Abby the Witch

by Odette C. Bell

  The Gov shrugged his shoulders. 'As an officer of the law, I wouldn't suggest breaking into the Palace. Plus, though I reckon that Pembrake is a bit too sure of himself, he ain't that stupid. Do you trust him?'

  Abby was taken aback and blinked quickly as if the Gov had swung a strong light in her eyes. 'I don't know…' she'd never really thought of Pembrake like that. Sure she spent half her time hating him, but did that equate to not trusting him? Ms Crowthy used to say that trust was the only currency worth trading. Trust, she'd say, can grow things, enable, stop, and destroy. It was like trading in pure energy or potential. If you could trust someone, really trust them, then it was like you had another version of yourself – another world of possibilities. Did she trust that Pembrake would come to her aid if she was in trouble? Well he'd tried to warn her off the Captain – did that count? And did she trust that Pembrake would help her achieve her goals? He hadn't run out on her, even though he'd had the opportunity. It seemed as if he was committed to helping them find a way home… but did this mean she could trust him?

  The Gov cleared his throat. 'I reckons you'll find out soon enough. My advice to you, young witch, is to find yourself an invite to the Ball. I think, what with me and Martha in the Palace to look after Pembrake this week, he shouldn't get into too much trouble. But I think the Ball is going to be different,' the Gov had a far-off look in his eye, almost as if he were catching a vision from the clouds above, 'I think you should be there for that.'

  'Okay,' Abby conceded. She could sense the Gov was not giving her some frivolous suggestion – it seemed to be genuine foresight on his part. 'But how am I going to find an invitation to the ball? Where do I even begin to look?'

  'I think a smart girl like you should be able to figure that out. But unfortunately I have to be off now. You keep that head straight and it'll all work out.'

  The Gov had left Abby thoroughly confused and a touch exasperated. Find an invite to a Ball at the Palace? Where was she supposed to look? In the gutter? Or maybe break into some house on Esquire street and help herself? She'd need a dress too, unless she was planning on spending the whole night on the roof blending in with the chimney.

  Eventually Abby managed to calm down. She had a whole week to find an invite, after all. And even if she didn't, couldn't she just find some way to sneak in with Martha? Did Abby really need to arrive at the Palace in a full-length golden ball-gown with jewellery and pearl-white shoes?

  She would just have to wait and see. Which is a terrible notion for a witch.

  Chapter 13

  Charlie licked his paw and settled down onto the warm stonewall. There was not a lot to be said about going back in time really. Not much changed, the people essentially stayed the same, they were just preoccupied by different little stories.

  Take that fish monger over there, Charlie thought as he sniffed at the violent smell of old seafood in the air. He's just trying to make a buck selling his dodgy wears. Same thing would happen in the future. And that merchant over there, the one with the surprised red-rimmed eyes. He had clearly been up all night drilling holes into the bottom of his rival's ship. They did that in the future too.

  There were some differences, granted; a couple of stones out of place, a couple of trees smaller than they should be. But none of these differences were worth mentioning.

  It was all a bore really.

  Charlie winked one eye closed and kept the other open the barest slit to watch the mundane happenings of the town below him. As he ignored the town, the town ignored him in turn. But Charlie was getting used to being ignored. Abby had ignored him ever since he'd gotten here.

  Charlie twitched his whiskers and snarled at a bird as it flew close by the wall.

  He could count the conversations he'd had with Abby since they'd been thrown back in time on one claw. Whatever she was thinking, whatever she had found out, whatever she was planning - she hadn't bothered to let him know a word of it.

  He was close to mutiny! He was close to a coup. He was close to marching right up to her and swiping her in the face until she acknowledged his existence with a painful cry.

  It was all that Pembrake's fault. Charlie stretched out his claws and let them grate back along the stone as they retracted. He was bad news. Such a cad.

  The shrill cry of a gull rang out overhead and Charlie was forced to blink open his eyes to take a quick look as the gull swooped towards the dock.

  The seagulls were out in force this morning, and their calls were not filled with their usual inane chatter. They were not discussing the recent catch of some trawler out in the bay, or the leftover fish guts that were being washed off the dock. No, all their squawks were quick and sharp like the chatter of a military unit.

  Something was going on, it appeared, something big.

  Charlie sat up and watched another pair of seagulls swoop low.

  'The witches are leaving!' squawked one fat-looking bird with a bent beak.

  'Already?' another seagull replied as it flew past Charlie's wall.

  'What's this?' Charlie sat up straight and glared at the birds. Stupid seagulls never knew what they were talking about. They were always spreading rumours and gossiping like a bunch of old women. Still....

  Both the seagulls settled on the drain of a roof nearby. The gull with the bent beak tilted his head and looked at Charlie with one wild yellow eye, obviously annoyed that a cat had interrupted his conversation. 'What's it to you, walker?' the gull gulped through a laugh, obviously reckoning that drawing attention to the fact cats cannot fly, was the funniest damn insult this side of the slumps.

  Charlie twitched his lips up into the most withering of grins. 'The world?' He dearly wanted to threaten the bird with its life, but decided it was best to keep him onside in case the flying rat would scoot off without spilling the beans.

  'Here, Guthrie!' the second gull flapped a wing towards his friend, like a human nudging someone with an elbow. 'That's a witch's cat, that is.'

  'Yesss, Wilfred, I know that,' Guthrie obviously fancied himself the one in charge and looked at Wilfred with disdain. 'But he's still a cat!'

  'But I reckons he needs to know!' Wilfred bobbed his head up and down, 'what with him being a witch's cat and all.'

  'So what? He's still a rotten, rat-eating, bottom-dwelling cat! Who cares if he happens to sit on the end of a witch's broom?'

  'Look, alls I'm saying, Guth, is that those witches told us to spread the word! Don't you think this here cat needs to know the witches are heading off? That head witch said she didn't want none of her girls falling pray to that Colonel!'

  'It's prey, Wilfred, and stop telling the cat everything already!'

  Charlie shook his head slightly, trying not to let his eyes glass-over too clearly. Seagulls were quite easily the stupidest of birds. He would really be doing evolution a hand if he just wiped these two off the family tree.

  Still, this was worrying. Though these birds would not have enough brainpower to excite a limpet, they didn't appear to be lying. Not with the same call being carried by the two dozen or so gulls that were circling overhead as well.

  It seemed the witches of Bridgestock were packing up and heading out of town. But what witch in her right mind would ever leave her territory? There were penalties for doing something like that - witches lost a whole lot of their dignity and the powerful edge off their squint if they went around fleeing from trouble. No one would fear an old Crone if they knew she wouldn't stand in front of your cart till you brought it to a shuddering halt a centimetre from her huffing nose. Witches relied on their mild disdain in the face of apocalyptic terror to beef up their image.

  A witch who would not stick it through was not a witch at all. So why would Bridgestock's witches be leaving? And what was it that the Head Witch feared the Colonel was going to do?

  Did this have something to do with the Witch Ban? As a cat, Charlie did not give a hoot about history, but since he'd been thrown back in the past it did seem like a useful topic to kno
w. Charlie didn't know his though, so, painfully, he was having to rely on a pair of recessive seagulls to find out what the pleck was going on around here.

  'So this Colonel then,' Charlie was doing his finest job of keeping his natural annoyance in check; he almost sounded friendly, 'what is he supposed to want to do with the witches?'

  'Capture one,' Wilfred squawked before Guthrie could stop him.

  'Capture one? Why does he want to capture one?' Charlie flashed his tail from side-to-side, the little white hairs on its tip standing on edge.

  'Because he wants one,' Guthrie supplied with a snap, obviously determined to be as unhelpful as possible.

  'He's got some kind of plan and he needs a witch he does!' Wilfred still bobbed his head excitedly. 'It's got something to do with those Turn Abouts, and an assassin, and the Royal Family!'

  Charlie tried to appear indifferent to the news, but could still feel his whiskers twitching. 'And do you know what this plan is, perchance?'

  'Oh rack off, cat,' snapped Guthrie, 'we're seagulls, do you really think we know the secret plan of Bridestock's evil overlord?'

  Charlie couldn't help but growl. 'I thought perhaps the witch could have told you.'

  'Well she didn't. Wilfred's already told you all that we know, so why don't you just-'

  'Rack off?' Charlie asked through bared teeth. It was clear that the seagulls weren't going to be of anymore use. But Charlie wasn't about to let them leave with the upper hand. He stretched out and let his claws scrape loudly across the stone. 'I would be delighted to rack off. I'm very hungry, you see, and I'm rather preoccupied with finding something to eat.'

  Both seagulls got the picture and flew off with a good measure of jostling feathers and keening squawks. Charlie watched them leave and join the flock of birds circling high overhead.

  Well that had been interesting.

  So the Colonel was up to something and he wanted a witch. No matter what angle Charlie looked at this from, it did not look good.

  He had been willing to throw in the towel with Abby, sit on this warm wall and wait for her to sort out what she needed to in order to take the lot of them back home. But now, as always happened, it looked like he would have to weigh in and save the day – rescue his incapable mistress and the dim-witted Pembrake from a situation far beyond their skills.

  It was hard being a cat sometimes.

  Charlie licked his paw once more and bounded off the wall, landing with a light thump on the cobbles below.

  With a final look at the circling gulls above, he headed off to save the day.

  Charlie really wasn't expecting to run into him of all people. And the look of almost pleasant recognition that coloured Pembrake's features as he'd spied Charlie walking along a wall, was sickening.

  The troll actually looked up and waved when he was sure no one was looking. Charlie flicked his tail in response.

  He'd been on his way to find Abby, to warn her of the apparent trap the Colonel was creating. There appeared to be a vacancy for a witch in town, Charlie would say to her, but the Colonel probably wouldn't pay very well. But on his way over the walls and rooftops to find her, Charlie had been surprised to come across Pembrake standing by a carriage. The carriage was parked outside of an expensive-looking dress shop, and Charlie could just make out the pink-dress-clad form of the Princess swanning around inside.

  Pembrake waved at Charlie again and pointed to his feet. If Charlie didn't know any better, it appeared the human was trying to signal something.

  'Come over here,' Pembrake mouthed obviously.

  For a Naval Commander, he certainly didn't seem to have any military skills. If that was the best secrecy Pembrake could manage, then the Royal Navy was doomed.

  'Charlie!' Pembrake hissed.

  Finally Charlie acquiesced and bounded off the wall, coming to a rest next to one of the large yellow, ornate wheels of the cart.

  'Charlie, I don't have much time,' Pembrake fortunately had enough sense not to face Charlie or bend down to meet him. He simply stared straight ahead and moved his mouth as little as possible while he whispered evenly.

  'I'm so sorry for you,' Charlie wasn't about to make this any easier for him.

  'Look, have you seen, Abby?' Pembrake's features appeared to take on an odd, stretched look when he mentioned her name. 'I've been worried about her.'

  Charlie licked at his paw.

  'I honestly don't have much time, Charlie, please.'

  But as Charlie looked on with twitching disdain, a plan began to form in his mind. It was sometimes scary how brilliant his mind was. How, if he left a query knocking long enough at the gates of wisdom, his brain would come up with the most fantastic of strategies.

  And now, as Charlie looked sideways at the annoying Pembrake, his mind was coming up with a truly epic plan indeed. All this time he'd been intending on simply running back to Abby and telling her of what he'd overheard from the seagulls. But knowing Abby, this would not work.

  Ever since they had met, Abby had always had this strange attraction to trouble. The witches who had informed her of her broken destiny, the one filled with starvation and solitude, had been bang on the money. That sounded exactly like how it would end for Abby. There was just something so melancholy, so unfortunate about how her life always ended up. She would go out to pick roses and would end up with thorns. She went out to become a witch, and ended up in the one city that hated witches more than anything.

  But, and this was hard to admit, there was something about Pembrake that changed all that. It seemed his mere presence was enough to distract her into being more fortunate. She was too busy hating him, arguing with him, and berating him to remember how to court trouble.

  Oh yes, going back in time wasn't exactly fortunate. But they hadn't starved to waifs yet, nor had they been chased by the Guards or been eaten by wild dogs. Things were looking up, and as hard as it was to admit this, things were looking up into the face of Pembrake.

  'Stop looking at me like that, Charlie, and just answer my question,' Pembrake swivelled his head to either side carefully, obviously checking to see if people were listening in.

  'She's fine,' Charlie lied, 'she's looking for you though.'

  This time Pembrake did look down. What was that look on his face exactly? Was it surprise or something else?

  'She's looking for me?'

  'Yes, of course, she's waiting for you to finish all this gadding with the Princess, so that you can meet up again and finish this quest.'

  'She is?' his cheeks had deepened in colour. 'I thought she'd be happy to see the back of me honestly.'

  'Well, you don't know her,' though Charlie hated to engage in such a horrendous lie, it was fun leading Pembrake on like this.

  'Apparently not,' Pembrake stared off down the street.

  'When are you going to stop gadding? She can't do this on her own, you know.' Charlie swallowed, finding the taste of his next statement far too bitter, 'she needs you.'

  Pembrake blinked. 'Little Abby needs me? I don't think so.'

  'You need each other,' Charlie redoubled his efforts, 'so you can make a plan to get the pleck out of here.'

  Pembrake looked down, a sudden cold frosting the edge of his lips and freezing them in place. 'I already have a plan.'

  Oh that's just great. That had to be a fairly high score on the creepy-ominous-voice stakes. By the sounds of his tone, Pembrake was planning on smacking the past over the head with a huge stick.

  Before Charlie could put Pembrake in his place re violent plans to change the past, the Princess danced out of the shop, clutching a white dress to herself and giggling wildly.

  Pembrake bubbled with false interest and Charlie took that as his cue to go.

  He wasn't happy to leave Pembrake on his own, plotting whatever rotten plan was in his head. It wasn't that Charlie was against changing the past; he thought it was a great idea. You don't get thrown into the past from a horrible future unless time intends you to fix it. But Pembr
ake probably wasn't thinking of a healthy happy solution to the futures ills. He was probably thinking of finding whoever was responsible for turning Bridgestock into a festering, bigoted trash heap – and knocking the pleck out of them.

  As Charlie trotted off down the street, he realised that Pembrake needed Abby just as much as she needed him.

  He'd eventually found Abby walking aimlessly along a side street in Bridgestock. The street in question eventually terminated in the slumps. Not a cheery place to be, especially with Turn Abouts and assassinations in the air.

  She was curling her hair around her finger and staring through the window of a shop that sold hideous-looking dresses. She only ever curled her hair like that, or had that almost childlike grin on her face, when she knew no one was watching her. Because Abby, for better or for worse, often put on the face of an experienced, unshockable Crone. If she’d knew someone was looking at her now, she would probably curl her toes with shame.

  Abby did so want to be old. She seemed to be on a constant quest to become an old diddy. She didn't have wrinkles yet, but they would come. Nor did she always tut when walking past young couples, or sniff wildly at any mention of parties, picnics, or balls. But all that would come, given time.

  If Abby wanted to be old for the rest of her life, then that is precisely what she would be.

  Abby had resigned herself from an early age to act beyond her years. But in doing so, she eliminated a formative section of her youth. As a 16-year-old she was more interested in collecting herbs from the forest than accompanying the other village girls to the harvest dance. And then again as an 18-year-old she would prefer to cross the street from a group of bubbly chatting girls her own age rather than have to listen to whatever it was that made girls like her happy. Finally as a 21 the commentary had started. To Mrs Hunter or whatever other old diddy Abby could find to chat with, she would fondly raise the topic of today's youth and the problems plaguing them. She enjoyed her status of having wisdom beyond her years, but that wisdom was full of glaring holes.