Androshorts: The Village Witch

In the loft room he found pictures of Ella and her grandmother, and she was without doubt the woman that had interviewed him for his job, one picture even had her holding Charlie the cat, wearing the same waistcoat he'd seen her in that morning when she crossed in front of him. Next there was a picture of her at County Hall, as she had been a councillor for the village and then as she got older an Alderman. She was wearing the same suit that she'd interviewed him in.

A search of her laptop showed Ella's diaries both electronic and scanned paper, and it was much like those she had written for three centuries. They both read with interest where It talked of the hot guy she'd been asked to put up in one of her many spare rooms. It went on to their night out at the pub quiz and obvious attraction, her purchase of condoms from the machine in the toilets, the slow walk back from the bar interrupted by frequent stops to kiss and caress, fumbling to open the door and falling on to the large couch.

It was there that he displayed his skill in foreplay and gave her the first of the many orgasms she was to enjoy that weekend, leading up to the wonderful loss of her virginity in her huge bed the next night and his sleeping there from then on.

She outlined their romance as well; the flowers, the bottles of wine, the candle lit baths and massages leading up his proposal at the white horse after a wonderful day walking in the hills.

She wrote about their beautiful wedding with her being given away by Uncle Dan while Aunt Dorothy wept, their honeymoon in Bali, their return home and discovery that they'd had a much better time than they at first realised and that she was pregnant. Sam came along nine months later to the delight of the village and as a perfect ending to her diary entries.

As Grandmother had predicted all had changed, and far from being the pariah she had been she was the village's favourite daughter, successful international business woman putting the place on the map and bringing the tourists and coach parties that supported the pub, the cafes, the B&B's, the gift shops, the holiday lets and of course Holborrow Hall. There was of course some minor rumblings that she hadn't fallen for a local lad, but her romance, wedding and pregnancy was well received, especially as many of the locals remembered her parents; Mother dying of cancer, Father dying of a broken heart soon after, grandmother stepping in and caring for the teenage Ella.

He was still deputy head at the school that was almost twice the size it had been before their drive out to register their daughter that day, so big in fact it had never been under investigation for closure.

The most amazing thing was that after checking their hard drive picture collection and their wedding album they could actually remember being there and doing those things, Steve stumbling over his pronunciation of 'Rosella Mary' during the ceremony. They even found a video.

They had Sam christened in the church, the same church that Ella's curse had seen her banned from for over three centuries. While they both had memories of their wedding and had seen the video, Steve now saw that the statue of cross and bible waving Squire Holborrow wasn't there on the Holborrow crypt and what's more never had been, and after a quiet walk around the churchyard they found the graves of her Father Thomas and her mother Rosemary Pendall, with Grandmother Eliza next to it.

In the same way they both had new memories, Ella's memories of the last three centuries began to fade, and while she could remember that she had lived that amount of time the actual detail, and the sadness and despair, were lost - just like Grandmother had promised. All memories save for her one act of remembrance each year for 100 years, and so she could finally keep her promise they drove southeast to the channel tunnel to get to the continent, specifically the huge war memorial in Belgium where her friend had been immortalised and she was finally able to lay flowers beneath his panel, to the memory of Private Pullen D and the rest of the pals from her village and her county that had fought and died in the mud, lost boys in the war to end all wars.

She now felt able to employ someone to work in her shop for two or three days a week; this meant she was able to enjoy motherhood and she delighted in taking Sam to the playgroup in the church hall twice a week and watching her grow and develop, and just enjoyed her new life. She could even drive a car and did so with ease, jumping in and driving towards the town before she realised that she could and was.

Parenthood took its toll though and a few weeks before the almost-five year old Sam, now a dark haired image of her mother, was due to start at the school her Daddy now ran, Ella found her first grey hair.

When he came home from prepping the school for the new year, Ella sat on his lap and showed him her first grey hair with great pride.

"Isn't it wonderful?" she said.

"You must be the only woman in the developed world that thinks that," he said kissing her and running his hands through her still dark and lustrous hair.

"Yeah," she kissed him back, "But don't forget that I grew up in an undeveloped world where going grey meant you had survived to old age!"

"Yeah, I keep forgetting that."

"Good," she said, "let's forget all of it. Take me to bed and give me another baby."

"What a great idea," he said, and he did.