Which Witches

chapter 7

Belladonna had always been a white witch.  Even as a tiny baby she had used her teeth only to bite the tops off milk bottles so that the bluetits could get at the cream, as she grew older her whiteness grew steadily worse. Flowers sprang up where she walked, bursts of glorious music fell from the air, and when she smiled, old gentlemen remembered the Christmases they had had when they were children. As for her hair- from the age of six or so when it had reached her waist, there had always been someone resting in Belladonna 's golden hair.
  
         Belladonna herself longed for blackness --- to smite and blast and wreck and wither seemed to her the most wonderful thing in the world. But though she could heal people and charm the flowers out of the ground and speak the language of the animals, even the simplest bit of evil, like say, turning a pale green cucumber into a greasy black pudding with bits of fat in it,
Was more than she could manage. Not that she didn't try. Every morning before she went to work ( she was an assistant in a flower shop) , Belladonna would stand by the open window and say : " Every day and in every way I am getting blacker and blacker".

      But she wasn't, and the worst thing she had to bear was the scorn and spite of the other witches. Belladonna really dreaded coven days when she was ignored and despised and had to huddle by herself out of the warm circle of firelight and feasting with only the familiars for company. The only reason she went was that she hoped, one day, some of the blackness might rub off on her.

  The bus had left Todcaster now. There was one more witch to pick up on the way. She was a thin, pale witch whom the other called Monalot after a lady on a radio program who was always complaining. Monalot 's real name was Gwendolyn Swamp and she played the harp in the Todcaster palm orchestra.  Ms. Swamp came from a family of banshees, who are the kind of witch who wailed and sighs about the place and tell people when something awful is going to happen.
Banshees have never been a healthy bunch, and Monalot was so often ill that to get her to the coven at all they usually stopped the bus specially by her house.

      "She's not at the gate," said Mabel Wrack impatiently.  The air -- conditioning in the Coven Special was making her legs itch unbearably.

    So Belladonna, who always took the messages and ran the errands for the others, climbed out of the bus and walked through the garden of Monalot's little villa with the name Creepy Corner written on the gate.

   The door was open. Belladonna ran up to the bedroom, knocked on the door --- and saw at once that Monalot would not be coming to the coven. The poor witch was completely covered in small red spots.

  " It's the measles," she moaned.  " All over me. Percy,too." She waved a limp hand to the corner of the room where her familiar, a large, sad - looking sheep, was lying. A sheep with measles is unusual, but where there is witchcraft anything is possible.
              Belladonna was very upset.
   " Couldn't I help?" She began.
But like most witches,  Monalot hated the word " help"   "No" she moaned.
"Just go and leave me. No one wants me anyway, but nobody cares."

So Belladonna poured her a drink, plumped up her pillows and went out, passing, on Monalot 's dressing table, wax images of her doctor and the district nurse, both stuck full of pins.

     " I'm afraid it's hopeless," she reported,back in the bus. " Ms. Swamp has the measles."
" Stupid old banshee," snapped Nora shouter.
" They were always delicate, the Swamps, " said Mother Bloodwort. She had opened her tin with the coronation on the lid and was stirring her maggots with a long and bony finger.  She was still stirring and muttering when the bus got to Windylow Heath.