With the same disbelief and fascination with which he watched Blackwood the day before, Tom has resumed a similar vigil by midday. He sits on the floor of the temple this time, his back against the wall. Even from that distance, as Blackwood mooches amidst old books scattered inside his magical circle of protection, his gum disease is atrocious and the man is breathing as heavily as a sex offender.
When he finally fits the jeweller’s loupe into an eye socket, he swings the great mess of his grey head over a lead tablet and hovers above it. Scans it, left to right, sprinkling dandruff from collar and scalp. ‘Here. I translated this last night. Roman nobles drove rivals to self-destruction with this spell.’
Things have also changed inside the temple room. New preparations and preventative measures have been made since Tom’s first visit. Arranged in front of Blackwood’s circle, a large black sheet has been laid like an unlit doorway in the floor, the fabric speckled with herbs. A second protective circle has been neatly painted on the floor, enclosing the black sheet. Chalk sigils have been inscribed inside the new circle’s border. It all means little to Tom, though he assumes that in Blackwood’s world, the meticulous safeguarding within a magical practitioner’s sanctum is a response to the handling of the most hazardous magical materials. The lead curse tablets are in quarantine.
Blackwood’s face descends to a few centimetres above a second tablet. ‘This one took me a while. Most of the early hours. It’s Chaldean. The intention here is to split a household asunder. A family, if you like. Hope we caught that one in time.’ Blackwood moves to a third tablet. ‘This one I didn’t even have to look up. Seen it twice in Wiltshire. Once in Devon. Hellish visions.’ Blackwood rears back and rests on his knees, wincing at the pain fired from an old joint under strain. ‘You had any?’
Tom nods. ‘I don’t even know what is real anymore. Last night, I—’
Blackwood proceeds with the annoying habit of not listening to Tom’s answers. ‘I’m still interpreting the others. They’re very old. This takes time. My Greek isn’t what it was. But all of them are indicative of the power the Moots wield. And it’s safe to say that you have a full house. Let’s begin cleansing.’
In advance of his visit, a space has been cleared upon the cluttered surface of Blackwood’s desk in the living room, perhaps for the first time in years. With Tom beside him, the old man carefully pours the dust scavenged from the caravan out of the Ziploc freezer bag and onto a strip of paper covered in writing. Latin, Tom guesses. Once the tipping of the dust is complete, Blackwood stands back. The big eye, visible inside the loupe, blinks at him.
‘Now eat it.’
‘You what?’
‘This is a spell, from a Yahweh Hebrew cult, to remove a curse. Eleventh century. Dust from a conjurer’s property and a sacred text must be consumed. Begin. You’re wasting time you don’t have.’
Tom stares at the dusty paper, then looks at Blackwood hoping to see a flicker of mirth, some indication that this is a joke. The man only nods, sagely.
Gingerly, Tom raises the paper and slips it between his lips. Grit and a taste of mildew fill his mouth.
Blackwood watches him keenly. ‘Go on. All of it. Get it down.’
* * *
‘I prepared them last night.’ Blackwood opens one of two cardboard boxes on his kitchen table: a carton that once stored multiple packets of crisps at a supermarket. Still chewing the cud of paper and caravan dust, Tom peers over the raised flaps.
A collection of clay bowls, carefully packed with foam, fill the bottom of the box. Inside each uppermost bowl, sigils have been inscribed, meticulously painted.
Tom swallows the gritty residue inside his mouth. Mystified, he looks to Blackwood, seeking an explanation the man is only too eager to provide. ‘Bury each one inside the cavities that held the curse tablets. One bowl for each hole. Make sure each hole receives a bowl. The charms must remain inside. They are never to be removed.’
Tom nods, then looks at the four crosses made from wooden slats, stacked in a neat pile beside the first box. The cross-spars are wrapped in twine and a symbol of the sun has been drawn on the front face of each upright.
Beyond the crosses, a second cardboard box is filled with bottles of milk, jars of honey, a loaf of black rustic bread, a silver flask. Tom passes his hand over it. ‘I didn’t need you to do the shopping.’
‘You’ve a rite to perform. Something once enacted in a temple, or sacred grove.’
‘I’m a graphic designer, not a bloody druid.’
‘Any idiot can do it. I’ll show you how. But there must be intention. You must believe in the protective power of the rite.’
Too tired to be insulted, Tom resigns himself to a weary nod of acknowledgement. ‘I find myself believing a lot I didn’t a few days ago. And if it’ll stop them getting in, I’ll try anything.’
‘In?’
‘And seeing them change. That was a hellish vision. You know, from the curse? They’re making me see them like that?’
Blackwood turns quickly, seizes Tom’s shoulders. His grip squeezes like a wooden vice. ‘What did you say? You’ve seen them transform?’
‘In the woods. In that clearing they’ve got. It was pitch, night time, but they did something. Became something else.’
‘You actually saw them changed?’
‘I’ve been trying to tell you—’
‘What did you see?’
‘A pig. Medea was like a pig. Magi, a hare, I think.’
Blackwood’s face pales and he fidgets away from Tom, as if distancing himself from contagion.
‘They wore masks. But I can’t understand how they moved so quickly? I mean, at their age?’
Blackwood becomes unsteady on his feet and sits down heavily on a stool. One trembling hand paws the table. ‘Why didn’t you… Have they…’
‘What?’
‘In altered form, have they entered your home?’
‘My little girl said so. Last night. One of them… I think it was in our bloody room. She says she’s seen it before. In the woods. And outside, when I was getting the dust from the caravan, something was on their bloody roof. The hare. Watching me. My wife won’t hear one more word about it.’
Blackwood closes his eyes. Breathes noisily through his capacious nostrils, their openings thickets of grey hair. ‘This is far worse than I imagined.’
‘What the fuck? What do you mean?’
Blackwood’s eyes open and survey Tom with the gaze of a doctor before a terminal patient who remains clueless about the source of a discomfort. ‘They never stopped with the curse tablets. This is how they’ve done it! There will be other charged articles. Inside your home. Markers. Gateways. They must also be found. Every last one.’
As Tom looks at the boxes and crosses, his meagre hopes dissipate like gas escaping a pressurised container. When will it stop? He slumps onto a neighbouring stool that oozes beneath him, three loose legs spreading.
‘Careful, that stool is a death trap.’
Tom carefully returns to his feet.
Blackwood’s hand slaps the table. ‘The Moots must have fitted the property out between owners. They’ve had plenty of time to refine their techniques. Install charms and make ready their torments for any new occupants. Devils! I’ll tell you where to look.’
Tom closes his eyes on it all. Outside his private darkness, his appointed shepherd, his family’s guardian, holds forth with an enthusiasm he finds inappropriate. ‘We need to build a bastion! Defences. On the land. Inside the building. Fortify it all! Or they’ll have you where you sleep. Make no mistake.’