ENDORA
by Richard Banks
During
her long life Endora has seen many things and met many people, including
Elizabeth I and the Duke of Wellington. Since her entry into this world she has
‘been there’, ‘seen it’ and sometimes taken a hand in the making of history.
How she yearns to tell everyone what really happened to the Princes in the
Tower or the name of the Polish seaman who was Jack the Ripper. These things
and many others she knows, but having no proofs to satisfy the demands of
academia must keep them to herself.
During her lifetime witches have become
an endangered species. Many have been burnt at the stake while others, in fear
of their lives, have consented to become the wives or mistresses of mortal men,
and by doing so lose their powers and become human. Not that Endora has ever
been tempted to do the same. When danger threatens she hops unnoticed into the
warm body of another creature and looks out through its eyes until it is safe
to become Endora again. By doing so she has escaped death from insurrection,
plague and persecution, often fleeing from danger in the body of a magpie or
crow before abandoning this host for the safer refuge of a household pet.
Through her good judgement she has
survived many generations of man and confidently expects to live out her normal
span of years which, she thinks, are only half spent. Knowing the location of
many lost places she has recently become an archaeologist, establishing a
glowing reputation by her unerring ability to rediscover the past. Despite
having no formal qualifications for what she does, no one can deny that she
knows more about the nation’s history than anyone else in academia. Where and
how she has gained this knowledge is a mystery that has become unimportant;
clearly she is a genius and geniuses once identified have no need for
certificates or diplomas.
These years of celebrity and history
have been the best of her life but to her horror the bedrock of her existence
has been shaken by the BBC which has invited her to appear on a popular TV
programme dedicated to tracing the family history of well known people. Having
already begun their research and drawn a perplexing blank the programme’s
researchers have been more than normally curious to find out from Endora the
identity of her parents so they can begin to trace the generations before.
Sensing the closing of a net Endora has
once again sought safety in flight. Forgoing the uncertain transport of magpies
and crows she has bribed O’Keefe, the owner of a small aircraft, to take her
incognito to the northern isle of Stackle Steady which has recently advertised
for a school mistress who, when not teaching the island’s children, will have
charge of their museum, recently established with lottery money. Here in this
remote location beyond the reach of TV she will be safe from discovery and free
to write the book that might one day re-establish her celebrity under an
assumed name.
On arrival Endora submits her application in person citing her wealth of
knowledge in all the requested areas of learning and many more besides. While
the islanders are surprised that someone so well qualified should not have the
usual papers confirming their excellence they are nonetheless impressed by the
person who purports to be a Professor Smyde. As no one else has applied for the
post or is likely to do so they appoint Endora with immediate effect on a
modest salary augmented by free accommodation in a croft adjacent to the school
house and the loan of Dougie Muir’s cow for milk and butter. Her contract
agreed and written into the back of an exercise book Endora takes up her new
post, bewitching her sixteen charges on the first day of term so that they
forget nothing she tells them and obey her every whim as if they were commands.
The islanders are duly impressed and
congratulate themselves on the success of their selection process; they might
be far flung, country folk but they are more than able to cut a good deal when
one is needed. However, none of them are entirely convinced that she is who she
says she is. Their worse conjecture that she is a desperate criminal on the run
from the police becomes less and less likely when no one is murdered and the
museum’s donations’ box continues to rattle when shook. The consideration of
lesser offences is also inconclusive until the answers they are seeking are
discovered in the cargo of the monthly supply boat; there in a batch of back
issue magazines is found a photograph of their teacher and the story of her
unexplained disappearance.
Mystery solved the islanders are as one
in deciding that if Endora wants to be known by some other name that’s OK with
them. The mainland folk are a strange lot to be sure and the Prof – as they
call her – is no doubt better off with them. So life goes on much as before
except that the crops grow larger and the fish in the sea never fail to fill
the nets of the island’s fishermen. And all this, they note, had happened since
the arrival of their teacher; what a good luck charm she is!
But as the Feast of the Renewal draws
near they are by no means certain what role Endora should play. Had she not
become a valued addition to their ranks her role in that ritual would have been
an obvious one. Already plump on arrival the constant invitations to lunch or
dinner have since added an extra band of fat around her middle and her breath
now smells sweetly of the cherry brandy that is their cottage industry.
Expertly roasted she will make the Renewal a very tasty affair indeed. But
then, do they really want to lose the person who has made their children so
clever and brought them so much good fortune? Surely these are signs from the
island’s deities that she should be spared and become one of them. Reasoning
that actions rather than words is the best way forward Mr McTavish, the Chief
Clerk, who is also the islanders’ Grand Master, invites Endora to join him and
his good wife on the beach for a barbecue at which he has decreed that the
entire population of the island appear unannounced from behind a sand dune in a
state of unclad revelation he hopes will be appealing to their intended
convert.
Endora has seen many initiation
ceremonies and, once she gets over her surprise at the unexpected arrival of
the islanders, is not unduly perturbed to find herself fully exposed to the
chill sea wind and daubed with the same blue colouring they have applied to
themselves. This, she realises, is a joyous occasion, an expression of
affection and acceptance into the inner sanctum of their community. It is not
until she sees Mr McTavish advancing towards her, his lance at the ready and in
advance of his unusually flushed face, that she realises that seven hundred
years of witchery are within moments of ending. Never has a spell been uttered
so quickly, and having frozen the island in time and motion she detaches
herself from restraining hands and retreats to her croft where she releases the
islanders from the game of statues she has obliged them to play.
She wonders what next to do until it
occurs to her that she and the islanders both have secrets they would rather
not divulge. If she wants to stay on the island – which she does - it is cards
on table time. Summoning the town moot by the sounding of the community gong
she confesses to what she is and they, thinking she understands more than she
does, let slip more than they need to. Confronted with a secret every bit the
equal of her own she loses no time in pledging her silence in exchange for
theirs. Indeed she quickly realises they can be of mutual assistance. If the
islanders keep her supplied with the large number of frogs and toads needed for
her spells she will ensure that a sufficient supply of tasty mortals visit them
each year. There are, she observes, far too many of them in the outside world,
tasty or otherwise, and few serve any useful purpose.
More than that - far more than that! -
they have been responsible for the deaths of many thousands of her kind,
including her aunt Alveira who - had she not been drowned in a ducking stool -
would now be within a decade of her treble 0 birthday. Suddenly the sacrifice
of a few dozen humans to satisfy the infrequent rituals of the islanders is not
enough. This, she realises, could be the turning of the tide, an all conquering
alliance of witchery and cannibalism that over the course of the millennium
will relegate the rest of mankind to the farmyard where its sole function will
be to fill supermarket shelves.
It is no more than they deserve! Never again will they make war and pollute the atmosphere. Never again will they decimate habitats and the animals that dwell in them; for the first time they will become givers, not takers. The islanders will do better, far better, of that she is sure. At present they have no ambition beyond the farming of their crofts but this she will change. As their teacher she will reveal to them their destiny and stiffen their resolve for the task ahead by witchery spells that will take root in their DNA and strengthen with every passing generation.
*****
Thirty years on Endora has begun the
history of her chosen people. She writes it in advance of the facts but knows
that every word will come to pass. With more than enough to eat and drink the
birth rate of the island has rapidly increased necessitating the migration of
surplus population onto the mainland where they farm the land of those they
honour by the eating of their flesh. The newcomers dominate local government
and law enforcement while subtly controlling social media. When bad things are
discovered it is others who get the blame.
Endora’s most gifted pupils are now in
London where they have become indispensable to Government, while ensuring that
mankind is blind, deaf and dumb to the march of the new order. By the end of
the century
For the moment Endora has stayed her pen. What follows will be complex requiring much thought but she is determined that the final triumph of the island people will be accomplished within her lifetime. They will cleanse the world of its poisons, a single united people living in peace and harmony. They will be a new people for a new age...
Copyright Richard Banks
Another unique Banksy creation...
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