Chapter 1

I really didn’t kick the dog, honest. It was an accident and it was my word against his but he was family so I wasn’t believed. The consequences were to change my life, maybe for the better but we’ll never know how else it would have panned out.

I suppose that I should now paint the picture of how things were before I kicked the dog. My name is Armand Asquith and I was born in 1975. I live at home with my mother, Janice, and my older sister, Suzette, the bane of my life since I became a teenager. She is only three years older than me but thinks she knows it all, especially if I get on her bad side.

My parents were Boomers, born in 1947 and 1948 and met while at University in Cambridge. My mother was doing finance and accounting and my father was doing engineering. They married in 1971 and Suzette came along in 1972.

My father was a great parent and helped me set up my small workshop in 1987, where I make figures. Some call them dolls but they are all twenty inches high and are totally hand-made. The bodies are crafted from softwoods.

I have my own sewing machine and make all the clothes; I even make the shoes and belts. I have a deal with the local hairdresser to pick up bags of real hair at times. I have made about a dozen of these now, as they do take a lot of time and patience to produce, especially the historic figures like Nelson and Napoleon.

I have done a couple of female figures but they are very fiddly to do as I have to guess the shapes and the clothes. My best female is one of Diana Rigg in her Avenger gear. I had another hobby and that was learning magic tricks.

We lost my father in July 1988. He was a fly-in fly-out engineer and was working on the Piper Alpha drilling rig off of Aberdeen. He was one of the 30 bodies never recovered when the gas compression system blew up. Another 166 died on the rig that night. It was a great loss for us and I don’t know how my mother coped in the months that followed but cope she did and we carried on as a smaller family. The payout did, however, pay off the house they had bought.

The house is on Mid Road in Nutfield, just east of Redhill, Surry. It is quite a nice one and certainly big enough for us to rattle around in, even big enough for me to stay clear of Suzette when she has a mood on.

My mother has worked at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London for about ten years now and my sister is doing a degree at the LSE. I have just finished High School with enough GCSE passes with good grades to get me into the LSE myself but feel that I am not really into Economics and have thought I would like to do arts, especially textile design.

My High School days at the Warwick School in Redhill were reasonably good. Coming from Nutfield with my name of Armand meant that I was known as ‘Nut’ or even ‘the Nutter.’ My sister just calls me ’pipsqueak’ when she is in a good mood, a dig at my shorter than normal stature.

Our house is part of a row of similar sized ones and my daily exercise is to run down the road and back when the weather is good. With it being summer I run every day after I have done my chores. The chores consist of tidying away the breakfast things and washing up, any washing that needs doing and sometimes a bit of cleaning.

My mother and sister go into London on weekdays and catch the train from Redhill after they have parked the little run-about they use for work trips. We have a Land Cruiser 60 that my father had bought not long before he left us and we use that if we wanted to go any distance, it being so little used it will be good for another ten years.

This particular day that changed my life was a Friday. I had finished my chores and thought I could get a run in before lunch, hopefully following that up with my latest creation, a figure of Stevie Nicks (a boy can dream, can’t he?) I got my sneakers on and started running down the road.

As I got to a house three doors down (where my mother and sister usually spend their Friday evenings playing cards) I ran smack into their dog which had rushed out of the gate in my way. The dog yelped and I went over, banging my knees and elbows on the ground and rolling into their hedge.

You may ask why I didn’t try to jump the dog. Well, this animal is huge, a mastiff of some kind and comes up almost to my waist. It was at my face level now as I sat up and it took the opportunity to wash my face for me.

At this point Collette, one of the girls who lived here and a crush of mine for years, came rushing out and yelled at me for kicking the dog, which whined miserably for a few seconds.

“But I didn’t kick the dog, it rushed out and I fell over him.”

“Don’t lie,” she yelled, “Bruce just told me you kicked him and tripped over.”

I protested that Bruce, the dog, couldn’t tell her anything and she told me that she could understand dog and Bruce never lied. I knew I was up against some weird logic here and just left her to think whatever idiocy she wanted.

I knew that the whole family, their mother was Janeen and the three girls were Babs, Jacqui and Collette, were all a bit odd and I often wondered why my mother and sister spent time with them.

It could be that their father had also left them a few years ago for another woman, or so the rumour went. He was called Bruce, too.

As I limped home to wash my grazes she called after me. “I’ll tell your mother about this tonight, it won’t go unpunished!”

Back home I cleaned my skinned knees and elbows and put disinfectant on them before giving up on the running idea to spend the rest of my afternoon trying to shape Stevies’ torso and thinking about which outfit I would make for her when it came time to dress her.

When my mother and Suzette came in I had the tea all ready to go and we had a light meal. Suzette ribbed me about my scrapes and I told her I had fallen over, much to her merriment and a wink towards my mother.

After they had left to go down the road I watched a little bit of television but was rudely interrupted by Suzette, who stormed into the room, telling me to put my shoes on and follow her down the road –now! I turned the television off and went up to my room to get some shoes on, wondering whatever was happening.

We walked down the road.

“You’ve done it, now!”

“Done what?”

The others were sitting around their dining table with glasses of wine in front of them and no sight of any cards.

“What have you to say for yourself, young man, why did you kick Bruce?” Said Janeen, in a stern voice.

I protested that Bruce had run out of the gate and I had fallen over him without any thought of kicking him. She then told me that Bruce had told her that I had kicked him and Bruce never lies, at least, not lately.

At this Bruce gave a small whimper and put a paw over his eyes.

Collette then spoke. “Armand, in this house we have a way of seeing if someone is telling the truth or not. We have a magic duel and the loser admits defeat to take whatever punishment is awarded.”

I noted that she said nothing about a winner but said that I would be happy to take the challenge.

We started with Collette showing some good skills at making a coin disappear and reappear from her sisters’ hair. She was very good but I was able to match it with my own tricks.

Babs then produced a pack of cards and we began some card tricks. I was good but I could not see how she achieved some of the tricks she did.

Lastly, she said “Shuffle the pack, take a card and look at it. Then put it in your pocket.”

I did this without letting her see that card and then she told me to shuffle the deck again and deal out four hands with all the cards. She then asked me to pick one of the hands I had dealt. When I pointed to one pile, she turned over the top card and it was the one that was in my pocket; only, when I put my hand in my pocket. It wasn’t there!

This was serious as I just had to admit defeat. My mother told me to go home and go to bed as my punishment would happen on Saturday evening and I was to stay in the house until then.

I wandered home, trying to work out how Collette and Babs had done the tricks and especially the last one as I had not felt anyone take the card out of my pocket. I wondered if they were a family of experienced pick-pockets and that this was a joke on me, after all, dogs don’t talk.

On Saturday afternoon my mother went out in the Cruiser, leaving Suzette to supervise her unruly brother. She told me that I had to go into the bathroom and take a long bath, making sure I washed my hair. This was easy if it was part of the punishment so I did as ordered.

When my mother returned she had her mother with her. Now, my grandmother Jessie is one formidable lady and not one to cross.

She greeted the now clean me with, “Up for punishment tonight, are we. It’s not like you, boy, to get into this much trouble.”

Once again I protested that I had not actually kicked the dog but this was brushed aside. After a late tea we all got into the Cruiser and I was surprised when we turned in the opposite direction to the other house, going north and turning left onto the Nutfield Road and heading towards Redhill.

We didn’t go too far before we turned right towards a large quarry. I was amazed that the gates stood open and my mother took us down to the main part of the quarry. You may have seen this quarry on television as they used it for scenes of alien landscapes in some of the science fiction shows.

It had a big flattish area, well hidden from any prying eyes and I started to get frightened, especially when we came on a group of cars with their lights playing on a large sheet, at least twenty feet square, pegged out on a piece of flat ground. Another vehicle pulled up behind us and a stranger said she had locked the gates. This was getting weird.

As we got out of our Cruiser I whispered to my mother. “This was a set-up, wasn’t it?” and she said it was but for me to go with the flow as, instead of punishment, I would be given something tonight that would make my future assured.

I counted ten other women there besides us and they were busy putting poles into the ground around the sheet, which I could now see had concentric circles on it with strange signs interspersed.

Janeen came up to us and greeted my grandmother, saying that everyone had sucked lozenges tonight and that they would need her power. I wondered where she kept the batteries. Eventually the stage was set to their satisfaction and attention turned to me.

I was beyond mortified when I was told to strip everything off and made to stand still as each one walked up to me and splashed me with strange smelling oils. I was then given a long robe to put on and told to walk to the middle of the pattern and lie down.

I was getting to the point of running but did as I was told, suddenly feeling an interest in what was in store. They lit the torches on the poles and put out the vehicle headlights and it then felt very strange. When they stood around the outside of the outer ring and started chanting I nearly crapped.

I think it must have been getting towards midnight when the chanting became a series of guttural phrases in a language I couldn’t understand. By this time there was a fog of yellow mist swirling around me and I was getting a bit tired of lying there. I did not expect to start hurting all over.

I cried out and it only made the chanting restart and I felt like I was being pulled apart and my face and scalp felt like they were on fire. This went on for several minutes that seemed like hours and then all the pain went away.

I lay there with sweat pouring off of me and said, in a high pitched voice, “Are we done now?”

I felt somebody help me sit up. There was a strange weight on my chest and I had hair falling in front of my eyes. I was then helped to stand up and half-carried to the Cruiser where I was put onto the back seat, lying on my side with my legs bent to get in.

I had the odd feeling that the last time I laid on this back seat, I didn’t have to bend them like this. I felt my sister getting in the back as well and crunching herself on the edge of the seat.

The front doors clunked and we set off. At home I was helped out of the car and into the house. I was still very shaken and walked like a zombie.

The robe was stripped off me and I was herded into the bathroom for a hot shower and hair wash. I couldn’t figure out how I had so much hair now. My mother and sister dried me off and put another soft robe over my head and put me to bed where I went out like a light.

In the morning I woke up busting for a pee and got out of bed and raced to the bathroom. It was only when I got there I discovered that I was wearing a nightie and, when I pulled it up so that I could pee, I saw that I no longer had anything to pee with!

I quickly put the seat back down and sat with a great relief when my bladder emptied. When I had finished I wiped myself as it had gone everywhere, and then looked at myself in the mirror.

Looking back at me was quite a pretty teenage girl who looked a little like me. My hair, which had been neck length and muddy brown, was now down my back and a light brown. What I noticed then was that I was looking into the mirror from a higher perspective; I seemed to be almost a foot taller than I used to be!

I washed my, now delicate, hands and went back to my bedroom where my mother and grandmother waited for me. I was told to get back in bed and that all will be explained.

I did as requested and asked the first questions. “OK, how, why and what happens now?”

“The how is easy,” my mother said, “It was magic at its best, thanks to your grandmother, here. The why is because you are now needed to join our little group and your future was pre-ordained.”

“All right,” I said, “Explain the magic bit first. I had suspicions that the tricks that Collette and Babs pulled yesterday had no real way of being possible, especially the last one.”

My mother told me that they were all members of a group.

“Coven?”

“We do not use that word any more as it has too many links to bad things from the past,” my mother explained, “We call ourselves the Nutfield Meditation Group and only meet like we did last night for special events. We had not met like that in some years.”

My grandmother then told me that magic only followed the females in the family and I was needed, as a female, to join the group.

I asked, "Then why the entire charade with the dog?”

“Because we have a tradition to keep up, we do not invite outsiders to join us, we are not a sewing circle, and the new members are either born to it or have to be forced into our circle as a matter of historical fact,” my grandmother said.

“I can tell you that we can trace our heritage back to Agnes Waterhouse, who was hanged in 1566. Luckily they didn’t bother with her twin girls at that time. Unfortunately another line was snuffed out when Mary Hicks and her daughter, Elizabeth, were executed in 1716.”

My mother then said that there was a powerful depth of magic in our family and that my grandmother was the most powerful member left.

I then asked’ “OK, then how come I am taller than I was?”

“That one is easy,” said my mother, “There is one thing that we cannot alter, and that is the mass that we work with when objects are bigger and heavier than a cricket ball. Collette could make small coins appear and disappear but she would not be able to make a television suddenly turn up. When you were changed, your weight remained so you needed to become taller to fit the female shape. It’s a tricky one to pull off and we made a boo-boo with Bruce.”

“Bruce!” I exclaimed. “You mean to tell me that Bruce was something else.”

My mother looked sad at this and said, in a small voice. “Yes, Bruce the dog used to be Bruce, Janeens’ husband. He was a lying and cheating no good bastard and she decided that he had to go when he said he was going to run off with Cheryl, his ‘tart de jeur’. The two sisters wanted a Shetland pony and that was what we cast our spell to produce.”

“Unfortunately, one of us got a catch in her throat and the chant was disturbed. When the mist cleared, instead of a pony, there was the mastiff you know as Bruce, as well as two very randy cocker spaniels. We gave the spaniels to Cheryl when we told her that Bruce had decided to not leave his wife. Bruce was very put out when he was taken to the vet to be neutered. It’s a lot cheaper, though, than a vasectomy. That’s why we all sucked lozenges last night before the session.”

“Hold on, you said two sisters then.”

“You’re very sharp, this morning,” my grandmother said, patting my hand. “Yes, it was then two sisters, Babs and Jacqui, and their brother Colin, I think he may have been a year ahead of you at the Nutfield Church Primary.”

“You don’t mean ‘Weedy Col?”

My mother looked at me, then at my grandmother and asked me, “How much of your past as Armand can you remember?” I thought a bit and said that I could remember everything that I could before.

“How much can you remember as Amity Asquith?”

As I looked at her I had a flood of visions and feelings in my head from my time, as a girl, from a very early age.

“Everything, it’s like I have two lives. They are very similar but in one I’m a girl”

Marianne Gregory (C) 2022