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Mrs Abernathy

Wight Witches

By Ian LawtonPublished 4 years ago 7 min read
2

Edith Abernathy was stood on her lawn enjoying the early morning sunshine bathing her face and happily feeding the birds in her front garden. If you were passing by at first glance you wouldn’t see or consider anything wrong with this, an elderly old lady scattering seeds and bread for the local wildlife, apart from perhaps the number and variety of birds that she was feeding. Wrens, robins, blackbirds, doves, pigeons, all flocking to her lawn. Just her lawn. If you were a tad more observant you would notice that some of her neighbours had bird feeders and tables in their gardens too. Redundant, untouched ones.

This wasn’t because Mrs Abernathy provided better food, nor that her house was, surprisingly, free of cats. It was because Mrs Abernathy was a witch and had been for quite some time, centuries in fact. She’d lived through the dark ages, narrowly avoiding persecution by some over eager and totally unqualified but nonetheless rather persistent “Witchfinders” through the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, survived untold plagues, wars and famine (mainly because she’d instigated them) and latterly narrowly escaped a rather embarrassing incident involving a couple of rather unruly children that had taken a fancy to her gingerbread house. Since then she’d decided to lay low, keep her head down a little, not cause too much of a scene.

She’d hung up the cape, pointed hat, ditched the cauldron and broomstick that signified her trade and, for want of a better word retired. She travelled, country to country, continent to continent causing the odd bit of havoc and mischief whenever the mood took her to do so. Finally, after many years she decided to settle on the Isle of Wight in a small village called Nettlestone. Being immortal though you need something to occupy your time and, after a decade or two Mrs Abernathy got a bit bored so, after a brief period of indecision about what to do and, having met an interesting resident she joined the local Neighbourhood watch.

Incidents of anti social behaviours and petty crime locally fell dramatically, almost instantly in fact but then this was strangely counter balanced by the sudden rise in the amount of disappearances in the area and surrounding towns.

Shortly afterwards Mrs Abernathy branched out and began her own business making “homemade” meat pies for the local shops. They were incredibly popular.

Karl McEnery was an inquisitive lad, aged 8 and with a license to roam by his parents he spent his free time playing football, cycling around the estate, traipsing through the local copse, climbing trees, building dens, basically enjoying life. One evening, as dusk was falling he was sat up in a tree at the edge of the copse carving some nonsense into the branch he was sat upon. Absently he observed Mrs Abernathy leave her house on her motorised scooter and trundle off down the road. He nearly fell out of the tree when, after briefly checking her surroundings Mrs Abernathy suddenly increased in speed and took off through the sky.

Curiosity took a hold of young Karls thought process, over riding those of self preservation and caution. Over the next few days he began to take an active interest in Mrs Abernathy’s activities, watching her often, frequently finding himself hovering around her hedgerow trying to catch a glimpse of the house and what might be inside. He noticed the birds, how they behaved around Mrs Abernathy, sometimes, through his fathers binoculars up in a nearby tree he would study her closely, hairy chin, slightly hooked nose – was that a wart too? Every night he noted that Mrs Abernathy would leave on her scooter, never seeing her coming back to the house. In the daytime he would wait until Mrs Abernathy had left the house and “accidentally” kick his ball into her garden, taking longer than was necessary trying to find it. All fairly harmless activities up until he broke the window.

The crash of the window, to Karls ears at least sounded like an exploding brass band. He froze in panic expecting some sort of commotion to follow. No noise. Nothing but the gentle plink of loose glass falling into the house. No shouts, no cries of enquiry, nothing. He edged closer to the house peering in through the broken window. He could see his ball near the fireplace in the front room by one of the arm chairs, there was broken glass everywhere. He was scared. He wanted to run. He wanted his ball back. He wanted to look inside the house…

He climbed in through the window cutting his hand on the glass, distractedly wiping the blood on his trousers as he crept nervously through the room. Ignoring his football he began to explore the house, front room into the hall, quick check of the dining room and into the kitchen. All seemed fairly normal apart from some large piece of machinery clamped to the work top in the kitchen. He went to the back door, looking into the rear garden.

A massive aviary took up the majority of the back yard. It was filled with dozens, if not hundreds of birds, all of differing size and species, all still, all silent, all of them staring at him with their black, glass like eyes. He stood there mesmerised, he’d never seen such a collection, all wild birds, not a single budgie or canary in sight. Lost in thought he failed to notice that the birds focus of attention had switched, looking to something behind him.

Karl awoke. He felt strange, sickly, aching all over with a horrific, blinding headache, pains sparking repeatedly behind his eyes. Something wasn’t right, something in the way that the room looked. Realisation dawned as he became more aware of his surroundings. He was in a cage high up in the room. Hopping to the edge of it he looked down into the kitchen, at the back of Mrs Abernathy as she fed something red into the machine on the worktop then cranking some kind of handle on it. His gaze dropped to the kitchen table, covered in plastic sheeting with a body laid upon it. His body, but without either of his legs. He screamed and screamed, continuing to do so for what seemed like hours, the sound however coming out as more of a repetitive “cheep”.

Mrs Abernathy turned, raising a blood stained accusatory finger toward him “Oh you’re awake are you? I have to say you’ve been a very naughty boy breaking my window like that, took me a while to fix it too, lot of power, plus you poking your nose into my business, spying on me like you have been”.

As she spoke she approached Karls body, picked up a knife and began cutting away more of his flesh, feeding it into the machine on the worktop, again turning the handle until thin, stringy meat emerging from one end of the machine.

“Kids of today just don’t have any respect, no regard for peoples privacy” she carried on, all the while cutting parts from his body, slicing it into manageable lumps to feed into the mincer.

Karl watched as Mrs Abernathy slowly butchered his corpse, feeding all his organs and muscle into the mincer all the while complaining about his behaviour. She placed his head and bones into a huge pot on the stove “stock for the gravy” she explained as she then wiped his entrails into the food waste bin.

Satisfied with a job well done Mrs Abernathy portioned up and placed all the mince in her fridge, wiped down her work surfaces and disassembled the mincer, placing the working parts into the dishwasher, setting it on a high temperature clean.

After she had finished she washed her hands and turned to face Karl “So young man, I’m guessing you might be wondering how, if you’ve been turned into a wee birdy how come there was so much of you left on my table eh sunshine? Apparently it’s something technical to do with mass and matter not being the same? Only a small part of your previous body was needed to create the one you now have so there was leftovers and I hate to see good food go to waste so hence the mincer, good idea eh? Waste not want not! Now let’s get you in with the others”.

Mrs Abernathy reached up, took down his cage and walked out to the aviary releasing him in with the other birds. He cheeped, they all replied knowingly.

A few days later, after the media had gone and the police had finished their door to door questioning and searches of the area were concluded the doorbell to Karls house rang. When Karls mother answered it there on the doorstep was a crisp, steaming golden pie and a note.

It read “I am so sorry to hear of the loss of your son, I sincerely hope he is found safe and well and returned to you soon. In the meantime please accept this pie that I made for you. I hope it brings you some small measure of comfort in these dark times, yours, Mrs Abernathy, number 66”.

fiction
2

About the Creator

Ian Lawton

I am Ian, I live on the Isle of Wight and write as a hobby.

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