Shiver Me Witches

by A. A. Albright

  ‘They ran upstairs,’ he told me. ‘All three of them. And I didn’t see any human woman over there. Arnold must have been seeing things.’

  I gave him an uncertain nod. ‘Maybe.’ I stepped around my grandfather. ‘Either way, we’ve got to get going.’

  19. Before I Cackle You to Death

  As we neared the pier, I saw that the new garda was once again enjoying some stakeout duty. I wasn’t sure how much he was actually going to see, considering he was fast asleep again, but the thought was what counted.

  Hilda was standing a few feet away from the mooring post, and she was screaming, ‘You’re a witch!’ at someone else. That someone else seemed to be a woman dressed in a tavern-wench uniform, kneeling on the ground with her hands clutching tight to her dyed red hair.

  It was Biddy. But why was she kneeling?

  ‘This whole town needs to be turned on its head,’ Hilda was saying. ‘And I’m just the woman to do it, mark my words. All of you heathens won’t know what’s hit them when I’m done.’

  ‘Wh-what are you going to do?’ asked Biddy, nervously. ‘Y-you’re not planning on shooting me with that rifle, are you? Is that why you organised this Save Our Souls meeting?’

  Hilda’s hands went to her head, and she looked around in confusion. There was a rifle, propped against the mooring post. How had I not noticed that? ‘Rifle? Oh, right. There’s a rifle over there. Well … maybe I will shoot you with it. Why exactly did you come to this meeting, if not to be saved? You’re a witch, aren’t you?’

  Biddy shook her head. ‘I assure you, Hilda, I amn’t a witch.’

  ‘Yes you are! Margaret, too. Even stupid Norma with her million stupid cats. You’re all witches, and that’s why you love Halloween so much. Well I’m sick of it. I’m sick of living in a town surrounded by witches. I have to do something about it. I have to!’

  Biddy shivered nervously. ‘Please, Hilda. Don’t shoot me. I beg of you. I only came here to see if you were all right because you seemed a bit agitated. Now I see that it’s a little more than I can deal with. So I’ll just leave you to your thing, and I’ll go on home and put my feet up by the fire with Bod. Okay?’

  ‘Aw. Biddy and Bod. Such a lovely couple. Such mainstays of Riddler’s Edge, aren’t you? Always here, year after year, at that tatty little tavern of yours, celebrating Halloween like it’s the best holiday in the world. Well it’s not. It’s the worst!’ She stared back at the rifle, her whole body visibly shaking. And why were those orange specks all around her looking ever so slightly red?

  ‘Come on,’ said Dave, grabbing my hand. ‘Hilda could pick up that gun any second now. She must be planning on shooting Biddy. We’d better go and save her.’

  I pulled my hand from his. While I agreed with the whole sentiment of saving lives, I wasn’t so sure that running at a maniac with a rifle was the way to go. Right now, the rifle was at least five feet behind Hilda. She didn’t seem all that enthusiastic about picking it up. If anything, she looked terrified of the weapon.

  This whole situation felt off. And as for the orange magic? It was at its strongest yet. The air was thick with it, and clearly Hilda was a bit thick with it, too. The best thing I could do right now was stop her picking the weapon up in the first place. Give her a bit of a shock, maybe, and she’d return to her normal brand of nastiness instead of this murderous level of nastiness she was displaying right now.

  ‘You’ve got no magic, Dave,’ I hissed. ‘And I’m fairly unpredictable in that area. We can’t just run onto the pier.’

  He looked desperately from me to Biddy. ‘But … we have to. She needs our help. Now. Maybe you could throw the Impervium locket over her. I saw it save you from a bottle being thrown in your face. It’s bound to work against a bullet.’

  ‘Well, I have a pretty crap throw, so I’m gonna say no to that.’ I looked around. ‘But there’s something I can do. I’ll throw Hilda off guard, you get Biddy out of the way and grab the rifle.’

  He shook his head. ‘I don’t like the sound of that. You should just try to throw the Impervium locket. I mean, what can you possibly do to throw Hilda off guard?’

  ‘Never you mind,’ I said. ‘Just be ready to run.’

  I moved away from Dave, nearing the garda car. I was just behind it when Hilda noticed Dave.

  ‘Another one for the Save Our Souls meeting. Welcome, my dear. Now, I know you aren’t a witch. But you’re something. I can feel it when I look at you. Something’s not right.’

  That might have something to do with the fact that Dave’s lower legs, although intact with feet and all, were a little on the floaty and gliding side. Humans shouldn’t be able to see that, but Hilda’s witch hunting abilities were obviously on top form tonight.

  As soon as Dave arrived, Biddy looked up at him. Not just up at him, but behind him, too. I ducked down behind the car. Once again, I couldn’t help but feel that something was incredibly off with this situation. And by off, I mean even more off than a witch-hating Hilda under the effect of the weird orange magic. The scene before me was giving me a severe case of the heebie-jeebies.

  But heebie-jeebies aside, Hilda could go for that rifle at any second, so I took in a deep breath, and concentrated on the garda car. Sure, I hadn’t animated anything larger than a plastic skeleton, but there was a first time for everything. And I’d controlled that creepy toy hearse that Brent brought to our last lesson. It couldn’t be much harder. Could it?

  I stared at the car, imagining it was my friendly toy. Imagining it was about to do anything I asked, if only to entertain me. The light came on. The engine purred to life. I concentrated some more, and the car began to drive along the old pier, creeping towards Biddy, Hilda and Dave.

  Hilda’s eyes widened. ‘The cops! It’s that new garda. But … why is he asleep behind the wheel? How …?’

  Biddy looked at the car, then turned her gaze on me. Gulp. That thing that felt a little off-kilter? I had the sinking feeling that I’d just figured it out. Well, some of it out, anyway.

  As the car sped up, Hilda was still frozen on the spot, while Dave and Biddy stepped neatly out of the way.

  I glared at the genie. He made no attempt to reach for the rifle. So much for rushing to save the day.

  I called out ‘Neamhbheo!’ and the car instantly stopped.

  Hilda gawked at me. ‘You’re … you’re a …’

  ‘Yes, Hilda. I’m a witch. And now you’d better run on home before I cackle you to death.’

  20. The Gifts My Father Gave

  As Hilda sped away, Biddy turned to Dave. ‘She’s still wearing the locket. Why is she still wearing the locket, Dave? I told you to get it off her.’

  Dave gave me a guilty glance before he said, ‘She’s pretty attached to the thing. But I got her here. You’ll keep your promise, right? You won’t hurt her.’

  Biddy gave him a sad smile. ‘Oh, you poor deluded genie. You actually betrayed someone who’s been nothing but a friend to you on the promise of a Púca? Didn’t your mother teach you better than that?’

  Remember how I said I was figuring things out? Well, I had not figured that part out. ‘A Púca?’ I looked at her in honest confusion. ‘Like … a shapeshifting trickster who comes from the sióga realm?’

  A large, comfy-looking brown armchair appeared from thin air, and she plopped into it with a satisfied sigh. The rifle, I noticed, had vanished completely. It had probably only been there to set me up all along. In its place was a long, black metallic box, encircled with a thick chain – a chain that was surrounded by an orange glow, throwing sparks up into the air. Well, that wasn’t remotely disconcerting.

  ‘What’s in the box, Biddy?’

  She waved a hand dismissively. ‘In a minute. You asked me if I was a shapeshifter. Well, technically I’m only half Púca. I can’t shapeshift. Although even if I could I wouldn’t. Some of my people pull Wayfarer carriages around, pretending to be horses for goodness sake! And did you know some of us turn into goats? Ugh! N
o thank you.’

  She took a few moments to shiver away her distaste, and then she got right back to her speech. ‘But my father wasn’t completely useless. Mostly, I’ll grant you, but not completely. After he knocked my mother up and before he ran off to the sióga realm, never to be seen again, he gave me a couple of gifts. A thousand years to live, which really doesn’t feel long enough if I’m honest. I’ve already lived a quarter of it. Why couldn’t he have made me one hundred percent immortal? Would that have been so hard? But the second gift … now that one has proved to be really useful.’ She sat forward and grinned. ‘From my eighteenth birthday onwards, every single Halloween, he gave me a whole week where I have full use of my Púca magic.’

  Well, criminy anyway! The last few days were beginning to make complete sense. Púca magic trumped witch magic by a million miles. No wonder she’d been able to turn the whole town into a gaggle of unobservant morons.

  I could see it now, see that it wasn’t just settling down on Biddy the way it had been doing to everyone else I loved. It was coming out of her. And the more I looked, the more I saw just how different this was to witch magic. I’d seen witch magic up close and personal before – not just that lovely golden shimmer, but the teeny tiny particles that made up the magic itself. They’d been pretty, filled with runic-like symbols and structured like cells in a beehive. But this magic? Biddy’s magic was shifting, and hard to follow. The cells were breaking and rearranging all around me. I could barely focus before the shape of the cells, and the symbols within, transformed before my eyes.

  Note to future self: orange magic is Púca magic. Second note to future self: Púca magic is not going to be easy to fight.

  ‘See, that’s the trouble with witches,’ Biddy went on. ‘They outright refuse to acknowledge anyone who isn’t a part of the enclaves they created. They continue to pretend that they got rid of the fae and anyone else who didn’t agree with them. But that’s not what happened. The faeries could have burned every witch-run enclave to the ground. But they chose the higher road. They just left you all to rot in your own superiority, and shut off their own enclaves to the riff raff. And you, Aisling I Refuse to Call Myself Albright! Your grandfather is one of the most superior-acting witches of all. No doubt you’re a chip off the old block.’

  I was about to tell her to hang on a minute – because I was nothing like my grandfather. And I certainly wasn’t rotting in my own or anyone else’s superiority. Most witches weren’t. And I wasn’t even fully witch, anyway. I was a little bit witchy and a little bit fae.

  But Biddy didn’t seem to know about that. She thought it was my locket protecting me from her magic. I cast a glance at Dave. He was looking extremely guilty – as he should – but he was also rounding his eyes in a warning manner, and ever so slightly shaking his head. I suppressed a grateful smile. Biddy really didn’t know I was half fae. Dave had kept that much to himself, at least.

  ‘So why are we here, Biddy? What is it you want with me?’

  She shrugged. ‘I didn’t particularly want you, to be honest. Not to begin with, anyway. I always planned on Hilda being victim number three this time around. She’s such an awful woman. Do you know she comes from a line of witch hunters? She doesn’t know it herself, of course. But then, she’s just like the rest of her kind. So blinded by hatred that she can’t see what’s standing in front of her. When you think about it, I was doing you all a favour. Eventually she was bound to point fingers at an actual witch. Not just some old ladies who like cats and enjoy dressing up for Halloween.’

  She stood up from the armchair. ‘But then this time around came. And it was different. Because while everyone else in this town was ignoring the murders and having fun, you and this genie were running around asking inconvenient questions. Now, the genie I could understand. They have a natural immunity to a lot of magic. But you?’ She narrowed her eyes. ‘You I just couldn’t figure out. You’re just a plain old witch from what I can tell. And yet you were completely immune to the spell I put over the town. And then I spied it. Your locket. And I decided – I’ll just kill two birds with one stone. I’ll get the genie to convince you to take off your locket. Then he’ll bring you here, and I’ll kill you both.’

  Dave rounded on her. ‘You said she’d be safe! You said you were going to kill Hilda, and me and Ash would be safe. You said you’d put my lamp back together and …’

  ‘Aw, diddums. I told you a few minutes ago – never trust a Púca . Sure, Púca magic is a lot better than witch magic. But I can’t put your lamp back together. Even if I could, I wouldn’t. Now, don’t look so sad.’ She reached out and stroked his cheek. ‘I might be going to kill you, but I’m not going to sacrifice you to Feckless Finnegan. He only wants women. Not genies.’

  ‘So what are you going to do to me?’ he asked, recoiling from her touch.

  ‘Tell me,’ she said with a smirk, ‘is it true that genies are terrible swimmers?’

  Dave’s eyes widened with fear, and she pushed him hard. As he splashed into the water below, I felt a rush of panic for him. Sure, he’d double-crossed me, but I didn’t want him to drown. Not before I got to scream at him and send him to Witchfield, anyway. I looked around, and saw the ring-shaped lifebuoy attached to the pier.

  ‘Don’t even think of throwing that thing down for him,’ said Biddy.

  I tried to step forward, but felt my body fly back against the garda car. I sat up groggily, feeling like … well, like I’d been hurled through the air and smacked against a car. As Biddy shot me a warning glance, I knew she could easily hurl me again – probably much harder, this time. There was no way I was getting near that lifebuoy. But maybe I didn’t need to.

  I stared at the ring, and willed it to life. In less than a second, it leapt down and splashed into the water.

  ‘I’ve sent the lifebuoy down!’ I cried. ‘Catch it, Dave.’

  Biddy glared at me. ‘I knew you were an inanimage when I saw your little trick with the car. Not to worry. I’ll deal with him after I’ve dealt with you. For the moment, all I need you to do is take that Impervium locket off so I can kill you.’ She opened her mouth in a Machiavellian smile (she really had the evil thing down) and I noticed her teeth looked a little on the sharp side. They hadn’t been sharp before, had they? As a woman who stuck her nose into people’s business on a regular basis, I would have noticed a thing like that.

  ‘Why would I take off the only thing that’s protecting me from all this Púca magic?’ Okay, so it wasn’t the locket protecting me, but I wasn’t about to admit that. ‘And why are your teeth suddenly sharp and pointy?’

  ‘What can I say? I get a little more Púca this time of year. But you are going to take your locket off.’

  ‘Really?’ I clutched it in my hands. ‘Before you’ve even told me what this is all about? That hardly seems fair. I mean, I’d hate to die before knowing the full story of why you’re acting like a murderous maniac. Does Halloween bring out the worst in you? Or does it have something to do with your husband, Bod? Or should I call him by his full name, instead of his initials? Because he’s not Bod, is he? He’s Billy O’Dwyer.’

  She sank back into her armchair with a sigh. ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘He is Billy O’Dwyer. And this has everything to do with him.’

  ≈

  ‘I fell in love with Billy O’Dwyer in the late seventeen eighties,’ Biddy began. ‘I’d yet to come into my Púca power, so I was working in the Fisherman’s Friend as a general dogsbody. The place was called the Pirate’s Head back then, and it was filled up each and every day with a rowdier bunch than you’ve ever seen. I was just in the middle of fighting off some particularly horrible pirates, when the crew of the Lilting Lass walked in. Billy was the captain, and he broke things up straight away. Gave me some money and told me to get myself a better job. Anywhere but there.’ A faraway smile formed on her face. ‘I was smitten, and I hoped he felt the same. But it wasn’t long before I realised that he had treated me the same as he would
any other girl. He was a hero, you see. A real life hero. He saved people every day and thought nothing of it. So I just thought – wouldn’t life be wonderful if that perfect man was mine?’

  ‘But he wasn’t. He belonged to someone else. Someone from another nearby establishment.’

  She gasped. ‘How did you know?’

  ‘I didn’t,’ I lied, inwardly chiding myself for my outburst. ‘You just seem like the sort who’d steal another girl’s guy.’

  ‘Well, yes. He did belong to a girl who worked nearby, as it happened. A girl called Maude, who worked in Gwennie’s – the Vander Inn, these days. Once he was sure I was safe, he left his lads at the Pirate’s Head and headed on to see her. I followed them, and hid outside the parlour window so I could hear every romantic word they spoke. About how he was going to sail one last time, and then they’d be married. About how they were going to live happily ever after.’

  She let out a little grunt. ‘It should have been me! Me, not her! I couldn’t let them be happy together, could I? Not when it could be Billy and me.’

  I looked away from her, focusing on the long, black metallic box instead. It was beginning to shake a bit, the chain rattling. And was it just me, or could I hear muffled cries from within?

  ‘So what did you do?’ I asked, looking back at Biddy. ‘And also … you still haven’t told me what’s in the box.’

  ‘We’ll get to that. It’ll be a real surprise when I reveal it. Now … where was I again? Oh, that’s right. I couldn’t let Maude and Billy be happy together. I mean, I loved him. I wanted him to be mine. I was going to be eighteen in a few days, but I was completely powerless until then. Billy would be gone again before I had the means to use my Púca magic, so I had to think fast.’

  She left her chair and walked towards the box, then kicked and grinned. ‘That’s the funny thing about heroes,’ she said. ‘Some people love them, but a whole lot of people hate them. And one member of Billy’s crew couldn’t stand him. Feckless Finnegan, his quartermaster. Oh, he pretended to be all pally pally with his captain. But I saw how he sneered every time Billy’s back was turned. I knew that if anyone was going to help me, it was him.’