The Hellion

With a crack, the cradle is empty

The mother is sobbing

The cradle is empty

With a crack

The sun never shone down by Malkin Towers. That's what everyone said. The place was brown, or grey in the winter, and enveloped in a smell – the smell of death, someone told me. There'd be kids about, dirty ones wearing rags, you'd never go past that way if you could help it because they'd rob you. But the kids weren't the worst thing, even if they were lice ridden. No. The worst thing was those evil demons, witches, murderers, the lot of them. Some in my family met a sticky end at the hands of them, and there’s a dozen families in the valley who could say the same thing.

Even now, even now after the whole place is gone, razed to the ground after the trial, I wouldn't go down that way. I'd rather walk a hundred miles out of my way. Why? Well. They really tried their best to get them, and they got most, and I do feel better for that. But the worst one. The worst one by far. She survived. And I know she did some terrible, terrible things. I saw her. She did them to me, she did them to my family, she even did them to her own heathen kind. And she's out there still, I'm always looking over my shoulder.

Sometimes my grandchildren will say to me, ‘why you thinking about that, Ma, it's been years and she were just a child, what harm could she do?’ And I'll say ‘you just count yourselves lucky you didn't have to live it, if you had you'd know.’ I'm not misremembering, even if I am getting on in years a bit now, because others know it too. I'm not being superstitious, because others know it too. No one goes down that way, by Malkin Towers. She could be anywhere, that one, and if she decided she wanted to get revenge against one of us, well, we wouldn't have a chance. Keep yourself to yourself, that's my advice, don't go near that evil ruin. And for what it's worth, make sure you say your prayers. Although they didn't help us much back then.