by Nancy Warren
I realized Eileen was still standing there. No doubt she was waiting for permission to leave. I walked out with her into the main shop. I could barely find the words to express how grateful I was. "Thank you so much for your help, today, Eileen. I don't know what I would've done without you."
"It's been a pleasure." She hesitated, and then said, "My bus gets here half an hour before the shop opens. This morning I went and had a coffee, but I’d just as soon come in a bit early and get things ready. If that's all right with you."
"Yes, of course." Mornings were hectic, with my parents staying here, and I’d barely made it downstairs in time to prepare the shop for opening. I said, "I'll give you a key. Then you can let yourself in, whenever you need to."
I got the extra key out of the drawer, and gave it to her.
"Lovely,” she said. "See you tomorrow."
As she left, two more grad students arrived and I sent them into the back room and then ran upstairs to remind my mother and father that the meeting they had arranged was about to begin. They were both deeply immersed in work. My father was typing away on his computer and my mother appeared to be researching something on hers.
Both looked up at me as though I might be speaking a language other than English, and then, as my words sank in, they said in unison, "Ah. The meeting."
My dad said, "Are the students here, already?"
“Yes.”
My mother said, "How many turned up?"
"There are five down there now and I have no idea how many there will be altogether."
"We’ll come down," said my dad, though he looked at his screen as though sad to part with it.
I went down with them and, while they went into the back room, to explain about the project to the interested post grads, I phoned for pizza. They had no delivery person, tonight, the woman on the phone explained, but, if I could come and pick them up, they would have my pizzas ready in thirty minutes.
I walked up to get the pizzas and, dodging a crowd of young men who were celebrating some kind of sports win, I headed to The Golden Cross, off Cornmarket, where there’s a Pizza Express tucked into a twelfth century building. There are medieval wall paintings which you can look at while munching your marinara.
A shadow appeared beside me and I jumped. "You scared me," I said to Rafe, as he fell into step beside me.
"You asked me to meet you. I can show you the text," he said, as though I might have forgotten I texted him.
"I know, but even when I'm expecting you, you appear out of thin air."
He looked amused. "That's a talent your people have, not mine."
"Whatever." I couldn't imagine ever being able to disappear and reappear, but then I was basically at the level of Witching 101. "I need your help figuring out this mirror."
He said, "I've been doing some research, and there is reference to a cult of dark and powerful creatures who kill off white witches."
"Is this creature a dark witch?"
"More a demon, I think. A stealer of souls. He's Egyptian in origin, but was certainly active and known to be in Salem during the witch trials. And was also likely here in the UK on witch hunts. He can take many disguises and no one, yet, has been able to stop or destroy him."
“And this is the dude who’s after me?” I glanced up and down the crowded street, wondering if that guy selling magazines might be after my soul. Or could it be that homeless man, sitting on an old blanket, reading. Or maybe his dog, curled up beside him.
“I wish I had better news,” Rafe said, sounding worried.
"The girl in the mirror said he trapped her. She's got some kind of power where she can reach out to other witches, and somehow she latched onto me."
He had a true scholar’s way of looking at things. "That's interesting. I wonder if it's because you've recently discovered your own powers and that triggered her awareness of you. A little like a diver who cuts themselves and then the sharks scent the blood. They coexisted peacefully in the ocean until the blood spilled and then the hunt was on."
"Great analogy. Very comforting. Thanks."
"Lucy, sarcasm won't save you."
I turned to him. "What will save me? That's the real question, here."
"I'm working on that."
"I’d feel a whole lot better if you didn't sound so worried when you said that." We passed a young couple, holding hands, clearly students. I waited until they were out of earshot. "What I need is a super witch. Someone older, with more power, who might have some idea how to help me fight this thing."
He looked down at me. "I might know someone."
"But? The way you said that there was an implied but."
"You've been hidden until now, incognito if you will. Once you enter this powerful witch’s circle, you'll forever be part of it."
A shiver went over my skin. I felt like I was being given a choice. I could be killed by some horrible soul-sucking demon, probably in some very unpleasant way, or I could be drawn into a powerful witch’s coven. I’d been able to avoid joining my cousin’s circle, I wasn’t sure I’d fare as well with a more powerful witch. I wished there was a third option. And maybe there was.
"What if I could free that girl? She's clearly a witch, too, and nobody knows his power like she does. What if I could somehow break the spell that binds her?"
"That’s an excellent idea. How will you free her?"
Here we came to the sticking point of my great plan. "I don't know."
He turned to me, as dark and mysterious as the ancient city at his back. "Have you even been practicing your magic?"
"Yes." I sounded defensive even to my own ears. "But I'm busy with the shop and my life."
“Well, if we want that life to continue, we’re going to have to figure out a way to stop this creature."
I felt much better now that he was using ‘we.’ Rafe might not be a witch, but he was a very powerful vampire. I was certain he could help me if he put his mind to it.
"I want you to keep yourself safe. Try not to be alone. How’s your new assistant working out so far?”
I thought of comfortable, safe. Eileen Percival had had one more reason to be glad I’d hired her. "She’s the perfect assistant. I feel completely safe with her."
"Good. With customers coming and going, plus your assistant, you should be safe enough during shop hours.” He held up a finger in warning. “Don't do this again, coming out in the evening, alone. Especially not going down deserted side streets."
“I knew I was meeting you.”
"Yes, but when I appeared, you jumped like a frightened rabbit. You didn't take any defensive action."
Damn. I was really going to have to up my game. "I keep forgetting I’m a witch."
"Well, the demon isn't forgetting, so I suggest you don't, either." He sounded stern, and I knew it was because he was worried about me.
I said, "I'll try and talk to the girl in the mirror again tonight. She seems to appear whenever I recite the spell. I’ll ask her if the mirror can be destroyed. She’s on the inside of it, with plenty of time to think. She must have some ideas.” I gnawed my lip. “And, I'd better meet your super witch."
"I think that's wise."
He slipped back into the shadows while I went into the restaurant and picked up the pizzas. Rafe carried them as we walked home, and when we passed a Tesco Express convenience store, I said I'd better go in and get some soft drinks.
"You have plates and napkins?" Rafe asked.
"No. Thanks for reminding me. How is it you know everything?"
"When you've been around as long as I have, you learn a thing or two."
I picked up some bottles of sparkling water and juices as well as napkins and paper plates, and we carried the lot back to my shop.
Rafe slipped away and I walked in, where Dad was in full lecture mode. Six prospective students sat in a rough oval, with Mom and Dad at one skinny end of the oval. The students all had notebooks out and looked keen.
As I put the pizzas and thin
gs on the table, as quietly as I could, Pete looked up and winked at me. I gave him a little wave. Then, feeling certain that I wouldn't be needed, I slipped upstairs.
Nyx followed me. She seemed to spend her time wherever my parents weren’t, and she’d stopped even posing in my front window. Now, she was out most of the time. I thought that magic mirror was freaking her out, and I didn’t blame her. Still, I missed her warm comfort and was happy she’d decided to come inside for a while. As soon as we arrived upstairs, I fed her a can of tuna and freshened her water.
I ought to eat, too, but I was too wound up. She followed me upstairs into my bedroom. I shut the door and retrieved the leather bag containing the mirror from where I’d hidden it in my bedside drawer, behind a novel. On top of it I’d piled a flashlight I kept there in case the lights went out, pen and paper, and a packet of tissues. Nyx eyed the bag warily and, when I pulled out the mirror, she arched her back and hissed and then jumped onto the windowsill and shot out the window.
I'd left the window open only about an inch, but she was so anxious to be out, she squeezed her body through the opening, flattening herself like a cat-shaped tube of toothpaste. She obviously sensed that there was nothing good about this mirror. I wished I could run away from it. I didn't want to be anywhere near this thing, either. I had a very strong feeling that this wasn't something I could run away from. This was going to be one of those challenges I had to face head-on.
I took a deep breath and tried to center myself, but my heart was beating so fast I was breathless. I recited the incantation on the mirror. As before, the blue light began to radiate and the young girl appeared in the wavy surface of the mirror, like an apparition on top of the sea.
"You are still alive," she said, sounding amazed.
"Yes. And I plan to stay that way for as long as possible. Meritamun, you’ve been inside that mirror for a long time. Do you think it can be destroyed?"
She said, "I think it may be possible. It would take a very hot fire and the correct spell." She looked very sad as she said the words, but she raised her chin in what looked like bravado.
"Meritamun, if I destroy the mirror, what will happen to you?"
"I will suffer the same fate."
I was filled with horror. "You mean, if I'm able to destroy this mirror, perhaps by burning it and melting the bronze, you would burn up with it?"
She nodded. And a single tear tracked down her cheek. "Do not hesitate. It is my fate. I have been an instrument of evil, it is only right that I should perish."
"But that wasn't your fault. You're an unwilling victim of evil. No, there has to be another way."
She said, "I do not know what it is. Better I should be destroyed than to continue to bring death to my people."
She began to fade. "But, wait, there must be some other way. Can’t we break the original spell? The one that trapped you?"
"To destroy the evil spell, you would have to destroy my master." At least, I thought that’s what she said, she faded away on the last words.
I felt as though I were playing a bit part in a horror movie. Evil warlocks and trapped maidens? Seriously? And, like the bit player in the movie, I wasn't powerful enough to fight any of them. I was seriously worried that in this movie, I was that girl who hears the noise in the basement, and goes to see what it is, in her nightgown. I was even blonde.
Not only did I not want to die some horrific death, I didn’t want to leave that poor girl cursed any longer, either.
I retrieved my family’s spell book from where I kept it hidden, at the back of my closet. Okay, it wasn’t a great hiding place, but the book was spellbound so anyone who stole it would have to break a powerful spell to gain access. I opened the book and searched for spells that would release a trapped witch.
There was an interesting story, handwritten in faded ink, about a witch who’d been trapped in a bottle in the 1800s. That seemed close enough to being trapped in a mirror, that I wondered if I could release the witch using the same method. I eagerly read the piece and discovered the bottle containing the witch was on display at the Pitt Rivers Museum, right here in Oxford. A note in my grandmother’s hand said, “Presumably, the poor witch is still trapped inside.”
Well, and wasn’t that just great? If the local witches couldn’t release their old friend, what chance did I have of springing a witch from a three-thousand–year-old mirror?
Rafe was right. I was going to have to visit his friend, the super witch.
I texted Rafe and said I would like him to introduce me to his friend as soon as possible. He texted back with one word. Understood.
A little later he texted back. Dawn tomorrow and an address. I Googled the address and it was a good ten miles out of town, in a place called Moreton-Under-Wychwood, which sounded like a charming English village. But I knew of this place. It was where my witch cousin, Violet Weeks, and her grandmother, Lavinia lived. I was going to have to visit witch central. At dawn.
I thumbed through my grimoire, now looking for a spell that would protect me from harm. Whoever had put this grimoire together was no archivist. It was a mess of spells and stories, with no rhyme or reason. No wonder I wasn’t learning anything. I felt like someone had told me to learn Latin and then chucked the complete works of Virgil and Horace at me. I didn’t know where to start.
I was not looking forward to driving Gran’s old car to this witch’s house ten miles away, at dawn. I hated driving in the UK. I could never get on with the other side of the road business.
While I was fretting, I got another text. Rafe again. He told me he would pick me up in his car at six in the morning. I may not have loved how high-handed he was, but I could forgive a lot to a man who was willing to chauffeur me before the crack of dawn.
One good thing about leaving the house so early was that I wouldn't have to explain my actions to my parents, who would hopefully sleep through my whole encounter with the super witch.
I only wished I could.
Chapter 8
I went to bed early, but of course, I couldn't sleep. My dreams were troubled by visions of fire and death and a dark shadowy creature who could have been a figment of my imagination, but I knew from the sense of dread that this was the evil demon.
When my alarm woke me at five, I was completely stunned. It took me a moment to realize why my eyes were awake in the pitch dark. I flipped on the light and found that Nyx had come in sometime in the night and was curled beside me. I patted her for a little bit and then told her to go back to sleep.
She didn't, though, she watched me through slitted green eyes as I dressed in black jeans and a loose fitting black linen shirt. I slipped on dark socks and then black ankle boots wondering why I felt the need to dress all in black just because I was going to visit a witch. If I'd had a pointy hat I’d have probably put that on, too, and if I could ride a broom that would've come in handy.
I slipped on the red shawl Theodore had made me, almost defiantly. Then I crept downstairs and made coffee. Strong coffee. I might have to meet a scary witch, but I wasn’t doing it without a lot of caffeine in my system.
As I went to let myself out of the house, I realized Nyx was following me.
"No, Nyx," I whispered, not wanting to take her to a place I didn't want to go myself. She slid along behind me, like a low, creeping shadow. Finally, I pulled the mirror out of my bag and the cat shrank away. As I crept out of the flat I could hear my dad snoring.
When I got to our meeting spot, in the back lane, Rafe was already there in his sleek, black Tesla. I slipped into the passenger seat, did up my seatbelt and he took off almost immediately. He glanced at me. "Nervous?"
He, of course, was wide-awake. I, on the other hand, was groggy and tired after a restless night plagued with bad dreams. Not too tired to be nervous, however, and I nodded briefly.
"Don't let her intimidate you," was his advice. Great, really helpful. That made me much less nervous.
“Who is this super-witch?” I asked.
> “Margaret Twig is her name. She was born in Ontario, in Canada. Her father was a botanist, I believe, and the family lived in the wilderness where he did his studies and wrote books. He taught her about plants, and her mother taught her about natural remedies, much of it gleaned from the aboriginal people of the area.”
“She’s a fellow North American, then.”
“Yes. But, she’s been here for decades. She came to the UK to study natural medicine and connect with her mother’s people.”
“The witches in the family.”
“That’s right. She’s the unofficial leader of the Oxfordshire witches.”
Driving ten miles before dawn, even on tiny country roads near Oxford, didn't take us very long. The lights of the silent car illuminated the twisting road ahead and dark masses of trees that must be the remains of the original Wychwood forest. Overhead the trees met in a canopy so it was like driving in a dark tunnel.
Rafe drove as though he knew these roads intimately, which I expect he did. His home was out this way. My geography was a bit vague, especially in the dark, but his home was near Woodstock and we’d passed through that village. We were in country, now, with few lights showing in the scattered farmhouses. A wooden signpost pointed to Shipton-Under-Wychwood, so I knew we were getting close to Moreton-Under-Wychwood, where my mother’s side of the family came from, and where the witch, Margaret Twig, lived.
Pink and purple light was beginning to streak the sky when we arrived at a low Cotswold stone cottage that sat by itself in a large field. A curl of smoke rose from the chimney. I got out of the car, clutching the leather bag containing the mirror, and Rafe came around the car and, to my surprise, took my hand in his. Even though his hand was cool, it was a very comforting gesture. I felt better knowing he was with me.
We trod up a stone path and up two stone steps. There was a black, wrought iron door knocker, shaped like a pixie, on an ancient oak door. Rafe wrapped smartly on the door and soon a woman opened it.
