Witch in Charm's Way

by R K Dreaming

  She rose in a stately manner from her chair. She looked like she was going to lead us somewhere, but Allegra refused to move.

  “Have you told anyone?” she demanded.

  Primrose Brimstone looked at her sharply again. “You are impertinent, my dear. In time I’m sure you’ll learn to address your elders more politely.”

  “She’s anxious on my behalf,” I said quickly. I didn’t want Primrose to take a dislike to Allegra.

  “Of course she is,” said Primrose. “We Brimstones have ever been loyal to our families. I can commend her for it.”

  “Oh good,” I said.

  “And as a Brimstone, I am loyal to my family. That includes the two of you,” she said. “And we seven ghosts of this tower take our duty to guard the rightful owner of this castle seriously. I cannot say that I approve of your affliction, however I shall not reveal its details to anybody. No soul living or dead. And the same can be said of the rest of the ghosts in this tower.”

  She looked hard at Greedy and Wheezy, who both nodded proudly.

  I felt a wave of relief. Thank goodness for small mercies.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  Primrose nodded haughtily. “Now follow me,” she said.

  She led us out of the circular tower room through a different door than the one we had entered by.

  We followed her up a few flights of a small adjoining staircase to another room some storeys above. The door was shut and she went right through it, not opening it for us. Allegra and I pushed it open ourselves.

  When we stepped in, I could tell by the sloping ceilings up above that we had reached the very top of the tower.

  This room with smaller, and what was inside astonished me. The entire circular room was lined with bookcases all around. On one side of the room were glass cabinets containing a great many jars and bottles filled with ingredients. Allegra’s gaze landed on them and an intense look of curiosity came onto her face. She was itching to go and investigate. She had always loved making potions.

  Near the cabinets was a large and stout table. Its worktop was fully equipped, ready for any witch who wanted to get to work.

  But my gaze had gone to the centre of the room. Resting on an ornately carved wooden stand was an enormous old book. It was leather bound, the pages crinkled and yellowed with age, their edges glistening a faded gold.

  With a gasp of fascination I stepped towards it. And then I glanced nervously at Primrose, worried that she might not let me approach.

  She nodded.

  I went forward and Allegra followed. The book was set open to a specific page.

  Primrose floated over and pointed at a long passage written in magiolingvo.

  “This is the one you want,” she said. “I shall leave you to your business.”

  She floated out of the room, leaving us both alone in there.

  My heart thudded as I tried to decipher it, eager to know how it could help me. But its complexity was out of my grasp. Not only was it handwritten, it used words that seemed outdated. I could make no sense of it.

  Even Allegra, who was used to reading magiolingvo was squinting as she painstakingly tried to decipher the lettering. Her knowledge of the language must have grown since what we had covered in school, because eventually the look on her face brightened as understanding came suddenly.

  “It’s a spell to reflect light,” she said.

  “Reflect light?” I said disappointed.

  My heart had been pounding. I had so been hoping she was going to tell me that this was a clue on how to reverse the vampire virus taking root in my blood.

  She shook her head regretfully, but her tone was insistently bright as she said, “But I can see exactly how it’s going to help you. It’s the first step, isn’t it? If you can go out into the sunlight, then you can live a normal life while we try to find out how to cure the rest of it!”

  Her words gave me hope. “So it will reflect the light away from me?” I asked. I was trying to picture in my mind how it would work.

  “It looks like it,” she said. “I don’t fully understand the explanation of it, but the gist is that it is like a hex against sunlight. It protects its subject from the effects of sunlight completely. And the passage says that it’s powerful and permanent unless we do the reversal spell. So that means that once we cast it, you won’t have to worry about going out in the daytime at all.”

  I bit my lip. The hope was almost painful. “That would be amazing,” I whispered.

  Allegra beamed. “And the best part is that if you can go out in the sun, then no one will be able to guess what you are! Or throw accusations at you without proof. Especially if it was an enemy who sent that vampire to find you! Oh, this is wonderful Esme!” She reached out to grip my hands in excitement.

  I wanted it badly. Oh to be in the sunlight again! Oh to visit the beach and swim in the surf and eat a picnic with my cousins! Even to be able to help Aunt Adele in her café without the constant burning sensation driving me mad.

  To not have to fear the end of winter when the days would be long and full of sunshine again. To not have to live like my time was running out.

  “Allegra,” I said softly. “Do you think it’s really going to work?”

  “There’s only one way to find out,” she said. “Are you ready to try?”

  I nodded. “Go ahead. Do it.”

  I looked towards the worktop and all of the ingredients there.

  She shook her head. “It’s an incantation,” she said. “We won’t need to brew a potion.”

  “Oh good,” I said relieved. “Because you know I need to go and find Oberon soon.”

  Her brows furrowed a little at this. It looked like she had thought I had forgotten about Oberon.

  I sighed. “Allegra, you know that I needed to do this urgently right now because of him, right? He’s special. He’s kind. And how many dhampires do we know? Just him. Who knows? Maybe one day he will help me find a way to cure what’s happened to me.

  “Only if he is innocent,” she said ominously. “But I’m really worried that he is not, Esme. Just because you hope it’s true, just because you like him and you feel sorry for him, doesn’t mean that he didn’t do it.”

  “I know that,” I said. “Can we just do this incantation and then we can talk about it?”

  She nodded. She read out the phrase to me. It was long and complicated.

  “I trust you,” I said. “Just do it. It’ll be fine.”

  I trusted her not to do it wrong. And even if she did do it wrong, what was the worst that could happen to me that hadn’t already happened?

  She shook her head.

  “I can do it with you,” she said. “But it says here that you need to cast the spell on yourself.”

  I looked at her in dismay. “Oh no. Oh no, that’s terrible!”

  She shook her head and glared at me. “Esme Westbrim, your whole life you been running away from magic because you think you’re not good enough. You heard what grandmother said the other day. Your magic was incredibly strong when you were little. It’s somewhere there deep inside you. I know it is. So stop doubting yourself, and do this. You want it don’t you? You want it badly!”

  I nodded. “Of course I want it. But I’m not just being silly about my magic. Allegra, you know how hard I tried in school, but it was no use. Everything failed.”

  I groaned. I couldn’t believe it. The answer to so many of my problems was right before me, but because my magic was so weak, I wasn’t going to be able to do it. I felt like weeping.

  She took hold of my shoulders and shook me hard. “Don’t you dare give up right now before the final hurdle. You told me that when that vampire attacked you, your magic flared into life to protect you. And the other day when you were arguing with Lily your magic flared again, to protect Lily from James because you thought that he was going to hurt her.”

  “But that just happened. I didn’t make it happen. I can’t control it. I can’t make it happen again.”


  “How do you know unless you try? That’s the whole point of magic, isn’t it? Little witches and wizards can use magic even before they learn to use wands, because our wand-magic is intrinsic. It just exists. And so does yours. I don’t know why it went away for so many years, but it sounds to me like its back with a vengeance. So you have to try to learn to use it. And if you aren’t going to try for this thing that you want so much, then you’ll never try.”

  I swallowed hard. But what if it didn’t work? What if I tried and nothing happened. I didn’t want to lose hope. I didn’t want my chance to vanish away. I was scared.

  She looked at me pleadingly, and squeezed my hand hard.

  “Please,” she said. “We can do it together. You use your wand and I’ll use mine. We only have to say the words.”

  I was trembling. I could not do it. I couldn’t.

  And then suddenly I felt filled with anger. I was tied of feeling small and pathetic and full of fear as I had felt in that prison cell, when I had thought that the daylight would come through that window at dawn and burn me, and that my secret would come out and shame my whole family. I never wanted to feel like that again. Never.

  I took a deep breath and squared my shoulders and looked at her. I lifted my chin.

  “Let’s do it,” I said.

  A wide smile spread over her face. She took my wand out of my pocket and put it in my hand. She put her hand over mine, both of us holding my wand.

  We both pointed it right at my chest. And then we said the long and complex incantation together, the words flowing off our tongues, me repeating them just a tiny fraction of a second behind Esme as she read them out.

  And then the final word was said.

  Magic sparked from my wand and passed all over the surface of my skin. It felt like electricity, like static, tingling and buzzing everywhere it touched. Like a thousand or a million little sparks spreading and touching and igniting each other. They burst like tiny supernovas, their blue light growing brighter and brighter and then flaring into an intense bright white that forced me to squeeze my eyes shut. And it burned. I cried out in shock, scared that we had done the incantation wrong.

  Then the pain went away all at once. And the light went away too, leaving us in the semidarkness of the tower room.

  We both opened our eyes and stared at each other.

  Allegra took hold of my hand. She looked excited. She raised her eyebrows as if asking me a question. I understood. I nodded at her.

  Together we ran all the way down the steps and out of the Black Tower and into the courtyard. Into the midday sun. Without even hesitating.

  I lifted my face to the sun, and it was beautiful.

  22. Dhampire With A Heart

  “You did it!” squealed Allegra, seizing me in a hug and bouncing up and down with excitement.

  “We did it!” I shouted, dancing with her.

  We laughed and laughed, until we were breathless.

  My heart was singing. Such hope after all that horrid darkness. I truly had not thought we would do it. That it would work. But the hope had won.

  When we finally pulled away from each other, I had to wipe tears from my eyes and she did too.

  “I can’t believe it,” I said to her, my eyes shining.

  I lifted my face towards the sunshine again. It was a bright day, not hot like summer, but the sun still warmed me.

  For the first time since it had happened, I finally felt that chill inside me slip loose a little. Retreat. And it felt so unbelievably good.

  Allegra clenched my hands tightly.

  “It was meant to be,” she said. “You know that I’m not the cheesy kind of person who likes to say that. But it was. This is a good omen. It means that we are going to find a cure for you. I can feel it in my bones.”

  I laughed. “Yes, your creaky old wise bones.”

  “Hey, don’t you doubt my bones,” she said.

  Laughing, she tucked her arm into mine and we walked back into the castle.

  “So, I have to go and find Oberon now,” I told her.

  She came to a stop, her smile dying a little.

  “Oh Esme,” she said. “You’ve just got your life back. Sort of. Don’t throw it all away for him. Leave it to Agent Constantine. He’ll find out if there is something wrong with the story that Petra and Paolo and Lorcan were telling. If they were wrong about what they think of Oberon…” Her voice trailed off as she realised this last bit did not make sense.

  “They weren’t wrong about it,” I said. “They were lying through their teeth. Because they said that they saw him do it. That they saw him kill two people. But if he’s innocent like I think he is, that means that they’re lying.”

  “All three of them?” she said doubtfully.

  I shrugged. “I know. It doesn’t make sense. Maybe Petra is covering for Paolo, or maybe Lorcan did it and he has something on the other two to make them keep quiet. It has to be something. I don’t know what. Please just let me try. Don’t try to talk me out of it.”

  She sighed. “You always were too headstrong for your own good,” she said. “Too stubborn, too determined, too…”

  I grinned. “Too right?”

  “Pfft! We’ll have to see about that.”

  “Look, Allegra, I don’t know why but maybe my bones are old and wise too. I just have this feeling that everything isn’t what it looks like, and I believe in Oberon. I needed someone to believe in me when I was accused of murder that other time, and that someone was you. It meant the world to me. I just want to give him the same chance. Is that really so bad?”

  She bit her lip and looked pained. “No, it isn’t bad. And I understand why you feel for him. I really do. But… That was different. You’re my cousin. I knew you could never have done it.”

  “You had no proof of that. You just knew it in your heart. You could have been wrong, but you chose to have faith in me.”

  “It’s not the same,” she said stubbornly. “And anyway, you don’t even know where Oberon is. He ran off. He could be anywhere.”

  “That’s right,” I said. “If he is guilty then he would have fled back to his father’s mansion to their underground vampire nest and be hiding there protected by his entire brood, wouldn’t he? Because Agent Constantine and Chief Hardwick aren’t just going to be able to walk into that vampire nest to get him out of there. They’re going to have to call in the Conclave of Magic and even Chief Raine will want to help, and it’s going to be a nightmare. People are going to get seriously hurt.”

  Allegra was biting her lip, looking very worried at this possibility. She liked former Chief Raine as much as I did. She was worried for him. So was I. And I was worried for Chris Constantine too. I didn’t like the thought of them having to storm into a vampire’s nest like that.

  The Maltei nest was centuries old and so were its many protections. The Maltei brood was at least a hundred vampires strong. It would be carnage on both sides.

  I couldn’t let it happen. Not for nothing. Not if Oberon was innocent.

  I said, “If he is innocent—”

  She shook her head. “I don’t understand why you think he’s innocent. You have no proof. It makes no sense.

  “I don’t know either. I just do. It has to be something. I just can’t put my finger on what it is. It’s like it is stuck at the back of my brain, waiting for me to figure it out. Some clue I’ve seen that I haven’t made sense of yet.”

  She opened her mouth to interrupt me again. I gripped her hand tightly to make her shut up.

  “If he is guilty,” I repeated, “then he’ll be at the nest. And I won’t go looking there for him. I promise you that. So just let me go. Okay?”

  “I’ll come with you,” she said stubbornly. “You can’t go alone with your magic as it is.”

  I gave a little laugh. “You can’t come with me Allegra. You can’t keep trying to look after me your whole life.”

  “Yes I can, I’m your favourite cousin remember? The be
st cousin in the world!”

  The way she said it made me laugh.

  “Yes you are, because I can’t think of any other cousin who has done for someone what you’ve just done for me. But you still can’t come.”

  She looked like she was going to stamp her feet like young Greedy the ghost.

  “I don’t see what harm it’s going to do if I come too,” she said. “Plus we can etherhop everywhere and we’ll find him quicker that way.”

  I shook my head. “I have a pretty good idea where he might be. And I don’t need to etherhop there. And you can’t come because you don’t believe that he’s innocent. Oberon’s not stupid. He won’t talk if someone is there that thinks he’s a killer. So just let me do this alone, okay?”

  With a great big sigh and one final hug, she let me go.

  * * *

  I made my way over land to Kitten Cove, enjoying the feeling of the sun on my face and my arms, which I had left bare. I had missed it so much.

  I arrived to find the cats lying around everywhere on the beach. I picked my way through them, enjoying the sun every bit as much as they were. No one knew how to bask like the cats of Kitten Cove.

  I shaded my eyes to look out towards the sea and smiled when I saw kittens frolicking in the surf. It never stopped filling me with joy to see how delightfully playful they were. I wished I could frolic with them, but I had other work to do.

  Oberon was where I expected to find him, sitting on a hilly ridge of sand and staring out at sea, his gaze fixed on the lapping waves licking the shore.

  He must have heard my footsteps coming his way but he didn’t look back at me or even move at all.

  When I went to sit down next to him, he looked up. Surprise crossed his face. He looked at the sun and then back at me, and said, “What are you doing here?”

  It hit me like a bolt out of the blue with absolute certainty.

  He knew! He knew about me.

  The astonished expression on his face confirmed it. He knew. He knew that I shouldn’t be out here in the sun. He had known all along.

  And then the second thing that I had known deep inside me hit me like a bolt out of the blue. This was why I thought he was innocent. This was why I trusted him. All along something inside me must have known that he knew about me, and that he had kept my secret anyway.