Curses!: Tales of Nightmare and Revenge

By Sedley Proctor

Any expressed wish that some form of adversity or misfortune will befall or attach to one or more persons, place, or object is called a curse! Also called an imprecation, malediction, execration, malison, anathema, or commination, in particular "curse" may refer to such a wish or pronouncement called into being by a supernatural or s

• Language: English
• Publisher: Leopard Publishing Ventures Ltd
• Release date: Oct 19, 2020
• ISBN: 9781838178758

Sedley Proctor

Sedley was born in Poole, Dorset and grew up in West London where visits to the local library instilled in him a life-long love of books. Sedley always loved writing and English. In fact, when he was eleven, he began a historical novel, now lost to posterity, but, if memory serves, in the style of Henry Treece and Ronald Welch. At school in Winchester he started to dream about a writing career, and was even lucky enough to win a prize for a short story, the title of which he has now forgotten. For some reason, however, the final line sticks in his mind. "Was it a living or waking dream? - No, she must be dead." After a brief flirtation with archaeology, he studied English at Nottingham University where he was tutored, for a term, by the Northern Irish poet, Tom Paulin. In the 1990s, he worked in fringe theatre and was involved in productions of Macbeth and Bertolt Brecht's In the Jungle of Cities. His own play, Salt Lake Psycho about the notorious murderer, Gary Gilmore was put on at the now defunct Man in the Moon theatre in Chelsea. Salt Lake Psycho was directed by Sean Holmes, current associate artistic director at Shakespeare's Globe. For the best part of two decades, Sedley lived and worked as a teacher and translator in Southern Italy. Here he collaborated with French writer, Claude Albanese on the screenplay of Dirty Waters. Dirty Waters, which is a political thriller, written with Italian blood, English sweat and French tears, received a commendation at the 2003 Montpellier Festival. In Italy Sedley continued to experiment with his writing, devising an invented dialect for a novel about a young female brigand of the Risorgimento. He also experimented with performance poetry, accompanying local blues band, Big Daddy Lawman on their tours of Apulian taverns, churches and bars. Returning to Britain in 2013, Sedley wrote The Half Days (2015), an ex-pat adventure set in Southern Italy. He struck up a writing partnership with Tony Henderson. Together they quickly published two books: Over & Under i (2015) and Over & Under ii (2016), a series of naughty tales, inspired by the tales of the Arabian Nights. The Over & Under Series has subsequently morphed into the Naughty Stories Series. The first in this series, Ten Naughty Stories was published in 2019 under the pen name, M. T. Sands. Sedley has also published the sequel to The Half Days under the title, Accidental Death of a Terrorist. Accidental Death of a Terrorist (2019) is the second part of the Mezzogiorno Trilogy. Sedley and Tony have written a children's book, The Wolf Garden, under the alias F. M. Frites: A Totally, Completely, and Utterly Bodacious Adventure with Unicorns and Gnomes.

Book preview

Curses!

Tales of Nightmare

And Revenge

Sedley Proctor

This book is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locations is entirely coincidental, but completely plausible.

Curses!

First published in Great Britain by

Leopard Publishing Ventures Ltd

Hampshire SO212PR

www.magickgate.com

Copyright © 2020 Sedley Proctor

Sedley Proctor asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage and retrieval system without permission in writing from the publisher.

ISBN: 978-1-8381787-5-8

For that was the place where I longed to be

And past all hope where the kind lamp

Shone. – The Red Ribbon Dream, Robert Graves

CONTENTS

Time’s Arrow

The Dagenham Idol

The Cursèd Book

The Curse of Turan

The Dream Galley

The Elixir

Rosier and The Princess

The Escapee’s War

Kafka’s Curse

The Curse of Fourteen

Solda

The One Out There

Necklace

Black Hole of Calcutta

The Sofa Business

Dragon Knife

The Medea Version

The Spear Carrier

The Wound

The Stone Heads

Swordfish Trombone

Shaman and the Box

The Fall Out

The Blood Suit

The Last Letter of Agent Zee

Endgame: 11 Shorter Curses

Curses!

T

here are long curses and short curses

Curses great and curses small

Curses to make one rich

And great men stumble and fall

There are live curses and dead ones

That come back to haunt

There are curses that boast

But do not avail or avaunt

There are festering curses

And curses that are natural

Some that disrespect the canny

But prove not to be actual

And some comminations

That are worse than abomination

If there is a lesson in a curse

It is beyond imprecation

On his right hand, between the thumb and forefinger, there is a deep cut. The cut was unhealed and was made about two days before his death. Forensic experts suggest that the subject was in a fight, one that, on that occasion, he came out the victor.

Time’s Arrow

T

here was a crack in the bow, a tiny fissure in the yew. Ewald has been keeping an eye on it, wondering at what point it would splinter.

Now there is no time to think about it when he catches sight of the deer, its antlers trembling amidst the leaf, and he raises the bow.

Ewald has some art with the weapon. He is skilled in fashioning the yew and stringing the bow. What is more, he is a good shot, and he knows he will more often than not make his mark. But as soon as he lets loose the arrow, he hears the crack of the splinter and curses his luck.

The deer fled through the thicket.

Well done, old man, says his companion, approaching from the side. Now we have nothing to eat.

Is it any wonder, says Ewald, with you crashing through the trees like a clumsy ox?

Bow-stringer, did you want to take me out as well as the beast?

The criticism stirs up old resentments, jealousies. The quarrel was once again on the point of an arrowhead.

I can still shoot as well as string a bow. But not if you startle the beast.

Your aim is no longer true, old man. Ava has no interest in a mere bow-stringer.

Ava cares not for an ugly, clumsy ox!

It was no secret. Ewald had wanted Ava to make himself strong again. Adalwolf had not wanted to give her up. Now he had made up his mind, he would risk all.

I will fight you!

And lose!

Ewald tells Adalwolf he cannot fight to save himself from a bear trap.

Adalwolf curses Ewald and says he would fight him to death. Then he would take his knife and bury it in another place, so he would not be able to fight the demons who would be stalking his spirit.

Ewald curls his lip in contempt.

When you are dead, he says, I shall have Ava to sleep in my bed and keep my cock warm.

Adalwolf came at Ewald with a knife. Adalwolf lunged and swiped at Ewald. He caught his hand and cut him, but Ewald put him on the ground and plunged in his own knife.

Ewald pulled out the blade and wiped the flint tip on the ground.

Adalwolf is dead.

Ewald picks up Adalwolf’s bow along with his belongings and left the corpse along with the cracked bow.

The forest was thick with the trunks of ash and oak and the knotty roots of the undergrowth. But if Ewald is fleet of foot, he is spurred on by the thought of his pursuers who know the trails as well as he. He would be safe only once he reaches the mountain pass.

Ewald puts his hand in the water of the stream and washes it clean until he believes there is no poison from the bad spirits. Then he wraps his hand again in the band.

To sate his hunger, he takes some seeds from his pouch and eats them, savouring the taste.

The yellow pollen from the hornbeam blossom must have fallen around him and in the water of the stream.

Ewald smiles to himself and cups the water in his hands. Ava shall be mine, he thinks, as she always should have been.

When he reached the mountain pass now known as Tisenjoch, Ewald paused to rest. He had completed the vertical climb -some 6,500 feet (2,000 metres) - from the valley below, and to the north faced a desolate, glacier-riven landscape.

Ewald had on his good shoes – the one with the bearskin soles, but that would be small consolation if the weather turns as it threatens beyond the mountain.

The rocky hollow where he found himself offered some shelter from the wind.

Ewald took another layer from his pack and put it on – wincing once again as he passed his hand through the sleeve.

He took out his fire lighting kit, and unwrapped the birch bark container, picking some of the choicer embers wrapped in maple leaves.

He was cold and shivery, but now with the fire and some of the goat’s meat he had in reserve he would soon be warm.

Delirium from the infection in his hand must have taken hold.

Adalwolf, his enemy was dead, but Ava was in his mind still. He mutters and talks to himself, as if there would be hope in his wishful dreams of Ava’s warm, strong body.

Did he shiver and laugh to himself as I do now in the shelter of my imagination? Did he gaze at his hand? Did he hold it as he did his love wound – close to his chest – in the dying of the fire?

Did he cry out to Ava? Did he despair for the madness that had overcome him in the valley?

Analysis of angles and projections suggests the attacker must have positioned himself behind and below his victim.

The attacker fires a single arrow that strikes the Iceman’s left shoulder blade—precisely the area at which prehistoric hunters aimed to bring down game with one shot. The arrow goes clean through the bone and pierces the artery. Blood begins to gush out, filling the space between the shoulder blade and the ribs.

There in the dying of the light Edwald must recognise the cloaked figure who walks into his camp.

Ewald curses his luck.

Adalwolf’s bow.

As well he might.

The arrows in his deerskin quiver are only half-finished; the new yew is yet to be notched and strung.

Gerulf leans over Ewald and says:

Ava is mine now.

He pulls out the arrow.

Ewald grimaces.

As well he might, for the arrow tip remains in the shoulder.

Finally, Gerulf picks up the bow that belonged to his brother and leaves Ewald to die.

In his few remaining minutes of life, the Iceman becomes a textbook case of what is now known as haemorrhagic shock. His heart starts to race. Sweat drenches his garments, even at an altitude two miles (three kilometres) above sea level. He must feel increasingly faint because not enough oxygen is reaching his brain.

In a matter of a few minutes, the Iceman collapses, loses consciousness, and bleeds out. There he will lie, under snow and ice, until the descendants of his enemy and tribe find him again, under the arc of time’s arrow, three thousand years later.

What was he now to Adalwolf? What was Adalwolf to him?

To Blackwell… J digging his late Docke, he did 12 foot underground find perfect trees over-Covered with earth – nut trees with the branches and the very nuts upon them their shells black with age and their Kernell upon opening decayed but their shell perfectly hard as ever…. - From Samuel Pepys diary, 22 September, 1665

The Dagenham Idol¹

T

he old hag Alene I imagine was dying.

Drust must have called a meeting in the village to discuss what to do. He told them a Poison was working its way through the old woman’s body; they had to burn the huts and leave.

Then Drust in that certain and dramatic way of his began to speak about the Journey they would undergo.

Although there were young children and no one really wanted to move on, no one spoke up. Drust’s lust must have been Insatiable; his eyes looked from one to the other in Challenge. The Hearts of the villagers sank. They would do what Drust said. (As people do now under the Yoke of Parliament)

All these things were going through Map’s mind when Illica came in secret to their Trysting place.

Map put his arms around Illica; Illica rested her head on his shoulder. – Illica! Illica has lovely flaxen hair, just like Mrs. Martin!

Why didn’t you speak up?

Map shrugged.

Drust will not act until the next Full Moon.

Map and Illica lay on the mossy floor and held each other. Illica! Illica has lovely white skin, just like Betty Michell and formerly Mrs. Tooker! When they had finished making love, Map confided in Illica.

Alene has spoken to me, he said. She has told me where to look.

Illica went pale in the dark, just like Mrs. Lane sometimes does when I abandon you there. Tell me you are not leaving, she said. But she already knew the answer.

Collecting his bundle from the hut, Map left before first light broke over the hill behind the village. Drust might follow him, but Map counted on the villagers not having the heart for the chase, especially they knew he was crossing the Bog Lands.

Once he had done it with Alene. He crossed it now – summoning his memory of the Track and the words of Alene who spoke to him still, even from beyond. And he knew that he must not look into the waters or stop to drink from the Stagnant Pools. For Alene had told the spirits of these water were evil and worked for Drust.

Map pressed on till the dew was dry and the Sun broke through the clouds. When he came to