The Durwood Witch
A dark winter’s tale
She had risen from the dead. The almost forgotten Durwood Witch was now back and said to be a hideously burnt hag... with long talons, red eyes, and breath that could sizzle flesh from bone. This description having been given by none other than Mayor John Mason himself after the creature had invaded his home one evening — with fatal results for both his wife and a maid. But he had driven the thing out; aflame and screeching horribly.
So the village would shudder to a halt, just before sunset, with every door and window being locked tight, and everyone hiding in their homes... all families silent and shivering, despite their roaring fires. Not a single soul haunting Durwood’s dark streets for almost a decade.
But that all changed one whistling, November night. When young Tom Mason, the mayor’s only child, decided to sneak out — with grim purpose fuelling his young legs, and drowning out any pleas that followed him. For no one would dare follow the boy. And so Tom eventually reached the village square. And he watched, and he waited... a moon-cast shadow soon looming over him.
“Why are you here child?” rasped a ruined voice.
Tom’s eyes remained wide.
“I-I just wanted to see if you were real,” he said eventually, “So I can — ”
“As real as your pounding heart lad. And so you can kill me, eh?”
Tom took a small dagger from his pocket.
“Y-yes. Because my father says you killed and ate our old maid Beryl Tanner, and then — ”
Hollow laughter filled the air.
“Did he now... and that then I took your poor mother? Both women gobbled up as you lay in your cradle, eh? Hehe... though I’ll admit lad, you truly are brave. Unlike your fool father. ”
Baring teeth, Tom raised his dagger and prepared to strike... but then he froze, and stared as whispered words caressed the night air. The dagger clattered on cobblestones before Tom began to weep, and tremble as if bewitched. The moon-cast shadow then swallowed the boy whole, before they both melted into darkness.
So the village mourned for a while. But then everyone slowly, but surely forgot all about undead witches, and hiding after sunset... with Mayor Mason growing older and fatter if remaining in office. Indeed, he almost forgot about the son he had lost one November night... until another November night. Old Mason suddenly sat up in bed, as the door creaked open and something entered his bedroom.
“Who is it?” the mayor cried, a loaded pistol he kept under his pillow now aimed forward.
A figure slowly left the shadows.
“Only I,” came a man’s voice, “It is only I.”
Mason peered into the gloom, and slowly lowered his pistol.
“No, it can’t... it’s you. Oh b-bless the saints! I thought you were — ”
“Did you now John?” another voice rasped, “Like you hoped I would be, eh?”
“What... no,” said Mason and raised the pistol again — only to have it swiftly knocked aside. “What do you want of me? Oh p-please . . . ”
A second figure left the shadows, smiled — and old Mason was buried two days later; his heart having most likely burst from years of over-indulgence. And so the town mourned again briefly, but then quickly forgot about Mason... especially after his house claimed a new tenant. The rich and handsome young man soon became mayor himself. And when a sudden illness took him twelve years later, he was laid in the local churchyard amid much weeping. This always kind and generous soul laid in the same, quiet corner plot — with his wife’s blessing — where his mother lay . . . a disfigured invalid who had once worked for John Mason, before the old mayor took advantage, and later destroyed her life and body. Tom and Beryl Tanner are now being reunited, for a second time.
© Emlyn Boyle 2022
I began this story years ago, but only got halfway through before I abandoned it. It was partly inspired by a book on English folklore and witchcraft, but mainly by the artwork above. Indeed, I almost want it to read like something you would find in a book of folk tales. Thanks for reading.
