Strandpiel Book Two
Chapter Ten
Trichophilia
As always, this is V0.03 - tidying up odd corners and adding an extra end-note. Bloody FF chopping bits out and not preserving my formatting.
A continuing family saga charting the interlinked lives of family and friends on at least two continents, with a cast of characters both living and dead.
Checking stats. Wow. 5,557 readers in February. 3,555 from the USA. I thank you, USA. A truly global reach. What does "Czech Revar." stand for? I've got seven Czech Revars, anyway. And 57 Russians. Hope my mangling of your language is forgiven. Please correct me if I'm getting it wrong or if you think I could be getting it better. Spassibo.
Bitterfontein, the Turnwise Caarp, Rimwards Howondaland.
Horst Lensen smiled a tolerant almost-unperturbed smile.
"It is changing, Mariella." he said. "Not as quickly as it could, but it is changing."
Mariella Smith-Rhodes-Lensen nodded back, her facial expression half-scowl and half smile.
"Ja, perhaps." she said, grudgingly.
Guessing her mood, Jan van Jaasveld hesitated before replying. What could he say? The Bitterfontein Volkskommando, the reserve army unit the town was legally expected to maintain as a means of keeping Army reservists fit and in touch with how to fight, was regarded as a joke locally. It largely consisted of fat and out-of-shape middle-aged and older men who saw it as a drinking club and a place to boastfully reminisce on old times. The younger members were men who, on discharge from regular conscript service, were expected to turn out for at least a year to keep their skills levels up. The fall-out of disillusioned and disenchanted men was huge.
Horst Lensen had signed up without a thought after leaving the regular Army. He saw it as a means of continuing his military service, and giving something back in recognition of his personal good fortune. He reckoned one evening a week and the occasional weekend was no biggie and he might even contribute something of worth. Besides, there was the emotional pull too. The Volkskommandos were, in the national mythos, the spiritual descendants of the Boer citizens' army that had defeated Ankh-Morpork and won independence. They kept the flame alive. At least in theory.
Returning to his home town of Bitterfontein after seven years of being being Educated away from home, followed by an eventful year of Adventuring, then National Service, then by several years as a volunteer officer, he had come home and approached the Volkskommando where his father and brothers had put in time.
He had expected to see motivated, dedicated, part-time soldiers, who put in time keeping their skills acceptably honed. He'd seen the Volkskommando in Mariella's home, out on the border with the Zulu Empire. They drank hard, yes. They could at best be described as mildly military. However, there was little they did not know about fighting as irregular cavalry or as fast-moving dragoons, mounted infantry in the Boer tradition. Any Zulu unit crossing the river would be, and had been, harried, cut up, ambushed, shot to pieces, and defeated in detail.
Whereas here in Bitterfontein…
"Can you be surprised?" Mariella had said. "This is as far as you can get from a hot border. This was the first part of Howondaland our people settled. There are no threats here. On my border there are Zulus. You either fight hard, or you do not fight at all. Over to the Hubwards we have the Nam(1) frontier and the Matabel. The Volkskommando there is also very good. They have to be. But here? Hundreds of miles from any threat?"
Mariella had made a dismissive hand gesture.
"Fat old men who should have retired years ago, who think impeccable uniforms and constant foot drill on their own make good soldiers." she said. "Then they drink a lot afterwards, and measure success by the fifteen-a-side team."
She paused, and added
"Also the cricket side. You have two Volkskommandos here, Horst. Two languages, two nationalities. And they do not easily mix. The Morporkians simply do not understand the ethos. It is foreign to them. They see it as like a social club, a militia that allows them to wear smart colourful uniforms. And they are in charge, alongside old Boer men who are ex-Regular and so set in their ways they are fossilised. I would forget it. Cut my losses. Leave. You've done enough, and now and again, we are both Recalled To Active Service for jobs we do not discuss, but which the fat old men would be appalled by. Isn't that enough?"
Horst had persisted. He knew Mariella's disdain was down to her having been told, by a fat superannuated colonel, who clearly hadn't done his background research about Mrs Smith-Rhodes-Lensen, that he'd have to disappoint her, but didn't she know the Volkskommando was men-only? Oh, women soldiers have their uses as auxiliaries and non-combatants and soforth, but the serious soldiering has always been done, and always will be done, by men.
"Really?" Mariella had said, in the sort of tone of voice which always had Horst looking for cover to jump behind. "That explains why I was posted out of the way to a remote barracks in Smith-Rhodesia for two years. Thank you for enlightening me."
Colonel Simmonds had been informed later about Mariella's military service. Apparently he'd grunted and said something like "They've got to make the experiment at least once, I suppose. But women as fighting soldiers. No, gentlemen. Not in my Army."
Advised Horst Lensen had served in the same unit, Simmonds had poked him in the chest and said he didn't give a damn about irregular soldiers doing irregular things. That's in the past now, laddie. We do it properly here. By the book, you hear?
Horst had been scrupulously careful to do it by the book, at least officially.
Unofficially, Horst was quietly persevering, cultivating other younger men with recent experience, and some of the abler NCO's, and they were pursuing other avenues to bring about change. He was discreetly providing other sorts of training opportunities, informal get-togethers and discussions of military theory and practice, to the part-time soldiers he was responsible for and to others who were gravitating to him.
Mariella sighed resignedly, and let him get on with it. A man needed a hobby. This was Horst's.
Tonight, they were enjoying a social evening and dinner with neighbours, the van Jaasveld family, who ran a vineyard not so far away. Mariella noted how the family set-up here parelleled her own. Jan, the son, ran more and more of the business alongside his wife Anna. But he still wasn't the baas. That was his father, Oude Jan, who was over sixty, going deaf and in faltering health. His mother Jacoba was a stolid, not especially talkative, presence.
Tonight a new person was at the table, a sullen and untalkative girl of about fourteen. While Jan and Horst were discussing fifteen-a-side and debating how to make the local Volkskommando into less of a standing joke, Mariella had tried to draw the girl out. It was exhausting her reserves of patience and good-naturedness. Anna van Jaasveld, sensitive to the situation, was trying to help here. It didn't help that Oude Jan was loudly demanding that people spoke up and was breaking into the conversations that were going on.
Mariella, in a largely one-sided conversation, was interested to discover the girl, Ellie Mayer, wasn't local. She was from a branch of the family in the Transvaal and was "staying indefinitely".
Relieved to find a common strand, and wishing her sister Johanna was here to advise on how to get the best out of a girl she had classed as "shy, socially withdrawn, away from home and stuck among strange people in a strange place", Mariella grasped at this with some relief.
"Oh, you're from Bronkhorstspruit." she said, grasping the familiar. "My family are from nearby to Piemburg, up on the Ulunghi Bend. That's maybe sixty miles away. You're no relation to the Mayer family from Potcheftstroom?"
It was like talking to a largely monosyllabic stone wall. Mariella broke through once, when she remarked that Bronkhorstspruit was a crossing on a river where both sides were, just about, still within White Howondaland, although the Zulus had taken advantage to push the frontier a little further in their favour in a past war. There'd been a battle there in the Eerste Vryheidsoorlog, theWar of Independence.(2) And, today, a town absolutely slap-bang on both sides of a river on the border was even more exposed to Zulu attack?
"Yes." the girl said, miserably. "That is why they sent me here. To my Aunt Anna and her family."
Again, Mariella wished Johanna were here. She'd been a resident teacher at the Guild School and had experience in dealing with awkward, shy, withdrawn girls. I can mention this to her in my next letter.
But something of interest was emerging. There was a growing nervousness back in her home province concerning the instability next door in the Zulu Empire, as the old king's grasp on the reins of power was slipping and two contenders for the throne, both considered to be dangerous hawks, fought for control. Mariella frowned. So people were beginning to evacuate non-combatants. Those who could were sending their children inland before the Zulus attacked. And this rather plain, painfully awkward, shy girl had been uprooted from immediate family, home life and school and had been sent to the other side of the Continent, where she knew nobody.
Even subconsciously, people are preparing for war, she thought. Even Horst, who has seen how woefully untrained and ill-prepared and unfit our local military reserve is. If they get drafted and sent into a battle they are just spear-fodder. Any half-competent Zulu will turn them into mincemeat.
Mariella made plans. When Olga Romanoff was next here, to brief her so these little pieces of knowledge got back to Ankh-Morpork. Association of ideas led her to her niece Bekki, who was currently in Ankh-Morpork on her Duty Days.
There is something wrong about this plaas. It isn't dirty or dingy. Mevrou Jacoba is a competent house manager, but not brilliant. It is dark. Gloomy. And not just because of lack of light and general drab décor. I'm betting this huis is as it was forty years ago with nothing changed or updated. Subtle neglect.
Mariella decided that she'd create an excuse for Bekki to visit here with her. Rebecka was nearer in age to this girl, and might be able to draw her our more. Ellie is clearly miserable and depressed as Hell. And I'm not sure at all, but something is wrong here. I just do not know what.
An oppression in the air that Mariella had not consciously registered suddenly broke as vivid light erupted through the windows. Mevrou Jacoba and Anna visibly jumped. Conversation stopped and a second or two later, thunder rumbled. The sound of rain began and the temperature dropped by a few degrees.
Oude Jan smiled, in some relief.
"The Wet is here." he said, un-necessarily loudly. "Io and Offler be praised!"
Horst Lensen nodded agreement.
"Ja, minheer." he said. "Tropical storm. It's been threatening since yesterday. It was raining when we saw Rebecka off on her journey."
"Well." Young Jan said, deciding. "Horst, Mariella, you won't be able to ride back in this. Not in this lightning."
"I agree." Horst said. "Not fair on the horses. Which reminds me. Best to check on them?"
The two young men found cloaks against the rain. As they left, Anna smiled at Mariella.
"You may need to stay over." she said. "Go back to your plaas early tomorrow, when this may have eased? I'll show you the guest room. Sort out things you will need."
Young Ellie said she was going to bed. She left, in the awkward not-at-ease-with-my-body way some young teenage girls had. Mariella tried to feel sorry for her, and reflected that people who most needed love and sympathy could often go out of their way to repel it by being unloveable. She wondered if she had ever been a brat as a teenager, and reflected she most probably had. But I wanted to leave my family and go away to Somewhere Else when I was eleven, she reminded herself. I got to a school that was actually very good at dealing with young girls. I made friends. I fitted in. I also had my sister Johanna, who is so much older than me that she stepped into the role of mother without either of us properly realising it. I was always welcome in her home and Ponder Stibbons, I suspect without his being aware of it, was like a sort of stand-in father. I felt loved and welcomed. It worked, for me.
"I agree." Mariella said. "Hendricka will see this storm too and appreciate we will be delayed getting back. She knows we are here and it will be no source of alarm for her. One of those things."
Anna led her to the guest room, on the other side of the huis. Mariella noted the faded sparse décor and the sense of subtle neglect, of a house that was in stasis from four or five decades previously. In good order, but people had been living here for so long they simply had not noticed how long things had been standing still for. She also sensed Anna wanted to talk, away from her in-laws.
"Ellie's a good girl. Hard work. But a good girl." she said.
"Really. No need to apologise for her." Mariella said. "We were both thirteen once."
Anna smiled.
"Mariella, do you sense people back on the border are worried? Getting anxious?"
"Well. My father is watchful. But I would not say worried. If he gets worried, it will be time to be anxious, I think."
She sensed Anna's concern.
"I'll ask them. Father knows everybody. He knows the pulse and the heartbeat of the Ulunghi country. I need to ask how many people are likely to evacuate their children in the coming months. Ellie won't be the only one, and she won't be the last."
Anna looked grave.
"She's going to struggle here. She knows it. Oude Jan. Well, you heard him. Demanding to know why she needs school, when she can work on the plaas."
Mariella considered this.
"Ja. Old-time attitudes. To him, the girl is going to be married off and a mother before she's twenty. She's had all the education that's necessary, therefore she needs to buckle down to the three k's."
Kerk, kinders, kombuis. Church, children, kitchen.
Anna looked pleading for a moment. Mariella took her hand quickly.
"I'll do what I can." she promised, wondering why she was feeling a different sort of oppression, even though the storm had already broken.
It sounded like it was set to come down all night.
Anna showed her the guest room. Mariella considered it. Spartanly furnished, but the bed looked like it might be comfortable. Again, browns predominated in the décor.
"I'm sorry it's so….." Anna groped for a word. "Uninviting. Jan knows the need. He agrees with me we can at least redecorate. Make it look better. Whiter. Warmer. But the old people just will not accept that. They say its's good enough for them, it's their huis, their rules."
The word stale rose in Mariella's mind. Nothing was dirty. The linen was clean. No dust. There were servants to help with that. Everything in order, in the Kerrigian style. Just… stale. It needed freshening up.
If instead of going to the Guild school, I'd been parked in a place like this aged twelve or thirteen, I'd be miserable too.
"Djelibeybi." she murmured, thinking of a story she'd heard about a place that had become cosmically stale.
Anna giggled.
"The inside of a pyramid?" she said. "I read about that. Once."
"Ah." Mariella said. A new insight occurred to her. "No books here?"
"Apart from the Testaments and hymnals." Anna replied. "Oude Jan thinks everything else is a waste of time and space."
"And Ellie, I'm only guessing, likes to read?"
Anna nodded.
"Like me. I keep a few books in my room. My Jan understands. His father thinks of them as kindling for a fire. I share them with Ellie. She opens up more."
"So she's going to waste precious lamp-oil by sitting up reading." Mariella remarked. "Listen, Anna. If books are hard to come by, see me. Bring Ellie. You're welcome to borrow. I've got plenty." Bekki could bring back more from Ankh-Morpork. She's a great reader too.
"And I could spare some lamp-oil too, if that's an issue." Mariella said, drily.
Washing and getting into borrowed night clothes, Mariella waited for Horst to join her. Farming people kept early bedtimes and rose early the next day, after all. Therefore any last beer with Jan would not go on till ridiculously late. She hoped. They were both in the same fifteen-a-side team.
When he turned in, they talked about their own plaas for a while and hoped the storm would not affect the vines too much. They thought not: the crop had withstood worse in past years.
"I never understood geography too much at school." Horst said. "But from what I can remember, about a quarter of the Disc is in winter at any one time. It balances, four seasons, four quarters. The Disc moves. We're in the winter quarter justnow. Apparently the further towards the Rim you are, the more you get spared the worst."
"And we're practically on the Rim here." Mariella agreed.
"Still a bad storm." he said, as thunder, lightning and rain played out outside. "I'm just betting the closer you get to the Hub, the worse it is. Maybe it's snowing over Ankh-Morpork justnow."
Mariella considered this.
"Well, Bekki's got those winter clothes in her wardrobe at home. Those Rodinian clothes. And she works with Olga and Irena. If there's a people who know about snow, it's the Rodinians. I'm betting she'll be okay. We'll know what the weather's like over Ankh-Morpork when the papers get here. Or when Bekki gets back, whichever is soonest."
"Wonder if they get snow in Klatch?" Horst mused.
Mariella shrugged.
"Doubt it." she said. "I paid attention in Geography class, jou bliksem. Apparently the Great Nef influences everything around it and keeps that region warm and dry all year. It's why Klatch is a desert, mainly."
Horst frowned.
"Is it me, or is it a bit… strange… here?"
Mariella shrugged again.
"It's a lot strange here. The huis, the people. Jan's okay, nice guy. Anna just bites her lip and gets on with it. The wife who married in. No rights. Mevrou Jacoba calls the shots and tells her what to do. She's one step above the black house servants. Not quite fully family. Oude Jan is the problem. The man's a fossil. He dictates. The man of the house. Jan tries to keep the peace, young Jan, but you can tell he's counting off the days and years till the old man croaks, and the plaas is his. And that girl who got thrown into it. A relative of Anna's, not of the van Jaasvelds. Not family. She's being crushed down and I don't think she's got the strength to fight back. And, ag, why should she? She deserves better, Horst. She's not getting it. Doesn't help she's a bit on the unloveable side."
"I'm glad you said that."
"Bliksem."
They laid together in companiable silence.
"Mariella, this does feel odd." Horst said. "Not comfortable. I can't, you know, relax. If you forced me to define it, it's as if you're on guard at night. And you know there are Zulus or Matabels out there. And you sense one of them's watching you. But you can't tell where they are, or even if there isn't one of them there at all, and it's just your imagination playing up."
She considered this.
"Ja. Even without this rain and thunder and lightning, I'd feel that way too. It does feel as if you're almost sure something is watching."
Something Ponder Stibbons had said drifted into her mind. About lightning. A natural force. He'd said Igors distilled it from the air and used it. Sometimes witches or wizards could direct it. Some lightning was natural, fuelled by processes in the air that Wizardry only half-understood. But some was purely magical, that there were things out there, in other dimensions, that used it as food and a power source.
Mariella decided not to follow this line of thought. Ponder, her brother-in-law, was a Wizard. His daughter, her niece, was a Witch. Both had said you didn't invite things of magic lightly. Even thinking intently about them, which put the possibilities into your head, could be a mistake. Ponder had said that sometimes the walls and the barriers got flimsy, or normally closed doors became unlatched, so that only the slightest touch opened them.
Mariella wondered how Bekki was getting on in Ankh-Morpork. That was safe. She reflected that having a witch in the family was good for her. Different frame of mind. Different ways of thinking.
She turned thoughts over in her mind, wondering how a dark stifling room could create dark stifling pools of shadow, but above all, wondering why in a country that annually got rain like this, her people persisted in making the roof, in a generally one-storey huis, out of handy flat material like corrugated iron. It's not as if we've only just arrived in this continent and it comes as a surprise to us, she thought.
For some reason, listening to the thunderous percussion of the rain, the image of her niece Famke arose in her mind. Mariella grinned. Wasn't her problem.
The storm abated perhaps an hour or so after midnight, and a fitful doze became deeper sleep.
An unguessable time later, Mariella suddenly awoke from a deep sleep. Claustrophobia sat on her. As well as an awareness that she wasn't alone in the room. She tried to sit up. Then wished she hadn't as a jerking, tugging pain erupted in her scalp making her fall back again.
Something was tugging and pulling at her hair. She tensed and listened, becoming an Assassin, trying to read the darkness in the right way. She was pretty sure nothing was standing behind her. The brass bedstead was right up against the wall. No room. So what had got hold of her hair? There was nothing to her right. To her left…
She kicked Horst, trying to awaken him. The bliksem was sleeping like a hog, damn him. A different sort of fear was rising. Somebody had got into a room where there were two trained Assassins. And neither of them had noticed. This was bad. And something was holding her by the hair.
"Astwgfyl?" Horst burbled as he surfaced.
Mariella turned her head to him. She felt the tugging in the roots of her hair.
"Horst." she whispered. "Something is in here. It's got my hair."
The old irritation arose. She was dependent on Horst Lensen. Helpless – well, not entirely so - and having to rely on Horst. She knew this was irrational and somewhat stupid. Horst had become a good man. A better Assassin. They'd relied on each other in the Slew together, and seen some tough places. She was reacting to the complete idiot she'd been at school with, not the man he was now. The far better man, the new Horst Lensen, her husband. But old ingrained patterns of thought die hard.
She heard the covers move and felt the change in the balance of the bed, then the slight thump as his bare feet hit the uncarpeted floor. She sensed him cautiously moving around the room, scouting. Mariella's right hand groped carefully for the night-stand. She found the sheathed throwing knives, the ones she usually wore on her forearm, and pulled them gratefully towards her. She smiled. Whoever it was had not put her weapons out of her reach, then. Elementary mistake when approaching the client at night when they were presumed asleep. Never give them a chance to go for weapons.
She smiled again. Always good to realise you are better at it than the other person. Bring it on, jou bliksem.
She heard the rustle of fabric, a loose muffled rattling, and then a scratching nose. A light flared into being. Mariella remembered to keep one eye closed, to preserve some night vision for when it was needed again. Horst was now lighting the oil lamps.
She could see at a glance there was nobody else in the room. She thought about sitting up, but the tugging on her scalp reminded her this was not a good idea justnow.
"Nothing." Horst said. The expression on his face suggested he wanted to say we all get this sort of dream from time to time and that he'd be understanding about it, damn him. Then he looked over at Mariella and whistled.
"Jislaaik." he said. "I've heard of people's hair getting tangled up at night. But this…"
He moved to her side.
"Shame they didn't tie your wrists up as well." Horst remarked. "Then you'd be completely at my mercy."
"Don't think it, bliksem." Mariella replied. "I'd still have my feet free."
She thought.
"And what do you mean, tie?" she demanded.
Horst looked grave.
"Well. Somebody's been messing. Your hair's been tied to the bed-rail. In three different places. Don't struggle, you're only going to pull it tighter."
Horst gently and deftly set about untying her hair, remarking that at least these are simple knots. Just looped around and pulled through.
Mariella, red-faced with annoyance and a little embarrassment, reflected that somebody had been able to get in, free up three long lengths of her hair, and to successively tie each of them to the bed. Without anyone noticing.
"It wasn't you, was it?" she demanded. Then she bit it back. The old Horst, maybe. His sense of humour. Not the new one. He might play fifteen-a-side but he appreciates better jokes than this. Besides, he sleeps like a brick.
"I'd have tied better knots than this." he replied, shaking his head.
Finally, Mariella was freed. She brushed out her hair, feeling hot, cross and tired, then set about plaiting and braiding it, methodically creating the most complex braids she could possibly devise. If anyone came back, they would have to unplait everything. And she'd notice.
"Suits you." Horst said.
She glared at him.
"We've got five suspects, bliksem. Anyone stands out?" she said.
"Jan, Anna, Oude Jan, Mevrou Jakoba and the girl. Ellie."
"Old Jan might be eccentric enough. But he's so deaf he makes noise when he moves and just doesn't notice he's making noise. Mevrou Jakoba, she is… well. An older woman. Galumphs when she moves. Slow on her feet. Breathes heavily. Whoever got in here was completely silent." Mariella said.
"Leaves Young Jan and Anna. He's too… well, everyday. He's a bro, Mariella. What you see is what you get. Could you see him stalking round by night tying women up with their own hair?" Horst said.
Mariella conceded the point. Jan was too normal. What was going on here was a weirdness. Mariella had never served in the City Watch, but she knew people who did, who had assured her that however weird or bizarre it was, especially if it had what you might delicately call a sexual dimension, then somebody had done it. (3) She frowned. Some of the stories people like Irena had told her were hair-related. She tried to remember. There'd been alcohol involved during the original tellings.
"Mariella, did you notice Anna has had her hair restyled short? And recently? I remember you saying that when a woman has her hair cut short, it's usually a sign of some worry or crisis or other."
"Ja, or else she's been called up into the Army." Mariella replied, irked that Horst had been first to bring this detail up. "I wouldn't read too much into that. Living in this house with those in-laws would drive anyone nuts."
Horst nodded. He looked around him.
"Gloomy. Claustrophobic. Too much bare walls with old yellowed plaster, and too much dark brown woodwork." he agreed. "So it's Anna or the girl, then."
In a different bedroom in the huis, another conversation was going on.
"We should have told them." Jan van Jaasveld said, to his wife. "About what's been going on."
Anna van Jaasveld sighed, long and guilty.
"I know, Jan. But if anyone can work it out, maybe see it from a new direction, it's Horst and Mariella. And it's not as if they're defenceless. They're both Assassins. They served in the Slew together. Maybe they'll even find a way to fight it off."
Jan sighed and shook his head.
"Hell of a thing to do to a bro like Horst, even so." he replied. "Not a kiff thing to do. And what if it's, you know, the other thing?"
Anna smiled.
"Well. That niece of Mariella's who's moved in. People are saying things about her. You know. Concerning the sort of young woman she is. Apparently, she studied in Lancre. If it's the other thing, she might know what to do."
With nothing more to say, they extinguished the light and went to bed. A lot later they were woken by a loud unmistakeable double-thud noise followed by a piercing scream.
Mariella, her hair now very tightly braided and tied up, settled back to sleep again. Horst tried, gallantly, to remain awake. But his eyes began to droop in the monotony of the dark and the Agatean-torture noise of the last raindrops on the roof. Very soon, he followed her.
Mariella fell asleep, reflecting on conversations with Bekki. There were departed members of the Smith-Rhodes family, Bekki said, who would come back and act as sort of spirit guides to her. Apparently the Johanna Smith-Rhodes of every previous generation of the Family had made herself known to Bekki, their Dear Little Witch. (4)
Mariella had once seen her niece conclusively demonstrate this was so, to her satisfaction. Bekki had also said she'd seen that even somebody with no magic at all could become aware of the presence of the spirits, if they were nearby. It had apparently happened to Johanna, Bekki's actually living mother, when she had been recovering from heart surgery. But her niece had said you didn't, you know, have to nearly die on the operating table first. There was a less drastic way, and this applied to everybody, magic user or not, twice every day.
Mariella reflected she was going into one of those states, the hazy borderline between being fully awake and fully asleep, and wondered if she could. She focused on the idea of an aunt she'd barely known who had died before she was three, and said "Aunt Johanna Francesca. If this is possible, and I don't know if it is or not, could I talk to you? If not to you, one of the others? Thank you."
As she slipped into sleep, the usual sort of random images started to flash behind her closed eyelids. Faces, places, possibly glimpses of old memories. She thought she recognised her old teacher Alice Band in the mix, and the shrewd cunning face of Miriam bint-Alhazred. In the main, they came and went quickly, beyond her conscious control.
Eww, what the Hells was that? Those long arms. Or feelers. That body.
She glimpsed something monstrous and jerked awake, reminding herself this sort of thing could flash behind your eyelids too. She let herself slip back into sleep again, letting the purple-red-black screen form behind her eyes. Another procession of faces. Then she saw the woman. She looked family. A little bit like Johanna, her sister, in the face. She was tying to talk, lips moving, no sound emerging, pointing…
Mariella swore inwardly. The moment you tried to control it, to consciously steer it, the picture faded, the woman vanished, and waking life intruded.
Something is wrong. My hair…
Mariella jerked up. One of the long braids she'd woven had somehow come loose of the complex knot. Twisting her head, she saw out of the corner of her eye it was looping round the brass of the bedframe. And apparently tying itself into a knot. Something like a hand. Just a glimpse. Then it faded and she jerked her head free.
"Not twice in a night. Ag, no." she said.
She wondered if she'd fallen asleep and was dreaming this. There were no lamps lit, but she was aware of the position of everything in the room. She shook her head and reached up to slap something away that was trying to unpick her braids. But there was nothing there? Nothing she could see, anyway. She heard Horst mumble in his sleep.
She turned her head. And saw it.
It was ugly. It glowed a phosphorescent greeny-white. The things that stuck in her mind were the arms. Or maybe tentacles. At the end of each was something that looked like a cross between a human hand and a lobster's claw. There were no obvious eyes. But the claws were clacking, making scissoring noises.
"Oh, no, you will not." Mariella said, angry now. "I don't know what you are or even if I'm meant to be seeing you. I tell you now, I have once had my hair cut off. I had to submit that time. There will not be a second time!"
She heard Horst say "Mariella?"
She fought the semi-paralysis that meant her arms and body were moving awkwardly and sluggishly. A memory, Irena Politek explaining how she came to be a Witch in the first place, talking about night terrors, when your body is completely frozen and paralysed, and then they come. Irena had said she'd soon figured out that even if your body is paralysed, you still have your mind. Most people try to struggle to move. Irena had used her mind to punch back with. And she'd punched hard. (5)
Mariella Smith-Rhodes-Lensen wasn't a witch. But she had weapons, and could control her sluggish arms for just long enough…
Two throwing knives passed through the space where the repellent blobby thing apparently was and impacted the bedroom door with a definite thunk-thunk noise.
From elsewhere in the house there was a female scream, high and shrill, and the blob-monster winked out of existence.
Horst looked at his wife.
"I sort of glimpsed something." he said. "It wasn't human, was it?
"No." Mariella said, grimly. "It wasn't. I need to talk to a witch about this."
Horst understood this completely. Teaching to Assassins about magical phenomena was short and concise. It boiled down to If you encounter things of magic, or paranormal entities, whether or not they are to do with the contract, then know your limitations and withdraw immediately. Speak to a witch or a wizard. Teatime Prize notwithstanding, you are not trained for this sort of combat.
There were no more disturbances that night.
In the morning, Horst and Mariella showed Jan and Anna the knives that Mariella had - deliberately – left embedded in the back of the door.
"I thought there was an intruder in the room." Mariella said, apologetically. "We'll pay for the repairs, obviously."
Anna looked miserable.
"It came to you, didn't it?" she asked. Jan looked at her, appalled as if she was blurting out a family secret.
Mariella tried to look sympathetic. She made an intuitive leap.
"The thing that cut your hair off?" she said. "Ja. Big, ugly, and not something you wish to see in your bedroom at night."
Jan tried to remove a knife. He was surprised at the amount of force it took, and looked at Mariella with some surprise.
"I suggest you tell me what you know." Mariella said. "It is daylight now. And the storm's abated."
Later on they rode from Hartebeeste back to Bitterfontein together. Progress was necessarily slow as the trail was full of mud and puddles. Not a ride for galloping.
"That huis is toxic." Mariella decided. "Bad feelings. Built over years. Then the girl arrived, miserable as sin, into a plaas with lots of things going on. She enabled that thing to take shape, somehow. Everybody's anger, resentment, depression. Anna's depressed as Hell too. Mevrou Jakoba is a downtrodden doormat. Jan's full of resentment and frustration at his father."
"We need to get Bekki there. She's a witch. She'll see more." Horst agreed. "I'll ask mother what she knows. What she's heard."
They rode on in tired silence.
They discovered Bekki had arrived back the previous evening, in the teeth of the tropical storm. She'd been philosophical about that, saying she'd caught it coming and going. It had been a bit snowy in the city. The Air Watch had managed. We always do. The family send love, and I bought the papers. You might like to read them. I had a busy couple of days, sorry I wasn't able to get everything but I got the things from Pairs for you, Aunt Mariella. Got your new boots, Uncle Horst. Not all the shops were open but I did what I could.
Later on she heard about the haunting, or whatever the Hells it was, at the van Jaasveld plaas. Bekki said she'd go and take a look. And that you probably just drove it off, Aunt Mariella, with the knives. Perhaps this is the first time it's met anyone who was prepared to fight back? New experience. But you wouldn't have destroyed it. The girl screamed when you stabbed it with your knives? That's interesting. But it will be back. I'm not sure if I can solve this one, but I'll try. I need to talk to Irena and Olga about it, ideally they need to see the place too. Maybe i should talk to other witches, too. Witches with more experience of these things. We'll have to make a plan for getting in there, if this Old Jan doesn't welcome strangers too gladly. Difficult old man, is he?
Mariella smiled. The problem was with the right people now. Witches.
To be continued. See "Notes Dump" underneath for the real-life haunting this is based on.
(1) Need a better word. In our world, the now-independent Namibia was seen as a province of South Africa and some desperate fighting went on here, pre-1994. Namibia stuck out like a fat thumb on the west coast of Southern Africa and had a long land border with Angola and Zambia and Botswana – undeclared wars were fought here for a long time. Mariella is calling this border the Nam, but there has to be a better word.
(2) In our world, the Battle of Bronkhorstspruit happened in the First Boer War of 1880-81. A British army that had scorned the Boers as ignorant filthy Dutch farmers, who knew less about fighting than they did about soap and regular washing,(2.1) was unaware the despised Boers were concealed in hills overlooking the river ford. They were waiting for just the moment when the British army was exactly halfway across the river and split into two halves, which at that moment could not co-ordinate effectively. Then the Boers attacked, and the British suffered the first in a series of humiliating routs.
(2.1) (sighs, resignedly) It's an old slur.
(3) People like Irena Politek and her sister Johanna (occassional Watch Special) had then been pleased to illustrate the case with examples. Indicating that everything was a perversion to the right mind. When Witches and Watchwomen gather for a drink and discuss the off-colour and interesting things they encounter...
(4) Laat ons saam sing: Hulle noem my Liewe Heksie. obscure TV reference. Saffas will get it. And those who like watching TV shows on YouTube.
(5) The full story involves fireballs which Irena threw at her night terrors. The local Witch, Natalya Svetlanavichnya, had taken an interest then and said to Irena's parents that when a girl gets these sort of hot dreams at night, you don't want the isba completely burnt down, do you? She's got Witching. Grigori, Yannesa, best I take her as a pupil, don't you think? Horoscho.
The Notes Dump:-
The Laager, where odd ideas, insights, Showing My Workings and miscellaneous bits that take my fancy, before such ideas as make it continue their Trek into a main story somewhere.
Based, loosely, on the strange tale related in Fortean Times no 403 – says March 2021 on the cover but actually arrived in mid-February.
From the Cape Town Dagblad, published sometime around 1947 – 48, at the plaas owned by stolid Boer Minheer J. van Jaasveld, who, when his young niece Meisie Mayer came to stay, also attracted Something Eldritch, and triggered a poltergeist-ish set of events.
The location is given as Hartebeeste River, in the municipality of Uniondale in the Little Karoo region of the Western Cape. The timing of the ghost story is 1896, which is interesting: about the time lots of little incidents, misunderstandings, flare-ups and skirmishes were building up to the Boer War proper. So lots of fear, apprehension, worry and uncertainty in the air. Adolescent (?) girl sent inland, a long way from places where trouble was thought most likely, to get her out of the firing line.
Throwaway line from a TV comedy show: Prepostredamus, French seer. Got to use this.
Response to review from reader Freyalyn, who regretted reading this chapter just before bedtime:
Ah. Apologies.
In a sense, nothing here in this story is made up. I was inspired by an actual real-life haunting in South Africa, that when I started digging into it, has all the classic ingredients. An isolated, remote, farmhouse many miles from anywhere with a small family community living in each other's back pockets. limited formal education combined with religious fervour and superstition. The uncertainty and apprehension about the future - the background note of the British clamping down on Afrikaaner nationalism, the infringement of a culturally foreign power the Dutch/Boers had no common ground with, the erosion of freedoms. The classic Afrikaaner fear that The Blacks Will Rise Up and Slaughter Us In Our Beds.
The claustrophobia of a Boer household with a set-in-his-ways authoritarian religiously-minded patriach, living in isolation. Into all this there comes a teenage girl, possibly adolescent, who is shy and awkward and alone. And a remote farmstead where elderly people make the rules is not a good place to be female and teenage. there's a lot of energy slopping around. It has to go somewhere.
And a poltergeist manifestation happens which has a particular obsession with female hair. The observed physical form it takes in the original haunting is also described here... I've embellished nothing. Everything has been moved from Haartebeeste in the Western Cape to Bitterfontein in the Turnwise Caarp, names and all, and simply expanded - filling in plausible extra background detail.
How Bekki and other witches resolve this will be seen in a later chapter. (She also gets another Fortean situation to deal with, involving possible UFO's and an elderly lady who claims close encounters of the third kind- I've noted this elsewhere)