So, Do We Have a Deal?

By Marisha Kiddle and Diane Narraway

So, Do We Have a Deal? Is the 3rd Anthology compiled by 'Voices from the Ashes' duo Diane Narraway and Marisha Kiddle.

The theme for our authors was Deals/Pacts.

The result is a beautiful book with excellent stories from our best authors.

Lose yourself in the fiction of what may happen if you make a pact.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Veneficia Publications
• Release date: Apr 18, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201237202

Book preview

All rights reserved, no part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted by any means whatsoever without the prior permission of the publisher.

Edited by Veneficia Publications

&

Bekki Milner

Typesetting © Veneficia Publications UK

April 2022

VENEFICIA PUBLICATIONS UK

veneficiapublications.com

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CONTENTS

1. SO, DO WE HAVE A DEAL? - Diane Narraway

2. I WILL ALWAYS REMEMBER YOU - Charlotte Rodgers

3. FACING THE FACT - Defoe Smith

4. THE STORM - Diane Narraway

5. THE MAGIC OF WORDS - Scott Irvine

6. TELESTAI - Lou Hotchkiss Knives

7. PAYMENT - Bekki Milner

8. AGNES DURIE - Tarn Nemorensis

9. THE PRIEST’S RITE - Diane Narraway

10. SELLING YOUR SOUL - Donna Hayward

11. MISTRESS OF MY OWN FATE - Kate Knight

12. FOR ALL ETERNITY - Diane Narraway

13. HUSH - Bekki Milner

14. IN THE PALM OF HER HAND - Diane Narraway

15. THE PURE SOUL: IGNIS - Marisha Kiddle

16. MAIDUN - Defoe Smith

17. NOBODY - Diane Narraway

18. WINNING IS THE OPPOSITE OF LOSING RIGHT? WRONG … - Fi Woods

19. THE KISS - Diane Narraway

20. THE STACKED PACT INN - Defoe Smith

21. THE ETERNAL PACT - Diane Narraway

22. DARK - Marisha Kiddle

23. TEMPTATION - Diane Narraway

IMAGE CONTENTS

1. SO, DO WE HAVE A DEAL? - Public Domain thommas68 - modified by Diane Narraway

2. I WILL ALWAYS REMEMBER YOU - Thomas van Der Krogt

3. FACING THE FACT - Defoe Smith

4. THE STORM - Public Domain unknown artist

5. THE MAGIC OF WORDS - Public Domain Darkmoon Art

6. TELESTAI - Various Public Domain images

modified by Diane Narraway

(Rupert Brooke image by Sherril Schell)

7. PAYMENT - Bekki Milner

8. AGNES DURIE - Tarn Nemorensis

9. THE PRIEST’S RITE - Jota Silva

10. SELLING YOUR SOUL - Images by OpenClipart-Vectors,

Barroa Artworks modified by Diane Narraway

11. MISTRESS OF MY OWN FATE - Public domain modified by Diane Narraway based on an original Idea by Kate Knight

12. FOR ALL ETERNITY - Public Domain

13. HUSH - Public Domain modified By Bekki Milner

14. IN THE PALM OF HER HAND - Public Domain images by fluf & No Longer Here modified by Diane Narraway

15. THE PURE SOUL: IGNIS - Public Domain

16. MAIDUN - Defoe Smith

17. NOBODY - Public Domain modified by Diane Narraway

18. WINNING IS THE OPPOSITE OF LOSING RIGHT? WRONG … - Public Domain

19. THE KISS - Coloring cuties Modified by Diane Narraway

20. THE STACKED PACT INN - Defoe Smith

21. THE ETERNAL PACT - Public Domain

22. DARK - Alex Cassford

23. TEMPTATION - Public Domain Molly Rose Lee & Myriams-Fotos modified by Diane Narraway

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SO, DO WE HAVE A DEAL?

Diane Narraway

‘Before me walks Rafayel

Behind me I feel Gabrayel

By my right hand Mikayel

By my left hand Arayel

And all around me burns

The Pentagram in flames

And I have called upon

Those four angelic names’

As I stand in the centre

A six-pointed star shines out

Radiating from my chakras

And alleviating doubt

Tis then the high-pitched whistle

Can be heard, within these ancient stones

And the icy chill, I now feel

Goes right through to my bones

I can feel his presence before me

Formidable, ancient, and wise

His voice resounds within mine heart

And I respectfully avert mine eyes.

‘Tell me, child of nature

Why do you call my name?

What is it you’re seeking?

Perhaps fortune, wealth, or fame?’

‘Can you grant me all these things?’

‘If that is what you seek.

I can have them to you

By the end of the week.’

‘So, do I have to sign in blood,

And will you take my mortal soul?

Will there be some small detail,

That’s hidden beyond my control?’

‘The devil’s always in the details

Surely that’s something you know

But what in the name of our infernal Lord

Would I want, with your

barely existent soul?

I love that you even think

You still have a soul to give.

Are you so unaware,

Of the life you’ve lived?

Let me spell it out for you

You ridiculous little man

And then you’ll see why your soul

Is not part of my infernal plan.

Consider, if you will, all the drugs,

That you have shoved up your nose

Or perhaps the ones you chose

Just to swallow, or to smoke

Let’s not forget that dragon

You know the one that you chased,

Before you found the needle

What a sad and sorry waste

Every single time your soul

Would lose a little bit more

Of what made it shine so bright

Until it shone no more

And every single drunken night

And every single whore

Kept chip, chip, chipping away

At that eternal light

And all the clients you have wined

Dined, and even sixty-nined

just to make a deal

How many dotted lines

have you signed your name upon?

And how much of it was real?

Don’t forget all the women

that you have sworn to love,

and told you’d always be true

for they would always be enough.

Do you know that every time

you say those three little words?

Some of your soul, goes with them.

I know it sounds absurd!

But let’s not forget your children

How their Daddy loved them so,

But up and left the moment

He smelt a better-looking ho.

And how you broke your parents

Their old and fragile hearts

But that’s ok because deep down

they knew it from the start

And all the while, your soul

Kept slowly dripping away

So, tell me now is that something

That I would want to take?

Don’t you see? I already have it.

You handed it to me on a plate,

You gave it to me willingly

I didn’t even have to wait

In exchange for all you ask

I’d like a snippet, just a steal

The soul of the woman who will

Finally steal your heart.

So, tell me, do we have a deal?’

I WILL ALWAYS REMEMBER YOU

Charlotte Rodgers

By the second week of his return to work, the previous three months of lockdown seemed like a slow-moving dream.

The birds no longer sang him awake, rested, to a room filled with sunlight.

Now he fell out of bed after, yet another restless night punctuated with wake ups where he would invariably find himself sitting on the sofa staring at a blank spot on the opposite wall, smoking cigarettes and fighting the waves of anxiety.

Every morning he would race to his car which progressively seemed to get a heavier daily coating of bird shit. No matter how thoroughly and often he washed it and how much he varied the car’s parking place it still seemed as if a myriad of birds would use their early morning hours to not sing him awake as they had done, but rather to vent their bowels on his Fiat.

He had recently even found claw scratches on the vehicle’s paintwork, but he just hadn’t had the time to examine the marks closely ... maybe this upcoming weekend he would get around to it.

He no longer looked after the garden, there just wasn’t time.

During lockdown he had sat down every morning with his coffee, watching all the spring born creatures grow up with no fear of human beings or vehicles because they had no real experience of their dangerous potential.

He had moved to a more rural area several years ago but somehow never had time to appreciate his surroundings as he was invariably caught up in his work, and when he was home, he either slept, or pulled the curtains shut and continuously watched Netflix or something similarly addictive and mindless. Early in the  lockdown, he  had spent hours every day online, but when his Wi-Fi connection failed, he started going outside more. After an initial pottering around in his garden and perfunctory pulling up of what he thought might be weeds, he eventually would find himself simply sitting in the sun and relaxing.

He had particularly bonded with a vixen and her two March born cubs, filling his social media feed with a plethora of their images as he coaxed them closer and closer to the patio where he daily left out bowls of food for them.

Initially the vixen had been thin with a patchy pelt and a tail that was more flesh than fur.

In the intermittent moments when he had an internet connection, he would take his laptop outside and research the plants and animal life in the area and looked at what sort of things would be best to feed the fox and her family.

There was a small farm shop nearby so he was able to get eggs and occasionally chicken, which he would place outside for her.

In the beginning she would leave her cubs at the edge of the garden and wait until he went inside (though he would watch for her from his kitchen window) before she would race to the food and bear it away to her brood.

However, as she grew stronger, she also grew more trusting, and would also allow her cubs to draw more closely to him.

Her brush grew back and whilst she remained lean, she appeared sleek rather than emaciated. Sometimes she would be waiting for him on the garden bench when he came outside with their food and would remain seated as he approached her.

He found himself talking to her quietly, in awe of her and for the first time in his life, feeling that he had been blessed with something beautiful.

He had never been a happy person. He was driven and compulsive and gained his only sense of achievement from his steadily rising wage and the professional accolades and higher positions awarded to him at work. Happiness wasn’t something he had experienced until those moments in his overgrown, bird filled garden when the vixen and her cubs glowed and played in the sun.

He would dream at night about the foxes, and sometimes hold a conversation that the vixen replied to.

In one of these night-time conversations, he talked to her of how, through their contact, he realised how great a gift it was to realise he was an animal and part of a natural flowing sequence, and that his gifts to her had created a bond that had given meaning to what had previously been an empty life, a bond that he felt could never be broken.

The morning after that particular dream, although he had shrugged it off, some part of him had felt lighter, felt changed.

It was in the first week of returning to work that one of the cubs, now near grown but with no learned road sense, was killed by his car as he was driving too quickly to work on yet another day when he had slept in.

He was terribly upset, even more so as he knew the creature would have been racing to greet him and perhaps be fed, but he was running too late to stop and check the animal.

He finished at the office that day as early as possible and when he came home, he searched for the body. He couldn’t find anything but bloody marks on the road and hoped that perhaps the creature had been stunned rather than killed.

It was around that time that the nightmares and the phone calls began. The garden outside his house that led to the fields and forests which had delighted him so much when he was working from home, existed in his dreams now as something dark, whispering and threatening.

The phone calls were a parallel strangeness.

They all came from an unlisted number and when he would answer, no one spoke, and he could only hear sounds like the wind moving through branches and a feeling of darkness seeping out of the headset.

He remembered a twilight in mid-June when he had spent a day walking in the woods in his area. He returned home and was sitting outside and watching the fox and her cubs playing on the grass at the edge of his garden.

The creatures interrupted their play as he laid some food out for them, and as he sat on his haunches watching them sniff and then eat his offerings, he muttered quietly to himself that he would never forget this moment, never forget them, never go back to what was before.

However, his life did go back to the way it had been.

The bowls he had fed them from were still sitting outside, now filled with dirty rainwater and leaves.

His phone rang again and when he answered it, he heard the same rustling noises as usual but now he thought he could also hear an angry yelping.

The next morning as he staggered to his car, clutching his half-drunk coffee in one hand, and fiddling with his tie with the other, he noticed the usual coating of guano before he saw that his rear tires were punctured.

After ringing his office to say he was held up and then changing the tyres using his own spare plus one borrowed from his neighbour, he didn’t really have time to wonder how two of his tyres could have been pierced so thoroughly but driving home late that evening after a longer than usual day, he mulled on it.

It was already dark as he approached the wooded area near his home, and he glanced at his phone on the seat next to him as it started ringing. Seeing the caller withheld banner, he let it continue to ring.

Then his car shuddered, stuttered, and stalled.

He pulled over in a small layby in the hedgerows and prayed that it was too late for any tractors or cars to come past at this hour.

He glanced at the dark fields to either side of the country road and felt uneasy. Then his phone started ringing again.

He answered, and once more he heard the rustling and the yelping, but it seemed as if the noise from the phone could be coming from the fields around him, the hedgerows and the darkness.

Then he saw the glowing eyes in the Hawthorne.

Foxes, two of them, but something bigger as well ...

The farmer found him early the next morning as he tried to navigate his tractor down the now blocked, single track country road.

The man’s dew-covered body was lying next to his car and the farmer had to shoo away two foxes to see if the man, lying on his back with eyes wide and open, was still breathing.

He wasn’t, but the open phone lying next to him was still making noises that mirrored the countryside around him.

FACING THE FACT

Defoe Smith

Come speak with me,

what’s your most revered prize?

Come tell me your woes

Just state your claim,

We can dry those

weeping eyes.

Plain to see,

I’ll lay out my pact.

Read every word

No need to lie,

Let your eyes react.

Tell your old friend,

what you exactly need,

Success or vengeance

or lover’s leaves,

We could have a pact,

now I’ve planted the seed.

I’ll scratch your back,

you scratch mine.

Your will is my bidding

Showered in gold,

And bathed in wine.

It’ll never get boring,

success never gets old

I’ll be here waiting,

Waiting right here,

for when your story is told.

Your soul it’ll stay

right here with me,

There’s no backing out,

Deals with the Devil,

they don’t come for free.

THE STORM

Diane Narraway

MAYA

She could feel the storm coming; the air was heavy and oppressive. The weather forecast had predicted a thunderstorm and there was, on the surface, nothing to suggest it would be any different to any other storm. There was, however, something about this storm that was calling to her. She couldn’t settle and the closer it got, the more restless she became. By the time it arrived she was almost breathless with anticipation; the storm was her lover and she longed for its touch.

She sat cloaked on an old rug in the garden, this she felt was more than enough clothing; she needed to feel the storm; ride the storm. She watched, her anticipation growing by the second as the dark clouds hung low above her and with the first few drops of rain brushing her skin, she could no longer contain herself. She slid her hand inside her robe, at first gently across her nipples, slowly moving lower, and as the storm grew stronger, so did her need for climax. Both she and the storm raged until finally, with the first flash of lightning came le petit mort. She focussed hard clenching her muscles and redirecting the energy up her spine; communion was inevitable.

She rode the energy of the storm for what seemed an eternity, their energies flowing together in ecstasy, until eventually she collapsed, breathless, and the storm began to subside.

During those moments when she and the storm were one; she had felt a third presence, a man. She could feel his need for religious experience, and knew it was vastly different to hers. This was a pious man harbouring a deep- rooted need for redemption, a man who yearned to bring something to his community; a man who desired to be an ordained Anglican priest and one, who it seemed, was willing to pay any price to achieve this. She was intrigued.

What drives someone into the hands of an organised dogmatic web of lies such as the church, and more importantly use witchcraft? Who did he think he was petitioning? One could only assume he was intending to beseech the angelic realms but had instead found a witch: one which his church had damned, shunned and to all intents and purposes condemned to burn, either at the stake or in hell. Yet so great was his need to serve his god, he would, it appeared,go to any lengths to achieve this.

Her visions only afforded her a glimpse into his eyes; desperate, dark brown pools of sorrow, not enough to understand fully his motives, but enough to see how important becoming one of Yahweh’s priests was to him. It didn’t matter. He didn’t matter as such; only his desire mattered. Her reasons, her need to seek communion, that was what really mattered.

She was seeking inspiration. All writers, no matter how prolific, will at some point suffer from writer’s block; a dreadful affliction, which tears at the very soul of those affected. She, Maya, had been tormented by it for several weeks, and all the walks, meditations and reflections in the world hadn’t shifted it. This she hoped would. Perhaps, not instantly but soon. In fact, she could feel the first sentences of a story permeating, slowly, still only embryonic, but definitely there.

This priest wannabe, she felt had a story. After all, nobody would be that desperate to serve Yahweh without there being a story behind it. So, over the coming weeks she