Shiver Me Witches

by A. A. Albright

  ‘Is that who’s in the box? Feckless Finnegan?’

  She smirked at me, her teeth glinting in the orange light. ‘I’m driving you mad with curiosity, amn’t I?’

  ‘Yip. I’m burning with curiosity over here. You’re a really good villain, Biddy. Top marks, I’d say.’

  ‘You’re being sarcastic. You do that a lot, I’ve noticed. It’s just one of the many irritating things about you. Being sarcastic. Being nosey. Solving crimes that are none of your business instead of leaving the delightful Dylan to mess things up. But let’s get back to Feckless Finnegan. He liked women. A lot. Almost as much as he enjoyed being one of the nastiest pirates around. Billy didn’t know this about him. He saw the best in everyone, bless him. But I could spot a crooked character a mile off. So I made a deal with Feckless Finnegan. If he would sail off into the sunset and leave Billy behind with me, I’d trick three of the girls who worked with me to board his boat. And it worked. I convinced three idiots that they were going off to work with Billy and have a wonderful life on the seas, when I knew all too well they’d be stuck with Feckless Finnegan for what little remained of their lives.’

  It was time to gawp in horror and shock. ‘You betrayed three girls you worked with, all so you could have a man who didn’t even love you?’

  ‘I did,’ she said. ‘And I’d do it again.’ She kicked the box once more, and this time the muffled cries grew a whole lot louder. It was then that I realised: she had more than one person in there.

  ‘With Feckless Finnegan doing what I wanted, it was time for me to trick Billy,’ she continued. ‘I told him Maude had been attacked. That she was down in the cellar of the Pirate’s Head and she needed his help. It made me jealous as hell to see him rush on down to help her. But I cheered myself up with the thought that she wasn’t actually down there. And then I locked him in so that the boat could sail off without him. Only till my power came, mind you. Once it did, I let him out. And I gave him a thousand years to live, just like my father gave me. Of course, I couldn’t let him remember who he had been. What he had been. So I played one or two tricks with his mind, too, so he’d forget all about insufferable little Maude and believe he’d always loved me. Turned his parrot into a stuffed parrot, too, in case that stupid Chatty Patty gave the game away. You can’t trust birds, can you?’

  ‘I can honestly say I’ve never given that question any thought,’ I told her.

  Her lip curled and she looked me up and down. ‘Oh, I’d say you’re the sort of woman who gives everything too much thought. That’s your problem. You think too much. Life would be much easier if you just let go every once in a while. Especially at Halloween. I might only have my power once a year, but my rascal father couldn’t have chosen a better time. There’s extra magic in the air here at Halloween, anyway. Everyone’s already relaxed and happy. And all those silly humans sense it, and come to stay for the holiday. So the enchantment I put over the town is easy, really. Hardly any effort at all for a Púca like me.’

  ‘But what I don’t get is why. You already gave Feckless Finnegan three of your friends. Why do you do this every thirty-three years?’

  She grimaced. ‘Because Feckless Finnegan went back on his word. Not immediately, mind you. For years he kept the Lilting Lass far away from Riddler’s Edge, just like he promised. But then, thirty-three years after he left here, he got the boat blown up. Most pirate ships come back at Halloween, but some ships … they’re ghost ships all year round. And that’s what happened to the Lilting Lass. That ship knew it had unfinished business. So Finnegan sailed back into town on his ghost ship and started asking about Billy. It was this time of year, so I had my power and I showed it off a bit, tried to scare him away. But … how can you scare a dead man? He told me that if I wanted Billy to go on thinking he was my loving husband, that I had to give him another three women. And then another three. Every thirty-three years. Sacrificed on this pier.’

  ‘But … what good would that do him? Was it just to get his evil kicks?’

  ‘Funny you should ask. The women I kill? They don’t go off to a nice little afterlife. Their souls go to the Lilting Lass. They become ghosts, forever stuck on that horrible ship with Feckless Finnegan and his stolen crew. I might be all-powerful at Halloween, but the rest of the year I’m vulnerable. Finnegan might be feckless, but he knows that much. If I don’t sacrifice these women, he’ll come back outside of Halloween when I can’t lift a finger to stop him. There’s plenty of witches who can communicate with ghosts, and I hear sióga can talk to them too. Finnegan’ll find someone, and he’ll tell them about our bargain. I can’t let him do that. Because if he does, I’ll lose Billy.’

  I shook my head sadly. ‘But Billy was never yours to lose, Biddy. Don’t you get that? It’s time to end this. You’ve sacrificed too many women for the sake of a pirate who loves somebody else.’

  Somebody, I didn’t add, who was waiting for him even now. Somebody who had haunted the Vander Inn for hundreds of years, in the hopes of seeing him again.

  ‘You wouldn’t understand!’ she hissed. ‘You’ve obviously never been in love.’

  I sighed. I was in something right now with Dylan Quinn. I was hesitant to call it love. But even if I admitted the depth of my feelings to myself, I couldn’t imagine doing something like this for him. Especially if he didn’t love me back.

  ‘You’re right,’ I said. ‘I don’t understand. And I can’t think of very many people who would. But that’s because what you’re doing is so many kinds of wrong, Biddy. No one else is getting sacrificed here. It’s over.’

  She smirked and crept close to me, reaching out a hand to my locket. ‘Oh, someone else is getting sacrificed. And it’s you.’

  I backed away. ‘No way, Biddy. I’m not taking off my locket so you can sacrifice me.’

  ‘You’ll change your mind,’ she said. ‘Once you’ve seen what’s in the box.’

  21. What’s In the Box?

  ‘I probably shouldn’t have said what is in the box, when I really meant who,’ she said. She barely had to wiggle her fingers before the chain shook itself off and the lid flew open, revealing three people I sincerely wished were not inside: Grace, Pru and Greg.

  Pru’s boots were still off, with half of her toenails painted red. I had a sudden, pointless thought: it was so chilly tonight! Her poor naked feet must be uncomfortable. All three were gagged, but I could tell they were desperately trying to talk. There was rope binding them, too. I’d seen the magical golden bonds that the Wayfarers used to keep prisoners trapped and unable to use their powers, but this rope wasn’t gold. It was orange.

  The events of the night were making sense to me now. Biddy had been the (not so) human woman Arnold had seen by the couch. She’d come to the lighthouse to kidnap my friends. And because everyone was so busy being high on Biddy’s orange magic, no one had done a thing to stop her.

  ‘So what do you have to say now, Miss Smarty Pants? Still have no intention of taking off your locket? Even if it’s the only way to save your friends’ lives?’

  I felt my brow lift. ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Because you’re so good at keeping deals, aren’t you? That’s why Dave’s at home in his lamp now.’

  ‘There you go again. Sarcastic till the end. Listen, someone is going to be sacrificed tonight. It can either be you, or it can be one of your friends. Don’t think I haven’t noticed how close you’ve grown to those three idiots since you moved to town.’

  She went over to the box again, kicking it so that the lid closed over once more. ‘Listen, you have to look at this from my side. I have to get rid of you. Because of that locket, you’ve been immune to the enchantment over the town. Once Halloween is over and my magic is gone for the year, you’ll spill the beans. And your little friends won’t be as stupid anymore, so they’ll actually listen to you. My life with Billy will be over too soon. A few hundred years might sound like a lot, but it goes by in the blink of an eye. So take off your locket and give it to me, or one of your frie
nds gets to be the next ghost lady on board the Lilting Lass.’

  I grasped at the jewellery, doing my best to look like I was seriously considering this. She probably thought that once I handed over the locket I’d be affected by her magic and go easily to my death. But it was my fae side protecting me here, I knew it. Púca might trump witch, but fae trumped Púca.

  The only problem was, I was half fae, not full. And I’d only known about my power for a few months. Brent was an amazing teacher, but even he couldn’t tutor me in using that side of my power. Whereas Biddy … well, she’d had since the seventeen-eighties to get to grips with her gift.

  But I didn’t have a choice. I had to try. And if I failed, well … maybe she would spare my friends. They were still under the influence of her magic. She could find a way to convince them I was killed some other way, just as she had always done during her centuries’ long murder spree.

  ‘Fine,’ I said, pulling off my locket and tossing it her way. ‘You’re right. I love my friends. I’d do anything for them, including sacrificing myself.’ As I said it, I realised how true it was. Despite the fact that they’d been calling me a buzzkill for days, I loved the bones of each and every one of them. I would sacrifice myself for them if I had to. I just hoped that it wouldn’t come to that.

  ‘I thought you’d see it my way,’ said Biddy, throwing my locket into the sea. After the trials Dylan had been through to get it, it was just going to sink to the bottom of the ocean. How sad. ‘And y’know what? I think maybe your friends might like a front row seat for this.’

  She wiggled her fingers, opening the box once more. One by one, Pru, Grace and Greg floated out. Biddy dropped her hand, and all three of them dropped to the ground by the garda car. Either the new garda was the heaviest sleeper in the world, or Biddy had him under a spell.

  ‘Sit up and watch!’ she ordered. ‘Watch while Aisling Don’t Call Me Albright finally stops arguing for good.’

  I let her magic pull me to the mooring post. I had to think of a next move, and I had to do it before she strangled me. I was searching, deep down inside, for any sign of my sióga power. The problem was, I’d been working so darned hard to temper it lately. In order to, y’know, not explode Brent while he was teaching me. Now that I wanted it – nay, needed it – it was proving to be a little bit evasive.

  ‘Hang on a minute,’ I protested. ‘Making them watch is kind of sick, don’t you think? Anyone would think you’re not just some poor, hapless woman in love who’s only doing what she must to keep her man. Anyone would think that you are, in fact, a cold-blooded serial killer.’

  She lifted her shoulders in a so-what motion. ‘I suppose I can hardly argue with the evidence. It’s not like I’m you, who’d argue with the wind, now is it? Look, don’t worry about your friends. They will forget this ever happened. Although … bits and pieces might stick with them on a subconscious level. Kind of like when I made the mistake of blaming some of my early murders on the seafood platter.’ She kicked the mooring post in irritation as she picked up a length of rope. ‘All these years and memory spells later, and no one local will trust it. And it’s good. All fresh fish, caught in the morning by Billy. Food like that’d cost you a pretty penny anywhere else.’

  ‘I’m sure it would,’ I said as she tied my wrists to the post. ‘Pity I’ll never get to taste it.’

  ‘It’s a pity indeed. Although you’ll get to look at plenty of fish, at least, while you’re living out your death as a ghost on the Lilting Lass.’ She laughed. ‘I’d love to see Feckless Finnegan’s face when he meets your ghost. You’ll probably set up a workers’ union on board.’

  I shrugged. ‘Or stage a ghostly mutiny. One or the other.’

  Now, I realise that it sounds like I was wasting my last minutes on some sardonic back and forth with my murderer, but actually, I was still trying to summon my fae power. And I was having no more luck now than when I began. If it was still inside me, then it was hiding beneath a very large figurative boulder.

  ‘Ash!’

  I spun my head (as much as I could, seeing as Biddy had worked her way up to wrapping the rope around my neck). I saw that Greg had managed to spit out his gag, and was trying to tell me something.

  ‘The Pharuncoinic Conductor Spring!’ he cried.

  While Biddy narrowed her eyes, I tried not to let my delight show in mine. ‘What’s he going on about?’ she asked suspiciously.

  ‘No idea,’ I fibbed, choking slightly as I spoke. ‘Must be all your fabulous Púca magic making him delirious.’

  22. Does Everyone Have a Giddy Aunt?

  I knew exactly what Greg was trying to say, and I could have kissed him for reminding me. Well, maybe hugged him and bought him a packet of lollipops, anyway.

  When we’d been stuck in a prison cell a while back, we had told everyone that Greg had used some of his wonderful wizardry to do something or other with a Pharuncoinic Conductor Spring, and thus break us out. In reality, the Pharuncoinic Conductor Spring had been about as real as my love for lettuce. We did not escape that cell due to Greg’s wizardly powers working their magic with an imaginary component. We escaped from that cell because of my ear-bleedingly awful singing. I had used it to direct my power and break us out.

  So far, my sióga power had only come out at times of desperation. When I used it against my grandfather, I had screamed at him. But when I used it the first time in a controlled situation, with Brent, he had made me sing. It wasn’t because he wanted to hear my dulcet tones (they ain’t dulcet, and nobody with eardrums worth saving wants to hear them). It was part of a spell designed to recognise whether I had any suppressed power.

  Now that I thought about it, my strongest magic had always come out through my mouth. I’d been trying my best to find other ways to control it and use it, but maybe now would be a good time to forget about control, and to do what came naturally.

  And while normally it seemed unfair to subject anyone to my singing voice, this was not a normal situation. Biddy was a serial killer who was currently strangling me, so I opened my mouth and …

  … croaked?

  Criminy! While I’d been trying to summon my sióga powers, Biddy had gotten awfully far along with the whole strangling thing, and I don’t know if you’re aware, but being strangled is just a little bit constrictive on the old vocal chords. I opened my mouth again. This time, I hoarsely gargled.

  Wonderful. Inwardly, I cursed the fae grandmother who hadn’t bothered to turn up and teach me any better ways to unleash my power. Outwardly, I continued to croak, gargle, and make a lot of unpleasant noises. Sure, my actual singing wouldn’t have been much better, but it might have achieved a little bit more. Instead, the only thing that was happening was that Biddy was strangling me even faster.

  Over by the garda car, my friends were struggling in their bonds and Greg was screaming, ‘Don’t you dare kill her! You’re being a total downer right now, Biddy!’

  I was one of life’s triers, but just then I couldn’t bring even an ounce of power forward, no matter how hard, or how terribly, I croaked. Usually a cat or a broom – or a cat on a broom – would come to my rescue round about now. I didn’t expect the broom to reappear until after Halloween, given what had happened at Midsummer. But what about my little feline fuzz ball? Shouldn’t he be feeling the witch-familiar bond around now?

  Just as I was letting out what I feared might be my final desperate gargle, I heard Biddy scream and say, ‘Oh, my giddy aunt!’ before there was a loud splash in the water.

  Why it was that everyone seemed to have a giddy aunt was a mystery to me. But what was not a mystery was why Biddy screamed. She had screamed because my little ball of feline fuzz had turned up! And judging by the red scratches on her face, he had turned up on her head.

  ‘Not cool, Biddy!’ called Greg. ‘Bit of a buzzkill, don’t ya think – throwing a cat in the water when all he wanted to do was save his witch?’

  I twisted madly in my bonds. That splash I heard had bee
n Fuzz, being chucked into the sea by Biddy. If my familiar was in that water, then there was no way I was going to sit here and take my murder like a good girl. He had been my fuzzy little hero so many times now. It was about time I got my act together and rescued him.

  I opened my mouth again, this time letting out the longest, most horrible croaking, gargling note of all. It wasn’t going well, I’ll admit. Despite my can-do attitude, I was only making Biddy crinkle her forehead in confusion.

  ‘Are you trying to sing, Aisling? Because I can think of better ways for you – and all of us – to spend your final seconds. Everyone in town knows you’re a terrible singer.’

  I opened my mouth wider, and this time I didn’t just croak and gargle. This time, I very nearly warbled. In fact, I managed to get my mouth open just wide enough for it to hurt like heck when something large and metallic came to smack me in the jaw.

  I was just about to spit the offending item out when I realised what it was: my Impervium locket, somehow launched from the deeps. And I soon saw who launched it – Dave was valiantly dragging himself up onto the pier, dripping wet, with seaweed covering most of his head, and a cat clutching with all its might (and all its nails) to his back.

  With the locket in my mouth, that strangling feeling was becoming awfully slack. And behind my back, the rope around my wrists had come undone. Impervium might not make much of a difference when it came to the magic in the air, but it was doing a pretty good job of preventing my murder.

  ‘What the … ?’ said Biddy in confusion. ‘Why won’t the rope strangle you? It keeps falling out of my hands and going all loose. Oh.’