Witchy See, Witchy Do

by A. A. Albright

  ‘I thought Arnold might bring in some other experts,’ Grace said. ‘But it was all him from start to finish. And it was like a rehashing of every other speech he’s ever given.’ She sat forward and gave me a troubled look. ‘Honestly, Aisling, I think you were right not to go. There was absolutely no reason for this morning’s conference. I think he just wanted an excuse to see you.’ She bit the corner of her red-painted mouth. ‘He came up to me when we were having refreshments afterwards and pretty much confirmed that. He … he asked me to pass on a message. He asked me to tell you that his door is always open, should you ever have a change of heart.’ She kicked off her high heels and tucked her feet beneath her. ‘And he might have gone on to say that he doesn’t have long left in this world, and that there may not be much time left for the two of you to make amends. And he also asked me to get back to him as soon as possible with your response.’

  Now, don’t think I’m unkind. If I heard a story of an ailing old man reaching out to his long-lost family, I’d probably go a bit soft-hearted, too. But Arnold was far from ailing. And neither of us knew for sure if he was my grandfather.

  While I sat there, stewing and untalkative, Grace waved her fingers and made a cup of tea and a plate of biscuits appear in front of me. I picked up a chocolate bourbon and dunked it into my tea before I eventually came up with an answer. ‘Grace … what am I going to do?’

  (What’s that you say? That was a question, not an answer. Well, you’re clearly a lot more on the ball than I was at that particular moment.)

  ‘That’s up to you,’ she said. ‘But … I do see your broom peeking through my door at us, so I think that whatever you’re going to do, you’ll have to do it soon.’

  I glanced at the open double doors. Sure enough, the broom was there. And even though it was just hovering, I was fairly sure it was, in fact, looking at and listening to everything that passed. I narrowed my eyes in its direction. ‘Malachy told me you’d gone home,’ I said. ‘You should go back there.’

  The broom wavered in the air, gave me what I’m sure was a look of admonishment, and flew away.

  ‘I’ve tried at least a dozen Aurameters on you now, Aisling,’ Grace went on. ‘And there’s no change. I can’t see an ounce of power when I look at you. But you have a broom following you around the place – a broom that just happens to have been the broom Arnold’s daughter owned when she was younger. You have a cat who assures me he’s your familiar. Just last night he told me he believes you’re on the cusp of being able to understand him. He could make things easier, you know – familiars can sometimes choose to speak with people other than witches. But he’s a stubborn little kitty – he says he knows you have the magic, and he’s going to hold out until you can use your power to hear his voice.’

  ‘Last night?’ I felt my eyes turn round. ‘Fuzz came to visit you last night?’

  She nodded. ‘He said he was worried about today’s conference, and he wanted me to update him on what Arnold might be up to.’

  I threw my biscuit to the plate. Even chocolate couldn’t cheer me up right now. What was I supposed to do about any of this? I wanted to be a witch. Maybe. I wasn’t quite sure. But if I was a witch, then it was all the more likely that I was related to Arnold.

  ‘And … Arnold finally told me what happened in his library, when you went to his house for your test.’ She looked far too curiously at me as she spoke. ‘Is it true? You threw him against the wall?’

  Oh dear. Maybe I’d been a little too quick to abandon my chocolate bourbon. I’d told Grace some of what happened with Arnold and I. I told her he tried to make me touch the coven grimoire to prove I was his granddaughter, and that I’d refused. I hadn’t shared just how vehement I’d been in that refusal.

  ‘Yeah, I guess I left out that part,’ I admitted. ‘I just … I wasn’t even sure if I did it. He was forcing the issue. He locked me in the library, Grace, and refused to let me leave until I touched the grimoire. I got ever so slightly angry and then … he was flying back against the wall. I mean, it felt like some sort of force came out of me, I suppose. But I’m not a witch. I’m …’

  ‘Fuzz tells me that Pru has taken to calling you a little bit witchy.’

  ‘Fuzz has a big mouth for such a small cat,’ I grumbled. ‘I’ll be having words with him. Listen, Grace, you just said it yourself – you can’t see any magic when you look at me through an Aurameter. Can’t we all just accept me as I am?’

  She reached out and stroked my hair. It was a sweet, motherly sort of movement – or at least it would have been, had she not looked so darned awkward about it. Almost as soon as she touched me, she pulled her hand back and cleared her throat. ‘Ash, I do accept you as you are. You’re a good reporter. Now that you know about the supernatural world, you’ve come up with the most imaginative ways I’ve ever seen of explaining the inexplicable. You write stories that make perfect sense to humans without telling outright lies. It’s genius.’

  I snorted into my teacup. Oh, how I wished my former editor could hear Grace right now. In all the time I worked at the Daily Dubliner, he and I had never seen eye to eye. Of course, back then I was obsessed with writing the truth rather than covering it up, so he may have had a point.

  Grace picked up last Tuesday’s daily edition. ‘I loved this one,’ she said. ‘When that old vampire broke out of the retirement home in Shady Enclaves, you managed to tell the truth without actually telling the truth.’ As she began to read the article aloud, I covered my face with my cup, feeling my skin turn beetroot red.

  ‘This morning, an elderly man who believes he is a vampire wreaked havoc on Riddler’s Edge. Lucius Dragonbane ran into Norman’s Shop and proceeded to tear open packets of steak and drain the juice, telling the gardaí on the scene that he was a vampire and needed the sustenance. Mr Dragonbane has since been returned to his care home, where he’s being treated for a vitamin B12 deficiency.’

  I chewed at the corner of my cup. ‘Well, he is being treated for a B12 deficiency – in fact, he’s being treated for an everything deficiency right now. He refused to eat the food they were serving at Shady Enclaves – and having paid them a little visit, I can completely understand why. Watered down red smoothies once a day and nothing else a vampire might need the rest of the time. He might have been acting a little crazed that day in Norman’s Shop, but he had good reason. I had a word with the management, and they’ve agreed to serve better quality blood.’

  Grace grinned. ‘Oh, I know. I heard all about it. You threatened to write a damning article about Shady Enclaves every day until they changed their ways. And by all accounts, they have.’

  I did my best to cool down my blazing cheeks. ‘Yeah, well I’ll keep on top of them just in case. Me and the Wayfarers, seeing as I reported the care home to them.’

  She gave me another one of those impressed looks, and my cheeks went truly aflame.

  ‘The thing is,’ she said a moment later, sounding as though she was choosing her words carefully. ‘I don’t report back to Arnold on every little thing that you do, but you can be sure he has ways of keeping tabs. There’s something about you, something so very like Abby.’ She wiped her eye and said, ‘Little bit of mascara got loose there. Anyway. I have a point, Aisling. The point is – Arnold isn’t going to stop. I think that, one of these days, he’s going to lose patience. And if that day comes, then I’d much rather you were well-prepared.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean … if it was you, and your own power, that threw Arnold back against the wall that day, then you’ll need to find a way to access that. It might have come to your aid on that occasion – but what if it doesn’t come on cue the next time? So I think we have to do something proactive. We need to discover, once and for all, if you actually have power. And if you do … well then, we’ll see where we go from there.’

  I felt more confused than ever. ‘But you’ve told me in this very conversation that you can’t see my power.’

  ‘
I can’t,’ she said. ‘But if there is something there, then I know a man who just might be able to reveal it.’ She stood up, shimmied her feet into her shoes, and held out her hand. ‘Grip onto me. Tight. We’re going on a little trip.’

  8. Pointer Brothers

  I’d travelled by magic once before, in a way. Greg had taken me in his van – a van which just happened to have the ability to travel incredibly quickly. Whilst flying in the sky. And whilst lurching a lot.

  The way witches travelled, though, felt a whole lot more comfortable. I grabbed onto Grace’s hand, she snapped her thumb and middle finger together, and in a split second we were on the opposite side of the country. I could see Grafton Street to my right, but I knew I wasn’t on any street that actually abutted it. At least not in the human world.

  A grin spread over my face. I knew exactly where we were, because I’d been here once before. It was Warren Lane, Dublin City’s largest witch enclave.

  ‘I came here when we were investigating Bathsheba’s murder,’ I told Grace. ‘But I haven’t dared come back since. Pru tried to get me to come up here to a nightclub last weekend, but I chickened out.’

  Grace looked curiously at me. ‘You don’t seem like the sort of woman who’d chicken out. Under any circumstances.’ Even though we’d parted hands on arrival, she grasped mine again. ‘You know, fully accepting the magical world doesn’t mean you have to accept Arnold. Even if he manages to prove somehow that you are his granddaughter, that still doesn’t give him ownership of you.’

  I shrank back a little. ‘I’m not sure Arnold sees it like that.’

  ‘No,’ Grace agreed with a sigh. ‘I’m not sure either. That’s why I’m taking you to Pointer Brothers.’

  As she led me down the street I did my best not to gape. In Ireland, we have a certain tradition on the eighth of December each year. People from the countryside travel to the city for the day to do their Christmas shopping. When I was a kid in Dublin, we used to tease those country folk mercilessly, and laugh at how they gawped at the things we found commonplace. Today, I was one of those gawpers.

  I’d been so intent on solving Bathsheba’s murder the first time I was here, so I hadn’t paid attention to very much. But now I was taking in everything I saw. I stared at a woman riding a flying motorcycle in the same way I’d once seen a Christmas shopper stare at Dublin’s new tramline. I watched a magical cauldron, with no witch controlling it, dole out portions of a golden-coloured liquid to customers. Each person dutifully deposited a small, silver sickle-shaped coin in a box next to the cauldron.

  ‘Does the cauldron actually know whether they’ve paid for their drinks or not?’

  ‘Oh, you’d better believe it. The cauldron knows. You don’t pay, and your lovely Pick Me Up Potion suddenly becomes Sick Me Up Potion. No one wants that.’

  I laughed. ‘They’re not real potion names. Are they?’

  ‘They are – and the former is delicious. But this cauldron seems to be serving A Short Burst of Happiness. Fancy a try?’

  I fished about in my purse. My wages were deposited into Sickle Sensible each week, in the Riddler’s Cove branch. I always took out a few supernatural coins to spend in the market and the shops there, and I was sure I had quite a bit left over from my last shopping trip.

  ‘It’s on me,’ said Grace, placing two coins in the box. The cauldron ladled out our measures, and Grace handed mine to me. As soon as I drank it, I felt instantly uplifted. ‘It’s like Superbrew without the whole being drunk thing.’

  ‘It really is.’ Grace giggled. I’m not sure why, but seeing someone so elegant giggle was oddly fascinating. ‘Oh dear – maybe this was a bad idea. Oh well – in for a sickle, in for a round.’ She drained her cup and threw it into a nearby bin.

  I quickly did the same, and then followed her across the road. There wasn’t a single car in sight, but there were plenty of brooms, and a few carriages that seemed to appear and disappear with a flash of light. Grace skilfully avoided the madness and pointed to a shopfront. ‘That’s where we’re going,’ she told me.

  I paused to stare. ‘“Pointer Brothers,”’ I read. ‘Grace, it says it’s a wand shop. I thought we were going to find out if I had magic. Not buy me Baby’s First Wand.’

  She laughed. ‘That’s a real brand, you know. There are some parents who are absolutely convinced that their child is a genius, and will be able to use a wand before they can talk. As yet, I’ve never met a single witch who got their power younger than four. Five or six is the norm. But every parent thinks their child is a little magical genius.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it. A lot of human parents are just the same. But you still haven’t told me why we’re going to a wand shop.’

  ‘Because,’ she said, ‘that’s where Brent works. Come on. You’ll love him – but whatever you do, just don’t mention Malachy.’

  ≈

  When I walked in, I felt like a kid in a sweet shop. There were wands in every colour arranged on purpose-built holders on the walls. There were see-through booths dotted about the place, where witches could try out their wands in a safe space. One witch was trialling his by changing the colour of his trousers from black to orange. Another witch was a little less successful. She seemed to be trying to lengthen her hair, but it was growing a little too long. Within seconds, all I could see was hair, and I could hear a muffled cry of, ‘Help me!’

  A tall, thin man crossed the shop. He had jet black hair and piercing green eyes. He yanked open the door of the booth, mumbled a quick incantation, and the young witch had her own neatly-bobbed hair once again. ‘Try this one,’ he said, passing her a different wand. ‘I don’t think that the hawthorn is for you.’

  I looked closely at the wand he had passed the young witch. It had a shimmering haze around it, much like the haze I’d first seen around a Wayfarer truncheon when I first journeyed to Riddler’s Edge. I roved my eyes over the other wands, and saw that they were just the same. I’d never seen quite so many shimmers all at once. Between the green glow, and now this, I was beginning to think Grace had brought me here just in time.

  The tall man shut the booth again and, as he was on his way behind the counter, he spied us and changed direction. As for what Grace had told me about not mentioning Malachy? It was a little hard when the first thing he said was, ‘Well, it’s wonderful to see you, Grace. And how is that meddlesome little Malachy of mine?’

  Grace fixed a smile on her face. ‘Hello, Brent. Everyone in Riddler’s Edge is just wonderful. You might have heard about our newest member of staff on the paper? This is Aisling Smith.’

  He extended a hand. ‘Aisling. Very pleased to meet you. Tell me, has Malachy ever mentioned me?’

  I turned to Grace, wondering what the right answer was. Unfortunately, she was pretending to study a purple wand a few feet away. Talk about being thrown under the broom. ‘He’s mentioned so many names,’ I said. ‘It’s hard for me to keep track.’

  Brent gave me a wide smile. ‘Diplomatic, aren’t you? Now, why are you here? To help Grace choose a new wand?’

  Grace finally turned to face us. ‘I only use wands to put on special occasion make-up and curl my hair. Although … my mascara has been going awry a lot lately, so maybe I should upgrade. But that can wait. We’re actually here to see if you could do a you know what.’

  Her voice had dipped down as she said you know what. I was guessing Brent understood her, because his eyes widened. ‘On who?’ he asked. ‘Has a human in Riddler’s Edge shown any signs of being one of us?’

  Grace shook her head. ‘No. I want you to perform it on Aisling.’

  Brent looked me up and down. ‘Huh,’ he said after a moment. He pulled a jewelled Aurameter from his breast pocket and said, ‘Huh,’ again as he looked through it.

  I turned to Grace. ‘This is beginning to seem uncannily similar to when I first met you.’

  ‘There’s nothing there,’ said Brent. ‘But I’ve heard how well you fit in in Riddler’s Edge, so maybe y
ou’re unempowered. Do you know of any witch relatives?’

  I looked at my shoes.

  ‘No relatives,’ said Grace quickly. I was grateful to her. I didn’t need yet another stranger to start asking me questions about my upbringing. I wasn’t ashamed of being orphaned. I wasn’t sensitive about it either. It was just that I didn’t want anyone else to know about my possible connection to Arnold. ‘But Aisling is highly sensitive to the supernatural world. And she’s shown signs of having power. Just little things, but they make me curious.’

  Brent kept looking at me, and then with one final, ‘Huh,’ he turned on his feet and beckoned another member of staff over – a short, grey-haired man who had a diamante wand peeking out of his chest pocket and bright red shoes on his feet. As he drew closer, I could see that he shared the same piercing green eyes as Brent. ‘Robert, can you make sure no one blows themselves up?’ he said. ‘I have a little matter to see to.’

  ‘Can do, brother,’ said the other witch, making his way over to the booths.

  Brent started up the stairs. ‘Follow me, ladies,’ he said. ‘We’ll soon find out if there’s anything there.’

  Upstairs there was a storeroom with boxes of wands lined up along the walls. Each one seemed to shimmer in much the same way as the wands had below. There were so many boxes that I was afraid they would go on forever (and I was also a little bit confused as to how there could be so many, considering the building hadn’t looked all that big from the street below). Eventually we wound up in a neat office – even neater, in fact, than Detective Quinn’s. I wondered if he’d ever been here, because I was sure that if he had he would have left with a severe case of office-envy.

  There was a large, polished desk with shelves upon shelves of neatly arranged ledgers. Or at least, I thought they were ledgers until Brent picked one up and I saw the title on the spine: Pointer Grimoire, Book 18R – Revelation Spells.