by Lynne North
Grothilde’s familiar was a large black rabbit, but that was simply by mistake. Ma remembered the tale well. Grothilde had misplaced her cat familiar. Well, she called it misplaced. Actually, Griselde had seen the poor cat falling off Grothilde’s broomstick in full flight, then running for cover in the hope of hanging on to its remaining eight lives. Grothilde’s “Staying on a Broomstick” spell wasn’t very strong, because she could only focus one eye at a time on the subject of her magic.
For a while, the squint-eyed witch had been without a familiar. One day though, she was walking with her sister when she spotted a black shape go darting past out of the corner of her good eye. Calling to her sister to put a freeze spell on the shape, Grothilde ran after it.
‘Are you sure?’ her puzzled sister had asked the retreating figure. She received no reply, so did as she was asked.
By the time Grothilde saw the creature clearly enough to realise it wasn’t a cat after all, but a rabbit, she didn’t dare admit it. Being remembered for the Bat Spit spell was bad enough without going down in witch history for mistaking a rabbit for a cat too.
‘Did you think it was a cat?’ Mona asked, a laugh beginning to play on the corners of her crooked, whiskery, mouth.
‘A cat? Course not,’ lied Grothilde. ‘What would I want another cat for? They can’t even stay on broomsticks.’
Mona was about to say that everyone else’s did, but thought better of it.
‘A rabbit. That’s what I want,’ continued Grothilde trying to convince herself. ‘Clever these rabbits. You’ll see.’
It hadn’t proved itself to be clever, but it hadn’t fallen off her broomstick yet either.
Ma Grimthorpe pondered all this in the flickering of the fire in the grate.
‘Yes, maybe you’re right, Granny. Gertie probably does need a familiar. I’ll talk to her in the morning.’
Granny nodded wisely, and carried on with her knitting.
Chapter Four
The next day, Ma Grimthorpe explained to Gertie that she and Gran believed it would be best for her to have a familiar. ‘You’re growing up now, Gertie, and at nine years of age you should have your first familiar.’
‘Does it matter what I choose?’ the little witch asked. Gertie knew that most witches preferred a cat, but she had never liked them very much. Nor had they ever liked her really. She was positively allergic to them. ‘I only have to see a cat to set me off in a fit of sneezing,’ she continued by way of explanation.
Gertie’s nose gave a definite twitch if she even saw a picture of a cat. No, a cat was definitely out.
‘Well no, it doesn’t matter,’ her mother agreed. ‘But it has to be something you feel comfortable and happy with. Something you believe will be able to help you with your spells.’
Gertie considered Wart, and then remembered he had been the result of a failed spell. Maybe it shouldn’t be him. He hadn’t exactly helped Gertie with that one. He did seem an amazing toad however, as he didn’t look to have aged at all in the time Gertie had known him. Gertie didn’t know much about the life spans of toads, but she knew Wart should have at least appeared older. She didn’t dwell on the subject. She was trying to find a familiar, and Wart didn’t fit the bill.
She went for a walk with her mother to think about it. Together, they wandered the wood bordering their village. Gertie pondered, and Ma left her to it while she picked herbs and weeds for her latest spell.
‘Don’t wander far,’ called Ma.
‘I won’t, Mummy. I’ll keep in sight of you,’ agreed Gertie. She was then distracted by a loud, hollow, “thunk”. Looking up in surprise, the little girl was just in time to see a feathered shape sliding limply down the trunk of a nearby old oak tree. Being a kind soul, and also very curious, she hurried over to see what it was. This was to be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
‘Oh, you poor thing!’ Gertie exclaimed, picking up the dazed owl. She took him to her mother. ‘I’ve found a familiar, Mum,’ she called excitedly, hurrying over.
Ma Grimthorpe looked at the owl with its glazed expression. ‘Is he alive, dear?’ she asked.
The bird gave a feathery owlish groan as if to prove he was. Just.
‘See Mummy, he’s so clever he even understands what you say!’
Ma Grimthorpe seemed to doubt that very much, but clearly didn’t want to hurt Gertie’s feelings.
‘Are you sure you think he will help with your spells?’ Ma asked.
‘Oh yes, I’m very sure,’ replied Gertie. ‘I feel all magical already.’
‘All right,’ agreed Ma, against her better judgement.
On the way home, Gertie explained how she had found the owl. She saw Ma begin to regret her agreement even more. What kind of owl would fly into a tree? Before too long, they were to find out the answer to that question was, a very short sighted one.
Back home, Ma gave the owl a drink of water with a little powder in it to ease his headache. He seemed to soon feel much better. He stared at Ma Grimthorpe then at Gertie with his beak almost touching their faces. Gertie thought he was deciding he liked them. Maybe his headaches usually lasted much longer.
The owl still ventured out to fly around, but rather more carefully. He always returned to sleep on a log Ma had put in Gertie’s bedroom for him. Gertie soon learned to leave the window well open for him to avoid any further head injury. She had seen him flying full tilt at the closed window once during his first few days with them. On that occasion, only a shrill whistle from Gertie who was outside waving a sausage at him, saved both his head and Gertie’s window pane. Even then, it was only the waving movement that helped him to see it. The poor owl did have an awful problem with his sight.
As time passed, Gertie pondered and pondered over a suitable name for her new familiar. She absentmindedly scratched behind his ear as she tried out different names on him, in an attempt to sense his reaction to them. ‘Oscar? No. Oswald? No, I don’t like that. Orson? Definitely not Orville. Too soppy.’
Finally, after days of mind searching, Gertie settled on the ideal name. ‘Why didn’t I think of it before?’ she asked the owl, who came nearer with his ‘do I know you?’ expression. ‘It’s perfect, I shall call you…Owl!’
Owl he was, and Owl he remained. Gertie had never been very inventive.
Gertie knew she would have to keep Wart out of the way. She didn’t want Owl to be jealous, or more to the point, to try to eat the toad.
If Owl ever did see Wart, he didn’t let on. He more than likely just wondered why Gertie sometimes carried a shiny green stone in her pocket. Even more so, why she took it out and talked to it. He wouldn’t wonder for too long, however. He probably never understood humans anyway.
Though Gertie didn’t admit it to her Mum, Owl didn’t help much with her spells. In fact he was usually more of a hindrance. He had an unfortunate habit of flying in and landing on her mother’s carefully prepared herbs and ingredients, scattering them in all directions. He had even almost ended up in the cauldron more than once. On the odd occasion when Gertie decided to try something new with his help, she couldn’t find Owl at all. During the search, she lost interest in the spell anyway. If Owl was about when Gertie felt a magical mood on her, he would watch Gertie so closely, so as not to miss anything, that his beak got in the way. Or worse still, he ate the ingredients. Owl was an owl very fond of his tummy.
‘NO!’ Gertie would shriek. ‘That’s the last…that was the last,’ she corrected watching it disappear down Owl’s beak, ‘piece of dead frog’s liver we had.’
If owls can pale, Owl paled. Gertie knew he didn’t mind frogs, but dead frogs, yuck!
Gertie decided the power of her familiar would work better at a distance. The farther the better. Gertie could never stay angry with Owl for long though.
‘I do love you, Owl,’ she said quietly, scratching his ear. ‘It’s just that you haven’t learned how to be a familiar yet. It’s like I haven’t learned how to be a real witch. We’ll both learn s
oon. Won’t we?’
Owl gave his ‘Do I know you?’ squint, then settled down for a nice prolonged scratch. Gertie believed that no one knew how to scratch behind his ear quite like she did.
On another day, with Owl at a safe distance, Gertie decided to try something easy. Searching through her mother’s ‘Spells For Beginners’ book, she came across a spell said to be at every witch’s fingertips. The Levitation Spell. Gertie smiled. That was it. She would make something rise up in the air. It sounded easy enough.
Being a sensible girl, Gertie chose a crystal ball to levitate. It was only a small one, and she decided that crystal was supposed to be powerful anyway. It might even lend her a helping hand.
‘I’m sure you could make yourself rise up in the air without any help from me,’ Gertie encouraged the crystal, hopefully. She stared at the ball with intensity, waved her little arms madly over it, and spoke the suggested magic words.
‘Crystal ball, disobey if you dare,
Rise right up, into the air.’
For a moment, nothing happened, so Gertie gave the crystal her very meanest look. Which wasn’t very mean. It wasn’t easy without the Grimthorpe wart and hooked nose.
At last, something did begin to happen. Much to Gertie’s surprise, she saw a definite tremble.
‘Yes! You are moving!’ Gertie exclaimed with excitement.
What happened next however was not what the little girl had planned. The table on which the crystal ball was balanced gave a grudging, half-hearted, little jump. It barely left the ground, but it was enough to send the crystal crashing noisily to the dusty stone floor.
‘Oh dear,’ was all Gertie could think of to say.
She then heard a strange hoot outside and went to investigate.
Owl was in the process of flying into Gertie’s room upstairs, but she saw him quickly fold his wings over his head instead. Did he think the window had shattered when the crystal ball dropped? He had paused in mid air at the open window. His two very round confused eyes staring, very closely, at it. Possibly looking for broken glass? The tip of Owl’s wing tested the air where the window would have been had it been closed. Gertie knew it was definitely open. She heard Owl sigh, then realised he had stopped flapping his wings and saw him begin to plummet to the ground. Gertie heaved a sigh of relief when he caught himself just in time as he was passing the downstairs window.
Gertie remembered the mess inside, so returned to the shattered crystal ball. ‘I thought you were supposed to be powerful,’ she accused the crystal. ‘What did you have to go and fall off for? You can’t have been much of a crystal ball,’ she added, wondering what Ma Grimthorpe would say. ‘Hm, maybe I should have tried something not so heavy,’ she pondered, finger in her mouth.
Nothing sprang to mind, so her spells were over for another day.
Ma Grimthorpe despaired. ‘She’s not a bad girl,’ she moaned to Gran, when Gertie was safely tucked up in bed that night.
‘That’s the problem,’ muttered Gran through her whiskery upper lip.
‘Oh Mother! You know what I mean,’ continued Ma, wringing her wizened hands. ‘If she can’t even do a levitation spell at her age, she is almost ten you know, then what hope has she of ever becoming a real witch?’
‘None whatsoever as far as I can see,’ reassured Gran.
‘Mother! I thought you said I would feel better when we had talked alone. Don’t say things like that about my Gertie!’
‘You didn’t let me finish,’ Gran continued, fixing Ma with her best spell casting eye. It was the one that didn’t allow for any looking away.
Ma didn’t look away.
‘What I was about to say was this,’ continued the old witch. ‘I think we should send her to the Academy.’
Ma stared long and hard at Gran’s bloodshot eye. The other one wasn’t too bad. That was another reason Gran used the bloodshot one to lead her spell casting. It helped to keep her victim’s attention, wondering why it was so horrible.
‘The Academy, Mother?’ Ma Grimthorpe finally managed to say. ‘But, is that possible? Only those who show great promise in the Evil Ways go to the Academy. Like Fang. You only have to look at Fang to see what potential he has.’
‘I’m sick of hearing about Fang,’ interrupted Gran. ‘The whole village is talking about the devil. Just because he looks the part and our Gertie doesn’t shouldn’t make any difference.’
‘But, you know it does,’ replied Ma with a look of anguish on her yellowed face. ‘Our Gertie will never be offered a place.’
‘Maybe not offered,’ Gran said with a wink. ‘But haven’t you read “Witches World” this week?’
‘Witches World? No, I haven’t had the time. Why do you ask, Mother?’
‘Money problems, that’s why,’ replied Gran with a knowing nod she seemed to think explained everything.
‘Who, Witches World?’ asked Ma, when no further explanation was offered.
‘No, Cloth-Ears, listen to your mother,’ Gran said in exasperation, putting down her knitting. ‘It says in the paper that the Academy is having money problems. It doesn’t say it in so many words, mind, but that’s what it means. They say they want to open their doors to help more young hopefuls. At a charge. Like I said, they’re having money trouble. It’s nearly time for this term’s intake, and they obviously haven’t got enough applications of the gifted variety. So, they’re planning to make a bit on the side.’
‘But, can we afford it?’ asked Ma, a slight glimmer of hope on her bony face.
‘Don’t you worry none about that,’ said Gran, placing a warty finger on the side of her equally warty nose. ‘I’ve a bit put away for a stormy day. I reckon our Gertie needs it. She’ll probably only need to go for one term’
‘Oh, Mother,’ Ma almost cried, coming over to hug the old witch. ‘Could it really be? Our Gertie, going to the Academy? What can I say?’
‘Just say you’ll send the little blighter,’ replied Gran, not unkindly. ‘I can’t afford to keep replacing crystal balls,’ she added, looking at the empty space on the table.
Chapter Five
Ma didn’t sleep much that night. She was so excited; she wanted to tell Gertie about the plans immediately. At the same time, she had a nagging doubt in her mind that Gertie might not want to go. After all, she had never been away from home before.
She needn’t have worried.
‘The Academy!’ the little girl shrieked. ‘I can go to the Academy!’ She did a little dance that would have made any pixie proud. Not a witch though unfortunately. Ma wondered again, not for the first or last time, about whether sending Gertie away to school was really the right thing to do.
‘What is the Academy?’ asked Gertie, as an afterthought.
Everything happened so quickly Ma knew that Gertie had little time to wonder about the Academy. She told Gertie it was a school where the best witches were taught to be even better. ‘And Warlocks too,’ she added, looking worriedly at her little girl. ‘Fang will be there as well, so at least you will know someone. You won’t be lonely, will you?’
‘Lonely?’ Gertie asked as if she didn’t understand the word. ‘Of course not, Mummy. I’ll make lots of new friends, and I’ll take Owl, Wart, and Bat with me. Well, maybe not Bat,’ she pondered, as if remembering the umbrella’s new vocabulary.
‘Do you think that’s wise?’ asked Ma. She was already worried enough about Gertie without the extra concern she might be laughed at because of her familiar and friend. Not to mention her umbrella. Which no one did again.
‘Oh but, Mummy, I can’t go anywhere without Wart and Owl!’ Gertie cried, a look of abject horror on her face at the thought.
‘All right,’ Ma finally agreed. ‘But we must make sure we take Owl’s log for him to sleep on in your room. We also need to find a nice murky pond nearby for Wart.’
The day to leave for the Academy dawned dismal and grey, and all too soon for Ma Grimthorpe.
‘It’s a perfect day for new ventures,’ s
he said to Gran as she stared out at the gathering storm clouds. ‘But I’m so worried about my little Gertie.’
‘No need to be,’ replied Granny sharply. ‘It’s what she needs. She has to mix with witches of her own age and pick up all their bad habits. You know what they say about getting in with the wrong crowd. It always does you a world of good.’
‘I know,’ replied Ma sadly. ‘But I still worry.’
It seemed like the whole village had come out to see Gertie and Fang off. Ma knew there had been much talk behind grimy curtains about how Gertie had got in to the Academy.
‘Well, didn’t you see the article in’t paper ?’ she had heard Grothilde say.
Some probably had, and some hadn’t, but soon they all knew. Still, however Gertie had got in, Ma knew they wished her well. For witches, their hearts were all in the right places.
‘Now remember what I told you about th’animation spell, lass,’ reminded Grothilde. ‘It’ll stand you in good stead wit’ teachers that you know a clever spell already.’
‘Yes, thank you,’ Gertie replied politely with a smile, thinking of Bat muttering away to himself in the back of her wardrobe. He had made packing a real chore because every time she opened the wardrobe door he had something else to say, usually insulting. Gertie had been very pleased and relieved when she had packed her last black dress and closed the door on him with a ‘Bye, Bat.’
‘Eh?’ she heard him mutter through the door. ‘Where do you think you’re going without me? By the Blessed Bat Spit, come back so I can insult you again. It’s going to RAAAAAIN!’ she heard him shout as she shut her bedroom door with a bang.
‘I’ll remember the spell,’ Gertie added, giving Grothilde a hug. But I won’t use it again, she thought with a shudder.
After all the goodbyes; some tearful, the handful of broomsticks set off in the direction of the blackest cloud overhead. Gertie rode with Owl on her mother’s broomstick. Gran came along behind with Gertie’s suitcase, and Owl’s log. Fang pulled a face (which wasn’t difficult with the face he started off with) at Gertie as he rode past with his mother. Gertie once again pondered about her supposed good fortune at having someone she knew at the Academy. She wasn’t entirely sure that Fang liked her very much.
