The Doll Read online

  Old Riggs, a renowned healer and wise woman, had lived over three hundred years before on the wildest parts of Exmoor. Feared but respected by all the locals she had been a prolific recorder of all her work and had left behind many valuable records. Most of which were now piled haphazardly in Queenie’s spare bedroom.

  ‘I hope so,’ said Sybil soberly, ‘because we could really use some guidance.’

  ‘We have each other,’ stated Queenie, placing an arm around her shoulder. ‘We are the A team remember!’

  ‘But she is the most formidable adversary we have ever faced!’

  ‘Yes,’ replied Queenie, ushering her out of the room. ‘Fun, isn’t it!’

  Pulling the heavy blankets up around her chin Sybil shifted, trying to get comfortable on the firm mattress.

  ‘Okay?’ Queenie inquired.

  ‘No! This bed is as hard as iron, how can you sleep on it?’ she complained.

  ‘It’s fine. Stop fussing, you big girl’s blouse!’ she said, climbing into bed next to her sister. ‘Humbug?’ she asked, offering her sister a paper bag.

  ‘No,’ said Sybil crossly. ‘Put those down and go to sleep.’

  ‘I thought I would just read for a while.’ She opened up a leather bound book, cracked and stained with age and propped it in front of her.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘One of her journals,’ she replied, taking a sweet and popping into her mouth. She began to suck noisily and Sybil closed her eyes in frustration, bunching the pillow up around her ears.

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want a sweet?’

  ‘No,’ she said, gritting her teeth. ‘I’m tired and I want to go to sleep! And don’t you dare put your cold feet on me!’

  ‘As if I would...’

  Sybil clicked off her bedside lamp leaving Queenie sat in a dim pool of light.

  She frowned in concentration as she deciphered the crabbed handwriting on the crackling paper while making notes in the margins of the journal.

  ‘Look at this!’ she suddenly exclaimed, jabbing her sister in the small of her back with an elbow.

  ‘Shut up Queenie! I’m asleep!’

  ‘No, you’re not, sit up and have a look!’ She waved the journal in her sister’s direction. ‘Old Riggs made an entry about the rise of an evil form of black magic in the neighbouring county; “a most evil scourge” is how she describes it.’ Queenie pursed her lips thoughtfully. ‘I wonder if she meant Dorset?’ She nudged her sister again impatiently. ‘This is important Sybil; she made a point of recording this so perhaps there was a particularly malicious coven here?’

  Sybil sighed and rolled over, peering blearily at the book in her sister’s hand.

  ‘You’re jumping to conclusions, she could have been referring to Somerset; remember the witches of Wincanton. They had a bad reputation. Or it could have been the Bodmin coven in Cornwall.’

  ‘But maybe...’

  ‘But maybe nothing, Queenie! Turn the light out and go to sleep! We can have a thorough search in the morning and I will be able to concentrate much better if I am allowed to get some sleep!’

  ‘Fine!’ Queenie said crossly and snapped the book shut. ‘I am so sorry to keep you awake. I realise you need your beauty sleep, after all we wouldn’t want William seeing you looking anything but your best!’

  ‘You could use some beauty sleep as well, or haven’t you looked in the mirror recently?’ Sybil muttered, huddling back under the covers. ‘Ow!’ she yelped. ‘And stop kicking me!’

  chapter FIVE

  They had been in the spare bedroom for over three hours, methodically searching through all the ancient volumes of witch lore that Queenie possessed and had finally narrowed it down to three large tomes that they suspected would be useful. One was penned by Old Riggs which Queenie had found the previous evening, the second was a work by Temperance Lloyd, who specialised in herbal lore, and the third was a volume written in the 1970’s by a friend of Queenies.

  Picking up the book of plants, Sybil frowned and waved it in her sister’s direction. ‘Why have you left this one out?’ she inquired.

  ‘There’s a good potion for arthritis in there,’ replied Queenie.

  ‘Oh dear, are your knees still bothering you?’ asked Sybil an expression of concern on her face. Her sister was kneeling on the floor, dragging book after book from beneath the bed, which they had eventually located by dint of moving the many boxes piled up in front of it. ‘Perhaps you should get up and let me do that?’ she suggested.

  ‘No, I’m fine, don’t fuss,’ Queenie said dismissively as she pulled a small black tin forward. ‘Anyway I think this is the last of it.’ She prised open the lid and peered at the small pieces of paper neatly folded within. ‘I don’t remember putting this under the bed,’ she muttered and started to read the text. ‘Who is Algra?’ she asked suddenly.

  ‘Great Aunt Agatha.’

  ‘I didn’t realise she was a witch,’ said Queenie in surprise, sitting back on her heels.

  ‘How could you not know that!’ asked Sybil raising her eyebrows.

  ‘Well, she must have kept it well hidden.’

  ‘Her husband didn’t approve, so I think she was very careful whom she told.’

  ‘Huh! Great Aunt Agatha! Who would have thought it, that sweet old lady!’ She opened one of the pieces of folded paper and began to read. ‘Wow!’ She looked across at Sybil who was perched on the one small part of the bed that was clear. ‘She was in to some serious spell craft, look at this...how to imprison a demon!’

  Sybil dropped the book she was holding onto the floor and leaned forward.

  ‘That’s an antique you know,’ pointed out Queenie reprovingly.

  ‘Never mind the book, Queenie! Perhaps we could use that spell to imprison the witch. We’ve done it before.’ Sybil was referring to the time that they had trapped William’s grandfather, a very malicious ghost, in a jam jar.

  ‘That might be an option, we would of course have to tweak it a little as she is so powerful but it might work,’ exclaimed Queenie. She looked up suddenly, her eyes unfocused and blank. ‘Paul is approaching the house,’ she stated, her psychic senses suddenly coming to the fore. ‘So we had better brush ourselves off and go downstairs, and I really need a cup of tea after searching through all these dusty boxes.’

  They were halfway down the stairs when the familiar knock came at the door.

  ‘You let Paul in and I will put the kettle on,’ suggested Sybil.

  ‘Good idea,’ said Queenie, as she shifted the heavy pile of books from one arm to another.

  A thin layer of snow lay over the ground covering the garden and path, and by the look of the grey sky more was to come.

  ‘Come in Paul,’ she said breezily, ‘before you freeze to death.’

  Although he was wrapped up in a thick coat his nose was pink from the cold.

  ‘Morning Queenie.’

  ‘You could do with a hat,’ she pointed out. ‘I shall order Sybil to knit one for you.’

  Paul smiled. ‘But I don’t wear hats.’

  ‘Nonsense, you must keep your head warm in weather like this, more heat is lost from the top of the head than any other part of the body,’ she said bossily, shutting the door behind him. ‘And how was everything last night?’ she enquired, hustling him up the passage to the kitchen.

  ‘Fine, no problems. Patricia managed to sleep and so did I.’

  ‘Good, good,’ she said briskly. ‘Sybil’s making tea.’

  ‘Do you have any coffee?’ he ventured.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then tea will be fine,’ he smiled slightly and followed her into the kitchen. The broken table was still lying in the middle of the small room. ‘Shall I move that?’ he offered. ‘Perhaps put it outside?’

  ‘No, it can stay there until I fix it,’ she said dismissively. ‘I have some glue somewhere.’

  ‘Glue is not going to work Queenie, face it, the table has had it,’ interrupted Sybil, looking up from pou
ring the boiling water into the teapot. ‘Good morning, Paul.’

  ‘Morning, Sybil. Was everything quiet last night?’

  ‘There was no sign of her,’ she answered reassuringly. ‘So we had a peaceful night.’

  He spotted the books tucked under Queenie’s arm. ‘Did you find something?’ he asked eagerly.

  ‘Yes indeed,’ Queenie answered, looking smug. ‘Several interesting entries but we’ll discuss that later. First tell us how you got on. You did go to the antique shop, didn’t you?’

  ‘Of course, I said I would.’ Paul pulled a sheaf of notes from his coat pocket. ‘I have it all written down, the owner was very helpful.’ A clink of china drew his attention away from his notes as Sybil loaded the tray with china. ‘Shall I carry that for you?’

  ‘If you don’t mind, Paul, we might just as well get comfortable in the front room while we discuss everything.’

  ‘Any biscuits?’ Queenie asked hopefully.

  ‘Yours are all stale but I did bring a packet of custard creams with me.’

  Queenie beamed at her. ‘And that’s why you are my favourite sister!’

  The fire was cold and Queenie shivered slightly as she perched on the edge of her armchair. ‘We should have lit the fire this morning,’ she grumbled, taking a cup of tea from her sister.

  ‘We were busy,’ Sybil pointed out.

  ‘Shall I do it?’ offered Paul, starting up from the sofa. ‘It won’t take a minute.’ He quickly raked the clinkers from the grate and crumpled some newspapers, then added the dry kindling. It soon caught as he held a match to the paper, the flames flickered around the wood and a crackling noise filled the room. Paul stood back from the fire as the logs caught. Shrugging off his coat as the room began to warm through, he laid it on the back of the chair and pulled a sheaf of paper from the pocket.

  ‘Right,’ he said, consulting his notes. ‘As I said, the owner was very helpful,’ he paused for a minute as Sybil handed him some tea, ‘Thank you, and luckily he remembered the doll. He seemed very happy to get it out of the shop as it was freaking out one of the sales assistants.’

  ‘But does he remember where it came from?’

  Paul nodded; an exultant look on his face. ‘Yes! It came from a house clearance. The daughter of the deceased organised it. The shop took some of the furniture and a few knick- knacks, but he said there wasn’t of much value in the house. It was only as they were getting ready to leave the property that she pulled this doll out of the garden shed. He thought it might have been worth something as it was so unusual. The daughter was really happy for it to go.’

  ‘It was in the shed?’

  ‘Yes, her mother had hated it so she threw it in there the day the father brought it home and it’s been there ever since.’

  Queenie shifted impatiently in her chair and glared at the young man. ‘But that doesn’t tell us what we need to know!’

  ‘I haven’t finished,’ he said calmly, holding up his hand. ‘I asked if the daughter had said where her father had got it, apparently he found it.’

  ‘Where?’’ exclaimed the sisters.

  ‘He worked for the council in the Highways Department. They were working on the road at Winterbourne Abbas where badgers had been undermining the area near a stone circle. He found the doll half buried beneath one of the standing stones.’

  Queenie leant back in her chair and clapped a hand to her forehead. ‘The Nine Stones!’

  ‘Do you know of them?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘they are sometimes called The Devil’s Stones.’

  ‘I don’t think I have ever noticed them,’ he confessed.

  ‘Not many people do, they are set back from the road in a small copse and easily missed, nor does anybody realise the significance of the circle,’ put in Sybil.

  ‘I have never even heard of them.’

  ‘The stones were erected during the Bronze Age; there was a belief that it enabled the local tribe to connect with supernatural entities. In later years the locals were convinced that the Devil visited the site and the stones are actually petrified children.’

  ‘What nonsense!’ he said quickly, a look of amusement on his face which quickly faded as he saw the gloomy expression on Queenie’s face. ‘Isn’t it?’

  ‘It is still used for ceremonies by the Druids and witches,’ she said. ‘And there were rumours of human sacrifices being performed there. Not recently I am happy to say!’

  ‘So is it possible that the witch and her coven would have met at the stones?’

  ‘It would have been an ideal spot,’ she muttered. ‘It’s only about five miles so not that far, especially on horseback, but for sabbats and special spell casting...well, what better place!’ She sighed, looking at the flickering flames in the grate. ‘Which leads us onto our find.’ Queenie looked seriously at the eager young man. ‘One of the most powerful witches of Devon made an entry in her journal about the rise of a particularly dark coven in a neighbouring county, so we are assuming she meant Dorset.’

  ‘But that all ties in, doesn’t it!’ he said.

  ‘Possibly,’ put in Sybil. ‘But as I pointed out to Queenie earlier it could mean other covens, there is proof of other witches with nefarious reputations in Cornwall and Somerset.’

  ‘My sister is too cautious,’ said Queenie, winking at Paul.

  ‘No, I am just not keen on jumping to conclusions, unlike you! We need more proof.’

  ‘What else do you need, a written confession?’ Queenie snapped.

  Paul, feeling the unusual tension between the sisters, tried to pour oil on the situation by redirecting the conversation. ‘So,’ he asked mildly, ‘when was the journal written and could we get some sort of time scale perhaps? That would give a better indication if these events were connected, and also where to look in the archives.’

  ‘The author of the journal was known as Old Riggs and she was active in the 1600’s,’ Queenie stated.

  ‘But that is over four hundred years ago!’ he said, looking dumbfounded.

  ‘I told you the doll was old,’ Queenie pointed out. ‘And you have the man’s name; can’t you just find a Nicholas Spicer in the records?’ Queenie shook her head in irritation and scowled at him. ‘It can’t be that difficult!’

  ‘Spicer is a local name,’ he pointed out, trying to keep calm. ‘And there are a lot of them. If I have to trawl through four hundred years worth of parish records I will be there for days.’

  ‘Well, what else have you got to do?’ she said bluntly.

  His expression suddenly changed and he quickly consulted his wristwatch. ‘Damn! I have to go! I have a funeral this morning and I’m going to be late!’

  ‘Then you had better go, Vicar,’ she said, looking up at him from the comfort of the armchair.

  Struggling on with his coat he gazed anxiously at the women, ‘I will be back later,’ he promised and hurried to the door. ‘Just promise me you will be careful,’ he pleaded, turning in the doorway.

  ‘Just go, Paul,’ Queenie responded briskly. ‘And stop fussing, we’ll be fine.’

  With one last reluctant look at the old woman huddled in front of the fire he walked quickly to the door closely followed by Sybil. She patted him on the back as she opened the front door.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she reassured him. ‘Now go and see to the funeral, we’ll let you know if anything happens.’

  Turning up the collar of his coat at the sudden blast of cold air, he nodded. ‘Okay, I’ll pop down after the funeral as I might have a few ideas about tracking down Spicer, but we can discuss that later.’ Paul nodded farewell and crunched through the thick snow covering the path between the cemetery wall and the gardens leaving a trail of footprints that were soon covered by the icy flakes. Sybil watched him until he reached the entrance of the alley leading to the road and with one last wave he disappeared from view.

  She looked out across the wintery landscape listening to the soft hiss of the falling snow in the silence of
the afternoon; no traffic noise broke the peace and she smiled enjoying the rare tranquillity. Sybil was just about to step back into the house when her wandering gaze lit on the black shapes crouched in one of the pine trees bordering the cemetery. Their baleful eyes were fixed on her and she shivered as the largest of the crows opened its beak in a silent call and threateningly spread its wings.

  ‘Guardians of the spirit realm protect us this day,’ she said quietly, ‘and hinder those who would bring harm to this door.’

  A cackle of mocking calls followed Sybil as she stepped back into the hall and slammed the door. She walked thoughtfully back to the warmth of the fire.

  ‘Did I hear you talking to my neighbours? Was It Mrs Abbott? If so, I hope she wasn’t complaining again.’ enquired Queenie, not looking up from the journal. She was quickly scanning the faded pages for any more references to the ‘scourge’.

  ‘Unwanted neighbours,’ muttered Sybil, rubbing her arms briskly, trying to bring some warmth back to them. Taking a log she placed it on the fire and stirred the coals with the poker. ‘There, that’s better,’ she said, as the flames began to lick at the wood. ‘It’s snowing again and they are back, in case you are interested.’

  ‘Who?’ Queenie asked absently, glancing up from the page.

  ‘The three old crows.’

  ‘So...’ Queenie said thoughtfully, shutting the book. ‘Then I think it’s time we tried out Great Aunt Agatha’s demon catcher.’ She smiled at Sybil. ‘Are you ready for this?’

  ‘No, but I don’t suppose you are going to take any notice of my opinion.’

  ‘Of course not, why break the habit of a life time?’ She casually tossed the journal onto the chair and picked up Great Aunt Agatha’s tin. ‘Time to put this to the test,’ she said, staring down at the scraps of paper tucked inside. ‘And we shall find out if Great Aunt Agatha was a powerful witch or just a dabbler.’ She patted her sister on the shoulder. ‘Don’t look so worried Sybil, everything will be fine.’