Page 25 of Monstrous Travels as Wicked as Sin

Joe, again, blushed at his introduction, particularly when both Vaila and Charlie agreed loudly that he was indeed ‘a very fine specimen of manhood’.

“Fiancé, is it?” asked Charlie. “Well, we’ll need some scotch to celebrate, then.”

“You always need some scotch.” Maisie gave an eye roll, but immediately pulled a bottle from the top shelf and commenced the arrangement of six glasses on the bar. In doing so, she must have decided the skull was in the way. She placed her hands on the cranium to move it, at which contact it let out an ear-shattering scream, so loud it slipped from her fingers with the shock.

“Looks like she wants to stay,” Percy said.

Maisie dusted her fingers as though they were tarnished by the touch of the unwilling witch. “I’ve never seen anything like it. We’ve been here three years now, and hardly a peep out of her, except for that incident shortly after we took over. She screamed non-stop, didn’t she, George?”

“That she did, Maisie,” George called back from across the room.

“Non-stop,” said Maisie. “We thought we’d made a terrible mistake buying the place, but she calmed down after a while. We hadn’t heard a peep from her for months until the very minute you two walked in the door.”

“Then a scotch for Molly, too, please, Maisie. I’ll get the first round.” Joe easily endeared himself to the small group with the offer, while sparking a small note of curiosity in Percy. George soon returned from fixing lights and cleaning up broken glass, and the six drank and smoked and chatted, while Joe in particular watched the skull, which remained quiet with a scotch in front of her, and the occasional cigarette shoved in the gap that served as a mouth. After roughly two hours of this merriment, Joe asked casually, “So, why did they murder her?”

“Murder?” repeated Charlie, a touch of derision in his good-humoured voice. “Looks like old Molly’s bewitched your fiancé already, Percy.”

Percy sent his bony rival a stern narrowing of the eyes. “She’ll have to fight me for him.”

Maisie laughed, but stayed on topic, addressing Joe. “You heard her screaming. That proves she was a witch. Now, I won’t say all those other women should have been burned, but this one?—”

“They burned her?” asked Joe. “The sign shows she was beheaded.”

“They burned herfirst,” said George.

“No, strangled,” Vaila corrected.

“Strangled,” George agreed. “As was the way up here. Strangle them,thenburn them, which I think was a good measure kinder than down south.”

Maisie brought them back on track. “But, when they tried to strangle her, she simply would not die. Just kept screaming.”

“So they tried to burn her,” Charlie put in, “as you do.”

“But she would not burn,” said George.

“Just kept screaming,” said Maisie.

“So they had to chop off her head,” said Vaila.

“And she just kept screaming,” said Maisie. “And she’s been here ever since. They buried the rest of her Lord knows where, because of course it was unmarked. Her pale skin and snaky black curls rotted away through the years, all over this pub floor, and now here she is, enjoying a glass of scotch with the likes of you.”

There was a clinking of glasses that Joe sat out as he took the smoking cigarette from beneath the skull’s teeth and placed it between his own lips. Crossing his arms on the bench, resting his chin on his wrists, Joe leaned in close to look Molly in the eye cavities. He thought he heard her give one of her long wheezes, but the small group was loud and tipsy and talkative by that time, and he couldn’t be sure. He cut into their conversation. “What were her crimes?”

“Oh, she was a wicked one, Molly,” said Maisie. “What did she do? There was the— Was it a porpoise, George?”

“That it was, Maisie.”

“That’s right. A porpoise. She turned herself into a porpoise, went out to sea, and drowned a lad who’d been rude to her on land.”

Joe’s mouth set itself on a displeased slant.

“And she was a sea monster that other time,” George offered.

“That’s right.” Vaila, on the Chartreuse by now, tapped her glass down on the bar and pushed it forward for a refill. “Sheturned herself into a kraken and smashed a whole ship to pieces. Killed six men! But they knew it was her who’d done it because one of them managed to snare the beast’s tentacle during the attack, and sure enough, the very next day, Molly was limping.” She moved her little head up and down, slowly, meaningfully, as though this were undeniable proof of the woman’s guilt.

Joe kept his eyes on the skull, and Percy kept his on Joe’s quiet face.

“And not only that.” Maisie slid the green liquid that brought a distinct sneer across Percy’s face back to Vaila. “She was known for making healing potions.”

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