Peggy Powler gazed down at the remains of the cracked cup of mint tea and sat silently in the hushed and rarely cleaned
parlour of her aunt's ramshackle home. Dust-coated spider webs hung from the ceiling due to the weight of their collected
gilings and the corpses of moths decorated the rotten sill of the only window of the shadowy sitting-room. The boulder-built
hearth was empty and the little Witch knew that even in Summer, Hetty always kept a small fire going just in case a caller
came seeking one of her special remedies.
The only ornament the old woman retained was a strange-looking metal half-moon that hung from a piece of twine on the
wall separating the parlour from the kitchen. Peggy had often wondered if was from a mysterious ritual her aunt had once
performed back in her more-reputable days, but Hetty had never elaborated on the curved item -except to warn it could
slice the fingers of a child who wished to toy with it.
Now peering around at the unkempt room, the melancholy magician accepted that Hetty had never been one for general
housework and the little necromancer slowly swaying her bare legs on the rickety chair, took some solace in allowing her
memories to take her away from the worriment of the sleeping old woman upstairs and what her enfeebled ramblings had
implied
.................................................................
"Ah' remember yer' Mutha' when she was just a colleen with the gift te' turn a man's heed" said the woman in the almost
-transparent smock as she yanked another carrot from the well-tilled soil of her garden. The sun had been burning down
all afternoon on Hetty and the twelve summer-old stripling who currently stood staring out towards the sentinel-like line
of oaks and elms that chaperoned the path into the place they call Underhill.
The older female in the wide-brimmed hat now believed a cool drink of water would be a grand cordial for the pair of them
and her vegetables to have around now, but maybe the forlorn-looking lassie might enjoy such refreshment in a different
procedure than usual. The girl in question was contemplating if her adopted-family of the Carnival would ever return and
her life after the death of her mother could return to some-type of normalcy.
Hetty's theatrics were never the best and when she'd performed the odd fortune-telling request for neighbours or some lost
soul that came looking for the great and wise Hetty O' The Well, such melodramatics were -if looked on with an objective
eye, obviously born from an ignorance of genuine stagecraft. The double-centenarian who could cuss with the best of them
was a fine soothsayer and creator of magical potions, a thespian of note...? maybe not.
"Oh yer' bugger-and-be-blasted!" the tumbling woman cried out as a canvas pipe she'd dragged out from underbrush had
suddenly gained a life of its own. Snaking across the bricked path between Hetty's standard collection of organic foods
and the plot of weirdly-looking herbs, the pitch-sealed hose gushed with aim -that those who seriously dabbled in the
art of majick, would suggest had been aided by such sorcery.
With skinny bare legs wiggling in the air, Hetty lay on her back feigning a incapacitated and distressed gardener whilst
the sailcloth-bound tube disgorged its contents from a nearby stream onto all who was in its vicinity.
From a sombre watcher of the route Mister Volcano had taken when he'd left the daughter of the now deceased Madam
Powler to be raised by her only relative, to a giggling girl soaked to the skin and failing miserably to avoid the cooling
vomit of the animate pipe, Peggy Powler ran around the allotment of vegetation in the manner all children should enjoy
at some point of their lives and her laughter was a tonic far-more powerful than any concoction of the decumbent woman
who'd caused the soggy disruption.
Still resembling an upturned beetle struggling to find its feet, Hetty smiled at the cloudless sky that the kid was hopefully
coming out of her doldrums and her veggies were being getting a drink too. The loss of her clairvoyant sister-in-law would
take a long time to get over for the offspring of such a troubled and burdened forebearer, but old Hetty had faith in her well
-equipped armoury of tutelage.
.................................................................
The window-rattling snow was coming down sideways now and the terrible wind seemed intent on pulling the dog-eared
and neglected thatched-roof from the squatting building where two of the Fae huddled around a blazing hearth, blissfully
scoffing down slices of smoked-cured ham layered between slices well-buttered freshly-made Stottie cake . Winter had
come to Underhill again and its wrath was no friend to the owners of the cottages that lay beneath the unusually-shaped
knoll now coated white.
"Yer' can chunter as much as thee likes, storm..." Hetty hissed sneeringly towards the cracked window adorned in its
vibrating spider webs, "...me and me best-lassie here are gettin' all the loaf te'neet" she added wickedly and afforded
a wink to the chomping content girl in question. With mugs of hot Ginger tea resting on the large flat boulders next to
the fire, Peggy and Hetty's feast smacked of the last couple of winters they'd spent together before the younger of the
couple would be approached by a certain Wizard named Myrddin.
Yet, these were the times when her aunt would surrender one of her yarns from her illustrious past and bring dreams
of exotic beasties and daunting menaces to the eager listener after supper. Somewhere out there, was the roaming
Hodag, a boar-like chimera with the head of a frog and a tail horned to impale its victims. The forest went quiet when
this salmagundi of forbidden lust walked the shadows in search of its prey.
As the embers crackled in the grate and the chimney fought the vortex caused by the hill, Peggy heard the tales of
a terrible wolf that thought like a man, but destroyed in manner far different than humans accomplish in their eternal
struggles for power. Even Hetty hushed her toothless tone when she named this famed pillager of communities and
stalker of the unaware. " Ah prompt thee, sweet child... " the old crone would whisper and glance out at the tempest
beyond the fractured pane, "...Accam Dey knows thee more than thee-self" she sighed and clutch something beneath
her scruffy tunic that Peggy was never shown.
These accounts would sometimes disturb the listener and occasionally bring eye-watering mirth, but even at fourteen
summers old, Peggy knew these tales held a message buried within the woman's words. Hetty never wasted anything,
that was some of the counsel the wide-eyed girl in the familiar green dress had taken from her mother on her death bed
and even though the old lady's scallywag dialect and knavish attitude can make a person dismiss her acumen as boorish
and bumpkin-esque, a deep intelligence of reality enjoyed the mask it wore.
.................................................................
Now reminiscing on those days of yore in the dingy parlour of the woman who'd pointed her young neophyte towards
a life of duty of those she served, Peggy swam out of her nostalgic penetralia of memories and forced her focus on
the situation in-hand. Putting aside her concerns of those who were unconsciously forgetting the times when true majick
walked the fields with the lowly ploughman, danced in the sparks of the Smithy bringing burning iron to life or waited in
the chill of an out-building with the maid as she pacified the milk-heavy cows before the sun came up, work to rid this
village of a new enemy needed to be planned and planned now.
Hetty the librarian of such tales was currently wrestling in her exhausted sleep above her and Peggy had to know what
her last words meant. Something had attacked Underhill and that unknown component -the ruminating warlock believed,
needed to be outed from the place that christened the village of her only aunt. Now... how to do it was something else
Peggy had to devise and the best way to find a solution was to get that fire going in the hearth.
parlour of her aunt's ramshackle home. Dust-coated spider webs hung from the ceiling due to the weight of their collected
gilings and the corpses of moths decorated the rotten sill of the only window of the shadowy sitting-room. The boulder-built
hearth was empty and the little Witch knew that even in Summer, Hetty always kept a small fire going just in case a caller
came seeking one of her special remedies.
The only ornament the old woman retained was a strange-looking metal half-moon that hung from a piece of twine on the
wall separating the parlour from the kitchen. Peggy had often wondered if was from a mysterious ritual her aunt had once
performed back in her more-reputable days, but Hetty had never elaborated on the curved item -except to warn it could
slice the fingers of a child who wished to toy with it.
Now peering around at the unkempt room, the melancholy magician accepted that Hetty had never been one for general
housework and the little necromancer slowly swaying her bare legs on the rickety chair, took some solace in allowing her
memories to take her away from the worriment of the sleeping old woman upstairs and what her enfeebled ramblings had
implied
.................................................................
"Ah' remember yer' Mutha' when she was just a colleen with the gift te' turn a man's heed" said the woman in the almost
-transparent smock as she yanked another carrot from the well-tilled soil of her garden. The sun had been burning down
all afternoon on Hetty and the twelve summer-old stripling who currently stood staring out towards the sentinel-like line
of oaks and elms that chaperoned the path into the place they call Underhill.
The older female in the wide-brimmed hat now believed a cool drink of water would be a grand cordial for the pair of them
and her vegetables to have around now, but maybe the forlorn-looking lassie might enjoy such refreshment in a different
procedure than usual. The girl in question was contemplating if her adopted-family of the Carnival would ever return and
her life after the death of her mother could return to some-type of normalcy.
Hetty's theatrics were never the best and when she'd performed the odd fortune-telling request for neighbours or some lost
soul that came looking for the great and wise Hetty O' The Well, such melodramatics were -if looked on with an objective
eye, obviously born from an ignorance of genuine stagecraft. The double-centenarian who could cuss with the best of them
was a fine soothsayer and creator of magical potions, a thespian of note...? maybe not.
"Oh yer' bugger-and-be-blasted!" the tumbling woman cried out as a canvas pipe she'd dragged out from underbrush had
suddenly gained a life of its own. Snaking across the bricked path between Hetty's standard collection of organic foods
and the plot of weirdly-looking herbs, the pitch-sealed hose gushed with aim -that those who seriously dabbled in the
art of majick, would suggest had been aided by such sorcery.
With skinny bare legs wiggling in the air, Hetty lay on her back feigning a incapacitated and distressed gardener whilst
the sailcloth-bound tube disgorged its contents from a nearby stream onto all who was in its vicinity.
From a sombre watcher of the route Mister Volcano had taken when he'd left the daughter of the now deceased Madam
Powler to be raised by her only relative, to a giggling girl soaked to the skin and failing miserably to avoid the cooling
vomit of the animate pipe, Peggy Powler ran around the allotment of vegetation in the manner all children should enjoy
at some point of their lives and her laughter was a tonic far-more powerful than any concoction of the decumbent woman
who'd caused the soggy disruption.
Still resembling an upturned beetle struggling to find its feet, Hetty smiled at the cloudless sky that the kid was hopefully
coming out of her doldrums and her veggies were being getting a drink too. The loss of her clairvoyant sister-in-law would
take a long time to get over for the offspring of such a troubled and burdened forebearer, but old Hetty had faith in her well
-equipped armoury of tutelage.
.................................................................
The window-rattling snow was coming down sideways now and the terrible wind seemed intent on pulling the dog-eared
and neglected thatched-roof from the squatting building where two of the Fae huddled around a blazing hearth, blissfully
scoffing down slices of smoked-cured ham layered between slices well-buttered freshly-made Stottie cake . Winter had
come to Underhill again and its wrath was no friend to the owners of the cottages that lay beneath the unusually-shaped
knoll now coated white.
"Yer' can chunter as much as thee likes, storm..." Hetty hissed sneeringly towards the cracked window adorned in its
vibrating spider webs, "...me and me best-lassie here are gettin' all the loaf te'neet" she added wickedly and afforded
a wink to the chomping content girl in question. With mugs of hot Ginger tea resting on the large flat boulders next to
the fire, Peggy and Hetty's feast smacked of the last couple of winters they'd spent together before the younger of the
couple would be approached by a certain Wizard named Myrddin.
Yet, these were the times when her aunt would surrender one of her yarns from her illustrious past and bring dreams
of exotic beasties and daunting menaces to the eager listener after supper. Somewhere out there, was the roaming
Hodag, a boar-like chimera with the head of a frog and a tail horned to impale its victims. The forest went quiet when
this salmagundi of forbidden lust walked the shadows in search of its prey.
As the embers crackled in the grate and the chimney fought the vortex caused by the hill, Peggy heard the tales of
a terrible wolf that thought like a man, but destroyed in manner far different than humans accomplish in their eternal
struggles for power. Even Hetty hushed her toothless tone when she named this famed pillager of communities and
stalker of the unaware. " Ah prompt thee, sweet child... " the old crone would whisper and glance out at the tempest
beyond the fractured pane, "...Accam Dey knows thee more than thee-self" she sighed and clutch something beneath
her scruffy tunic that Peggy was never shown.
These accounts would sometimes disturb the listener and occasionally bring eye-watering mirth, but even at fourteen
summers old, Peggy knew these tales held a message buried within the woman's words. Hetty never wasted anything,
that was some of the counsel the wide-eyed girl in the familiar green dress had taken from her mother on her death bed
and even though the old lady's scallywag dialect and knavish attitude can make a person dismiss her acumen as boorish
and bumpkin-esque, a deep intelligence of reality enjoyed the mask it wore.
.................................................................
Now reminiscing on those days of yore in the dingy parlour of the woman who'd pointed her young neophyte towards
a life of duty of those she served, Peggy swam out of her nostalgic penetralia of memories and forced her focus on
the situation in-hand. Putting aside her concerns of those who were unconsciously forgetting the times when true majick
walked the fields with the lowly ploughman, danced in the sparks of the Smithy bringing burning iron to life or waited in
the chill of an out-building with the maid as she pacified the milk-heavy cows before the sun came up, work to rid this
village of a new enemy needed to be planned and planned now.
Hetty the librarian of such tales was currently wrestling in her exhausted sleep above her and Peggy had to know what
her last words meant. Something had attacked Underhill and that unknown component -the ruminating warlock believed,
needed to be outed from the place that christened the village of her only aunt. Now... how to do it was something else
Peggy had to devise and the best way to find a solution was to get that fire going in the hearth.
Read The TV Guide, yer' don't need a TV.