Celia awoke with a weight on her chest. She
was so used to this that she paid it very little attention. Boo’s buzz soothed
her and she began to doze. Then something occurred to her.
‘Boo!’ she exclaimed and sat bolt
upright, ‘what on earth are you doing here?’
Boo was mildly discomforted by
Celia’s sudden movement, but she soon found another place to lie, across her
mistress’s legs. Celia tickled her under her chin and briefly considered going
back to sleep. It was so lovely to see her little friend again, but this meant
that something must have happened to Hardacre.
Where she was, a thousand miles
north of Monurbis, it was much darker and much colder. The fire that had burned
in the grate in her pub bedroom was long since dead. She felt disoriented in
this strange room on the edge of the western world; she could hear the cry of
the seagulls over the dark, temporarily invisible, sea.
There was no room to chalk a
pentangle on the floor of the guest room, but she knew that she needed to
contact the twins, and so she would have to find somewhere to do it. She
wrapped herself in a heavy blanket, picked up a stick of chalk from her dresser,
and checked that Boo was asleep. Then she hurried downstairs as quietly as she
could.
She whispered ‘ddistaw’ as she crept down the stairs, enveloping herself in a
sphere of silence that trailed along with her. She knew that this would only
work while she didn’t have to communicate, but yet that was the whole point of
what she was doing – she needed to talk to headquarters. Her main concern was
not to wake up Tom.
She made for the snug – the little
room behind the main bar where locals sat in comfort and put the world to
rights. She knew that if she pushed the chairs back in that space then there
would be just enough room to cast the spell.
She hurried past the large bay window in the main bar, where a fire
still glowed in the hearth. She was completely silent, but not transparent.
This meant that the shadow that she cast, even in in the red half-light, was
enough to wake up the burly man sitting at the table. He came to with a start,
and shouted out, but the words died on his lips; he was inside the sphere and
so could make no noise at all.
There was a brief period of chaos
during which the two people tried unsuccessfully to communicate by sound and
gesture, neither of which were possible in the soundless near-darkness. They
clattered around mutely until Tom found a match and struck it on the table, held
it up to illuminate Celia’s face. He scowled at her. Celia sighed and clicked
once with the fingers of her left and twice with the fingers of her right hand.
The last click dispelled the silence.
‘What are you doing?’ hissed Tom, ‘creeping around my property with some weird
enchantment on yourself’
‘Trying not to wake you’ said Celia,
exasperated, ‘why are you down here, anyway?’
‘I couldn’t sleep…’ he started to say
but then did a double take, ‘it’s my bloody pub! I’ll do as I please… and
you’re a guest, remember?’
Celia looked sheepish and realised
that she’d have to come clean. Poor Tom, she thought, for him the price of love
would be to get sucked into things he couldn’t either understand or hope to
control.
‘I’m really sorry’ she said, ‘I have to
make contact some friends and I need to cast a spell to do it’
‘So – you’re a witch, too, are you?’
Celia breathed in deeply. She’d have
to rely on her instinct here and it was telling her it was time to come clean.
‘Yes, we’re both witches and we are
both members of a special council of witches called the Hybitor’
Celia was pleased to see that this
name didn’t seem to ring any bells with him. At that moment the match went out.
He struck another one and used it to light a large candle in the middle of the
table. Their two faces were illuminated as if they were talking in a cave.
‘Isn’t a council of witches called
something else…?’ he said; his face creasing and his lips thinning.
‘A coven, yes’ she said, firmly, ‘but
that’s just another name for the council – an old name but one that I actually
rather like, despite its connotations.’
‘So Katy is a member of a coven, is
she?’
‘Yes, I’m afraid that tends to be likely
to be true when you’re a witch…’
‘I suppose so’ he said, sullenly
‘Anyway, I don’t know why you’re
worrying about. You know Katy – do you imagine that anything that she is
involved with could be mean or evil?’
‘How am I meant to know’ he snorted,
‘I knew nothing about any of this until a few days ago’
Celia frowned – she could see how
dreadful this all was for Tom. This was what it was like when you loved
someone, she guessed: ghosts might keep appearing in every nook and cranny. It
might get unbearable if you looked for them too closely. And that was just one
of the awful burdens of love; she shuddered to think what else might be
involved.
‘Miss Franklyn…?’ said Tom.
‘Sorry’ she said, shaking herself out
of her reverie, ‘this must be a very difficult thing to find out so suddenly…’
Tom just grunted.
‘But Katy is still the same person
that she was before, you know…’
There was a pause while Celia waited
for Tom to respond. He was in no hurry. The morning light began to fill the
room. It began to look and less like a cave and more and more like an ordinary
room. Celia suddenly felt thirsty, but
she guessed that was inevitable consequence of sitting in a room full of beer
smells. Was it too earlier to have a
beer in a pub?
‘What is it that you lot do?’ asked
Tom
This wasn’t a question that Celia had
had to answer very often. She smiled and gave it a shot.
‘We help fight evil magic – there are
many forces within Eth and the wider world who would like to disrupt our
ordinary lives…’
‘Who are these forces?’
‘In Eth it is mostly rebel witches,
allied with Rhylic extremists, but there are other groups working with them’
‘Westerners?’ asked Tom, sceptically,
‘aren’t all witches westerners?’
‘Is Katy Rhylic?’ said Celia,
grinning, ‘am I?’
Tom shook his head. Celia thought he
looked exhausted.
‘Have you been up all night worrying
about Katy?’ she asked gently
‘Sometimes it’s hard to sleep’
murmured Tom
‘Yes, I know’ she said, although she
nearly always slept like a log, particularly when Boo was with her.
‘It’s nearly breakfast time’ he said,
‘would you like anything?’
Celia was now hungry and thirsty, but
she also still needed to contact the twins. Along with that she felt that she
had a duty to do more to put Tom’s mind at rest.
‘We’re just a group of colleagues who
try to help the High Lord with things that he would find hard to deal with
using his normal resources. We usually fare well enough’
‘So, you work for the government?’
‘Well, most of the time, yes, because
their interests and ours largely go together…’
‘It sounds dangerous to me’
‘Well, it’s a bit dangerous’ admitted
Celia, ‘but quite exciting, too…’
Tom looked unconvinced.
‘The thing is’ said Celia, proceeding
with care, ‘Katy is a brilliant witch – but you’ve seen what she’s like’
Tom smiled, despite his general mood
– they both remembered the state of her cottage.
‘So… if someone really cared about
her… then… he could look after her, and she wouldn’t get herself into this mess
as often…and… everyone would benefit’
Except
possibly you, Tom thought Celia, you might well end up with a whole warehouse packed full of pain and
worry
‘Possibly...’ said Tom, ‘...but she
keeps turning me down, anyway’
Celia began to feel the pressure of
time – anything could have happened to Laurence and here they were talking
about love. Still, Katy really did need looking after, and who else was
offering?
‘Keep trying’ suggested Celia,
smiling supportively at him, ‘you will wear her down, eventually… I can tell’
‘Maybe…’ he said, unconvinced,
getting up from the table, ‘…anyway, breakfast…’
‘That would be lovely…’ said Celia,
‘and… Tom’
Tom, who had been escaping as rapidly
as possible to the kitchen, turned reluctantly to listen.
‘Yes?’
‘I’m thinking that it would be best
not to mention this conversation to Katy. She’ll tell you in her own time, I’m
sure, but she might not appreciate having us talking about it while she’s
asleep…’
‘Umm’ muttered Tom, ‘I’ll think about
that’
Tom turned back again, seeking the
sanctuary of the kitchen.
‘And… just one other thing’ said
Celia
Tom didn’t turn and didn’t attempt to
suppress the irritation in his voice.
‘What?’
‘Can I cast that communication spell
here? I really need to do it soon…’
‘Just don’t make a mess’ grunted Tom,
‘and tell me when it’s safe to come back into my own bar…’
Celia roiled her eyes. She really
wasn’t sure that she’d handled this at all well. She wished that Owen had been
here to talk to Tom, man to man. She was sure that he would have done a better
job.
She raised her chalk and began to
mark out the pentangle. She just hoped that one of the twins was awake and that
if one of them had to be woken up, it wouldn’t be Gwyneth.
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