Background: This is an exerpt from another set of stories I wrote set in the universe of The McIlwraith Statements and The Grains of Magic. These stories centre on a family living in small town Scotland who are known as “Exchange witches”. They can only do magic when something is given to them in exchange.
Eilidh didn’t get to drive often. Living near a city there had never been the need to take the car, unless relentless queues to get anywhere was the desired outcome. That meant when she moved back home, a small town surrounded by an abundance of mountains, woodland, and fields, driving became a more relaxing experience. In theory.
In reality, white-knuckling it down single-track roads hoping it wasn’t harvesting time for the tractors was less joyful than she’d been anticipating. Eventually her journey came to an end. The car engine purred happily as she waited in front of a ten-foot metal gate with electronic hinges, and an intercom attached to the stone pillar. Eventually the gates hummed open and she drove the rest of the way down the gravel road until she parked the car outside a country mansion. It was a place she had only looked at on the internet when she’d been browsing for properties, as adults of a certain age are wont to do. It was several hundred times out of her price range, unless she were to make a deal with the devil himself. It was the home of MPs, an ex-Prime Minister, a celebrity, or other public figure who had made their riches and spent it on real estate.
Eilidh admitted to not revolving in the same circles as the millionaires of Scotland, so when Mr Brown had invited her to visit, as he was interested in placing an order for a special event, her mind had drawn a blank. Brown was a common name, almost on the same level as Smith. For all she knew, he had invented the sim card.
It looked to be an old house, a relic from the twentieth century where the grandchildren of the Victorian elite were spending their hard-inherited assets. It wouldn’t have looked out of place as the host of a summer family event, or a car show. Made of sandstone that had been stained and worn with age, the windows were large, and the curtains that covered them even larger. The wooden door looked as though it would survive Armageddon, and she was almost reluctant to knock on it, fearing no one would be able to hear it from inside.
Thankfully there was already a middle-aged woman swinging it open to greet her. No smiles were exchanged, and the older woman appeared to be more prepared for a funeral than for a guest. With a swift nod of the head Eilidh was summoned over the threshold. The antiquity continued as she observed cabinets filled with crystal, expensive looking china, and porcelain figurines. Various pieces of weaponry hung from the walls, some medieval, others more modern with their thin blades and intricate handles. Interspersing the axes and spears were large gold-framed paintings of dream worlds with lush greenery and perfectly pastel skies.
The carpet beneath her feet was blood red but patterned and didn’t show any of the usual signs of wear. Eilidh continued to follow the older woman through rooms with increasing opulence. Life sized portraits of powerful men and women, a suit or two of armour, antique furniture large enough for rich ladies’ dresses, and ancient books that looked as though they were freshly bound, their gold lettering shimmering in the daylight.
Eventually their journey ended in a long dining room, with rectangular table and upholstered chairs in the middle, two empty fireplaces on either wall. This room was different. This room made her feel instantly uneasy. Rather than the antiques anyone would expect to find in an old mansion, this room was straight from a gothic novel. On the walls were symbols Eilidh didn’t recognise, and some she did. In the bookshelves and cabinets were black leather volumes and tomes with no writing on the spine except the odd pentagram and upside down cross, and strangely shaped crystals and talismans that were no doubt meant to curse or bless in equal measure.
Sitting at the head of the table was an older man, in his late fifties, with receding hairline and more salt than natural colour of hair. He was cleanly shaven, but his face sagged with age, spots becoming more pronounced on his cheeks. He didn’t appear sinister, but anyone who had such a vast collection of the occult should always incite some unease.
“You’re right on time, Miss MacAslan. Thank you for coming all this way,” he stood up to shake her hand.
She smiled and introduced herself, confirming that he was indeed the Mr Brown she had come to see. He invited her to sit down and almost as soon as he had she launched into the products they offered, and fished for some information on the event he was hosting.
“We can do something occult themed, if you’d like,” she offered, motioning around the room.
He nodded pensively, “I’ve always had a love of the stuff. I find it so fascinating. Do you know the most interesting is actually local history?”
Eilidh had been in conversations like this one before, and knew her potential customer was about to launch himself into a long rhetoric displaying all of his accumulated knowledge on the subject, to which she’d pretend to be interested but secretly be trying to think of what to have for dinner.
“This area has a bit of a reputation for apparent miracles,” he continued eagerly, “For instance, just a month or two ago a man came back from the dead.”
The unease returned, if it had ever left. Other people didn’t put the recovery of John Anderson like that, not aloud. The local articles certainly hadn’t used that language. She was sure there’d be some complaints if they had.
“That’s not the only one either. There’s a story from World War two about a local lad who came back from France paralysed from the waist down, he was never supposed to walk again, yet the week after his arrival he was up and walking about. A similar tale from the first world war explains how a lad was rumoured to have lost his arm, yet when he attended his first church service it was intact. There are many more stories like this one in local news, and no doubt even more not copied down in print.”
“That’s interesting,” her smile was hollow.
“And tales of witches are abound,” he looked at her directly, as if he was observing her reaction, “Especially about your family.”
“Well, it is rural Scotland, I’m sure if you go back far enough there’s a witch in every family tree,” she replied as lightly as she could, disliking the direction the conversation was heading towards.
“Not many, and not as consistently. Your family’s name always comes up in legends and stories,” he probed.
“My family have been on the same land for hundreds of years, it’s not that surprising that we’d feature in some stories, is it?” Eilidh replied.
Mr Brown sat back, and she could see him think carefully about what to say next. She didn’t like the topic of discussion, and the uneasy lump at the bottom of her stomach was growing. She had never been fond of coincidences. What were the chances sitting in a room full of occult paraphernalia, speaking about local legends of witches and miracles, that Mr Brown just wanted to order a cupcake tree?
He began to shake his head, “I don’t think that’s it. You see none of these miracles happen when there’s no MacAslan living near. Let’s take the last 15 years as an example. There’s nothing strange in the local papers, nothing spectacular, yet as soon as you return and open your family’s business a man is raised from the dead.”
His intimate knowledge of her family’s presence and lack of immediately put her on edge. She was no longer trying to sell him their services but to protect her life, and her secret. Eilidh could tell he was probing, leading her in a direction only to back her into a corner somewhere down the line.
“No one’s ever connected the dots between the miracles and your family because they don’t happen often, and people forget easily. Or perhaps there’s an unofficial rule in your town that no one mentions the connection.”
“Between a family of bakers and so-called miracles?” she checked, “That sounds like a thin connection to me.”
“But you don’t deny there’s too much of a coincidence for it to be just chance?” he encouraged.
Eilidh paused, feeling her heart beat against her ribs as fast as a high-speed train. She needed to take stock of the conversation and decide what she was going to do. Was Mr Brown trying to elicit a confession from her about being a witch? What did he plan to do with such a confession? Was she being recorded and filmed, and once she admitted the truth it would be released to millions around the world? Mr Brown, despite his abundance of knowledge, wasn’t a local, he wasn’t like the people who came to the bakery and made deals because they hoped beyond all reason that the legends about the MacAslans were true. Mr Brown had lured her to his house of horrors on false pretences. He could only mean her harm.
“Mr Brown,” she began slowly, “I came here in good faith, assuming you wanted our services as a bakery. I’m not interested in discussing my family’s history with you, or the very small connection you’ve managed to draw between us and the occurrences in the town.”
She went to stand up, but he lunged forward and tapped her arm lightly, desperately, frantically.
“No, please, I’m not trying to hurt you. I want to make a deal, like all of these other people did.”
“What?” she retorted blankly, bowled over by the sudden shift in mood.
“That’s what happens, isn’t it? These desperate people come to you and you fix them, probably in exchange for something.”
“Listen, I-,” but she was interrupted.
“I want to be immortal.”
The five words no MacAslan ever wished to hear in their lifetime. Immortality was a dangerous business, and a costly one. It was never encouraged, or offered outright, but there were stories of such deals being made in the past. Thankfully, few and far between, because many people knew they couldn’t pay the price or had the desire to live forever.
“No one wants immortality, not really,” she told him carefully.
“So, it’s true, you are a witch?” he checked.
“I didn’t say that.”
“Please, please,” he begged earnestly, “I’m not trying to trick you, I really want to make a deal. I have terminal cancer, and I don’t want to die, not now, not ever.”
“Why not just ask me to cure your cancer?” Eilidh probed.
“If I’m going to make one of these deals it’s going to be for something spectacular.”
Eilidh saw a man surrounded by more objects than people. In all the rooms, amidst all the priceless antiques, she had never seen a family photo, or even a normal frame with beaming faces shining out. She began to better understand why few asked for immortality, and why the people who did shared something saddening in common. Her unease had gone, and she was overcome with a strange sense of calm, of surety.
“It’ll cost you,” she warned.
“I’ll pay anything,” he answered instantly.
“Entry-level immortality isn’t what you think it is, and upgrades cost more. At the lowest level you’ll still age, you’ll still get sick or injured, but you won’t die from any of it. If you do get injured, say run over by a bus, it’ll take a while to heal,” Eilidh explained.
“That’s not what I want!” Mr Brown cried in protest, “That sounds more like torture.”
Said by a man who was a stranger to true torture. Immortality had always been a tricky subject with the MacAslans and the rest of the witching community. The old magic clans forbade it amongst themselves, severely punishing anyone who transgressed, yet there was little they could do to enforce such a rule on exchange witches like Eilidh and her family. Their power didn’t come from the same source, and the method of creating an immortal being didn’t cost the same. Not to the witch at least. Her family always erred on the good side of the old magic clans, but the no refusal policy inevitably bumped up against their strict rules from time to time. Thankfully, the old magic clans were more interested in governing other supernatural groups than the handful of exchange witches left in existence.
“How about you tell me what you were imagining, and I can name a price?” Eilidh offered.
“I want to be young, and to never age. I also never want to get sick again, no more diseases, and immunity from injury,” Mr Brown answered.
“That should be doable,” Eilidh pretended to think but already had her price, “That will cost 90% of your total fortune and the entirety of your collection of occult items.”
His eyes bulged so much she thought she’d have to pick them up off the floor. The surprise was soon eclipsed by indignation.
“That’s a ridiculous amount!” he exclaimed, the outrage palpable.
“For eternal youth and good health I think it’s a bargain. And it’s not as though you don’t have the time or means to accumulate everything again,” she pointed out.
Mr Brown took a long pause to think. The strange sense of calm remained with Eilidh. It was almost like surety, as if she knew the outcome of this meeting, as though this was a memory and it had already happened. Mr Brown took less than two minutes to decide, and Eilidh wondered if he would come to regret it.
“Yes, I agree to your price,” he confirmed, “And immortality means I’ll never age and never become sick?”
“Yes,” she nodded, “And by 90% of your fortune I mean 90% of everything; this house, your moveable assets, stocks and shares, and any other antique collections you may have. You’ll also be giving up all of your occult paraphernalia.”
Mr Brown nodded his head in agreement. Eilidh held out her hand, palm facing upwards, and instructed him to hold his own just above. He flinched as a reaction to the sharp, invisible force that drew his blood, and watched in amazement as a single drop fell to pool in the middle of her palm.
“The deal is done,” Eilidh uttered as the droplet of blood disappeared into her skin.
Almost as soon as the blood was gone Mr Brown transformed into the man he had been twenty years previously. The age spots vanished, the lines, wrinkles, and sags firmed up, and the white hair was engulfed by the dark. He rushed over to one of the cabinets and looked at his reflection, touching his new face in reverence, beaming. Eilidh observed her monster’s joy, for there was no doubt that’s what she had done, that’s what the deal had made him. Mortals, humans, aged, became ill, and got injured, yet Mr Brown would never experience what those things were again. In an instant, she had created a monster. But, every monster had to have an Achilles heel.
An alarm rang somewhere in the room, an offensively loud beeping that would wake the dead. It pulled Mr Brown from his joy so he could switch it off.
“That’s the alarm for my cancer pills, but I won’t be needing them anymore,” he informed her with glee.
“Why won’t you be needing them?” Eilidh queried.
“I’m healthy now, of course. I don’t have cancer anymore.”
“Who said that?” she queried slyly, “You stated you never wanted to be ill again, not that you wanted me to cure your cancer. That would’ve been a whole other deal.”
“It was implied!” he cried.
“I only deal with explicit conditions.”
“Then let’s make another deal, cure me of my cancer,” he demanded, and Eilidh could hear more of a threat than a plea in his tone.
The monster had what it wanted, but she didn’t fool herself into believing she was the one who created this monster. He was always there, hiding in an old man’s skin, she had just given him the means to hatch. Her family may practice the rule of no refusals, but that didn’t mean she had to play fair.
“I’m afraid you no longer have anything of value,” she explained calmly, “If you had friends, or family, then it’d be a different story, but as it stands 10% of your fortune isn’t enough to make that deal. It is enough to hire a small army of carers.”
“You bitch,” he growled.
“You should feel honoured, you’ll be the first person to live with stage 5 cancer,” she informed him as she stood up and gathered her things, “I told you, Mr Brown, no one wants immortality, not really.”
For a moment she thought he was going to lunge for her, to hurt her, but he thought better of it. On her way out she began to contemplate who the real monster was. An immortal with stage 5 cancer who only cared about himself, or the one who had tricked him into becoming such a creature. This was the compromise that all exchange witches made when they made a deal with someone wishing to live forever. It wasn’t natural, it was against the order that the old magic witches fought so hard to protect, and this was the MacAslan way to compromise and keep themselves safe from the old magic clans’ wrath. An immortal with terminal cancer wouldn’t cause anyone trouble.