9. THIS CHARMING MAN

Lost in the great forest and needing a helping hand, Janie bumps into her father.

There’s a huge gap between planning and executing, especially if you’re a twelve year-old girl thinking she’s special and needing to get away to prove it without becoming a f****t on a fire..

Janie Cobweb was that girl, and it was inevitable that she should have failed to understand the problems inherent in fighting your way, lost and alone, through a virgin forest at night, with little in the way of starlight to show you the way and absolutely no moonlight. And although she could usually depend on an enhanced set of instincts, at this time in this place they didn’t seem to be working at all.

In addition, for the first time in her life she knew fear. She had seen her mother burned to a cinder at the stake with angry crowds cursing her for being an evil old witch, and she had seen their mood calm down when it started to dawn on them that she was nothing of the sort, but the dawning had come a great deal too late. A minute may well have been too late for them to forgive her and rescue her from the kindling, but they had taken more than a long dark night.

They had taken until the next day when all that remained of the poor woman was the fragrance of cooked meat in the air and a pile of grey ashes on the well-trodden grass.

And now, a dozen years or so later (nobody counted the passing of time particularly accurately at the cusp of the thirteenth century because they were too busy staying alive) it looked like there was a fair to middling chance that fingers would have been pointed at her by those on the look-out for evil spirits. She would be called, by sneaky grimy faces and dirty pointing fingers, a witch.

And in her heart of hearts she knew that the calling would be right.

So here she was, stumbling through the dark forest on a dark night. And within a very short time of executing her badly planned escape she found herself dreadfully lost.

I mean, how do you tell one tree from another of the same species when it’s too dark to count the branches above your head and everything looks exactly the same as everything else?

What she needed was a guide, and…

“Can I help you, little girl?” came a smooth and rather camp voice from the darkest of dark shadows.

“Who’re you?” she yelped. It wasn’t like her to yelp, she doubted that she’d ever done it before, but the situation demanded it.

“I’m your darling daddy,” soothed the smooth voice, “your darling darling long lost daddy.”

“Jed?” she continued to yelp.

A strange figure emerged from the shadows and stood before her, and the figure glowed a dull cherry red which helped her see what manner of being it was. And she knew, straight away, that it wasn’t Jed. Jed didn’t glow, not cherry red and not any colour Jed didn’t have captivating little horns and Jed didn’t have a swishing forked tail. This being was nothing like Jed.

“No,” the smooth voice said, “I’ve never been called Jed. It’s the kind of name that wouldn’t suit me. But I do know a rascal who calls himself Jed when it’s convenient and I happen to know he’s been your way for a while. He’s one of my angels and a nicer chap you wouldn’t hope to meet...”

“Angels? Jed’s an angel? From Heaven?” gasped Janie, still learning.

“Ouch! Don’t mention that dreadful place, not in front of me!” gasped the glowing figure, and its cherry glow momentarily dimmed and its thrashing tail missed a beat.

“Sorry,” gulped Janie.

“We’ll forgive you this time seeing as you’ve been brought up by heathens,” murmured the figure, “but you’ll soon learn, and if you don’t I’ve got a fascinating set of instruments to help you on your way. But come! A meeting of father and daughter in a charming little grove like this is no time and place to be talking of torture and punishment! Instead we should be catching up on things like parents and children do! Like tell daddy why you’re here, in this beautiful forest, at this time of night?”

“Daddy? You’re really my daddy?” she gulped.

The figure grinned broadly and some, who recognised such things, might have thought lasciviously.

“I met your darling mother in a situation just like this, and she took me to her charming cottage in Ambersole and allowed me to spend the whole night with her. And didn’t we have fun? She was a good sport, was your mother, and very, what shall we call it? Loving. That’s what she was. Very loving.”

“They burned her,” Janie told him, “On the burning field, as a witch.”

“So I heard, and it was very tiresome of them. But you humans have your superstitions and if I were to tell them there’s no such thing as witches, never has been and never will be, they wouldn’t believe me. But she was my lover for a single night, which was very fortunate for her and even more fortunate for you, my sweet and darling daughter, and if I hadn’t been elsewhere I would have popped along to help her. Still, she’s with me now, the darling woman, so all’s well that ends well as someone with a poetic mind will say in the fullness of time.”

“She’s with you now?” gasped Janie.

“Of course, my petal. I’ve given her the first furnace on the right to live in and she’s fair making it nice and cosy. She’s even installed a refrigerator.”

“What’s a ref … ref … refrig ...what you said?” asked Janie, shivering. The springtime evening was beginning to feel chilly and she had set out underdressed for her escape.

“How you seem to feel now, a box that makes things cold,” explained her father obscurely. “Now come on, I’ve got some orders for you.”

“Orders?” growled Janie, “I don’t take orders from anyone!”

“Yes, I know,” sighed her twitchy-tailed father, “it’s why you’re here, in the freezing cold and getting colder. So come along with me. I’ve found a nice little room for us to share for the night, away from the cold, cold winds that might otherwise freeze your little heart to a standstill. And have no fear … you’re perfectly safe with me. I won’t let any mischievous demons interfere with you in your sleep.”

“They wouldn’t dare!” almost snapped Janie.

“Maybe not,” he sighed, “so come along my little precious. There are things to be said, lessons for you to maybe learn, and goodness knows how many sweetmeats for you to chew on! This way!”

Janie Cobweb knew that she had no choice. She was still too young and weak to put up much of a fight, especially against a character like this, and anyway she was intrigued.

If this weird figure was her real father, where had he been all of her life? And the Jed man, how could he be an angel when he was a popular entertainer with the skill to make rather feeble verses sound totally inspiring?

And what was she doing, here in the great forest, at this time of night?

So instead of pondering on any more questions she stored them up in her mind and trotted after the glowing figure of a paternal figure she rather fancied in a girly sort of way, and little did she full appreciate that now, at last, she was setting forth to become the Janie Cobweb who, in the fullness of time, would gain an intergalactic reputation.

Her room for the night might have offered a clue.

It was a stone and thatched fortress, and it had a drawbridge.

© Peter Rogerson 16.11.17