by Mara Webb
I heard one door swing open. Whoever it was that was venturing outside didn’t get very far. I hadn’t heard the weight of a vehicle shift as someone got out, no footsteps on the tarmac. The door swung shut and the lights started to flicker out like dominoes. Something rumbled and cracked in the distance, all lights back on. This was getting tedious. I’d rather be in the middle of a fight, or completely not involved in a fight. This waiting around bit in the middle was draining. I was tempted to just start shouting to get the woman outside and take a chance with snatching the necklace off her chest.
Then doors started opening.
Ryan reached over and tapped me on the arm and pointed down, I passed the message onto the Professor and we crouched low and shimmied backwards under an RV. Arnie crawled in next to us on his stomach and we waited it out. It occurred to me then that the noise had probably come from the other group.
Had they done that on purpose to draw people away from the motorhome maze? Was it a mistake? Were they about to be swarmed by attackers that they couldn’t fight against? Part of me wished I had brought Quin along, an irrelevant story about something he had seen on TV would be well received right now.
We lay chest down on the tarmac as eight pairs of feet walked in the direction of the sound. They were chattering among themselves that it was probably just one of the horses trying to kick its travel box open again, they didn’t seem to suspect anything.
“We aren’t far now, it’s one more over that way,” Arnie whispered, pointing his nose to the left. The group that had just gone out to investigate the noise would either be back any minute, or make more noise fighting our friends. Either way it was likely that if we didn’t hurry up, we would get caught and be quickly outnumbered. We crawled out from underneath the metal box and ran over to the RV we needed to get in to.
We ran while hunched over. Why had we done that? It didn’t make us any less visible. It wasn’t a quieter way to move. It would have been just as quick to run upright, but instead my lower back was aching slightly. I opened my mouth to begin telling everyone about my funny observation and then thought better of it. Ryan tried the handle on the door, it was locked. “Resigno,” Ryan said softly, before trying the door again. It opened with ease. We were standing right beside the logo with the crown painted above it, creeping into the RV. Why had we all gone in? I wasn’t sure.
Three people and a dog were now standing in a cramped and narrow motorhome. We were in a kitchen that blended into a lounge, and to our right was a quasi-hallway that led into a bedroom.
Then the door slammed shut behind us and the light inside grew so bright so quickly that we could barely see. A dark voice cut through the blinding light.
“So, you made some friends did you Arnold? I would savor having two legs while you still can,” a female voice said through a cackle. The weird green orb interfering with my vision was starting to shrink. The light was so bright now, it was like having flash photography too close to your face and being rendered temporarily blind.
As my eyesight restored itself, I could see a woman standing before us with a wand raised in our direction. Around her neck she had a necklace with a garnet crystal, as well as many others. This must be Bridget.
18
Despite the fact that there were three of us and one of her, I felt that we had the disadvantage. What were the other crystals for? With impending doom upon us I couldn’t help but wonder what type of animal she might turn each of us into. I wouldn’t hate being a rabbit I guess, their lives seem quite easy going, unless you met a fox or something. Maybe a little show pony? I used to think being a cat would be the most relaxing kind of life but after almost a year of living with a talking one I could see that he had more issues than I did.
Another sound outside the RV roared in the distance and we all resisted turning our heads in its direction.
“Any final words? I was in the middle of an episode of The Bachelor and you’ve been very rude bursting in like this,” Bridget said with a smile. That was on tonight? Urgh. I should never have agreed to this mission. I wondered if she might allow me to watch re-runs in my kennel. Ryan was the next voice to speak.
“You seem very sure of yourself,” he said. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him stand a little taller as if to assert dominance. I wasn’t sure it was working.
“Well my whole family can surround this place in like two minutes, and I’m pretty sure dog face no longer counts as a person, so it’s just you three,” she replied. Her free hand started to fiddle with the crystals around her neck, rubbing each one with her thumb as though polishing them. I’d done similar things every time I wore a new piece of jewelry, idly touching it to grow accustom to its weight and feel.
Another explosion outside. What was happening? I had a bad feeling about it. My intuition was telling me nothing helpful, I knew we had to get hold of the crystal, but I had no idea how.
“That will be them now,” she said. A grin spread across her face to show that she knew she had won. It was barely audible, but she was right. The sound of footsteps kicking the loose stones across the parking lot suggested that there was a large group of people just outside. I couldn’t have anticipated what Professor Eastey said next.
“Bridget Babbage?”
“Wha…How do you know my last name?” Bridget said, looking less confident now.
“Well Ms. Babbage, I do believe that you also have a O.W.L. exam due. Your final year exam no less. I am aware you were probably expecting Professor Swinton, but he has been taken ill with a case of curly foot.”
Bridget’s face fell into disbelief, as did mine. Arnie looked up at Professor Eastey and they seemed to communicate something without speaking, they were up to something.
“But I…the email didn’t say when it would be, I thought that—"
“You thought wrong dear. I’m Professor Eastey and I don’t think we are off to a good start. In fact…” she pulled a full-size clipboard out of an inside pocket in her coat and started to run her finger down a list, “It would appear that quite a few of your family members are enrolled at the University. My oh my, what a predicament.”
This had been unexpected. The member of our group that had been accidentally roped into this escapade was proving to be the most valuable one. Bridget’s entire demeanor shifted.
“This isn’t fair! This can’t change my grade…right? I’m supposed to graduate soon.”
“Ahh yes, I see here that you have been chugging away at this course for quite some time. Seven years it says here. It would be such a shame if you were to fall at this final hurdle and be refused your full license.”
The Professor was referring to the ‘uncapping’ of magical powers that took place once all training had been completed. For witches and wizards born into their powers, this ‘uncapping’ occurred after their residential schooling. For people like me, humans that inherited their magic later in life, it occurred after the completion of the O.W.L. course. It seemed that my powers were considerable already, so when I graduated ‘I would be exquisite,’ to quote my most recent University feedback. Bridget was at a loss for words.
“Don’t fail all of us. This whole family is relying on us getting our licenses, please. My husband isn’t magical, he’s pretty useless. Our kids magic is so diluted I can’t do a thing with them. My mother was only half witch. It’s taken everything I have to—”
“Keep the human forms of a bunch of kidnapped strangers locked inside that crystal? Yes, I imagine it is quite draining. Poor you. Hand it here please.” Professor Eastey reached out her hand and Bridget unclipped the necklace and slid the garnet stone from the chain. “Ahh, now it makes sense. I’ll take the lot please.”
Bridget opened her mouth slightly to protest but clearly thought better of it. The power in the room had shifted. My University tutor took hold of the crystals from Bridget’s hand and turned to Ryan and me. Holding up one stone in front of her face at a time.
“This one holds free will, this one common
sense, this one is the human forms she’s trapped and this one…I think this one allows you to take credit for ideas that aren’t yours and no one complains. Am I right?” she asked. Bridget nodded.
“It seems that you have been pulling more strings around here than we first realized. You have forced your family to do your bidding and they have been quite literally powerless to stop you. You haven’t even let them think for themselves, you’ve taken away their own thoughts and judgement. Ryan, be a dear and put these onto Ms. Babbage for me please.” She handed Ryan a pair of glowing handcuffs that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. “Just in case we still need you to help with the release of our brothers and sisters before the justice department take you away to some grim, moldy dungeon.”
Ryan fixed the handcuffs around Bridget’s wrists and she wept hysterically, her words jumbled as she tried to defend herself. “I didn’t think…but I haven’t…I didn’t mean to…I’d seen a film with…” she spluttered. Ryan opened the door of the RV and guided Bridget down the steps, Professor Eastey and I followed and Arnie jumped down after us. I hoped that the family members she had waiting outside would concede once they realized that we had Bridget in cuffs.
A thought occurred to me, how had this been so easy? What was waiting for us outside? If they were all here, did that mean they had already dealt with the rest of our group that had been freeing the animals? Maybe the real fight was just about to begin. The premonition I had experienced earlier, where I was injured in the woods, that hadn’t happened yet. Was it about to?
I could see figures outlined by the rising sun. The light seeping into the sky gave the air a pink yellow glow making it hard to see faces. I turned and realized that the sounds outside the RV hadn’t been an army of Bridget’s family, but an army of animals that had been freed and wanted justice. The figures standing nearby were Jen, Amber and Justin. We had done it.
With the crystals in her hand, Professor Eastey stepped forward and placed them on the ground, pulled her wand out of her sleeve and aimed it at one of them. “Perdere,” she said loud enough for us all to here. I didn’t know much about crystals, so I didn’t know what this one was for. All I knew was that the purple colored one was garnet; the others could be anything.
The yellow crystal that she was trying to destroy slowly lost its solid form and became transformed to a dense gas, a golden smoke remained in the same shape as the solid crystal. The Professor bent down and blew at the smoke and it started to roll along the tarmac like clouds over a mountain before raising up into the air and growing so far apart that it was no longer visible. The contents of the crystal were now moving back to wherever it came from.
The Professor did the same thing with a blue crystal, and then a red one. The garnet remained whole.
“Ms. Watts, would you care to do the honors?” she said, gesturing for Jen to step forward. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Ryan step aside to make a call. Jennifer walked towards the garnet stone on the ground and pulled out her own wand.
“Perdere!” she shouted as loud as she could manage. The animals around us all started to make a riotous amount of noise. The dogs howled, the horses reared up, there were two sheep that were making an angry bleating sound and I could see a few rabbits that looked like they were trying to do something, but their noses were just twitching rapidly in lieu of sound. Jen bent down to blow at the red smoke that remained compressed on the tarmac.
The smoke rolled along the ground but didn’t lift up into the air the way it had before. It started to divide in half, then again and again. Soon the air was filled with tiny amounts of crystal that rapidly darted about in the air. I saw a great many of them fly high up into the sky and zoom away, the rest flew towards the animals standing around the RV. As each one struck an animal, a red glow grew around them. I couldn’t see all of them, but I tried to focus on Arnie who was standing next to me.
It was somehow exactly how I would have imagined it, and nothing that I could have anticipated. I watched as the border collie beside me morphed, his front paws started to grow wider, the joints on his front leg bending in a different way as they returned to elbows. He pushed up onto his back legs that were shifting into feet and human legs, his tail shrinking into nothing. The snout receded, his teeth changed, his long fluffy ears disappeared.
At some point in this wild, mass animal-human morphing experience, the Professor must have realized that we were about to be surrounded by naked people, their bare skin now visible as the fur dropped away. She waved her hand through the air quickly and a sea of bath robes appeared in my peripheral vision. Arnie was now stood completely upright wearing a white bath robe that had a yellow rubber duck embroidered on both of the pockets. He turned and threw his arms around me, I hugged him back tightly. I could feel his body shaking slightly as he sobbed onto my shoulder.
“Cody!” Jen cried. I let go of Arnie to see Jen running at a young boy in a blue robe covered in green and yellow dinosaurs.
“Where is everyone, and where did the rest of that smoke go?” I asked, looking at both Arnie and Amber, who was now walking over.
“Well we trapped a bunch of those weirdos in the cages we had let the animals out of. A nice easy package to deliver to the justice department,” Amber said.
“I’m not sure where the other animals are,” Arnie said to me. Arnie “I assume there are a bunch of scared people in the woods wearing bath robes right now wondering why they aren’t dogs anymore.” He laughed, but the tears continued to flow.
I couldn’t even imagine what they were all thinking. Some of them had been away from their families for years, we would have to help get them back to where they belonged, contact their local high councils and make sure they were supported in the transition back to two legs.
I heard a creak somewhere behind me, and then running feet. I barely had time to turn to see what was coming. I was standing next to Bridget in her glowing cuffs and someone was charging at her. It was Judith. The sweet little old lady that made the crochet tea pot covers. Her face was fixed in a furious battle cry as she ran towards Bridget with her wand in the air.
“How could you make us do this? DOLOR!” she screamed. Everything felt as if it had fallen into slow motion. I could see Judith running towards me, navigating her way between two robed people that were standing there, stunned.
I didn’t know what spell she was trying to cast, but I knew that we needed Bridget to be arrested, to be dealt with properly. We couldn’t be sure that she didn’t have other crystals somewhere, she needed to be questioned and to receive the justice she deserved. I stepped in front of her quickly and the spell hit me in the leg. Pain shot up through my body and I fell to the ground.
19
When I opened my eyes, I was in my own bed at number thirteen Charm Close. The familiar smell of the bed linens filled my nostrils and I felt comfort flood over me, I was safe at home. The sun fought through the blinds that had been pulled down over the windows, so I knew that it was daytime, but which day. Movement by the window caught my attention, it was Brent. He was sitting at my desk reading a newspaper and hadn’t yet noticed that I was awake.
“Make yourself at home why don’t you,” I joked. He turned around with a solemn expression on his face.
“You’re awake, oh thank goodness you’re awake. Nora, I don’t know how to tell you this, but…you’ve been in a coma for a year.” He maintained the expression on his face but then couldn’t control it and burst into a broad smile. “Just kidding, my college room mate and I used to do that joke all the time. It’s not always funny. A lot of leaning over their bed and whispering ‘you’re in the hospital. Wake up, you’ve been in a terrible accident,’ but anyway…”
He got up onto his feet and came over to kiss my forehead.
“You’ve been asleep for a few hours, Ryan brought you home and I was already here chatting to the cats. He only briefly explained what had happened, he had to leave to drive a bunch of people to Shevton or something. I don’t know,
I peeked out the window and he had a mini-van full of people in bath robes in the back. I didn’t ask a lot of questions, but he said he’d swing round on the way back to check on you. He might be back by now; it isn’t too far.”
It was nice to see Brent, obviously, but I really wanted to know what had happened this morning. What spell had I been hit with? Had the justice department arrested everyone? Did I still have to take my O.W.L. exam? Where were all of the bath robe people now? Brent wouldn’t have any of these answers.
“Do you always go on big exciting adventures with your magic friends when I’m not around? I thought ‘the witching hour’ was a joke, but you all seem to love messing about in the middle of the night don’t you,” he said. He walked over to the blinds and started to slowly wind one of them back up onto the roller. I waved my hand in the direction of the windows and all of the blinds whizzed upwards and let the daylight in completely. Brent looked shocked, but then laughed. “Man, being a regular human sucks.”
“You should see how little ironing I have to do now, it would blow your mind,” I replied. I got out of bed and felt a rush of pain fire up the leg that had been hit. Brent went to hand me my bath robe from the back of the bedroom door. I laughed at him and grabbed a sweatshirt instead. I had been carried up into my bed wearing all of my clothes, it seemed weird to put a bath robe over a pair of jeans. I brushed a strand of hair away from Brent’s forehead and kissed his lips softly. The pain in my leg subsided a little and I made my way down to the kitchen.
Ryan was sitting at the kitchen counter arguing with Quin about stuffed crust pizza, again. I had heard these two fight about this one thing so many times that I had lost my patience over it.
“You aren’t hearing me. I have said a million times, if you feel the need to stuff extra cheese into the crust, why not eliminate the crust completely and put the cheese from the topping all the way to the edge,” Quin said flatly.
