An Arrogant Witch

by E M Graham

  He raised his eyebrows calmly, unruffled.

  ‘You’re a fraud, Willem!’

  ‘Did we not just lift the veil of Alt?’ he asked. ‘Together, me and you?’

  I was silent for a moment as I watched the medallion dangle from his hand, then I shook my head.

  ‘No Willem,’ I said. ‘It wasn’t us together, there was no team in that effort. You took from me what you wanted. I didn’t give it willingly.

  ‘You fucking raped my power to do what you did,’ I whispered.

  He laughed. ‘You could have told me to stop any time,’ he said. ‘But you were hungry for it, I know you like I know myself, Dara.’

  Willem let that sink in before speaking again in a low whisper. ‘We’re two of a kind, did you not recognize that yet? Frauds and cheats, the pair of us.’

  ‘I’m not like you,’ I said, but I think I was trying to convince myself, not him.

  ‘I somehow don’t think the Witch Kin will see it that way,’ he said, shaking his head with a sad little smile on his face. ‘You lied to your tutor before even beginning your course, you have deliberately gone behind his back in consorting with me.’

  I could say nothing in reply. He reached over with his small cold fingers and lifted my chin so I had to look straight at him. His pale eyes appeared to soften in understanding.

  ‘Don’t forget, I’ve been where you are now,’ he continued. ‘I know what their rules are like, how stringently they enforce their laws, those stultifying strictures.’

  I opened my mouth to take a breath and deny all he said, but his finger moved up to my lips to silence me.

  ‘Your Witch elders have a nasty punishment for errant little half-bloods who meddle in mayhem, do they not?’

  Binding. A lobotomy of the magic soul. I shivered.

  ‘Seems to me like you have two choices, dear heart,’ he said, a terrible kindness in his cold eyes. ‘You surrender to them, now, and give up all your dreams of magic. Live the Normal life you would have had if not for the accident of your genes. It won’t hurt, you know, or at least you won’t remember the pain. You won’t remember the magic either, they’ll make sure of that. You won’t feel any loss except that deep longing within for something, but you’ll never know what it is, you’ll just be conscious of that big hole inside of you that can’t be filled with drugs nor sex.’

  The candle flickered at our feet.

  ‘Or you can come with me.’ His voice was hypnotizing. ‘Keep your magic powers and everything that makes you Dara de Teilhard. We’ll travel the world together, you and me.’

  Willem held out the medallion, showing the inscriptions on it. ‘I can teach you what these mean, and I can help you.’ He slipped it deep into the folds off his robe. ‘But no matter, you won’t even remember it once the Kin are finished with you.’

  The electric bulb overhead spluttered into life before quickly dying. We both glanced up.

  ‘There’s not much time,’ he said tersely. ‘We have to go, now, before they get the veil fully back into place.’ He walked quickly down to the old oak door into the Grog Shop and laid his hand on the wood.

  ‘Are you coming, or not? No matter to me either way, I’m just offering you your only salvation.’

  The words he spoke were true, there was no other way open for me. I remembered how Hugh had made me get out into the fog and wind to relay this to me, as if he’d feared even speaking the words inside the car could have repercussions on him.

  I picked up my bag and parka off the floor, still undecided in my mind, but my feet were following him out the door and into the bar.

  The Grog Shop was empty and it was hard to tell if we were now in real time or Alt, the bar had changed so little over the centuries. Outside on George Street the wind was blowing the snow in a thick curtain. Weak gas lamps flickered in competition with their stronger more modern streetlights, but the cobblestones were slippery under foot.

  ‘We have to get to the harbour before it’s fixed,’ he shouted above the howling wind as he grasped my hand and pulled me along. ‘Quickly! The ship is waiting.’

  I shoved my coat on as he pulled up his own hood and our steps quickly took us to Water Street. Creatures still slithered about in the shadows and I didn’t dare look at them or catch any eyes. As we hurried along, I tried to sense whether the Witch Kin were anywhere near. My heart cried at the thought of losing my newfound powers. Could they really do such a thing, strip me of the magic that made me myself? The magic given to me in my genes from my father? I shivered again to wonder at what such a drastic measure must entail, the ripping apart of the very genetic code.

  There was shouting in the distance, muffled by the wind and the snow. Willem looked over his shoulder and urged me forward. I stumbled over a curb – a modern day curb in the street.

  ‘Come on,’ he screamed. ‘The veil is slipping back into place. We can’t get away if the harbour turns back to real time.’

  We turned down Beck’s Cove, the last small lane leading to the harbour, the buildings on either side of us tall and dark and looming, and spirits moaned on the wind. No lights lit the way as we pushed through the knee deep snow.

  I heard my name as if from a distance, and shielding my face from the wind, turned toward the sound. A tall figure waved to me through the thick falling snow.

  Could it be Hugh? My heart sank. I thought I had spied him at the ball, though I’d been sure he was still in Paris. I couldn’t be caught by him, it would break his heart to see the hurt inflicted on me by his own Kin. I couldn’t do it to him.

  I turned back to Willem and found my feet running over rough wooden planks. Good, we were still in Alt, on the rickety wharves behind the merchant houses. Willem stopped by a vessel, a boat whose sides were made of wood but which had a huge iron chimney puffing smoke out into the cruel blizzard all around us.

  He reached for my hand to help me over the side, his long robe flapping in the wind but before I could get to the safety he promised I was physically accosted by long strong arms which held tightly to my shoulders.

  Jack. He forced me to turn to him. ‘What the fuck is going on here, Dara?’ he screamed over the howling wind and the chugging of the vessel as it prepared to leave port.

  His clear hazel eyes burned through me but as if from a distance. I stared at him. He could be my future, this wonderful upright man, this sensitive musician who brooked no bullshit. Without the magic, I could be happy with him, we could live around his bay by the ocean, I could... I could be a plumber for God’s sake, or continue with my studies or anything I wanted to do as long it belonged in his world and his ken.

  Without my magic. And I wouldn’t remember the pain.

  He flickered out of view.

  ‘Jack!’ I screamed, but then he came back.

  ’I can’t reach you,’ he shouted. ‘How did you get behind the iron fence?’

  How much of Alt could he perceive? I looked all around me, and I still stood on the rickety wooden finger pier with Willem about to board his vessel. The sorcerer held the medallion deep within his robe. If I stayed with Jack, I would never hold it again, and would never find my mother. If it hadn’t been my father who caused her disappearance, then I needed to find out who or what had done it. She needed justice and there was no one else who could find it for her but me. And I couldn’t do that without my magic.

  Jack was wavering in front of my eyes again. I had to make my decision right now, there was not a moment to lose.

  ‘I’m sorry Jack,’ I whispered as I let him go, and with him, let go of everything I held dear. Edna, my home, Alice. Maundy. The patchwork velvet Christmas stockings. I could hardly see through the tears which were freezing on my cheek. ‘I’m so sorry...’

  But before I could finish my goodbyes, I felt another whirlwind pass me by, a long black shadow racing by me toward the boat, sliding along the wood almost knocking me off the wharf in its haste.

  I gasped and held onto Jack’s outreached arm to right myself.
The shape had launched itself onto Willem, wrestling him onto the body of the boat which tooted its mournful horn and prepared to turn away from the wharf.

  ‘Brin! I shouted to him over the gale. I recognized the long legs as the two struggled. ‘The boat is leaving, come back!’

  The vessel was five feet off into the harbour before he stood up and realizing what was going on, making a gigantic leap onto the wharf. His long feet in their clumsy modern boots slipped and slid on the icy edges of the wood, but I reached out and hauled him back to safety.

  ‘Brin? What were you thinking?’ I hugged the elf and refused to let him go no matter how much he squirmed.

  ‘Too close, too close,’ he muttered stiffly until I finally released him from my arms.

  ‘He’s gone,’ he whispered over my head, and we watched the wooden ship steam out of view into the blizzard. I stared after the boat as it took my dreams, my magic and my future with it, I stared until I could see nothing but the static of the snow on my eyes, then I let go a deep sigh.

  The decision had been made for me. I looked down at my feet, trying to hide the tears which threatened again, and found myself rubbing the pavement clear. I choked back a sob. We were in real time, the veil had been brought down again, and I would never again have the opportunity to visit that strange land of Alt, nor would I even remember it.

  I gave a watery smile to Jack and Alice where they waited past the iron fence. The snow had stopped falling. The wind was picking up, blowing the clouds clear out of the sky.

  ‘I rescued it,’ Brin was jabbering, his long arms and legs dancing in the snow. ‘I didn’t let him take it from you.’

  He held up a metal disc, reflecting the blue light of the streetlamps in its metal glow, and he offered it to me with his smile.

  ‘How did you know?’ I whispered as I reached out my hand, almost afraid to touch it.

  ‘I could hear everything,’ he said. ‘When he caught me in the grief-pain, I could still hear everything you spoke.’

  ‘Oh, Brin,’ I said, the tears in my eyes spilling over. After all I had done to him, the elf did not hold it against me.

  ‘Thanks,’ I told him, and took it into my hand finally. It still throbbed with magic, and if I held it to my ear I know it would speak with my mother’s voice. I didn’t, though. I considered sending it spinning into the harbour, to drift into the tides and maybe make it all the way to Ireland, or perhaps it would be swallowed by a fish or taken by the mermaids who lived just without the Narrows. For all the good it would do me once I was stripped of my magic.

  But I didn’t do that either. It was too hard won. Instead, I pressed it back into the elf’s hand.

  ‘You take it,’ I said softly. ‘And maybe you can remind me some day after I’ve forgotten. Remind me of my mother.’

  20

  THE IRON FENCE surrounding the harbour apron wasn’t so difficult for me to get over, not with Brin on one side heaving me up and Jack on the other to catch me as I fell. The elf, however, was forced to make an elaborate maneuver over the water at the fence’s end in order to avoid being burned by the iron. The clear night was now bitterly cold, the moon and stars crackling above us, the fresh laid snow below untouched by footprints or tire tracks. The wind which had blown away the storm kept up its steady clip, and we all drew our coats close.

  ‘How did you know where to find me?’ I asked as we trudged back up to Water Street and the welcome electric street lamps and Christmas decorations all over. I stopped and breathed deeply of the fresh air despite the cold. The city was coming to life again, the cars travelling silently down the snow packed roads, people venturing out into the now safe public spaces.

  ‘We were at the Rocket,’ Alice said. “When everything began to go off kilter.’ She looked around with a puzzled air. Jesus. She’d been in Alt and she was in love with an elf. How could her mind still deny the existence of the supernatural?

  Brin and I shared a silent look of understanding. He wouldn’t bring up Alt if I didn’t.

  ‘I knew you were in trouble,’ the elf said, and left it at that.

  ‘There was something weird happening tonight, wasn’t there?’ This was from Jack who had plowed on ahead of us, his hands shoved deep within his pockets. He paused and let us catch up. ‘We were playing in the bandstand for the end of the Parade, then everything went to shit. The lights and power started to go, and people started screaming for no reason at all.’

  ‘How did you end up downtown?’ I asked him. ‘Last I saw you were playing in the gazebo.’ Yet he had somehow appeared at the water’s edge in time to save me from running off into the Alt snowstorm with the failed sorcerer. I didn’t know whether to be elated or to cry.

  ‘The crowd went out of control,’ he said, staring off at the memory. ‘They overran us. They... Someone smashed my guitar.’ He swallowed deeply. ‘I had to get out of there. I was actually headed to the Grog Shop to drown my sorrows. But I saw you come out of there with...’

  I gave a moment’s silence out of respect for the loss of his instrument. ‘Did you see anything... anything out of the ordinary?’

  ‘There were some pretty weird costumes,’ Jack said after a pause. ‘Funny, you know, they reminded me of Willem’s creatures, those papier mache dolls of his. Actually it was more like Hallowe’en than December, with the witches and trolls and vampires everywhere.’

  We walked a little longer, and I felt the unspoken weight between us. Then he could hold back no longer and the question I was dreading came up.

  ‘Did he... were you about to go off on a boat with Willem or something?’ Jack stopped and stared at me with accusation. ‘What the hell was that about?’

  I didn’t think his mind would allow him to remember what had really happened. Alt has that effect on the reasoning mind. If a person has no reason to believe in magic, then they just won’t see it, and their mind will turn somersaults trying to squash a reasonable explanation to fit over the unexplainable. It was that simple.

  ‘No, no,’ I lied. ‘I was just seeing him off. Getting something from him that belonged to me.’

  ‘Hmm,’ was all he said in reply.

  We were now heading up Prescott Street, staying to the sides of the road to avoid the cars sliding down. My steps were growing slower with every yard, and it wasn’t just because of the uphill gradient.

  I had made my choice, or rather, the choice had been made for me, and now I was going to suffer the consequences. I may as well just hand myself over to Hugh with full mea culpa and on my knees begging for mercy than try to run away, for there weren’t many places to hide from the Witch Kin, and I’d missed the boat out of Alt. My father and his compatriots would be out for blood now that the veil was fixed back in place, for Witch Kin hated to be embarrassed even if no one else knew about it. It was their job to keep the dimensions separated and Willem, by causing it to waver for even that short time had thumbed his nose at them and hurt their pride. They couldn’t get their hands on the Dutchman now, but I was still here; technically, I had helped him and the mark of my magic would be all over it. I would be their scapegoat.

  We didn’t have to make it all the way to the Colonial Building. Hugh, Edna and Mark were waiting outside the ice cream store on King’s Road.

  ‘There she is, I told you she’d show up,’ Edna said with relief in her voice as she enveloped me within the folds of her winter parka. Her costume had been discarded, except for her large rubber boots. ‘And she’ll have a perfectly reasonable explanation as to where your car is, Mark.’

  ‘The SUV has been located down on Duckworth Street,’ Mark said grimly as he ended the call on his phone. ‘She couldn’t have taken it, not with in the condition it was found. It was hoodlums taking advantage of the power outages. We’ll catch up with them soon enough.’

  He looked at Alice through narrowed eyes, as if she might have had something to do with it. Poor kid, it wasn’t her fault she had Benjy for a brother. Mark really shouldn’t hold it against her.


  I was off the hook for the troll damage to Mark’s vehicle, at least, which was morally satisfying because that one truly wasn’t my fault. I had told him to bring the troll in his office, yet Mark had forgotten all about it and left it in the back of the SUV. Still there was other music I had to face, so I turned to Hugh.

  He said nothing, just stared at me darkly. I swallowed a huge lump in my throat. This was it, this was when I said goodbye to any magic dreams I might hold. Well, at least Brin had gotten his wish to stay in real time for ever. I left the safety and security of Edna’s arms and walked back to Jack.

  ‘I have to go now, I said, keeping my voice low. ‘I’ll call you. Okay?’

  Jack looked at me, then over at Hugh who was waiting. He gave a short dip of his head before turning away.

  Still in his fine tuxedo with a long wool coat to protect him from the elements, Hugh slowly placed the leather gloves on his hands.

  His face was unreadable, and he merely nodded to my family and friends before leading me away, and there was no room for arguments. The ambulances flashed red and blue lights as they passed us, sirens echoing into the distance as they left the scene.

  When we were at a safe distance away from the others, I began my apologies, not that I thought they would be of any use.

  He cut me off, shaking his head.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Just... just stop.’

  We turned down Military Road toward the park grounds.

  ‘I still can’t believe that Willem lowered the veil as he did,’ he said in a low voice as if thinking aloud.

  We walked the rest of the way back to the scene of the crime in silence, down to Bannerman Park where the merry-making crowds had gathered in their harmless fun of mummering and dress-up to celebrate the season of peace.

  It was hard to miss the aftermath as we walked through the trodden paths. In the circle of the streetlamps human blood lay all splattered around on the snow, purple in this light, or it may have been the strewn contents of the broken hot chocolate urns. Rags of costumes fluttered, caught on thorny bushes, while over at the gazebo, the band’s instruments had been wrecked, the drum kit rolled off into the snow and there was Jack’s bass guitar, his one proud possession, cracked off at the neck with the strings barely lifting in the breeze. There looked to be blood on that, too, and I couldn’t stop a gasp escaping my throat.