CHAPTER FIVE: THE JOURNEY BEGINS

On her way to University where she aims to study Divinity Griselda passes a select few locals.

   The next morning Griselda packed her smallest suitcase by the simple expedient of demanding of her satanic friend that he contrived to make the huge pile of clothing, paper, pens, rulers, a set square and her second-best cauldron, which were all piled up next to it and dwarfing it, fit into it.

It was some time since she had discovered that if she muttered “by the devil” or some such incantation before enunciating a request, then it happened even if it was apparently impossible. She didn't know what power there was that she appeared to invoke, but the very fact that it worked was enough to stop her asking deeper questions

There was a grumpy moment accompanied by a swirling cloud of caustic-looking mist as the whole pile of student requisites squeezed bit by bit and garment by garment (successfully) into the case, and then she was ready to leave for a future of unbridled study. Despite the fact that the suitcase contained a huge mound of her possessions, it proved to be unnaturally light and quite easy for one as frail as Griselda to carry without straining any of the ligaments that old ladies can pull or break or stretch in a moment of abject carelessness.

Then she called her very best broomstick to her, a besom of almost titanic and certainly scary proportions with what looked like a medium-sized elder tree sticking out of its business end, and sneaked into her tiny back garden, hoping the nobody would notice - least of all her nosy next-door neighbours and their tribe of reprehensible brats. The Picknoses had long been a blight on the harmony that Griselda thought her life ought to be, but as it was still short of noon by the time she was ready she was reasonably sure they'd all still be in bed. They tended to sleep until mid-afternoon, and blamed the huge satellite dish on the side of their house for their somnolent tendencies. It was as if they thought that it's shadow somehow reduced their wakefulness, giving them an increased need for slumber, and in an oblique kind of way that may well have been true. The adult Picknoses had discovered there were channels that broadcast fascinating material well into the night, and they sat in front of their television chortling at each other as flighty young things wearing virtually and often actually nothing cavorted for their delight.

So, confident of secrecy, at least from the Picknoses, Griselda sat on the thorny shaft of her broomstick, grinned as a particularly knobbly bit tickled her ancient posterior, and rose into the air. Slowly she rose above the level of the fence that separated her from her neighbours, and breathed a sigh of relief when she confirmed they were still obviously in their scruffy beds.

It was a beautiful day. The sun breathed down on her from its lofty position on high as she whispered a little instruction to the air around her, eventually standing rather than sitting aside her monumental broomstick on account of some of the knobbles before rising majestically into the air. This was the kind of day she liked: no nasty wet clouds to soak her to the skin if she inadvertently slipped through one, no great flocks of wretched crows with their repulsive beaks wanting to argue with her over rights to the airways, just a vast open sky, sweet as honeysuckle and there for the conquering. She loved it, and her heart sang within her. It twittered deep in her breast about fairy dells and pagan promises and lovely things like that; and it painted an enraptured smile on her ancient craggy face, a line that seemed to stretch from ear to ear and even involve her nose in an indeterminate and quite endearing way.

She giggled, and inhaled deeply, then gazed down from her high perch, and couldn't believe her luck. Down on his beat and very smart in his police uniform, was Constable Lockemup. He was strolling rather slowly as if enraptured by a colossal memory of overwhelming recent events rather than marching with the fury of duty on him, and had a serene expression on what she saw as his sweet face �" and she was pretty sure what had painted that expression on his visage. In her guise as her own young niece she had teased him unmercifully only yesterday before allowing him to explode in a vast and almost volcanic orgasm deep within her fortunately younger self. She would dearly have loved to dive down and reacquaint herself with his manly and spirited desires, but she had a journey to undertake, and anyway she was in the rather uninteresting guise of her actual ancient self, a grossly and very dubious old hag with a far from attractive demeanour dwarfing a definitely ugly physical presence.

So she flew on and tried to concentrate on all the positives of her life. She had lived a great number of years, and that longevity had equipped her with a vast reservoir of what she looked on as wisdom. And she was using all of that wisdom now as she reluctantly left Constable Lockemup far behind her.

She might have weakened and gone back had she not caught sight, round the very next corner on the patchwork world below her, of the man she was beginning to think of as her nemesis, the Right Reverend Ian Nigel Thybottom. He, of course, had no idea that she was anywhere near, and in fact he seemed to have no idea that anyone was close enough to as much as cast the least of glances at him because he was walking along a shaded alleyway with one hand very much on the huge and undoubtedly fragrant backside of one Eunice McMudd, one of a trio of sisters who had long laboured under the illusion that the local clergymen had been placed on Earth purely for their own pleasure. Griselda stared and sniffed at the way his hand seemed to disappear in great folds of flesh as though it had been amputated. Disgusting, she thought, momentarily forgetting her own antics with the local policeman when she was in the guise of her own niece. But then, she wasn't attached to any church, and it didn't cross her mind that she intended to become a Priestess.

Hovering in the shadow of the Crown and Anchor's huge and very phallic chimney she squeaked in a voice loud enough to be heard for miles in every direction I can see you, your reverence, so let go of that fat bird's arse... and then she cackled hysterically when she saw the reaction as the good reverend's hand leapt at lightning speed away from its previous position of pleasure, revealing that it was still firmly attached to his godly arm. He adjusted his sweaty dog-collar and contrived to sniff his fingers at the same time.

The dirty old man, thought Griselda, and she cackled again as Eunice McMudd clouted the good vicar with her handbag as if he had assaulted her in a vicious and uncalled-for way. “What ya do that to me bum for?” she squeaked, more for the benefit of whoever had called out than the man who had actually molested her bottom. “I never said as you could stroke me bum!”

“Pardon, my dear?” asked the Man of God. “I was merely comforting you in your distress, as you know well...”

“Oh. Yes. Well,” stammered the McMudd obscenity, and might have gone on to say more but Griselda's magnificent broomstick had taken her out of range, and anyway there were other things to spy on. She loved flying because nobody expected a lady of more than a certain age to be there in the bright blue skies, so they hardly ever looked and she could pass by, unsuspected and undetected.

After a while, and whilst hovering near the crown of an ancient oak tree that formed part of the hedge of a golden field, she spotted Gavin Cacklehose chasing Sophie Cowtit around a haystack. Gavin Cacklehose was a local ne'er do well, a mentally and morally challenged son of the local big man at the manor house but with far too much testosterone spilling from his gonads for his (or anyone’s) own good. Most people said that he was quite out of control, especially when he was within smelling distance of a person of the opposite gender. Sophie Cowtit, on the other hand, was the milkmaid who provided quite a few of the more savoury local youths with an outlet for their excess supply of hormones, and she quite liked the self-appointed task. She had long discovered (whilst still at school) that being chased was a wonderful game so long as she allowed herself to be caught, so she invariably was.

“Sophie Cowtit!” screeched Griselda. “I've never been so disgusted in all my life! What do you think you're doing with that Cacklehose boy? You know what he's got, don't you? You know the nasty little things he's got lurking in his underpants?”

“Who's that?” yelped Gavin.

“It's that Entwhistle witch!” hissed Sophie. “I'd recognise that voice anywhere from when she was Prime Minister and on the telly half the time!”

“I can't see her...” began the lad.

“It's her all right,” shouted the Cowtit girl.

“There ain't no such thing as witches!” sneered the boy.

“That's all you know! She'll be lurking in the ditch or behind hedges,” said the girl. Then she called out in a teasing voice. “We can see you, ma Entwhistle!” she shouted, but Griselda knew she was lying because she was looking in quite the wrong direction for that be true.

“Phooey to you, and be warned or it'll be the pox clinic for you!” hissed Griselda, trying to disguise her voice, and proceeding to rise vertically on her broomstick until she was little more than a speck in the sky. Then she wriggled her scrawny buttocks on the knobbled shaft of the broomstick and almost shrieked aloud at the sensations it produced in her ancient flesh.

“To the uni!” she commanded, needing to get away before too many distractions got in the way of her intentions.

It was well into the afternoon before the Gothic monstrosity that was Scrumblenose University rose up before her like a black bulwark bordering an ancient and bloody battlefield. Gaunt, it was, and hideous, like a Tolkien tower overlooking the grey lands of his version of hell.

Griselda shivered as she saw the place, and then grinned to herself.

“Just about perfect,” she whispered, and started looking for somewhere to hide her broomstick before announcing herself, small suitcase in hand, at the Porter's lodge.