MY FRIEND

By Bob French 

It was Frances’s twentieth birthday and we had arranged to meet in the Red Lion pub on South Street in Manningtree around seven to be thrilled, spooked, or even frightened by an evening with Matthew Hopkins, the Witchfinder General, and his ghost hunters.  The Red Lion was our local, loved, and cherished by everyone who used it, especially the ladies' hockey team when playing at home. To come in out of the cold and sit by the fireplace with a nice drink with your mates was out of this world.  This old wood and stone building was, according to our town’s history, established in 1605, the same year Guy Fawkes tried to improve the interior decoration of the Houses of Parliament. 

          Sue and Frances had organized the food from the Dragon House Chinese restaurant next door, which went down a bomb, then Sammy our talented goalkeeper, started to tinker with the keys of the old honkey-tonk piano when without warning, the lights dimmed and a hushed spooky voice appeared to come from the shadows of a corner in the room.  Instantly the room fell silent and we could all sense the atmosphere change.

          “Tis the last day of October in the year of our Lord, 2020.  Not only is this night ‘all hallows eve,’ when the dead walk amongst us, but a full moon.”  The voice grew even eerier. “Not only is it a full moon, but it's a Blue Moon and to be honest, I do not know what will happen out there tonight.  They say that on such a night, Matthew Hopkins, the Witchfinder General himself, sometimes roams these parts, so if you take my advice, stay close and don’t wander off alone.”

I could feel the tension growing around me and my head started to throb again, which I put down to the bang I took I got from a hockey ball during this afternoon's game. The evening turned out to be great fun as we had our fortunes told, Tarot cards read and we even played with a Ouija Board. 

It was whilst me, Sue, Frances, and one of the ladies organising the entertainment were playing the Ouija Board that Frances asked the board if any of us on the board were witches.  We were all in high spirits as our fingers started to move around the board, then I suddenly felt a chill rush through my body as Frances suddenly gripped my hand, and in a whisper called out. “My God!”

The woman who had introduced the board was staring at me.  The pupils of her eye seemed to narrow as though she was trying to read my mind. Then in a voice that scared me, she quietly asked me.

“Is your family name Hocket then love?”

I sensed the room fall silent and felt as though everyone was staring at me.  I tried to answer her, but I couldn’t, so just nodded.

“Do your folks come from Manningtree then?”

With a sigh of relief, I recalled Dad saying that he and Mum used to live in Rayleigh and broke eye contact with the woman.

At ten, one of the women who was involved in the cards stood and explained that outside this evening’s entertainment, for five pounds, she would be leading a walk out to where the original St. Mary’s church had stood and the ducking pond in Mistley where the ghost of Matthew Hopkins sometimes walks. Without exception, we all donned our coats and shuffled out into the bitter cold October evening.  We were pleasantly surprised at the tantalizing smokey tang of the air, so reminiscent of autumn, met us.

 It was amazing. Even though the street lights had been turned off by the town council, as energy efficiency measures, I found that our path was brilliantly illuminated by the huge blue moon that shone directly above us, casting ghostly shadows everywhere, which the woman used to her advantage as she wove her tales of the ghosts and witches that roamed these parts as a result of the dreadful deeds committed by Matthew Hopkins.

It was around midnight when the woman had started to lead the girls away from the ducking pond, having explained the methods that Hopkins used to determine the guilt of the unfortunate people. But, Frances and I chose to remain.

For some reason, we were mesmerized by the silence and stillness of this lonely place.  I had visited it during the summer when the tranquil beauty of the surrounding trees and the gentle ripple of the pond was a magnet to visitors to the town, but now I only felt fear.

We stood in silence, just staring out over the pond.  Then we heard them, the voices, moaning softly as though calling out to us. My nerves were tingling as I gripped Frances’s arm, then gave a sudden jump. “God, can you see them?”

Frances gave out a short scream, turned, and quickly made her way towards the rest of the girls, leaving me staring at the ghostly faces that slowly appeared from under the trees opposite me. I tried to move, but I felt as though I was frozen to the spot.  I could feel my heart pounding inside my chest, and for a minute or two, all I could do was just stand and stare back at the poor souls who had met their fate in this desolate place. 

Then it dawned on me. It was an illusion.  The wind had picked up and was moaning through the wire fence, and what I took to be faces moving in the darkness was the moonlight shining down through the branches of the trees.

I took a deep breath and tried to shake myself when I felt the hairs on the back of my neck start to rise; a tingle rushed through my body and I felt a shiver run down my spine.  Someone was watching me.

Without thinking, I turned and looked out across the dark empty pond.  I could see the mist starting to rise, then something caught my eye; a sudden movement.  There, standing just inside the tree line was the figure of a woman.  My whole body shivered with fright as I studied her and realised that she was probably thirty or so years old, but her clothing that was not of this century appeared a little worn.  We stared at each other for a while, then I called out to Frances.

“Can you see her?  Over there, just under the trees.”  My voice was no more than a whisper. Then I realised that Frances had left me for the safety of the rest of the girls. I was all alone. The ghostly figure then slowly raised her arm and pointed to the path that led to where, according to the woman, the old church of St. Mary had stood hundreds of years ago. 

Without thinking, I turned and slowly walked towards the path.  My mind was in overdrive. The ghostly figure had started to move as well. I thought that if this was some sort of prank, then it was a good one.  But the question the woman put to me in the pub haunted me.  “Was I a witch?”

We reached the path at the same time and I was surprised to find myself calm and relaxed.  We stood not ten paces apart and I could see the expression on her face as clear as day. She looked at me and pointed towards the path.  Suddenly I heard the distant voices of the girls, calling out to me from across the pond, but I chose to ignore them. Soon we were walking side by side down the path.

Without turning, I spoke.

“My name is Caroline Hocket and many hundreds of years ago, I think my family used to live in this town.”

Not knowing if she could reply, I turned and looked at her and felt calmness creep through me.  She was no threat.  The woman turned, and smiled at me, then put her ghostly hand over her heart then placed it on mine.

“Are we related?”  To my surprise, the woman slowly nodded.  We continued walking along the path in silence until we came to the abandoned graveyard.  The woman pointed to the gravestones across the other side of the old church grounds.  I followed her as she wandered about the stones looking for someone.  Then I realised that she was probably looking for a relative, so I joined the search. I found one very old and faded stone to a Hocket, but when I pointed it out, the woman smiled and shook her head.

After what seemed like an hour, we both retired to a stone bench amidst the gravestones and sat down.  She had sat next to me as though it was perfectly normal.  Suddenly my head started to throb, which caused me to frown.  Without warning the woman, very slowly raised her hands and carefully massaged my bruise.  To my surprise, the pain that had been bothering me since the game, faded away.

“What did you do for a living?” I asked, and the woman went through the motions of sewing, then cradling a baby.

“You were a seamstress and a mother?”  The woman smiled and nodded as though proud of what she had done during her lifetime.

“Did you have a husband?  Did he work the land around here?”

The expression on her face changed as she shook her head.  I gathered from her hands, that he had worked the land, then gone off to war and never returned.

“Is he buried here?”

The expression did not change as she shook it, then she pointed to my ring finger.

“No, I don’t have a man or a job.  I look after my mum, who is poorly.”  The woman seemed to understand, then patted her hip.  The confused look on my face told her that I didn’t understand, then she rubbed her thumb and index finger together.

“Money. No, we have little money. My mum used to be a school teacher in the town and dad is a carpenter but work is scarce these past few years.”

Our conversation was interrupted as the chattering of the girls appeared to be getting louder as they were obviously moving down the path towards us. The woman took my arm and pointed to the moon, then drew a circle with her hand.  She had to do it a few times until she saw that I understood what she was saying.

“You want me to meet you here at the next blue moon.”

She nodded, leaned across and quickly kissed my cheek, just as Frances came around the corner of the path, she was gone.

“What are you doing here all by yourself?”

I lied. “My headache was giving me hell, and I just wanted to sit down quietly for a bit.  How did the tour go?”

Sue leaned down and took a quick look at my bruise. “Mmm, seems to have cleared up.  I Can’t see the bruise anymore.”

As I sat there on the stone bench at midnight on the 22^nd of August the following year staring up at the huge blue moon, the ghostly figure of the woman gradually appeared next to me.  This time I had brought a plastic writing board and a magic marker so we could communicate.  We sat there for over an hour chatting away.

I still hadn’t got a job and my mum’s health had not improved.  I scribbled that the doctors didn’t know what was wrong with her.  My friend, as I referred to her now, asked what my mum’s symptoms were and I wrote them down.  She studied them for a while, then nodded.  She patted my knee and waived me to wait then wandered off.  She had been gone for nearly an hour.  When she returned, she had a bundle of what looked like herbs.  Slowly she took me through what I had to do with each herb, then leant forward and kissed my cheek, smiled at me, before slowly fading away.

At the end of September, on a bright sunny afternoon, Mum suddenly got out of bed and walked around the house. The following day, she and Dad went for a long walk.  When she returned, she explained that she felt as fit as a fiddle.  I made an appointment with the doctor, who after carefully examining her, declared that the strange illness that had plagued her had simply vanished.  She was as fit as a twenty-year-old.

A week later she got her old job back as a teacher at a local school. With time on my hands, I got a job in our local Tesco’s and Dad found work on a building site just outside Colchester, building a hundred new houses.  Our problems were over.

I often wander out to the stone bench in the grounds of the old St Mary’s churchyard, hoping that my friend would reappear so I could thank her, but she never did.

Copyright Bob French