A Sprinkle of Sorcery

by Michelle Harrison

  Rushing to Fliss’s side, Betty grabbed her sister’s sleeve, unsure whether to hug her or shake her. ‘Fliss,’ she croaked. ‘What happened? Did you tell her about the island? If it’s real, if it does exist – someone like Ronia could ruin everything for Willow!’

  Fliss embraced her fiercely, her breath warm against Betty’s ear. ‘I did what I had to do. I made a bargain with her.’

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The Winking Witch

  ‘I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU MADE a deal with her,’ Betty whispered, her words as sour as her breath. ‘And showed her the map! She’s a pirate, and you let her con you.’ She glowered at the wheelhouse. Ronia was inside at the wheel, but the door – and Ronia’s ears, no doubt – remained open.

  Next to Betty, Fliss shifted, trying not to disturb a snoring Charlie, snuggled up with Hoppit in her collar. The three of them – and Willow – had been forced to sit out on the cold deck, huddling together for warmth under Spit’s watch. Though Betty was exhausted she had managed only a few snatches of sleep over the past few hours since Ronia had set sail. On the horizon, the first stirrings of dawn light were visible.

  ‘Well, excuse me if I’ve never met any pirates before,’ Fliss said huffily. ‘I thought they had a code of honour, but obviously not! Can you please stop going on about it? It’s done now.’

  ‘Honour!’ Betty scoffed. ‘Really?’

  ‘It was the only thing I had of value,’ Fliss said in a quiet voice. ‘I heard Ronia saying they need places to hide themselves – and their loot. It seemed a small price to pay to escape!’

  ‘Or perhaps you just gave her four prisoners instead of two,’ Betty shot back. Because they hadn’t escaped, she thought now, uneasily. They were still firmly in Ronia’s grip, on a boat that was under her control. And there was no way of knowing whether the pirate captain intended to release them, or whether there was a more sinister plan in store for them.

  Fliss gave an infuriated sniff. ‘I wouldn’t have had to make a deal with her if you hadn’t messed up with the dolls! Luckily, the pirates manning The Travelling Bag were too busy seeing what they could pocket to notice how we appeared out of thin air. And then they blamed each other for not searching the boat properly!’

  ‘I already explained about the dolls,’ Betty said, annoyed. ‘It was an accident.’ She crossed her arms. ‘And keep your voice down. You’ve blabbed enough already – we don’t need her finding out about the dolls, too.’

  They both quieted down as Charlie shifted in Fliss’s lap, grunting in her sleep. When Fliss spoke next, her voice was low and thick with emotion. ‘You weren’t there, Betty. I was scared, and Willow started looking really strange – like she was about to collapse.’ Her eyes sparkled with angry tears. ‘I did the only thing I could think of to help us get away.’

  ‘Only we haven’t got away,’ Betty muttered, though some of the anger had left her now. Until this moment, she hadn’t been fully convinced that the hidden island actually existed – but something about Ronia’s willingness to look for it changed things. Not to mention everything else Betty had seen since leaving Crowstone, which was certainly enough to make her believe in the impossible. As guilty as it made her feel to admit it, Betty’s only concern had been to find Charlie. She’d never really imagined that they had a chance of getting Willow to the island. Now they were heading off in search of it with a conniving, murderous pirate for company, whether they wanted to or not. And Betty definitely did not want to. All she wanted was to go home, to Granny, Father, the musty old Poacher’s Pocket – and even Oi.

  They sat in miserable silence, each feeling as wretched as the other. Willow was sitting a little way away, her hair trailing over her face as she stared into her lap. She seemed to be feverish, half in a daze, and Betty was starting to worry that she was sickening for something. Finally, she broke her silence and nudged Fliss.

  ‘Willow does look ill,’ she said. ‘Her skin . . . it’s really pasty.’

  Charlie turned over in Fliss’s lap, scowling. She was always terribly grumpy as soon as she woke up. ‘She don’t look no different to me,’ she said, with a yawn and a stretch. Hoppit nosed his way out from her collar, yawning and stretching, too.

  ‘She doesn’t look any different,’ Betty corrected. ‘I asked her if she was all right a few minutes ago, but she just kept repeating everything about her father and getting to the island, over and over.’

  ‘I’d feel pretty wretched if our father was about to be hanged,’ Fliss murmured. ‘Or perhaps seasickness is catching. Excuse me.’ She shuffled out from under Charlie and leaned over the side of the boat, gulping at the air. Within seconds, Spit appeared, his forehead crinkling with concern. He offered Fliss a flask of water, but she waved him away and he skulked back to the wheelhouse doorway.

  Inside, Ronia stood at the wheel and was studying Willow’s map with interest through the hagstone. On the roof of the cabin, Bandit was snoozing with one eye open and trained in Charlie’s – or rather Hoppit’s – direction.

  Betty watched the pirate captain through narrowed eyes, her stomach curdling at the sight of Ronia’s hands on Willow’s precious, magical map. To Ronia, she felt sure the map and the island were just a means to fill her pockets. For Willow, the map meant saving the life of someone she loved. Would she get that chance, or would Ronia steal that from her, too?

  ‘You don’t trust her, do you?’ said Charlie. She was sitting up now, sucking one of her pigtails with her eyes on Ronia.

  ‘Nope,’ Betty admitted, thinking of the things Spit had confided to her about his captain. Poison . . . pillaging . . . possibly wrecking ships before stealing children away. And then, of course, there were the bones swinging from the foremast. But she wasn’t about to voice any of this to Charlie. ‘Do you?’

  Charlie shrugged. ‘When we got on the boat she said she’d let us go.’

  ‘I’m not sure how much we can count on a pirate’s word,’ Betty murmured, thinking back to the moments after they’d boarded The Travelling Bag.

  ‘If the map’s genuine, I’ll release you,’ Ronia had told them, her green eyes glinting keenly as Spit had stoked the boiler. She cast her eyes through the hagstone at Willow’s map. ‘And from the way this witch is winking at me, I’d say things are looking very promising indeed. Let’s pay her a little visit.’

  For Charlie’s sake, Betty hadn’t dared to ask what would happen if the map wasn’t genuine.

  ‘Well, she made sure we all got fed, even Hoppit,’ Charlie added now, scooting over to huddle next to Willow. ‘That’s got to count for something, right?’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Betty, rolling her eyes. Charlie could be persuaded of most things when it came to her tummy. Privately, Betty had other thoughts. Such as why Ronia had decided to journey to the island without any of her crew members – except Spit – with her. Could it be that she was planning to double-cross the Rusty Scuttlers and keep any loot for herself?

  ‘Charlie’s right,’ said Fliss, flopping back down beside her and wiping her mouth. ‘Surely Ronia wouldn’t waste good food on us if she didn’t mean to keep us alive?’

  ‘Well, we’re not much use to her dead, are we?’ Betty whispered fiercely. ‘And I’m glad the two of you are so optimistic. I mean, Charlie’s six so she’s got an excuse, but I thought you’d be smarter than that.’

  Fliss bristled. ‘Smarter than what?’

  ‘Think about it! At the very least, she’s keeping us alive until there’s proof the island really does exist. And none of us will know until we see it,’ said Betty. ‘Including Ronia. Until then, she’s making sure she’s still got us as backup, to trade or sell or whatever she decides to do with us. And four prisoners are going to co-operate with her a lot more if they’re not hungry.’

  ‘Perhaps we shouldn’t co-operate, then,’ Fliss said in a low voice. Her dark eyes hardened. ‘There are four of us and only one of her.’

  ‘What are you saying?’ Betty asked. ‘That we try to overpower her?’


  Fliss took a shaky breath. ‘Could we?’

  Betty glanced through the wheelhouse at Ronia, her heart quickening. Could they? The idea was tantalising . . . and yet . . .

  And yet . . . ‘It wouldn’t work,’ she said softly. ‘You’ve never had a fight in your life, and Willow and Charlie are just children.’ She shook her head. ‘Charlie might be a scrapper, but Willow’s in no state to fight off a flea. Not to mention Ronia has a cutlass as long as her leg – and she knows how to use it. There might be more of us, but numbers don’t mean anything.’ She sighed. ‘And then there’s him.’

  They both eyed Spit, who’d taken the wheel while Ronia pored over the map.

  ‘He helped us once, but there’s no guarantee he’ll do it again,’ said Betty. She felt a strange little twist deep in her gut as she recalled Spit’s story. ‘He’s loyal – at the end of the day the Rusty Scuttlers are all he’s got. We mustn’t forget that.’

  ‘You’re right.’ Fliss sighed wearily, shaking her head. ‘It was a silly idea. I suppose I just wanted to think of a way to make up for getting us into all this.’

  ‘Well, maybe you could do that by getting Spit on our side,’ Betty muttered. ‘Be a bit nicer to him. He’s sweet on you, you know.’

  Fliss shuddered. ‘Well, I’m not sweet on him or his revolting habit.’

  ‘I know,’ Betty said. She glanced grimly at Ronia’s cutlass once more, and the dagger strapped to her boot. ‘But if we go up against Ronia, we’ll need all the help we can get.’

  Her gaze drifted to the glass lantern propped by the wheel. The cloth she had thrown over it had been tossed aside – no doubt in the pirates’ search of the boat – but surprisingly the wisp remained inside, barely visible in the brightening daylight except for the faintest of flutterings. Judging by how close Ronia and Spit were to it, neither of them knew what it really was. Betty wondered how Ronia would react to that knowledge – and Spit, for that matter. He was certainly familiar with wisps – she’d seen that back at the shipwreck – and it hadn’t made him fear them any less. As for Ronia – was there a chance that her superstitions might even lead her to abandon The Travelling Bag?

  Betty frowned, glancing from the wisp to Willow. Was it a coincidence that, as Willow weakened, the wisp did, too? Unsettling thoughts hooked into her like claws. If it was Willow’s mother, did this mean she was moving on? Or maybe the wisp attack on the marshes had something to do with it – neither had been quite the same since. There was certainly a marked difference to the playful, darting thing that had entered the Poacher’s Pocket . . . It was now little more than a dying moth.

  ‘Yo-ho!’ Spit cried from the bow of the boat. ‘Land ahoy!’

  Betty and Fliss got up and joined him, rubbing warmth into their stiff limbs as they stared across the water. Through the early morning sunlight, they saw a small, craggy island with a large rock at its centre. They drew nearer, glimpsing several rock pools sprouting seaweed and alive with crabs, and, between them, a little sandy cove just wide enough to moor The Travelling Bag.

  ‘This isn’t the Winking Witch, surely?’ Betty said doubtfully, as they clambered off the boat and landed on the sand.

  ‘It is,’ Spit said. ‘It’s exactly where the map said. Right, Cap’n?’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Ronia, surveying the island through narrowed eyes. Bandit, who had leaped on to her shoulder as they’d left the boat, now jumped down and began investigating.

  ‘Where’s the witch?’ Charlie demanded. ‘It just looks like a load of old rocks to me.’

  ‘I think . . . that must be it.’ Fliss pointed uncertainly to the large rock in the middle. ‘I mean her.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Oh, to be on dry land again—Oh!’ A wave of water had surged over the sand and soaked her feet. ‘Darn it,’ she grumbled.

  ‘Don’t look like a witch to me,’ said Charlie, her bottom lip jutting out in disappointment.

  ‘Perhaps there’s something round the other side,’ said Betty, feeling her hopes slipping dangerously away. How could this pile of rocks possibly link to the figure inked on Willow’s map? And if the Winking Witch didn’t exist, where did that leave them? With nothing but a fairy tale to follow? She tried to sneak a look at the map, but Ronia was keeping it tight to her chest.

  ‘That way,’ Ronia commanded, herding them in front of her like sheep.

  With no choice except to obey, they crunched over the sand. Ahead of Fliss and Betty, Charlie and Willow walked hand in hand. Behind them, Ronia trod so soundlessly that Betty felt even more unnerved by her presence, and had to stop herself from looking over her shoulder. They scrambled over shallow rock pools round to the other side of the tiny island, and already Betty could see that the hulking rock appeared to be taking on a new form now they were viewing it from a different angle.

  ‘Whoa,’ said Spit, who was a little way ahead. ‘Come and take a look.’ He reached out to help Charlie, and then Fliss, over the uneven rocks. After a slight hesitation and a nudge from Betty, Fliss placed her hand in his and allowed him to help her. Spit’s cheeks flushed a deep red, and Betty couldn’t help notice that he held on to Fliss’s hand a little longer than was necessary.

  ‘There,’ said Spit, once they were all standing in the shadow of the towering rock.

  Betty gazed up and gasped, feeling a tingle of excitement and recognition. She could see it now. While the depiction of the Winking Witch had been rather elaborate on Willow’s map, showing a crooked old woman with a long black cloak, the real thing was very different. From the other side of the cove, the rock appeared ordinary, with no special features to mark it out. But from here . . .

  ‘The witch,’ Charlie breathed, shrinking back.

  It was not so much a figure as a head and shoulders. The weather-worn stone snaked back and forth, creating a shape that was distinctly like the profile of a face. A hooked nose curved over a gap that had a small piece of rock hanging down like a single tooth in a mouth. Below that, another shelf of rock jutted out to look like a chin. A sprig of grass sprouting from it gave the unfortunate appearance of a hairy wart. At the top of the face, a sliver of rock overhung like a shelf, while another resting on top tapered to a point. Together they looked like a wide-brimmed witch’s hat.

  But it was the eye that Betty couldn’t look away from. Above the nose, there was a single hole bored through the rock, which the sun streamed through.

  ‘So now what?’ said Ronia, unrolling Willow’s map impatiently. ‘According to this, the island should be over there to the north-west.’ She gazed through the hagstone out to sea. Her voice was icy. ‘I don’t see anything, and yet . . .’ She glanced at the map again, clenching her jaw. ‘And yet she’s winking at me, the old hag!’

  Betty turned to Willow, aware of Ronia’s thinning patience and the need to work out the link between the Winking Witch and the invisible island. ‘Willow?’ she asked, keeping her voice gentle. She hadn’t imagined it: Willow was looking peaky. Her skin was waxy, and there was a sheen of sweat on her forehead and upper lip. But she seemed to have perked up a little now they’d reached the Winking Witch. ‘Any ideas? Anything your father, or Saul, might have said before they went out on their boat that day?’

  ‘I . . . I don’t know,’ Willow said, swaying on her feet a little. ‘I feel . . . I can’t remember.’

  ‘Sit her down,’ said Fliss. ‘She’s worn out, poor thing.’ She guided Willow and Charlie to sit by one of the rock pools, and rubbed Willow’s back while murmuring to her comfortingly. At the next rock pool along from them, Bandit was watching some small fish darting about in the water. His tail flicked from side to side, and every now and then he plunged his paw into the water and yowled with frustration when he missed.

  Suddenly aware that Ronia was standing right beside her, Betty’s sense of unease deepened. She could see the tension in the pirate woman, her frustration building as things didn’t go her way. It was a dangerous combination.

  ‘Enough time-wasting,’ Ronia snapped.
‘How do I get to the island?’

  ‘That’s what I’m trying to figure out,’ Betty retorted, unable to keep her dislike of the pirate out of her voice. Fear was making her careless. If she couldn’t figure it out – or worse – it had all been for nothing and there was no island, just a legend that had led them to a pile of rocks, then what did that mean for them? She certainly knew what it meant for Willow’s father. Ronia’s stare became fiercer.

  ‘I-I mean . . . I don’t know,’ Betty stammered. ‘The only clue is the map.’

  ‘It’s no clearer now we’re here.’ Ronia stared through the hagstone in every direction. ‘There’s nothing.’

  ‘This place must link to it, somehow,’ said Betty. Privately, she was starting to think Ronia could be right. It was only the thought of securing their freedom – and getting answers for Willow – which forced her to keep going. ‘Why else would the witch on the map wink?’ She went past Ronia and picked her way over the rocks, driftwood and bits of sea glass. She set off, meaning to circle the witch. With a couple of steps, its features shifted, almost like the face was frowning. With another step, the daylight shining through the witch’s eye was obscured by an overhanging rock.

  ‘So that’s how she winks,’ Betty murmured, stepping back, then forward again to observe the spooky illusion. But it still brought no answers, only despair. Could the strange island have been a hoax all along? Could the map just be some kind of clever trick? If none of it was real, then Willow’s hopes were for nothing – and quite possibly, her mother’s life had been lost needlessly. And what of the Widdershins? Spit had told her what Ronia was capable of when people crossed her. Were Betty and her sisters about to experience her wrath for themselves?

  She sat on the lip of the large round rock next to the witch, trying to calm her thoughts. The top of the boulder had eroded over the years, for it dipped inwards like a bowl. An array of junk had collected inside, no doubt washed up in heavy storms or blown by fierce winds.