At work, avoiding work, I am staring out of an upper storey window at the small decorative spire of St Henrietta’s which lies opposite the college. The sky is cinereal, there is a light drizzle and the coffee is sour. I am glancing boredly at stories of new ash clouds which could threaten the return of my colleagues from New York. But it is unlikely. To my left is a copy of Paul Becker’s False Testimony. I have read, or at least scanned (my concentration level allows no more at present), the first two pieces. The second purports to be a witness statement against an immolated witch who shares a name with my companion. Still disquieted by the power of ‘Verbal’, I find it uncannily affecting and worry about the pain of a death by burning.
Are witches, I wonder, usually dispatched similarly to vampires?
