So Enchanting (5 page)
He frowned. “But that will defeat the entire purpose of retaining you,” he argued. “If she doesn’t know that you share a similar condition to her own, how can you help her understand it?”
“I won’t because I can’t. Colonel Chase, you have been forthright with me. I will be equally so with you. I have no understanding of why animals respond to me. You want the advice that comes from experience? Your daughter should not seek to comprehend this thing that besets her, but ignore it and focus instead on those things she has in common with her fellow man rather than those that set her apart.”
“But,” Colonel Chase protested, “she’ll wonder why I chose you to be her companion.”
“Tell her you chose me because I am
not
impressed by evidence of the supernatural. Tell her I am a modern woman who assumes that once in a great while, through no offices of their own making, people are born with characteristics of an inexplicable nature. Such a happenstance of birth does not, however, give those people license to pretend to powers they do not have.”
not
impressed by evidence of the supernatural. Tell her I am a modern woman who assumes that once in a great while, through no offices of their own making, people are born with characteristics of an inexplicable nature. Such a happenstance of birth does not, however, give those people license to pretend to powers they do not have.”
Colonel Chase’s malleable face pleated with compassion as he read her guilt. “My dear, I did not know you well as a child, but I am a good judge of character, and I knew your parents. I would not seek to employ you had I any doubts as to your integrity.”
She felt a surge of gratitude but waved aside his comfort. “I am not blameless. But I am guilty more of stupidity than of malice. Those are my terms.”
“I don’t know,” Colonel Chase said, troubled. “I was hoping Amelie would find in you a unique confidante who shared her magical abilities.”
Her lips twisted into a half smile. “There is no such thing as magic, Colonel Chase. Just outré phenomenon and curiosities. And those of us unfortunate enough to be oppressed by them.”
But Colonel Chase was not ready to give up yet. “I have lived most of my life in exotic places, Mrs. Walcott, and I’ve seen things no proper Englishman would credit.” He leaned forward. “There
is
magic in the world, my dear.”
is
magic in the world, my dear.”
She regarded him pityingly. He wore the same earnest expression as did the visitors to her husband’s salon, and spoke with the same heartbreaking need to believe. The same men and women who were convinced the mouse running over their sleeve was their son’s hand, the brush of a bat’s wing in the still air above the sound of angels, the clatter of the cat in the attic overhead the rapping of their ancestor.
In the end, he was simply another superstitious old man hoping to find some divine reason for his daughter ’s affliction.
There was no use arguing with him. “That may be, sir, but this is not India,” she said gently. “No one in London wants to dine with a witch except those looking to entertain their guests with a curiosity. That’s not the life you want for your daughter, is it?”
“I want her safe and happy. In that order,” he said.
He did, bless him.
He searched her countenance and, finding nothing there to suggest she would reconsider, sighed. “Well, if those are the only terms under which I can persuade you, so be it. You and I will be the only ones who know you were once Mrs. Francesca Brown.”
“Or Francesca Burns?”
“Or Francesca Burns.” He stuck out his hand. “Agreed?”
But she’d learned caution over the last years, if nothing else. “I’ll meet the girl first.”
He laughed, lumbering to his feet. “Then our agreement is a fait accompli, m’dear. You won’t be able to resist Amelie.”
He was right; she couldn’t.
Chapter Four
Six years later
It was noon in Little Firkin, Scotland. Not a traditional witching hour—midnight being considered more conducive to mayhem and maledictions—but as the townsfolk were always fast asleep by midnight and unwitnessed mayhem was generally acknowledged amongst witchly communities to be a wasted effort, it would have to do.
Besides, every indication suggested that noon was the new midnight. To wit: At exactly twelve o’clock a cock crowed, the bell tower clock struck
thirteen
times, and a weird sound (which later would be identified by a certain skeptic as the Bristol-Fort George train but right now was pretty much universally recognized as the cry of a soul consigned to hell) echoed mournfully through the tiny hamlet.
thirteen
times, and a weird sound (which later would be identified by a certain skeptic as the Bristol-Fort George train but right now was pretty much universally recognized as the cry of a soul consigned to hell) echoed mournfully through the tiny hamlet.
Otherwise it was a perfectly lovely spring day. The sun glimmered on the river dancing along the town’s eastern boundary and shimmered on the snow-capped mountains encircling the small valley that sheltered Little Firkin.
Lovely day or not, what with the clock, the cock, and the eerie moan, the people of Little Firkin—no strangers to portents, portents being their bread and butter, so to speak—stopped what they were doing and paid attention. Those leaning over their back fence for their daily chin-wag hurried to the front yard, while those inside poked their heads out of their front doors. Half a dozen shopkeepers and an equal number of tavern owners—Little Firkians having long ago discovered that living in close proximity with the supernatural was a thirsty business—crowded their windows to see what Something Wicked This Way Came.
On cue, a wind nickered to life in one of the town’s few alleys and skittered forth, kicking up a dust devil of leaves and halfpenny candy wrappers as a voice like a strangled cat pealed through the town center.
“Aieeeee!”
Little Firkin rubbed its collective hands together in anticipation. Women with small children shoved their tots behind them, while those with older brats squawked and flapped their arms, shooing them off the street like hens quarantining chicks before a storm. The old geezers in town towed their stools out to get a ringside seat at the anticipated proceedings.
They were not disappointed.
An ancient crone with a face like a withered apple appeared at the end of the town’s main thoroughfare amidst a swirl of dust, her raggedy multicolored skirts shedding bits of decaying lace along with the crumbs from her morning’s biscuit.
“Aieeeee!” The hag’s screech broke into a coughing fit that ended only after she expelled a bit of cat hair. She hoisted an oak bole over her head on stringy little arms and cried, “I come to take Little Firkin!”
A collective gasp of consternation and pleasure rose from the onlookers. A witch-off sounded just the thing for a fine spring day, and this promised to be a right doozy of a witch-off.
For half a dozen years, the old crone at center stage, Grammy Beadle, had been trying to lay her witchly claim over Little Firkin. She lived in Beadletown, twenty miles away up in the mountains, and not a town at all but a ramshackle collection of disreputable crofts populated entirely by Beadles—a race of cattle thieves and malingerers.
About ten years ago one of Grammy Beadle’s grand-children, in what was doubtless an attempt to find something other than her family with which to occupy the old hag, had convinced Grammy that she oughtn’t hide her light under a bushel and should think of extending her reign of terror—or, more succinctly, reign of annoyance—to the other hamlets in the vicinity. It shouldn’t be too hard, this same sanguine grandchild had explained, there not being many witches anymore. And as for the upkeep on Grammy’s potential realm, it would involve only a bit of travel now and again to check up on the constituency.
Grammy Beadle liked the idea. Within a year, she was not only the Witch of Beadletown but the Witch of Ben’s Tavern (Ben and his way station, even by Grammy Beadle’s admittedly liberal definitions, not being worthy of hamlet status) and a year after that the Witch of That Pisshole East of Where All Those Damned Beadles Live.
From there she had turned her malignant gaze south toward the metropolis of Little Firkin, population 217, and it was here that her March of Irritation abruptly stopped. Coming out of the post office at the far end of town was the person who’d stopped her: a red-haired, very pretty, and very young lady dressed in the height of Parisian fashion.
Her appearance gave even Grammy pause. Hundreds of miles from the nearest city, cloistered by ringing mountains and raging rivers, marooned in a backwater of time and place while the rest of the world charged ahead with industrial fervor, a fashion plate was as unexpected as a kootchie dancer at a church social.
A rakishly tilted scrap of straw was perched atop an ingeniously arranged pile of flame-colored hair, while an ostrich feather, dyed to match the periwinkle braid edging a close-fitting velvet jacket, caressed a softly rounded cheek. Her skirts molded snugly about a womanly derriere before belling out into extravagant yards of green plaid that brushed the plank sidewalk. The open parasol resting on her shoulder dappled her pretty face with sunlight.
Grammy Beadle let out a shriek. “Stop, witch! I come to take Little Firkin from ye!”
The young lady, about to say something to her companion, a slender woman as arresting in her dark handsomeness as the girl was in her vibrant prettiness, turned around and faced Grammy.
“I come to take Little Firkin from ye!” the old woman repeated, hobbling down the center of the street.
“Why bother?” the very young lady asked, the lightest trace of a Highlands accent in her voice. “I’ll just give it to you.”
The old woman’s lips compressed. “Oh, no, missy. I’ll not have it said the Witch of Beadletown come by her dark empire through the pity of a young ’un.”
“That’s absurd.”
“That’s the way it be,” grumped Grammy Beadle.
The girl cast an imploring glance at her sable-haired companion. “Just a few minutes?”
“Oh, ballocks,” that lady muttered quite clearly. “But do try to hurry things up a bit, won’t you?” And, taking the girl’s parasol, she retreated to a bench outside the grocer’s.
“Ye canna hurry dark magik,” Grammy snapped, reaching into the tattered velvet bag hanging around her scrawny neck. With an evil cackle, she flung a fistful of something into the air—something that apparently had hard bits in it, because she yelped when the wind blew it back in her face. “Ouch!”
“What was that?” the young lady asked curiously.
“Magik! Magiks made with the feet of a white mouse born during the full moon.”
At this, the young lady’s hand flew up to cover her lips. “You chopped off a baby mouse’s feet?” she whispered from behind her fingertips.
Grammy squirmed. “Well, maybe the mouse was stillborn. And maybe it weren’t white but it were
very
light gray. But no doubt, ’twere a full moon.”
very
light gray. But no doubt, ’twere a full moon.”
“That’s disgusting,” the fashion plate said, setting her hands on her hips. “I am afraid I cannot allow someone who would chop off baby mice feet, even dead baby mice, to move into the neighborhood. You will have to go away.”
“No, ’tis
you
who will have to go!”
you
who will have to go!”
“I am afraid not.”
“I am afraid so—”
“Get
on
with it, will you?” someone shouted.
on
with it, will you?” someone shouted.
With a flourish Grammy whipped open her patched cloak and twirled around. “By the hair of Beelzebub’s chin, by the cloven foot of Bacchus, I expel thee, oh, witch!”
The young lady remained unexpelled, but stood by politely. Finally, Grammy threw her hands up in frustration. “What are ye doin’, you cluck? Spell me!”
“You’re done?” the girl asked. “I assumed there was more to it than that.”
Grammy’s little sunken face collapsed in on itself even more. “Of course there’s more. I was just giving you a chance to run away is all.”
Once more, she hefted her stick over her head. “By Moobkamizer ’s black heart and Nimbleplast’s hor—”
“Who?” the young lady interrupted. “I’ve never heard of those two.”
Grammy’s arms sank and she grinned, revealing a dimple of such unexpected charm that it went far in explaining the hitherto unsolved mystery of why there existed so many Beadles. “That’s because they’re brand-
new
demons.”
new
demons.”
“Really?” the young lady asked. “How frightfully interesting. Where did you find them?”
“Come to me in my dreams,” Grammy said proudly, and then with a sly glance at the townsfolk added, “As an
incubus
. And I gots more, too. By Shillyman’s wart and . . . and . . . Cobbiepouff’s whisker, I take what was yers and make it mine. Begone.” She spun around. “Begone!” She spun around again. “Begone!”
incubus
. And I gots more, too. By Shillyman’s wart and . . . and . . . Cobbiepouff’s whisker, I take what was yers and make it mine. Begone.” She spun around. “Begone!” She spun around again. “Begone!”
At the end of this last and most violent spin, Grammy pitched sideways, her hand outstretched and her eyes rolling. “I think I’m going to be sick,” she said with a gasp.
The young lady grabbed the hag’s arm, steadying her. “Sit down.”
Gratefully, the old lady plopped down in the middle of the street, holding her side. “Yer turn,” she wheezed.
“Come, now. This can wait until you are feeling more the thing—”
“Yer turn!” Grammy insisted.
“Very well,” the young lady replied. She took a deep breath, lifted her hands, palms up to the sky, and pronounced in a loud, ringing voice, “Ipse dixit.”
Grammy froze like someone who’d taken a spitball shot to the bum. “What? Who’s that? What’s that?”
“Ipse dixit,” the girl repeated. She waved her hands in a circle. “Ipso facto. Ad hoc!”
Anxiously, Grammy patted herself down from head to foot. Upon discovering that everything was in the same place it had been that morning, she relaxed. “Yer magik seems to have left you, missy,” she said.
The young lady very discreetly glanced overhead. Grammy Beadle followed her gaze. Directly above them two dark shadows were making slow, lazy circles in the tranquil blue sky.
“So what?” Grammy said. “A pair of birds.”
Nonetheless, she scrambled up and surged forward on one foot, like a fencer executing a lunge, stabbing at the young lady with her bole. “By the Name of He Who Goes Unnamed and is Nameless, I take your power and your towwwwnnnnnn!”
The girl raised a slender finger to her mouth and nipped the edge of the nail off between her pearly teeth. Again, her glance rose to the sky. Grammy’s unwilling gaze followed.
The pair of ravens had been joined by a half dozen others describing slow pirouettes. A distinctly uneasy expression crossed Grammy’s face. As a witch, Grammy Beadle was extremely conversant with all things of the natural world, and the sudden appearance of a host of silent ravens . . . well, it wasn’t natural.
“Dark powers, unite! Heed me, Bacchus, Beelzebub, Moobkamizer, and Nimbleplast, Shillyman, and . . . and . . .” She trailed off as the young lady, examining the torn nail on her left hand, made a slight indication skyward with her right.
With a scowl, Grammy looked up.
Twenty ravens?
Furtively, she glanced around, gauging the Little Firkians’ reactions to the flock of malevolent death-harbingers. If they had seen the ravens, they apparently didn’t think much of them—except, that was, for the girl’s companion, who was leaning forward, frowning up at the sky. The rest of Little Firkin was watching Grammy, and their expressions were frankly disappointed. Even a little pitying. And pity, Grammy Beadle knew, was not a good foundation upon which to build a witchly empire. She’d better get rid of these heebie-jeebies and—
Caw!
The salutary sound sent her gaze overhead. A single raven was winging its way to join the other—Grammy’s mouth gaped—forty ravens. All silent. Silent as the tomb. Grammy’s skin crawled.
Maybe she didn’t need to take over the town. Leastways, not today.
Still, pride kept her rooted. She’d never live it down if word got out that a bunch of birds had driven her off. Which meant she needed to provide a good reason for turning tail and running. And what better reason than—
“Is that all?” Grammy shouted. “Is that the best you can do? Come on, lass. Give it yer best!”
The young lady’s face reflected a second of surprise before tightening. “No. That’s not all.
Amo
!” she said, taking a step forward.
Amo
!” she said, taking a step forward.
Gratefully, Grammy commenced quaking.
“Amas!”
Another step. This time Grammy’s hand flew to her chest.
“Amat!”
Grammy staggered back as if impelled by some monstrous, unseen force. She whimpered for added effect.
The young lady, after a brief look of bewilderment, rubbed her palms briskly together as if preparing for some physical exertion and declared, “Per diem. Non sequitur.” Her hand rose toward Grammy Beadle, who was now fully engaged in cringing backward.
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