I stepped up and kissed him on his cheek again.
‘What’s with all the kisses today?’
I shrugged. ‘You’re just … you’re being a really good friend at the moment.’
He laughed. ‘Yeah, because I’m having fun. You’re not trying to talk about murders that are already solved right now, are you? Listen, Felim Moon is a god among wizards, and I want to talk to him just as much as you do. But I dunno how we’ll manage it. Like I told you, he’s a recluse. Unless you think you might be up for sneaking around here after dark when he’s tending the turnip crop?’
‘Definitely.’ I nodded in Mark’s direction. ‘Look, he’s finally finished his speech. Wanna see if we can make it through the maze quicker than the humans?’
‘You’re on.’
≈
We did not make it through quicker than the humans. So much for supernatural superiority, eh? No matter how many sneaky methods we used, we kept on winding up back at the centre of the maze, where the largest turnip of all was displayed. Someone had propped a pointed purple hat on top of this one, and given it billowing robes.
When we arrived at the turnip for the fifth time, it burped.
‘Excuse me?’ said Greg, spinning to stare at the turnip.
‘Oh no,’ said the turnip. ‘It was me who burped. Not that a burp needs excusing, anyway. Now, I’m ever so sorry for keeping you in here, but you see I needed to make sure the humans were gone before we spoke.’
‘Of course you did,’ I said. ‘And what do you want to speak with us about?’
The turnip burped again, and then said, ‘Accept my grandson’s invitation, will you? Both of you ought to go along, in fact.’
‘Go along where?’
‘He’ll ask you in a moment,’ the turnip went on. ‘Just say yes. Now, take three rights, one left, then go straight ahead to the exit.’
Greg seemed about to ask a follow-up, but the candles burned out, and the turnip looked a little less lifelike than before.
≈
The turnip’s directions were spot on (to be expected, really – they’re very reliable vegetables), and in under a minute Greg and I found ourselves at the exit to the maze. As soon as we walked out, I felt a warm hand at the small of my back. I jumped and spun around to find Mark gazing at me.
‘Aisling,’ he said in a breathy voice. I was worried you might have gotten lost.’
‘We weren’t lost,’ said Greg. ‘We were just enjoying looking at all of those wonderful turnips.’
‘Mm hm. It was a truly amazing maze,’ I added. ‘You and your granddad have really carved out a niche for yourselves.’
Considering I’d just told the most terrible joke in the world, Mark seemed to be laughing an awful lot. ‘You’re as funny as you are pretty,’ he said. ‘Did you enjoy my talk on carving methods?’
I smiled at him. ‘Your talk was the highlight of our day, wasn’t it Greg?’
Greg grunted something that sounded agreeable, but Mark wasn’t really waiting for a response. Instead, he was pulling something out of his back pocket. Was this the invitation the turnip had told us about? He lifted the piece of paper to his eyeline, and began to read. ‘Would you do me the honour of joining me for a meal at the farmhouse?’
Aw, bless! He’d written it down and everything. Even though it was sweet – and even though a random turnip had advised me to accept Mark’s offer – I hesitated. Sure, I wanted to meet Felim, but letting his grandson think we were on some sort of date hardly seemed fair.
Greg nudged me and said, ‘We’d love to go for lunch. Wouldn’t we, Ash?’
Mark’s face fell. ‘Oh. Well I was really just inviting–’
I stepped forward. ‘How nice of you. It’s a really friendly offer. Greg and I would love to come.’
‘Oh,’ said Mark again. ‘Well that’s … I mean, I suppose you can come too, Greg. If you really want to be a fourth wheel, I mean.’
Greg frowned. ‘Isn’t a fourth wheel a good thing?’
‘You’d think, wouldn’t you?’ said Mark. ‘Only mine always seem to get buckled. Anyway, if you insist on coming with Aisling and me, I’ll just let you know – it’s a long tractor ride to the farmhouse, and it’s a bit of a squeeze.’
Greg smiled amiably. ‘That’s fine. I like squeezing.’
14. Love Among the Turnips
The house was large and old, but well kept up. When Mark led us to the kitchen, an old man was at the hob, stirring a pot and burping.
‘Ah, so you came, Miss Smith,’ he said with yet another burp. ‘I had a feeling you would.’ He glanced at his grandson. ‘Mark, would you go and fetch a bottle of turnip wine from the cellar? In fact, why don’t you get the one I brewed in nineteen eighty-seven.’ He winked at me. ‘That was a good year.’
‘But isn’t that in the bottom cellar?’ Mark questioned. ‘It’ll take me ages, Granddad.’
His grandfather came over and patted him on the shoulder. ‘But won’t it be worth it, to serve my best-ever wine to your friends?’
Mark skipped off, and the old man faced us. ‘Mark knows nothing about magic,’ he said. ‘He likes sensible things – tractors and turnips – and I’d like to keep it that way. But I know exactly what the two of you are, and I reckon you know what I am too. After all, not many humans can send their consciousness into a turnip, now can they?’
‘None that I’ve met so far,’ I said with a smile as he returned to stirring his stew.
‘So what did you want to talk to us about?’ asked Greg.
‘Well, first of all, I wanted to tell you that I’m a fan of your work,’ he said to Greg.
Greg’s eyes widened. ‘You’re a fan of my work?’
‘Oh yes. I know all about that flying van you’ve invented. And all about the aura matching and other such things.’ He clapped Greg on the back. ‘Keep this up, and you might be the reclusive wizard everyone wants to see in a few years’ time.’
While Greg basked in happiness, Felim met my eyes, a sad look in his own. ‘And I wanted to talk to you about your parents, Aisling. After all, they first met in this very kitchen.’ He nodded towards a window that overlooked the fields. ‘And they shared their first kiss right out there, among the turnips.’
Mark hadn’t been wrong when he said that it would take him a while to find the turnip wine. We had plenty of time to talk in his absence. Although for much of that time, I was a little bit too shocked to process what I was hearing.
‘Your father was Brian the Brave, but I imagine you know that by now,’ said Felim. ‘He once rescued me from an attack. You’d be surprised what a gang of young witches can do to an old man. And mark my words, I was old then. And I was expecting to die, too. Those children had burned me badly, and their underdeveloped magic made it all the harder for the healer to fix. I was exhausted by it all. Tired, fed up, and ready to say goodbye. But then … then my rescuer came to pay me a visit.’
≈
When Brian came to Felim’s rescue that night, the wizard wasn’t surprised. Word was spreading about the fae man and his knack of being in the right place at the right time. And once Brian had rescued Felim, he didn’t leave things there. He visited the wizard day after day, using magic and ointments that healed the unhealable – and gave the old wizard a bit of a spring in his step, too.
But nothing gave him a spring in his step as much as that day – the day when Abby Albright walked into his kitchen.
‘She’d come to ask me about the attack,’ said Felim. ‘But she barely had the words out of her mouth when she saw him. Your father. It was a look I knew. A look I imagine I had on my own face, the day I met Mark’s grandmother – may she rest in peace.’
‘I knew they met here,’ I said, blinking back tears. ‘I found an old letter. Something she wrote to her father. But … Felim, no one else seems to remember Brian being here. It’s in some Tall Tales, sure – but actual people. It’s like their memories of him have been wiped.’
Felim reach
ed across and grasped my hands in his. ‘That’s because they have. By your grandfather. But let me tell the rest of the story.’
The wizard gave me a sad smile. ‘I always knew that Abby wouldn’t be able to get his story past her father, but I had hope for her. She had a real need to get to the truth – and to tell the truth – about everything. She knew the world wasn’t perfect, but she wanted it to be better. And Brian the Brave felt exactly the same. But I could see it in Abby’s eyes – the fear she felt about her father. She was terrified of what he would do if he found out she had befriended Brian. And so for a very long time, from March in the year of the Apple, right up to December in the year of the Singer, this became their meeting place.’
He looked fondly around the kitchen. ‘To me, this farm has always had a little extra magic. But maybe I say that because I had so many happy years here with my wife. Brian the Brave though, he gave it a little something extra. That’s why our turnips grow so large, even now. This was a place where they could be safe to get to know each other, before Abby mustered up the courage to face her father. They liked to wander through the fields, and help me tend the turnips. They also liked to sneak off together whenever they could.’
He patted his nose. ‘And then one day in the winter of the Year of the Singer, they came to me, hand in hand. They told me Abby was with child. They would be leaving for the sióga realm, and they invited me to go along to their wedding the next day.’ He shuddered. ‘Abby said she had one or two things she needed to get off her chest first. She wanted to tell her father a few things, and she wanted to speak to her best friend, Grace.’
He took in a breath before continuing. ‘So I waited. And I waited. But Abby never came back to take me to that wedding, and neither did Brian. I knew something was wrong. Everyone was saying Abby had run away. That much I could believe. But she was my friend, and so was Brian. They would have come back to take me to that wedding. I know they would.’ His hands tightened around mine. ‘People in town stopped talking about Brian. I brought him up to Biddy, because I knew he had a room at the Fisherman’s Friend, but she’d forgotten he existed.’
He looked frightened at whatever memories he was sifting through. ‘And then … then Arnold Albright turned up here, in my kitchen. And I just knew, Aisling – I knew he was going to make me forget, too.’
He pulled away from me, sitting back and shaking.
‘So then how is it that you remember?’ Greg asked.
‘How indeed,’ said Felim. ‘And the answer is that I simply don’t know. I played along with Arnold. I acted as though I forgot all about Brian, from that day until this. But I do have a couple of theories. When your father healed me, Aisling, I was at death’s door. Whatever magic he used to bring me back from the brink, maybe that’s what protected me from Arnold’s memory spell. It certainly clung to me, anyway. You might think me an old man, but believe me – I haven’t aged a day since then. Not physically. Not mentally. My other guess would be that it was the magic Brian put on this farm.’
I had no idea which it could have been. All I knew was that I was now staring at the only man in town who didn’t forget my father.
I was about to ask more when Mark reappeared with a bottle of murky-looking liquid. ‘I found the turnip wine,’ he said, fetching glasses from the dresser. ‘I’ll pour a nice large measure for us all.’
‘Lovely,’ said Greg, clearly struggling to muster up any real enthusiasm. ‘I can’t wait to try some.’
≈
I didn’t have anything to compare it to, so I can honestly say that it was the nicest turnip wine I’ve ever tasted. I can also say with honesty that it was the most horrible turnip wine I’ve ever tasted. Either way, I doubted I’d be drinking it again. The stew was quite nice, though. As was the turnip pie we had for afters. As we finished off, I decided that now might be a good time to bring up the murders. If Felim remembered my father when no one else did, then maybe he remembered some similar murders happening in the past.
I quickly detailed what had happened at Pirates’ Pier. As I came to a close, Felim shook his head dazedly, staring down at his half-eaten pie. ‘A tragedy, so it is. I can’t believe it. It seems like it might be happening all over again.’
Greg and Mark kept their attention on their turnip pie, while I gawked at Felim, my little heart beating like wild. This had to be my breakthrough. It just had to be. ‘Do you remember the last murders, Felim?’ I asked.
‘Hm?’ The dazed expression cleared. ‘What murders are you talking about, Aisling?’ He smiled faintly, topped up his wine, and then let out a very long and very loud burp.
15. Fuzz’s Giddy Aunt
I was itching with frustration by the time we left Moonstone Farm. Greg, on the other hand, was buzzing with excitement.
The rest of the tour members had left the farm long before us, and Mark gave us a lift back into town in his tractor. He also asked me if I’d like to have a drink with him, but I told him I had work to do. It wasn’t a lie, either. With everyone else in town so ridiculously blasé, I was going to have to work harder than I’d ever worked before to find out what was going on.
It would require nosiness and tenacity. I’d have to be stubborn, determined, bull-headed … basically, I’d have to be myself.
‘Can you believe this?’ Greg said as we jumped down onto the path outside the Daily Riddler and waved goodbye to Mark. ‘We now know more about your dad than we’ve ever known before. I say we go back to my place and get in touch with the sióga queen.’
‘And by get in touch you mean we can play War of the Enclaves and see if she bothers to turn up and speak to us, right?’
‘You don’t sound happy. Why don’t you sound happy? After all we’ve just found out, I thought you’d be over the moon.’
I pinched the bridge of my nose. ‘What Felim told us is amazing. But it really just confirms what the letter said. I don’t think my parents would have left Felim hanging, though. So if they never turned up in the sióga realm like they were supposed to, then I think it’s a safe bet that we know the exact year and month that they went missing.’
‘Yeah. So let’s go tell the sióga queen and ask her if they did ever turn up there to get married. She’s bound to show up in the game for this.’
I gave him a quick hug. ‘Tomorrow, okay. But right now, I need to concentrate on these murders.’
Greg pulled away from me, then kicked a rock and stuffed his hands into his pockets. ‘Whatever. Go waste your time trying to figure out something that’s already been figured out.’
As he trudged off down the street, I looked helplessly after him. I wished that I could convince myself that I was blowing him off just to solve the murders, but if I was completely honest with myself, then I had to admit that there was a little bit of sulkiness involved.
The sióga queen had come to me via Greg’s favourite online game, War of the Enclaves. She’d become a character there, all so she could give me the task of finding Brian the Brave. Greg thought it was the coolest thing ever. But then, she wasn’t his long-lost granny, was she? Because if Brian was my dad, and she was his mother, then there was simply no getting away from the fact that that made her my grandmother.
What was it with all of these disappointing grandparents floating around? Arnold with his memory spells, and the fae queen with her … with her … with her un-grannylike behaviour.
I mean, couldn’t she have invited me over for a plate of biscuits or a glass of cordial or … I don’t know. I’d never had a grandmother before, but I was pretty sure that they were supposed to be sweet ladies who liked to bake and to coddle their grandchildren (that’s how I planned on seeing out my senior years, anyway). They weren’t supposed to set you the riddle of finding your long-lost father, were they? Not without offering some help, anyway.
If someone with the power of the sióga queen hadn’t been able to track him down, then I was confused as to how in criminy’s sake I was supposed to manage it. And much as I wanted to
know the truth, Cora and Evelyn hadn’t gone missing thirty years ago like my parents had. They had been killed over the last two nights, in the sleepy, semi-supernatural town of Riddler’s Edge. And I needed to find out who had killed them, and why.
≈
I had hoped to talk to Dave the genie, but I couldn’t see him anywhere. What I could see were a whole lot of drunken guests playing poker and having food fights. Maybe Dave was hiding in his room. If he was, I couldn’t say I blamed him. I ran upstairs, locked my door, and opened up my laptop.
It was time for my nosiness to begin. I’d made the right decision to concentrate on the murders that were solved but not really solved. Hadn’t I? Yes. Yes, I definitely had. The sióga were supposed to be all-knowing and all-powerful, after all. And yet the Queen had left me high and dry to figure out my father’s disappearance all by myself. I didn’t want to have to beg a woman like that for help. If she wanted to help, she knew exactly where to find me.
‘You’ve got your stubborn face on,’ said Fuzz. ‘Well, your more stubborn than usual face, anyway. What’s the matter?’
‘Nothing,’ I said, sticking the flash drive into my computer and opening up the files. ‘I’m just trying to focus on these murders. I need to push everything else from my mind. And I’m not having even the slightest bit of trouble doing that.’
‘No?’ Technically, the cat didn’t have eyebrows. But he did have some extra-long whiskers above his eyes, and I’m telling you, they arched. ‘It certainly looks like you’re suffering some internal crisis of the soul. What’s on the flash drive?’
‘Adeline and Arthur gave it to me,’ I said. ‘Well … they gave it to us. To the Daily Riddler. Grace might have wanted to hog it for herself, but I freed it.’
‘Stole it, you mean?’ Those extra-long whiskers lifted once again.
Shiver Me Witches Page 10
