I gritted my teeth. ‘Sure there has. Are we going to have my test now instead of tomorrow morning? Or maybe we could do it at midnight. Wouldn’t that be fun?’
She tossed her straw-coloured hair behind her, and began to write on the blackboard:
Wanda’s Travelling Test. Tomorrow Afternoon. Four P.M.
I sighed. I had been hoping to get the test over first thing in the morning so I could get on with helping my coven. ‘Fine. I’ll be here at four.’
She gave me a cold smile. ‘Good. You can spend the whole day practising. And you’ll be finished in plenty of time to get to the ball and tell everyone how you’ve let Emily and Lassie down.’
≈
‘There has to be something we can do.’ I paced the kitchen. It was lunchtime, and after a busy morning, my mother and Christine had returned home for a bite to eat. Melissa was still at work at the Wyrd Court, and Max was up in Dublin for the day, seeing if any of the weredogs up there had heard anything about Jasper. He was just as convinced as I was that Jasper was the key to all of this. Especially now that we knew for sure his disappearance wasn’t a publicity stunt.
‘Emily’s lawyer has asked that the trial be postponed for a few more weeks,’ Christine told me. ‘Lassie’s lawyer would have asked the same. Y’know, if she were allowed to have one. If the trial is postponed, at least we’ll have some extra time to investigate.’
‘Well, that’s something.’ I slumped into the chair. ‘I’ll be a proper Wayfair after tomorrow, so I’ll be able to give it all of my time then.’
My mother gave me a slightly scolding look. ‘You already are giving it all of your time, from what I can tell. You have your last exam coming up. You need to concentrate on that.’
I shook my head and bit into my bean burger. ‘It’s okay. Melissa’s been helping me with the inner map. I think I’ve got it down, and if I don’t ... well, I’ll worry about that if it happens.’
My mother looked about to argue, but Christine patted her arm and said, ‘I think Wanda’s right. She either knows how to use the map or she doesn’t. And if she doesn’t, she certainly knows any coordinates that might be used in the test. It’s always a well-known magical building. She’ll be sent to the Museum of Magical Artefacts or the Wyrd Court or somewhere like that. She’ll be fine, Beatrice. You know she will.’
My mother huffed a little. When she finally began to pour me a glass of orange juice, I knew Christine had won her over. ‘Okay. You can help us. Here’s what we’re going to do for the rest of the day. We–’
Her attention – and all of our attention – drifted to Melissa, appearing in the kitchen with flaming eyes and a red face. ‘What the hell are we going to do now?’ she said. ‘We have to find them. We have to.’
The three of us gave her the same slack-jawed expression.
‘We have to find who?’ asked Christine. ‘And sit down before you answer. You look like you’re about to explode.’
Melissa shook her head and ran out of the room. ‘Come on. Maybe it’s on the news.’
By the time we joined her in the living room, she had the TV tuned in to the Wyrd News Channel. Gabriel Godbody’s face looked out at us, his expression theatrically grim.
‘I know, right?’ he said to the camera. ‘Those plucky girls we’ve all been rooting for have now gone and done this.’
Footage appeared on screen of the inside of Witchfield prison. First, we saw Emily, throwing a Peacemaker out of her way with a powerful spell. Next we saw her run to the weredog wing, where she blasted doors from their frames, sent more Peacemakers flying, and finally got to Lassie’s cell. After that it was the two of them, running hand in hand, cackling together as they left a trail of destruction in their wake.
‘What more can I say?’ Gabriel’s face appeared once more on screen. His expression was nothing short of dejected. ‘You all know by now that I work with the Wayfairs. It’s common knowledge that my coven were the ones to arrest Emily Caulfield – and that we were not happy about that arrest, or the arrest of Lassie McGrath. So what can I say? Maybe, just once, we were wrong. Or maybe ... and I want you to think about this a minute, folks ... maybe Lassie McGrath and Emily Caulfield escaped because they felt it was their only option.’ He crossed the stage and sat down into a chair. ‘With me this afternoon, we have one of the Minister’s Peacemakers to explain how someone could possibly escape Witchfield.’ A uniformed Peacemaker marched onto the stage, sat down opposite Gabriel, and took off her helmet.
‘Majella Aherne,’ said Gabriel. ‘So good of you to come. Now, first of all, can you explain to us how it was possible for Emily to use magic? Wasn’t she disempowered, like all Witchfield’s magical inmates?’
Like Gretel, Majella had dark hair, except that she wore hers in a bob. She smoothed it down, then looked at the camera instead of Gabriel, as she replied. ‘At breakfast this morning, Emily Caulfield stole a device from one of our Peacemakers. I cannot go into the particulars of this device, but suffice to say that, with it, Emily was able to restore her power, and take the Peacemakers who were guarding the prison unawares.’
Christine switched off the TV.
‘What did you do that for?’ asked Melissa. ‘I wanted to hear more.’
‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to act like the boss of the world or anything. I just don’t think there’s any point in hearing what Majella has to say when we could be out looking for Lassie and Emily. Because let’s face it – if the Peacemakers find them before we do, then it’s not going to be good.’
‘You’re right,’ my mother told Christine. ‘We need to get out there. Get everyone we have looking for those girls.’
I followed them to the coat stand in the hallway. Something was bothering me, and I hadn’t put my finger on it yet.
‘It’s strange that it was Majella on TV and not Finn,’ said Melissa. ‘Isn’t he the captain?’
I nodded. ‘That’s definitely weird.’ As I adjusted the collar of my coat, my hand went to my neck and my eyes widened. ‘But that’s not the only thing that was weird. I know those images were fuzzy, and we’ll really need a better look – but did any of you happen to notice the fact that Lassie wasn’t wearing her Pendant of Privilege?’
The three of them stopped at the door. Just as Melissa opened her mouth to reply, a male voice outside said, ‘I knew I wasn’t the only one who noticed.’
The three of them moved back into the hallway, and Finn Plimpton followed them inside.
≈
Finn sank into an armchair that had seen better days. As soon as he was sitting, Mischief crawled up on his lap and settled down for a snooze. ‘Well, I was going to show you guys the full footage from Witchfield, but I’d sure hate to disturb your familiar’s afternoon nap.’
My mother reached for the small silver stick Finn held out. It looked a little like a memory stick, but it buzzed with magic.
My mother bit her lip. ‘That’s one of those new holomagiggers, isn’t it?’
‘I’m guessing you don’t have a player for the holomagigger, then?’ He glanced at our incredibly old, wooden framed TV.
Melissa ran upstairs, shouting, ‘I have one,’ behind her as she went. A moment later she appeared in the living room. ‘I was so excited I forgot I could get upstairs a lot quicker with magic.’ She held out a small, slim, circular device. There were no buttons, just a slot at the top.
‘Where did you get that?’ Christine approached the device. ‘Those things cost a fortune.’
Melissa cleared her throat. ‘Well, it was a present. From Callum Cool. Actually, he’s been sending me a lot of presents lately. At least this one is useful. Not like the perfume and fancy underwear.’
Finn laughed. ‘I can think of some uses for fancy underwear.’
Feeling the collective glares of all four of us, he hung his head. ‘Sorry. Carry on. Pretend I’m not here.’
‘What is it though?’ I asked. ‘It can’t really be called a holomaggiger.’
Melissa shoo
k her head. ‘It’s HVR – holovisual recording. It only came out a little while ago.’ She glanced at Finn. ‘And the prison service records all their footage like this? It must cost a fortune.’
Finn laughed dryly. ‘My aunt is in charge of Witchfield’s budget. She spends a lot of money on flashy new office equipment and not nearly as much on anything important. Like decent food for the prisoners or rehabilitation. Anyway, stick it in. I know you’ve already spotted that Lassie wasn’t wearing a pendant. The thing is, I’ve already brought that fact to my aunt, and she didn’t seem to care much. Which is why Majella went on TV this afternoon instead of me. Apparently I can no longer be trusted to toe the government line.’
‘Don’t tell me she’s fired you?’ my mother asked with a frown.
‘Not yet.’ Finn smiled down at Mischief, who had begun to purr and dig his nails in to Finn’s trousers. ‘But let’s face it – it’s only a matter of time.’
The HVR began to play. Watching it was kind of terrifying. Everyone and everything was three dimensional, and the noise played in surround sound. We watched pretty much the same footage as we had seen on Wyrd News, except that it felt a lot more visceral.
When the footage ended, Christine turned to Finn in confusion. ‘I don’t get it. There’s nothing new here.’
Finn raised a brow. ‘Exactly. That footage I’ve just showed you – that’s all there is. For two hours before, and for another hour after, the recording equipment suffered its first ever break down.’
My mother gasped. ‘So ... you think that your people ...’
‘Yeah,’ Finn replied flatly. ‘I think that the prison guards were in on this. I think this entire break out was staged. I think I can’t trust a single person under my command. Well ... except maybe Gretel.’
17. Red Herring
We sat at the kitchen table a short while later, trying to come up with a plan. Mischief had followed Finn from the living room, and was once again napping on his lap.
‘We do carry a device on our belts at all times.’ Finn pulled a small silver ball off his belt loop. There was one tiny black button on it. ‘This is linked to my magic, and my magic only. We carry it in case of emergency, in case we have to restore a witch’s magic on site for some reason, this will temporarily do the trick. Even if Emily stole it from one of our lot, there’s no way she could have used it. Whatever Peacemaker owned the device would have had to be the one to push the button, and they have to repeat a unique incantation – one which we change three times every day – in order for it to work.’
‘But Majella must know that, surely,’ said my mother. ‘So why is she lying?’
Finn pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘Because I wouldn’t. My aunt asked me to be the one to go on TV and tell the world that Emily stole the device. She asked me to fluff the details. She said it was in the sake of public interest until we found out how Emily really managed to get her power back while incarcerated. But obviously I refused. Majella doesn’t seem to have the same problem with telling lies.’
I nibbled on a biscuit, hoping that the calories would help to kick-start my brain. The answer to all of this was in there. During the last few weeks there had been clues and red herrings aplenty. I narrowed my eyes and thought more carefully. Red herrings. Fishy smelling boxes of chocolate. I mean sure, Riddler’s Cove was a coastal town, but things didn’t normally smell that way. There was something there. Something working away in my brain that I couldn’t quite pull to the fore.
Normally I was able to figure things out so much more quickly. It was frustrating the hell out of me that I wasn’t able to right now. I stared out the window, trying to calm my mind and find some way to focus on the problem.
‘It had to have been some sort of doppelganger potion again,’ said Melissa. ‘Like when we saw the footage from Caulfield’s Cakes. But either way, the real Lassie and Emily aren’t in Witchfield anymore.’ She glanced at Finn. ‘Are they?’
He shook his head. ‘I turned the place upside down. I had Gretel scan for any sort of invisibility spells. There’s nothing. And I have no idea who it was playing Lassie and Emily in that farce of a film, but I have no doubt that my Peacemakers aided them. Hell, they might even be them.’
Christine refilled his tea cup. ‘I hope you don’t mind me asking, Finn, but ... why do you trust Gretel? She seems a bit ...’
Finn’s lips turned up into a soft smile. ‘Gretel is not what she seems. Yeah, she’s dumb in many ways. But she’s a genius in others. She works a magic scanner like no one I’ve ever seen. And sometimes she just comes out with something totally random, but that actually saves the day. I ... I can’t explain it. You’d have to get to know her. She’s clever – in her own special way – and she’s also as honest as the day is long.’
Christine nodded. ‘Fine. You know your staff, I suppose.’
‘Not all of them,’ Melissa muttered. ‘Sorry. But come on – you clearly don’t if they’re all keeping massive prison breaks a secret from you.’
Finn took a sip of tea and sighed. ‘You want to know the sad truth? Gretel isn’t just the only one I trust right now. She’s the only one I’ve ever trusted. Since my very first day as captain. It’s like my aunt goes out of her way to find the most corrupt, most stupid, most depraved wastes of space to work for her. So yeah. I do know my staff. I know that every single one of them – except Gretel – is capable of anything. Planting evidence. Framing innocent people. Stealing my ham and cheese sandwich from the fridge. Anything.’
I crammed one last biscuit into my mouth, slurped the rest of my tea and stood up. ‘Right. Well, I don’t know about you guys, but it’s like we decided before Finn arrived. We need to find Emily and Lassie – the real Emily and Lassie – before the Peacemakers do.’
My mother nodded and stood up. ‘You’re right. I’ll get onto the other coven members and we’ll get a search underway.’
≈
I walked along the cliff, with Molly Golly and Dizzy flying beside me. Molly Golly was singing a song that was supposed to be bracing and uplifting. With lyrics like, ‘I have the most beautiful bod, you know you want to touch it,’ I was a little unsure as to how it could help. But I let her warble away while she looked down at the waterline.
I was searching the cliffs, against all other advice. The rest of the coven thought – probably sensibly – that we ought to approach this the way a Peacemaker would. They thought that the key to this was to think like a Peacemaker – as in, not think very much. My mother reasoned that Peacemakers probably got more training from TV than they did from the Department of Magical Law. So if they were hiding Lassie and Emily, it was probably in an abandoned building, an old mine shaft, the dilapidated train station in Riddler’s Edge – y’know, the kind of place where a moustache twirling movie villain would take his victims.
But I just couldn’t get the smell of fish out of my head, so I’d left the rest of my coven to follow their own hunches. Instead, I was scouring the coastline with Dizzy and Molly Golly, wishing to the goddess that Max was here. We were headed for Hope Cliff, because I was convinced that if I found anything, I’d probably find it near Jasper Jaunt’s house.
As we made a steady incline up towards Jasper’s house, there were more and more coves littered below. On a precarious looking ledge hovering a few feet above the waterline, I suddenly spied an old wooden hut.
My heart began to drum. ‘I’m going to magic myself down there. Do you think you guys will be all right making the flight?’
Dizzy looked down at the hut. ‘It looks like something from a horror movie.’
‘It sure does,’ I agreed. ‘It looks like exactly the sort of place the rest of my coven are searching for. So if I travel, can you follow me down?’
Dizzy moved his wing against his forehead in the most adorable little salute ever and said, ‘Of course I can. After you, Wanda.’
I clicked my fingers, and arrived in front of the hut. Between the badly hanging door and the edge of the ledge,
I had about two feet to stand upon, and most of that was taken up by a striped deck chair, with a fishing rod propped behind it.
As Dizzy and Molly flew down towards me, the parrot said, ‘Hey, where’s your boyfriend? I thought he would have come back from Dublin for this.’
‘You seriously just noticed Max isn’t here?’
The parrot shrugged. ‘I was lost in the music.’
I resisted the temptation to tell her she could get lost there all over again as soon as she liked. ‘He’ll be here later,’ I said. ‘He has one more lead he wants to track down in Dublin, and then Gabriel’s going to take him back to Riddler’s Cove.’
I turned away from the bird and pulled the door open. It was so badly constructed that I was afraid it would fall clean from the hinges – or worse, the whole cabin would break apart. I waited a second just to be sure the place was holding steady, and then entered. As soon as I was inside, my hand flew to my nose. The place definitely smelled fishy. There were nets strung up on the ceiling above me, a floor littered with tiny bones, and an old bucket filled with decaying fish heads. Lovely. Seeing as sometimes things aren’t quite what they seem, I searched the air for signs of spells. But it really was just a disgusting old hut.
Molly shuddered. ‘I hoped I’d never have to come here again.’
I stared at the bird. ‘Again? You mean you were here before?’
‘Oh, didn’t I tell you that? Yes. Holly and I were here many many times. This place is Jasper Jaunt’s.’
‘You couldn’t have told me he had a suspicious old hut a mile away from his house earlier on? Why is it here? Why not in his own private cove? Wait ...’ A thought was leaping to mind. An important one.
Molly began to sing. ‘Jasper Jaunt, the jaunty guy, he’s the one who gives the eyes, he’s the one I like to see, every morning with my tea. He’s the one, the one I want, the one I want to marry me.’
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