Cake 1 Witch-hunt 0

An unexpectedly early inheritance: poor Aunt Hettie shouldn’t have died so early, and Janine hadn’t considered the implications. However, hearts wear out, and as a result, Janine now owned a largish suburban house and just enough income to enable early retirement from a dull, mid-rank civil service post. Janine stepped out of her job and (at last) from an unsatisfactory marriage, kicking them  both aside like dirty clothing. Free!

The house had a lovely garden backing on to a small copse. There was ample time in Janine’s rethought life to take on beekeeping, two hives of bees soon making good use of the garden.

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The Laelaps Hound and the Teumessian Fox

Winchester Hall had seen better days. Not especially photogenic or a marvel of design, it nevertheless stood proudly between tall oak trees whilst a meandering river coiled around it.

This site was infamous for the legend of Lady Elaine Winchester, accused witch who was rumoured to haunt the grounds.

“Of course,” the groundskeeper informed me, during our steady trek up to the property, “the witchcraft charge was all hogwash. Her accuser, Simon Mathers who was just eyeing the estate, cooked up the witchcraft crap, and after he had her hung, brought the house from her dissolute and estranged son. Oh, and before she died, she vowed to kill any descendant of Mathers who’d dare step foot in her house, and to do everything in her power to help her descendants reclaim their ancestral home. Do you know what happened next?”

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Haunted House

Before she died and came back to haunt me, I lived with my mother for two years. They wouldn’t let her out of the hospital bed until they knew she was coming home to someone, and my father had the foresight to die a decade prior. I asked her doctors for a care package. No result. When they told her this, she took it to mean that no one cared.

Behind the dusty velvet curtains in my mother’s spare bedroom was a streetlight bright enough to seep around the edges and keep me up all hours of the night. At four o’clock I’d stand in the window and watch the rain fall like knives and write descriptions in my head of the garden, four metres square of concrete jungle. To the song of her snoring I’d walk along the landing and trace my fingers along the bannisters, planning how to photograph the woodwork for the house listing. When I spoke of my mother, the neighbours’ mouths gaped, horrified at my exasperation, and I made a mental note to warn the next owners they could never be honest.

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ANGELINE’S FRIEND

Walking through the early morning mist, I remember years ago thinking I was walking on clouds. When the mist was higher it would wrap itself around me pulling me to the old mansion. 

It all started with a dare that I could not refuse: entering the local haunted house. I pulled the board from the entrance and an earthy musty smell raced out, as though it had waited too long to escape, and disappeared into the undergrowth. Opening the entrance further, I caught my first glimpse of the damage inside. Stairs were misshapen, lurching this way and that. Rustling erupted, balls scurried into the depths away from the light. Once inside the dust swirled around my feet and a breeze caressed my cheek like fingers, but I didn’t feel threatened.

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