The Christmas Cake

Conventional wisdom will tell you that you should have baked a fruit cake of the size and consistency of a breeze block sometime last January and that you should have been feeding it brandy weekly ever since. That you should have handcrafted marzipan from ground almonds and other ingredients too numerous to mention. That you should have spent many hours making Holly Leaves and Christmas Roses from sugar paste. And that your icing should be as smooth and hard as a frozen pond.

Pfft, I say. And again pfft.

Number one. Nobody eats Christmas Cake.

Number two. If they did it’s fattening.

Number three. Whatever…

But:

If you must make a cake, just chuck together whatever is your usual fruit cake recipe and shove a quarter bottle of rum in the mix. Buy a slab of ready rolled marzipan, ditto icing. Shove on cake. Sprinkle Maltesers, chocolate raisins, and dark chocolate buttons. Job done. If you can be arsed.

More sensibly, pop along to Waitrose and buy a (insert name of famous chef here)  thing. It will taste like shite but the neighbours will be impressed….

In come I, December, with hale and hearty cheer,
With mulled wine and with wassails
With claret, port and beer.
With winter winds and woollen scarves
My breath in air a-misting
I’ve chocolate treats and holly wreaths
And presents all a-gifting
I’ve hot mince pies and sweet plum pud
And bulbs on wires a-hanging
See my pine trees in tinsel gowns
And children on drums a-banging
My carollers sing the ancient songs
That frame this time of cheer,
I bring you joy and laughter in
And leave with the new year.

E.M. Swift-Hook

Every action provokes consequences. These stories delve into the consequences of unthinking action. We begin with a reimagining of the Myth of the Minotaur…

The Lion in the Labyrinth

In the black basalt rock beneath the palace, there exists a labyrinth so complex that no-one has ever fathomed its secrets. It was made, they say, by those whose machinations broke the sanity of the Great Lion and petrified a hundred hundred janissaries whose duty it had been to guard the Golden Throne and its occupant.
Whatever the truth may be, the Labyrinth had imprisoned The Lion for as long as even the sphinx could remember. The maddened king was contained by wards of strong magic as well as by locks and stone walls…
It was the first day of a new year and a young girl in a rose-coloured gown, with the black silk of her hair unbound about her, was pushed unceremoniously through the door of the labyrinth. Those who closed the door behind her with a clang had no pity for youth and beauty. The Labyrinth was her fate, as it had been the fate of so many before her. A young body would satisfy the lust of the king’s beast and her blood would feed the clamouring stones.
But something went wrong. No screams rent the air and the channels in the rocky floor ran only with clear water.
How could it be that a female capable of surviving the lusts of the Labyrinth had slid past the eyes of The Family? There was disquiet. This creature was not what they had bargained for at all. Too intelligent. Too independent. Too sharply unafraid. It shouldn’t have mattered that she survived, even though she wasn’t meant to be any more than a tasty morsel to temporarily slake the bloodlust of the Great Lion and quench the thirst of the unknowable tunnels in which he dwelt. It shouldn’t have mattered.
It wasn’t as if all the women died. Through the centuries one or two had survived, through guile or pure luck. She, like them, should have been given a present of money and sent away. But this was different, The Lion called her his queen, and the Labyrinth knew her name.
So it mattered. She mattered, and everything she did mattered.
She knew no fear of The Lion and he doted on her. The watchers looked on in unbelief as his beast curled about her slender form. They said he laid his head among her silken skirts and purred like a kitten.
The Dark Master, who ruled the kingdom until such time as the stone janissaries reclaimed their fleshly bodies and a new Lion arose to claim the Golden Throne, thought to refuse her entry to the Labyrinth. But when the appointed time came, and he would have stayed with his grimoires and arcane manuscripts, he found his feet taking him to the iron-bound door and his palm touching the lock stone through no volition of his own. The Labyrinth decreed that she be allowed to enter, and as long as she lived he would admit her each evening will he or nil he.

You can keep reading The Lion in the Labyrinth and Other Stories by Jane Jago as it is out now on Kindle and in paperback.

An everyday tale of village life and vampires…

Saturday morning, and Em was in the box seat in the window of Lillian’s house on the edge of the Brownfield Estate watching, and awaiting her moment to bring DumpCorp’s farrago of lies and half truths crashing down about the ears of its founder.
It wasn’t often she took actual pleasure in the possible discomfiture of a fellow human being, but this looked as if it might be one of those times. She rubbed her hands together and smiled what Agnes called her alligator smile.
Everything was in place and all they had to do now was wait. Tristram and his camera crew were drinking coffee and scoffing chocolate digestives in the kitchen of one of the trim little houses, while she and Ishmael sat in Lillian’s front window. The rest of her seven, having been fortified with blood tea against the sunlight – and with the exception of Ginny who was part of the ‘official’ reception committee – waited in the village hall with what Agnes referred to as ‘rent a mob’ complete with banners, flour bombs and air horns.
Ishmael smiled his smooth practiced smile. “I’m rather looking forward to this,” he said in a voice whose very mildness was a threat to whoever might be foolish enough to get in his way.
Em supposed she should have been lecturing him about civilised behaviour, but this was a special occasion so she just shrugged.
For a while, the cul de sac dreamed quietly in the morning sun but the quiet was broken by the sound of marching feet.
“What the hell?” Em craned her neck to see a bagpipe band, in full kilt regalia, marching down the road towards the simple farm gate at the end of the road, with their skirts swinging in the wind. She sniggered. “Can’t they tell Dorset from Dumbartonshire?” “It would seem not.” It was less amusing when the pipers started to tune up, as the noise stung the ears and made Em, at least, feel quite queasy. It seemed she wasn’t the only one unamused by the racket. The front door of the nearest house to the squealing, skirling pipes flew open and a large young man wearing only a pair of baggy tracksuit trousers ran into the tidy driveway. “Shut that effing noise,” he bellowed.
Needless to say nobody took any notice, but he was a determined fellow and he dashed over to where a man in a strange furry hat was waving a baton. Ishmael opened the window with the evident intention of missing none of the fun.
“Oy, you. What the bloody hell is all the noise about?”
The conductor didn’t deign to answer. He looked down his nose at the barely dressed young man in his carpet slippers and smiled a supercilious smile.
Before Em had leisure to think what a bad idea that was, the conductor felt the full weight of his own stupidity in the form of the large fist that landed somewhere in the region of his midriff. He folded in the middle like a half deflated balloon and the noise of the pipes began to draw to an untidy close.
One of the pipers said something to his mates in a dialect Em found incomprehensible and they dropped their instruments and made a concerted dash for the lad who had dropped their conductor.
It should have been simple murder, but the faultless instincts of Saturday night fighters everywhere brought hefty young men out of every front door.
As the two groups met head on, Em glanced up the road to where Tristram and his cameraman were just about capering with delight. She frowned, then shrugged her shoulders. A couple of dozen young men attacking each other with fists, feet and teeth, would probably make very good television.
One of the locals had a smallish man by the neck and was holding him about six inches off the ground.
“What d’you think you’re bloody doing waking me up on a Sat’day morning making that bloody awful noise?”
His captive seemed just about apoplectic with rage.
“Awfu’ noise is it. Ye jest put me doon and I s’ll give ye awfu’ noise.”
The fight was going quite nicely when Ishmael prodded Em.
“Oops,” he said.
Two men were coming purposefully down the road, and each led a pair of slavering German Shepherds.
“Do we think that swings the odds in favour of the Caledonian contingent?”
Of course that is what should have happened. But this was Little Botheringham and unpredictable at the best of times. The previously quiet houses up and down the cul de sac erupted into action as the women took a hand. Or rather a paw. The two men and four German Shepherds were faced by upwards of a dozen women valiantly holding the collars of a number of dogs, anything from ferocious Jack Russels upwards in size to several of a variety that made the shepherds look like chihuahuas. The GSDs didn’t fancy the odds one bit and slammed on the brakes – dragging their handlers to a halt then making a sharp about face. They fled the scene, still dragging the uniformed ‘security’ men, protesting loudly at ‘Killer’ and ‘Fang’ for unwarranted cowardice, behind them.
One of the pipers stopped stamping on the gonads of the man he was matched with long enough to whistle.
“Them,” he said reverently, “is whit ye call dogs.”
He ducked a blow aimed at his unprotected stomach and dived headfirst back into the fray.
“What happens now?” Em hissed.
Ishmael grinned. “This.” The sound of a police siren acted like magic and the fighting horde rapidly sorted itself into two groups, with the odd crossparty backslap and nod of respect and appreciation. The local men then disappeared as if they had never been outside their front doors, and the pipe band swiftly wiped each other down and collected their instruments. They marched smartly out of the cul de sac just as the police car came in….

Part Twenty-Eight of Much Dithering in Little Botheringham by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook, will be here next week.

She was as thin and frail as an autumn leaf and as she sat in the window the sunlight almost shone through her. It couldn’t, he knew, be long before she was called to her rest and his heart felt leaden in his chest.

She laid her face against his one last time, and he felt the life leave her body.

Almost blinded by tears, he picked her up and held her to his chest, walking carefully to where he knew the last portal awaited her. 

He should have put her down, but he walked on through.

He never returned…

Jane Jago

A dictionary for the bemused by Jane Jago…

arspittle (noun) – where premiership footballers go to get their metatarsals fixed

brosom (adjective) – the unyielding and motionless quality of silicone breast implants

chuklit (noun) – disposable books of dubious literary merit usually featuring headless torsos on the covers

coffy (adjective) – needing to clear the throat by means if the application of hot caffeine 

concensus (noun) –  believing that all statistics are lies

eht (noun) – small insect that enters typing fingers and causes error

hink (verb) – the action of scratching the genitalia (to be accurate most usually the scrotum) whilst searching for inspiration

huffler (noun) – one who precedes every remark with a loud harrumph

ratehr (noun) – rodent in line to  inherit

sepnsive (adjective) – given to looking into the middle distance and sighing 

shoul (noun)  – knitted garment worn by those unable to take decisions

steert (verb) – the way a drunk walks along a road

suasgae (noun)  – Celtic dance performed over two crossed bratwurst

vanaship (noun) – motorised caravan with amphibious capabilities

wrte (past participle of the verb to wrt) – having written a page to edit it down to half a paragraph and three obscene references

Disclaimer: all these words are genuine typos defined by Jane Jago. The source of each is withheld to protect the guilty.

The tiny house Emma called home was full – her mother, gran and three brothers. So she knew it was impossible. But walking to school, she’d pretend a dog walked beside her or, curled up in bed, she would make believe he was too. She never said a word. The last thing she wanted was to put another shadow of regret in her mother’s eyes. 

On her birthday she woke to something small and warm curled on her bed. Sitting up she saw a purring kitten face with blue eyes. Which was when Emma knew she had always wanted a cat.

E.M. Swift-Hook

Take this exclusive opportunity to consult the wisdom of the mysteriously enigmatic Madam Pendulica…

Aries.

Aries needs a lot of cold fresh air to keep that prodigious brain and fiery temperament under control. Always live in a house with large opening windows and air conditioning.

Ideal Location

Halfway up a mountain preferably in the Andes, Alps or Appalachians.

Taurus.

Taureans dislike change and usually die in the same town – often the same house – where they were born.

Ideal Location

The Bull should avoid Spain for obvious reasons. If you can persuade one to move, try to make it somewhere the architecture has preservation orders on it.

Gemini.

Gemini is always in two minds about the best place to live. Their Mercurial natures are never satisfied with where they are and seek to move frequently to somewhere completely different.

Ideal Location

There is no such thing for a Gemini. I suggest having a home base in a large and populous city and several time-share holiday homes in many and varied environments around the globe.

Cancer.

Home loving Cancer carries their home with them wherever they go. It is Cancer who will tell you that home is a state of mind, not a place. Which only goes to show they are not the brightest bunch in the astrological bouquet.

Ideal Location

An island suits the crab.

Leo.

The lion needs sunshine and lots of it. Be sure to decorate your lair with primary shades and plenty of bright foliage. A large hearth for the winter is essential.

Ideal Location

Africa. Where else would you expect?

Virgo.

You can tell you have walked into the home of a Virgo because everything is in its place and there is a place for everything.  Spouses and children quickly learn where their place is and take care not to leave it – ever.

Ideal Location

An ultra-modern minimalist tower-block just about anywhere.

Libra.

Librans seek balance in all aspects of their life, so their homes will be both practical and creative, clean and messy, well-maintained and falling to pieces. Do check the furniture before you sit on it.

Ideal Location

Belgium

Scorpio.

Scorpians are children of the desert. Therefore they require sun and sand in equal measure. If those are lacking a house themed on the orange-through-yellow aspect of the spectrum might suffice – and access to a large bucket and spade.

Ideal Location

Scorpios are suckers for the exotic so their desert climate needs to come with romance attached. Marrakesh or Samarkand spring to mind.

Sagittarius.

The horse needs to run and wide open spaces are essential for Sagitarrian well being. Single-floor dwelling is best, hooves don’t so so well with stairs, so keep with a bungalow or a ground floor apartment.

Ideal Location

Somewhere in the middle of the Great Plains – North Dakota looks ideal. Failing that Cambridge.

Capricorn.

The goat has to have hills and high ground. Buy that house at the end of a precipitous, narrow, driveway or the one accessed only by five flights of steep stairs from the street and Capricorn is in heaven

Ideal Location

The very top of a mountain is best. If you can’t manage that, try Switzerland or Nepal.

Aquarius.

Aquarians need psychedelic decor, floor cushions and beanbags. They will probably have their walls plastered with posters of strange astrological symbols and views of sacred sites.

Ideal Location

Glastonbury or somewhere in Wiltshire not too far from Stonehenge.

Pisces.

A fish needs to swim. Wherever a Pisces might make home it must include a pool – or failing that a large bathtub.

Ideal Location

A beach hut.

Madame Pendulica predicts she will return oneday…

Once I was a princess pale
Whose mirror smiled at her reflection
With ivory skin and golden hair
A pattern card of pure perfection
Once princes begged my hand and heart
But I played fast and loose
Now I am old my beauty gone
And no one begs me choose

©️jane jago 2023

The old woman had always been protective of her deck of tarot cards. “Don’t you be touching they. They’m no good to the likes of you.”
Later, as the growth in her belly began to claim her life, she came to rely on Ruth, and they became more than teacher and pupil. Even so, it was a surprise when the old one pressed a cloth wrapped package into her hands one day.
“Don’t open they until I’m gone. They only knows one master. But you should be able to get one use out on them before they dies with me.”
Ruth put the cards in her pocket and got on with life. She was busy enough with caring for the dying wise woman and dealing with the calls on her skills as a herbalist not to think about the future at all, leave alone a one-use deck of tarot cards.
When she closed her mentor’s eyes for the last time and placed a kiss on each wrinkled eyelid, Ruth sat back on her heels and rubbed a weary forearm over her brow. Things, she thought, were about to get difficult.
She wasn’t wrong. Her troubles started almost immediately with the arrival of the young man who now owned the cottage in which she lived. He was one Donal Thatcher, nephew to the woman whose corpse was barely cold. At first Ruth thought he wanted her out, but he was lazier and cleverer than that. He would, he said, allow her to stay in her home if she became his second wife. It was not precisely an appealing prospect, but she knew the village looked to her to accept his offer and remain as their healer and herbalist. If she was to be burnt at both ends by a lazy demanding family and a hard physical job, why nobody cared about that. It was her place to be useful. Even her own father made it clear there was no place for her in the family home.
“You chose to be ‘prenticed to a witch now you be payin’ the price,” he said before shutting the door in her face.
It was hard not to feel vengeful as she retraced her steps towards the now overcrowded cottage. Her father might say that it was her own choice, but it was he who had made it impossible to live as his daughter. He who had made her life miserable and had crowned his petty cruelties by refusing to consent to her marrying the boy her heart hankered for. She sighed and mentally shouldered her burdens. What to do?
There was, on the edge of the forest, an old oak tree where she had held hands with her love in the carefree spring of her life. As if knowing her need for a connection with past happiness, her feet took her to that very tree, while her mind grappled with the problems of here and now. Impelled by who knew what impulse Ruth put her hands against the rough trunk and rested her cheek on the sun-warmed bark.
“Where are you, my love?” She expected no answer, but it comforted her just to think of his strong, brown face.
“I’m coming, Ruth. I’m coming.”
She turned in half a panic, not daring to believe her ears.
“Where. Where are you?”
“Meet me at midnight.” Then she heard the joyful note of his laughter before he was gone from her mind.
Was that real? she wondered. But no. It couldn’t be. It was just her heart playing tricks with her.  Then again, what if it was a real sending? She walked into the cottage still lost in thought to be greeted by the shrill scolding of Donal’s fat wife. 
“Where have you been, you lazy slut.”
Ruth didn’t trouble herself to answer, and a bout of slapping and hair-pulling might have ensued had not a long, angular shadow fallen over the chaos of what had once been a serenely pretty sitting room. Donal’s wife took one look at who stood in the doorway and dropped to the floor in a deep curtsy. It was the moneylender, the only man of any wealth within half a day’s ride, and a man who even her mentor had feared for his affinity with the dark. Ruth looked into the narrow, whiteness of his face and knew what he had come for.
“Mistress Ruth,” the voice was deep and smoothly cold, and it jangled against her nerve endings. “Mistress Ruth. I come to offer you the protection of my name and my hearth.”
“Oh no, sir. She cannot do that sir,” Mistress Donal babbled. “Her is already promised to us.”
“Is that the truth?”
“No. I am promised to nobody.”
The bony man looked severely at both women.
“My offer is on the table. I shall call at noon tomorrow for Mistress Ruth’s answer.”
He turned on his heel and all but collided with Donal, who had been hovering behind him. The three cottagers watched as the moneylender mounted his tall horse and rode away without a backward glance. Donal grabbed his wife by the wrist.
“You don’t lie to that one, stupid slut.” Then he turned a fulminating eye on Ruth. “And you. You now have until noon tomorrow to make up your mind. It’s him or us. And he’s killed three wives already.”
Ruth nodded. “Aye, I know. It looks as if you win. But for now can I have some peace and quiet please.” She was about at the end of her tether and surely even Donal could see she should be pushed no further lest she break altogether. 
He looked at her for a moment then laughed a harsh laugh. “I suppose we can give you that much. One last night alone before you come to our bed.”
His wife licked her lips and it was all Ruth could do not to allow her revulsion to show in her face. She managed to keep a calm exterior, though, and went quietly into the room that served her both as bedroom and the workshop where she prepared her potions and simples. Shutting the door quietly behind her, she sat down on the narrow whiteness of the bed and shuddered.
Where had her options gone? The same place as her carefree youth she thought. For a moment she felt the claws of despair, but she straightened her spine. It was no good repining, a decision must be made. She could become Dermot’s second wife, or she could accept the offer of the moneylender, a man who she believed to be deeply involved in the darker arts.  Neither choice promised much of a chance at happiness. Once she admitted  that it strengthened her resolve. She would take neither, instead, the minute it grew full dark she would leave. Of course Dermot wouldn’t let go of her that easily and neither would the moneylender. Somehow none of that seemed to matter, she would just go.
The window was big enough to climb out of if she took only a small bundle of things, and the world away from what she knew could hardly be less friendly than what she was facing in the familiarity of the place where she was born. Maybe, she thought with a warming of the area around her heart, she would even go back to the oak tree and wait there until midnight. 
She carefully gathered together a small pile of things, not too much because she would need to carry everything she took. She was hunting for her warm cloak when her hand fell on a small cloth-wrapped bundle. The tarot deck. 
Even through the cotton wrapping Ruth could feel the cards growing warm in her hand as if they would speak to her. She bowed her head in respect before opening the pack and allowing the tarot to tell her what it would.
Whilst she laid the cards out her conscious mind registered that the pattern on the table was unfamiliar, but her hands and the cards seemed to know what they were doing. As she finished, her right hand went to a card and a voice in her head said ‘moneylender’. She was unsurprised to see the hanged man, symbolic of death and disgrace. ‘Donal’ showed the Devil’s leering face. ‘Remain’ her hand turned over the symbol of chaos and misery that was the tower. ‘Leave now’ she felt the warmth of hope even as she turned over that very card. 
“And lastly, Ruth,” this time she whispered aloud, her voice a thread of sound in the orange light of sunset. Without hesitation she turned the card. It was the queen of swords. The last piece in the puzzle adjuring her to have courage and purpose. 
Ruth bowed her head in acknowledgment and a single tear ran down her cheek, but it was cathartic rather than sad. 
I will rest a while, she thought. Then I make my own life away from this place. She rested, quiet in her mind for the first time since the old witch fell ill. 
When the moon rose she was ready, slipping away like a wraith in the night.
Whether it was her new found courage, or whether the spirits of the tarot were watching over her she knew not, but for whatever reason her escape ran flawlessly and she soon found herself in the woodland being drawn ever westward as though by an invisible string from her heart. Around her the sounds of the nighttime wood were somehow comforting and she trod bravely with her feet making little noise on the thick loam beneath the trees. Once in the fitful moonlight she saw a badger snuffling about his business, and once a stag raised his horned head to gaze limpidly at her passing.
She supposed it must be midnight when she reached the mighty oak. Reaching out her hand she smoothed his bark and felt the ageless incurious spirit that inhabited the heart of the tree. As she communed with the forest giant her ears caught a breath of sound, and her heart leapt into a blaze of joy. By the time the sound resolved itself into the wheels of a wagon and the hooves of a horse she was standing at the side of the track with her bundle on her shoulder. He didn’t even need to stop the wagon, merely reaching down a strong arm and lifting her onto the seat at his side. They kissed briefly then both set their faces to the east and the miles that must be covered before sunrise. 

The moneylender was at the cottage early next morning, banging on the door and waking the inhabitants with cold curses.
“Where is she?” he demanded.
Donal didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “In her room. She begged the favour of one night alone. She hasn’t come out.”
“Fool.” The dark wizard felled the lazy thatcher with a blow of his staff. “Fool. She has flown. I awoke this morning to the sure knowledge she was gone.”
“She has nowhere to go.”
“It seems as if nowhere is preferable to either of us.”
Without awaiting invitation he shouldered his way into the cottage and up the narrow staircase. He kicked wide the door of the stillroom to see an open casement and an empty room. Cursing under his breath he was at the table where the tarot deck still lay in two strides. As he reached out his hand to dash the cards to the floor they seemed to crumple before him like leaves in the autumn wind. Only the card at the centre of the unfamiliar pattern remained intact.
The Queen of Swords stared at the dark wizard from a pair of calm green eyes…

©️Jane Jago