A Pinch of Magic

by Michelle Harrison

  ‘Not even now you know he’s not in Crowstone?’

  ‘Especially now.’ Fliss bit her lip. ‘If he’s somewhere worse, I wouldn’t want to see.’

  Betty thought of the leech emblem on Father’s letters. It was hard to imagine prisons worse than Crowstone. Her thoughts returned to Colton. ‘As soon as Granny’s busy with the Crosswicks, we get that bag.’

  In the pause that followed she realised she could no longer hear Bunny’s voice. ‘Darn it, I think Granny’s finished with Charlie. You’d better put that mirror down in case she comes in here and sees what we’re up to.’

  ‘To be continued,’ said Fliss in a spooky voice, then, ‘Oh, bother. I’ve been in here so long I’m wrinkling up like a raisin.’

  The apparition-like image of Fliss’s face vanished, and Betty was left with the far less exciting sight of the blackened tin she was still scrubbing.

  After Betty had bathed and washed her hair, which dried to a spectacular frizz, Granny settled Charlie to sleep and returned downstairs. At once, Betty and Fliss sprang into action.

  ‘My room, quickly,’ said Fliss.

  Fliss’s room was smaller than the one Betty and Charlie shared, and far tidier, which was just as well due to the fussy trinkets, home-made rose-water scent and love notes everywhere.

  ‘Got the bag yet?’ Betty asked.

  Fliss shook her head. ‘Still need to find it. But I thought it’d be sensible to look in on Colton before . . . before we do this.’

  Betty nodded. ‘You’re right. There’s no point in us arriving in his cell if the warders are patrolling; we need to know our timing’s right.’

  Fliss took the mermaid mirror from her dressing table. Leaning over it she whispered, ‘Let me see Colton.’

  At once a hazy mist clouded the mirror’s surface. Betty leaned closer, wide-eyed and feeling slightly guilty, like she was listening at a door. The glass cleared, revealing a tiny, darkened cell with an iron-barred door. A hunched figure lay shivering on a thin mattress. His teeth were chattering and his eyes were closed, lips moving in what Betty could only guess was a silent prayer. Thin lines had been scratched into the wall next to him: all the days he had spent there. Betty looked away. It was easy to see why Colton was desperate to get out.

  So desperate he’d say anything to escape? Uncomfortable, Betty kept the doubt unspoken. She was desperate too, she reminded herself. The stakes for her and her family were just the same: freedom, and a new life without this curse they didn’t deserve.

  Silently, Fliss turned the mirror face down, breaking the vision. ‘I can’t help feeling sorry for him.’

  ‘So do I,’ Betty admitted. She let out a slow breath. ‘He’s alone. Let’s go now.’

  ‘Keep a look out,’ said Fliss. ‘I’ll search Granny’s things.’

  They left Fliss’s room. Betty stood in her own doorway, shifting from one foot to the other in a nervous dance. Her eyes were on Charlie curled up asleep, her ears concentrating on the stairs and any sign of Granny. By now the Crosswick gathering was in full swing. Someone had struck up with a fiddle and a drunken chorus was being brayed. The building rattled and thrummed, as though humming along.

  Earlier, after Charlie had gone to sleep, Betty had stuffed rolled-up blankets under Fliss’s bedcovers and her own to make shapes like two sleeping figures. At a quick glance they were convincing enough, and Granny’s eyesight was poor, anyway. Tucked under Betty’s blankets was a note for the morning, when it would become evident that the two girls were gone, though Betty planned to be back way before then.

  Granny, it said, we’re sorry. We’ve taken your bag and gone to break the curse. We’ll be back as soon as we can. Please don’t come looking for us, and please don’t be too angry. Betty & Fliss.

  Would Charlie be the one to find it, or would it be Granny, wondering why her two eldest granddaughters couldn’t be roused the following morning? Betty hugged herself guiltily and gazed past Charlie to the window. Through the gappy curtains the sky was navy blue, dotted with bright stars. There would likely be a frost later, already the air was chilly. She thought of the prison, and of Colton in darkness and silence. It was probably best that he didn’t know when to expect them.

  A muffled squeal sent her abandoning her post and skidding into Granny’s room.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Found it.’ Fliss was on her hands and knees, scuttling backwards. ‘It’s under the bed, but there’s a huge . . .’ she trailed off, and gazed past Betty with a shocked, guilty look on her face.

  Betty whirled round. Charlie blinked at them sleepily, barefoot and rubbing her eyes.

  ‘What you doing?’

  ‘N-nothing,’ Fliss stammered. ‘Just putting some things of Granny’s away. Come on now, poppet. Back to bed.’

  ‘You’re not putting nothing away,’ Charlie said stubbornly. She regarded each of them with suspicion, wide awake now. ‘You’re looking for the bag.’

  Betty and Fliss exchanged glances, unsure what to say.

  ‘I could’ve told you where it was.’ Charlie knelt and crawled under the bed, then emerged with the bag and a thick cobweb stuck to her arm. ‘This what you were scared of?’ she asked, flicking the web away scornfully.

  Fliss pursed her lips. ‘Give it here.’

  Charlie shrugged and tossed it at her feet. ‘What do you want it for?’

  Betty sighed. ‘Look, we need to go somewhere. There’s something important we have to do, and—’

  ‘Are you going to the prison again?’

  Betty and Fliss shared stricken glances. Charlie might only be six, but she wasn’t silly.

  ‘I’m coming, too,’ Charlie announced. ‘I can keep a secret.’

  Betty shook her head. The memory of being trapped on the ferry in swirling mist, and how foolish she’d been to put Charlie in that situation, was all too fresh. ‘Oh, no, you’re not. It’s dangerous.’

  ‘Then you need me!’ Charlie said fiercely. ‘I can help! I’m not scared of anything.’ She pulled a face at Fliss. ‘Even spiders!’

  There was a long silence, then finally Betty nodded. ‘Go and get dressed.’

  Fliss stared at her incredulously as Charlie skipped past her in a tangle of hair and bare limbs.

  ‘You can’t be serious!’

  Betty shook her head, picking up the bag. ‘I’m not,’ she whispered as the wardrobe in the next room creaked. ‘Quick, grab our coats.’

  Fliss vanished, returning seconds later with thick overcoats. They shrugged into them, breathing fast. Fliss wound a thin scarf around the mermaid mirror and tucked it in her coat pocket. ‘Got everything? The nesting dolls? Keys?’

  Betty nodded, linking arms with Fliss at the exact moment Charlie came hurtling down the hall. She stopped in the doorway, open-mouthed.

  Betty’s skin crawled with shame. ‘I’m sorry, Charlie.’

  ‘No!’ Charlie roared. ‘You can’t!’

  Betty flipped the bag inside out. ‘Prisoner five-one-three!’

  She closed her eyes, bracing herself for the sickening whoosh . . . but it never came.

  ‘Er, Betty?’ Fliss said doubtfully.

  Betty opened her eyes. Charlie was staring at them with an injured expression. She stomped up to Betty.

  ‘You said I could come. If you don’t let me I’ll shout for Granny!’

  ‘You won’t!’ Betty retorted. She was cross now, both at being discovered and the bag’s failure to work. ‘I’ll lock you in the creepy cupboard if I have to!’

  ‘Beast!’ Charlie’s mouth dropped open in horror. ‘You always leave me out!’

  Betty sighed, regretting her threat already. ‘Charlie, we just can’t take you.’ She stared at the bag, its musty old lining hanging inside out. ‘Anyway, I don’t think we can even use it without Granny— hey!’

  Charlie had snatched the bag and, quick as a fox, plunged the lining back in then out again. ‘My room!’ she shouted.

  Air sucked past Betty’s ankl
es. In the next eye blink, Charlie vanished and a gleeful giggle rang out from the girls’ bedroom. Betty stepped towards the door, but there was another whoosh and Charlie reappeared, grinning.

  ‘See? I can do it!’

  ‘And we can’t,’ Betty said slowly, as Granny’s explanation came back to her.

  An item couldn’t be swapped, because it simply wouldn’t work unless it was the one you owned.

  Charlie danced a jubilant jig. ‘Ain’t your bag, so it won’t work for you.’

  ‘Ain’t yours, either!’ Betty snapped. ‘I mean, isn’t!’

  ‘Yet,’ Charlie said smugly.

  Betty glanced at Fliss. Her older sister stared back helplessly.

  ‘What’ll we do? We can’t take her with us!’

  ‘Can, can, can!’ sang Charlie, twirling round with the bag.

  ‘Our whole plan depends on that bag,’ Betty said desperately. ‘Besides Granny, Charlie’s the only one who can work it.’ She took a deep breath, thinking. ‘We have to take her.’

  ‘No!’ Fliss whispered. ‘We really, really can’t . . .’

  ‘Looks like you really, really have to,’ said Charlie.

  ‘Only until we get Colton out,’ Betty said. ‘The bag is fast. We’ll get him to Lament, find out what he knows, then come back here in the shake of a feather. After that he’s on his own.’

  Charlie stopped twirling. ‘Who’s Colton?’

  ‘Someone who can help us break the curse,’ Betty told her.

  ‘Let’s wait,’ Fliss begged. ‘Think of another plan, the dolls—’

  ‘No,’ Betty argued. ‘Not now Charlie knows. She could blab to Granny.’

  ‘Yep,’ Charlie agreed. ‘Sometimes things just pop out!’

  Downstairs, there was a surge of voices.

  ‘Let’s go while it’s rowdy. If it goes to plan we could be back before closing time.’

  ‘And if it doesn’t?’ Fliss snapped. ‘What then?’

  Betty didn’t know what then, but she tried to sound brave by saying, ‘We’ve got the bag, the dolls and the mirror. We’d have to be pretty unlucky for things to go wrong.’

  ‘Because the Widdershins are known for our luck,’ Fliss muttered.

  Betty bundled Charlie’s coat on. ‘Charlie, listen. This is going to be a real adventure. Not one of our silly pretending games. So I need you to do as we say. And if we tell you to come back, you must come straight back. Promise?’

  Charlie nodded vigorously, ready to agree to just about anything.

  Betty swallowed down a hard lump in her throat. Everything would be all right. They would be the ones to break the wretched Widdershins curse. This would be worth it, it had to be. ‘Victory favours the valiant,’ she whispered, trying to draw strength from another of her invented mottos. Hopefully this one would stick.

  ‘Ready?’ she asked, more nervous than she had ever been.

  Another enthusiastic nod came from Charlie. Fliss twitched like a hunted bunny. Betty stood in the middle, one arm through Fliss’s and the other firmly linked with Charlie’s. ‘Take us to Crowstone Prison, Prisoner five-one-three,’ she instructed, as another swell of noise rose from downstairs.

  Charlie nodded, eager to please. She cleared her throat and spoke in a firm voice: ‘Crowstone Prison, prisoner five-three-one!’

  In the time it took for Betty to shout ‘No!’, Charlie had whipped the bag inside out. All Betty could feel was her hair flying past her ears and her insides churning as she realised that before they had even arrived, their plan had already gone terribly wrong.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Jarrod

  THE PRISONER COULD BE ASLEEP, Betty thought to herself, in the fractured moments when the wind was whizzing past her ears. Perhaps he would be old, frail, and posing no threat to them. Or they could get incredibly unlucky . . . again.

  It was a bad landing. Without Granny to steady them they were flimsy as rose petals, each of them going a different way. Despite Betty’s hopes for a quiet entrance, Charlie squealed, Fliss yelped, and even she gave an oof! as she landed on her bottom on a freezing stone floor.

  It was dim, lit only by the glow of some outside beacon filtering in from a high, barred window. Straight away Betty was uneasy. This was not like the other cells. Though it shared the same freezing stone walls, it was half the size of Colton’s. Unlike the glimpse they’d had of Colton’s door, the one to this cell was of solid wood, with an eye-level hatch that could only be opened from the other side. This, Betty thought, was not a good sign. The next thing she noticed, as the three of them clambered to their feet, was the stench. It was like being walloped in the nose with a sack of stewed cabbages, though strangely, there was no sign of a prisoner.

  There was no bed, just a heap of old sacks thrown in a corner. In the other corner was a bucket, which Fliss had landed next to. As she stood up, she peered into it and made a retching sound. It was then, too late, that Betty saw the figure rising from the sacking just beyond Charlie: a hulking giant of a man.

  ‘Charlie!’ She made a grab for her sister, who was still clutching the travelling bag and oblivious to the movement behind her.

  The prisoner was surprisingly quick for someone so large. He lunged at Charlie, seizing her arm. His meaty fist was almost the size of his head, which was bald as a beetle. Charlie mewled like a captured kitten.

  ‘What have we got here, then?’ His voice was menacing. ‘Wasn’t expecting company in solitary!’

  Solitary confinement! Betty’s worry was crystallizing into dread. The last thing they needed. Not only were they dealing with a criminal, but an incredibly dangerous one.

  ‘Ouch, you’re hurting me!’ Charlie complained. She gave Betty a wounded look. ‘Why’d you tell me to bring us here?’

  ‘I didn’t,’ Betty said tightly. She was so horrified she could barely get the words out. ‘I said five-one-three, not five-three-one! You muddled it up.’

  ‘Lucky me,’ the prisoner said. ‘That still doesn’t explain how you got in here.’ He gave Charlie a jerk. ‘Talk!’

  ‘We’re ghosts,’ Charlie said, recovering from her shock a little. ‘And now you’ve seen us, we’ll haunt you . . . for ever!’

  The prisoner guffawed. ‘Nice try, but I’ve never heard of ghosts tripping over themselves and making such a racket.’

  ‘That’s because we’re new at it,’ Charlie persisted. ‘We died . . . um . . . recently. We’re still learning.’

  The prisoner leered down at her, grinning. The inside of his mouth was like a chessboard, with black gaps where half his teeth were missing.

  ‘A ghost could get through a locked door,’ he said. ‘But you’re as real as I am, pumpkin.’ He tightened his hold on Charlie’s arm.

  ‘Let her go,’ Betty said, screwing up her courage. She stepped towards Charlie, holding out her hand. Perhaps if she could grab Charlie and Fliss at once, Charlie might be able to use the bag to get them out of here. ‘Please. This is just a silly mistake and we shouldn’t be here.’

  Her pleas went ignored.

  ‘Prisoner five-one-three, you say?’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘What would three young ladies want with him? Three young ladies who can appear from out of nowhere? See, I’m getting a whiff of witchcraft, or magic, or sorcery . . . whatever you call it.’

  No one answered. Betty was frozen, Charlie was squirming in the man’s grip and Fliss had backed up against the wall. To Betty’s relief, the prisoner released Charlie. The relief didn’t last, however, for his next move was to snatch the travelling bag from Charlie’s hand.

  ‘Oi!’ Charlie grabbed at the bag, but he held it out of her reach.

  ‘What’s in here, then? Something you’re bringing to Colton?’ He pawed inside it with his beefy hand.

  ‘Give it! S’mine!’ Charlie raged, and she aimed a swift kick at the man’s shins. He swatted her like she was a gnat, and she toppled backwards, plopping on to the lumpy sacking.

  ‘Nothing in it,’ he said in disgust, after
rummaging through and even checking the small pocket sewn in the lining. Betty saw his suspicion deepening and the knot of dread inside her tightened. She couldn’t bear to consider what this man would be prepared to do to escape, but one thing was certain. If he figured out the bag’s secret, the girls would be in grave danger.

  ‘Why would you be carrying an empty bag, eh?’ His eyes narrowed. ‘This how you got in here? Is it a portal or summat?’ He held the bag out in front of him, fitting it over his huge foot like an ugly, misshapen slipper. He looked ridiculous, almost funny, but Betty wasn’t fooled. Everything about him oozed menace.

  ‘It’s . . . it’s just a bag,’ she muttered. She gave Charlie a warning look to keep quiet as he continued to puzzle over the bag, and allowed herself to relax slightly. Only they knew its secret, and Charlie was the only one who could make the bag work. If they could convince the prisoner that it was worthless then all they needed was a moment’s distraction so they could escape.

  He shook it again, losing interest, but Betty sensed he wasn’t ready to give it back to them just yet.

  ‘If you must know, we needed it to take something out of the prison,’ she said.

  ‘What?’ he asked, glowering at her.

  ‘I . . . I don’t know. We’re doing a favour for someone. They said it was best we didn’t know about the, um, item, beforehand.’

  ‘Mmm.’

  She waited, unsure what the noise meant.

  ‘You still haven’t explained how you got in here,’ he said. ‘I know I’m not dreaming. And I reckon, if you got in, you know how to get out.’

  ‘All right.’ Betty opened her eyes wide and made her bottom lip tremble. It wasn’t hard. She was already trembling a bit under the man’s scrutiny; he really did look mean. ‘Give me the bag, and I’ll tell you. But you must promise to let us go, unharmed.’

  The prisoner grinned his broken grin at her. ‘Oh, I promise,’ he said, in a sugary voice that managed to sound sinister. He tossed the bag, which Betty missed. It landed with a soft whump at her feet. She picked it up, glancing at Fliss. Her elder sister was nibbling her lip, but she caught Betty’s look and crept away from the wall, towards her.