The Wooden Shepherdess by Richard Hughes

her, but now whenever he tried to bolt someone had always got hold of him. Thus when the time came to follow the stage-direction “ she gathers them passionately into her arms ” and he felt himself gathered, he lost all control—gave way to panic, and bit her. “Oh, darling mouth ...” she snarled, going on with her hugging just as if nothing had happened. She finished her speech with her finger bleeding on to her batik and “ followed them into the house .”
    Augustine’s story was growing more and more incoherent, but what happened next in fact was this. Once inside, he retreated behind his sister expecting the worst: yet that terrible Aunt ignored him. She stopped by the door, mumbling witchily under her breath (really rehearsing her speech while waiting her cue): then all of a sudden was gone. Mary and he were alone. The curtains were drawn, and outside a big black cloud had covered the sun: indoors it was almost dark—till there came a flicker of lightning, followed by thumpings of thunder that drowned the droning voices. Then a long pause, dismal with certainty something frightful was coming without knowing what (for biting is always punished).
    â€œI want to go somewhere,” Augustine told Mary loudly (the lightning had made it seem darker than ever in here: they could hardly see one another).
    â€œS-sh!” said Mary, “You’ll have to wait. First, you’ve got to be killed.”
    â€œ Killed ....” So that’s what mad aunts did when little boys bit! “Same as a farmer I’d seen grab one sheep out of the fifty penned in a fold, sit it upright on a bucket and cut its throat while the others just watched. And a picture hung on this Halton nursery wall: the boy tied up while a man dressed very like Aunt stood over him waving a knife.... It was Isaac of course, and Nanny had told me the boy didn’t get killed after all; but now I knew that she must have been wrong! And Mary I knew would really just watch, for the way she said ‘killed’ had sounded she didn’t care two pins I was going to be sat on a bucket and have my throat slit.”
    Meanwhile the remembered blood gushed down, the remembered sheep went suddenly limp with its tongue hanging out. But Augustine had stood there impatiently rocking from foot to foot, because there are needs which won’t wait even for murder.... Suddenly Aunt Berenice was with them again, and “Now!” thought Augustine. But no: for instead of taking a knife and sitting him up on a bucket at once, “ Oh abhorréd ...” she whispered to Mary: and then when Mary looked blank, “Go on! What shall I do? What is it? ” she prompted.
    â€œW hat-shall-I-do-what-is-it-keep-me-fast-from-Mother,” his sister wh i spered, like learning your prayers after Nanny.
    â€œâ€˜ I know nothing. Brother! Oh ....’”
    â€œ I-know-nothing Brother-o, I-think-she-means-to-kill-u s ...”
    Out in the courtyard the Chorus voices ended in a dying fall. All of a sudden Aunt Berenice turned on Augustine, her glittering eyes half starting out of her head: “Now scream, you little beast!” she hissed, and shook him. But Augustine was far too terrified to scream. “You, then!” she said, turning in disgust to Mary; and out of a face still perfectly placid Mary let out a yell that had nearly burst his ear-drums—just as he felt the warm flood coursing down his leg.
    This had been one of those nightmares where people “change”; and after that scream even Mary—his only protector, his last anchor in the world of sanity—went mad as Aunt: she started gabbling meaningless words in two loud singsong voices! Yet those words weren’t quite meaningless enough, for again he caught something about “Mother” and “Means to kill us,” and “Has a sword.”—But this wasn’t Mother, though ... or, was it (for the worst