by Val Thame
Rule of three, scrit-scrat-scree.
Rule of three, scrit-scrat-scree.
They repeated it over and over, and the room popped and pinked with magic. Then, released from its spell, the carpet dropped onto the bed with a thwunk, and a small and wrinkled old lady tumbled down on top of it. Her thin legs waggled in the air as she struggled to pull down her skirt and sit up at the same time.
“Podulations!” she cried. “I’ll squidge that mean sister of mine. I’ll give her spots. I’ll make her hair fall out. She only did this because I said her warts were fading. You’d think she’d be pleased, wouldn’t you?”
Hayzell tutted sympathetically.
Nettle sat on the edge of the bed smoothing her creased clothes and tucking into a knot the stray wisps of white hair. Then she saw Hayzell, Evilyn and Goodrun.
“Oh, my socks!” she cried, “How did you get in here? Who are you? What do you want? Don’t say I left my front door open again? I’m always doing that.”
She wriggled off the bed and ushered them towards the door.
“You must have the wrong house. You’ll have to go.” Then she lowered her voice to a whisper. “You didn’t see anything. You didn’t hear anything. Understand? Nothing at all. You imagined it. I was just having a nap on my bed.”
“Auntie,” cried Hayzell, trying to stop herself from being pushed down the stairs. “It’s us.”
Nettle screwed up her eyes and looked at Hayzell. “Hmm. That red hair looks familiar. There’s only one person with fiery hair like that. It’s my great, great, great, great niece Hayzell.”
Hayzell loved compliments, especially about her unusually red hair “Yes,” she said, “and this is my eldest daughter Goodrun, who is coming to live with you. Remember? And her sister Evilyn . . .”
“Who is not coming to live with you,” growled Evilyn.
Nettle peered intently into each of their faces.
“My eyesight isn’t so good. So you’re Evilyn. You’ve grown.”
“I haven’t!” said Evilyn, rudely. “You’ve shrunk!”
Although Nettle smiled, Goodrun could tell there was no warmth behind it. She raised her right foot and looked for a moment as though she was going to stamp on Evilyn’s toe, but she did not.
“And you must be Goodrun.” Nettle extended a thin, crinkly hand. It looked too fragile to shake. “I shall be pleased to have you. The family don’t visit now that I’m retired. Too dull, I suppose. My sister Drab pops in sometimes but she’s getting very cranky in her old age.”
Evilyn snorted. “Like somebody else I know. Ouch!”
This time Nettle’s foot connected with Evilyn’s.
“So sorry,” she said, smiling sweetly. “I thought I saw a rare toe-nibbling ant! My mistake.”
Evilyn scowled.
“Well, now that you’re here, I expect you’d like some tea,” said Nettle.
And all three followed the old lady down to the kitchen.
“She’s worse than I thought,” whispered Hayzell, watching impatiently while Nettle fussed and fiddled with kettles and teabags. “I could zap a cup of tea in two ticks. Old age has turned her completely mortal. It’s so sad.”
“Daft as a doughnut,” said Evilyn, lying flat on her back on the kitchen table. “Silly old egg, can’t even do a simple tea spell.” She rolled over onto her tummy, her sneering face right in front of Goodrun’s. “That’s what you’ll be like one day.”
“Oh, get off!”
The little seed of irritation planted by Evilyn made Goodrun push harder than she intended and Evilyn slid off the end of the table and smacked onto the floor. Floors were dangerous places for witches. A witch could get trodden on a floor. Evilyn scrabbled to her feet.
“You frog! You did that on purpose.”
“Frog yourself!”
“Toad!”
“You don’t have to stay for tea, Evilyn dear,” said Hayzell, calmly studying the length and smoothness of her bright orange fingernails. “Haven’t you got something awfully mean to do?”
Evilyn stabbed a finger at Goodrun. “You wait,” she said. “I’ll pay you back for this.”
And she disappeared, leaving behind the distinct and sour odour of bad feeling.
Nettle, advancing at last with the tea tray, sniffed the teapot. “What a funny smell! I hope it isn’t my tea.”
She poured out four cups, unaware that Evilyn had gone.
“Do your neighbours know you’re a retired witch?” asked Goodrun.
Nettle smiled. “Of course not. And they wouldn’t believe me if I told them. Everybody thinks I am an ordinary old lady.”
“How ghastly for you,” said Hayzell, “I hope nobody ever thinks I’m ordinary.” She stood up and smoothed her glowing red hair. “But tempis fugit, Aunt, and so must I.” She brushed Goodrun’s brow with the lightest of kisses. “I have to catch a whirlwind in Kansas. Don’t you just love bad weather? Call me anytime, if you need me. Byeeee darlings!”
And Goodrun’s mother, the magnificent Witch Hayzell, gradually faded into nothingness, disappearing finally in a fragrantly perfumed puff of pink.
Nettle peered shortsightedly into the cups and then at the two empty chairs. “They haven’t drunk their tea. Where’ve they gone?”
“Home,” said Goodrun.
And suddenly she felt very alone.
Chapter 4
After tea Nettle demonstrated the wonders of the mortal world: the dishwasher, the vacuum cleaner and the electric kettle. Goodrun had never seen such amazing, unmagical things. The pop-up toaster, the microwave oven, the tumble drier, the food mixer, the washing machine and the incredible television, which could zap perfect images of people right into the living room. Goodrun was beginning to feel better already.
“Who needs magic when you can have electricity,” she thought.
But the demonstration tired her aunt. She sank, exhausted, into an armchair.
“One thing you must always remember,” she said, her eyelids beginning to droop.
Goodrun waited for a while and then prompted. “What’s that, Aunt?”
“What’s what?” Nettle’s eyes screwed back. “Oh yes. People. They are completely useless. Can’t zap, can’t spell and they can’t fly. Well, they can. They invented a huge thing called an aeroplane. Noisy, dirty objects. Knocked many a witch off a broomstick, they have.”
“You mean they don’t know about beezum brooms?” asked Goodrun.
“No. They use them for sweeping up leaves. Silly, isn’t it?”
And there the conversation ended because Great-aunt Nettle fell asleep. Goodrun wanted to hear more about this strange new world but Nettle’s head had slumped forward onto her chest and she was snoring contentedly.
The sitting room was small and untidy. Newspapers and knitting rested on every chair and balls of wool lay in disorderly pyramids on the floor. Obviously Nettle loved knitting. The furniture was old and worn and the dusty shelves filled with equally dusty books. In spite of Nettle’s pleasure at owning a vacuum cleaner, Goodrun doubted if she ever used it. Her little old aunt, who had slipped right down into the armchair, looked likely to be asleep for some time so Goodrun decided to unpack.
Her bedroom, next door to Nettle’s, was only a fraction the size of her old bedroom at the mansion and the furniture was plain. A single wardrobe, a chest of drawers with a set of mirrors on top, a rickety bookcase, a chair, a small table and a bed covered in another multi-coloured, Nettle-knitted quilt.
She put some clothes in the chest of drawers, and others in the wardrobe but her graduation robe — the black, billowing gown and tall hat, which she had never worn because she had been expelled before she could graduate — she left in the case.
“And I shan’t need them any more,” she thought, “except perhaps on Halloween. I wonder what mortals do on Halloween? Evilyn said they dress up as witches but I don’t believe that.”
She stacked her books in alphabetical order on the shelves but her beezum broomsti
ck (given to her by her mother as a going-away present) she put at the back of the wardrobe with her case of witchy clothes. She looked longingly at the broomstick. Flying had been Goodrun’s best subject. Zooming silently through the air, catching the soft breezes, rising up above the clouds and swooping down through the mists — seeing the world from the sky.
“But I don’t suppose I shall ever do that again,” she said wistfully, as she shut the wardrobe door.
She put everything away except a certain envelope containing a certain savings certificate which her mother had given to her at her naming ceremony. It had once belonged to her father and it was all she had to remind her of Marvo the Magnificent.
“Marvo the Magnificent,” she whis-pered, dreamily. She wondered what would have happened if her father had not met with such an unfortunate accident. She supposed she would have always lived with mortals and her mother would have been the odd one out. She quite liked her eccentric and witchy aunts, and loved her beautiful mother. She even had a soft spot for half-sister Evilyn, who was not the nicest of people, and her stepfather, Blackheart Badmanners, could have been a lot worse, but the thought of having another ordinary family gave her a wonderful, warm feeling. “I wonder what he looked like?”
She had no idea, because none of her witch relations would ever talk about Hayzell’s first husband. Not even her mother, except to say that she had loved him dearly. “If my father had any brothers or sisters, then I would have an aunt or an uncle. And if they had children, I would have cousins.”
But these were just daydreams. All she really had was an envelope. She turned it over thoughtfully. Did it offer any clues? Perhaps there was a postmark. There was, but it was too faded to read. She had carried that envelope everywhere, in and out of bags, even under her pillow and any marks that might have been helpful had long since rubbed away. But, and she had never noticed this before, there were a few scratchy marks on the front. Handwriting, but so faint it was unreadable. Could it be an address? Hardly daring to hope, or breathe, she took the envelope over to the window where the light was better.
“Mr Corn-e-lius Smith,” she read, her heart thumping, “24, Something Road. Oh, I can’t read it.” The next line was also faint. “Brooms, Broomshaw or Broomshill?” It was just a guess and the last line she could not read at all. But it was a start. “Somebody will know where this Brooms place is. Then I can ask about my family.” She felt a wild thrill of excitement.
But, as quickly as her spirits had risen so they sank again. Her common sense, which she knew she inherited from her father, told her that even if she found out where Brooms whatever-it-was was, it could be miles away. It might even be in another country. She would have no chance of finding it. She put the envelope away in the top drawer under her socks. She knew it was a chance in a million that she would be able to find her other family even if, and she knew it was a big “if”, there was one to find.
Her aunt was watching television when Goodrun went down again.
“I watch everything up to the ten o’clock news,” she said. “Then I make some supper and go to bed.”
Her awful supper, some kind of tasteless, lumpy porridge, lay heavy in Goodrun’s stomach that night. She found it hard enough to sleep in a new bed in a strange room, without having indigestion as well. She had been so tired when she came up to bed that she did not even bother to undress but lay on top of the loopy, knitted quilt.
She stared up at the ceiling, speckled and lacy in patches where moonlight had pierced the net curtain, and tried to make the little room seem like home.
At the Academy she had shared a cold attic dormitory with three other witches all nastier and cleverer than she was. Greasey Puddle, Murky Pondwater and sister Evilyn, who was the nastiest and cleverest of them all. The beds were hard and the food was horrible. She had been scared of the teachers and terrified of the Head, Madame Necromancy. And her room at Blackheart’s creepy old mansion had been huge and horrible with lots of grey shadows. The old house itself was draughty and cold with mysterious corridors. Too many skeletons in fits cupboards, bats in its attics and ghosts in its secret passages. By comparison her cottage bedroom was much, much better.
She wondered what her mother was doing. Had she found the whirlwind? The time ticked by and the moon moved round, leaving the ceiling plain and the room dark. She heard the clock downstairs chime twelve times and she was still awake.
“Midnight. The be-witching hour. But nothing will happen here. Not like at home.”
But, as the last chime died away, Goodrun felt something, or somebody, moving around at the bottom of her bed. She lay perfectly still, but could not stop an ;icecold chill rushing through her body, freezing her blood. Then slowly, so slowly she was hardly moving, she lifted her head off the pillow, just a centimetre, and trained her muscle to see. Something touched her foot and she screamed.
She jumped out of bed, then immediately wished she had not because her bedroom door flew open and something white and ghostly appeared in the doorway. Goodrun was positively petrified. She wanted to scream again but nothing would come out. Unable to move or speak she stood by her. bed, staring wide-mouthed in horror at the floating apparition in the doorway.
Chapter 5
The apparition drew a thin sleeve across its eyes. “What in the name of Boiling Cauldron is going on?” it said.
Then the light went on and Aunt Nettle, in a long, flowing nightgown, was illuminated in the doorway.
“Auntie,” gasped Goodrun, flinging her arms around Nettle’s thin body. “It’s you.”
Nettle peeled her off. “Of course it’s me. I live here, don’t I? What’s all the shouting about?”
“My room. It’s haunted.”
“Nonsense,” said Nettle, briskly, “I’d be the first to know if it was.”
But even as she spoke the covers on Goodrun’s bed rippled from one end to the other as if being plucked by some ghostly, invisible hand.
“Stand back,” said Nettle. “I’ll get rid of it.”
And pointing three fingers at the bed, she began chanting an old-fashioned, double-purpose spell for the removal of bedbugs and demons. She was about halfway through when the covers lifted and a small, black kitten wriggled out onto the pillow.
Goodrun was so relieved.
“Oh, a cat. I didn’t know you had a cat.”
“And I haven’t. That one’s a stray — only it doesn’t seem to want to.”
“Doesn’t want to what?”
“Doesn’t want to stray. It’s always here. Shoo!” said Nettle, waving at the kitchen.
“Couldn’t we keep it?”
“If you look after it,” said Nettle. “It’ll be your responsibility. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going back to bed and I suggest you do the same.”
Goodrun did go back to bed but under the covers this time. The kitten snuggled down beside her.
“You are very black,” she said, stroking its fur. “Inky black.”
The kitten pressed its small head against her shoulder.
“Inky Black. That’s a good name. Mine’s Goodrun Smith. I’ve always wanted a cat.
Mother says cats are good for poor spellers like me.”
The kitten looked up and smiled. Goodrun was sure it did. She closed her eyes and tried to sleep but her head was so full of thoughts. Gradually, her thoughts muddled into dreams. Dreams of relatives, aunts, Great-uncles, second-cousins-twice-removed, and they were all crowding into her bedroom. “What’s your name?” “Badmanners,” she heard herself saying and everybody laughed. “What a silly name.” Then they were outside, pressing their strange faces against the windows. “We’re all Smiths,” they said. “Can’t find us!” And, swoosh, they disappeared. Then a witch came in and began tickling Goodrun’s nose with a feather duster and she woke up. It was daylight and Inky was licking her face and tickling her nose.
When she got out of bed she was surprised to find she was fully dressed. Aunt Nettle was already in the kitchen and looki
ng very smart in a blue knitted suit, over which she wore six or seven rows of dangling beads.
“Watch this,” she said. “I think I can still do it.”
She clasped her hands together under her chin and shut her eyes. Goodrun waited patiently. Her aunt appeared to be in some kind of trance. Nothing happened for ages and then, the most delicious and tempting smells began wafting past. Waffles, maple syrup, hot doughnuts, fried eggs, toast and marmalade. But where were they coming from? Nettle, her eyes still closed, was swaying to and fro. Then she flung her arms above her head and snatched out of nowhere a packet of Bang, Shatter and Splat-flakes. She looked disappointed.
“I wanted waffles,” she said, “not cereal.”
But Goodrun was impressed. “I thought you’d lost all your powers.”
“Not quite,” chuckled Nettle, tapping the side of her nose. “Don’t tell anybody but it’s surprising what a good night’s rest will do. Unfortunately, it doesn’t last.”
For her own breakfast Goodrun made some ordinary toast and boiled an ordinary egg. At home she would have been expected to zap the whole lot and she was glad she did not have to do that any more. In the past her tea spells had tasted more like pea spells and once she used gunpowder instead of bunpowder and nearly blew up the kitchen.
“I am cataloguing my spells this morning,” said Nettle, when she had finished eating her explosive cereal. “It will take years so I do a little each day. Everything must be in pumpkin order for my bestowal.”
“Of course,” said Goodrun, who knew all about bestowals. They were very important occasions when the extremely ancient witches gave away all their spells, potions and magic elixirs; all their treasured volumes of witchcraft handed down through the centuries; all their boxes of bits and packets of pieces; all their phials and philtres, their curious knick-knacks and horrible nak-niks. They bestowed them upon a chosen member of their own family, one which they thought most deserving of this magnificent inheritance. In this way their magic was handed down from witch to witch, to witch, making whoever received the bestowal immensely powerful. To gain favour with an old witch was, therefore, very important among younger members of the family. But none of this mattered any more to Goodrun. She was out of the witch business.
