The Eighth Witch Read Free

barely spoke to each other during office hours, he and Sophie prided themselves on the frequency of communication. In their opinion it kept their marriage alive, vital.  
    He thought back to their last conversation at lunchtime. Sophie was her usual bright and chatty self, telling him about a new shirt she had bought him from her favorite boutique in town and about how he was going to love it. Usual, normal Sophie, so pleased with herself that she had found something for him. He was always buying her gifts—jewelry, perfume, whatever caught his eye. But she rarely bought him anything. It wasn’t a lack of thought on her part, simply the case that there was very little he wanted—certainly very little he needed.
    It occurred to him that maybe she’d been taken ill and was lying down.  
    He took the stairs two at a time, but slowly, carefully. If she was asleep then he didn’t want to wake her. At the door to the bedroom he paused. It was closed. He put his ear to it, listening, hoping to hear the rise and fall of her breathing. For some reason he couldn’t explain he was nervous about entering the room. The hairs on the back of his neck were prickling and his hands had suddenly become icy cold. He recognized the sensations. Trepidation. Fear.  
    In the past he’d experienced similar feelings, usually before crucial business meetings, and in general he welcomed them. They put him on his mettle, got his adrenaline pumping and psyched him up. But this was different. This felt more like a sick dread, as if he were going to open the door and find behind it something hideous beyond belief.
    He gripped the handle and turned it slowly, opened the door a crack and peered through. He could see the bed and saw that the duvet was humped with Sophie’s form underneath it. The room was in darkness, the only illumination coming from a quarter moon that spilled its milky glow through the window. The moonlight shone on her hair, spread out on the pillow like a golden fan. She was lying on her back, the duvet tucked up to her neck.
    “Sophie,” he whispered, fearful of waking her, but needing to hear her voice to reassure him that everything was all right. He tiptoed across to the bed. The moon was making her face pale, curiously characterless.
    “Sophie,” he whispered again, stretching out his hand to stroke her cheek. He touched her skin and recoiled. It was icy cold. He took a breath and reached out again, touching her forehead with his fingertips.
    As he touched it Sophie’s face slid beneath his fingers, skin slipping away, falling in a soft fold onto the pillow, leaving him staring at nothing but a bloodied skull covered in strips of muscle and sinew. Her lipless mouth grinned at him whilst her lidless eyes stared at him accusingly. Why weren’t you here? Why did you let this happen to me? He pulled his hand away, made a fist and rammed it into his mouth to stifle the scream that was forming in his throat.
    “I think she’s prettier that way.”
    Mark spun round at the sound of the voice. A young woman was standing in the corner of the room. She was smiling at him coyly, her golden curls glinting in the moonlight. She was naked. Full breasts, a neat triangle of fair pubic hair. A familiar nakedness.  
    He couldn’t speak. He just stared at the young woman uncomprehendingly. Who was she? Why was she here? Why did her naked body seem so familiar to him? The strawberry birthmark just to the left of her navel, just like the one Sophie had. The silver scar on her thigh. Sophie had injured herself in a fall the second day into their first skiing holiday together. A hidden rock had sliced her thigh open and left her with a scar just like the one he was staring at now.  
    The young woman took a step towards him. It looked wrong. As she moved her whole body rippled. He could see a livid red mark at her throat, almost as if the skin had been slit and was peeling…
    Realization hit him with the force of a tsunami and he reeled