The following day Morgana returned, her big vehicle towing a long trailer. I helped her undo the tarpaulin and gazed in surprise at what was revealed. She smiled at my expression.
“Pumpkins?” I said. “There must be dozens of them. Is this for the festival?”
“Powerful magic. Yesterday you showed me some fields backing on to the village, overlooking the beach.”
“Riddick’s Farm.”
“We must set these in the soil. Get the farmer to plough it.”
I frowned. Jed Riddick was an ornery type. Very protective of his land. The fields in question had been fallow for years. They were reedy and the soil wanted too much doing to it to make it much use other than for grazing Riddick’s sheep.
“And I mean now,” Morgana added.
Kelvin Dobbs was Riddick’s cousin, so we gave him the job of twisting the farmer’s arm. Surprisingly Kelvin came back from his visit promptly. “He’s getting his plough out.”
“That quickly?” I said. “What did you say, mate? You hold a shotgun to him?”
Kelvin shook his head grimly. “He’s lost a lot of sheep. Found remains down along the waterline. He said if ploughing the land will help, so be it.”
The words sobered all of us and Morgana pointed to the trailer. “There are two hundred pumpkins in there. As the land is ploughed, put them into the soil, cut end down. Twenty rows of ten, each row three feet apart.”
None of us asked her what for. If she was working magic, it was fine by us and we set to with a will. Jed Riddick was as good as his word and had the ploughing done in no time. He and the rest of us seemed to be reaching back to a far past, something atavistic, in all of us, and up there on the slopes of the fields we were like men of a different age. Morgana walked among us as we set out the rows of pumpkins. Tom Kellow asked with a grin if we should have carved eyes, nose and mouth out of them, but Morgana shook her head.
“Once they’ve rooted in,” she said, her face completely straight, “it won’t matter.”
By the time we’d done, it was late afternoon, but we had our twenty rows of pumpkins, all partially buried in the clinging loam. Morgana had fetched several buckets from the front of the trailer. She set them down and we watched in fascination as she peeled off their plastic lids. We reeled back at the stench.
“Blood and bone, and a few other things besides,” said Morgana, smiling at our revulsion. “Very potent. Come on, we need to feed the plants.”
Again we did as bidden and emptied the disgusting contents of the buckets evenly among the pumpkins, the soil soaking up the liquid mess. We all stood back, mopping our brows, after it was done and Morgana said she was satisfied.
“Good work. You’ve earned your beer. And the drinks will be on me. Mind you, you’ve one more job. These plants need to be watched. From tonight and every night, set at least two men to watch them right through till dawn. With shotguns.”
Tom glanced at her uneasily. “Expecting trouble?”
“Possibly. I don’t want the plants harmed, but the deep dwellers will be curious. If they come, use the guns.”
“And the police?” I asked.
“Say you were scaring off poachers. Tell them there’s been a bit of sheep rustling going on. The guns are just for effect. They’ll buy that.” She was right, I thought. Sheep rustling across the country had become a problem these days. It would make a good cover.
I shared guard duty with Davey on the third night. The other guys reckoned on having heard something down on the beach the first couple of nights, and that ripe sea smell stank a few times, otherwise things were quiet. They livened up when I was there. It was long gone midnight when that familiar foul stink permeated the air. I’d taken one end of the pumpkin rows, Davey the other. It was very dark: apart from a few street lights on in the village there was nothing to see by, other than our flashlights. It was a wild night, clouds blotting out any potential moonlight and a blustery off-sea wind racing up through the fields.
Davey’s flashlight was on. I heard him moving across the bottom of the field, nearing the beach. He shouted something but a gust clouted the words away. I saw a flash and heard the shotgun go off, two distinct blasts. Quickly I got to him. He was reloading, his flashlight at his feet. I swept my own beam in an arc across the beach and something was moving at the water’s edge, maybe thirty feet away. I couldn’t make out what it was, so didn’t fire.
“Kill it!” shouted Davey, face twisted with fear.
I heard the splash as whatever it had been went into the sea and although I shone my flashlight, it was too quick. Davey rushed past me and fired off another two cartridges, pausing close to the water’s edge.
“What was it?” I called.
“It must have crawled up the beach. It was almost on me, going for the rows of pumpkins. Had some kind of weapon. I think it dropped it. I saw its head…its face. Christ, it was revolting. Long hair, more like weed, so I only got a glimpse. Mouth like a big sucker…like a lamprey’s, you know?”
“You must have hit it,” I said, bending down to the sand. “See, what’s this stuff? Blood?” I shone my flashlight on a patch of sticky muck that could have been from the wounded creature. We walked back up the beach, following the scuffed sand. There were no footprints, just deep scores, as if a turtle had struggled back to the sea, or a huge slug. Further up we found more of the blood stuff and with it a chunk of something flesh-like. It reeked and we knew this was the source of the stench from the sea.
“Looks like you hit the bastard,” I said. “Blew part of it off. Don’t touch it.”
Davey knelt down and shone the flashlight on the mess. I heard movements nearby and saw another beam. One of the policemen had come to investigate.
“Bury it – quick,” I told Davey.
He wasted no time and used the stock of his gun to scoop out a hole in the sand. He prodded the chunk of meat into it, burying it, roughly smoothing the sand over it.
“What’s the problem?” said the copper. “Why the shooting?”
“Bloody poachers,” said Davey. “Don’t worry, I only fired into the air. Scared ‘em off, though. They sneak up through the fields and set traps for rabbits. They’ll likely damage the pumpkins.”
The copper, a young lad of about twenty-two nodded uneasily. “Right.”
“Festival’s coming up soon,” I said. “We don’t want the pumpkins ruined this close. Can’t replace them.”
“No,” he said. He hadn’t noticed the scuffed sand. If he caught the foul whiff from the sea, he didn’t mention it.
Later Davey and I found the dropped weapon. It was a thin length of old beam, twisted and maybe carved into a shape like a digging tool, primitive but effective. We didn’t show the copper. He’d gone back into the village to a mug of hot tea.
There were no other sightings in the last few days up to the end of the month. Morgana said the sea dwellers had learned all they needed to know. Halloween came and that night Morgana stood with me and a couple of the other guys down at the tiny harbour, watching the waves snarling in on what had become a blustery night. The moon was full, the clouds sparse, so the sea had a brilliant tinge to it, heaving and tossing out in the bay. High tide was just after midnight, and with this wind, it would roll right up along the harbour. Everywhere was battened down. Behind us, in the higher village, around its small square, the festival was in full swing, with numerous lanterns and candles, other pumpkins, these carved, brandished on poles, or set in numerous windows. People were singing, cheering, and generally having a good time.