could think it through, come up with theories to explain it all. Ellie led the way.
Suddenly she came to a halt.
Beth almost bumped into her and had to grab hold of the girl's arm to stop herself from stumbling over.
Ellie stared ahead and upwards.
"What the..." came Zack's hushed voiced from behind.
They all looked up and took in the wooden sign. The same wooden sign. WITCH TOWN.
"No," whispered Luke, trying to make sense of it.
"Now I'm getting scared," breathed Beth, glancing at Ellie.
Ellie couldn't even speak. Something inside her was stirring. It wasn't fear. It wasn't even apprehension. It was more like anticipation. As if something was about to happen. She expected it, was waiting for it. She tried to understand her own feelings, but they were alien emotions. She felt almost dizzy with it.
Luke took out his mobile, ready to find their location. But it was dead. No signal in here.
The others tried their own phones, but with the same result.
"What do we do?" Luke asked eventually.
"Come on," Beth finally offered, "we must have got lost in there somewhere." She searched for something to support this. "We just got confused, that's all."
"No," stated Zack with a quiet force that caught the others by surprise and everyone turned to him, even Ellie. "First the tree, now this. Either I really am losing my mind or something is happening here. We're all seeing it and that was a straight path. No turns."
Luke nodded his head slowly. He knew what his friend said was true. "Are we going in there?" he questioned uncertainly.
It was Ellie who answered. "I don't think we have a choice." And with that she began to move forward with unexpected surety, passing beneath the wooden signpost, walking on along the track as it became wider and made of stone. On towards Witch Town, the name singing in her mind with a mixture of dread and promise.
3
What is happening here? Is it just me or is my life one big soap opera? I'm all for doing things that are a bit different. But craziness was not on my to-do list. Note to self: avoid out of the way places, unless armed with a shotgun or chainsaw! Or preferably both!
It was a meandering road, but beyond a high hedgerow they could see the shapes of buildings begin to appear. Imposing, dark structures, hardly modern, more gothic in style.
They turned a corner and were met by an assembly of perhaps fifteen or so women. They stood in a group spread out across the road.
Ellie and the others came to a stop and regarded them uneasily. It was if they were there waiting for them.
All of the women wore long, beige, curiously old fashioned garments which came down to their ankles, where black boots could just be made out. They also wore cloaks about their shoulders and looked for all the world like something out of some ancient photograph. The only thing that set them apart was an incongruous flash of colour here and there. One wore a white scarf, while another had a black sash. Others wore different coloured ribbons in their hair; red, green, blue. Ellie noted that one women who stood towards the centre of the group had a red cloak rather than the beige that most of the others wore. One other unusual accessory caught her attention. Every one of them had a pendant suspended from a sturdy chain around their necks. They appeared to be made from some kind of crystallised stone and were cut in irregular shapes making each one unique. They caught the light and glimmered like sparks of white fire.
All eyes were upon the four of them. But there was little expression to be found on their faces.
Zack stepped up beside Ellie, who had almost absently taken the lead. "Hello...ladies," he tried, doing his best to sound at least vaguely charming, feeling almost immediately that this was not the best approach.
The woman in the red cloak stared at him for a moment and he had to admit, at least to himself, that he did not like being under her scrutiny. Then she let her eyes pass to Ellie. "Why have you come?" she asked, her gaze flicking to Beth and then back to Ellie. She was perhaps forty or so and quite striking to look at, all the more so dressed as she was.
Ellie attempted to collect herself. "I'm really sorry, but we got lost in the woods. It didn't say anything about private property, but if we're trespassing we'll be more than happy to leave. That is, if you could just direct us back to the road."
The entire group of women focused their attention on Ellie and she felt a powerful, uncomfortable sensation. It was all she could do not to just turn around and run.
"You are already on the road," observed the woman dryly. None of the others said anything, apparently content to let their red cloaked companion be their spokesperson.
Zack tried to offer Ellie some support. "No, sorry, we mean the main road, you know, where our van is parked." He gestured vaguely over his shoulder, feeling increasingly stupid.
The women appeared to ignore him, keeping her attention on Ellie, with an occasional look at Beth. As for Luke, he might just as well have been invisible, as not even one of the group gave him even the briefest glance.
"Which one of you is a Mother?" enquired the woman, keenly eyeing Ellie then Beth.
At this, Beth couldn't stop herself from laughing, but quickly choked it away as all of the women glared at her in unison.
Ellie fought to control a smile, even though she felt incredibly tense. "I think we might have misunderstood you," she began, not wanting to offend anyone, especially when they were clearly lost and things were getting more and more weird. "We don't have any children."
Now the woman in the red cloak glanced to the closest in the group to her, as if for some kind of confirmation. Ellie noted that this one had a Blue cloak, setting her apart from those around her, who only had plain beige about their shoulders. "You will come with us," she stated abruptly.
Beth moved a little closer to Zack without realising it. In fact all four of them seemed to draw into a tighter unit. "Why?" asked Zack, trying to sound casual.
The group of women began to move aside, creating a space between them, obviously for the newcomers to pass through. Now visible beyond, more buildings could be seen. Witch Town awaited them.
"Maybe they have a phone that works," Luke suggested, without being very hopeful. The entire group looked as if they had stepped out of the middle ages along with the buildings. A telephone didn't really seem like a good fit.
"Maybe," said Zack, unconvinced.
"What do you think they'll do if we just turn around and walk away?" Beth asked, seriously considering doing it whatever the others decided.
"I think we have to take our chances in there," Ellie voiced, feeling a wave of nausea wash over her and fighting to control herself. She was struggling with conflicting emotions that seemed to battle within her. For something so crazy, so truly bizarre, it also seemed somehow right. She couldn't explain it or understand it. She began to move forward, towards the assembled women. The other three hesitated, glancing at each other anxiously.
But now Ellie was on the move, what could they do but follow, feeling more disconnected from reality than they had ever imagined could be possible.
They passed by the gathering, all in their own way wondering what they were getting themselves into. And even more acutely, uncertain if they were even still awake and not just experiencing some strange dream.
They walked down a paved street past structures of wood and stone. They were relics from the past, dark and forbidding.
The women walked with them and were quietly evasive when asked where they were going.
The two boys glanced at each other, trying to communicate something, their thoughts racing as they considered their best course of action.
All at once their escorts, as this was how Ellie thought of them, came to rest before a much larger building than the others they had seen. It has words etched in the stone above an impressive doorway, two pillars standing either side. THE COUNCIL OF FIVE.
"You," the red cloaked woman pointed at Ellie and Beth, "will come inside, th
e...others," she paused almost with distaste, "will join the husbands and sons in their dwellings."
The boys just stared at them, at a loss. "What?" began Luke, bewildered.
"Now just a minute," said Zack forcefully, beginning to get irritated by the attitude of these people. "We're not going anywhere without our friends...all our friends." He tensed himself, not really knowing what he intended to do.
The woman smiled at him. This was the first sign of any kind of friendly emotion shown since their arrival in this strange, throwback town. But then Zack examined her eyes and saw nothing kind there, only a disturbing sense of satisfaction and pleasure. "Pain," she breathed softly. At the same moment the stone pendant around her neck began to fill with a crimson amorphous liquid as if droplets of blood were falling into water.
And with that Zack doubled over, his insides on fire as if he was burning inside, convulsions hitting him harder and harder with every second that passed. He fell to the floor and felt rather than saw Luke kneeling down and trying to support him. Somewhere in the distance he heard the sound of screaming. He knew it was Ellie or Beth. Or maybe both of them together. But he couldn't do anything. He just writhed in agony, wishing it would stop, pleading for it to end. He had never known pain like it before.
Pain. That was what she had said. And now he suffered at her command.
Whatever was happening here, on some level, despite the agony, he recognised that it was outside of his understanding. He was