A Pinch of Magic

by Michelle Harrison

  ‘The flyer,’ Granny said shortly.

  Betty closed her eyes in dismay. Earlier that day, Fliss had seen a hidden flyer fall out of Betty’s cloak and had picked it up, frowning.

  ‘What’s this? A Halloween Fayre in Marshfoot?’

  ‘Oh,’ Betty had said, her heartbeat quickening. ‘I asked if we could go, but Granny said no, of course.’

  ‘Of course,’ Fliss had echoed, holding the flyer a fraction too long before handing it back.

  ‘Fliss snitched on us, then?’ Betty fumed. ‘Or did she just leave it for you to find?’

  Granny avoided the question, pausing to hitch up her stocking. ‘It’s lucky you didn’t cover your tracks more carefully.’

  ‘Lucky?’ Betty stopped in the middle of the road. Lucky was the last thing she felt after having her adventure snatched away. Why didn’t Fliss want to escape the everyday drudgery, or care about Granny controlling them any more?

  Granny halted up ahead. ‘Stop dawdling!’ she scolded.

  ‘Come on, Betty,’ Charlie begged. ‘I’m cold!’

  Betty released her sister’s hand, her own slowly forming a fist at her side. Keeping the Halloween Fayre flyer had been careless, and now it would be harder than ever to plan any secret trips, with Granny watching her every move. But plan she would, and next time it would be flawless. Heck, next time she might not come back at all.

  Footsteps cut across the silence and then Granny was in front of her.

  ‘Stop sulking. And I don’t want any trouble when you get back. None of this is Fliss’s fault.’

  ‘No.’ Betty uncurled her fists. ‘It’s yours.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ Granny said. Her voice was dangerously low, but still Betty persisted. All her pent-up resentment and frustration, all the times she’d been told to stay close to home – the way Fliss had shut her out recently – it all came pouring out.

  ‘Fliss used to want to explore as much as I do,’ said Betty. She pulled the mask off, cold air hitting her cheeks. ‘She used to plan all the places she was going to visit . . . but not any more. She’s sixteen! She should be allowed to go wherever she wants. But she’s given up, because of you.’

  All of a sudden Granny seemed to shrink in her baggy clothes as the anger went out of her. ‘That’s not fair.’

  ‘No, it’s not.’ Tears pricked Betty’s eyes. ‘All your stories and what ifs have stopped Fliss from trying. You’ve squashed the adventure out of her. I won’t let that happen to me, or to Charlie.’

  Granny shook her head, a strand of hair unravelling like Granny herself was coming undone. ‘It’s not like that.’

  ‘Then explain,’ said Betty, hardly believing the words that were leaking out of her. ‘Why all the broken promises and excuses? You act so tough, but maybe you’re the one who’s too scared to leave!’

  Granny lowered her eyes, unable to meet Betty’s. ‘We’ve been out of Crowstone plenty of times. You were just too young to remember.’

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ Betty said. Her voice hardened as she became more certain. Now she really thought about it, there had always been something odd about Granny’s reluctance to let them go anywhere. And her hold only seemed to tighten as the girls got older. It felt all wrong. ‘I’d remember. And wouldn’t there be pictures, memories of special days out? There’s nothing!’

  Granny didn’t answer.

  ‘Betty,’ Charlie whispered. ‘Please stop it. I want to go home.’

  ‘Why?’ Betty said bitterly. ‘What’s the big rush? Home is all there ever is!’ She jabbed a finger in the direction of the prison. ‘We’re no better off than the prisoners in there.’ She glanced round at the crooked little streets, hating them. ‘And it might not be tonight, but I’ll escape this place. There’s more to life than Crowstone.’

  ‘No, there isn’t.’ Granny’s eyes were haunted. ‘There’s no leaving this place. Not for us.’ Her words dangled in the air like sharp little needles. Charlie began to cry.

  ‘N-not for us?’ Betty echoed. Surely Granny was just trying to scare them again. How could they not be able to leave?

  ‘You think you’re ready for the truth?’ Granny asked sadly.

  Betty stared back helplessly. She wasn’t sure, not now Granny was as good as admitting that Betty had been right, all along. But all she could do was nod.

  ‘Very well.’ Granny nodded slowly. ‘I’ll tell you. No more secrets.’ She shuffled closer, resting her hand on Betty’s cheek. ‘But I warn you, it’s nothing good.’

  Charlie huddled closer into her, crying harder. Betty’s mouth went dry. Was this linked to their rat-bag father, somehow? Were they being punished along with him, forbidden from leaving like the people on Torment? It was all she could think of.

  ‘What is it? Tell me!’

  ‘Not here.’ Granny lowered her hand, her jowls wobbling as she glanced about them.

  ‘This’ll only be a short journey, but I need you both to keep your wits about you. We mustn’t be seen.’

  ‘Not seen? Granny, I don’t . . .’

  ‘You don’t need to understand, just hold on.’ Granny hooked her arm through Betty’s, the carpet bag dangling from her wrist. ‘Link your arm with Charlie’s. That’s it – nice and tight. Whatever you do, don’t let go.’

  Betty wondered if she had finally sent her grandmother loopy. Why else would she be acting so peculiar? ‘Granny, you’re scaring me—’

  ‘Yes, well. I can’t help that, and you were going to find out sooner or later.’ Granny tightened her hold on Betty’s arm. The familiar smell of her, of tobacco and beer, was warming in the chilly air. ‘Ready?’

  ‘For what?’ Betty asked, bewildered, as Granny opened her bag.

  Her grandmother didn’t answer. Instead, she reached inside the monstrous carpet bag and turned it inside out, saying in a crisp voice: ‘Poacher’s Pocket!’

  Betty’s insides gave an enormous lurch, like she had fallen from a great height. Her ears were popping and her eyes were forced closed as a huge gust of icy air rushed past her, knocking her off her feet. She heard Granny gasp and Charlie do a funny little moan, but kept hold of them both as tightly as she could. Her balance was gone, her feet finding nothing but air.

  ‘Granny!’ she wailed, her eyes flying open as she toppled backwards. She landed with a bump, arms still locked with her grandmother and Charlie. Hard cobbles bit into her bottom, and the whistling wind had been replaced with rowdy voices and laughter. Betty looked up in amazement to see that the three of them were sitting in the doorway outside the Poacher’s Pocket.

  ‘Not one of my better landings, I admit, but I’m not used to passengers.’ Granny released Betty’s arm and got to her feet. ‘Oof, me hips.’ After dusting herself down she checked over the carpet bag and then snapped the clasp shut with a nod. ‘Home.’

  Chapter Three

  The Three Gifts

  ‘UP YOU GET,’ GRANNY TRILLED, peering out of the darkened doorway across the empty village green. ‘Good – no one saw us.’

  Stiff with shock, Betty clambered to her feet and hauled Charlie up beside her. They stared at their grandmother. Though Betty was too stunned to speak, her mind was jammed with questions. What in crow’s name had just happened . . . how was it even possible? And how could Granny be acting so matter-of-fact about it? Next to her, Charlie had stopped crying but her face was grubby and tear-streaked, her little body trembling.

  ‘Come on.’ Granny guided them towards the door. ‘Inside, out of the cold.’

  The door opened to warm air, jumbled, merry talk and music. Betty stepped in, clasping her arm tightly round Charlie’s shoulders. It was dimly lit, with the glow of the jack-o’-lanterns turning everything and everyone golden. There were so many people it was difficult to move through them all, but Granny nudged and jostled, clearing a path to the bar, where Fliss and another girl, Gladys, were serving drink after drink.

  Granny pushed the carpet bag at Betty. ‘Take this up to the kitchen. Put
the kettle on.’

  Betty held the bag at arm’s length, afraid it would swallow her up and spit her out again in some unknown place.

  ‘Oh, for crow’s sake.’ Granny snatched it back, tucking it under her arm. She took a glass from the counter and helped herself to a large whiskey. ‘Fliss!’ she called. ‘Upstairs.’

  ‘Now?’ Fliss blurted out in surprise.

  ‘Now.’

  A look passed between them, and Fliss’s face became grave. She nodded, wiping her hands on her apron, glancing at Betty. Betty stared back, her gaze dropping to something sticking out of her sister’s apron pocket. Fliss hastily tried to poke it back in, but Betty recognised it immediately: it was the corner of the Marshfoot flyer. So Fliss had ratted on them. Yet all that had just happened had cooled Betty’s temper, leaving more questions. Did Fliss know what Granny’s old carpet bag could really do, as well as the big secret Granny was about to tell them? Little threads of envy knitted together in an unfamiliar pattern. It used to be Betty and Fliss who had shared secrets; now she was the one being locked out.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Gladys shrieked. ‘I’m ankle-deep in beer, here! I can’t manage on my own!’

  ‘We won’t be long, and I’ll double your wages tonight.’ Granny swallowed the whiskey in a single gulp, then poured herself another.

  ‘That’s not going to help,’ said Fliss primly.

  ‘You’ve never been drunk, so what would you know?’ Granny snapped, turning to Betty. ‘I thought I told you two to go upstairs?’

  Numbly, Betty placed her hands on Charlie’s shoulders and steered her to the stairs. As they climbed them, Betty eyed the peeling wallpaper and threadbare carpet, trying to focus on normal, everyday things. This was their world, not one where smelly old carpet bags transported people. Perhaps there had been snuff powder in the bag, she decided. Something that had momentarily befuddled them. It was the only practical explanation.

  Once in the kitchen, Betty and Charlie sat down at the table. Charlie drew her knees up and peered over them, wide-eyed like a frightened little mouse. Granny pulled out a chair and tutted, shaking a scruffy black cat off it.

  ‘Scram!’ she snapped at the hissing creature. The cat hated everyone, but only Charlie persisted in trying to befriend it. It had mysteriously wandered in some months before (though Betty suspected Charlie had enticed it with scraps) and now they couldn’t get rid of it. Despite Granny’s strict instructions not to name it, brandishing her broom and yelling ‘Oi!’ every time it took a swipe at Charlie, the cat always returned and did as it pleased. And, thanks to Charlie, it did have a name.

  ‘Poor Oi,’ she murmured as the cat skulked away downstairs.

  Fliss filled the kettle and put it on to boil. Granny sat at the head of the table and took out her pipe, stuffing it with tobacco.

  A minute later, Fliss put cups of tea in front of them, stirring in mounds of sugar. ‘It’s good for shock.’

  ‘Doesn’t beat whiskey,’ Granny muttered under her breath.

  Fliss gave a disapproving sniff. Then Charlie burst into sobs.

  ‘There, there, I know.’ Granny reached out to pat her arm. ‘You’ve had a bit of an upset. Have a good cry and get it all out.’

  A bit of an upset? And yet Granny was about to reveal something else, some explanation of why they were trapped in Crowstone. Well, it had better be good, Betty decided. A real, solid reason to crush her dreams and not just flimsy fears.

  Charlie continued to cry, her shoulders shaking with huge gasps. ‘Granny? I don’t understand what just happened. Are you a . . . a witch?’

  ‘A witch? Dear me, no!’ said Granny.

  ‘B-but your b-bag . . .’

  ‘Yes, yes, I know. We started in one place and ended up in another. It’s a travelling bag, not a broomstick. And guess what? One day it’ll be yours!’

  This only made Charlie grizzle harder.

  ‘But how . . . ?’ Betty began, for despite Granny’s denial, she couldn’t help wondering. Witches were make-believe, weren’t they? Or did Granny use more than beer to bamboozle?

  ‘I don’t know.’ Granny lit her pipe, sucking on it deeply. Thick smoke billowed around her, strongly scented with cloves and spices. ‘I don’t know how it works, only that it does.’

  ‘Must you smoke?’ Fliss chided, moving her chair away. ‘You know it stinks, and we don’t like breathing it in.’

  ‘I don’t want you breathing it in, either,’ said Granny. ‘It’s my smoke. I paid good money for it.’

  The familiar squabble seemed to set Charlie more at ease. Her sobbing reduced to sniffles. Eventually she reached out and snatched her tea like a mouse taking a piece of cheese back to its hole.

  Betty gulped her tea, grimacing. It was weak and too sweet, as lousy as everything Fliss attempted in the kitchen. ‘How long have you known, Fliss? You don’t exactly seem surprised by all this.’

  ‘A few months.’ Fliss fiddled with a tiny plait that she’d woven into her hair. ‘Granny told me on my birthday.’

  So Betty hadn’t imagined the change in her sister. All this time, Fliss had been hiding things. Guarding Granny’s secrets. The threads of envy tightened, tangling with feelings of betrayal. Why hadn’t either of them trusted her?

  Granny huffed out another cloud of cloying smoke. ‘There’s more.’

  Betty remained silent. She’d thought as much.

  ‘That . . . that mirror Granny gave me on my birthday,’ Fliss continued. ‘It does something, too.’

  Charlie peered over her tea cup. ‘The mermaid mirror?’

  Betty found she was gripping her cup so tightly it made her knuckles ache. She set it on the table. ‘What does it do?’

  Fliss glanced at Granny, her cheeks flooding red. ‘It . . . it lets me talk to people . . . who aren’t there.’

  ‘Who aren’t there?’ Betty echoed. Before tonight she would have scoffed at this – before Granny’s jiggery-pokery with the carpet bag, that was. Part of her longed to believe this was all an elaborate trick to pay her back for sneaking off, but she knew Granny would never neglect a pub full of thirsty customers – and Fliss was as useless at lying as she was at cooking. ‘Like . . . like ghosts?’

  Charlie gave an alarmed squawk.

  ‘No!’ Fliss said hurriedly. ‘Not like that. People who are somewhere else. On the other side of the island, perhaps, or even the next room. On one of the Sorrow Isles – or further away.’

  The Sorrow Isles. Immediately, Betty thought of their father. Had Fliss used the mirror to speak to him? She opened her mouth to ask, then changed her mind. Barney Widdershins could wait. Too many other questions about these strange objects were forcing their way to the front of her mind, demanding answers.

  Betty sipped her tea again. Some of the shock was leaving her and she was beginning to tremble. There were no such things as magical objects, not outside of dreams and stories . . . but however practical she was, Betty couldn’t deny what she had experienced moments ago – and she knew she wasn’t dreaming. How was it possible to travel from one place to another in a few seconds simply by turning an old bag inside out, or to talk to people through looking glasses? There was only one way to describe it: magic. She remembered other times when she, Fliss and Charlie had tried to sneak away and been outfoxed by Granny at the last moment . . . and how Granny never seemed to be late – for anything. Now it made sense.

  ‘Where did they come from?’ she said at last. ‘The bag and the mirror?’

  Granny puffed on her pipe some more, coughed, then hesitated. ‘I’m not sure, exactly. No one is. But they’ve been in the family for decades. Passed down through generations of Widdershins girls. It’s always been that way . . . for as far back as I know, anyway.’

  ‘How long is that?’ Betty asked.

  Granny’s mouth puckered as she was thinking. ‘About a hundred and fifty years.’

  ‘And when were you going to tell Charlie and me?’ Betty added. ‘If you were planning on telling
us at all?’

  ‘I was,’ Granny answered. ‘When you were sixteen. Just like I did with Fliss.’

  ‘And you?’ Charlie asked. ‘Were you sixteen, too, when you got the bag?’

  ‘No,’ said Granny. ‘I was given the bag on my wedding day.’

  Of course, Betty thought. Granny wasn’t a Widdershins by blood. She had married into the family like the girls’ mother. ‘Some wedding gift,’ she remarked.

  Granny smiled thinly. ‘I suppose it made up a little for the rest—’ She hiccupped and cut off, like she’d said something she shouldn’t have, but Betty pounced.

  ‘The rest of what?’

  ‘I’ll get to that in a minute.’

  Betty glanced at Fliss, her chest tightening. Whatever it was, she could tell by Fliss’s expression that she knew, and it wasn’t good.

  Granny took a break from her pipe to sip at her whiskey. ‘There are three items . . . three gifts, if you like. Each of them is an everyday object. Each of them holds a different kind of power. I call it a pinch of magic.’

  Fear or excitement – or a mixture of both – began to tingle in Betty’s tummy. Something about Granny saying the word ‘magic’ was rather wonderful. And yet . . . Granny’s snuffed-out sentence smouldered uneasily in her thoughts. What had this to do with the Widdershins being trapped in Crowstone? Was the magical gift simply a sweetener before something more sinister? She leaned forward. ‘You mean . . . when Charlie and me turn sixteen, we’ll both get one of these . . . these gifts, too?’

  ‘That was the plan, yes.’

  Betty frowned. ‘Was?’

  ‘After what happened tonight . . . with the two of you going off like that, I’ve seen that some plans have to change.’

  ‘Oh, Granny, please . . .’ Betty said. ‘I know I was wrong to break your rules, and I know I don’t deserve whatever magic thing you were saving for me . . . but please don’t punish Charlie.’ She slumped back in her chair miserably. ‘It’s not her fault. It was all my idea.’

  ‘I know.’ Granny’s voice was soft. ‘I don’t intend to punish either of you, though. It’s never been about that, only about wanting to keep you safe. But tonight, I realised that keeping secrets from you only put you in more danger. And that’s the reason I’ve decided to bring everything out into the open.’ She placed her pipe in her ashtray, then rose from the table. ‘Wait here.’