The Apprentice Witch

by James Nicol

  She turned back and, squinting, peered once more through the smoke, her eyes stinging, her vision blurred.

  But whatever it was it had disappeared. Arianwyn couldn’t be sure anything had ever been there at all.

  She looked at Gimma, who was still in tears.

  ‘Promise me you won’t tell anyone about this,’ Gimma wailed.

  All things have their opposite, and dark magic can be found in different forms in our world. Hex, usually produced by dark spirits or stagnant or degraded spells, can be lethal to humans and spirits. Several ‘hex plagues’ are recorded throughout history.

  THE APPRENTICE WITCH’S HANDBOOK

  Chapter 26

  THE EXPLODING KITCHEN

  rianwyn jerked awake. She was tangled in her bed sheet and blanket. Scrabbling to sit up, she saw bright daylight flooding in through the windows that looked out over Kettle Lane.

  She shivered, damp with sweat and fear.

  The small clock declared it to be after nine and the sounds from outside confirmed that she had overslept quite spectacularly. Taking a deep, shuddering breath, she slumped back against her pillows and closed her eyes just for a second.

  FLASH!

  The unknown glyph burnt in her memory – reaching out from her dream.

  ‘No!’ she cried, tumbling from her bed and scrabbling away from it as though it were on fire. The moon hare approached cautiously from its spot by the stove. It sniffed at her bare ankles and sneezed, casting her a cautious glance before scuttling under the bed.

  ‘What’s wrong with you?’ Arianwyn asked. She reached out to reassure it but it gave a low growl and backed away, its claws scratching against the floor. Arianwyn shrugged. As she stood back up again the room spun and her head throbbed.

  She’d got up too quickly, that was all. She just needed a glass of water.

  She padded across the cool floorboards, yawning and stretching as she went. She picked up a glass from the draining board and reached out to turn the tap.

  CRACKLE!

  Sparks flew from her fingertips as she touched the metal. She leapt back from the sink, the glass slipping from her hand and shattering on the floor.

  ‘Boil it!’ Arianwyn shouted. Her head throbbed again and her vision grew dark at the edges. She reached out to steady herself against the cupboard and it started shaking and rocking violently. Was it an earthquake?

  She glanced around the room. Everything else was still. But the cupboard still danced furiously, the plates and cups inside rattling noisily.

  All at once it stopped, as suddenly as it had begun. The doors flew open and crockery spewed across the floor, crashing and breaking.

  That was when Arianwyn noticed dark smoke curling from her outstretched hand.

  She had done this.

  She closed her eyes again but there was the glyph shape once more. Fainter, but still in her mind, drifting slowly away. But still there.

  She wanted to go back to bed, but she was scared to close her eyes. She was scared to move. She glanced around her. The moon hare still growled beneath the bed.

  Terrified, she sank to the floor and hugged her knees to her chest, hoping it would pass quickly. She felt sick, cold and alone. She stared straight ahead at the opposite wall, at a patch of peeling wallpaper.

  She wasn’t sure how long she had been sitting there when she heard the door charm jangle in the Spellorium below.

  ‘Wyn?’

  It was Salle.

  ‘Wyn? Are you here?’ she called a little louder, then there were quick footsteps downstairs as she crossed the Spellorium.

  Was it safe for Salle? Arianwyn glanced at the wreckage of her kitchen. She didn’t want to risk hurting her friend! Perhaps if she just sat still, Salle would go away again . . . but then she heard footsteps on the stairs.

  ‘Wyn? Are you OK?’

  The moon hare scampered from under the bed to greet Salle.

  Arianwyn thought about trying to get into the bathroom to hide. She started to stand just as Salle’s head appeared from the stairs. Salle had already seen her, still in her nightdress, crouched amidst fragments of broken glass and china, her eyes red and dry from trying not to blink.

  ‘What on earth?’ Salle gasped. She dashed across to Arianwyn, reaching towards her.

  ‘NO!’ Arianwyn said, scrabbling back. ‘Don’t come too close. I’m not very well. I’m sick.’

  Salle stopped dead. She folded her hands and stood still, the toes of her shoes crunching in the glass. ‘Flu?’ she asked, but her eyes swept around the room: the glass scattered on the floor, the cupboard with its contents spewed out.

  Arianwyn nodded, but she could see Salle was not convinced by her feeble little lie.

  ‘Let me help you get back into bed then . . .’ Salle reached out again but Arianwyn moved to bat her away. As their hands touched Salle jumped a little. Arianwyn felt the charge of magic pass between them. Jolting, sharp, painful. Sparks flashed in the air.

  ‘Ouch!’ Salle snatched her hand away. ‘That was some electric shock!’ She smiled, laughing a little. But her eyes stayed focused on Arianwyn. She reached out again, slower this time, and wrapped a comforting arm around Arianwyn’s shoulders.

  ‘Let’s get you tucked in, shall we?’ she soothed.

  Arianwyn nodded and allowed herself to be led back to bed.

  As Salle straightened the blanket around her the moon hare jumped up and cautiously approached Arianwyn. Ears high and alert, its nose twitched. It sniffed at her hand, sat back on its hind legs for a second, as if considering something. Then it yawned wide, scratched its ear and curled up against Arianwyn’s side.

  ‘I’ll get you some water,’ Salle said calmly.

  As Salle busied herself filling an unbroken cup from the tap, Arianwyn took a deep breath and quickly scrunched her eyes closed.

  There was only darkness now and the murky blobs of colour you see when you squeeze your eyes closed. She felt a moment of brief relief.

  ‘OK?’ Salle asked, putting the cup on the bedside table next to Arianwyn.

  Arianwyn nodded. ‘Just tired.’

  Salle went back to the kitchen and started to tidy the mess, humming to herself as she worked. It was soothing, relaxing.

  For a while the fear went away.

  Chapter 27

  EUPHEMIA

  t was late afternoon and Arianwyn had sat wrapped in a blanket all day. After Salle had left she’d curled up into a tight ball, still too afraid to close her eyes.

  The moon hare nestled beside her. She glanced at the clock. It would be night soon and she would have to sleep. But sleep meant dreams and dreams meant the glyph. She was scared, and the only person she thought might be able to help her was Estar.

  She waited until dusk, until the town had grown quiet and the shops along Kettle Lane were closed. Pulling on a cardigan against the cool evening, she slipped out of the Spellorium and headed through town.

  All day the half-sketched symbol Estar had drawn into the earth of the hen shed had plagued her memory. She was sure now that it was a glyph: the very same one she had seen so many times. Estar was the only one that might be able to tell her more.

  Slipping quietly along Kettle Lane and out across the town square, Arianwyn was greeted by a few people out for evening strolls but she moved on quickly, businesslike, and nobody wanted to interrupt the witch when she was busy.

  A few people were wandering past Kurtis Mill as Arianwyn arrived: families taking a walk through the meadow in the spring sunshine. She slipped quickly down the side of the tumbledown building. At the side door, which now stood partly ajar, a slice of darkness welcomed her. ‘Estar . . .’ she whispered as she pushed on the door. ‘Estar? Are you here?’

  Her only answer was the low moan of air moving through the empty building. She stepped forwards, her eyes adjusting slowly to the darkness. Perhaps he really had gone this time.

  Strange shapes loomed out of the shadows, solidifying as her eyes adjusted, large wooden cr
ates stood haphazardly about the room. ‘Estar!’ she hissed, slightly louder this time, and peered further into the gloom of the mill.

  ‘Yes?’

  She jumped.

  He was suddenly there, standing beside Arianwyn and staring up at her, his yellow eyes luminous in the gloom.

  ‘Oh, Estar. I was getting worried. I thought something terrible had happened to you . . .’

  ‘Something did, remember? Who was that rather stupid girl with you the other day?’

  Arianwyn sighed, ‘That’s Gimma . . . you shouldn’t have frightened her, you know!’

  ‘Frighten her indeed! Well, I think it was all the other way! She’s made a real muddle in the wood, you know, with that rift.’

  ‘I thought we closed it – did something come through?’

  ‘Perhaps . . . but what’s one more creature in the wood, eh?’ Estar smiled.

  Arianwyn suddenly felt scared again and didn’t want to tell Estar what she had seen. Whatever would he think of her? Besides, she really didn’t know this creature at all. Her hands felt hot and sweaty, she could feel her breathing quicken.

  ‘Bad dreams?’ he asked, his eyes sparkling now as well as glowing, half a smile on his sharp little face.

  ‘How . . . how did you know?’ Arianwyn asked flooded with relief and shock all at once.

  ‘I can hear them buzzing around you still. Dreams can haunt us, you know.’ He shuffled away from Arianwyn in his slow hop-along walk, moving further back through the mill. He stopped by a small pile of boxes and clambered on to one. He sat up regally, as if the stack of crates were a throne. ‘So, is there something you would like to ask me, young witch?’ He peered down his long blue nose at Arianwyn.

  They stared at each other for a long moment.

  ‘That shape, in the hen shed, it was drawn in the dirt – it’s magical isn’t it? Powerful?

  ‘Perhaps . . .’ Estar shook his head. ‘But I don’t really want anything to do with it. I promised to keep it a secret.’

  Sudden tears brimmed in her eyes. Estar was her only hope of understanding the strange glyph – what would she do if he wouldn’t help her? Her hands curled into fists and she chewed on her lip in frustration.

  ‘I need your help . . . please!’Arianwyn said eventually, staring levelly at Estar. ‘I’m frightened. There is something about that shape. It’s tempting and terrifying all at the same time. I’ve seen it all my life and each time I see it something bad has happened. My mother died, I failed my evaluation and this morning—’

  ‘You nearly blew up your kitchen?’ Estar bent closer.

  She nodded her head, warm tears on her face and a lump in her throat that stopped her words.

  Estar stroked his narrow chin, his lips pursed in concentration. ‘Hmmm.’ He sighed, considering. ‘The other witch – the one I knew before.

  Euphemia. She was interested in those strange shapes you witches use to control the magic.’

  ‘The glyphs?’Arianwyn asked.

  ‘Yes . . . glyphs!’ Estar said the word slowly as though he were letting it roll around on his tongue. ‘A very clunky way to control magic, in my opinion,’ he added, quietly. ‘She asked me to find a book of glyphs from the demon library in Erraldur.’

  ‘What did she want to know?’

  ‘Oh, this and that. It wasn’t easy – cost me a lot of trouble, you know. I didn’t manage to retrieve the whole book, but I got her a page – and the page showed that glyph.’

  ‘Where’s the book now?’ asked Arianwyn. If she could read it, perhaps she could find out what all this was about!

  But Estar shook his head. ‘Lost. I went back to try and find it again but it must’ve hidden itself from us. I didn’t realize I had been gone from the human world for so long. Where is Euphemia now?’ There was a glimmer of hope in his voice.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Arianwyn replied, sadly. ‘Nobody seems to know.’

  ‘Poor Euphemia. She was kind, funny and brave. Rather like you,Arianwyn Gribble. She told me that anyone who could recognize the glyph would help us, could be trusted.’ His yellow eyes flicked to Arianwyn’s. ‘That’s why I drew it in the hen shed . . . for help.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’ Arianwyn paced back and forth, staring into the shadows. ‘That symbol is dark and dangerous, it can’t be a help to anyone, surely?’

  Estar reached out and took Arianwyn’s hand in his own. ‘I don’t know about that.’ He added, ‘The spell might well be dark but you most certainly are not, Arianwyn Gribble.’

  Arianwyn felt her cheeks flush for a moment.

  ‘If only we knew what had become of the page . . .’ Estar mused.

  They were silent for several long minutes. Outside the window the sky was a deep purple colour, the evening drawing in.

  In a sudden moment of clarity, Arianwyn saw the small case that Salle had tucked away at the back of her wardrobe in the apartment. She had packed all of the previous witch’s things away in it. All those dresses that had hung in the wardrobe and the photograph and old papers! Had the answer been in the Spellorium all this time?

  Chapter 28

  THE UNKNOWN GLYPH

  rianwyn flipped the ‘Closed’ sign around on the door and pulled down the long blinds to hide Kettle Lane from view. She flicked off the lights so only the twilight glow illuminated the store. The moon hare skittered excitedly at her feet, darting this way and that, sensing her excitement and trepidation.

  She let Estar in through the long windows that opened on to the small yard at the back of the Spellorium. The moon hare rushed towards him at once and rolled over and over in ecstatic glee by the feyling’s feet.

  ‘Wait here!’ Arianwyn said and she bounded up the curling staircase into the apartment. She threw open the wardrobe doors and shoved her own clothes and spare uniforms to one side. There, at the back of the wardrobe sat the case. She pulled it forwards and snapped the catch at the front. Carelessly she riffled through the contents until she had the collection of papers in her hands. She also took the photograph. Then she returned downstairs to the dark Spellorium.

  On the polished wooden counter she fanned out everything. She saw Estar reach a small blue hand out to touch the photograph gently, but when he realized she was watching he moved the photograph to one side and pretended to be helping to sort the papers.

  ‘Aha!’ he said. ‘I think this is it!’

  He pulled free a curled piece of ancient-looking parchment, dusty and faded brown. It was roughly the size of Arianwyn’s palm. He held it up for her, expectantly.

  ‘It’s blank!’ she said.

  ‘What?’ Estar stared at the paper. ‘But Euphemia saw something there . . .’

  He dropped the page, which fluttered to Arianwyn’s feet. The moon hare sniffed at it and growled, a low rumbling sound that filled the store. Its long ears flattened against its body and its fur rose in a sharp spine along its back.

  ‘Whatever’s wrong with you?’ Arianwyn asked, shooing it away from the page.

  She bent to pick it up and gave a small gasp. As her fingertips brushed the parchment, a symbol started to form at its centre.

  ‘Oh!’Arianwyn gasped, ‘Estar, look!’

  The shape seemed to be bleeding through the paper, dark and bold. ‘I think it’s a glyph. I think it’s the glyph!’

  Estar didn’t move. He was watching Arianwyn very carefully now.

  Arianwyn couldn’t pull her eyes away from the piece of paper. It was real. She hadn’t muddled things or imagined them. The glyph was truly real! She clutched the curl of paper tightly in her hands. Proof at last!

  ‘Do you know anything more about it?’ Arianwyn asked.

  There was a long pause and then Estar said, ‘I cannot read it; none of my kind would be able to read it. And you witches seem to have long forgotten it – well, most of you.’ He winked.

  ‘Euphemia . . . she could see it too?’

  ‘Perhaps not so clearly as you do.’

  Arianwyn studied the pi
ece of paper again for a few minutes, an idea forming in her mind. There was really no need, though – she knew the glyph so well from memory.

  The moon hare worried at her feet, snapping and jumping up, growling and mewling for her attention. She scooped it into her arms and carried it to the small storeroom at the back. She didn’t want to be distracted now. She shut the door quickly and crossed back to the counter. She could do this, she had the page, and there was nothing to worry about . . . probably.

  Her hands were shaking as she prepared to sketch the glyph, not too large, into the air in front of her.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Estar asked, backing away to the window.

  ‘I have to know. I have to know what this glyph is, what it does. I’m going to summon it.’

  ‘Is that wise? It could be dangerous. You said yourself it had heralded dark things in your life. What makes you think it won’t be some sort of dark magic?’ His voice was uncertain.

  She hesitated for a moment but the glyph had always appeared unbidden before. This time, she would call it and control its power. ‘Only one way to find out.’ Her confident words did not match how she felt, but excitement and curiosity won out over her fear.

  They looked at each other for a few moments and then Arianwyn said, ‘You will stay with me, won’t you?’

  Estar sighed and sat down on the floor. ‘Of course.’

  Arianwyn took another deep breath and started to sketch the glyph into the dark air of the Spellorium. The glyph hung in the air for a few seconds.

  It was dark.

  Black.

  Unlike the cardinal glyphs, it gave off no feeling of heat. It was as cold as stone and ice.

  But nothing happened.

  Instinctively, Arianwyn reached for the glyph, which shimmered briefly before drifting away like smoke from a candle.

  The store was as quiet as before, late evening shadows reaching across the floor, the far-off sounds of Kettle Lane just as they had been. Estar sat still on the floor, his long shadow splayed out across the boards.