An Errant Witch Read online

  I WAS late for my first ever class on Scarp. I raced back to the castle in a panic, yet at the same time my feet felt as light as the cool sun as they flew over the hillside paths, my heart infused with joy and hope. My mother, long thought to be lost to me, was on this island, and I would somehow get into that doorless stone tower and release her from whatever demons held her captive.

  Just as I reached the back entrance of the castle, my steps faltered for I saw where this train of logic inevitably led to. This island belonged to the Kin and Johanna, and anyone held here would be here with the full knowledge of her. My mother was trapped by the Kin themselves.

  She’d asked me to tell Dad, but how could he not be aware of her prison? He was the leader of the Kin back home – a small community yes, but they were an old family and had been established there for hundreds of years, and they kept to the old ways. The Avalon Witch Kin were not an insignificant body in the world of witchery.

  So it had to be Cate, all along, the horrid wife of my father. What had finally set her off to be threatened enough by Mom to lock her in a tower on this lonely island off Scotland’s north coast? And how could he not know?

  And why did she allow me to be sent here? I had no doubts she could have stopped the process at any step along the way.

  I would have to walk very carefully through this twisted maze of intrigue and not allow myself to be captured in the same way. The clouds were lowering now, covering the sun, and the wind stepped up, cutting through my jacket. Shivering into my hunched shoulders, I hurried back into the shadows of the castle.

  Chapter 9

  THE MAN AT THE FRONT of the room stopped his monologue mid-sentence and stared in dramatic outrage at me as I opened the door, intent on sneaking into the back of the room. It didn’t help that the door emitted a loud and painful squeak, or that there were only seven of us in his class. My absence had been noted.

  ‘What is this?’ He spoke like a member of the English Royals, his accent so sharp it could cut glass, but his voice was a high-pitched whine. It sounded strange coming from such a rotund body. He slapped down the book he’d been holding. The sound echoed off the desk and around the circular tower room.

  Everyone else was already present; I could feel their eyes swivel in my direction. I took the last seat on the half-circle surrounding the podium and Professor Durand.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ I mumbled. I glanced over to Sandy at the next desk. He had paper and pens in front of him. I had nothing.

  ‘Did it speak?’

  My head jerked up. Did he just...

  Yes, he did. He was staring at me, his hands where his hips should be, and a sneer painted on his face. The red ‘C’ embroidered on his black robe announced he was of the Covenanter persuasion, and my heart sank even further. Not only was I late for his class, but in his eyes I would be the unwanted half-witch who didn’t deserve a place here anyway; I could tell by the gleam in his eyes that he had me exactly where he wanted me.

  Annoyance flared from deep within me. I didn’t care who he thought he was, he had no right to treat me in this fashion. This half-witch was going to fight him back every inch of the way.

  ‘I’m sorry for being late,’ I said clearly with my head held high and shoulders straight.

  ‘Who are you?’

  He knew damn well who I was.

  ‘Dara Martin,’ I said proudly, then added, ‘De Teilhard.’ It couldn’t hurt to throw my Dad’s name around, even if he’d never officially given it to me.

  Durand sniffed. ‘The half-blood.’

  I felt no need to respond to that remark.

  ‘The errant half-witch whom Johanna has thrust among us,’ he continued. ‘The one with the supposedly extraordinary untapped powers. Well, shall we discover the depths of your magical training, then?’

  ‘I haven’t had formal training,’ I said, as if everyone present didn’t know that already.

  ‘Well, Dara Martin, time is wasting,’ he said as if I hadn’t spoken. ‘Come up to the front, and we’ll take this opportunity to show everyone what wonderful talents you have.’

  It may have been Win who snickered first, opening the door to the round of tittering that followed. They were enjoying this, the Kin students, and they sat back in their seats to watch me be flayed alive by this despicable witch.

  I glanced around at the semi-circle of my cohorts as I stood. Fergie was studiously checking her manicure, while Sandy, bless him, peeked up at me and gave a small smile of encouragement. It felt a long way up to Durant’s desk, but was really just a few short steps.

  ‘Sit.’ He pointed to the seat behind the desk, so that I would be on full display to the others as he carried out his humiliation.

  ‘You have absolutely no formal training in magic, you say? I can’t imagine what Johanna is thinking, sending you to waste my time.’ He was enjoying his role of tormentor, throwing himself into the spirit of it all like an actor in a badly written pantomime.

  He gave a snort and finally looked at me fully for the first time, his eyes suspicious as he took my measure. He sniffed with distaste as if there was a bad odor assaulting his nose. ‘So you know nothing about magic, eh?’

  ‘I didn’t say that, I just haven’t had training...’

  ‘No magic,’ he interrupted me as he announced to the class. ‘I am sent an untrained neophyte and am expected to teach her the ABCs of Mind. Hah!’

  More titters followed, but I was gratified to see a dark expression forming on Fergie’s face.

  ‘What was Johanna thinking? How could she imagine anything good will come of this?’

  Pauline muttered something in agreement.

  Durand paced, fully playing to his audience now, building them up for the drama of my failure.

  ‘I disagree with the decision of the Inquiry. Rules are rules, and no matter whose bastard offspring she is, this is an inappropriate placement and I intend to make my complaints known. According to the Convention of 1945, she should have had her magic bound, for we don’t want to see a reoccurrence on that level again. Memories are short, but we must never forget!’

  He was composing his official letter of complaint against Johanna right there and then. I forced myself not to slink down into the seat.

  ‘And to ask me – me! A Witch of my stature! To coddle her along with teachings she should have learned in the nursery. A waste of my valuable time. This is too much. Too much, I say!’

  He whirled on his toes, lightly for such a heavy man and leaned in so close to me that I could smell his breakfast egg and coffee. ‘Do you know that I hold the title of Grand Master Witch of Pure Mind?’ He stood back and watched the effect of his words, his nostrils flaring. Something whistled in his nose.

  I’d never heard of such a title of course, although I could tell he thought it was a very important office, and he watched as all this formed on my face.

  ‘You’re nothing better than a heathen,’ he muttered as he turned back to his desk. ‘So, Dara Martin of No Kin, I am to test your limits of practice. Humph!’

  I’d never heard anyone actually say that word, but he enunciated it carefully, even to the exclamation point. He was not going to make this easy for me. I sat back in the chair and readied myself. I could hear the others rustling in anticipation.

  ‘Pick up that pen,’ he commanded me.

  I reached over to take up his writing tool only to have his wooden wand smack sharply on the desk top, missing my fingers with mere inches to spare. For the first time, a look of satisfaction came on his face, especially as mine began to burn with humiliation at this public ill treatment.

  ‘Not with your hand,’ he said, sarcasm dripping from his tone. ‘Your mind, woman, your mind! That’s what you’re here for, after all.’

  It was a heavy gold pen, the old-fashioned kind with a nib that required hours of practice to perfect its use. The perfectly pretentious tool for a witch like him.

  I focused and concentr
ated, and focused some more. I used to be able to do this no problem, back when I was a kid with a child’s flexible mind muscles. Finally, it lifted an inch from the desktop, then two. It hovered there, trembling a little with the effort.

  ‘You can drop it now,’ he said with fake patience. ‘A poor showing, but you’ve made your point.’

  The next test was a thick old book which, with a nod from him, lifted itself off a shelf and flew to land gracefully in front of me. I glanced from it to him, where he sat looking down his nose at me.

  ‘Open it,’ he said, nodding at the tome. ‘Page four zero six.’

  I didn’t make the mistake of using my hand this time, but funnily enough, I’d never attempted to open a book with my mind before. I took a deep breath and bit my lip; how difficult could it be?

  This was different feeling from picking up an object, yet in fact, it didn’t turn out to be difficult at all. I pictured the front cover opening like a pirate’s chest, the cover revealing all the wonderful secrets inside. Only, these weren’t secrets, the book was a dictionary of sorts, filled with magical terms and illustrations of fantastic beasts. I wouldn’t mind having a few hours alone with it sometime without Durand looming over me.

  The cover opened easily enough, and then like a breeze I rifled through the pages until I found the one he had asked for. He didn’t allow me a second to read the contents.

  ‘Close it,’ he said shortly. ‘You have very bad form. I asked you to open to a specific page, and you were unable to do so, you physically had to flick through the pages to find the right one.’

  ‘But I did it with my mind power. And to be fair, I’ve never done this before.’

  He dismissed my objections with a loud sniff.

  ‘Tell me what is on page three nine three.’

  I put the number firmly in my mind as the cover began to open again, asking the book to open to the right page. I was determined not to disappoint him again.

  Again the wand cracked down, this time on the book. I winced at the sound, and the book itself seemed to flinch too.

  ‘Did I ask you to open it?’

  ‘Well, I thought you were...’

  ‘No. You have already shown me you are unable to do that simple task,’ he said. ‘We are moving on to determine the full details of your pathetic lack of education. I am asking you to tell me what are the contents of the book’s page.’

  ‘Without reading it?’

  ‘Use your mind!’

  I took a deep breath. I was totally out to sea with this one; out of my depths and without a paddle board. And the shark was circling closely around, just waiting for me to put a foot wrong.

  I stared at the book lying lifeless in front of me. How could one read a book without reading it? I closed my eyes and imagined sifting through the pages, feeling the softness of the well-thumbed old paper, the smell of the ink still present from the old-fashioned printing press. I thought with longing how I’d rather just be curled up on the sofa in the Common Room with the fire burning in the grate, just me and that book and all the knowledge it held, it telling me its stories and me soaking them up as if the book was an old, beloved friend.

  Durand was huffing and jangling the chain of his watch, and I could hear mocking whispers from the others.

  But then something happened. Even as I kept my eyes closed, page 393 appeared before me in my mind like a sepia colored photograph. There were words mixed in with the pictures, but at the very top of the page was the heading PANLONG. Beneath it, an illustration of a water dragon from China; as I looked with delight from my mind’s eye, the dragon turned to me and gave me a sly grin and a wink.

  I laughed out loud with delight and opened my eyes to see Durand’s face turning beet red with annoyance.

  ‘Panlong, the Chinese water dragon. That’s at the top of the page.’

  He harrumphed to cover his surprise.

  ‘Parlor tricks,’ he muttered as he sent me a look full of vociferous dislike. He blew his nose strongly into a handkerchief to show his disdain.

  But as he took the linen from his nose, he grew very still, and he cautiously sniffed the air. ‘What is that?’

  I took a hesitant sniff, but all I could smell was the wood burning in the fireplace and the smell of a fusty old witch who rarely bathed, but drawing attention to his lack of hygiene would not earn me brownie points.

  His nose quivered, dancing around all directions of the compass until it was pointing right at me.

  ‘You.’

  Now what? Was he objecting to the smell of my shampoo or my general air of cleanliness despite the primitive washing facilities of the castle?

  ‘Have you drunk from the Water of the Well?’ He sounded truly shocked now, he wasn’t just spreading his feathers and squawking like a peacock on a stage. His eyes bore into mine and he leaned across the desk. I heard a collective gasp from the others.

  ‘There is an unmistakable odor of magic coming from you, the smell of the very magic of Scarp.’

  I shifted back in my chair without a clue as to what he was talking about, but it sounded like I’d committed a venal sin.

  ‘So you’ll claim ignorance about the Courtyard Well?’

  ‘The what?’ This came out as a whisper.

  ‘I can see you must have helped yourself to the waters therein,’ he said. ‘This would be obvious to any witch.’

  ‘I don’t know any Well,’ I said. Wait – there had been some sort of water feature in a courtyard I’d stumbled upon earlier, but I hadn’t touched it, hadn’t even known it was a Well with a capital W.

  ‘It is forbidden,’ he continued, ignoring my protests. ‘The Water can only, should only, be used by advanced practitioners of magic, those who know what they’re doing.’ He stood before me with his hands where his hips should be.

  ‘I didn’t go near the Well.’ I was starting to feel exasperated with the man.

  Professor Durand selected a different wand from a selection hanging on the wall in a case and turned back to me.

  ‘Explain this then,’ he said as he touched the wood to my cheek and watched triumphantly as blue static fizzled and cracked all around me.

  ‘Ouch!’ I jumped up from the chair, my hand going to my face. ’That hurt!’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Well what?’

  ‘Do you still claim not to have imbibed the forbidden Waters?’

  ‘Yes! I mean, no, I haven’t gone near them.’

  ‘Then kindly explain to me the excess of magic energy emoting from you. How else can you have absorbed so much of the life blood of this island? You do know there is to be no magic practiced except under circumstances dictated by a tutor?’

  I stared at him in horror. The medallion was definitely infused with magic and over here on Scarp, in this strange land with no separation between Alt and real, there was nothing to stop its full-on force. Had the medallion charged me up with magic?

  At least I had hidden the thing well at the base of that old tower – the area seemed to be little used by people, so it shouldn’t be found. And hopefully it wouldn’t be, for it could definitely be traced back to me.

  ‘I have no time for this,’ Durand was querulously speaking in a low voice, then he turned to me. ‘Be off with you then, I refuse to work with one who lies and denies what is obvious. The Kin shall hear of this. Leave, leave now! Everyone, out!’

  He flapped his short arms at me and not needing to be told again, I was off through the heavy wooden door like a flash of magic myself.

  I TOOK off down those circular stairs like a scalded cat and didn’t stop till I’d found a nook in the old walls in which to crawl into and hide myself and my fear and confusion and humiliation. What nightmare had I been thrown into? And how could something that felt so good, that beautiful feeling of magic I had felt from the coin, how could that be so bad in the eyes of Professor Durand?

  Not only did the Kin have my mother locked up in a lone
ly stone tower with no doors or windows, but they’d brought me here too, for seemingly no other reason than to humiliate and torture me. The tears which flowed so easily out on the moor threatened to return.

  ‘Dara?’ A soft Scottish accent was whispering my name and someone was blocking the faint light. I looked up to see wide blue eyes looking into my own.

  ‘Sandy.’ I sniffed back the tears and wiped my nose on my sleeve.

  ‘Oh, Dara,’ he said sadly.

  ‘You’d better not be seen hanging out with me,’ I said, my voice still shaky. ‘Or they’ll go after you too.’

  He shook his head and reached in his hand to my shoulder. ‘You did amazingly well,’ he said softly. ‘Under all that pressure.’

  ‘He’s a bastard, Sandy. They all are.’

  My friend nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said. He reached into his deep coat pocket and drew out a small tin. He removed the top to show an assortment of real butter shortbread fingers, all half-dipped in chocolate. ‘Will this make you feel better?’

  I could hug the guy for knowing that butter and chocolate had the potential to solve many of the world’s problems, especially the emotionally charged ones.

  ‘Where’d you get them?’ I asked as I crammed one into my mouth to let it melt on my tongue.

  ‘I brought supplies with me when I came,’ he replied. ‘The quality of food here is legendary. Have another, or two.’

  Life was already looking brighter.

  ‘But you showed Durand,’ he continued. ‘Never mind the bit at the end – you really aced that trial.’

  I shook my head, my heart starting to slow down now as the adrenalin began to work its way out of my system and the crispy butter biscuits soothed my ruffled pride.

  He brushed off the last of the loose blue magic from my hoody, then shook his hands to let the last of the particles float off. Then he looked at me again, an expression of awe on his face. ‘What happened? How did you get this magic all over you? I can’t believe you actually did what he claims.’