by Vance Huxley
Through it all Claris stayed withdrawn, though she rallied enough at school so nobody realised it. Claris and Rob gave the gossip mill some ammunition for a few days, but it soon became clear they weren’t an item and interest waned. Once Rob explained that her ward would stop any leeches getting to her, Claris decided she didn’t want to learn magic. The whole idea scared her, she didn’t even like seeing the others practice so she never even asked to come into the Castle House gardens. Abel saw her staring at his tattoo several times, fascinated, but definitely worried, and hoped she wouldn’t say the wrong thing to anyone.
While Claris dealt with her problem, the older Taverners had to deal with the new contracts in Stourton. Along with the few Taverners not in school, they worked out a rota to fill hexes for their new customers. At least the charity could now reimburse the hex fillers for their petrol or bus fares. Once everything settled down, the older members would take some younger Taverners to help, and to train them. For now, Abel and his friends supplied extra bars full of magic.
It wasn’t long before the clients wanting confirmation from Pendragon signed up, because the sorcerer verified the letter. Abel even received a letter from Pendragon reminding him they had an agreement not to poach any other type of work. The one client who wanted to see the new contractor agreed to the Taverners maintaining her hexes until the sorceress returned from a trip abroad. Abel wanted Ferryl Shayde present at that meeting in case the client wanted a demonstration of competence.
Jenny had her own extra work, though at least part of it meshed with her Business Studies homework. Mentored by her father, she continued with setting up the launch of Bonny’s Tavern. As she’d feared, it wouldn’t be ready for the market by Christmas and Abel, Kelis, and Rob still refused to sell a beta version. Mr. Forester had also made progress with creating a charity, but had been hesitating over what type would be best. Eric sent a list of the fees for the magical work in Stourton, which the customers were happy to pay as charitable donations. Once he saw the size of the donations waiting for registration and a bank account, Jenny’s dad told his lawyer to get the job done as quicklyas possible. The Taverners kept out of the details, except to make certain none of them would be personally liable but they’d have some control over how the donations were used.
Laurence, Kelis’s aristocratic ex, came to see Kelis, not as her ex-boyfriend though he hoped for a favour. He confessed to almost kidnapping a couple of goblins when he collected them in Stourton for the diversion at Halloween. Now he’d come to ask, officially, if he could take a few to his home. Having seen the seventeen-bedroom slightly run-down stately home Laurence lived in, Abel and the rest knew he could provide a home for several stonelins and batlins. The house and gardens already had gargoyles and statues of various sizes, so a few more magically inhabited ones would fit right in.
This time the goblin meld didn’t debate long. Late one evening Laurence parked his family’s 4X4 outside the church while he attended a meeting to play Bonny’s Tavern in Kelis’s house. When he went home, six stonelins and eight batlins went with him. The latter would hunt any stinging fae as well as gnats and other annoying insects. The stonelins would raid the rubbish bins but also eat rats, mice, and a variety of small magical creatures.
Before he left, Laurence asked if the local members of the Tavern would like to hold a meeting at New Year’s, at his house. Despite starting work he’d continued playing the game, both with Taverners in town and his cousins in Germany, and had kept up his magic practice. He’d broached the subject of a fancy-dress party to his parents, and they were pleased he’d increased his social circle despite leaving school.
Laurence didn’t want all the people who played the game, just those who could cast glyphs. He hoped to get rid of the huge fursomnium, the Dream Stealer, that Ferryl had discovered sleeping in his attic. Despite Ferryl’s assurance that it would probably sleep for years yet, and that Dreamcatchers now protected the bedrooms, the young aristocrat felt uneasy. If it woke when Laurence had gone abroad on business nobody else in his family would know and it might prey on them or staff. A Dream Stealer that size could drive an unwarded human insane if it followed a dream back to its source. The stronger magical Taverners gleefully accepted their invite to a New Year fancy dress party at a real mansion, one with a real resident monster.
Claris remained quiet and withdrawn, not attending Tavern meetings and spending much of her time in her bedroom at Kelis’s house. She still sat with Abel, Kelis and Rob at break times in school but said very little. Eventually she asked, tentatively, if she could move out of the village. She’d laid for too long in the village church with a leech eating away inside her, so Brinsford gave her the creeps. Claris had also spent a whole summer as Abel’s girlfriend, whereas before that she’d despised him as one of the Geeks. She remembered that summer, and enjoying herself despite the weird voice in her head, so it felt strange being in Abel’s company.
Abel, for one, worried she might be thinking of confessing all, including Ferryl’s possession, but Claris didn’t want to go home. She still wasn’t ready to face her mother’s inquisition about the alleged drug addiction. Instead, Claris wanted to move into Frederick’s house in Stourton where she could still get magical support if necessary. Within days her mum came to help Claris move into her new digs, pleased the supposed withdrawal regime had worked and her daughter was recovering. Claris’s mum even insisted on paying for decorating the room and her rent, a real boost for Frederick’s finances. That gave him five paying tenants, because Effy had also rented a room. The twenty-seven-year-old found being with Frederick, someone even older than her who was also just learning to handle glyphs, was reassuring.
Kelis’s mum cheered up a bit because she wouldn’t be looking for a room to rent, not just yet. Her lawyer spoke to the bank and, as Mr. Forester had suggested, they wouldn’t ask her to vacate the house until the divorce had been settled. That still might mean Kelis moving into Stourton, because her mum couldn’t afford a house in Brinsford even if one came on the market. Jenny suggested they moved into Frederick’s house, but Kelis thought that with so many magic users coming and going her mum would realise magic was real. At her age, that could give her a breakdown.
While the rest of the world carried on, Ferryl Shayde concentrated on getting mobile again. With massive amounts of magic and an almost continual supply of soup and then solid food, she finally pulled her new host’s bones and ligaments back into shape. The first time she managed to stand unaided came as a shock to everyone, because the host had shrunk ten centimetres to just over a hundred and seventy. Ferryl thought she might end up a little shorter as her joints finally settled. After that first attempt Ferryl’s new body walked for longer periods every day.
While shrinking, Ferryl Shayde had also filled out a little, and her features had softened from the haughty leech queen look. The original tall, thin woman had looked pale, but the new shorter version had fuller lips and a tanned skin. According to Ferryl she now looked Egyptian or Bedouin, some Middle Eastern mix, which should stop Creepio making any connection between her and the ex-host. The long straight hair had originally been dyed, but the gleaming, wavy black tresses now framing her face were completely natural.
Her four apprentices knew Ferryl must be pushing her recovery so she could accompany Abel and the coin to Stourton, but now she explained her long-term plan. After forty years as a leech host this body had no history, and the mind inside it was totally insane. Ferryl couldn’t find any memories of childhood, friends, or a name, nothing but pain and terror, so she’d already put it into a deep sleep. If Abel agreed Ferryl would build the woman a new life.
Ferryl would create a new name and identity, complete her schooling, learn to drive a car, and act just like anyone else for the next ninety years. During that time period, she would assemble enough detailed memories to give the woman a history up to the age of twenty, then wipe out all the pain and terror. Once Ferryl Shayde moved on, leaving the woman with a twent
y-year-old body, her host could live out a normal lifespan without ever knowing about the leech possession. In the interim Ferryl would be the same age as Abel, Kelis and Rob so it wouldn’t look odd if they stayed friends.
None of her trainees could understand it, because Ferryl had complained about the detailed work involved in fixing just a few months of Jenny’s and Claris’s memories. Now she’d volunteered to construct twenty years, minute by minute. Ferryl became embarrassed and quite defensive before finally confessing. She’d seen how Abel and his friends reacted to possession, so she wanted to take this opportunity to abandon her usual method of switching hosts every twenty years. More than that, she felt certain Abel wouldn’t agree to her using this woman for ninety years without giving something in return.
Kelis, Rob, Abel, and Jenny talked it around and around, but that seemed like a good solution for both the woman and Ferryl Shayde. The church would never expect Braeth Huntian to live as a human, a schoolgirl, rather than flitting from victim to victim. The biggest problem would be to explain the original ex-host disappearing and the new, shorter, younger girl appearing. Jenny thought the first part might not be too hard, because few people even knew the woman existed. After three days of discussion Abel finally agreed. If Ferryl could arrange a new identity and admission to the school as a sixteen-year-old pupil, she should.
Privately Abel thought that the modern world wouldn’t allow a person to appear out of nowhere. Magic might be able to create false documents and change appearances, but it wouldn’t create a new National Insurance number or Birth Certificate in the computers at the General Register Office. Right now, he worried a lot more about the impending visit to Stourton with the letter and coin from Castle House. Rob, Kelis and Jenny stood guard twice more as he went in through the front door of Castle House, but the defences remained quiet.
∼∼
School broke up with a surprising number of people coming to ask if Bonny’s Tavern could have another meeting, a Christmas dance. Not a magical one, these were the pupils who were playing the game as entertainment. Unfortunately, over a hundred people had turned up to the outdoor meeting in the summer, so a winter meeting would mean hiring a hall. Despite being disappointed, the queries soon turned to when the weather might be good enough to meet outdoors. Some groups were working on having their own miniature Tavern parties at the Christmas dances in Stourton, especially if they could find one where they could wear costumes.
On the way back in the bus, the three teenagers talked about that rather than what was really bothering them. Tonight, their grounding ended, so Abel could go to the mystery address in Stourton. The rest could come too, but Castle House only allowed Abel to touch the key, go in through the front door, or pick up the small chest he found on a table beside the next door. The letter had to be for him. Despite hours spent discussing the message, “If ye lay claim, bring the box and coin,” the guesses still varied from claiming the magical coin up to the whole house. Abel kept claiming that the Castle House and gardens had been Rob’s suggestion, but the rest thought that wasn’t even remotely likely. How could a sixteen-year-old boy claim a huge house and all that land?
Kelis had already asked her mum for the loan of the BMW, and Shannon had agreed to come over in two days to drive it. Abel daren’t make it sound urgent, because nobody else knew about the key or opening Castle House. All the Taverners would want to come and see, then the villagers would notice, and in the end the house would kill someone. Jenny had started driving lessons, so hopefully she would soon be able to act as chauffeur instead of relying on others. The weather took some of the edge off their excitement, as they had to walk in the rain because of Melanie.
The weather became a big part of the discussion later when the three of them met Ferryl in the church. It wasn’t a long meeting, because Mrs. Turner would spot any lights. At least the three of them could use heat glyphs, while Ferryl swore the cold didn’t affect her or the body she wore. Without the enhancements Ferryl had added to their eyesight, Kelis, Rob, and Abel wouldn’t have been able to see the clothes show. Ferryl tried on the clothes donated by Jenny and Claris, because the ones originally supplied by Kelis were now too long and much too tight for her new body.
The sorceress settled on a shirt and jumper to go with the best fitting of the jeans and shoes, but suddenly realised she didn’t have a jacket or coat. This body had only been outside the church once since arriving in a leather catsuit, and had been wearing a nightdress and wrapped in a sleeping bag then and ever since. A quick phone call to Jenny arranged for a fleece, then the three humans headed gratefully for Kelis’s house and the warmth in Bonny’s Tavern, the old library. As soon as Ferryl could arrange a new identity she would be able to attend meetings as well, and maybe become a lodger just as Claris had. When he mentioned that, Abel had to suffer the usual digs from Kelis about collecting girlfriends.
∼∼
Nobody made any jokes at all when Shannon arrived just after lunch to drive the BMW, because they were all on edge. Ferryl had already gone into Stourton, on the bus, which would give her time to inspect the address. By the time the rest arrived, she should have found signs of any magical traps or protections. There wouldn’t be anything too blatant, because the office building stood in the old town centre. Despite the number of shops closing down since the big shopping centre opened, enough businesses remained to make it a very public location.
Today Shannon picked Jenny up on the way into town so she didn’t have to ride her moped in the driving rain. Jenny had her school backpack with her, whispering to Kelis that it held a waterproof hoodie for Ferryl. When Shannon pulled up in Stourton she didn’t recognise the young woman with an umbrella who waved and came to greet them. The umbrella didn’t exist, just a seeming, but it gave Ferryl an excuse to divert the rain around herself. After a quick hello, Ferryl introduced herself as Fay before an intrigued Shannon drove off to find a parking spot.
Everyone else crowded into the doorway of a boarded-up shop, where Ferryl dismissed the umbrella seeming and put on the waterproof hoodie from Jenny’s bag. “That’s the office, directly across the road. The place is warded but only against the likes of fae, hoplins, and none of the wards, bar strong magical beings. Some of them are dormant so if they are awakened that might change.” Ferryl glanced across the road. “I think these solicitors deal with magical customers, advanced magical beings as well as human glyph-users.” She pointed, then dropped her arm with a tut of exasperation. “There are magical flows on the wall above the door, invisible to anyone but the likes of Zephyr, me, or dryads. The language is vaguely familiar, so it may be stored on one of my lost wits.”
Abel had another explanation. “It might be a warning?”
“No, there is an arrow to the door. The door has no glyphs that would bar me from entering.”
Abel passed on Zephyr’s message to the rest. “Maybe Zephyr should connect us up before we go inside.”
“No, that might be considered rude or threatening. Anything or anyone in there who can read those signs will see her.” Ferryl looked really nervous, as bad as any of the humans. “I wish I could read it. I need my wits!” She stared in surprise as the others laughed.
“It’s been ages since you said that.” Kelis looked past Ferryl and braced herself. “Here comes Shannon. Remember, you just arrived in town but you are an old pen pal of mine.”
“From Germany, which explains my name.” Ferryl smirked at the puzzled looks.
“What, Fay? Is that German?” Rob looked as baffled as the other two.
“No, but my surname is, because I have been thinking about it. My Shayde is spelled with a y, and the German one usually has a c between the s and the h, but it’s near enough.” Her smirk grew as she saw comprehension spread across the other three faces.
Rob finally managed to splutter out an answer. “Fay Shayde? Seriously? The Taverners will connect the dots straight away.”
“But then Kelis will admit that Abel got the name for
the sorceress from mine. Zephyr will tell those who know about her that there is a real Ferryl, and that she took the name because her true one can’t be revealed.” Ferryl laughed at their expressions. “Those who have heard us mention Braeth Huntian will wonder, but Zephyr will tell them her true-name is much older than that.” Which Abel knew was true. He also knew her true-name, Pungh Hmmshtfun, which even his closest friends didn’t.
“Here’s your first chance to try that out. Shannon is coming.” Jenny pointed down the road.
“Let’s save the surname part until after we’ve been in there.” Abel hunched his shoulders and stepped out of cover. “I don’t fancy hanging about in this rain while we work through the full explanation.” As soon as Shannon arrived, the group headed across the road, through the double doors and into a spacious reception area.
∼∼
“Wards on all the doors, magic in the desk and the plant is aware.” As Zephyr warned Abel, Ferryl glanced at him so he nodded that he knew.
Shannon leant over to whisper to Kelis, eying up the plush surroundings. “What exactly are we doing here? This is not the sort of place that gives free advice.”
For a moment Kelis debated telling Shannon about the box and coin, but none of them actually knew what would happen next. “Ferryl says we have to come here to make the magic contracts legal, the ones we took from Pendragon.”
“Which I’d better do now.” Abel headed for the receptionist, opening his pack and extracting the letter without showing the small chest. “Hello. I’ve no idea how this works. Does this letter mean anything to you?”
As he placed the sheet of paper on the counter the eyes in a small statuette of a mermaid glowed yellow, just briefly. “Yes sir, I know who you should see. One moment while I find you a guide.” The receptionist didn’t read the letter or go to find anyone, waiting until a door opened and a smartly dressed middle-aged woman came in. He pointed at the letter, then Abel.
