by Willow Mason
“I never fit in because you never treated me the same.”
The injustice I’d felt when Silla began talking about the knowledge and I hadn’t a clue what she meant recurred. That a witch who hid down tunnels, dressed as a spider, up to her eyeballs in something shady, was further inside than I’d ever been, burned down to my soul. “You skipped out on teaching me my due inheritance. If you were fulfilling an obligation to my mother, you failed.”
“Knowing your lineage, can you imagine any other treatment? I could hardly spill all our secrets to you when there was a fifty-fifty chance you’d join the other side and fill them in on everything we hold sacred.”
“Well, you were wrong.” I held my hands out to my sides. “Look at me. I’m one hundred percent good witch, no thanks to you. Except now you’ve taken my powers away, I’m one hundred percent nothing.”
“Humans manage perfectly well.” Glynda drank the last of her tea and placed the cup on the nearby table, settling back into the seat with a satisfied sigh. “Once you learn to pretend your upbringing was just an aberration, you’ll be fine.”
“Have experience, do you?”
Glynda snorted. “It’s not as though you were ever a strong witch. Don’t think I haven’t watched you struggle in the last few days when you couldn’t rely on our network to prop up your powers.”
“Any witch would struggle.”
“Any weak witch. Still, I admit I was wrong. You got fifty percent of your powers from your mother and fifty percent of absolutely nothing from your dad.” Glynda clapped her hands together. “It’s quite a relief to know we don’t have to worry about that any longer.”
With my mind racing to fit the oddly shaped new piece of my heritage into the finely ordered stack of my past, I had a horrid thought. “He’s not around here, is he?”
One of Glynda’s finely tailored eyebrows shot up. “Who?”
“My father. Is he still in Riverhead?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. What’s there to keep him around here?”
Her tone sounded so disgruntled I wondered what he’d done to offend her, apart from being what he was. “Haven’t you noticed signs of black magic recently?”
Glynda’s head jerked up. “What?” Her hand reached out and clutched my wrist, the fingernails digging into my skin. “What have you seen? What have you done?”
I wrenched my arm free and rubbed the broken skin gently. “I haven’t done anything except try to track down the truth. There’s something evil operating around here and it might be costing lives.”
“And you thought it would be your father?” Glynda tipped her head back and issued a throaty laugh.
“Since the only thing I know about him is he’s a bad witch, why not?” My hands clenched together, the skin over the knuckles stretched so tightly it glowed white. “I don’t even know why that’s funny.”
“No, you don’t and it’s not my job to tell you. If your mother wanted you to know, you would. I’m not stepping in as a surrogate. I’ve done more than enough.”
“You’ve thrown me out of the only family I had left and stolen my powers,” I said in a low voice. “And because of what’s happening right under your nose without you realising, I’m vulnerable to attack.”
“The only thing you’re vulnerable to is your own imagination.” Glynda struggled to her feet, patting her hair to ensure its dated beehive had kept its shape. “I shouldn’t need to tell you, but I guess I do. Don’t contact anybody in the coven, under any circumstances. We’re not your friends or your family. Not any longer. Not ever again.”
“I need my powers back.”
“You don’t need anything from me, and you certainly don’t deserve it. Everything that’s come down on your head is because of your actions. Get into a fit of the poor-me’s if you want but it won’t get you anywhere. If you want my advice, buck up and go make a new life for yourself.”
A prospect easier said than done now it appeared I’d lost everything. Even the father I’d never had was tainted. My mother’s memory ridiculed.
My legs shook so badly, I couldn’t even stand long enough to walk Glynda out of the house.
After Glynda left, I sat in silence on the couch until the light faded from the sky. I kept thinking I should turn on a light, bring a bit of cheer to the room. I kept not doing it.
Black magic was the evilest thing a witch could dabble in. My father practised black magic. He was a bad witch. I had half his genes, mixed and matched throughout my body. Half of me was evil.
Only half?
Part of my mind sneered at the assumption. Given the reaction of all the witches in town over the past week, I should bump that figure higher. No wonder I’d felt compelled to play the prank on Prissy’s poor, dead familiar.
No. Don’t call it a prank. State it truthfully. I’d pulled a dead creature out of its grave and reanimated it with a spell. Even when it was clear it hadn’t worked, that the toad had literally been turned inside-out with the rigours of the process, I’d kept going and made the amphibian dance.
Of course, you did. You’re a bad witch.
But I wanted to reject that. As every bad thing I’d ever done in my life forced its way to the front of my brain—and there were a lot—I kept trying to explain and excuse the atrocities away.
I’d lost my first and only familiar by writing its death on a permission slip to get myself out of school. The next day, as if I’d magicked it into being, I found poor Wesley, my rat, dead inside his cage.
My mother insisted I wasn’t responsible. With shaking hands and a quivering lip, she’d helped me prepare Wesley for his burial in the familiar cemetery.
She told me it wasn’t my fault but when I asked about selecting a new familiar, she’d put her foot down and refused. Mum told me it wasn’t my fault but every time she looked at me, I saw the question in her eyes.
I’d always believed I killed him. My cute little rat—the smartest creature in the world and my main confidante. In order to stay at home while Mum was out working, I’d forged her signature and invented my pet’s death.
Other things followed. Children who teased me and seemed to get their comeuppance without me lifting a finger. Messes that conveniently got blamed on the next girl along rather than being pinned on me.
Decades of stupendously good luck mixed with terribly bad. All of it could be explained by the blood of a bad witch pumping through my veins.
No wonder Glynda had taken my powers away. I didn’t deserve them. She was right to hide the knowledge of the coven from my curious mind. Feeding it to me could only lead to collapse and destruction.
Stop wallowing. A girl’s dead and you’re sitting here feeling sorry for yourself.
Yes, I was, actually. Give a woman a minute to process.
My phone beeped, and I roused myself enough to check the screen. An abomination of random letters and emojis filled up a text message. I didn’t need to check the address to see who it was from. Beezley.
In trouble or just trying to find out when I’d uplift my remaining belongings?
I rubbed my hands over my face, then got to my feet and turned on a light. My phone beeped again. More randomness. My mind wasn’t in a place where I could even begin to decipher the meaning behind the text.
It was only eight o’clock. I could pay a visit without offending anyone by the lateness of the hour. Besides, I should warn Wilson and Beezley about my encounter with DI Jonson. At the very least they’d need to take any lab results with a pinch of salt.
On the walk over, I got so lost in my memories that the house appeared well before I expected it to. A light shone from the side room, the curtain flapping through in the breeze. The front door stood wide open.
In a panic, I ran inside. “Beezley? Wilson?”
Wilson appeared in the connecting doorway to the kitchen. His face was white and full of terror. “What are you doing here?”
“Where’s Beezley?”
When Wilson didn’t answer, I pu
shed him aside and ran into the kitchen. A small ball of fur sat curled in the corner of the room. It took my eyes a moment to identify it as the dog.
His chest huffed up and down, wheezing with every breath. When I tried to uncurl him, to see if there were wounds, he wasn’t strong enough to push me away. His coat was slippery with sweat.
“What happened?” I turned back to Wilson who stood like a useless lump near the sink. “What did he eat?”
“I don’t know. He just kept asking me for coffee but when I gave him some, he started to snort and snuffle. A few minutes later he was like this.”
“You gave him coffee?” I reached for my phone, my mind racing. The vet’s office was nearby but not close enough. Could they even help him?
I gathered Beezley into my arms. He folded up like a damp blanket.
“Can you drive us?”
Wilson shook his head. “That’s what I was doing when you got here. I’ve lost my keys.”
“Find them!”
“I’ve looked everywhere.”
“Do vets have ambulances? We need to get him help immediately.”
“I could call.” Wilson walked in slow motion to the phone.
My anxiety spiked into nervous energy. I couldn’t wait. I couldn’t just stand here with Beezley dying in my arms and do nothing.
Shouldering Wilson out of the way, I ran out the front door and sprinted to the footpath.
I needed help, and the vet was a ten-minute run.
I could do that. Get Beezley there in time. They might help him. They might just make him comfortable while he died.
Beezley gasped in another breath, his ribcage heaving.
What I needed was magic, but no witch would help me.
With my eyes closed, I tried to think of what to do. A siren song whispered to me, reaching into my heart as much as my ears.
The library. The spells in the library were singing out. Calling to me.
Operating on desperation and instinct, I turned in that direction instead of the vet’s office and ran.
Chapter Twenty
The call of the spells grew louder as I ran towards them. By the time I reached the small side road where the library was housed, a reddish glow filled the air.
They were trying to reach me as fervently as I was trying to reach them.
With the end in sight, I bore down harder and drew on the last of my reserves. Beezley’s struggles to breathe continued but grew fainter. His heart thumped three fluttering beats for every one from my own.
I raced to the front door of the library, but the melted lock had been replaced with a steel reinforced gate. With my panic rising, I sprinted around the side to the back, but couldn’t see a way in. The windows now had bars across them. Either Glynda had heeded my warning about the rogue policemen or she’d installed the barriers to keep me out.
My legs gave way, and I sank onto the grass, clutching Beezley close to my chest as the tears flowed. Once again, I’d made the wrong decision. This time, it would cost my best friend his life.
The spells doubled their efforts, still growing louder until the noise deafened me to anything else. I closed my eyes, picturing them in my mind. The pretty boxes with symbols and signs designed to keep them locked inside.
I imagined the symbols clouding over, dropping away like blown dust to leave the surfaces bare. The red glow—always a warning of imminent escape—now pulsed with such high concentration it was like a laser beam.
My vocal cords couldn’t sing a song back to them, but my heart could. I tipped my head back, opening my eyes and finding the library now suffused in a ruby glow. Even as I stared at the wall, my mind’s eye saw the spells’ containers crumbling into dust.
The song was everywhere. The glow was everything.
I placed Beezley in my lap and held my arms out, welcoming the black magic into my heart. If white magic wasn’t mine to command, I’d turn to the next best thing.
The spells rejoiced, tumbling and spinning through the air, bumping into each other in their haste to join me and my bad witch soul.
As the energy filled me, I felt their power. Ten times what I’d ever commanded as a white witch. The spells blossomed inside me, reverting to their native state. Instead of being bound to a single purpose, they announced I could pull them forth as energy, fitted to whichever task I needed.
Their magic filled me with awe.
I placed my hands—radiating with crimson light—on Beezley’s chest. I stared into his watery eyes and send a pulse of black energy rushing straight into his heart.
His eyes widened and his tongue lolled out.
You killed him!
Then he breathed. Not the raspy gasp and wheeze he’d been struggling with on the way here but the gentle inhalation of someone waking into a new day, full of life and hope.
“Beezley,” I called out, scooping him into a hug and overjoyed to feel him fighting against it. When I let him escape, he bounded away, head jerking left and right as though searching for an enemy.
“Where is he?”
“Where’s who?” I asked, struggling to my feet. The aches and pains I’d accumulated throughout the day vanished in an instant. Instead, the glow of good health filled me.
Or the glow of radiation. This is evil magic, remember?
But it didn’t feel evil. Not now it was flowing through my body and under the control of my will. It felt the same as white magic but more powerful. Unafraid where my previous powers would have trembled.
“Wilson. Where’s Wilson? I’ve got a bone to pick with him.”
“A bone,” I said, giggling. I danced a few steps, too full of joy to stand still. Then I gave a gasp of realisation. “I can understand you again!”
“If you can understand me, then answer my question. We need to get to him before he can harm anybody else.”
“Wilson wouldn’t harm a fly,” I said. “And gratitude wouldn’t go astray.”
“Thank you,” he said in a lower voice, bowing his head. “And I’ll thank you for the rest of your days if you’ll stop blundering about and help me. We need to stop that horrible man.”
My dance steps slowed as my mind pieced things together. I could now hear Beezley again, but Wilson shouldn’t be able to. But what had he said when I turned up to find the dog in his death throes?
He just kept asking me for coffee…
Beezley couldn’t ask Wilson anything because Wilson wasn’t a witch. He shouldn’t be able to hear a word, any more than I had earlier today.
“Coffee was on the list I told you to memorise,” I whispered, “when I was scared I’d feed you something poisonous to dogs by accident.”
“Well done. You’ve caught up. I didn’t ask Wilson for coffee, he’s a liar. He’s been lying the whole way along. We have to get back home and stop him.”
But I caught Beezley around the middle and held him off the ground to stop his headlong rush into the night. “Wilson’s not just a liar, he’s a warlock.”
“I don’t care about semantics. All I want is to confront the man who forced a pile ground up tablets down my throat, then left me to die on a kitchen floor.”
I hugged Beezley close, my arms not enough to erase the terror he must have felt. “If you go there now, he’ll kill you.”
“I’m not afraid of him. I’m not afraid of anybody.”
“You should be.” I set the dog on the ground again, more random pieces of the puzzle slotting together. “He might be behind the killings.”
“Wilson? Don’t be daft.” Beezley took a few steps backward, eyeing me warily. “He tried to hurt me, but I can’t imagine he’d be mixed up in the murders.”
“When we broke into the police station, he forced us to wait while he examined the contents in the evidence kit and wrote the whole list down.”
“So?”
“He didn’t need to know that, don’t you see? Wilson was stalling.” I smacked my palm against my forehead. “He tripped over nothing. At the time, I just thought
he was clumsy, but he was trying to get caught.”
“I’ve known Wilson for a long time, and I doubt he’s capable of subterfuge.”
“So he didn’t poison you?”
“I—” Beezley stared down at the ground in confusion. “If you’d asked me yesterday, I would’ve denied he was capable of that too.”
“I think we’ve underestimated him. And, until we know more about what else we’ve overlooked, we shouldn’t go charging back home to accuse him.”
“Then what do you suggest we do?”
I turned in a circle, letting the black magic guide me. When I stopped, I was facing the direction of the Riverhead cemetery.
Earlier today, I’d apologised for my failed use of necromancy. I shuddered and kept turning until I was all the way back around. “Why didn’t you want me to continue working with you? Was it really to do with the loss of my magic powers?”
“I never said that!” Beezley jumped up, placing his paws on my legs. “When the tunnel witch fed you those lies, I tried to warn you. I barked and barked but you couldn’t understand me.”
“Silla’s working for Wilson,” I said slowly, feeling out the idea. “No wonder she was surprised to see him there. She kept glancing at him for guidance.”
It seemed obvious now. I couldn’t believe what a fool I’d been.
“We must tell someone,” Beezley insisted. “If you truly believe Wilson is capable of these acts, we have to get the police involved.”
“Your friend Jonson, do you trust him?”
“I trust him not to do anything unless we have some solid evidence. Can you use your magic to force Wilson to confess?”
“No!” Although the black power surged through me at the thought, I pressed it back down. I couldn’t allow myself to be tempted into wrongdoing. The spells had been necessary to revive Beezley but if I began to use them for morally dubious purposes, then I’d truly become a bad witch.
“It wouldn’t matter even if I could, without knowing the extent of his power. We have to find another way.”
A meow sounded from under a bush near the side of the forest. I strolled over and pulled the low branches aside to reveal Barnaby crouching down, in hiding. “What are you doing here?” I asked, pulling him up and cradling his warm body close to my chest.
