Looking back I had been abusing the Dead since childhood.
Some, wait, all of my happiest childhood memories even those stemming from my earliest infancy were planted in graveyards. I also had a fondness for old Churches and Historic Houses, I was also drawn to ancient stones, streams and the virtually invisible tracks that seemed to lead nowhere. Finding hidy-holes, nooks and crannies of all kinds was always a special delight.
I was a happy, self contained only child with a vivid imagination. I was intellectually precocious and when not listening to my nurse's stories or reading ( I favoured spooky stories from as far back as I can remember), my greatest happiness was to be left to wander off to the old Saxon church on top of the hill where I was sure I would always find something interesting to do.
I came across the word 'widdershins' in a poem or fairy story my nurse told me what it meant when I was about five. I was proud knowing this word, and what it meant. I thought it might be a magic word, A word that would allow me to see and experience marvellous things. One day I realised I had the opportunity
to try it out. I couldn't wait. I knew from what I had read that 'Widdershins' meant going anticlockwise, and my nurse explained that it meant walking the wrong way round a church. I asked her if she would try this out with me but she said no I was not old enough. Later on I overheard her talking to her friends about this, saying " it's to be hoped she doesn't go messing around that Old church she's so fond of, walk around that three times and she probably will see the Devil".
Hearing all these things, things I really shouldn't have, made me even more sure that walking three times, on purpose, around the church the wrong way was a pretty sure way of seeing magical mystical things and beings, and finding out even more secrets maybe from the devil himself.
I didn't have to wait very long to try this out, my first nurse suddenly had to move away and I was given over to a new one who was younger and played with me more, so it wasn't long before I found out from her some more of the special signs, games and dances that I needed to know. One day when there was no one to watch me I had a special feeling and I couldn't wait to get up to that church and try out the spell. I also thought that it would be a big help if I could say the Lord's prayer backwards three times while I was doing the walk; it just seemed right somehow as well as having that added Difficulty that such things must surely require I was confident that I could do this because I had been practising every night in bed for weeks. So, I was very disappointed when I performed my first ever ritual, on a lovely summers day, and despite my high expectations nothing at all happened. I supposed then that that I must've got something wrong, that I didn't know some of the words or the actions I needed to complete The calling properly. Still I was pretty sure that I would succeed one day soon.
Anyway it was a beautiful summers' afternoon and I had a couple of hours before me. It must've been high summer since more of the graves than usual had flowers placed on them, so that gave me even more opportunity than usual to take the nicest flowers, just a few of them, from one of the caring loved ones and place them, on other often much older graves which never seemed to have anything much on them. It was whilst I was concentrating on redistributing the blossoms that I thought for a moment that my spell had worked. I stood up and looked around and thrilled to see a big ugly dirty man pulling himself out of a hole in the ground.I saw a spade thrown out of the hole before I saw him pull him self out.
Obviously I realised all of a sudden
even the devil himself will take a few minutes to get all the way from hell to the surface, even with the help of a spade and my special calling incantation. I knew that there was no hiding from him I guessed he would be able to find me anywhere, now. As he came closer I saw that he wasn't really black as coal but just dirty, he had a big hooked red nose and a slobbery mouth. He didn't look very pleased to see me, but then again he didn't know I was going to call him just then and he probably wasn't ready, that would explain why he was wearing his old clothes still, a big coat tied with string, and an old cap to hide his horns and a massive pair of boots also tied with string, he looked like he did need big boots to put his hooves in and he had got dirty because he had to come so far through the ground. I had thought that he would've made a bit more of an effort to look smart and impress me on our first meeting, but of course he cannot wander round the churchyard looking like a devil, it wasn't just that he had been in a hurry obviously he was in disguise and didn't want to get spotted by the priest.
Whatever the reason he did not look very pleased to see me and as he began to stump towards me I could see from the angry look on his face that he wasn't best pleased with me and I was going to get a bad telling off. To make things even worse I was still holding a particularly nice bunch of flowers that I was about put on an empty old grave. That was my big mistake: about halfway towards me his eyes fixed on the flowers and the look of disgust and contempt that crawled across his face spoke volumes to me. What good could I possibly be to him? I I could see how stupid I must look to him. The flowers in my hand wilted and rotted. It wouldn't have been so bad if I had been ripping the flowers apart or jumping on top of them, he could understand the sense in stealing them, that was only right and proper, but then to be caught red handed deliberately redistributing them to those less fortunate, Showed so little understanding of the true nature and difference between good and evil, that I must be some kind of idiot who he would never be able to train up to be of any use to him. He granted me one more nasty look and spat in my direction. I cast my eyes down, deeply ashamed and horribly mortified.
By the time I looked up he had all but disappeared back into his hole, grabbing his spade as he went whilst uttering what I was sure must be some terrible curse or oath.
I felt the sour taste of Stupidity and Shame on my tongue . I dropped the stinking flowers and ran out through the Lychgate sobbing.
To make things even worse it took me so long to compose myself before going back that my mother nearly left without me, this would've meant having to come back for me later and I knew that then I would've been in real trouble.
So for the next couple of years I had to content myself with reading esoteric and fantastic stories, I still did a fair bit of poking around in old places whenever I could, but as I've got older and time has moved on I found fewer and fewer new places to explore. Instead I did my best to explore the dark and mysterious places inside my head. Sometimes I was let in during the day when I was alone, but mostly I came to rely on nightmares or later on mushroom induced hallucinations.
I thought then that I had ruined my
innermost yearnings and desires-for ever, and cried many bitter tears whenever I thought of that summer afternoon, when the Devil turned his back on me. As things turned out it didn't stop me from achieving something different from the rest.
