Glaswegian Spring

Suburban Witchcraft/Issue 8 (p. 172)/March 2025

Glasgow gave off a terminal-dusk, an endless sadness. People walked briskly along the streets,  collars turned up, heads down, leaning into slanting rain. Soon after my arrival the vision of happy Scots I’d read about in my travel guide, the cozy pubs and fiddle music and buttery shortbread, dissipated.  My sadness matched  the setting. Someone who had lost as much as me, who’d been through what I’d been through at such a young age, should not have been sent alone to a place like Glasgow. 

***

I met Cyn at one of the used bookstores my tutor, Mr. Giles, recommended. Her gorgeous auburn hair shone against the dark wooden paneling of the shop. She pretended to read while stealing little glances my way. 

I paid for my paperbacks at the register. She appeared at my side. 

“Are you an American?” she said. 

Her American accent was different than mine, maybe not American at all, Canadian?

I stated the obvious, told her I was indeed an American.

“Would you fancy a coffee?” she said, faking a Scottish accent so perfectly I burst out laughing. 

“Wow, you’ve got that down,” I said. “I’m Anna.” 

I offered a hand.

“Cyn,” she said, accepting it. 

Outside the store, grey daylight revealed her full presence. 

A porcelain pixie face shimmered above layers of earth tones, a tunic, hiking boots, leg warmers covering all four lanky limbs. A diamond nose ring sparkled from a nostril. Shorter than her, wearing Levis and navy sweater, blonde hair pulled back in a pony, unadorned face and lip, I felt  inadequate at best. 

***

Cyn knew every pub, shop, tea room in Glasgow. She called on me constantly, never seeming to attend class or study. I tried to resist her constant distractions, but was admittedly enjoying the breath of new life in my sad existence. 

No matter where we went, Cyn’s long fingers touched everything. In Tesco Express grocery she manhandled apples, held them to the light, rubbed them against her shirt, sometimes bit in. She smelled melons, stole handfuls of nuts. She didn’t like paying for things, often stuck me with the bill at a restaurant, so much so that I had to call home and request a bank transfer from my parents. In the Boots pharmacy she tucked away lipsticks and compacts. In the Papyrus gift store she pocketed votive candles, magnets, packs of cocktail napkins. In Tennent’s and Curlers and the Halt Bar she helped herself to the maraschino cherries in the bartender’s bucket, sucked on the lemons and oranges stored beside them.  

No one seemed to notice.

***

Cyn’s behavior began to rattle though. 

I tried to believe it was in my mind or it was because of the drink or that it wasn’t real at all, that it simply didn’t happen, but the memory still nags, continues to scare even these twenty years hence. 

We stood beside one another powdering our noses in Curlers’ ladies room. We’d been on a real bender, this the third pub of the evening. 

We were laughing about some guy we’d been flirting with, or torturing, as Cyn put it. 

I had been focused on my compact, a birthday gift from Cyn (probably pinched from the pharmacy), but when I glanced back at the mirror on the wall I beheld the most terrifying, horrifying, sick-inducing sight. Cyn’s image was not the woman with auburn hair, pixie face, sparkling nose. The person appearing in the mirror was a most disgusting witch, the kind I’d only read about in books. Her strands of thick grey hair, long crooked nose with an oozing wart fixed in my gaze as she smeared makeup onto withered cheeks with gnarled hands.

I found my feet, dashed into the stall, slamming the door, my entire body shaking. 

Her laughter shook the room, peals of it echoing in my ears. 

When I finally came out of the stall, she stood there in her usual form, bent over in hysterics. 

“You are a strange one!” she said, grabbing my hand, leading me from the restroom. 

I laughed too. 

Imagine, becoming so frightened so suddenly, for no apparent reason?

***

Mr. Giles, thrilled I’d made a friend, invited Cyn to join us for tea at his office. 

I was put off by Cyn’s lack of interest. 

“He’s my dad’s best friend from uni. I wouldn’t have survived September and October without him. He’s magic. It’s like he knows my thoughts before I think them,” I said.

We trudged up the hill toward the cluster of old academic buildings.

“He sounds intrusive,” she said.

I dragged her into the spire, trudging up the spiral stairwell.

The door was open as usual, familiar music drifting outwards.

“By the pricking of my thumbs. Something wicked this way comes,” Mr. Giles said, standing by his chair. 

“Don’t mind him. He’s got bad case of Shakespeare,” I said.

Mr. Giles removed his glasses, squinted, surveying Cyn as she shifted sideways to a shelf, finding a small globe to touch. 

He gestured with one hand, offering a chair moved near the fire especially for her visit.

She answered his many questions - questions for some reason I’d never asked  - with vague, one-two word responses.

She was from somewhere around Toronto, had a smallish family, studied liberal arts, nothing specific. 

She slurped her cup of tea, gobbled all the biscuits on the plate. 

“I’ve got to get to my lecture,” she said, looking at her watch. 

She dashed out of the office. 

I followed, ignoring Mr. Giles’ pleas for me to stay, finish my tea. 

A few blocks away she seemed to relax.

“You really are a loser if that old man was your only friend here before me,” she said. “Let’s go to the chippie,” she said, looping her free arm with mine.

“What about your lecture?” I said. 

“Ha!” all she offered in response.

We headed inside Loretto’s, our favorite chip shop.

“What is it about you? “ she said, dipping a chip in catsup. “You seem like you’ve got some kind of secret.”

I hiccupped. We’d stopped at the pub beforehand. 

I dove into the silence like a pool of black water, considered my options, emerged with a loose, what the hell mentality.

“I had a baby,” I whispered, locking my eyes with hers. They were brown with smatterings of green and gold, eyes I’d never seen before or since. 

“You’re joking?” she said, lips curling in a smile.

“No.” 

“I knew it,” she whispered, “You gave birth? Does old St. Giles know that?”

“Yes. Of course. How did you know?” I said. 

On an opposing wall a black cat clock’s tale pendulum ceased wagging. 

I felt the need to gulp air, to gasp, cry. 

Cyn jumped up, moved to my side of the booth, took me in her arms. 

“Where is this baby?”

“Thomas. His name is, was Thomas. Stillborn,” I said, pulling away to look at her. 

A spectacle of different emotions crossed her face - sympathy, sadness, horror, but also a glimmer of something else, something I couldn’t identify. 

***

Mr. Giles disapproved of Cyn and told me so. 

“She’s a baddie, lass,” he said. “Not the friend for you,” he said, sitting in his usual place.

“But, I haven’t had fun, real young people’s fun, in so long,” I said, “You must have felt that way before,” I said. 

“You know this, the power of story. Every story since the beginning is about one thing: good versus evil. From the Bible to Shakespeare to Star Wars. There are bad people in this world. I’m sensitive to them. She’s one of them. Your father asked me to look out for you and that’s what I’m doing.”

I sat slouched in a funk. 

For once the heat of his office oppressed instead of soothed. 

“Will you still spend Easter with me? At my house?” he said. 

My parents had told me not to come home for the spring break, claiming the flights would be too costly. Mr. Giles teased me that I was like poor young Ebenezer, left at boarding school during the holiday. His wife had passed five years before. He had no children of his own.

“I’ll be there,” I said, meaning it.

***

Glasgow was more depressing in spring. The trees didn’t seem to flower, the shed leaves returned brown. The pervasive greyness of the city seemed to dig in its heals, tighten its grip. The dog walkers, playing children, and occasional picnicker in the Kelvingrove park seemed a tad off, marching along in deluded fantasy.

All the students were gone for the mid-term break. The streets were emptier, the shops deserted. Cyn left too, withholding details of her plans, promising her return at end of April. My life drained of energy without her. 

I considered finding a soup kitchen or helping out at the cancer research thrift store, but my low mood squashed those plans. Maybe I was coming down with the flu, I wondered. At the Tesco I stocked up on bread, butter, powdered soup, tea, and splurged on three chocolate oranges. I’d hunker down in my flat, power through until Easter day with Mr. Giles. 

We planned on him calling me the Saturday night before, confirming his address and time, but I missed the call.

Through the glass a blurried Cyn emerged, bedecked in a purple coat, her hair curled and uplifted, her lipstick an almost-black. 

I opened the door, allowing the damp Glaswegian air to creep inwards.

“Everyone’s dying to meet you!” Cyn said, stepping in, “Go get dressed up for the time of your life!”

“But you said you wouldn’t be back until-” I said.

 “Let me do your makeup,” she said, following me up the stairs into my flat, producing a slinky dress from nowhere. 

***

I remember only a few things about that Saturday night.  

There was a loud, wild party at Cyn’s flat. There were colored lights flashing and pounding music. There was a handsome man named Angus whom I talked to for some time. I drank enough to be tipsy, dance. 

Then, it all went black. I awoke in a silent room. The open window beside the bed invited fingers of cold air and spatters of rain onto the covers. I went to rise, but couldn’t.

“Cyn?” I said, my eyes opening slowly, the view incoherent.

“Silence her!” 

A pack of awful hags, like the one I saw in the pub’s mirror,  came into focus, surrounded me.

Cyn’s image formed on the face of the hag closest to me. 

“Anna, you must first agree, then you must be quiet or this won’t go well,” she said, rubbing my forehead, smoothing back strands of my hair. “We’re going to eat you. We must.”

“What? Why?” I said, pulling at restraints.

“You know why,” Cyn said. 

“How could I?”

“You with your weakness, your void waiting to be filled, your lost baby’s DNA still coursing through your bloodstream. Don’t you know, Anna? You’re what we’ve been waiting for. You should rejoice. You’re chosen. Special.”

I screamed as the witches’ craggy, awful hands hovered above my body and their mouths yawned to reveal rotten teeth, lolling purple tongues. 

A tamping sound disrupted the moment. The witches’ attention snapped toward the door. 

“Alas, why gnaw you so your nether lip?
Some bloody passion shakes your very frame: 
These are portents; but yet I hope, I hope,
They do not point on me.”

Shakespeare. 

Mr. Giles stood in the center of the room, gripping his cane.

I flailed on the bed.

 “You know this one is not long for this world, Anna. He’ll be dead by year’s end,” Cyn said.

“At year’s end! At year’s end! Dead by year’s end!” the other witches sang.

“Those near death have a power of their own. Especially those of us moving toward the light. Step away, foul sisters!” Mr. Giles said, his nimble body advancing on the knot of seething witches. 

He pulled on my hand so that somehow the restraints fell away and I slid off the bed. I walked on quivering legs toward the door. The power of the witches was fierce, so hard for me to resist. I can still remember the strength it took for me to go with Mr. Giles,  leave Cyn behind. 

“Bloody thou art; bloody will be thy end.”

With a slight tilt of his chin, Mr. Giles prompted me to copy his incantation. 

“Bloody thou art; bloody will be thy end.”

Our words repelled them. The witches rose in the air, slammed against the back wall. 

“Bloody thou art; bloody will be thy end.”

Again and again, we recited those words until we were safely out of the house, down the street, onto the Byers Road.

I collapsed into Mr. Giles’ arms.

“Good and evil, Lass. Good and Evil,” he said, patting my back, then draping an arm around my shoulder, steering me toward his home. 

We walked in silence that morning.

 I marveled at the emptied streets, the cold dawn light. the budding trees, erasing the grim Glasgow greyness.  

I had not thought it possible. 

END