Pure Dead Magic

For My Family and Other Beasts

With grateful thanks to the Scottish Arts Council
for keeping the wolf from the door
and to the beautiful west coast of Scotland
for providing the inspiration

THE FAMILY
T
ITUS
S
TREGA
-B
ORGIA
—twelve-year-old hero
P
ANDORA
S
TREGA
-B
ORGIA
—ten-year-old heroine
D
AMP
S
TREGA
-B
ORGIA
—their fourteen-month-old sister
S
IGNOR
L
UCIANO AND
S
IGNORA
B
ACI
S
TREGA
-B
ORGIA
—parents of the above
S
TREGA
-N
ONNA
—great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother (cryogenically preserved) of Titus, Pandora, and Damp

THE GOOD HELP THAT WAS HARD TO FIND
M
RS
. F
LORA
M
C
L
ACHLAN
—nanny to Titus, Pandora, and Damp
L
ATCH
—butler
M
ARIE
B
AIN
—cook

THE BEASTS
M
ULTITUDINA
—rat, mother to multitudes, and Pandora’s pet
T
ARANTELLA
—spider with attitude
S
AB
, F
FUP, AND
K
NOT
—mythical Schloss dungeon beasts
T
OCK
—crocodile inhabitant of Schloss moat

THE GANGSTERS
D
ON
L
UCIFER DI S
…E
MBOWELLI
B
ORGIA
—half brother of Luciano Strega-Borgia
D
ON
C
HIMERA DI
C
ARNE
B
ORGIA
—grandfather (deceased) of Titus, Pandora, and Damp
P
RONTO
—Don Lucifer’s
consigliere
(adviser)

All resemblance to persons living or dead is unintentional, but the author wishes to acknowledge a definite similarity between herself and Tarantella.

The Ideal Candidate

F
rom an upstairs window peered three pairs of eyes. The six eyes watched as a plump woman negotiated the moat, apparently unaware of the murderous Tock who dozed in its depths.

“That’s the third one this week,” observed a voice.

“Fourth, if you count the one that Tock ate for breakfast,” said a second voice.

The third pair of eyes blinked. Too young to speak, their owner wondered if
this
one could change diapers and sing the right kind of lullaby to hush a witch baby to sleep.

Having spotted the sleeping crocodile as she crossed the moat, Mrs. McLachlan climbed the steps, sat heavily on a stone griffin guarding the front door, and gazed around. She rooted in a battered handbag and produced a crumpled newspaper advertisement and a pair of reading glasses. Wedging the glasses on the end of her nose, she re-read:

“Take deep breaths, Flora,” Mrs. McLachlan commanded herself. “Relax. This is a perfectly ordinary job requiring no magical skills whatsoever. Think nanny. Think diapers. Think nursery teas, fluffy bunnies, and lullabies …” She refolded the advertisement and tucked it back into her bag. “You want to forget the past?” she continued. “Here is your chance to put it behind you. From the moment you step through this door, you will forget that you were ever a witch.”

Above her head, the lintel was decorated with several cherubs peering through an infestation of stone bats. The ugliest of these cherubs had one eye that was not carved in stone but rendered in black plastic, and this slid open, rotated slowly, and finally fixed its lens on the woman below.

Upstairs in the observatory, Titus and Pandora examined the new nanny on the closed-circuit television screen. Damp crawled across the dusty floor, occasionally finding dead daddy longlegs and popping them into her mouth.

“Let me see,” said Titus.

“I’m looking in her handbag just now, hang on, I’ll move the field a bit.”

“Let me
see,
” said Titus.

“You’re supposed to be watching Damp. I did for ages in the attic, it’s your turn.… Oh gross!”

“What?”

“She’s got hairy legs.…”

“Could you stop giving me the picture in snack-sized bites? LET ME SEE.”

“She’s nervous, Titus, see for yourself. Well, that’s understandable.”

Pandora stood up and surrendered her seat to her brother. Titus pressed keys and rolled the mouse with the ease of an expert. The screen in front of him filled with a close-up of the wannabe nanny’s face.

“She’s so
old
,” he moaned.

“Not as old as that wrinkly on Monday. Remember? The one that called me Panettone and left lipstick kisses all over Damp?”

“Well, she was better than that scary one who went on about the importance of diet for raising children and said that if
she
got the job she’d make sure we ate Brussels sprouts and cabbage every other day.”