Preview
Just over a year had passed since she had gained her life back. Jodie stood at the window looking out into the dark September night from her new apartment, having moved into the city, far away from the village and the stones she had been trapped within. She was slowly regaining her life back after being declared dead when the facility was destroyed.
Her family and friends had been overwhelmed at the news of her being found. The police were constantly calling upon her as the only survivor of the rogue robot massacre, the press and media hounded her for interviews and questions. It was all attention she didn’t need or want at that moment and she withdrew into her own safe little world, seeking out the comforts she once had before her life was turned upside down.
What had been nearly a year of her family grieving her loss had been centuries to Jodie, who had lived several lifetimes, become married, had a daughter and survived as a spirit within a stone prison. Some days the flat offered her peace, the small enclosure felt protective and familiar to the life she had grown accustomed too. Other days she clawed at the walls, claustrophobia creeping in to the extent that she just had to get out into the streets and walk it off until the feeling dissipated or she was recognised, which caused her to panic and race back to the four walls that protected yet trapped her. But that freedom was now hers to choose at will.
For now, she revelled in feeling the warmth of the heating upon her skin, dressed in jeans and a thick comfortable jumper as she held a warm drink in her hands, watching the cars below as people went about their business, the headlights reflecting off the wet roads flickering and glowing as they moved from street to street. She had missed all these simple little things. If not for her experience she would possibly not have given them a second thought, just partied with her friends and worked to earn money to waste on more parties, frittering each precious moment away. So now she just stood and stared, taking in everything around her just for those few moments. Three hundred years of being trapped in the same place had given her a whole new outlook and she appreciated even the little things in life now more than ever.
A crackle of lightning and thunder from the storm clouds overhead shattered her calm and her mind flashed back to the incident at the facility she had worked at, with images of the huge arms of the Behemoth banging to the floor as the lightning crackled like the sound of automatic gunfire. Stumbling in fear and shock, she dropped her drink to the floor as she fell to her knees, her heart racing and becoming short of breath as the panic consumed her. The warm glow of heat against her face caused her to look over to the nearby fireplace. Her eyes widened as she relived the memory of being burnt at the stake as a witch, her skin beginning to itch and irritate her as she remembered the feeling of her body catching alight. Alone on the floor she curled up and cried to herself, wondering if these feelings would ever go away, jumping in her skin as each boom of thunder continued its barrage.
Not too far away in the damp, dark alleyways of the city, what little light there was reflected from the wet walls of the buildings and the puddles upon the floor as the cold night's storm poured down. The small patter of feet on the wet surface splashed their way toward an old rundown block of flats where a single dark light shone like a beacon shooting from its rooftop into the foreboding storm clouds above. The two cats pushed their way in through a broken board over an old smashed window as the soggy blur of black and white slipped through the gap. Making her way up several flights of stairs, Ffion looked around for the light's location. George panted and came to a halt “Wait…wait up Ffion, I need a rest, just for a moment,” he huffed. Ffion stopped and looked back at George half a flight behind her
“George, come on, it won’t be there forever you know. You’ve gotten lazy haven’t you, has mother being feeding you too much?” she giggled.
“NO, not at all, I’m just naturally heavier than most other cats my size,” came his sharp reply. “OK George, you rest up. We’re here anyway, you keep a look out while I go in.”
Ffion changed to her human form and grabbed the door handle. With a small glow the door unlocked and she slowly pushed it open and entered the room. The lights were off throughout the apartment. The glow of a single lamp was all that could be seen coming from the nearby room. Ffion made her way through silently so as not to alarm the owner as the floor creaked beneath her boots.
“Hello, who’s there?” came the croaky old voice. Ffion peeped around the door to the sight of an old woman, sitting alone in the dark looking back at her.
“Are you here to take me?” she asked in a little lost voice. Ffion came further into the room and sat beside her, taking her hand in the hope to give some comfort that she wasn’t alone.
“No, not me, but they will be along shortly,” she whispered in the silence of the room.
From the window came a ray of light as the beating of wings drew close. As the light faded the shadow of a cloaked figure drew up to the doorway and entered the room. “FFION, what are you doing here?” asked her surprised and puzzled father.
“Hey Dad, how are you? We really need to talk about mom.” She stood up from her seat leaving, the old woman still sitting in the chair, slightly confused at the sight before her. In an embarrassed whisper John leaned closer to her, turning his back slightly to the old woman in the hope she wouldn’t hear "What are you doing here, I’m working?”
“Yeah, good show. You’re really getting the hang of the dramatic entrance now, aren’t you? Proud of you. Anyways, I needed to speak with you so I’ve been looking for a nearby dark light for the last few days and now I’ve found you, not as if I can get you on the phone, is it?”
“What’s a phone? Never mind, what is it you need?” he said flustered, as he turned, smiled and nodded to acknowledge the old woman who sat staring at the two.
“It's mother, she’s having trouble since we freed her. The stones shielded her from the traumas of her life but now she’s human again it’s all flooding back and it’s hitting her hard.”
The old woman leaned forward, raising her hand. “Excuse me,” came the small voice but, it wasn’t heard. John listened to Ffion’s comment and thought briefly about what he could do. “I’ve got an idea what we can do for her.”
“Excuse me,” came the meek little voice again.
“Father, if you could just come by and visit it would reassure her we’re all there for her.”
The little unheard voice piped up again. “I thought he was here for me," she mumbled. John gave a sigh “OK, OK I’ll finish here and come over, how’s that?”
Ffion jumped up and threw her arms around his neck, giving him a kiss on the cheek. “Thank you, I‘ll help and we can all go together.”
Once more, the old woman spoke. “Excuse me but...,” as she lay back in the chair, breathless. Ffion and John both turned this time, hearing the woman’s croaky wheeze. Ffion went over to her and knelt down, taking hold of her hand.
“Hi, this is my father. He’s here to help you so please, there’s nothing to be afraid of. I’ll stay here until you're ready to leave OK?”
The old woman smiled wearily back at Ffion. “Thank you dear child, I always feared I’d be alone when the time came.” She lay her other hand over Ffion’s to show her appreciation of the company. As her strength began to fade, her grip loosened. She drew a final breath and her hand slipped off Ffion’s to the side of the chair. The dark light from her body faded, collecting upon her chest where a glow began to shine. Slowly it moved outward through her skin as a gold orb appeared, the new vessel for her soul. Ffion shed a tear for the lonely woman’s passing as John lay his hand upon her shoulder in comfort.
The pitter patter of feet came charging down the hallway into the room. George burst in “Oh, hi Dad, must have missed your arrival, hear they are getting better. Anyway, sorry to interrupt but we’ve got company, Imps on the way. I spotted them out in the alleyway from the window, at least four of them.” Ffion and John readied themselves for the fight, with Ffion's ma
gic beginning to charge up and John taking hold of his axe.
“FATHER, take the orb and get to the rooftop. GEORGE, you’re on cover for him, eyes and ears, if you see it shout it out. I’ll take the stand here to buy some time then meet you all on the roof.”
John grabbed the orb and made his way higher up the stairwell with George close behind. Ffion waited in the hallway by the apartment, it was the last place the light had been and the first place the Imps would look.
A faint scratching noise came through the walls as they drew close, the Imps long sharp-clawed finders grabbing and scratching at the walls as they drew closer. Ffion stared at the stairwell door, waiting for them to charge into the room. From behind her came the smash of a window as two of the Imps landed behind her. With two quick blasts Ffion send them reeling head over heels into the near wall with such a force that their bones could be heard cracking as they landed. Back from the stairs the door was kicked off its hinges as five more creatures came running down the corridor toward her. She fired another two blasts at them, but being further away they had time to react, diving around the blasts. The first four Imps scrambled across the walls and ceiling while the fifth was caught out and killed by the shots. Ffion reached into the apartment’s doorway and grabbed the metal walking sticks the old woman used. Breaking off half the length and the elbow supports, she held the handles as Tonfa Night Sticks. Putting a charge into them she ran toward the four creatures and began to fight.
Up on the roof John and George had just reached the top. George staggered and wheezed as he began to feel quite faint from the climb. John walked to the building's edge and looked up to the sky, waiting for the light to arrive through the storm clouds so he could pass the soul over. George wheezed his way over to him and heard a scratching. Peering over the edge, two more Imps were moving up the outside of the building. “Hey Dad, better get ready for these two making their way up. They don’t look too happy, do they?”
John tucked the soul orb beneath his cloak and readied his axe. The two Imps came charging over the edge as John stood his ground waiting for them. While one went low the other leapt into the air to attack. John cartwheeled to the side over the first creature and as he came to his feet, in one fluid motion he swiped his axe beheading the first Imp and then arced into the air, cutting the second in half at the waist.
”Wow” said George, gobsmacked at what he had just seen. His ears pricked up again as heard more movement to the other side of the building. Running over he saw three more Imps racing up the fire escape. George shouted over. “What’s wrong with these things? Why are they being so brazen in their attacks?”
The three Imps flew over George's head. The first to land turned its attention to George while the other two ran for John. John raised the axe and pulled against the wooden handle like a bow, pulling out an arrow, its ghostly appearance glowing in the night air as he drew back and took aim. As the lightning flashed he released the arrow, hitting his first target, which fell to the floor dead. Then followed the thunder clash as he raised the axe with its blade glowing brightly and swung it through the second Imp's face. Its body landed upon the floor, minus its face, which landed next to it.
George was in a panic as the last Imps came closer step by step, twitching its claws as its teeth snapped as if it enjoyed watching the panic on George’s face. The creature reached upward with its long arm ready to swipe down on him but instead it did nothing. Slowly it looked down to its chest to find a metal bar protruding through its body, sparks of energy flashing from its tip. The creature's eyes rolled over and it fell to the floor, dead. George gave a sigh of relief as he saw Ffion standing over by the roof entrance having just thrown one of the Tonfa Night Sticks she had made.
Ffion waved to George to follow her as they went to see John, who was now holding the soul again. Unseen by any human eyes, a ray of light, the Jacob's ladder, shone down through the clouds. Holding the orb up into the light, John sent the soul to its resting place as it glided away up into the clouds before disappearing as the light faded, leaving only the rain and the continuing storm.
John smiled as he looked back down from the clouds. “Thank you Ffion, both of you, for your help. The Imps have grown stronger since most of the Reapers were killed when we freed your mother. It’s becoming harder to protect the souls with so few of us left and the Imps' numbers seem to be growing at a pace which will soon become overpowering. With each soul they grow stronger, faster. I hate to think what would happen if they were to capture enough souls, it could be catastrophic.”
George was the first to notice the occurrence. “Hey guys, what’s going on over there? This is bad, isn’t it?”
Ffion and John looked out over the city as a dozen Dark Lights appeared. “Father, what were you saying about finding something out again?” Ffion looked over the city and the three of them watched from their vantage point as light after light appeared, two dozen, 50, 100, 1,000 lights lit up the sky.
John looked out in despair. “Oh my, this can’t be. But how?” He paused for only a moment. “Ffion, we need your mother.”
“But she’s not doing so well these days, she needs our help. That’s why I came to find you in the first place, she’s becoming a recluse in her own apartment,” she said worriedly.
John turned and looked at her squarely in the eyes “It’s going to be OK Ffion, we can help your mother. We’ve been here before, back when we lived in our old house in the village, before you were born. We broke it then and we can break her out of it again. But this and what’s happening right now in the city is something that’s going to take all of us, together, to fix. You too George, I’ve got a bad feeling that the witches' prophecy just might be coming true.”
The trio set off to Jodie’s apartment as Dark Light after Dark Light continued to appear over the city’s landscape behind them. Overhead, the lightning flashed and the thunder grew in its roar but it was only the start of the real storm that was about to begin.
Forward:
How Book 3 came to be
So book 3 has finally made it, and if you’re reading this then thank you for buying this book and following the adventure so far. This story begins eight months after book 2 and my first goal for this story is to answer all the questions and fill in the gaps as to why things happened in the previous two books, and bring everything to its inevitable end. With any luck, by the time you get to the last page, the bigger picture will be revealed and this story arc will come to an end.
The second goal of this story is to start something new, by finishing off the trilogy I had planned, I also found that I enjoyed doing all this so much I didn’t want it to end. So as this adventure will wrap up the events from the last two books, it will also bring new questions to drive on new adventures.
I had also considered changing the spelling of Fionn (Fee-on). When I first wrote ‘Jack-o-Lantern,’ the original name of Tail of a Witch books, I found this in a child's naming book, I looked up the name online and it came back as suitable for a girl or boy. It is only recently that I stumbled across the Welsh spelling of Ffion. At this stage I won’t change her name spelling, but I am considering creating the full collection into one hard backed book. Maybe call it: Ffion, the witch trilogy. We’ll see.
For now I've had a lot of fun creating book 3 so please enjoy the next adventure
P.Simpson
Update: if you're reading this then I have changed it to Ffion, thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed the story so far.
Thanks and Acknowledgements
I would like to say thank you to those who have helped in getting this third book up and running.
Sian, Wayne and Lily – For help formatting and feedback on the story.
Hayley - Proofing and help with books so far.
Suzanne - Proofing, feedback and putting up with all my questions.
Laura - For painting the proof red with amends, big thank you for your time and help with Book 3
Mark and Digi
printuk – for the artwork prints/proofs
Martin and Louise - again, for their continued support and help promoting the project on and off line.
Aqua Comics (Longton, Stoke-on-Trent) - for the first shop to sell my books in store.
Claire & Chloe - for the support you always give me xx
To all my family with love x
Find more on Facebook: facebook.com/TailofaWitch
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