Pythoness

By Tabitha Swann

Agnes joins four women who bond in a hospice and meet secretly at night to exchange stories from their lives and a common interest in the horror stories of Stephen King and other authors. The women range in age and creed, some believing in the afterlife, some do not. But one of them claims to be a witch and promises them that if she dies first, she will visit them from the grave. The other women in the group scoff but when the women dies, their horrors only begin when she delivers on her promise....

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trellis Publishing
• Release date: Jul 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201665524

Book preview

PYTHONESS

––––––––

TABITHA SWANN

table of contents

PYTHONESS

INFECTIOUS

DEAD EYES

Agnes sat a little taller in her bed and looked at every member of the St. David’s Hospice Book Club for a moment before, with a wry smile, she said in her thick Scottish accent, I’m a witch, don’t you know?

Aisha burst into laughter and Bea couldn’t contain herself. Keira folded her arms and shook her head. You’re in for the pitchfork with talk like that, she said in her gruff Northern Irish. None of your flipping magic potions can save you from that, the way you’re going.

Witches don’t die, Agnes continued, unfazed. We transfer. We are pure power.

Where did you read this? Aisha said, calming herself. King? Koontz?

Don’t you mention Koontz under my roof, Agnes said. The man is a hack. Have you seen his stupid fucking wig?

This isn’t your roof, Aisha said, laughing.

Well, it’s my room and I won’t stand for it. Have you read his books? Absolute shite. No. He’s not for me.

Anyway, Bea said, who told you you were a witch?

Agnes smiled. Aisha saw her tongue through the gaps where the years of chemotherapy had cost Agnes her teeth. Aisha, at thirty-two years old, could only hope to live long enough for that kind of long-term damage. Nobody expected her to get to thirty-three, never mind Agnes’s seventy-something. God, she would have killed anyone just to reach her fifties, like Bea and Kiera. Twenty more years of life, Aisha thought. The things I could do with that kind of time.

But none of them had more than a year, and they knew it.

I read this book once, Agnes said. I read it when I was a little younger. Must be thirty years ago now.

So, you were still pretty flippin’ old then? Keira said with a smirk.

Agnes ignored her and said, I never forgot it. It wasn’t bound in human skin or anything like that.

You’d have liked that, I bet, Bea said, chuckling. Honestly, you horror fiends, you’re all damn demented.

Dementia ward’s on the fourth floor, Kiera said, nodding upwards, deadpan, her arms still folded. It’s flippin’ cancer you’ve got, chick.

Bea laughed. Aisha forced a smile. As the newest arrival at the hospice, Aisha hadn’t reached that level of comfort with the word cancer yet. She could feel it eating away at her bones. Every step threatened internal fires that could consume her for the rest of the night. The nurses had set them all down in their arm chairs around Agnes’s bed and left with something like relief that none of the women had begun screaming in agony. Movement, for each of them, was impossible unaided. The hospice book club was life, though. It was the only vestige of their old existence they had left. A cup of tea and a chat was as close to normal as life got near the end. Visits from relatives were weighed heavy with the possibility that any visit might be the last time they see one another. There was no such weight in the book club. They were equally doomed. Each of the women - Agnes, Kiera, Bea, and Aisha - were ravaged with radiation and partially devoured by cancer. There was no call for pity. They were all on their way to the same destination and they would all reach it soon.

So, what’s this flipping book then? Kiera said. Or are you waiting for us to all die before you get to the flipping point?

The book was nonsense, Agnes said. It was a Clive Barker. You know him?

Oh, God! Aisha said with the kind of youthful enthusiasm that always drew disapproving looks from the others. Barker is my all-time favourite!

Is he now? Kiera said. With all the skinning and the monsters and the sex? I thought you were a good Muslim girl?

Don’t tell my mum, Aisha said, smiling.

Well, you want to get your head checked, Agnes said, but, no. The book was silly. Fucking demons and what-not. I don’t have time for demons, but this fella was obsessed with them. Demons this, demons that. All that sex. You’re kinky. We get it. We get it. Fuck’s sake. She waved her hand to dismiss the imaginary Clive Barker floating over her. Bea stifled a laugh. But, no, Agnes continued. Drawn in the back of the book, there was a face. It was a woman’s face. It was a pretty good drawing, too. Beneath her there was this little symbol, sort of like a compass. And that’s all.

How did that turn you into a witch? Aisha asked, sipping orange juice from her non-spill cup.

It didn’t, Agnes said. She did.

Kiera sighed, exasperated. Bea shook her head. Aisha asked, Who?

The woman in the picture, Agnes said. It was a library book, you see? Agnes was forced to stop by a coughing fit so severe Kiera had her hand at the call button. Agnes waved her away from it and reassured her before she continued. It was a library book. Only one person had ever borrowed it before me. This must have been the mid-nineties. There wasn’t any computers then.

There definitely were, Bea said, gently.

Well, I didn’t fucking have one, Agnes said. My point is, you didn’t much hear about weird stuff like you do now. Weirdest thing on the news would be a dog on a skateboard, you know? Dolphins with hats on. I’m from a little village. There was even less happening there. But here, in the back of this book, was a picture of a young woman. Must’ve been about your age, Aisha, except, you know, not as... Well... You know...

Brown, Aisha said, nodding and sighing.

Well, yes, Agnes said. "And I’d have thought nothing of it. Except I saw that woman out in the woods one day. I was walking my dog, my Alfie. Little spaniel, he was. Good natured? Oh, my. But, this woman, she didn't have any dog. She wasn't even on the path. I thought at first that maybe she