{"id":2814,"date":"2022-02-15T22:25:37","date_gmt":"2022-02-15T22:25:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=2814"},"modified":"2022-02-15T22:25:40","modified_gmt":"2022-02-15T22:25:40","slug":"jessica-ann-by-f-e-ellwood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=2814","title":{"rendered":"Jessica Ann by F. E. Ellwood"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong><em>Jessica Ann<\/em><\/strong> by F. E. Ellwood (<em>Argosy<\/em> (UK), July 1955) introduces us to Ely, an apothecary to the seven witches in his area, and a man who is who is tempted by Jessica, a young witch who has recently arrived in the area and who suggests that they do away with the others. Ely agonises about the matter:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-style-default is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>Ely looked at her solemnly. Her cheeks were pink, and her eyes were, after all, brighter than the speedwells . . .<br>\u201cAnd old Mother Peasgood,\u201d said Jessica. \u201cShe cured Margie Boss\u2019s baby of her hacking cough o\u2019 nights, and then she saw their little dog. She gave it one look out of her evil eye and it started to run backwards, and backwards-way forwards it\u2019s been ever since. Now why, Ely, why?\u201d<br>\u201cThe sabbath,\u201d said Ely absently. \u201cThey beat them.\u201d<br>\u201cThey?\u201d said Jessica.<br>\u201cThe demons,\u201d said Ely, \u201cat the Meeting. They beat the witches who cure the coughs and charm the warts. The ones who do the mischief, now, they\u2019re all right. But the ones who like a bit of both, like ours, they have to be careful. They daren\u2019t not touch the goat if they\u2019ve done something they\u2019re going to be ashamed of. Things like mending young Tom\u2019s back or giving the mixture for Margie Boss\u2019s baby\u2019s cough.\u201d<br>[. . .]<br>\u201cThink of it, Ely,\u201d said Jessica, encouraged. \u201cThe medicines for the sick and the poor. The secret recipes of the witches. We could burn the wicked ones, Ely. Just the two of us and no more of the witching. And we could be married, Ely. In the church, with a real wedding, and Parson saying words over us. Think of it now, Ely.\u201d<br>\u201cYes . . .\u201d said Ely, and he stopped, aghast. Reforming zeal and the lengths to which the zeal will go were new to Ely. He looked at Jessica anxiously, but she was still the same Jessica, and still very beautiful.\u00a0 p. 103<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>Of course (spoiler), after Ely poisons the other witches he finds that Jessica is no better than they were and, after some more agonising, decides if you can\u2019t beat them, join them. He picks up a copy of <em>Sorcerie for Ye Verie Begynner<\/em>, and she takes down his Apothecary sign.<br>Minor but okay.<br>** (Average). 3,050 words.<br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jessica Ann by F. E. Ellwood (Argosy (UK), July 1955) introduces us to Ely, an apothecary to the seven witches in his area, and a man who is who is tempted by Jessica, a young witch who has recently arrived in the area and who suggests that they do away with the others. Ely agonises [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[702],"tags":[257,17,700,703,12,704],"class_list":["post-2814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-f-e-ellwood","tag-257","tag-17","tag-argosy-uk","tag-f-e-ellwood","tag-short-story","tag-witches"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2814"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2814\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2817,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2814\/revisions\/2817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}