Then, still snarling her rage at them, the ectoplasmic woman sailed up toward the ceiling, which seemed to dissolve into water to allow her to swim through it, taking the blinding light with her, leaving the cowering coven of witches to tend to the lifeless body of Vera Hilliard, which was dry and brittle like scorched paper and had shrunk to only half its living size.

*      *      *

The Following Night

Des Hutchinson lay awake in bed, too het up to fall asleep.   Tomorrow Warren would be going home to Cherrytree Farm to live with his brother Brian.   Although a big, burly man in his mid thirties, Warren Horne had the intellectual capacity of a seven-year old and had been unable to look after himself, or the sheep station after his brother Brian had been savaged in a dingo attack three months earlier.

So Des and Elizabeth Hutchinson had agreed to take care of Warren at their small cattle station upon Mount Drynan outside East Merridale.   Although Warren wasn’t always easy to look after, he had been a godsend to the Hutchinsons, helping them to get over the heartache of the loss of their own son, Leon, who had been murdered in December 1992 by Donald William Sears, a brutal sadist whom three years earlier had killed Helen Horne the mother of Brian and Warren.

By rights Mel Forbes should have contacted the Glen Hartwell branch of the Community Services Department of Victoria, to have Warren taken away to a Family Group Home until Brian was able to look after him.   However, the small town police sergeant had stuck his neck out, agreeing to let the Hutchinsons take care of Warren for a few months.   The sergeant’s act of kindness had been a blessing to Elizabeth Hutchinson, who had been virtually a zombie for the last six years.

Brian Horne had been released from hospital just over a month ago, and, to Liz and Des’ dismay, Warren would be going home tomorrow.   Des would hate to see the retarded man leave, had grown used to having him around the small farmhouse.   But even worse he hated to think what it would do to Liz, who had been her old perky self for the last twelve weeks.   The change in her had been little short of miraculous, so Des dreaded to think what would happen to her after Warren left.