by Ashly Graham
‘Absolutely!’
‘It’s for the witches. More of a party, really, which just goes to show that I still have some pull in this business. Though the prospect of free food and drink alone is enough to guarantee a good turnout.’
‘A party…in here?’
‘Where else?’
‘Thank you, Dame Hecate! I shouldn’t miss it for the world.’
Hecate looked at Jenny curiously. ‘No, I don’t suppose you would. It’s settled then: six o’clock.’
Jenny looked down at herself and the dust on her clothes. ‘But I can’t come looking like this, ma’am, all dirty and covered in cobwebs. I’ll have to go downstairs to take a bath and change.’
‘Don’t worry about that, you can wash and brush up here, and I’ll find you something suitable to wear from my wardrobe.’
Jenny looked at Hecate’s shawl cardigan and wondered what colour it had once been; also, the triple goddess was a good foot and a half shorter than she was.
‘Now then,’ said the old lady briskly; ‘come upstairs and meet B.J. and the Ingredients. The fresh Ingredients.’
How strange, thought Jenny; as if an ingredient were a person or live thing. Greatly looking forward to the next stage of her adventure, she picked up her satchel, and followed the little bent figure towards the open iron staircase in the middle of the room.
”
Chapter Thirty-One
“
When they mounted the narrow circular steps and emerged at the top, the light in the circular turret, which was unexpectedly spacious, was so bright compared to the room below that Jenny had to hold up her hand to shield her eyes against the glare. As they adjusted and she was able to look outside, as if from the lantern room of a lighthouse, the all-around panorama of moors, rocks, sea, and sky, was like a view from Valhalla.
Silent waves, white-capped from the horizon, dashed themselves against the cliffs, and silent seabirds were tautly pinioned against the rack and buffet of the wind, in a picture that was as fresh as if it were a dress rehearsal for reality.
A moment later the peace was broken by a cacophony of screeching, whistling, and barking. Jenny spun around and took in a second extraordinary sight: under a wide high sill that ran round the base of the window glass like a counter, the space was filled with a miscellany of kennels, hutches, cages, and baskets ranged and stacked against the wall.
Across the wide bare floorboards, grain spilled from sacks, and there was a litter of different kinds of leaves and grasses. Feed and water bowls were scattered about, and cans and boxes with labels identifying themselves as dog and cat food, mushy peas, cocktail sausages, oxtail soup, Hamburger Helper, and pizza with a variety of toppings. Pet toys, bones both real and artificial, chocolate wrappers...the place was a mess.
Although Jenny glimpsed shapes and forms scrambling and flapping inside the hutches and cages, her overriding sensation was that of an unpleasant combination of odours, some of them soft and perfumed like musk, and others acrid enough to make her breathe through her mouth.
It was very warm. Despite the fine weather, a pot-belly stove in the middle of the room was giving off considerable heat, and because the windows didn’t open there was no ventilation to dissipate either warmth or smell. There were some bundles of kindling on the stove’s fire-brick surround, a coal-scuttle, a scoop shovel, a poker, and a riddling iron.
Perched on a high three-legged stool against the windowsill was a rotund and avuncular-looking man with short legs, who was frozen in the act of raising a battered crust of fried fish to his mouth, presumably a very late lunch. Draped over a coat-hanger stand behind him was a dirty shaggy overcoat that looked several sizes too large for him. The person’s head was bald except for a fringe of grey hair, like the corolla surrounding a monk’s tonsure. He was wearing old-fashioned round National Health spectacles, of which one of the arm springs of the frame was curled behind an ear, and the other wasn’t.
The crumpled open newspaper before him contained the remains of the man’s portion of fish and chips, and next to it was a bottle of Sarson’s malt vinegar. A sugar caster, decorated with a faded and scratched transfer depicting some seaside resort, presumably contained salt. The aluminium top was off owing to the dampness of the contents, to which grains of white rice had been added in an unsuccessful attempt to keep them dry. Lumps of the salt were on the counter and a quantity more had spilled onto the floor.
When Hecate raised her arm, the noise and flurry from within the cages was stilled, as if the needle had been taken off the record on a turntable. The manurial and ammoniacal stench vanished and Jenny was able to resume breathing normally.
‘Jenny, I want you to meet B.J.: B.J., as in Blaspheming Jew, Wegner. B.J., this is Jenny. Where are my manners? Rather I should be introducing Lady Otto Huntenfisch.’
‘I prefer plain Jenny.’
‘Very well,’ said Hecate, ‘B.J., Jenny has done us the honour of paying us a call from downstairs. But Doctor Wegner, I should have said. B.J. is Chief Pharmacist and Ingredient Curator of the Witches’ Guild, and he has a PhD. in chemistry. He is a witch doctor. Actually, he’s the only pharmacist, just as I’m the only official spell-maker. Regarding the blaspheming Jew bit, that’s a misnomer because to my knowledge he’s never uttered anything stronger than a mild oath, usually consequent upon some nuisance committed by that avian millstone around our necks, the vulture Volumnia.
‘Beej, I hope you weren’t going to give Volumnia any of that unhealthy lunch of yours, she’s got such a delicate stomach.’ Hecate raised her eyebrows at Jenny. ‘Unusual in a vulture, but there it is.’
The coat-hanger behind B.J. raised a bald and wrinkled head above its shoulders. It was the largest and ugliest bird Jenny had ever seen. By way of a greeting Volumnia shuffled her feet, opened her beak, and threw up onto a plastic mat, which seemed to have been placed before her for the purpose. She then wriggled her backside and made a large liquid deposit on another mat behind her, and assumed a look of great satisfaction.
B.J. lowered his hand holding the scrap of fish onto the newspaper, scrunched it up, and lobbed it into a waste-paper basket across the room; whereupon the remaining pungent odour in the room, that of batter and vinegar, disappeared, leaving a sweet smell of straw. He stood up, took some napkins out of a drawer, wiped his fingers, and tossed the napkin ball to join the remains of his lunch.
‘Pleased to meet you, Jenny. Welcome. Pardon me if I don’t shake hands, they’re still a bit greasy.’
‘Now then,’ said Hecate. ‘B.J., I want you to tell Jenny what goes on in our little world, and introduce her to the Ingredients. When you’re done bring her downstairs and show her the laboratory. Also, she’s going to join us this evening. I’ll ask Joy to remind you when it’s time to get ready, because I’ll be out. There are some herbs I need to order for gathering during tonight’s planetary conjunction, or they’ll be good for nothing but cooking.’
Doctor Wegner grunted.
From the pendulous sleeve of her cardigan, Hecate removed a linen square with a coloured bead hanging edge to it as on the cover for a jug of lemonade, which is what it was, and wiped her nose. Then she was gone. B.J. motioned Jenny to an upturned crate, on which, after removing her satchel and laying it on the floor beside her, she sat down.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘but it’s all there is; no one comes up here except Hec, and the authority figure always prefers to stand, all four feet and so many inches of her.’ He returned to his stool, cleared his throat, and was about to speak again when there was a ear-splitting scream from behind him.
B.J. frowned and turned. ‘For pity’s sake, Volumnia. I should explain, Jenny, that Volumnia is the nearest thing that Hecate has to a companion—not a familiar, because Hecate is not a practising witch and never has been. I dare say she has explained that to you already. Volumnia lives below when she’s behaving herself…you probably saw the cage, somewhat reworked by her beak. The bird affects to be bored, and expresse
s her cynical nature by being difficult. You might want to stay away from her for a while, until she gets accustomed to you, and understands that you’re not here to steal her food. God, what a thought.’
The bird heaved again.
‘I thought familiars were always cats,’ said Jenny, ‘with names like Greymalkin.’
‘No, no. There’s nothing in Guild rules that says a familiar has to be a cat, and by tradition a black one, only that it’s retained for the duration of its life. Familiars are articled to their mistresses like lawyers’ clerks. I approve of cats myself, because they’re dependable, and show more initiative than other species. They’re fastidious in their habits, and discreet, and make good if uneffusive companions. Owls and bats are good, too, and crows, and a number of other creatures that have dexterity with beak and talon and claw.
‘Canines are a disaster, and even the poodles who rate highest in intelligence will make a dog’s dinner of the appointment book and accounts. Besides which, who wants to be seen with a French poodle strutting around like topiary on legs? The only thing a dog can be trusted—despite the common Latin appellation of Fido, to trust, believe, confide in—to do is order the wrong ingredients, and to fail to follow the prescribed measurements in a spell recipe. That can cause no end of trouble and embarrassment. A lady who went to see Mrs Rhinestone for a bad back got turned into a bedpost, and it was a week before she was on two feet again; and there’s still a whin bush somewhere on the moor that was once a person with chicken-pox.
‘Mrs McToot, whose title is First Witch—an untalented woman who nonetheless has seniority because she’s the oldest witch in the Guild—has a cat as her familiar whose name is indeed Greymalkin; but that’s like calling a dog Rover. Mrs McT is as little known for her imagination as she is for her skill with a wand.
‘Mrs Tarrant, the Second Witch, her familiar is a toad called Paddock, a similarly uninspired name. Toads are generally only considered suitable as Ingredients, but Mrs Tarrant has a soft heart and wanted to save Paddock from being recycled in the local cauldron, so she rescued him. Paddock is as intelligent as a stone, and his mistress is always being reported to the Spell Committee for dispensing the wrong prescriptions, and arriving on the wrong day for appointments.
‘Mrs Theobald, Third Witch…that’s as far as the numerical titles go...she’s done much better for herself and has a capable owl called Harpier, which she pronounces as if it were French, Harpiay, because the French name for a short-eared owl, Asio flammeus, is hibou des marais. Mrs Theobald is a pretentious woman, but that hardly makes her unique in witch society.
‘Such are the airs witches give themselves. The egos of these women are monstrous, and they’ll do anything to one-up each other. In the highly competitive world of witchcraft, the more exotic the familiar, the trendier the witch is considered to be. While cats are cheap, and cannot be improved upon for service, ridiculous sums are being paid at auction for anacondas and ring-tailed lemurs, which are just two of the “in” species at the moment. The waiting-list for ocelots is a mile long, and there’s been a lot of interest recently in flying squirrels. The younger generation of witches refuses to admit that exotics are impractical as familiars. I mean, can you imagine an anaconda with a shopping bag, or a lemur with a pestle and mortar?
‘There’s also a language barrier: whereas the cat language is international, being Saxon-based with single-gender nouns and no subjunctive tense, there are all sorts of romance lingos with plenty of both. Anacondas speak a jungle dialect that nobody can understand, and I defy anyone to make head or tail of a Romansh-speaking mountain goat. Serious misunderstandings arise; last week, for instance, Mrs Bellona was brought geraniums when she sent her lunkhead of a snake out to buy a tin of Germolene.’
‘Germolene for a spell?’
‘No, she cut her finger.’
‘Then may I ask, B.J., about the names of the familiars? The ones you mentioned are from Macbeth, and I was wondering...’
‘“The Scottish play” is what we call it here,’ said B.J. tersely, ‘as in the theatre. There’s none of the black arts goes on at Dragonburgh, everything’s white. Off-white, perhaps, but white nonetheless. Sorry, Jenny, I’m a bit of a pedant, comes with the territory. Although you’re quite right about Act Four, Scene One, the names in the play that go into the boiling cauldron on the blasted heath have been around for a thousand years. Except for mine: because my name is Wegner, I was the pejorative literary inspiration for “liver of blaspheming Jew”; in truth, we use powdered polecat, Mustela putorius, which I procure myself so as not to tip off the chains that polecat is the only efficacious overnight treatment for shingles.’
Hastening to follow up after her mistake, Jenny said, ‘Is discovering the properties of ingredients scientifically based, or hit-and-miss, trial and error? It seems such a serendipitous science.’ Too late, she realized that she had only compounded her error. ‘I’m sorry, B.J., I know you’re a qualified pharmacist, and I don’t mean to imply...it’s just that this is all so new and sudden, and complicated for me to understand.’
‘Nothing to apologize for,’ said B.J.; ‘it’s as difficult for me to explain, and I’m being too anecdotal. Everything we do, Jenny, is the result of centuries of experimentation. I’m an expert on herbs and homoeopathy and holistics, the three H.s of alternative medicine. As Chief Pharmacist of the Witches’ Guild, and Dame Hecate’s apothecary, and her Ingredient Curator, I carry an enormous weight of responsibility, both in not letting Hecate down, and in serving the industry.
‘But as much as I am a walking pharmacopoeia, I couldn’t spell an ingredient—that is, turn an ingredient into a spell, as Hecate does—to save my life. Nor can I cast a spell. Most of the witches who cast the spells can’t tell saltpetre from talcum powder; which on the one hand is a good thing, and on the other it’s why the ignorant buying of Spellmart homebrews, and enchantments on the cheap, from the bucket-shops is so rampant. I’m not boasting when I say that no one has a fraction of my knowledge about what goes into a spell. If you refer to this year’s revised edition of ACES, the Authorized Complete Encyclopaedia of Spells, incorporating all the previous supplements and addenda, you’ll find that most of the acknowledgements for the ingredients are to me.’
Jenny still had Macbeth on her mind. ‘So the three witches of...the Scottish Play actually exist, then: Mistresses McToot, Tarrant, and Theobald. Are they the weird sisters?’
‘We refer to them as the three Ts. But the number of witches on the Guild’s membership roll stands at nine hundred and ninety-nine, which is the maximum permitted by the Statutes. While the Board grumbles about membership falling off, it isn’t true; it’s just that a lot of witches are not in good standing, being behind on their dues, which provides the Guild with a convenient excuse not to up Hec’s spell rates…and consequently my wages. If the dues were reduced, and the rules changed to allow more members, the number of witches would double overnight.
‘That would be a good thing, because a lot more so-called professionals would have to subscribe to the Guild’s code of conduct, and sit for their final exams, and bring us bona fide business, instead of behaving as unethically and irresponsibly as they do when they are unregulated, and offering their services as para-witches who are not fully qualified but tout them anyway. The examinations aren’t anywhere near as rigorous as they used to be, and Hec and I have frequent cause to grind our teeth as well as our ingredients, because standards have fallen so low. Many of the old required courses such as Ancient Runes, and Skull Duggery, which had to do with brainwaves and perception, have been dropped; and a lot of that continuous-evaluation nonsense has replaced the old system of invigilated papers.
‘But the Board won’t change the statutes. It’s a selfish thing, really, protecting the oldest members’ existing share of the best accounts in the market, because they don’t want to open themselves up to competition from younger, hungrier, and more competitive witches.’
‘Would you tell me about
the Witches’ Guild, B.J.?’
‘The International Guild of Witches, or women sorcerers as they now prefer to be called, was formed over eight hundred years ago by a handful of witches who were fed up with the rampant sexism of the wizards in the Necromancers’ Union, to which every qualified person involved in the white arts used to belong. The witches threatened to secede, if they weren’t given an equal voice in the governance of the society, and parity of ranking with the wizards.
‘Despite a lot of piecrust promises nothing came of the initiative, so the ladies resigned to go off on their own. Dame Hecate was asked to become the first Chairwoman and President, and she agreed: she wanted the stipend, not the power of running the organization, which meant nothing to one whose influence in the Old World is impossible for most to comprehend, me included. Hecate probably…silly me, she must have already told you about her straitened circumstances; it’s the only topic she gets really animated about.
‘Hec was the logical choice for the position, having been around long before there were wizards and witches, all of whom ultimately owe the livelihood that they derive from their profession to her.
‘As the witches grew in knowledge and experience under Dame Hecate’s leadership, for a long time none of them either wished or dared to challenge her authority. Until, that was, a woman called Jesse Saunders assembled a jealous faction intent upon ousting Hecate as head of the Guild. The three senior witches kept out of it, and didn’t lift a crooked finger on Hec’s behalf, mostly because it would have interfered with their bridge schedule.
‘Hecate was extremely upset when the rebels confronted her, but she concealed her feelings and stepped down without resistance, not wishing to start a civil war. As soon as Jesse Saunders assumed the position of the Guild’s Chief Executive, a new title that she created for herself in addition to that of Chairman, rather than Chairwoman as Hecate had been—eliminating the other executive title and office of President because to her mind it didn’t sound, well, executive enough—Jesse decided that it behoved her to change her name to something more commanding-sounding.
