The Secret of Kingsway House

by Jessica Lancaster

  “Oh, Goddess,” I grumbled, slipping my feet into a pair of slippers.

  It was there. On the outside of the window. A handprint. Comparing it to my hand, it was larger. But there was no one around. Nobody hopping fences, nobody on the street at all. Just the dark blue night hue mixed with the orange street lamps.

  For a moment, I didn’t dare wipe it, the dark substance was questionable, and I wasn’t about to put my hand in anything. I looked down at my feet, for a watering can, and I noticed a loose stone from the edge of the grass.

  I should’ve stayed inside.

  After cleaning away the print, I found out it was dirt. It had probably always been there. I kicked the loose stone back in place before I headed back inside, locking the door, and triple checking the wards I had around the house.

  The next morning, I woke to a knocking at the door. For the worry I’d held in my stomach that night, I sure slept soundly in my bed.

  I fumbled around on my nightstand for my glasses. “Coming,” I grumbled, pulling my hair back, tying it with a hair tie. I wrapped myself in my nightgown before seeing who’d woke me, even though I should’ve probably already been awake, as it was after nine in the morning.

  “It’s me, Greg,” he introduced himself behind the glass pane as I rubbed the sleep from my eyes.

  “Yes?” I asked, unlocking the door and pulling it open.

  He spoke loud and cheerfully about the morning. Most of it went over my head, leading me into several deep yawns as we walked into the kitchen and I began filling the teakettle with water.

  “I need measurements for the decking,” he said, pulling out his tape measure.

  “Oh, oh, right.” I placed my glasses up on my nose. “Staying for coffee?”

  He shook his head.

  “Tea?”

  “No, I can’t,” he said. “I have to get to the wood supplier just outside Cottonwood for the decking.”

  As my sleepy consciousness came through, I knew I had a question or two for him. “Do you have a minute to talk?” I asked, placing the teakettle on the hob.

  “Always,” he said, with a smile.

  I needed coffee before anything, I had to order my thoughts. Otherwise, I’d end up blabbering. “First, do what you’re doing, I’m in need of coffee.”

  “Oh?” he gulped. “Should I be worried?”

  “No, no, no,” I said. “I just had some questions about the Kingsway family.”

  He snorted. “Not sure I can help, I told you I’ve never met them.”

  I grabbed the cup from the cupboard, adding coffee and sugar to it. “But you know more about them,” I replied. “Are you sure you don’t want one?” I asked, shaking my cup at him.

  “Go on, just a small one,” he said, pinching his fingers together.

  I reached for a second cup while Greg stepped outside. The cold air was often welcoming, but in the morning when I wore thin pyjamas and an unfastened nightgown, it wasn’t pleasant. I slipped my feet into a pair of fluffy slippers; they’d been everywhere with me, to every bed and breakfast, hotel, and spare room I’d ever stayed in.

  Setting both cups of coffee on the table, I glanced out to see Greg scribbling notes in his small pad, squinting as he measured plots of land. I watched and sipped my coffee for a solid couple of minutes, mainly out of fascination.

  “It’s a bit nippy,” he said, stomping his boots on the floor outside the back door.

  Tying the thin rope around my nightgown, I raised my brows at him. “Only a little?”

  He grinned as he scribbled notes on a small pad. “Well, maybe not as cold as you are.”

  I tilted my head and rolled my tongue. “Finished?”

  He nodded. “I’ll take the hint,” he said, closing the door behind himself.

  “I would put the central heating on, but that’d be a waste,” I remarked as he took his seat opposite me at the table.

  “So, questions?” he asked, wrapping his hands around the warm cup.

  I didn’t know quite how to reply, or what to ask first. “How well do you know the Kingsway family?” I asked, hoping it wasn’t enough to know they had a witch.

  “I’ve worked for them for a couple years now,” he said. “Not a super long time, they used to have a live-in gardener.”

  “What about these dinner parties?”

  He laughed. “Nervous?” he asked.

  A little. But I didn’t want him to know. “Oh, goodness, no,” I said, waving a hand in the air, swatting the notion away. “I just want to know what I’m in for.”

  “There’s a woman, I think I said yesterday,” he said with a nod. “She went to one. She lives at the end of the street now, I think.”

  “Yes, you did. What’s her name?”

  He tapped a finger against his chin. “Veronica,” he said. “Something like that, maybe Violet, she’s from the Waltz family. Quite rich people.”

  “And she lives up the road?”

  He nodded. “Yep. Across the road from me, I think. I’ve not seen her in forever. She might not even live there anymore.”

  If someone was quite rich, I highly doubted they’d live in a one-storey bungalow building just up the road. “Wow.”

  “Rumour was, the Kingsway heir, Felix was courting her. She’s only around thirty now, but I don’t think it worked out.”

  “Look at you, you little gossip,” I chuckled.

  He grinned. “The neighbourhood has ears.”

  “I might go over and ask her some questions,” I said.

  He nodded, looking away to the side. “Not sure if they make you sign some no talking thing. Nobody ever talks about what goes on inside that house.”

  “And they do these often?”

  He shrugged. “Every month, couple months.” He opened his mouth and a groan fell out. “Not sure, actually.”

  I had a suspicion my invite was only because I was a witch and nothing else. Perhaps I’d meet other witches, perhaps Cottonwood had more witches around, perhaps they were witches. I shook the thought away, it was silly, I’d have known if they were.

  Before Greg left, he wrote down the address of Miss Waltz.

  3 Eden Road.

  FIVE

  After dressing in some relaxed black jeans and a white blouse, I checked on Ivory in her new home at the end of the garden. She was sound asleep, snoring her head off. Probably some of the best sleep she’d had in a while.

  I couldn’t contain the smile on my face. I was happy. Truly happy in my situation and everything happening, plus, it would soon be summer, then I could sit out on the patio with a good book and a jug of icy lemonade.

  Before heading out to visit Veronica, I had a look around for anything I could give as a gift, something to coax her into answering some of the questions I had. But I had nothing. Not a single thing I thought would’ve been a good idea – crystals, perhaps, but I didn’t have many myself, and it may have been wasted on her.

  Baked goods? I mused, but I wasn’t a whiz in the kitchen.

  Empty handed, I set off down the road.

  3 Eden Road was a bungalow on the opposite side of the street. The same manicured garden and lacquered fencing as the rest of the neighbourhood. Greg surely managed to get around. He had a hand in helping everyone. It was a wonder he had time to fix my garden with spring in bloom.

  Looking around the empty street, I made sure to specifically look for Greg’s neighbour across the road. He wasn’t in sight, thankfully.

  I hesitated a hand over Veronica’s garden gate, looking at the path. Curtains kept light from inside the house, and the front door was a deep shade of grey. I straightened my blouse and tucked stray hairs behind my ears.

  It would be my luck that she wouldn’t live here any longer.

  I knocked twice.

  “What?” a loud voice called.

  Clearing my voice. “Miss Waltz? Veronica Waltz?”

  “Who is it?” the voice shouted.

  “Hello, it’s Evanora Lavender,” I answered.
“I live down the road from you.”

  Click.

  Thump.

  Whack.

  Locks came undone, and the handle was pulled on, opening a crack in the door as it slammed against the chain. “Yeah?”

  “I just had a couple questions,” I said, stepping back to try and see her.

  The door slammed shut and a metal jingle scraped against the door before it opened again.

  Standing in the way of the door was an older woman, dressed in a black lace gown with a small black hat attached to her greying hair.

  “I—I think I have the wrong house,” I replied.

  “What?” she snapped, drawing attention to the silver cane in her hand, stomping it on the ground.

  She wasn’t in her thirties. “I’m looking for Veronica Waltz.”

  Banging her cane once again. “And?”

  “I had questions she might be able to answer.”

  “Go on then.”

  I quickly juggled the idea of revealing information to a stranger, but it was unlikely she was a gossip, given her stance on home security, I doubted she ever had guests. “Well, I heard she’d met the Kingsway family and I have an invite to a party.”

  “Oh?” she said, craning her head forward like a turtle pushing from its shell.

  “I wanted to know about customs,” I said with a slight grin, I’d never been nervous about something so silly before in my life, at least not when I was out chasing down boggarts and rescuing lost humans, captured by forest fairies.

  “Stuck up,” she laughed.

  I stepped back.

  “Not you, them.” Her hand clenched around the cane.

  “You know them?”

  “Know them?” she shouted. “Bloody know them? Oh, I’ll tell you something. I was there. For it all!”

  I nodded along to what she was saying as she grew agitated. “Sorry for bringing it up,” I said. “I just wanted to see Veronica and ask her what happened when she was there.”

  “Veronica?” she stomped her cane, again and again. “I am Veronica.”

  Gulping hard. “I was told you were—”

  “I was what?” she stepped closer to me. “What? Go on, tell me.”

  I knew not to insult my elders. “I shouldn’t have bothered you. I apologise.”

  “I’ll tell you one thing Miss Evanora Lavender,” she said, hacking at the back of her throat as she stood on her shaky legs. “You’re either with them, or you’re against them.”

  “What happened?” Powerful people often have powerful friends and money. From what I knew about Veronica, she had money, she had power.

  She cackled, throwing back her head. “You’re trying to kill me.” She whacked the paving as she slowly stepped out of her house.

  “No, no, gosh, no.”

  “Get out! Get out!”

  As fast as I could, I bolted out of the garden, slamming her gate shut behind me. Her front door closed with a bang as she went back inside.

  Across the road in his rocking chair was Greg’s neighbour, covered in a large plume of smoke. He choked on a laugh, extending his circle of smoke. Like a dragon, it came from his mouth constantly—I’d only met one dragon, a shapeshifter in Scotland, he wasn’t anything like him.

  “Having fun?” he chortled.

  Not quite the word I would put to it. “Being a friendly neighbour doesn’t hurt,” I said, not that he’d know what being a friendly neighbour was, considering he’d tried to steal from Greg the last time I’d met him.

  SIX

  The woman was clearly not okay. I should’ve gone back to check on her and make sure it wasn’t a cry for help. I had no idea why Greg would send me there, he must’ve known what a lunatic she was.

  During this time of deep thought while Greg was out at the lumber yard collecting wood for the garden and Ivory was in the shed, out of my way, I continued cleaning the spare room. I somewhat missed Ivory not yapping and snapping her beak at me for being loud. I felt obliged to keep the quiet, even though she couldn’t hear.

  The quiet wouldn’t be kept for much longer; I stumbled upon an old radio stereo and some cassette tapes in a box. A physical blast from the past. They’d been boxed up for so long, ever since the world went digital.

  “Fleetwood Mac,” I squealed, pulling the tape out and jamming it into the stereo.

  Everyone I knew when I was younger had their obsessions, mine were Fleetwood Mac and Whitney Houston. Clearly, I was getting to the end of the boxes if I was coming upon my older items. I braced myself to find posters and other memorabilia.

  I didn’t find any. Unfortunately.

  Singing at the top of my lungs to ‘Rhiannon’ as I relabelled old boxes for donation centres. Most of them filled with old clothes that I had no reason to keep, even if at the time I thought they’d be great for future children.

  “Having a party?” Greg laughed, standing at the bedroom door.

  I froze up, almost knocking a box with my arm as I became stiff. “Greg,” I said from a shallow breath.

  “Oh, you’d get a couple quid for one of these,” he said, admiring the artefact of a stereo sat on the dresser.

  My body eased but my face flushed. “Well—”

  “Sorry, I let myself in,” he said. “I tried knocking, but I can see you were busy.” A large smile buried deep into the single dimple on his left cheek.

  “Just trying to motivate myself into getting this place clean.”

  He nodded along to the music. “Did you go see Veronica?”

  A grumble came from my hesitant throat. “I was going to mention it to you, the woman was psychotic.”

  He shrugged. “Yeah, apparently you were spotted,” he said. “She wasn’t always like that. I mean, she had her problems, don’t get me wrong, but you never hear a peep from her now. That’s why I thought she might’ve moved.”

  “Thankfully, I have other things to occupy my mind, like this girl’s arrival and the dinner party on Sunday.”

  “Oh, you have a guest?”

  “Yes, someone’s coming to stay for a couple months to—”

  “Another person like you?” he asked.

  I realised I hadn’t told him about the first letter. “Yes, a witch,” I said.

  “Wow. When’s she coming?”

  I shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine,” I said, although factually incorrect, as a witch, my instincts were sharp and in tune with the world, but I hated guessing, that was a dangerous game.

  “So, she’s coming to learn magic?” he asked.

  “Not exactly,” I replied, I moved around the boxes in the room, thumbing the stop button on the tape player. “Do you have time to stay for a tea?”

  “Half an hour, maybe,” he said. “I had to get the wood ordered in because I needed more palettes than I could drive back for your garden and some upcoming projects.”

  “No rush on the garden,” I replied.

  In the kitchen, as the tea brewed, we sat at the table to talk about what he’d seen when he’d walked into the house.

  “We all have our secrets,” Greg laughed.

  It was true. Some more than others. “The less you know, the better.”

  He tapped his nose. “Sure.”

  I was being somewhat serious. “I don’t keep many secrets myself, quite an open book,” I replied. “About most things.”

  “Like being a witch?” he asked.

  “Exactly.” There were some things I’d taken oaths of secrecy about, although that’s mostly super specifics.

  He nodded. “How long will she be staying?” he asked.

  “A month or two, I have no idea. She’s coming so I can impart my wisdom.”

  “Oh? Wisdom?”

  “You know, like always have a plan B.”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Well, I was an investigator,” I replied. “These new kids have to know the basics that could help them in their careers.” I poured the steeped tea into cups.

  “Oh?” he asked w
ith further intrigue. “So, it’s a child?” His face contorted with confusion.

  I chuckled. “No, probably in her early twenties.”

  Usually, too many questions would set my alarm bells ringing, but there was no such thing with Greg. Everything seemed quite ordinary and innocent.

  “Every witch knows to have stones or crystals on themselves at all times too,” I said. “You know, to draw from, in case you need it.”

  “But what if something goes wrong?”

  I smiled. “Nothing goes wrong.” Of course, sometimes things went wrong. I chuckled. “But if a spell goes wrong, a quick fix is to say the spell in reverse.”

  It was a quick fix I’d saved myself with many times before.

  SEVEN

  Preparing to go to the Kingsway manor house for the dinner party was taking much more time than I’d have expected. I needed to find something to wear, but everything I had wasn’t dining attire. I had a few dresses, and of those few, I wasn’t sure if I could wear them to such a fancy dinner. From what I’d gathered, the Kingsway family were more exclusive than an invite to meet the Queen of England.

  I decided on a nice knee-length blue A-line dress, a cream blazer with a deeper shade on the lapel, paired with my white floral print pashmina. I had decided that once I was home I’d have to perform the full-moon ceremony almost immediately.

  Soon, the evening came, and I dressed to impress a family I’d never met before. In a small purple box tied with white chiffon ribbon, I’d settled the celestite stone on a bed of grey foam.

  Live Grove was on a secluded road, hidden behind tall trees and inside heavy shadows. Cottonwood could’ve used a share of tree surgeons to trim the trees into shape, rather than let them overgrow and cast entire streets in darkness.

  Walking at a slower pace in front of me, a face buried in the glowing screen of a phone was a boy, dressed from head-to-toe in a red, white, and blue tracksuit. He came to a pause outside a house.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  He jumped slightly with a gasp. “You scared me.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” I chuckled. “Are you lost?” I asked, catching a glimpse of his face in the light of his phone.