Begone the Raggedy Witches

by Celine Kiernan

  The connection broke, and Mup gasped and staggered, spots dancing before her eyes. Goodness, she thought, that was a lot harder than finding someone through a phone line.

  “MUP!” cried Crow. “LOOK OUT!”

  The queen had turned Mup’s way. The ranks of her witches did the same, their pale faces expressionless, their dark eyes staring. Overhead the clouds churned and funnelled as the creature there dropped out of sight beyond the castle walls, to where the unseen choir was still singing. Without taking her eyes from Mup, the queen signalled to the raggedy witches. They turned away, and resumed firing at the storm, which had once again begun dismantling the walls of the castle.

  The queen stalked towards Mup. She seemed to grow as she did so, and soon she was looming over her, impossibly tall, her white hair crackling around her angry face. “I should have killed your mother in the cradle,” she boomed. “I should have known she’d grow up and try and take my throne.” Her voice was immense and terrible, and very like the voice of the creature which now prowled the clouds above.

  “Mam doesn’t want your throne,” cried Mup. “She just wants me and Tipper and Dad.”

  The queen sneered. “Really? Is that really all she wants?”

  Mup lifted her sparkling hands in warning. “Mam didn’t start this! She only came here because the Speirling stole my dad!”

  Behind her, the dogs barked like crazy, fighting to get free and tackle the queen.

  “Keep them back!” Mup yelled to Crow and Dad. “They’re no match for her!”

  “That’s right,” hissed the queen, lowering her now enormous face. “And neither is your Mam – with her rebels and her music makers and her filthy, contagious combined magics. My people will crush her like a bug.”

  “You leave Mam alone,” barked Tipper, and before anyone could stop him, he squirmed free of Dad’s arms and leapt to bite the queen.

  “ARGH!” she cried, swatting him from her with a great sweep of her arm.

  Tipper was flung through the air over Mup’s head. With an agonized yelp, he hit the castle wall, bounced, hit the steps and tumbled onto the hard cobbled courtyard, where he lay motionless.

  “Nooo!” yelled Mup. She fired on her grandmother, lightning shooting from her palms in a great fountain of rage and horror and fear.

  For a moment Mup was blinded by the column of smoke and flame that gushed from her own hands. Then her body seemed to run out of fuel. She fell abruptly to her knees. Once again, spots danced before her eyes.

  Crow grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her to her feet. She could hear him shouting through the ringing in her ears. “Run! RUN!”

  Mup looked up to see her grandmother lower the hands which she had raised to protect herself from Mup’s attack. The old woman seemed unharmed, though her arms were blackened to the shoulder, her white hair scorched and flecked with soot. Her eyes glittered like ice-chips in her smoke-darkened face. Behind her, the ranks of witches looked, then looked away. Obviously trusting in the strength of their queen, they went back to firing at the sky. The queen did not speak – simply rose to her enormous height again, lifted her hands and blasted Mup and Crow.

  Mup didn’t know where she found the strength to move, but just before the blast hit, she flung her arms upwards, causing a bubble of bright light to flare into existence around her and Crow. The queen’s power roared against it and they were hurled backwards, surrounded but untouched, like two terrified goldfish in a bowl, tossed into a sea of green fire.

  They slammed into the base of the castle wall. Mup felt all her bones jar from the impact. The air gasped from her lungs. Crow cracked his head hard against the wall and flopped limply to her side. For a moment Mup couldn’t move. She was drained – broken, almost – by the amount of power she’d just used to protect herself. Across the courtyard her dad ran and snatched something colourful from the flagstones just as a huge block of stone fell from the walls above. The stone shattered, and Dad hunched as debris rained down around him.

  Badger barked at him from the shelter of a doorway, as if to say, This way.

  Dad spun, torn between protecting the thing in his arms and running back for Mup.

  To her dismay, Mup realized the thing in Dad’s arms was Tipper. Her brother was a baby once more, his colourful, snow-suited body as lifeless as a doll’s. Another block plummeted from the sky. Just before it hit, Badger leapt and chomped down on Dad’s flight suit, pulling Dad and Tipper out of the stone’s path and into the doorway. The ground thumped with the impact. The stone filled the doorway, blocking it and the room beyond from sight.

  Mup tried to rise and couldn’t.

  With the same grin a cat might give a broke-backed mouse, the queen advanced on her. Clumsily, Mup scrabbled for Crow, determined to protect him. Something fell from her neck with a sharp tinkling of broken glass. It was the pendant. With a great gasp of glitter and light, Aunty swirled upwards, reeling as though shoved from a calm room into the teeth of a gale.

  At the sight of her sister’s ghost, the looming queen came to a halt. Aunty hunched and raised her hands, like a fat, wary cat unsheathing its claws. The wind, which whipped the queen’s hair and snatched at Mup and Crow’s clothes, dragged at Aunty’s glittering outline, smudging it. This made the queen smile.

  “Well, well,” she sneered. “Aren’t you a mess?”

  “You don’t look so good yourself, dear,” said Aunty. “Your face could do with a wash.”

  In response to her voice, the wind lulled for a moment, the choir outside the walls paused. There came a huge clap of thunder. Lightning tore the sky. It was Aunty’s turn to smile.

  “That’s my girl,” she said as the choir resumed its terrible chorus.

  The top stones of the front wall floated away as the storm began to disassemble the castle from the top down. Soon the yard would be open to the outside. Soon Mam would be here.

  For the first time Mup saw uncertainty in the witches’ expressions. But the queen had only to look back at them, and nod reassuringly. “Hold steady,” she said. Her people straightened, and stood firm, once again calm and ready for whatever would come through the gap in the wall.

  Mup rolled painfully to her hands and knees.

  “Crow?” she gasped, shaking her friend. “Are you OK?”

  “What … what time is it?” he croaked. “Is it time for worms?”

  Mup breathed a shaky laugh and helped him sit. “I think it might be time to run, Crow.”

  “Yes,” said Aunty, her hands still held in warning against the queen. “Time for you to run, Pearl. Your mother is not in control of this battle. Once the wall breaks, it will be rebel against enforcer, and you will not stand a chance of escaping the crossfire. Take your brother and your dad and get back across the border.” She smiled over her shoulder at Mup. “You’ll find the way. Just follow that little twitching nose of yours. All the world is there to guide you if you ask the right questions.”

  Mup helped Crow to his feet. He flopped against her, and didn’t seem to understand what was happening. She slung his arm over her shoulder. “Can you walk, Crow?”

  “By my tall hat,” he mumbled, his head lolling against her neck. “What kind of question is that? Can I walk? I’m not a baby.”

  Mup had to grip him firmly about his waist as he buckled at the knees.

  “What about you, Aunty?” Mup did not like how the storm was scouring away at her Aunty’s ghost, dispersing her as glitter and mist into the tempest. Aunty was fading. Mup had a feeling that if she went this time, she wouldn’t be coming back. “I don’t want you to go!”

  Aunty just smiled at her. “I’m sorry I hadn’t the courage to let your mam be herself as she grew up, Pearl. My life made me happy, so I thought it should make everyone happy. I had no idea your mam might want to live differently. I made her waste a lot of time – limiting herself to only half of her potential. Tell her I’m sorry, won’t you? Tell her … tell her, I hope she finds a way to be who she’s truly meant to b
e.”

  The queen sneered. “Oh, we all know who my daughter thinks she’s truly meant to be – but she needn’t think I’m going to let it happen, sister. Don’t you remember what it was like here before I took the throne? People living by all kinds of made-up rules, based on which clann they were in or what animal they fancied being. It was chaos – pandemonium.”

  “Oh, it was not.”

  “It was!”

  “Just because you say something is bad doesn’t make it bad, sister. And just because you disapprove of something doesn’t mean it shouldn’t exist. We shouldn’t all have to live your idea of a worthy life!”

  “Worthy? What was worthy about magic wasted on trinkets and sing-songs? On people casually turning themselves into bats and rabbits and goldfish! No one knew whether they were coming or going, until I took charge. Mark my words, as soon as I’m gone, it’ll all fall apart again. Does my daughter honestly think she can handle that?”

  “I don’t know what Stella can handle,” said Aunty. “Or what Stella wants.”

  The queen lowered her huge, bitter and somehow magnificent face to stare Aunty in the eye. “She wants my throne,” she hissed. “Everyone wants my throne. The only difference is that, unlike you, she might one day be strong enough to take it.”

  “She’s not strong enough yet,” said Aunty.

  The queen smiled her terrible smile. “That’s right. You kept a lid on her too long, sister. You taught her nothing about how to control her powers, and now she’s nothing but chaos.” She straightened. “And so, I will crush her.” She turned her back, dismissing her sister’s ghost and the children who cowered behind it, and stalked back to her witches, who were watching as the gap in the great castle wall grew and grew.

  “Aunty,” whispered Mup, eyeing the calm, ready faces of the queen’s people and the great howling chaos of the storm which raged beyond the wall. “Aunty, they’ll kill Mam.”

  But Aunty was not listening. Her eyes were closed, her arms held stiffly by her sides, her hands spread, and she was whispering. After a moment, she opened her eyes, her head cocked, clearly hearing something beyond the storm and the rage of grinding stone. She looked at the queen, who was just resuming her place amongst the ranks of cold-faced witches.

  “You have underestimated the power of memory, sister,” whispered Aunty. “And the power of anger.” She winked back at Mup. “And of love, too,” she acknowledged. “Goodbye, Mup. I won’t be coming back this time. Best run now. Run to the border. Don’t stop until you’re safe.”

  “Goodbye?” said Mup, struggling to keep Crow on his feet. “Won’t you…?”

  But Aunty was already walking away through the tempest, a plump old lady in a cardigan and comfortable trousers, the storm working hard to erase her transparency from the air. She swept her arms up, calling something forth from the stones beneath her feet. “You’ve done wrong here, sister!” she called. “You’ve done wrong, and it has not been forgotten.”

  The queen turned to her, puzzled.

  “Memory has found a voice!” cried Aunty. “Anger has found a purpose. Love has found a community. Together these things will defeat you.”

  The flagstones began to glitter as one by one ghosts of men and women pulled their glowing bodies from the cracks. These ghosts did not look gentle. They did not look kind. They came from deep dark rooms underground, after years of no one speaking their names. They were anger set free at last. Rising, unstoppable, into the light, they flowed from the mouths of tunnels and doorways, stalking towards their jailers, howling for revenge.

  Aunty bobbed, laughing, at the head of their tide.

  “Let’s see you kill them twice, sister! Let’s see you defeat an army of ghosts!”

  As the ghosts reached the first of the appalled witches, the wall of the castle came tumbling down. A chaos of storm cloud and battle song poured through the gap.

  Mup heard Aunty yell as lightning and fire blasted from the determined witches. “Run, little hare! Run!”

  She didn’t need to be told a third time. She gripped Crow around his waist and dragged him, as best she could, towards the place she’d last seen her dad.

  “Dad?” yelled Mup. “Dad, are you guys OK in there?”

  Her dad’s face appeared at the slim gap where the stone hadn’t quite blocked the entire doorway. “Little girl!” he said, one eye peering anxiously out. “Are you all right? I can’t move this rock. Wait, let me try again…”

  He disappeared and Mup heard a thump as he flung his body against the block. It shivered slightly, dust sifting down, but the gap didn’t widen. Dad’s eye appeared again. “It won’t budge!” he said. “I’ve tried and tried. Are you hurt? Is your friend hurt?” He shifted position, trying to see Crow, who had slid to the ground as soon as Mup had let him go.

  “We’re OK, Dad. How’s Tipper? How’s Badger?”

  He glanced behind him, as if to check. “The … the little baby seems OK. He’s very frightened, though. The dog has run off. I…” Dad pressed his face to the gap again. “What’s happening out there? It sounds like a war zone.”

  You don’t know the half of it, thought Mup. Their position was sheltered from the gutting wind, but Mup could see lightning flashing and gouts of fire. Ghosts and witches and people fought each other with furious intent; boiling columns of angry storm cloud roiled the air. “We need to get out of here, Dad.”

  Again her dad looked behind him. She could hear a whimpering back there, and now a familiar crying rose up. Dad disappeared from view for a moment. A huge boom of thunder shook the castle. Mup pressed her back to the wall, terrified, as the stones above her and the ground below her shivered. Rocks and pebbles fell like hard rain. She pulled Crow deeper into the shelter. He allowed her to put her arms around him, and seemed perfectly content to just sit, gaping at the chaos.

  “By my tall hat,” he mumbled,

  “I’ve never seen a storm like that.”

  Dad appeared at the gap again. Tipper was in his arms, howling. Mup squeezed her arm between the stones, and put her dusty hand on her brother’s hot and terrified face. “It’s OK, Tipper. It’s OK. Daddy will look after you.”

  But Tipper was inconsolable. Dad jiggled him up and down, all the time glancing back into the space behind him. “There’s a passageway behind this room,” he said. “I can feel fresh air coming from somewhere. I think that might be where the dog went. I think he might be looking for a way out for us.” He pressed his face to the gap again. “But I won’t leave you, little girl.”

  “You have to, Dad! You have to take Tipper and go. Crow and I can find our own way.”

  Dad shifted to see Crow. “That boy is in no shape to walk.”

  “Dad!” Mup grabbed her dad’s sleeve, and pulled him down until he was looking her in the eye. “Dad, I need you to trust me. I’ll get me and Crow out of here. You need to take Tipper. You need to follow Badger. I promise I’ll meet you outside the castle!”

  There was another boom. The stones shook around them. Tipper howled as rocks fell and dust choked the air. “Go!” shouted Mup, shoving her dad from the gap. “Run!” And, following her own advice, she heaved Crow to his feet and ran, just as a whole section of wall roared from above and shattered into the place where they’d just been.

  After a couple of yards they came to the dark mouth of a tunnel. Mup staggered into it, dragging Crow like a sack, trying to put as much distance between them and the fight as possible before he stumbled again.

  “I’m sorry,” he gasped. “I’m sorry.” He slithered through her arms and puddled to the floor, incapable of keeping his feet. “Oh,” he gasped. “Oh, why won’t the world stop spinning?”

  Mup crouched beside him, panting, and gazed back the way they’d come. The courtyard was a distant patch of light through which figures moved furiously, hacking at each other and wrestling, firing bolts of hurt and harm.

  Mup did not want to go back out there.

  She glanced into the dark tunnels ahead.
I’m the hare, she told herself. I find my own paths.

  Hesitantly, she put her hand to the ground. She closed her eyes, and imagined a safe way out of the castle. This way, whispered the stones. This way. A path stretched out in Mup’s mind: mazes of dark tunnels, shaking walls and unsteady ceilings. She opened her eyes. Was that truly her safest option?

  Crow groaned again.

  “Can you turn into a raven?” she whispered.

  “I can’t,” he gasped. “Sorry.”

  “Please, Crow, won’t you try?”

  Crow rolled to his side. “I think you should just leave me,” he whispered.

  “I’m not leaving you!” she cried. “Come on!” She slapped his shoulder. “Try, you stubborn bird!”

  He raised himself to shaking arms. He tensed his whole body. He gasped, and became a raven.

  “Yes!” yelled Mup, already scrambling to her feet. “Yes! Just hold it!” She snatched him from the ground and ran into the dark, trusting in the stones and in the messages they were sending – running as fast and as far as she could for as long as she was able. “Hold on, Crow!” she yelled. “Hold on!” Crow hung limp and heavy in her arms. His beak opened and closed as he fought to keep control. Mup yelled as the breath jogged from her. “You can do it! You can do it!”

  She ran, blind except for the whispers of the stones through the soles of her feet, left now, right now, straight, straight, straight. Onwards through the pressing dark, consumed with the knowledge that this was the right way to go. This was the way out. If only they could keep running.

  Crow gasped. He shuddered. He became abruptly heavy in her arms, and was a boy once more.

  The two of them fell to the ground.

  Through her rage and disappointment, Mup heard noises coming up behind them. She dragged the groaning Crow in against the wall, pressed in beside him and told him to shush. Almost immediately people hurried past, invisible in the darkness, jostling each other along. They were gone quickly, their footsteps and urgent whispers fading into the distance like a dream.