18: Bacon
'There’s nothing more motivating than hatred.' This is Marsh Witches of the Godless Florin, chapter eighteen.
You can catch up on Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 and 17
Previously: Cass learnt that Jocasta has been using the Storium for years - wasting its precious pages and abusing its ancient power. Cass got drunk and invaded the Imbolc ritual, ridiculing Jocasta in front of her wasted pilgrims.
February 9th, 1993
The north wind raced over the sea and smashed into the coast like a train. Waves bowled and crashed in their relentless pursuit of land. Into the onslaught, delicate Arctic Terns ascended to dive-bomb Marsh Harriers away from the mudflats. And I pressed shitty sponge headphones against my numb red ears.
February is the longest month.
Jocasta and I are opposing magnets. When she enters a room, I exit. It’s safer than awaiting the chemical reaction that would erupt if we were forced to speak to one another. She knows I know what she’s done - how she tore through the Storium, manipulated my dad, helped herself to centuries of magic and decades of his hard work. She knows how I truly feel about her now.
I want to gouge her green and gold eyes from their deep powdery sockets. Maybe then she’d see me. I could just leave Sowen Harbour and head back to Lewisham, but I’m driven by the need to defeat her. It’s feeding something dark in me that I can either ignore or embrace, so I hug it tightly because it gets me out of bed in the morning. There’s nothing more motivating than hatred. I’ve always feared becoming my mother. Maybe I should grab that venom and use it against her.
Ostara is weeks away, so Jocasta and Netty are occupied with making her costume - yet another feathered monstrosity. Ostara is the first opportunity of the year for the village to bow to their queen and she salivates for its arrival, ebullient with anticipation, talking with a sing-song cadence, high on herself.
“Netty, do you think white or yellow? I feel elevated in colour but white is so hopeful, what do you think? Or are we going for green again. Of course, I love green. Ah listen to me, I’m possessed by Ostara! Possessed!”
Lyle will wear the same brown Ostara Hare costume he always has - terrifying the toddlers, delighting the Londoners, humiliating himself.
My room should be a sanctuary away from them, but it’s constantly invaded and tidied. I ripped down the Brigid’s Cross Anya had hung over my doorway for Imbolc, only to find it propped up on my dressing table, the next day.
Since Imbolc I’m rarely acknowledged. Sometimes I wonder if I died that night and I’m now a ghost - haunting the hallways with my cold presence, making people shiver before they shrug me off and pretend I don’t exist. Either I talk to Anya, the only person who sees me, or suffer the white noise of disappointment that follows me around. Even The Case feels weird.
On Tuesday night Neil let me pay for my drink, which somehow felt like I’d been called out for bad manners. His previous kindness became my bad habit, but it seems to be over now. The awkwardness wasn’t made any easier when he asked when I’m leaving Sowen Harbour.
“Dad!” Beth chided.
“Just askin’ a question Bethany.”
I responded quickly, like I was on the witness stand, “Not sure yet. I still have loads to sort here.”
He picked up my whisky glass and placed it on the ‘Strongbow’ beer mat next to it.
“Young girl like you don’t wanna be out in the sticks though,” he persisted. “I expect you’ll be missing the nightlife.”
“Oh, I dunno, Neil,” I tried for humour, “I’ve come to love the nightlife here.”
But his questioning expression remained.
“Not long then,” he seemed to have decided.
Days stumbled into a week and the only thing my searching produced was rage. My dad’s notes are full of hopelessness. The Storium is vanishing before my eyes, and I’m helpless to do anything about it.
Who are any of us really? We all wrap ourselves in fiction and wear it like armour. Who am I? Who is Charlie Crowe? Saviour of The Florin? Husband to The May Queen. Mr. Jocasta. She’s the most sexually driven woman I’ve ever met and while once that would have been a dream to me it’s now a curse. She bewitches us all. Eighteen pages left. What can I do? Never more hopeless.
Eighteen pages. So far. I almost don’t want to know if more have gone but I need to keep opening boxes to unlock the truth. Of course, the quickest route to the truth is to unlock The Storium but what I once thought I knew for sure, now seems childish.
This morning I lay in bed listening to rain that swelled and sprayed like the gods were throwing shingle at the windows. Gusts swept up the stone walls and down the wide chimneys, howling to be noticed. Cold daylight crept around the edges of the blue damask curtains allowing just enough light to see my clothes strewn across the floor. As I got dressed and washed, the sweet salty smell of bacon floated upstairs and knocked at my bedroom door.
Gingerly I approached the kitchen, still pulling my hoodie on, hoping I’d find Eve alone, ready to fill a plate I could take straight down to the catacombs, but I was wrong.
I opened the door into smoke.
“Jesus Christ. What’s going on?”
The vague shape of Anya flapped in front of the Aga.
She coughed, and spluttered in high pitched panic, “Oh dear, oh goodness, oh dear.”
I rushed to the sink and leant over to push the window out against the fierce wind, fighting with the iron bracket to hold it open.
“What happened? Move. For fuck’s sake. What’s going on?”
I wasn’t giving Anya a chance to reply, and she stayed stock still, forcing me to work round her. The right Aga hot plate had smears of black tar across it, which sizzled and smoked. The yellow skillet, filled with oil, fizzed angrily on the left hot plate. I grabbed it and screamed.
“Ahhhh fuck!”
“Oh, my goodness,” she whimpered, “are you okay Cass?”
“Why is that so freakin’ hot?”
Anya took the tea towel from the Aga’s bar and wrapped the handle of the skillet to move it to the tap. She was about to turn the tap on.
“No!”
She dropped the pan into the empty sink and stood back.
“Do not put water on that. It’ll …. I dunno but don’t.”
“Okay, I’m sorry Cass. I’m so sorry. Is your hand okay?”
I shut the heavy covers on both Aga plates and snatched the tea towel from her to flap at the fog that lingered round the light fittings in the ceiling. My hand was hot, but I’d let go more out of fear than pain. The window rattled and squeaked in the wind.
“Leave it,” I ordered, as she went to close it, “and open the back door. We need to clear this smoke out.”
She did as I said and stood biting her lip as the freezing wind howled, making her straw hair panic against her face and catch on her wet cheeks. I looked back at the Aga and the smoke that seeped from the edges of the tar-smeared hot plate.
“What the hell is that?”
She followed my scowl to the Aga but looked down at her white plimsols, like a child. She shook her head and mumbled something I couldn’t hear. Her shoulders shivered with cold or crying. I couldn’t let her stand in the freezing wind in her blue summer dress with God knows what spilt down it. She looked like an unloved doll. I put down the tea towel and pulled her inside to close the door.
“Sit,” I said, pulling a wooden chair from the table.
She lowered to the chair and buried her face in her hands, still shaking her head. I sat next to her and put my converse on the rung of her chair as she sniffed and wiped her face on the tea towel I handed her.
“Thanks,” she said, twisting her mouth like it would make her blotchy face less visible, “I’m so sorry.”
I searched for the right thing to say, to comfort her, to make it all seem less dramatic, but I just kept coming back to, “What the hell is that black stuff on the Aga?”
With furrowed brow and a deep sigh, she said, “Bacon.”
“What?”
“I was making breakfast for you but I …”
“You did this for me?”
“I don’t really know how to use that thing, so I just put the bacon on the top, but it doesn’t seem to like it.”
“No. It doesn’t.”
“And then I thought I’d try the skillet, but the bacon was stuck, and I couldn’t get it off …”
She peered at me from under her wet eyelashes, let out a long sorry sigh and said, “What a fuck up.”
I felt my shoulders fall ever so slightly and noticed a whisper of mirth on her lips. She giggled involuntarily and looked down, trying to stifle her amusement but it came out in a rush of spit and a snort.
“It’s not funny,” I said, “you nearly burnt the house down.” But I was fighting a snicker that wanted to join in.
“I know,” her voice cracked, “I know it’s not, I’m sorry, I can’t help it. I think I’m in shock.”
She shook with laughter and carried me with her. I looked at the mess which seemed more manageable now the smoke had cleared but the burning smell would take some time to go. What would Eve say? Anya could lose her job. I was about to start tackling the molten bacon when a glint of silver on her neck caught my eye. All my giggles went, and I sat up straight.
“Hey,” I said, “Where did you get that?”
“What?” she said, still smiling. “Get what?”
I narrowed my eyes and reached forward to touch the silver chain and hanging from it, the Godless Florin. I lifted it from the dip in her neck and turned it over. Victoria Regina. No mention of God.
My heart pumped in my ears.
“Anya, where did you get this?”
Her fingers rushed to her neck to meet mine. I withdrew quickly and stood.
“Fucking answer me!”
“Jocasta!” she said, rushing words out, “She gave it to me. She said it was just an old necklace she didn’t need anymore. She said I could have it. I didn’t know it was important.”
“When?”
“Erm, I think … about three weeks ago maybe? Maybe more?”
She was trying to unhook the clasp at the back, but panic made her fumble. I slapped her hands away and undid it. I held the necklace up and thought of all the drawers and cupboards I’d searched, the boxes I’d opened, the pointless invoices I’d inspected, the diagrams and notebooks I’d trawled, when the whole time it had been right there, in front of me, taunting and annoying me.
I marched to the cellar door.
“You better clean this up Anya. Eve’s gonna go mental.”
“I’m sorry Cass, I didn’t know…”
I left her whining in the kitchen as I descended both sets of stairs in seconds. I sat on the cold floor next to the open tomb and unfurled my tight fist. This was the key; I was absolutely positive. Lifting my hand, I let the coin fall to the bottom of the delicate chain. I took a deep breath and rested the coin on the Storium’s clasp.
I waited and watched.
Would the clasp unfurl? Would I hear a click? I lowered my head and twisted to listen for movement.
Maybe it was just a quick touch that was needed.
I tried again.
Nothing.
Was it possible that the book had to be out of its case? Perhaps the lead was protecting it. I put the necklace in my pocket and reached my hands down into the slim gaps between book and box.
“I don’t advise that.”
Lyle.
“You’ll injure yourself, or it. Both probably,” he said, as his suede brogue touched the last step.
“Give me a hand then,” I said, forcing my fingertips under the back cover, trying to gain purchase.
“Why do you need to remove it from its case?”
“Because.”
“Because what?”
I exhaled sharply and stood, stretching out my back.
“Lyle, can you just help me please? Why is nobody but me trying to open this thing?”
“That thing will only open if you have the key. The last blessing. It must be held on the clasp -”
“I know, I know, I know! You don’t need to tell me what I already know. I have the key, look.”
I held up the necklace and he regarded it with typical disinterest.
“And did the Storium open?”
“Clearly not.”
“Then you don’t have the key.”
“It’s a fucking game isn’t it, all this. I just wanna give up.”
The necklace flew out of my hand and hit the Virgin Mary.
“That might be for the best,” he nodded.
“Why are you even down here?”
He said without blinking, “Instinct.”
“Uhuh, well, you can do one now, before my instincts kick in.”
“Very good, Cassiopeia.”
He sauntered back up the steps but stopped just before the top.
“By the way, Anya has almost destroyed the kitchen. I expect she’ll be sacked if Eve sees what she’s done. You might help her clean it, since it was you she was cooking for.”
I wanted to scream, to punch him, to throw something. An ashtray lifted from the boxes and slammed against the wall behind him, spilling ash and dog ends, but Lyle had already gone, leaving me with the Storium and the sense that I was just a tiny fly in an ever-increasing web.
You can catch up on Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 and 17