Cursed Times - Only Yesterday! Sequel to Wattys 2015 winner!

Chapter 40: Trueth - Autumnworld 3

End of previous chapter: 

He put down his drink. 'In the meantime, my love... . '

The dog wuffed and stalked from the room.

*** 

Sunshine gilded the curtains and dabbed highlights on the fur of their four-footed companion perched on top of a mountain of duvets, fast asleep. Trueth patted the space next to her, only to find Seisi's side of the bed empty. She felt sore but more alive than she had been—well, almost all her life.

Her companion announced his presence by swearing loudly in the next room, which served as a wardrobe. The gist of it seemed to be that despite the clear skies, the weather had turned quite cold, and Seisi had apparently not enjoyed performing his ritual ablutions under the pump, nor did he approve of the clothing on offer. When he walked back into the bedroom, he had compromised on a collarless ruffled linen shirt in combination with his jeans and fleece jacket. Trueth groaned. She would have to wriggle into one of those long skirts. Or wear the buckskin breeches Seisi had spurned. Neither choice sounded attractive, but miles of fabric clinging to her legs were not her thing. In the end, she emerged in historical male apparel that was too tight in all the wrong places and a soiled baby-blue blanket worn as a coat over one of those frilly shirts. The boots, however, fitted her perfectly, even if the stockings would not stay up.

Not that the rest of the Avebury witches had fared any better, and the glorious early autumn sun was shining on a grumpy assembly sporting a wild variation on the theme of seventeenth-century costume and modern night attire. Their primary need regarding food and shelter seen to, the general mood of the group was shifting towards belligerent again.

'There's a bunch of bones out there, close to that circle,' minion-shorts said. Or was it Simpson's? The fact that neither were displaying their underwear but sporting homespun breeches instead did not help.

'What circle?' Trueth asked.

'There's a henge close to the village. Next to some type of bonsai hill. It gives me sinister vibes,' Myrtle said. 'Can you work out how to get us back again, please? I don't like this place. It's spooky. Like one of these museums where they reenact the past. Only I'm the actress.' She did look the part, with her full skirt, bodice and linen kerchief. Only the flyaway greying hairdo was out of synch with the rest of her appearance. 'What happens if the owners of all this come back here and find us?'

'Or maybe this isn't real and there's a glamour on the village?' Daisy said. 'In reality, we're in a dungeon and we have eaten mouldy bread and stuff,' she said amid shrieks of disgust and dismay from her fellow travellers.

'You're forgetting the graveyard in the centre of that henge,' Damian said, making soothing movements with arms hidden in the voluminous folds of a dark coat that was several sizes too large for him. 'I don't think anybody will come back, and that veil was old, Seisi said.'

'Can see the headstones right from the kitchen window of the pub,' the landlord and new keeper of the Henge Inn said indignantly, the aprons over his knee-length trousers no different from the modern counterpart he had been wearing in Avebury. 'Charming.'

Trueth could not resist the temptation. 'What's your new watering hole called? Skull and Crossbones?'

His brows were gravitating towards each other, like bristly sea urchins on a mating trip, but the publican kept his composure. 'Henge Inn.'

'Can you show me what you found?' Seisi intervened. 'And please, good people, pray calm down. There WAS a sort of glamour on the village, that veil we found yesterday. It kept out intruders, and it kept this place pristine. We should be grateful for that.'