laughed again, and then said that The Penguin Book Of Witchcraft And Wizardry was neither an up to date nor authoritative source and then it reached for the book with an attitude as if it was going to tear it up but was stopped short by what appeared to be an invisible wall between it and the Mothers.

Maisie pointed to a different paragraph in the book and said that unlike the teenagers she had read the whole thing through before starting and followed the instructions properly, to which Mrs Hemphill added a boastful that's right and scowled at the thing, which scowled back.

The thing looked around, and then suggested that two cats were obviously not worth a woman and a girl but that maybe it might relent if they threw in the old woman as well. Maisie was worried that Mrs Hemphill, in her current state of high dudgeon and having looked for a while as if it was only the dudgeon that was keeping her animated, might accept the offer leapt in and refused, saying that the thing could have the two cats, which was one more cat than was reasonable, and lump it.

The thing curled its lip, and licked its snout with a hideous forked tongue, and said that if they did not reach a bargain by dawn then the spell would wear out and it would make a point of spending the day torturing both the girl and Jill with special enthusiasm before it could be summoned again the following midnight. Then it said that Maisie better offer something more than two cats, and mentioned that it knew she had three particularly juicy children and maybe she could part with one.

The suggestion was so horrible that Maisie could only recoil in horror, and she could see that Mrs Hemphill was about to offer herself, which was too awful for words, but Maisie had run out of ideas. Then, before anyone could speak, two cars sped loudly up the road and stopped just outside the churchyard. The thing looked over curiously, and Maisie could not explain it, but then Sandra said it was Nana come to save them.

Nana, and seven other black women got out of the cars and strode up to the thing. At least half of the women were wearing brilliant white church robes that seemed to shine even in the dead of night, and two of them were holding tambourines, and one of them had a guitar.

The thing laughed dismissively, and asked them what they thought they were going to do, and Nana, at the head of the group, said they were going to pray. Then she started clapping, and the other women started clapping, and the two with tambourines started hitting their tambourines, and the one with the guitar started playing the guitar, and then they started singing about Jesus, and how he died for us all, and how they were going to praise him, praise him, praise him.

Immediately the thing put its claws over its ears and screamed for them to stop, and Maisie said that if it wanted them to stop it could just accept the two cats, and that it was hours to dawn yet and they had only just started. The thing swore loudly, and then reached a claw down into the hole and pulled up Jill and Mrs Shaw from Yoga Group's daughter who were clinging to each other and looking very frightened indeed, and then it took the cat carrier and jumped back down, the hole closing up behind it.

There was an immediate cheer from Nana and her hastily assembled cavalry of singers, and Jill hugged Maisie, and Sandra hugged Mrs Hemphill, and Mrs Shaw from Yoga Group's daughter dropped to the ground and sobbed into her hands, and so the whole performance might have gone on had not Mrs Hemphill loudly announced that it was very late and she would like to go home now.

Mothers Against The Occult more or less wound down after that. The five ladies still met for coffee regularly, but although they knew it was not harmless, and it was not just a phase, and it definitely was something to worry about, they were reluctant to involve themselves in any further investigations. Besides, the current crop of teenagers had most certainly learned their lesson and they were in a position, being mothers, to keep a close eye on the next.

Jill even attended the Battle Of The Bands when it happened, and Mrs Shaw from Yoga Group's daughter came up to her and said hi and told Jenny her mum was so cool. After which Jenny told Jill she loved her, and talked to her for all of fifteen minutes without rolling her eyes once. Then Satan's Love Custard came on and Jenny wanted to go down the front and Jill did not really think it was her sort of thing.