The mallet smashed into it's target with a satisfying crunch.
Rubble slipped to the floor, and a small cloud of plaster dust billowed up, causing Pete to cough. Steph wandered in from the hallway, carrying two cups of coffee, and looked over the rapidly enlarging fireplace. They had moved in to the old house less than a month before, newly-weds, excited at their first shared home. The house was old, easily two or three hundred years, and in need of some renovation. Mostly it was simple things, and they had ploughed into them with enthusiasm.
Pulling off some old wallpaper had revealed quite clearly that the small fireplace in the living room concealed a much larger, original hearth. Steph was insistent, and Pete readily persuaded, that it would make a fantastic centrepiece not just for the room, but for the whole house. And so Pete was busily removing the later plaster and brickwork to open up the original fireplace.
"I've brought coffee for the worker," said Steph, breezily. Pete looked up, his face paled with dust.
"Thanks. One more whack and I think we'll be done." Steph stood back carefully as Pete hefted the hammer, and took a solid blow at the last remnants of the bricking-up, towards the central top of the arch. A substantial amount of debris fell down and out onto the floor. Steph peered at something odd that was laying across the rubble.
"What is that? An old rag?" Pete peered closer, leaning in, before jumping back with a start.
"Oh, oh God. It's a cat! A mummified cat." Steph shrieked and started freaking out.
"Oh oh oh, get it out, get it out." She ran from the room, flapping her hands around her head as if she was pestered by flies. Pete grabbed the shovel he was using to scoop up the rubble, and gently, if slightly awkwardly, picked up the thin, almost rope-like body of the cat. God alone knows how long its been up there, he thought. He carried the cat past a squirming Steph and took it out to the trash, feeling slightly guilty at such an ignominious disposal.
When he came back in, Steph was back in the living room, staring again at the rubble. His heart sank. "What now? A dead mouse?"
Steph scowled at him. "No, look, I think theres an old bottle or something here." Pete looked closer, and under where the cat had lain was indeed a small down of dark green glass. Pete poked about, moving lumps of brick and plaster, and exposed enough of the vessel to lift it up and examine it.
It was old, certainly, with that slightly irregular shape that suggested it was hand-made. The outside was smooth, with no labelling, and the lid was coated liberally in thick black wax. It rattled slightly when he picked it up, and when he held it up to the light, you could just make out the outlines of a jumble of things inside.
They puzzled over it a while, holding it at odd angles and shaking it to try and determine what was inside. Eventually, Pete went back to clearing his mess, and Steph retreated into the kitchen to fire up her laptop.
First she googled 'old bottle chimney' but that only brought up a load of links to a wine merchant and someone selling candles, so she tried again with 'old bottle found in chimney'. That discovered some news stories about some builders finding a bottle of whiskey about 200 years old. This was getting nowhere, but Steph was really curious now.
Then she spotted a link to some history site abotu Dorset, England. Scrlling down, there were plenty of references to mummified cats, and there, halfway down were the words 'witch bottle'. There was a link with the same words on the right hand side and Steph quickly cliked on this.
After reading through once, she called Pete, who read the short page in silence. One passage caught his eye.
"Witch-bottles are usually found concealed beneath the hearth or threshold but sometimes beneath the floor and in walls. Of around 200 English witch-bottles on record, 130 are ‘bellarmines’. The contents of these bottles are fascinating and appear to constitute a kind of spell. Of the contents which are identifiable, by far the most common was iron pins or nails (95%). The second most common was human hair (25%). Another ingredient which is very difficult to test for if the bottle has leaked at any point is urine. Roughly 25% of those with contents have been tested for the presence of urine and all proved positive. So, we have iron, urine and hair as the most common ingredients. Other ingredients such as small bones, thorns, pieces of wood and, in a few cases, pieces of fabric cut into the shape of a heart are sometimes found."
They both agreed this was 'very cool' and the Bottle got pride of place on a display shelf on the stairs. Pete went back to his building work, and Steph decided the event was worthy of a blog entry, and logged in to write her post.
"Weird! Found a genuine Witch Bottle in our chimney today while doing DIY. Looks real old, and we think it has pins and hair in it. Very cool, shuld keep the evil spiritis away LOL. Also found cat mummy - eeuww!!! Thrown cat away, dont really know what to do with bottle so have put on display."
--
That evening, Steph decided to log back in to see if her post had received any comments. There were two.
Madaboutcats - "You threw away a cat mummy? What about the cat babies LOL!"
Ursula - "THOU HAST VIOLATED THE COVENANT. PLACE BACK THAT WHICH YOU HAVE FOUND, OR SUFFER THE CONSEQUENCES"
Steph was brought up short by the second comment, and clicked on the posters link - a default avatar. The profile came back with a 404 not found page. DIscomfited, Steph logged out and decided to check her emails. As was her wont, she skimmed through the ones captured by the spam filter to see if there was anything wrongly diverted. There was an email identified as being from "ursula." She opened it nervously.
"IGNORE ME AT YOUR PERIL. WHAT HAS BEEN PUT ASUNDER MUST BE RESTORED. FAMILIAR AND FETISH MUST TAKE THEIR RIGHTFUL PLACE."
Pete caught Stephs expression, and came over. After reading it, they had a heated discussion about where the message had come from. Pete was adamant it was someone on the Blog community trying to freak her out, but couldn't give an explanation of how they had tracked down her email.
That night, Steph slept fitfully, dreaming of shrunken and mishapen cats, and shadowy figures placing bent iron pins and hair clippings into a bottle. She awoke suddenly, the red glowing digits on the bedside alarm clock informing her it was just after 1:30. Dry mouthed, Steph slipped out of bed, and wandered downstairs to the kitchen to get a glass of water. As she turned at the bottom of the stairs she could see an eerie glow coming from the kitchen.
Terrified, she crept towards the door, and steeling herself peered around the doorway. Her laptop, which she had shut down and left closed on the kitchen table was open, and logged in to her blog site.
There was an instant messaging window up. Text was appearing on it slowly. Steph crept towards the computer, and read the message.
"THE SAND OF TYME RUNS FAST. YOUR TASK IS PLAIN AND YET NOT DONE. BY SUN UP PLACE THE ITEMS BACK OR BEAR THE WRATH THAT FOLLOWS."
No sooner had she read the words than the screen went blank, and the computer sat there, inert. Seconds later she was in the yard, rummaging in the bin. Retching, she drew out the raddled corpse of the dessicated cat. Holding it at arms length, she staggered back inside. Soon, she had it stowed inside the chimney. Then she ran up the stairs towards the dispaly shelf and the bottle.
"Hey!" Pete nearly collided with her coming down the stairs, and Steph screamed, frightened out of her wits. It seemed to take an age before her sobbing subsided enough for her to explain what was happening. Pete was his usual unruffled self. He offered a variety of unconvincing explanations, and a big hug, but Steph was exhausted and confused enough to be persuaded to go back to bed.
In the morning she awoke refreshed. The sun shone brightly through the windows, and the panic of the night before seemed a long way away. Pete was probably right, it was some techno-geek on the blog site getting their jollies by trying to freak her. Well, she knew how to deal with that. She fired up the lap-top and logged in.
"So, SOMEONE is trying to spook me out. Ha! I even got a little freaked last night LOL! ANYWAY its not going to freak me out any more. I know that these witch bottle things are just an old superstitius. BOO. Ha ha! Not gonna react no more!
The sun is shining. My house is beuatiful. The Birds are singing. And nothing bothers me, not even the weird noise coming from the ch"
Todays installment in the weeks creepy tales for Halloween.
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