Sarah England - Baba Lenka - Pure Occult Horror

The closest she ever got to disclosing anything had been on the plane over to Bavaria, when Dad had been talking about the Sudetens fleeing Bohemia after the Second World War. She’d said the reason for the rising unrest was something about roots being ripped out, about more witches being murdered in Germany and Eastern Europe than anywhere else in the world, that fury with the church would be eternal. I think she regretted the outburst instantly – the sinews of her face had tightened, and the words had been terse, almost spat out. I didn’t understand any of it, really. But the term witch had been synonymous with Baba Lenka in one too many sentences.

One more thing I didn’t understand – if the poppet had brought the curse home as my mother had said, then how come it had only ever felt good? Amid all the night terrors and visions, the only thing that had softened the edges of my fear and provided something to hold on to was that doll.

And now she’d burned it.

After a while my tears dried. It seemed time to pick a side. My mother had both deceived and rejected me. But Baba Lenka had not. In fact, she was only too keen to reveal her journey, promised it would help ‘when the time came’. I could not have known, of course, how dark that journey would be, how unutterably black… not then… and by the time I did, it would be too late.

You must take the gift, Eva… accept it or it will kill you…

Miserably, I nodded to the voice in my head. Okay, then. If I didn’t, I would be destroyed like she said. And if I did, the night terrors would stop.

The conclusion gained strength. By day I could be Eva Hart, a normal little girl who went to school and had friends. And at night Lenka would show me her world. I would not go mad; my life would not be ruined. All I had to do was listen to her story. Isn’t that what most ghosts want – just to be heard?

So I dried my face with the back of my hand and lifted up the small pink valise my mother had packed. As I did so, a cold wind whipped up outside, smattering sleet against the windowpane, and the shadow of the pit wheel fell across the bedroom wall.

I clicked the case open.

On top of the neatly folded layers of cardigans and pinafores was the crow poppet. Not burned. Not even singed.

To you…

Every detail of the poppet was intact – from the soft feather wings and the little beaked head to the cleanly bound hemp.

How the hell…? This could not be possible. No way! And yet there it was.

Wave after wave of shock hit me in the gut. Backing away from the open case, I sank into the furthest corner of the room, crumpled onto the floorboards where the carpet didn’t meet the skirting, and shoved my fist into my mouth to stop the screams. Every beat of my heart was such a thump, it nearly blacked my mind. How could this be? How, how?

Eva, it exists… it exists… look… accept…

Eventually, I’m not sure how long it took, my breathing calmed and the initial panic subsided. My mother had definitely burned the poppet! I’d seen her snap its neck as she’d left the room, heard her strange incantations as the fire had crackled outside, and the heat of the flames had seared my own flesh, dripping off bones like candlewax as the witch was burned to death. On top of that, she’d been determined, furious, and even taken the risk of being caught doing it. Oh, she had absolutely annihilated the doll.

Magic… magic… believe… believe…

A child’s laughter reverberated around my head, a tinkling delight all the more sinister for its innocence.

If you don’t accept it… you will go mad… completely insane…

Magic or insanity? I chose a side.

With dried tears and a sickly thudding heart, I stood and walked over to the open case. Picked up the poppet. It had a whiff of bonfire about it. Closer examination revealed the markings were unchanged, too, with nothing charred or smudged. Later, these somewhat indecipherable glyphs would mean more, but the only one that always jumped out was the somewhat childish drawing of a shining sun. This was etched into the forehead and resembled a circle with rays sticking out like pins, the middle filled in with black ink. Funny, I’d never really noticed that before despite endless scrutiny. Why black for the sun?

The poppet felt very warm to the touch and seemed to smoke like incense, but there was no doubt it was exactly the same one.

Cutting into my thoughts, Grandma Hart’s voice trilled up the stairs. “Eva? Eva, love, your tea’s ready.”

How long had I been standing there? That was another thing – time just vanished. The light had dimmed, and evening was closing in rapidly. So fast. What happened to all that time? Yanking open the chest of drawers in the corner, I fudged my clothes in, then slipped the poppet inside the pillowcase and ran downstairs.

“Coming!”

“Wash your hands and face in the scullery, love, then come to the table.”

Grandma Hart, still in hairnet and rollers, was draining cabbage when I hurried to the sink. The omens weren’t good regarding the evening meal. I was not going to like this. The room stank of school dinners and something that hit the back of my throat like an emetic.

“What are we having?”

“Liver and bacon with cabbage and mash. That all right for you, love?”

I almost cried. Oh no, what fresh batch of misery was this? I bloody hated liver and cabbage. She’d put horseradish into something, too, hadn’t she? Oh God… If it was in the potato, I couldn’t eat that either. But how to tell her I couldn’t eat offal and I’d be sick from horseradish? The tablets made me nauseous, and I hardly ate a thing as it was – my body, as it had been pointed out many times, was emaciated, with a stomach the size of a walnut. My mother had only managed to ‘get one thing down ’er all day’ as she’d said to my grandma earlier, and that had been a Rich Tea biscuit smeared with jam. But how to get out of this? What would happen if my grandparents didn’t want me either?

“Sit down at t’ table, there’s a good lass.”

She placed a steaming plate of liver in front of Grandad, who put aside his paper and rubbed his hands together with glee.

“For what we are about to receive, may the Lord make us truly thankful. Amen.”

“Tuck in, lass. Tha’s got no meat on thee,” he said, smearing a wedge of bread with gravy.

Perched on the edge of a chair, I picked up a fork and pushed at a bit of greying liver lumpy with tubes. Even the bacon was ribbed with fat. The smell of it cloyed the sooty air. The clock ticktocked on the mantelpiece, its metronome clicking, winding up each and every nerve along with the sound of steel knives on china plates, the cutting, scraping and chopping greedy and fast. Food slopped and churned in cement-mixer mouths, lips smacked, gravy dripped down chins. One by one, each bundle of nerve fibres began to pop and snap inside my head. Electric tingles travelled the length of both arms, my jaw had clenched, and my fists balled around the knife and fork. And then my grandad did this monstrous thing of plopping potato into the dregs of his teacup, mixing it up and then gulping down the gloop.

That was it.

The room was suddenly too small, too confined, and too hot. Leaping back from the table, I turned and fled.

“What the heck?”

The gravy boat had been knocked over and a plate crashed in my wake. I flew up the stairs with my grandma right behind me, and into the bedroom, backing into the furthest corner to await punishment.

She slammed back the door, beetroot in the face. “What the bleedin’ ’ell’s the matter with you?” Grandma Hart now looked at me like all the other adults did – with pursed lips and narrowed eyes. “Are you not well or summat?”