An Errant Witch Read online

  ‘No chance,’ I said, realizing that I was starving by now. I set to eating it, not even bothering with a fork seeing as how it was just Sandy to see my bad manners. The sweet, sweet lemony frosting melted with the soft freshness of the cake and for a moment I was in heaven, forgetting all about my woes for that short space of time. He’d made the tea just right too, not too weak and yet not so strong it was bitter. I sighed and leant back into the sofa, slowly licking each finger after every crumb and drop had disappeared from my plate.

  The sweet respite didn’t last long, for now that my hunger had been sated, my mind returned to worrying about my situation. So the shepherd was unhurt, that was a load off my mind, but it was a small one. I was still wrestling with the knowledge of the medallion’s power in my hands, and what that meant for me, my future. And my entanglement with Willem.

  ‘So it wasn’t the wand.’ He might have been reading my mind. ‘You really have them worried now.’

  I looked up at Sandy.

  ‘And they’re not going to let this go. You’ve shown yourself to be serious competition,’ he added. ‘How did you do it?’

  I shook my head, and slowly reached into my pocket. ‘It was this. I guess Fergie was right in the first place, and this is my medium.’

  The coin shone bright, reflecting the firelight, expanding it so I could see its glow reflected on Sandy’s face. He gave a low whistle, but didn’t attempt to touch it.

  ‘It was my mother’s,’ I whispered, entranced by the light of the metal. ‘But... she’s Normal, so I don’t know quite where it all came from.’

  ‘A mystery, then,’ he said, and he too sat in quiet contemplation.

  Then he nodded to himself, as if making a decision. ‘We can do this, you know.’

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘We can win the Competition.’ His voice was low, less than a whisper, then he laughed.

  The abrupt change in conversation threw me off for a moment. ‘Where’s this coming from?’

  ‘Johanna said we should work in teams,’ he said, ignoring my question. ‘You and me, Dara, we could do it between us.’

  ‘Sandy, remember who you’re talking to before you ask me to join up,’ I objected. ‘I don’t know anything about spells and things. I don’t even know where the power of the island comes from, let alone how to divert it. I’d be useless to you. Try Fergie, she’s a much better bet.’

  ‘She’s just a Hedge Witch,’ he said dismissing her. ‘She’d be no good to us.’

  He turned to look at me, his pale eyes glittering from the reflected light off my coin. ‘And the power of Scarp, well, the Crystal Charm Stone is at the heart of it.’

  Jesus, not this again. He must have seen the disbelief in my eyes. Instead of taking offense, he leaned forward.

  ‘Think about it, I mean really consider the matter,’ he said, keeping his voice low. ‘They all think it’s merely the intersection of the ley lines that positions Scarp as the powerhouse it is in the magic world. But there’s lots of similar places around the world that have these seams of magic flowing through them. Yes, the ley lines play a large part in the island’s power, but that’s not the whole story.’

  He took a deep breath and settled back into the sofa. ‘The Charm Stone is real. I’ve seen it. It concentrates the power of the island, don’t you see? It is strategically placed right at the intersection, it acts as a magnifier.’

  Sandy was so fervent, how could I not take his words seriously? And if what he said was true, then perhaps he knew also the way to divert the energy of it, theoretically. And he was offering to bring me aboard, to win the Competition, when he really had no need to.

  I could be a winner, and beat out those bully Kin. That would show them.

  ‘You said the stone is within the broch,’ I replied slowly. ‘The tower with no doors or windows.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That’s correct.’

  ‘And you know how to get to it?’

  ‘My great-grannie told me where the entrance to the broch is. Although she’d never been on the island, her gran had passed all the legends down. And it was just like they said it would be.’

  He smiled in triumph, as if he could see the possibilities taking root in my own mind.

  Still I hedged. If something sounded too good to be true, well, it probably was. ‘I thought there were too many barrier spells up for anyone to pass through.’

  He nodded. ‘There are barrier spells,’ he agreed. ‘But any spell can be undone, especially when we have that on our side.’ Sandy was looking at my coin in my hand, still glowing in the light of the fire.

  I followed his eyes. ‘I don’t understand, how could this help? You know I’m next to useless in something of this nature, Sandy, I don’t know how to remove spells of that strength,’ I said. ‘And I would have to know what I was doing, in order for the coin to be useful.’

  He gave a secretive smile. ‘It’s okay, I have it figured out,’ he answered, then looked up at me again. ‘So, are you with me?’

  Hell, yes. If there was even a chance that we could do this thing, well, there was no way I could say no.

  ‘Alright,’ he said, quickly getting to his feet. ‘Come on then.’

  He grabbed my hand and hauled me up to standing.

  ‘You’re about to see something that’s been hidden for thousands of years and most people don’t even believe in its existence. But you, Dara, you will be one of the few who will have ever seen the Crystal Charm Stone. Your life is about to change.’

  HE STARTED at a fast pace, pulling me along behind him as we made our way through the corridor. Despite his urgency, he was cautious, checking around each corner to make sure we weren’t spotted before running to the next. We entered into the oldest depths of the castle, to a part I was sure I’d never seen before.

  ‘Where are we?’ There were no lights burning in this section. The only light came from a narrow arrow slit of a window high above our heads, where a sliver of silvery moonlight crept in. The darkness was spooking me out. ’Can’t you at least light a sconce?’

  He put his finger to his lips as we came to a small rough-hewn plank door. He paused.

  ‘Where are we going?’ I hissed in his ear as he struggled to open the portal.

  His only answer was a slight smile. When he pushed the door, it gave a groan and reluctantly opened. Inside, I could see nothing except ancient worn steps going down into the bowels of the castle. It was pitch black down there, yet a warm breeze drifted up. The air was balmy, it smelled green and rich and alive like sunshine and mangoes and colors.

  Suddenly, there was a soft blue light in front of me. Sandy had lit, or caused to light, the end of his medium. The silvery driftwood glowed in his hand.

  ‘Come on, down the stairs,’ he said. ‘Quickly.’

  When we reach the last step of the circular stone staircase, we turned a corner and I could see, past the glow of his medium, light sparking in the distance, glimmering off the dampness of the stone walls. So we were in a tunnel, a long straight corridor with an arched stone roof, high enough that we didn’t have to bend over to walk its length. I’d gone no more than ten feet when I realized which direction we were headed.

  Doing a quick orientation in my head, picturing an imaginary map, figuring out the turns and twists I’d followed so far. If I was right, we were in a tunnel headed in a north westerly direction; in other words, under the mountain and towards the broch.

  ‘This is it, isn’t it?’ I stopped for a moment. ‘This is the secret entrance to the broch!’

  My friend kept on going without me, his light held high. He appeared to be struggling as if forcing himself against a strong wind, and despite trying to pick up my pace to catch up with him, I found myself going slower too, it was like beating a path through the first big snow fall or wading through hip-deep water, and that’s when I realized there was a heavy force field all around us.

  There was strong magi
c in the air, and it was getting thicker the further we travelled down into the tunnel. I could almost taste the phosphorescence in the air all around me; the balmy, tropical essence had thinned and what met my nose now was a sulfurous tinge with bitter lemon. It stung my eyes a little, and as I blinked away the tears, that’s when we reached the last turn.

  We had arrived at an active web of sheer power covering the whole width of the tunnel. It wasn’t like the veil between Alt and real, like at home, for here on Scarp there was no such division between supernatural and normal. This was an actual curtain of magic, a spell guarding the entrance to the broch, a delicate tracing of magic like the finest spider’s web. I’d never physically seen a spell before.

  And beyond that web, oh, what a sight to behold.

  The tunnel widened into a cavern, a huge space stretching up further than the eye could see. And before us, set on a plinth at waist level, was the truth of Sandy’s legend.

  The Crystal Charm Stone did exist, and it lay before us in all its magnificent unnatural glory, sending a rainbow of glow all through the huge space, like a crystal lit from within by the pure light of the universe. The arcs of color throbbed and pulsed against the rock walls. It was beautiful, it was peaceful, it was... what I had felt through the stone walls of the Broch, like a homecoming.

  ‘Don’t!’ Sandy clutched my arm just in time, preventing me from going further and getting caught in the web of the magic protecting the portal.

  I stepped back, wrenching my eyes away from that beautiful stone, and examined the portcullis of spells more closely.

  ‘How’d they do this?’ I whispered to him. ‘There’s dozens of spells here, and they’re all interwoven together like a great big magical quilt.’

  Sandy looked at me oddly. ‘How’d you know that?’

  ‘I can see them,’ I said. ‘Just as well as you. I may not know much about magic, but spells like these are hard to miss.’

  His jaw slowly dropped as he understood what I was saying. ‘What, you’re saying you can see the individual spells?’ There was disbelief on his face.

  I nodded. ‘Can’t you?’

  He shook his head slowly. ‘No, Dara, that’s not normal.’

  After a moment, he continued. ‘Bring out your coin,’ he said, excitement building in his voice. ‘Bring it out and see what the effect on it is.’

  I stared at him as I brought it out of my pocket. The metal began to become alive in my hand, and the closer I brought it to the web of spells, the more it moved. ‘It’s ... it’s like it’s soaking up the magic, I think.’ We both watched it, fascinated.

  Suddenly, I heard a scraping noise echo behind us, as if someone had stumbled on a loose pebble. Sandy whirled around and held his torch aloft, just in time to see a shadowy leg disappear into the shadow of the corner far ahead of us, back the way we had come from.

  ‘Dammit!’ Sandy hissed. ‘Someone followed us!’

  I was loathe to tear myself away from the source of my good feelings, but Sandy had already started back down the tunnel with his lit wand. It was slow going through the magical force field and the other person had a head start on him. I could see Sandy’s outline in the dark up, static loose molecules of magic clinging to him like he was drenched in sparkling water. By the time we were able to run again at any decent pace, we could hear the echoes of feet pounding up the stone staircase.

  There was, of course, no one in evidence by the time we burst through the portal back into the castle.

  ‘Do you think they saw the Crystal Charm stone?’ I asked him in the barest whisper, for we had no way of knowing if anyone was close enough to overhear us, perhaps hidden in the numerous nooks and crannies of the ancient walls.

  He shook his head. ‘I don’t know if they got close enough,’ he replied, also keeping his voice low. ‘But whoever it is now knows about the existence of the tunnel, and you can be damn well sure they’ll be down there again soon enough. We don’t have a lot of time.’

  Sandy glanced over at me. ‘I think we need to clean up before we go back,’ he said, pointing at me. ‘Or they’ll really be asking questions.’

  Looking down at my body, I could see the dew of magic clinging to me too, showing my every movement in the darkened corridor.

  I tried to brush it off, but the action merely smeared the magicked particles like cotton candy on corduroy, making my outline even more visible.

  Chapter 16

  ‘LEAVE THAT for now,’ he hissed, his ears pricked as if he’d heard something else, then he began to hurry toward another part of the castle I was unfamiliar with. That didn’t stop me from staying close on his heels.

  He finally came to a halt inside the cavernous kitchens, deep within the innards of the old castle. These rooms were empty at this time of night, and the huge fire in the grate was banked yet still emitted a welcome warmth. My eyes followed the line of the high ceilings, which stretched up in blackness to a skylight. Through it, I could see the winter stars sparkling white against the night.

  All around me slabs of marble and stone stood in for counter space, and huge pots and pans squatted on rough plank shelving that covered one wall. Everything was oversized, I guess that was needed if one was cooking for a whole castle’s worth of people, once up on a time, but right now I felt like Jack in the Beanstalk wandering into the giant’s lair.

  We brought up stools in front of the fireplace and huddled close. The wooden seats were wide enough that I could perch atop it cross-legged. There was little light save that from the coals still burning in the grate.

  ‘We’re totally alone here,’ he said, then he turned to me with a look of expectation. He crossed his arms together over his chest for warmth. ‘Well? What do you think of my legend now?’

  We stared at each other in the dim red light of the coals. We held the secret to the island’s power source. Now, the only puzzle that remained was the matter of getting to the stone.

  ‘We could win the Competition,’ I said, as if he wasn’t thinking the exact same thing. ‘But what I don’t understand is...’

  He raised his eyebrows at me.

  ‘Why haven’t you already won?’ I asked him. Sandy didn’t need me; I couldn’t add anything to his chances that I could see. ‘You’ve had the advantage over everyone, because you knew the stone was there. Why didn’t you just figure out the anti-spells or whatever, and win over everyone else? What’s holding you back?’

  He said nothing, just set his jaw and looked into the glowing coals. These were the only light source here, and his face was deeply shadowed from this light. His hair shone burnished copper.

  ‘Don’t you know how to lift the gate spell?’

  He laughed, rather bitterly I thought. ‘Lift the gate?’ he said. ‘I don’t even know what the spells are which make it up. I knew they were in place, I could feel the wall of magic stopping me from accessing the stone, but it would take me a year of study to figure out which each spell is.’

  Sandy looked at me with excitement. ‘But you’re telling me you could see the actual gates, and that they’re an interweaving of many. That makes sense. And I see now why...’

  He didn’t finish his sentence, but my mind had already returned to the glorious sights of the evening. The Crystal Charm Stone was the single most thing of beauty I could ever imagine; it was perfection, like what you were told by the priests heaven was like. Even the gate keeping it safe was a work of art, a labor of adoration like the statues in a medieval cathedral.

  ‘Yes, I can see the gate,’ I replied picturing the dancing bands of multicolored energy all interwoven into itself. That was strong magic and it had been created with serious intent. I’d never seen a spell show so physically before, never knew it was possible.

  In fact, come to think of it, I’d never seen a spell before in my life. I sat up straighter on my stool. How could I have seen it, when Sandy, a full blood witch and trained, couldn’t? I looked at the coin still in my hand, glo
wing, the runes squirming. This must somehow be the clue to everything, how I could connect with my mother, how I could suddenly see the colors of spells and magic. Could the coin be working in conjunction with the Charm Stone?

  And why didn’t other people’s mediums do the same thing?

  I was awestruck at the force I now held in my hand, and frissons of excitement bubbled up my spine. I could do anything. In. The. World.

  Yet I was scared as hell too, for I understood so little.

  HE WAS still watching me from the corners of his eyes, a closed expression on his face, or perhaps it was just the glow from the coals which lent a sinister cast to his visage.

  ‘Okay.’ I nodded as I thought aloud. ‘For the competition. We should get Fergie on board with this.’

  ‘Fergie? Why?’

  ‘You weren’t sure about what spells would be used on the gate, right?’

  He reluctantly agreed.

  ‘So that’s why you didn’t just scoop up the prize before we even got started. You needed me to see the spells.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  I shot him a hard look.

  ‘Yes, then,’ he said. ‘For the sake of argument.’

  ‘Well, I can see the spells, but I have no idea what they mean,’ I continued. ‘And I think Fergie might have a better understanding of them.’

  ‘She’s a Hedge Witch,’ he objected, a sneer in his voice. ‘She’s barely literate, only knows Latin and Gaelic. I don’t see how she’d be a match for the spells cast by the Kin elders.’

  That was the second time he’d cast this slur on her. It bothered me, hearing these words come from him; Sandy was the last person I’d suspect of prejudice. ‘And you think that makes her a lesser witch? What’s wrong with you? And have you got a better idea?’

  The logs shifted in the large fireplace, falling away from the flames. The huge room was suddenly a lot darker, the shadows looming.

  ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean that the way it came out. But...’ He failed miserably in his attempt to smooth over his faux pas.