Kill the Witch!

ISBN-13: 978-1523862313

ISBN-10: 1523862319

Copyright © 2016 Matt McAvoy

All rights reserved.

Edited and published by MJV Literary, London.

www.mjvliterary.com.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

For permission requests, please contact Matt McAvoy via www.mattmcavoy.com.

KILL THE WITCH!

Matt McAvoy

ONE

Sometimes it's easy to forget the staggering beauty of these isles of ours.

We get caught up in work, the hustle and bustle, the urban grind – a fifth of us venture outside of the M25 but once a year. Yet all it takes is an hour or two, and we find ourselves breathing in the glorious fresh air, watching wild-growing trees, shrubs, brush and grasses doing their dance of exhilarated freedom as the breeze tries, in vain, to carry them away. Rabbits run playfully, while birds and butterflies woo and play in mid-air carousel, romantic and naïve.

This is glorious, and the sunshine pours like rain, softened by a cool current, enticing more and more flora and wild fauna out to frolic. The perfect day.

I would love to just stop and watch, to inhale it, ingest and feed off of it, but I tell myself, alas, I have not the time. Ironically, it is the very same excuse I make frequently, and have so done for most of my life.

To my fortune, I, for many years, held a post which afforded me the opportunity to explore our beautiful island in all its rural glory; to my misfortune, I was always too busy to notice. Today, I stop for a moment and breathe; though, in the end, this is because I have no choice – the bag I carry weighs heavy, and I stop hiking to take a drink from the bottle wedged inside the top of it. And, at this moment, for perhaps the first time, I look, really look, at this gem of ours.

My travels have brought me to Loch Monar, in not far off the most north-western point of the land, and still I have some long way to go. I left the car a good half a day's walk behind, and my legs feel like lead, but I cannot afford to stop for too long.

Yet I find myself transfixed, hypnotized by the magic of the Highlands, billowing seas of heather to one side, biblical mountains to the other, beneath a blue sky underlined by wispy sprinklings of mist hugging those mountain tips.

I love it, and for a moment I am happy. I am owed this moment, one which I have denied myself for my whole life. The moment I have pretentiously, professionally failed to comprehend, even though my work has brought me to areas similar to this, many times before.

I almost feel like sobbing from the sheer sadness of it: the waste incurred by my former ignorance. Only now, when it is most likely too late, do I enjoy the moment; I try not to consciously contrast it with the horrors I know of the world.

A huge bird soars gracefully overhead, probably summing me up, scolding me for sabotaging its hunt. A large kite perhaps, or even an eagle, recently reintroduced by man to the area – it is too far out of range for me to see for certain, and I'm shielding my eyes against the bright sunshine. The majesty of the bird evokes an involuntary and ambiguous smile from me.

I hear a squawk uncommon to my exploration of this area so far. I have seen many grouse since embarking upon this journey, but not what I see now: a crow – coal-shine black, plain and strangely out of place in this most extravagant of unspoilt life.

I wonder should the crow not be afraid of the eagle, which I am now convinced the large predator is. But not a sign of it – indeed, the eagle avoids the crow, actively so.

I take one more drink – of the bottle and of the view – then pick up my bag to continue. It clinks and clunks with heavy iron, and I heave it onto my shoulder. I know the bag can take the weight of its cargo forever - a sturdy canvas army issue surplus duffel, which I purchased from Dalston market – but the same I cannot; I hope my journey will not be too much longer.

Yet, simultaneously, I apprehensively wish that its climactic end will never come, even though I know it must. My feet are sore, despite my procurement of solid and comfortable hiking boots – I have blisters in places I never thought possible.

Right, I say aloud, instantly disliking myself for interrupting the tranquillity with the vulgarity of human speech; with an encouraging blow, I puff out my chest and resume.

As I walk, the chinking sound of glass in my bag irritates me, in stark contrast to the confidence-inspiring chunky metallic clatter accompanying it. What was I thinking, packing a mirror into the sack with a collection of heavy-duty tools?

The mirror, originally in one, now rests in a hundred pieces at the bottom of the duffel-bag, having (naturally) lost the fight for dominance against its fellow occupants, an incident occurring within mere seconds of my foot-journey's commencement.

The bag contains, as well as the broken mirror, some food, a large lump hammer, a couple of lengths of old, but tough rope, a box of twelve ten-inch iron nails, a metal jerry can of petrol, a good, strong pump-up spray can full of home-made pepper-spray (concocted of the most vicious chillies and peppers my local Kurdish grocer has to offer), a hunting knife, and lastly, but by no means least, a formidable four-feet long wood-axe, its gleaming blade some twelve-inches wide.

These are my tools today; none have been randomly selected – each has a specific purpose. They are all for her.

The pump will temporarily blind and disorientate her, allowing me precious moments to stab her and tie her legs. The mirror was intended to trap her soul with an incantation.

Still, the rest continues as planned - when bound, I will drive the iron nails up to their hilt in her throat and forehead, her eyes too. I'll nail her to the fucking floor, then I'll use the axe to take off her disgusting head.

Then I'll torch her.

I want to. I'm looking forward to it – to the moment I hold her severed head in one hand and watch her body crackle and pop as she burns!

When you kill a witch, you kill her severe and cruel.

PART ONE

TWO

That poor old woman – a lifetime of torment. I used to despair at the injustice of her treatment, both her and her sister.

The local kids would gather outside her house, like pack animals, waiting for either of the girls to emerge, or show their face at the window, so that they could commence their hurtful onslaught: Witch! Witch!

The old lady told me once that almost every day back then they would wake up to eggs smashed on the their windows, dog-mess posted through their letterbox, and the word witch daubed in paint across their front door. Sometimes a dead animal (a rat, or a cat even) would be left on their doorstep to be found when they came out to collect the milk.

This, she told me, occurred mostly everywhere that they resided, for most of their life; adulthood did not spare them.

It was because they were different – odd, eccentric maybe, and offensive to the eye; ugly beyond significant comparison. This was why they were targeted everywhere they went, she told me – hounded out, the victims of cruel gossip and sickening rumours.

It was this very same persecution which brought Eda Morcj into my life from the start.

She looked hideous when she first entered my office, and I was ashamed that I did a double-take (not that I was alone in so doing).

Her voice was harsh and vulture-like, screeching like a bat at times, yet croaky as a sixty-a-day smoker at others, thick with an extreme accent which could have taken influence from many a country or region.

Yet, despite the intensity of her tone and the intimidation of her pitch, before very long, she sobbed like a schoolgirl, as she told me her story.

And I have to admit, my defensive posture gradually melted away, and I found myself having to fight back the tears as my heart broke listening to her reminiscences.

Poor, poor old Eda, regressing before my eyes to a scared and lonely schoolgirl, suddenly wasn't ugly to me any more, and I vowed I would do all within my power to help her.

To really tell the story, I have to go back a little earlier than the meeting in my office, before I first met Eda or her sister.

We were several years into the founding of RSS Ltd. and had just won our largest ever tender – the Cross-Border rail contract - sealing the fate of the company and my fortune. Back then, these were the only things I cared about – the success, the business, the money.

And why shouldn't I? I figured I had worked hard enough to deserve it - a claim which, from any point of view, was undeniable.

I was with Kate back then, but it was early days in the relationship, and would still be a couple of years before we married.

I think, as with many people, marrying was a small but influential factor in launching the onset of my starting to reassess my priorities, and placing empathy and love before money (of course, this was easy for such a person as I to say, when considered that by the time of the wedding I had already acquired a very decent amount of success and money – a privilege enjoyed by few my age).

I say marrying was one factor in my transition, but it definitely wasn't the main one. Sure, Kate changed my life and my character forever, but not anywhere on the scale that Eda did.

*

Christ - that is one ugly bitch!

Sam was sitting on the worktop, peering through the closed Venetian blind over the window, the only purpose of which was to allow light into our office suite's partitioned-off kitchen. The slats were drawn closed, and he was using the fingertips of one hand to spread them open, while the other hand cradled a steaming QPR mug.

Sam, come on, I implored diplomatically, shovelling a handful of salt and vinegar Walkers into my mouth.

I drew my attention away from the discarded Daily Star I was absent-mindedly thumbing through, and rose curiously from the staff-room dining table to join him, peering through the crack in the slats. I immediately grimaced; Eurgh!

My god, she was gross - clad from head to foot in tatty black linen with a shawl to match; moments later I would find that her clothing smelt every bit as old and musty as it looked (I hadn't previously considered that dust had a scent – I would shortly find out that I couldn't be more wrong). From beneath the shawl her ill-conditioned black and grey hair hung long and matted, in greasy, knotted strands.

But behind that shawl, a sight to strike chills through the hardest of men – the archetypal creature.

Her face, stony and dry, lacked natural pigmentation; it portrayed a vision of nothing – nothing but tight, jaundice skin, underneath which lay an entire complex network of visible minute veins. The combination of conditions gave Eda's face an almost olive-like hue.

Wayward hairs sprouted from unfortunate parts of that mask, including her chin and upper lip, and even from the front of her sharp, beak-like nose. The chin was protrusive, so much so as to appear almost hooked in profile; a thick, severe, protruding mono-brow set her deep eyes in an unnatural, permanent shade.

I had recently employed over fifty staff, primarily to cope with the new contract and associated admin, and we all shared the open-plan floor of this building. From my position in the kitchen I could see many of my colleagues now peering over their partitions and VDUs to catch a glimpse of the lady who, for the best part of the last two years, had given the longest serving of us a major pain in the arse. I also saw each of them quickly duck back into the safety of their respective concession, if supposing to imminently make eye contact with the crone.

She was no less hideous when she smiled, perhaps even more so – her rough skin threatened to crack with the apparently alien exertion of it, and her teeth, what few there were, may not have seen the good side of a toothbrush, ever.

Oh man, I forgot about her appointment, I said quietly, to nobody in particular.

You've gotta see her, Sam told me.

I know, I know. She had travelled some way to visit me, I was fully aware, by train from the wilderness of Wiltshire.

In one hand she held a letter - I needn't see it to know its contents; with the other, she wobbled heavily on a walking stick she had clearly whittled from a relatively straight tree-branch; I was irritated by the way its heel left muddy dent marks on the new carpet tiles.

Shaun - the administrator who had welcomed her into the suite - which she examined with a resentfully disgusted admiration – pointed toward the kitchen area and spoke, presumably, to the effect that he would fetch me.

As they both glanced in my direction, I suddenly, instinctively, yet, I knew at the time, also quite irrationally, let the blind's slats spring back into place and recoiled. Her eyes had caught mine for the shortest moment, and, I should say, had momentarily chilled me.

I did not allow visitors into the sanctuary of the staff kitchen, so I put down the crisps, wiped my greasy fingers to straighten my tie, painted on a smile and went out to greet her.

As I approached Eda, she turned to face me, and did so almost unnaturally slowly.

And as she did I felt a chill run through me, from my toes to the very end of each and every hair on my head.

Although the briefest of gestures, the way in which she looked at me was purposeful, with the intent of forming a connection between us; in that instant I saw much happen.

Never before have I seen so much physical change in the face of another, in such a singular, fleeting moment. As our eyes met, I witnessed pain and fear evolve into curiosity, awe and confusion; her lips crept back into their plastic smile and her features softened.

But those eyes – black, red, golden – seemed to twist in contempt, anger, sadness, and every negative emotion one was capable of experiencing; then, finally, greeting warmth.

She smiled, and though apparently genuine, I saw pain in that smile; not just Eda's pain, but a sense of my own to come. I wondered if Shaun was experiencing the same unsettling premonition.

The young man spoke first, eager and delighted to be passing the burden this visitor carried around her like an aura: John, this is-

Ms. Morcj, I cut him off.

Eda, she added, giving me a look which suggested flirtation, but for reasons totally inverted to the conventional.

I found that I felt strangely self-conscious, knowing the rest of the staff were discreetly spying on us, intrigued by the spectre. In less than a moment, without awaiting any form of instruction, Shaun was gone.

Eda was smiling sure enough, and warmly enough, even, dare I say, ingenuously, but a wicked bitterness belay that stare.

She was looking at me expectantly, and I suddenly noticed that she had transferred the letter and had been holding out her now-free hand for an unknown period of time, which I realized I had not taken.

I reached for the outstretched hand, even as I did so, eager not to look at it, for fear that I would withdraw in horror at whatever filth, deformity or malevolence compiled its elements. I tried to hide my gulp as I felt my hand slide into hers, and started to quickly speak, if only to take my mind off of the transaction of limbs.

Eda, I'm-

The Sheriff, she said softly.

I felt a coldness from her touch - icily bitter, like enduring the harshest winter, or forming snowballs without gloves. Her skin was coarse and lumpy, and her fingers seemed to be stroking mine; sharp, rough, pointed fingernails teasingly scratched the surface of my skin, talon-like, contrasting the prickly iciness with hair-thin strands of burning heat. I determined not to let my discomfort show.

Well, yes, I smiled, struggling to retain normality in a situation which, although everyday enough by appearance, was tangibly permeated by subtle unease. Sensing the need for humility, I added: John.

Jack, she stated bluntly, toneless and ambiguous.

I was feeling a little woozy, light-headed and weak. I appeased her with a friendly nod of confirmation.

Sheriff Jack the lumberjack, she smirked.

I sensed antagonism – a conscious effort from her to explicitly veer, irresistibly, away from the mood, which was, at least overtly, amiable. I felt my smile beginning to drop slightly.

When she smiled it took a huge effort to conceal my repugnance at seeing her teeth up close. It wasn’t so much their condition which offended, though despicable enough in itself, as their shape; both rows housed a sparse number, and those present were wrong, misshapen – too sharp, too canine. I had seen teeth like that before in men and women – those freakish deviants which frequent Camden Town goth bars and tattoo parlours, who call themselves modern-day vampires and file the appendages to sharp points.

Had Eda filed her teeth to feed a more fearsome persona? Did she play up to the reputation inflicted upon her by frightened yet fascinated children?

I'm sorry Mr. Forrester, she chuckled, forgive me. There was little humour in her laugh - rather a trace of ridicule.

When we eventually, finally parted hands, I almost swooned as the light-headedness of the few moments lifted, almost lost balance, in fact, by the disorientation of it.

Regaining sudden awareness, I viewed, over Eda's shoulder, Sam peering through the kitchen blind slats; he was pointing at her, then at me, then dipping his pointing finger in and out of the ring of thumb and index of his other hand. He then pretended to hold something open, flicking at the invisible object with his tongue, as he nodded toward me, then Eda.

I tried desperately, discreetly, to ignore his crude attempts at humour, but the old lady turned her head to follow my gaze. Sam's face was instantly ashen and he jumped out of sight, the slats springing back together.

I quickly turned Eda away from the kitchen window, leading her gently by the shoulder with our backs to Sam; Shall we go into my office?

As she stepped ahead of me, I removed my hand from her, and found myself unconsciously wiping it on my trousers as I followed.

It was then that she told me her devastating life story, and I almost relented in the plans I had made for her.

*

Eda and her sister Anji were twins; inevitably the bullying and name calling had begun at a very early age.

Never attractive girls, quite atrocious to look at, in fact, they had been harangued, harassed, bullied, emotionally tortured and taunted.

She relayed to me tales of childhood - terrible tales of ostracism and misunderstanding in small rural communities, and, though I do not know why, I could do nothing but listen – I did not interrupt.

And the more I listened, the more I was appalled, infuriated, outraged and heartbroken, yet simultaneously engrossed and absorbed.

Like a child myself, I attuned with morbid fascination, my chin resting on upturned palms, transfixed by the tone of her voice and the movement of her cracked, bloodless lips, which seemed to very slowly resume life with each word she spoke.

I looked into her eyes as she orated, cold and dead, yet at the same time exuding an underlying passion the likes of which I had never before seen; a tempest of anger, hatred even, ire and burning fury for the tormentors, yet simultaneously heart-warming, overwhelming love for Anji.

Those sharp, inhuman teeth seemed to soften at each new revelation. The more I watched Eda, the more human and vulnerable she became, and her ugliness began to fade.

Of course, the tale of two sisters grew ever-more harrowing; still I could not - would not - stop her narration. I was a busy man, but for some reason, I knew I had to listen to Eda’s story, even if not knowing why.

The childhood name-calling grew significantly more vicious, and more sinister; freaks was not enough to satisfy those describing the twins - "incest freaks" became the insult of choice, then the norm. Naturally, of course, this only drew them closer together.

Girls would beat them, boys would pretend to like, befriend then humiliate them. Even parents would ridicule the sisters in front of their own children.

The Morcj sisters' mother attempted to enlist police intervention on many incidences, but was always dismissed – on occasion, mockingly so.

Alienating themselves, isolation and even reclusion was not enough to keep the vitriol from their doorstep – in reality, it only grew worse with each new move. Name-calling evolved into rumour-mongering, rumours became distrust, insinuations, accusations and allegations; harassment and abhorrence followed them wherever they went. Children were no longer deemed safe in their locality, nor animals, nor even adults.

The cause of the Morcj women was not helped when it emerged that two children had gone missing in the county of Shropshire while they were resident. An academically minded, more pro-actively devoted bully had painstakingly researched this, and had further found that a young boy had also disappeared without trace not far from the county in which the freaks' mother had once lived, before the girls themselves had been born. It all added fuel to the fire.

Finally, on every occasion the taunting became too much, and another house-move was imminent.

By the time the girls were thirteen, they had occupied no less than eight households, each more isolated, more rural than the last – that is, as much so as the local authority list they relied on for housing would permit them. Because of the way they presented, and the increasing instability of their mother's mental health, their situation never improved, but progressively deteriorated. The family grew to distrust community, then indeed alienate society generally.

Dela Morcj sealed what would become her daughters’ label when she made her choice of suicide method: one afternoon, after walking into their local authority housing office with her two girls, each of whom was carrying a suitcase, Dela poured a can of petrol all over her own head and set afire to herself.

The fire brigade was called to put the building out, but nobody intervened to save Dela; Eda and Anji watched, screaming, as their mother burned to death before them.

I gasped openly when Eda reached this part of the tale. I wanted her to stop – I didn’t want to hear any more, but I craved to, nonetheless, and Eda continued.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, local authority children's care did the girls no favours, and they were in its charge for a matter of weeks before absconding. Their absence was very successful too – they disappeared from the system altogether, and didn't emerge until years later.

Eda told me that on the day she and Anji ran away from care they had been involved in a brawl with another girl, one which had taunted them mercilessly about their mother's suicide. The teenager claimed to have seen records relating to Miss Morcj's previous suicide attempts, numerous and of varying methods, all of which had failed.

As she grew older, Eda came to realize that the girl was lying completely, but at thirteen years old, was more easily persuaded. Particularly as the girl had initially approached Eda as a friend.

She tried loads of times to kill herself but she couldn't, Selma had said.

Your mum was a witch, which means that you are too. The only way you can kill a witch is to burn her! She said it herself in the reports – I've read it – she said she'd have to burn herself.

The bullying in care escalated far more rapidly than it had ever done on the outside, and eventually culminated in the vicious fight in the home's kitchen.

Other residents must have been privy beforehand to the attack imminent, because even as it erupted, a small crowd had immediately gathered, laughing and quietly prompting in unison: Kill the witch!

During the fight, Selma drew a can of hydrochloric acid descaler and threw it into Anji's face – she would be scarred for life.

Enraged, Eda avenged her sister ruthlessly moments later, after the fight had been broken up by nuns which heard the crowd and came running to disperse it: when the kitchen was empty, save for the two staff helping a squealing, cowering Anji, Eda, in an inhuman display of strength, overpowered her sister's attacker, forcing the larger girl head first into a vast cauldron of potatoes boiling to feed almost thirty residents and staff.

She held Selma deep, ignoring the agony of the skin scalding and peeling away from her own hands. The girl thrashed, fought and kicked, to futile effect; in the end it took not only her own efforts but that of two staff to arrest Eda's frenzied, cursing vengeance.

The last Eda ever saw of Selma was her curled up, whimpering and shivering from her burns on the kitchen floor.

From this moment, Eda and Anji moved progressively further and further from population. It was only in adulthood, little by little, that the sisters were able to incorporate and minimize their marginalization by society.

*

It's the way I look, she told me, matter of fact. People are afraid. A single tear rolled down her cheek.

My hand was covering my mouth – an involuntary gesture which I was suddenly aware of; was it the pity? The horror? Perhaps both.

For the first time, I now brought myself to look at Eda's hands, before her on the desk; they were cranky and misshapen by arthritis, the fingernails sharply cracked and filthy underneath. Traces of permanently damaged pigmentation covered the entirety of both hands, affording credence to Eda's tale.

Though I attempted discretion, she withdrew them from the table-top coyly, and I felt a pang of guilt.

You see, Mr. Sheriff, why we must stay in our home? Her eyes had lost some of their intensity, glazed over in defeated reminiscence. We have nowhere to go – we are finally safe.

An age seemed to pass, before I realized that Eda had stopped talking; I was simply gazing, entranced, into her face.

I was feeling odd, queasy. A strange sense of foreboding was trickling through me, from the top downward, like a miserably cascading weir.

An inexplicable sense of submittal was needling me, and I felt the urge to do nothing more than yield whichever request she would make of me.

How could I continue with my discourse, as mercenary as I had been, after such a tale?

We needed to break.

I would never give her what she wanted, but at this moment I could never cajole her either; we needed to break for tea. I wanted to say this, desperately, but the words would not come out.

Eda simply glared back, drawing me in with her eyes – enigmatically… expectantly; expectant of a response, maybe?

No – more: expectant of my compliance.

I opened my mouth to speak, and still could find not the ability; her gaze was disconcerting, and eerily quieting. The more I tried to talk, the more elusive were those words, as though rebuffed by a strange force.

It felt almost as though, so empathizing was I, the old lady now controlled my reply, and what I presently had to say was not what she wanted to hear – not yet; my response would come only when it was ready, when she was ready. When it met with her satisfaction.

I felt this occurring even as I knew it was wrong.

Fuck! I was going to give in to her, right there and then – I knew it. And there seemed nothing I could do to stop it.

And her eyes seemed to glow triumphantly, as she bore into me with them, a tiny smirk at the corners of her mouth. Because, I realized, she knew it too.

A sharp knock split the silence open, propelling me headlong back into the present. Almost as deeply as I had receded, I was, as hypnotherapists say, back in the room.

Eda's face instantly contorted, if only for the briefest, yet most explicit of moments - the helpless, reminiscent old lady suddenly presented a furious entity, spinning to shoot a hateful glance at the door. Then, as instantly as it appeared, as if remembering itself, the mask was self-consciously replaced by the same pathetic, pleading sorrow of moments earlier.

It was a moment I would never forget, and a contrast of facades I would never comprehend in any other person than Eda Morcj.

Not now! I shouted to the door. In truth, though, I was relieved beyond words by the interruption. The moment of my subordination was lost to Eda forever, and I instinctively leapt on it.

I regained composure, and with it my control of the situation; I took the opportunity to remind us both, with my demeanour if nothing else, that this office was indeed my domain. I could not explain what had just happened, but it would not happen again.

Eda wasted no time herself in attempting to seize back the initiative, but she was done. She held the letter out to me; Two months-

I cut her off, in the coldest of manners, raising a hand; Eda, not two months – it's been two years! Two years!

She butted in: For two years you have harassed and hounded my sister and me-

For two years you have held up this project.

You have bullied us-

No we haven't, no we haven't-

You have pursued us and haunted us and... and harassed us-

I was shaking my head determinedly; No we haven't Eda.

You are killing my sister, her eyes were watering with exasperation - with anger and frustration, and disappointment at her yielding of assertiveness.

What are you talking about?

She thumped her chest. "Her heart is weak – it cannot take this pain. You have killed it with your letters and your threats and your court summons'.

For two years you have killed her slowly and now her heart is weak – she will give up.

Eda was now openly sobbing, and in reality it was difficult not to sympathize with her as she spoke; I watch her disappear before me every day. You are taking everything she has Sheriff, which is already very little.

I slumped into my chair, rubbing the bridge of my nose. I could feel the beginnings of a migraine, and was myself weakening emotionally by the confrontation. I wanted her to please stop calling me Sheriff, but hadn't the nerve or the heart to antagonise her in such a way. I was draining slowly.

I am truly very, very sorry to hear about Anji's health, I said softly, and I am sorry you did not accept any of the offers of help I have afforded you both over the past two years.

I could see Eda slinking into a sulk, as she began to predict the inevitable. I continued: I have gone out of my way to compensate the two of you; if you had accepted my help from the beginning, then maybe-

I stopped myself short of what I was about to say, wisely I thought, as Eda's angry stare bore into me - she had immediately grasped my inference of a longer life for her sister, and I carefully changed my tact;

I personally have done everything I can for you and Anji; me – no-one else. I got you an improved settlement offer, I got you alternative accommodation-

We cannot fit into society!

I got you a very good offer, I guffawed ironically; "You don't even own the place. It's a bloody shack on my client's property and he has offered to buy you out!"

We cannot live in society!

I lost my temper slightly; Whose fault is that Eda? Not my client's.

She looked at the ground and I sighed, a little ashamed at my momentary loss of composed professionalism. I really wanted to apologize, but apology insinuates liability in this business and is therefore a no-no; besides, everything I said was true.

I tapped the letter, holding up two fingers. "We don't have to give you two months; two weeks - that's all we need to give you. So, yes Eda - you're getting two months, and you really could be a lot more grateful for that."

She snorted at this – looked scornful, and I shook my head; What more do you want? We've offered you money to leave. We've offered you everything there is!

She just stared at me, blankly; Leave us in peace.

I sighed again. We had walked this ground many times before and it was like trying to reason with a child; I was growing weary of it.

I had, many years past, trained to deal with conflict, working as a nightclub bouncer in my younger days, but in fact Eda was fraying away the edges of my patience, whittling it to a smaller and smaller remnant; there seemed no chance of rationality with her.

I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. You're asking for the one thing I cannot do for you.

She said nothing; she simply glared at me, venomously, passionately.

I cleared my throat, and continued quietly: This Cross-Border project will improve lives for thousands of people – families - and you're delaying it, severely.

The words didn't register; We were there years before they were, she whined.

It doesn't matter, I said coldly, it's their land now.

She was crying openly, and I forced a steely mood. My headache was getting worse.

I felt genuinely sorry for the Morcj sisters, undoubtedly more so than before, after hearing Eda's tale of childhood woe. But her obtuse stubbornness was irritating, and, in fact, probably made it easier for me to stand against her.

Besides, like everybody else involved, I had worked so hard on this project; nothing would stop it from going ahead, certainly not a couple of eccentric, stubborn old spinsters.

Eda, I offered gently, "would you like a