“The whole village has been talking,” said Kelvin, who’d been radically opposed to bringing in any outside help. He’d changed his tune, big time. He really was scared. “I don’t mind admitting I was against it, but what sort of help can we get?”
“This is something outside normal bounds. That’s why Martin’s religion didn’t work. This goes way, way back. Primitive, you know?”
They were all nodding.
“We have to fight fire with fire. We have to bring in someone who really knows about this stuff.”
Tom scowled. “You’re talking about witchcraft?”
“In a way. But not the twisted medieval version. Wicca craft, the craft of the wise. Maybe even older stuff. We need a shaman.”
Again, they would have scoffed at the idea once, but not now. “Any port in a storm,” said Tom, trying to make light of it, but the others were as serious as they could be.
“You know one?” asked Kelvin. He’d always been impressed by my tales of wandering and the world outside, not having travelled much himself.
“I think so. There’s someone on the edge of Dartmoor. She’s not a freak, or a hermit, or anything like that—”
“She?” said Davey. “Then you are talking about a witch?”
“Morgana wouldn’t call herself that, but she does have that old kind of wisdom. She’s no fool. I reckon she’d be able to help.”
“How soon can you get her?” said Tom.
“As soon as I can. We need to act quickly. I reckon whatever is out there in the bay will be coming at us soon.”
Davey swore. “What – an invasion?”
“Something like that. No one will be safe.”
I spoke to her on the telephone. I’d never met her, though I’d seen her on local television. She wrote books on the occult as well as herbal stuff, and had done well for herself. She must have been about forty, and from what I’d seen of her, looked like she spent a lot of time outdoors, probably on the Moors. She spoke with a cultured but natural voice, very assured and easily deflected some of the more sceptical questions her interviewers like to taunt her with. My initial awkwardness at contacting her dissipated quickly: it was almost like she’d been expecting my call.
“Rooksands?” she said. “That’s not far from Trewithick Hole, right? I know the place. Can we meet there? Given what you’ve told me, we better make it soon.”
Two days later I drove along the winding cliff road to the open area above the cove where the remains of Trewithick Hole poked up like huge tombstones above the rocks. The road was narrow, pitted and in places overgrown, ending in an open area that had been fenced off. The fencing was dilapidated and dangerous, though few people came here unsupervised.
Morgana was already here, her four-wheel drive parked close to the winding path down into the cove. She was dressed in a thick woollen jumper and jeans, her raven hair piled up and pinned. Her face was all angles, too sharp to be pretty, but she was an attractive woman. Her eyes were mesmeric, a steely gray. We shook hands and I was surprised at the strength of her grip.
“Thanks for coming,” I said.
“I’ve been here before.” She looked down at the sea as it rolled into the cove, for once subdued, although I knew how treacherous those currents would be.
We exchanged a few pleasantries, but she was obviously eager to get on with the business and led us down the path. Some attempts had been made to shore up its worst sections, and we said little as we concentrated on getting down to the crumbling village. There was a quay, which was also in danger of disintegrating, and the curved sweep of a narrow jetty. We walked out on to it.
She studied the swirling waters inside the miniature breakwater it made. I was looking at the ruined houses. Not much left of them now, just a wall here and there, or a shed or two. All the roofs had long fallen in and much of the debris had been swept out to sea.
“What’s happened at Rooksands,” said Morgana. “Also happened here, at the time of the 1922 storm. It wasn’t a natural one, although that’s how it was reported and recorded. The cliffs here have been collapsing for years. It’s a notorious stretch of coast. That night the village finally succumbed was part of something else.” She indicated the sea beyond the jetty. Its waves today were gentle, undulating almost invitingly.
“The things inhabiting the deep waters came.” She was cool, almost casual. “They took many of the villagers back into the deeps. The records show people were caught by the unusually high tide. Some fell into the sea when chunks of the land fell away like sand. It was far more sinister than that.”
She stared down at the waters below us, her body statuesque for a moment, then she suddenly drew back as if she’d seen something, watching the waters more closely. I couldn’t see anything other than shadows, but her perception of things was more acute than mine.
“It’s the seventeenth,” she said. “We don’t have a lot of time. They’re here. They don’t usual risk exposure by day. Tell your villagers to keep away from the sea.”
“I doubt I’ll be able to keep the fishermen from going out.”
“It’ll be Samhain in just over two weeks.” She pronounced it ‘Sah-when’. “They’ve already discredited the Christian god. And they’ll know I’m here. I’ve fought them before. They’d like to discredit the Old Magic. Samhain would suit them as a testing time. We have to prepare, and quickly. Take me to the village.”
Her extraordinary presence and that total belief in what she was doing, coupled with my anxieties for the village brushed aside any lingering doubts I might have had about this business. I told her about the police.
She smiled. “They know me. I’m a crank. Harmless. They won’t bother about what I get up to. They’ll be glad of me when this is over.”
“You can rid Rooksands of this…intrusion?”
“I’ve been expecting something. It’ll be tough. But if we don’t make a stand, it’ll get far worse.”
Back at the village, I showed her around and introduced her to some of my friends. Her presence made them uneasy and I got the impression Kelvin thought she was a bit maze, but they were committed. The death of the vicar had shaken everyone up. Ironically, when she drove off, there was a strange vacuum, as if we’d become a little more vulnerable.
She’d given several of us some strict instructions about preparing the village, protecting it. There were certain charms and spells we could use. So we cut branches from elder, hawthorn and rowan among others and gave them sharp points, digging them into the ground so their tips faced the sea. Morgana had also given us a notepad in which she’d scribbled sigils and weird doodles.
“Carve them into your doors,” she said. “Take the bigger pebbles from the beach and create the signs at its edge.” She also gave me a number of small wooden figurines that looked like variants on the piskies of Cornish legend. “Hang these in the trees.” My companions surprised me by their sudden faith, and got on with the job industriously, almost like children, absorbed by their activities. No laughter now, this was deadly serious.
By evening we’d made a thorough job of setting out the first wave of protection. A few of the villagers, particularly the ones who’d come here most recently, wondered what the hell we were doing, but we said it was part of the early planning for the Halloween festival, coming up soon. Most of them took it in good spirits and asked if there was anything they could do. No one mentioned the shadow lying over the village.
I spoke to some of the fishermen and told them up front what we’d been about. Normally they would have rejected the suggestion they stay out of the water, but I could see the fear in them. Some of them were tight-lipped, but I knew they’d seen worse things out in the bay than the thing I’d brought ashore. They knew something evil was stirring. Old superstitions die hard in these parts. In the end I had a compromise. They’d stop fishing a week before the festival.