by Sam Short
“Is he still taking part in the pie eating competition?” said Willow. “After what’s happened?”
“Yes,” said Mrs Round, wiping a tear from the corner of her eye, her green nail polish matching her eye shadow perfectly. “He says if he wins it will be his last one. He’ll have set a new record, and he’ll be happy. I’ve got my fingers crossed for him, I don’t think he’ll be alive in two years time if he carries on eating the way he does. The doctor says he needs to make changes now.”
“We’ll cross our fingers for him too,” I offered.
Mrs Round smiled. “Thank you,” she said. “It’s such a shame that the competition has been overshadowed by the death of The Tank, though. Felix had a lot of respect for Gerald, even though it may not have seemed like it sometimes. It really is awful. All the money that’s raised this year is going to his wife.”
“I’m sure Sandra will be grateful,” I said.
“Poor lady,” said Mrs Round. “I can’t imagine what it must be like for a woman to lose her husband. I don’t know what I’d do without Felix. That’s what makes me so angry about this whole eating for competitions nonsense. He doesn't seem to care that if he drops dead from a heart attack he’ll be leaving me on my own.”
I glanced at my phone, trying not to seem rude, but aware that Granny would be waiting for me and Willow to arrive. “I’m really sorry,” I said. “We have to be somewhere. We’ll see you at the pie eating competition, though. We’ll be there to support Felix.”
Granny tapped her watch as Willow and I strolled into the kitchen. “What time do you call this? I said ten o’clock sharp, not seven minutes past ten.”
“Sorry, Granny,” said Willow. “We got held up, but we’re here now. That’s all that matters isn’t it?”
Granny stood up. “I suppose so. Come on then girls, Boris is in his study writing his blog. Let’s go and ask him about this photograph.”
Granny retrieved the black and white photograph of the ballet dancer from her apron pocket, and Willow’s eyes lit up. “I thought you weren’t going to wear the apron when you got the Range Rover,” she said with a grin, pointing through the window at the large black car. “You’re lower middle class now, aren’t you?”
“I said I wouldn’t wear it when I go somewhere,” said Granny. “Of course I’m going to wear it at home — it’s very handy. You girls should try one. I got my first apron at eighteen, and I’ve never looked back.”
Granny took two steps towards the door, her footsteps like somebody hammering a nail.
“Heavens, Granny!” said Willow. “You’re wearing your clogs, I see. They’re very loud.”
“Aren’t they lovely, though?” said Granny, lifting one foot for us to inspect. “They fit perfectly, and Boris says they make me look very continental. My back feels better too… I walk with a far straighter gait, don’t you think?”
“Maybe, but you sound like a horse on this slate floor, Granny,” I said.
“They’re better on carpet, I’ll be the first to admit,” said Granny, clip clopping through the kitchen.
Granny led us to Boris’s closed study door and knocked on it gently “Let me do the talking,” she said, as Boris called us in. “I’m a little more sensitive than you pair. You two would go at it like a bull in a china shop, and personal family matters like this require a little more finesse and understanding — such as I can offer.”
Willow tittered, and I rolled my eyes. “Why did you want us here then, Granny?” I said. “You could have asked him on your own.”
“Moral support,” said Granny, “and I know you two are just as nosy as me.”
Boris nodded a greeting as we entered, and spoke into the microphone next to his laptop. “Go to sleep,” he said. The voice activation software did as it was told, and Boris’s laptop screen flickered and turned black. “My three favourite ladies,” he said, turning around on his cushion until he faced us. “Something tells me you haven’t interrupted me to ask how my blog is going…. although it’s going very well, thank you. I’ve got quite a fanbase building, and the Golden Wok delivers free food for me and Gladys once a week in return for me advertising them.”
“Very nice it is too,” said Granny. “I ate some squid last time didn’t I, Boris? Even though I didn’t want to!”
“You did, Gladys,” verified Boris.
Granny puffed out her chest. “Boris said it’s good to try new foods, and that he was very proud of me, didn’t you, Boris?”
Boris chuckled. “I did indeed, Gladys. I did indeed. You’re a brave woman. Not everybody would try squid.”
“Erm… well done, Granny,” I said. “I suppose.” I pointed at the photograph in her hand. “Go on then, show him.”
“Show me what?” said Boris. “What’s that you have there, Gladys? A photograph? That frame looks familiar. Let me see it.”
Granny turned the picture around, and Boris gave a gentle sigh. “It’s Nanna Chang-Chang when she was young. She was a beautiful woman and an expert ballet dancer. Those clogs you’re wearing were hers, Gladys. She used them to improve her posture and strengthen her feet.” Boris tilted his head and twitched an ear. “Why do you have that picture? I only asked you too bring me the photograph of my parents, which I’m very grateful for incidentally.”
The other photograph we’d brought back from Charleston’s home was on the mantelpiece overlooking Boris’s coffee table desk. His mother and father were pictured outside, beneath a large tree, and both of them looked happy.
Boris gazed up at the picture of his parents. “Nanna Chang-Chang didn’t pass her dancing skills down to her daughter though — my mother had two left feet and no rhythm whatsoever.”
“Boris,” said Granny, sitting on the sofa and laying the picture on her lap. “I have this picture because I recognise the woman in it. In fact, I knew Chang-Chang personally… not very well, but I did know her.”
“How did you know her, Gladys?” said Boris. “She died when I was ten, she got ill.”
A tear ran the length of a thick hair near Boris’s eye, and Granny wiped it away with a thumb. “Did you ever think she was special, Boris?” she said. “I mean differently special.”
“Of course she was special,” said Boris. “She was Nanna. She was a wonderful woman. Kind and considerate, but you didn’t want to cross her, oh no! She had a vicious tongue in her mouth and she knew how to use it. She didn’t speak English very well, but you got the meaning from her facial expressions — she was very elastic in the face department, and very gifted at impressions too. My mother told me she could do a perfect Chairman Mao, although she did get in trouble for it once or twice.”
Granny sighed. She was thinking… looking for the right words to tell Boris he came from magical ancestors. I sat next to her and put my hand on her forearm. “Tell him, Granny,” I said. “Just be honest.”
Boris sat higher on his cushion. “Tell me what, Gladys?”
“Boris, I don’t know how to tell you, or how it say it.” Granny put her hand on Boris’s shoulder and looked him in the eyes. “Oh sod it!” she said. “Boris, your grandmother was a witch.”
The tip of Boris’s tongue slid from his mouth, and he looked at me with shocked eyes. “Is… is this true, Penelope?” he stammered.
“I think so, Boris,” I said.
Boris stood up and walked to Granny, gazing down at the photograph in her lap. “Nanna Chang-Chang was a witch? Are you certain, Gladys? That’s quite a thing to say if you’re not totally sure of it.”
Granny slid another photo from her apron pocket. “This picture is from my own photograph album,” she said. “It was taken in the haven, not long before your grandmother died. That’s me on the right — you won’t recognise me, I got given my entry spell when I was in my early twenties.”
In the haven, a witch was always the age at which he or she had been given their entry spell. I’d remain twenty-three whenever I entered the haven, even if I lived to be one-hundred. Many witches wait
ed until they were close to death in the mortal world before moving to the haven permanently and gaining their immortality in a younger body.
“But Nanna looks so young in this photo. This couldn’t have been taken just before she died. She was almost seventy when she passed,” said Boris.
“The photograph was taken in the haven, Boris. She’s at the age when she was given her entry spell.”
Boris looked up from the picture. “So she’s alive? In the haven? Isn’t that where witches go when they get old? So they don’t have to die?”
“Most witches,” said Granny, placing a hand between Boris’s horns and rubbing his head. “Your grandmother was different though, Boris. In China, witches were considered devils. Chang-Chang probably brought that belief with her when she moved to Britain, and when your mother was born she would have done everything in her power to prevent your mother from knowing the truth. She didn’t like being a witch, she didn’t like the haven either, she chose to die in this world, and because she didn’t help your mother develop her own magic skills, your mother would never have known that she was a witch either.”
“And if she didn’t know she was a witch, Boris,” I said. “Then you wouldn’t have known that…”
Boris looked at each of us in turn. “That I’m a witch,” he whispered.
“Precisely,” said Granny. “It makes so much sense, Boris. Fate sent you to my door, and you said yourself that you’d always believed in magic.”
“I always have done,” said Boris. “Since I was a little boy.”
“That’s because you are magic, Boris,” said Granny. “And fate had everything planned out for you. Why do you think you came to me in the first place and ended up in the body of a goat? So you’d have to stay with me, that’s why! Then your credit card just happened to expire, and we went to your house, where Penny recognised the photo of your grandmother.”
All the talk of fate seemed very addictive, so I joined in. “Because I went looking for the clogs which belonged to your grandmother,” I said. “The photo was above them. As if I was led to it.”
“Why did you want the clogs, Boris,” asked Willow. “What made you think of them?”
“I had a dream!” said Boris. “My grandmother was wearing them! She was telling me how they helped her posture. I woke up and thought of Gladys’s back problems, and because you three were going to my house to collect the credit card, I asked Gladys to bring the clogs back too… and as you rightly say, Penelope, they led you to the photo of Nanna.”
“You see?” said Granny.
Boris gasped. “Jumping Jehovah!” he said. “It is fate! But why? Why was I sent to you, Gladys? What does this mean?”
“I’m sure fate will let us know, Boris,” said Granny, stroking the goats back. “We just have to be patient. The answer will come eventually.”
Chapter Fifteen
The four of us stood in Bridge street. Barney stood on my left, and Willow and Susie stood to my right. We all looked up at the sign which ran the length of the the shopfront. The sign company had done a good job. Bright red lettering on a green background made the shop stand out, and even Mr Jarvis had popped out to have a look, convinced that our new shop would bring him additional business too. “I don’t know much about witchcraft,” he’d said, “but surely witches need vegetables for some spells? If they do, just send them next door to me. I’ll give them a discount!”
Willow and I agreed, on the condition that if any of his customers complained about not being able to find love, or not being promoted in work, he’d send them to our shop for a spell or a potion.
Barney had lowered his voice when Mr Jarvis had gone back inside The Firkin gherkin. “You don’t give people real spells do you?” he said. “I’m not sure how I’d feel about that. It could be dangerous. Or illegal.”
Susie put his mind at rest. “I’ve known the Weaver family were witches since I was eleven,” she said, “and in all that time they’ve never used magic for anything but the best of intentions.”
I could have listed at least three-hundred times that Granny had used magic for less than good intentions, but I chose to keep quiet. Barney could discover the dynamics of the Weaver family is his own good time. I was in no hurry to expose the inner workings of a dysfunctional magical family to him.
The four of us stared at the sign. “What a fantastic name,” said Barney. “Boris really hit the nail on the head when he came up with that.”
Willow and I had asked everyone we knew to offer suggestions for the name. I’d wanted to name it after my floating shop of course, but The Water Witch - Floating emporium of magic, was hardly an apt name for a landlocked shop. At least the boat would remain named The Water Witch.
Granny’s idea for the shop name had not even made it onto the shortlist. Wicked witches of Wickford, sounded more like a film, or a gang that Granny might have been a member of as a teenager — or an elderly woman, I supposed. Boris had really come up trumps though, and surprised us all when he’d suggested his idea.
“The Spell Weavers — Emporium of magic,” read Barney. “I love it.”
“It’s really clever,” agreed Susie. “And it looks so professional.”
Barney placed his hat back on his head. “I’d love to stay a little longer, but duty calls. The fingerprint experts have lifted a partial print from Gerald Timkins’s shotgun. They say the murderer wiped the gun, but not well enough.”
“That’s good news, isn’t it?” I said.
Barney nodded. “It’s not always simple, even with a print. We’ll see if it matches Mrs Oliver’s or Felix Round’s prints which we took when we brought them in for questioning, if they don’t match, which I’m assuming they won’t, I’ll run them through the system. If there’s no match there, it’ll be a question of finding the so called scarecrow man, or another suspect. It could take a while to solve the case.”
“I’m sure you’ll find out who did it, Barney,” I said.
Barney looked at his feet. “I was going to ask a favour,” he said, lifting his eyes.
“Yes?” I said. “I’ll do anything I can for you.”
“You know how you all helped me solve Sam Hedgewick’s murder, using… magic?”
“You want us to use magic to solve this case for you, don’t you, Barney?” said Willow.
“Something like that,” muttered Barney. “If you can. Please. It would be a great help.”
“It doesn’t work like that,” I said. “We can’t just use magic to find out who committed a crime. We can help if you have a suspect, you know… with helping them open up a little.”
“Making them talk, you mean. Like you did with Mrs Oliver,” said Barney. “Can’t you look in a crystal ball or something like that? You sell them in the shop, maybe you can find out who murdered Gerald using one of those? It’s very important that this case is solved quickly.”
“I’m afraid not, Barney,” said Willow. “We’d love to help, we want to know who killed Gerald as much as you do, and we’ll always be here for you, but you need to point us in the right direction before we can do anything. Why has it suddenly become so important, though? I mean — I know it’s a murder and it needs solving, but why the sudden urgency?”
Barney sighed, and gave me a look I couldn’t interpret. “No reason,” he said, looking away. “And I’m sorry if I offended anyone by asking for magical help — I’m still coming to terms with what it means to find out that magic is real and… witches are real. I suppose I was hoping you’d be able to perform miracles.”
“Not those sorts of miracles,” I said, “but come to Mum’s cottage tonight, and you’ll see a different sort of miracle.”
Barney raised an eyebrow. “Oh? What would that be?”
“She’s going to the haven, Barney,” said Willow. “And the miracle will be that all our family will be in one room, but the attention will be on Penny, not Granny or Mum.”
“That will be a miracle, Barney,” I said. “Believe me.”
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br /> It felt odd allowing Barney to kiss me in front of my family, but even Granny looked happy that Barney and I were an item, and saved any sarcastic comments she may have had for another day.
Uncle Brian was dressed as stylishly as usual, although I was sure his choice of a blue crushed velvet suit would look better on the streets of Soho where he lived, than in Mum’s country kitchen surrounded by four other witches, a magical goat, a journalist, and a very tall ginger policeman — still in his uniform.
Mum was wearing her best dress, and had obviously visited the hairdressers earlier in the day. Her hair looked freshly dyed, although everyone pretended not to know that most of the rich black was from a bottle. It was always tempting to point out grey hairs to her when they began appearing, but most people had learnt never to mention Mum’s appearance to her unless it was a compliment.
Barney was a quick learner. “You look amazing, Maggie,” he said, standing at my side. “Really lovely.”
“Thank you, Barney!” gushed Mum. “You’re a real gentleman. You look very smart too, I’ve always liked a man in uniform.”
Barney left my side to speak to Boris and Granny, and Mum lowered her voice a notch or two. “I don’t think that young man is of Scottish heritage after all,” she said. “He’s far too polite and well mannered. And I’ve yet to see him start a fight in a pub. I can admit when I’m wrong, and I was very wrong — there’s less Scottish in Barney than there’s sense in your grandmother, and that’s not a lot at all. I think he’s perfect for you, Penelope.”
Mum had been convinced that Barney was Scottish due to his red hair and the way he walked. We’d explained that Barney wasn’t swaggering as Mum had suggested, he was simply uncomfortable because all his trousers were a little too short and dug into his nether regions. We didn’t question Mum’s unique view of the Scottish — she was a complicated woman — although she had alluded to the fact that Scottish witches had once caused a lot of trouble in the haven. She also believed that Shakespeare had been accurate and completely validated in his portrayal of Scottish witches in Macbeth.
