by Willow Mason
My hand had crept up to stroke my mother’s locket more times than I could count, spasming as they found my neck empty. A simple act of reassurance, now gone.
“Do you want to stop at the shops for anything before I drop you at the house?” my aunt asked, and I shook my head.
“The store’s still open around the corner, isn’t it?”
“Good memory.” She stared at me for a long second, then tucked a wavy lock of hair behind my ear. “They’re also charging a twenty percent mark-up on everything, so don’t rely on it too much.”
Sensible. Smart. Stylish.
Even though I hadn’t seen my aunt for twenty-one years, I felt as close to her at that moment as I’d ever felt to another person.
“I have to warn you,” she said as she pulled the car up outside the old house, “it’s not in the best condition.”
“The lawyer told me,” I responded shortly, tears once again brimming in my eyes.
My inheritance had been sitting unclaimed for nine years, ever since my mother died. Five of those years, it had been locked in a trust, waiting for me to turn twenty-one. On that day, the lawyer administering her estate laid out the contents of the will and I firmly pushed responsibility for my childhood home back to them.
Each year, I’d receive a report detailing how much the bank account had been depleted through necessary upkeep and rates, and every time I’d ignore the pleading tone as they urged me to think about taking up occupation or, at the very least, renting out the property.
Local heritage laws forbid me from selling the place, otherwise, it would have been long gone. Something which had always annoyed me, but I now appreciated.
Age and decay might have altered the colour of the structure in front of me, but nothing could wear away the fine lines of the house. My throat ached and I gave a startled laugh when Aunt Florentine handed across the keys.
“Go do the honours.”
She must have come by the place earlier because the lock was freshly oiled, and the key slid in and turned without a hitch. When I pushed the door open, it was like releasing a room of memories in my mind.
In an instant, I heard my mother’s laugh, the low boom of my father’s voice, a flurry of footsteps as my childhood self ran up the stairs.
From the kitchen to my right wafted the scent of my favourite apricot muffins, delivered in a cloud of steam as the oven door opened. The aroma fought with the side cupboard that smelled of the sticky cardboard moth traps my mother used to keep her precious fur wrap safe.
Then I blinked, and the memories disappeared, leaving behind a house filled with stale air and dust motes that danced in the late afternoon light.
My aunt sniffed on the doorstep behind me. “The cleaners were meant to come through this afternoon, but they called to say they couldn’t make it. Last time I use them.”
“It’s fine. I know how to clean.”
That was an understatement. I’d worked for two years as part of the cleaning staff for a motel chain near my old flat. Another string to my less-than-impressive employment bow.
“You shouldn’t have to is the point.” My aunt walked into the kitchen and opened the windows, then tested the tap—giving a nod of satisfaction as the water ran through clean. “I’ve connected the water and power under my name for the moment, but you’ll need to get the details changed as soon as you can.”
I nodded again, pulling a bar stool out from beneath the overhang of the kitchen bench and sat down, placing my palms flat on the counter for balance.
“Did you have facilities in your name when you were up north?”
“Yeah. I had the electricity under my name.”
“Good.” She arched an eyebrow. “And you won’t have any trouble getting it changed over?”
The query tickled my funny bone. “If you mean, did I operate a delinquent account with penalties and fees so bad they’ll never let me sign up again, then no.”
My aunt waved a hand as if to suggest she’d never meant that at all.
I slipped off the stool and pulled back the net curtain. Across the road, my opposite neighbour was in her front yard. A kunekune pig ran in circles around her feet, almost knocking her down with its enthusiastic cavorting.
“Effie,” my aunt said. “Do you remember her? She would’ve been a year ahead of you in school.”
“I only went to school here for six months. We moved when I was still in J2, remember?” The pig stopped running only for long enough to headbutt the letterbox. Judging from the markings on the concrete side, it was a common occurrence.
“That’s Meredith, her familiar. Poor thing had a brain tumour late last year. The vet removed it, but she’s never been quite right again.”
I swallowed around a dry throat while wandering out into the hallway. Although I’d convinced myself on the journey here that my money was better spent on this place than a flat shared with a werewolf, the thought was still daunting. Minimum wage didn’t leave much money in the bank, and the estate funds currently had a balance of less than a thousand left in the account.
“You’ll be fine,” my aunt said as though she was reading my mind. “Just get a job in town as soon as you can, and the savings from rent will leave you with plenty spare. It doesn’t all have to be done up at once.”
I hooked my arm around her waist with a rush of affection, then removed it a second after she frowned.
Hands off. Got it.
“I’ll drop by again in the morning,” she said with a wave. “Remember to lock up tightly if you do go out to the store.”
The door closed, leaving me alone. I pressed a hand to my chest until the urge to call her back passed, then walked upstairs to the master bedroom. Aunt Florentine had been organised enough to have fresh bedding installed, and I lay down, crossing my hands over my belly and staring at the ceiling.
Despite the break of twenty years, it felt strangely like I’d arrived home.
“Magic isn’t always a gift.”
I jerked awake the next morning in a strange room in a strange town with my deceased mother’s voice whispering in my ear. Lord knows when I’d fallen asleep, but it was before I’d done any of the things I’d promised to do. Twisting my legs around to sit up, I rubbed my stomach which felt achy—all the emotional peace of my homecoming had gone.
My dreams had been full of another journey, one from my childhood. My mother and I had stumbled headlong from Briarton to Auckland the day after my father’s funeral. Car, bus, taxi, ferry, bus, taxi, until we spilled into a cramped hotel room in the central city.
There’d been the constant rush of noise outside, more pedestrians—more people—than I’d ever seen in one place in my life; all walking, stomping, staggering along as though it were perfectly normal, perfectly valid, for a hundred bodies to be on one street, in one city, in one place at the same time.
Crowding up against the physical noise were the booming images in my head. My father had appeared tiny in his coffin—a shrunken head of a man. While the funeral director was accepting my mother’s thanks for doing a superb job—fantastic, I didn’t think we’d be able to have an open casket—I’d stood back, appalled, waiting for the prank to be revealed. I waited for my real father—a big man, warm, the embodiment of a hug—to step out of the shadows, a blinding smile on his face; haha got you, kid.
Instead, another man, one I’d never seen before, sidled forward and said in a loud voice that nobody—absolutely nobody—thought my father had driven onto the tracks on purpose. The vehement denial left a revolting wave of questions rotting in my brain until I couldn’t hold it inside any longer and vomited my breakfast down the front of my Sunday-best dress.
My mother’s death had been in stark contrast, wasting away where my father had been snatched from the world in an instant. She’d weakened over months, the black smoke turning her magic into poison. The disease ate into every corner of her body despite the curdlebug placed on her skin, absorbing the magic out of her as quickly as it formed.<
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But no—that was too much grief for me to dwell on.
I shuddered and crawled off the bed, pushing the memories back into a box that spent most of its time nailed shut.
My clothes were wrinkled and stank of airport terminals and bus exhaust. I showered, soaping my hair twice to ensure the smell stayed gone, then dressed in a new pile of wrinkled clothes from my backpack.
After making the bed, I put away my few possessions before wandering downstairs to find there were no supplies at all—not even to make a cup of coffee or tea. I had nothing to do except wait for it to be time for the shop to open.
When I was a kid, the dairy had been open twenty-four-seven, but with fewer people needing emergency items, and a local supermarket that didn’t charge too high a delivery fee, they’d reduced their hours. When it opened shortly after eight, I also discovered my aunt had been right and they’d raised all their prices.
“You’re the Milchtrap girl, right?” the man behind the counter asked. He accompanied the query with a wink, which I didn’t know what to do with.
“Um, yeah.” I busied myself staring at the counter and shuffling my feet. When in doubt, don’t make eye contact. A recommendation I often put to good use.
My lack of social skills didn’t dissuade the jovial owner. By the time I emerged with cornflakes, milk, sugar, bread, butter, and marmite, he’d coaxed out my relationship status, my family history, and a cliff notes version of my headlong journey the day before.
He’d also taken to calling me Desi, which kicked off a dull ache in my chest. Jared had been the only person to call me that. Even my foster mum, Iris, had always used my full name, though that might be more of a reflection on our strained relationship than an indicator of my preferences.
I’d just pulled out the mildewed phone book from under the kitchen counter, ready to find out who to call about getting everything signed into my name, when Aunt Florentine knocked on the door.
“Good, you’re up,” she said with a curt nod before inviting herself inside. “I thought I’d better check up on you and make sure you survived the night okay.”
“Right.” I followed her into the kitchen as though being drawn into the tail of a whirlwind. “Did you want a cuppa?”
“No. I’ve no time for that. I’m not stopping.” With that pronouncement, she planted herself on a barstool and stared around the room.
“I was just about—”
A frantic knock sounded on the back door, the noise so unexpected I’d run through half the house before I worked out where it came from. When I wrenched the door open, it suddenly occurred to me I should check through the peephole before doing that, at least.
“Desdemona! Thank goodness you’re here. We’re in trouble.” A strange woman, five-foot-ten with a mess of thick black hair piled atop her head, stepped inside, slammed the door shut and locked it.
“Come through to the kitchen at once,” she ordered, grabbing my arm and pulling me in that direction. “We’ve got a lot to discuss. I’ve discovered the most terrible thing. Awful. Horrible.”
It didn’t sound like anything I wanted to know, but I let her guide me into my own kitchen, regardless.
“Flo! What a surprise. What are you doing here?”
“I’m visiting my niece. What do you think?” My aunt spun around on the stool, her arms crossed and her eyes close to rolling. “The question is, what are you doing here, Genevieve? Shouldn’t you be out organising the coven?”
The woman’s identity clicked into place. Genevieve Grainger. Briarton’s current supreme.
“I am.” Genevieve crossed her eyes at me and stuck out her tongue. “Honestly, that’s what I was doing out in the forest in the first place. We’ve had familiars setting up dens back there and it just won’t do.”
“They’ve been what?” My aunt’s face twisted in confusion while I struggled to keep up with the conversation.
“Is that the horrible thing you found?” I asked. “Some familiars?”
“No,” Genevieve said, fanning herself with a hand. “Something far worse.”
She collapsed onto a bar stool, then promptly slipped off the side, knocking her elbow and tumbling to the floor. I stepped forward to help, but she struggled to her feet and waved me away.
“There’s a body in the woods out back and you just know it’ll land me in trouble.”
Chapter Three
The words hit me, and I stepped back, my tailbone bumping painfully against the benchtop. “A body? You mean, a familiar?”
“No. I mean a person.” Genevieve’s face set in harsh lines. “She’s all dried up and hollowed out… barely weighs a thing… Somebody needs to do something!”
My aunt rolled her eyes. “You’re the supreme. Shouldn’t that somebody be you?”
“Well, yes.” She cleared her throat. “I need you both to accompany me to Agatha Rhodes’s house. We need to investigate this matter without delay.”
“Wait a second.” Aunt Florentine held up a finger, and we both froze. “You’ve found a witch?”
My mouth sagged open as I scoured Genevieve’s face, seeing the truth. “Somebody killed a witch in my back yard?” I turned and ran for the front door, my legs working out what they needed to do while my mind was still hunting through options.
“She’s not… There’s a chance…”
“Just spit it out,” my aunt ordered, clicking her fingers. “Desdemona, stop.”
I paused at the front door, my brain already halfway down the street. “We can’t stay here. Not if there’s a witch hunter on the loose.”
“The body isn’t necessarily dead,” Genevieve muttered. With a firmer nod of her head, she added, “And it’s not the work of a witch hunter.”
“How do you know?”
“Because a human would’ve bludgeoned the poor woman to death, or something equally barbaric. It’s not like that. She’s just… sucked dry.” The supreme straightened her back, the extra height giving her a regal air as she regained control. “A visit to Agatha Rhodes is definitely in order.”
Aunt Florentine pursed her lips, then joined me at the door. “Well, come on, girl. Let’s get moving.”
We bundled into her car and she steered across town, pulling up outside a dilapidated state house a few minutes later. Beige paint peeled back from the brown wooden slats, making the property look like it was suffering from the end stages of a bad sunburn.
“Who’s Agatha?” I whispered to my aunt as Genevieve took the lead and knocked on the front door. “Should I know her?”
“She’s a human, originally from one town over, who controls the only spellbooks remaining in our community.” The firm set of her mouth told me everything I needed to know about my aunt’s opinion on that. “She should never have been allowed to get her hands on them in the first place, but it’s set in stone now.”
“You can blame my predecessor,” the supreme added. “Although, I suppose we should be lucky to have any.”
Before I could question the pair further, Agatha opened the door and clapped her hands together in delight. “Genevieve. What a delightful surprise.”
The woman had an abundance of grey hair scraped into a severe bun. Under the bright morning sun, it held a purple tinge, reminiscent of the old British sitcoms I still liked to watch on Saturday mornings when my entire weekend stretched out before me, inviting idleness. She was dressed in a saggy twin-set—a pastel pink washed so many times it had faded to off-white.
“We need your help.” Genevieve stepped forward, pushing into the modest home. “I want information on sucklings.”
“Sucklings?” Agatha’s eyes opened wide. “Here in Briarton. Oh, my.” A hand crept to her mouth, cutting off my glimpse at yellowing dentures. “Take a seat in the parlour and I’ll check.”
I shuffled inside, following my aunt’s lead. The parlour was a dingy room with three small windows, none facing the sun. I perched on the edge of a plastic-wrapped sofa, my thighs instantly sticking to the thick c
overing in the stifling heat of the room.
“Goodness. I’d better open a window.” Agatha swept inside, pulling back the net curtains and raising each sash. The desultory breeze that resulted was hardly worth the effort. A trickle of sweat ran down between my shoulder blades. “Here we go. I think this has everything you need.”
She placed a leatherbound book on the coffee table. Intricate engravings decorated the cover, along with the letters S-V. Genevieve stared at it, a frown marring her features. My aunt was the one who leant forward and picked it up, flicking through the pages with a mutter of gratitude.
“It’s a pity I don’t have a separate volume just for those fickle creatures.” Agatha trilled out a laugh, pushing at her bun. “But I suppose we should be grateful for anything at all.”
“This is fine.” My aunt tipped a page towards the supreme who nodded, her face relaxing. “A suckling is a parasitic creature who feeds off witches or their familiars in return for restoring their health,” she recited, briefly using her forefinger to hold her place as she flicked a few pages ahead. “That’s not much to go on.”
“Best I can do.” Agatha’s smile faltered for a second, then Genevieve patted her arm.
“It’s fantastic and exactly what we were after. If you’ve finished with this book for the time being, we’ll take it with us.”
The expression on the older woman’s face suggested that was her worst nightmare, and she swallowed a few times before nodding. “But I’d appreciate if I could have it back as soon as you’re done.”
“Of course.” With a few more platitudes, Genevieve swept us out of the house, waving fondly over her shoulder, her smile dropping as soon as we were safely inside the car. “Oh, I hate having to cater to that woman just to retain our tiny scraps of knowledge.”
“Your what?” I stared in complete confusion at the supreme, then turned my attention to Aunt Florentine when my gaze achieved nothing.
“It’s a coven problem,” she explained, turning the car back towards my house. “Like all covens around the world, our library is fortified against attack.”