by Mara Webb
“Why not just use actual animals? This doesn’t make sense to me. Surely it would be less risky to just train a dog that…I don’t know how to put this, a dog that was a full-time dog?” I said. I heard Quin laugh from across the room.
“I think they tried that. Some animals won’t comply, and they don’t have the patience to train animals in a kind way, that can take years. Especially the sort of stuff they want us to do, the tricks are complex and just, you know, weird.” I nodded in agreement, based on what I had seen at the show I could understand what he meant.
“You can’t emotionally blackmail an animal; you have no leverage. We are able to understand what they ask of us and do what they say straight away, we won’t let on to any of the customers at the show that we need help because they say they will go after our loved ones. They put us in competitions between show tours and we win them a lot of money. It’s just greed and madness rolled into one. I appreciate that this sounds nuts, but that’s because they are nuts.”
I had called Ryan and Justin, the other two council members, to explain that we needed their help urgently. Justin said he was tied up in a family séance but would be with us as soon as he could leave without angering the spirits. Ryan was now knocking on the back door. I had told them both that the back door would be the best place to go because we needed to penetrate a fortification spell and I didn’t want any of the neighbors to see it.
Ryan asked if there was a chance that our attacker was waiting in the back yard in the bushes, it was something I hadn’t considered. They couldn’t get into the house, but maybe they were outside waiting for us. When he had suggested it, my blood had run cold. He managed to convince me that he was more than capable of looking after himself for a few seconds and that he had three other council members inside to assist if things went south. He had a point.
At his knocking we ran to the back door and repeated the process that had allowed Arnold past the barriers. The cats instantly got to their reparative work, this time assisted by Quin, which allowed the spell to reach completion faster than before. Ryan pulled me in for a tight hug once he was safely inside. I paused as his arms wrapped tightly around my body, my own sticking out awkwardly either side of me like a crippled bird. I wriggled my broken wings and embraced him with equal force.
Memories of the conversation in which he told me he was in love with me danced around in the front of my mind. I felt so torn every time I was reminded of it. I had a boyfriend that I loved but having ‘the one that got away’ be a part of your everyday life like this was cruel and unsettling. I would frequently entertain the fantasies of a reality in which we were together. This was one of those times. Brent. Despite my human boyfriend now knowing I was a witch, I didn’t want to burden him with tonight’s situation, it was far too dangerous. He wouldn’t stand a chance of defending himself against the kind of evil power we were faced with.
Ryan and I released each other as Amber and Jennifer began to speak. We guided Ryan into the lounge as we tagged in and out of playing storyteller for the events that Arnold had explained to us so far. Ryan took it in stride, he didn’t seem phased at all by the talking dog, the story about Jennifer being shot in the shoulder, the dead journalist, or that multiple wizards had been kidnapped and transformed into animals. His face could have tricked you into thinking it was ‘just another day in the office’. He waited for us to finish talking before responding to any of it.
“Well, that’s quite a pickle we find ourselves in. Who has the crystal then?” he asked no one in particular.
“What crystal?” I replied.
“Well, someone transformed all these kidnapped people into animals, right? If you do it to yourself, then that’s pretty straight forward, but if you do it to someone else then you have to imprison their human form somewhere, usually a garnet crystal. So, who has that?” Ryan looked at the blank expressions on the faces in front of him.
“Oh! Yeah!” Amber said. “I was reading about that earlier and I couldn’t understand a word of it. Crystals! Gotcha now, okay. Yeah, I would not have figured that out on my own any time soon.” Amber laughed. We all turned to Arnold, if anyone in the room had a chance of answering Ryan’s question it was him.
“Bridget,” he said. “The event organizer you said you saw arguing with Joseph, Nora? Bridget is his wife. Awful woman. I’ve never seen the transformation spells performed, but she has a purple rock on a chain around her neck and I’m pretty sure I’ve seen it glowing.”
“Destroying that crystal is the core part of the plan then,” Ryan said with authority. “Once the crystal is broken, every trapped human form within it is returned. Where will she be?”
“Well she’s never alone,” Arnold replied. “I hadn’t really thought about it before, but she is usually with at least one of her sons or her husband. This is a mess, look at what one of them was able to do to Jen, what chance have we got?” Another knock at the back door indicated that Justin had arrived.
“Could you not have figured out how to turn up at the same time? You people are exhausting,” Chomps complained as he pattered towards the back door with the rest of the cats. We hurried Justin inside and left the familiars to make the fortification repairs for a third time as we got him caught up on what we knew so far.
“Huh. Quite the story,” Justin said. “How many bad guys are there?”
“Tomorrow is a moving day, there will likely be around twelve, I think. I mean, twelve you need to worry about, the top brass. There will be more people around, but they are easier to deal with,” Arnold replied.
The five of us stood in silence, waiting for someone else to speak. It was like a group project at school after a teacher asks you a question, you stand there hoping that someone else will speak up with the correct answer and take the heat off you. But we all needed to have an answer here, none of us could go into this blind. Joseph Hawk had been killed. Jen might have been killed if I hadn’t transported us out of harm’s way so fast.
“We should head up to the attic,” I said at last. Everyone turned to me, thankful that someone was working on a plan. “We can try to prepare, I dunno, something and we have plenty of books up there to refer to if we need help. We won’t figure it out just killing time down here and they will be leaving town at noon. We need to save everyone and also not get murdered in the process.”
I led the way up the stairs, our marching feet fell in sync with one another until we sounded like a small army pounding up towards the library. Up and up we went until the last of us, Ryan, carried Arnold up into the roof space and we each sat in a comfortable chair facing the center. There hadn’t been that much furniture up here last time I came but clearly the house had realized there was a need to add some more tonight.
Before anyone opened their mouths to speak, a new figure suddenly appeared between us all. A tall woman with thin, round glasses and a slightly wrinkled face stood before us, inspecting each face until she found mine.
“Ah, Nora. I am here to begin your exam. I apologize for showing up in the middle of the night, my previous appointment ran over by fourteen hours. Shall we begin?”
My eyes didn’t blink, they just glazed over as I tried to work out what was happening.
“Professor Eastey?” I finally spluttered. It was my tutor from O.W.L. here to test me on my witch skills when I was caught up in a weird dog-kidnap-murder crime solving team huddle.
“Wait a second, how did you get in?” Amber asked. Panic fell over each of us. If she was able to travel into the building, then that meant…the fortification spell was broken. The cats must not have been able to repair it, or her travelling through the tear after Justin arrived had torn it further.
A sharp cracking sound echoed up through the attic door, it sounded like a small, muffled explosion. “Help! Nora!” a voice from downstairs screamed. It was Quin. Another explosion rang out. We were under attack.
15
The vase of fresh flowers on the end table closest to me wobbled and shook
a few petals onto the wooden surface below it. Professor Eastey shuffled her feet a few inches back and forth as if trying to stabilize herself on the deck of a ship on a choppy sea. Something was causing the house to shake. Ryan grabbed Arnold and we hurried down onto the corridor below the attic, my tutor followed suit as she was clearly confused by the situation but understood that haste was necessary.
The picture frames on the corridor walls were askew. A decorative plate that Edith had attached to the wall had fallen and shattered on the stairs, covering our path in large shards of broken ceramic painted with the official photograph of a royal wedding. Howl, one of the cat familiars, was waiting at the bottom of the stairs for us. His white fur standing up in ridges down his spine.
“Quin sent me to tell you, there is someone in the back yard. Something fractured the fortification bubble further; we couldn’t fix it quickly enough. We can’t repair it with someone firing at it, the damage is coming faster than we can heal it,” he said through heavy breaths.
I was almost too afraid to go to the back yard and see what was out there. Ryan lowered Arnold down onto the floor of the entryway and when he straightened up, he put one hand on his hip, the other was pointing at each of us as he gave out instructions.
“Amber, Jen and Justin, you need to help fix the spell with the cats. Arnie, I can call you that right? You need to stay safe inside. You…who are you again?” he was pointing at my tutor who was standing at my side as part of the circle we had formed.
“Professor Alse Eastey. What on earth is go—”
“You stay here and protect Arnie. Arnie is the dog.”
“Where should I be?” I asked nervously. I anticipated he was about to say something that I didn’t want to hear.
“You and I are going to fight off whatever is lurking in your back yard long enough for everyone else to protect the house. Once it is almost completely repaired, we will have to run back inside and seal it off. We don’t have a plan to get the other animals free and back into their human forms yet and if we run in and lose the crystal then we risk leaving these poor folks trapped forever.”
I had seen what our previous attacker had done to Jen. Was that same person about to do the same thing to all of my friends? To me? Were we all about to die in this house at the hands of a family of maniacs? I felt my breath quiver in my throat and my eyes shot down to my shoes, I couldn’t look at any of them right now. A premonition hit me all at once, completely hijacking my vision and obscuring what I could hear.
I was looking at my shoes in the vision, they were tattered and covered in mud. I could feel a sharp pain in my leg and as I reached down to check for an injury with my fingertips, I recoiled. I was bleeding, something had damaged my leg and I could feel that I was sweating and out of breath. Had I been running? I could hear one voice in the distance shouting my name, only one. Where was everyone else? Something brushed against my left hand, but I forced myself to suppress a scream. Was I trying to hide?
I could taste something strange in my mouth, like an old penny, it was blood. Had I been in some sort of a fight, I wasn’t sure if I had won or not. I felt a pins and needles sensation building in my toes and fingers, it was spreading along my arms and up both legs. It felt like an orb of discomfort was all around me, growing in intensity as it collapsed in on itself towards the center of my face. The air around me smelt strongly of chemicals. The tingling was at the edge of my face now, I knew when it reached my mouth and nose that I was in danger, but I wasn’t sure why.
My vision went black. The tingling was all over my body now, fizzing under my skin. I could still hear my name being shouted somewhere, but it sounded quieter now, more distant. All noise stopped. My every sense shut down. I was falling into darkness, losing consciousness. A sudden sound jolted me, and my eyes burst open.
The premonition was over, but as I had collapsed in the vision, I had collapsed in my entryway. My body lay flat along the floor, but Ryan was cradling my head in his lap. Had his voice been the one calling for me? Had that been happening in the vision? Or was my brain just incorporating his actual shouting? I blinked to refresh my eyes to what I was now able to see. I heard more glass shatter somewhere in the house, the attack was still happening. Of all the times for me to faint, it had to be in front of almost everyone I know in the middle of a small war.
“Nora?” Ryan spoke in a tone I hadn’t heard him use before, it felt strangely intimate. I looked around the room again and saw concern on every face. I tried to clamber back up onto my feet a little too quickly, stumbling back into Ryan’s arms. I was so lightheaded. This was the worst possibly timing. My eyes wandered up the staircase and saw the shattered plate and the wonky picture frames.
“I’m fine,” I lied. “We need to protect the house, Arnie, all of us.” I said, looking so deeply into his eyes that I worried he was connected to me in a new way, that he was able to see the vision that I had just seen and that he would know what my magic had predicted for me. I didn’t want him to worry, but that meant not allowing myself to dwell on it. I couldn’t give oxygen to the thoughts or why I had been so badly injured.
Howl ran away from us towards the back door with the rest of the cats. I steadied myself and walked after him, clutching to furniture discreetly as I did so, hoping that no one could see. Ryan was putting a lot of faith in me. I knew that Amber and Jen had better healing magic than I did, it made sense for them to stay inside and help the cats. Justin was young, his application to the high council had been impressive, but he was safer inside with everyone else. We were the only two that were able to head out into the night and confront our mystery attacker.
To access the back door, we had to walk through the laundry room. It was a narrow space that felt like a corridor branching off the kitchen. The washing machine and dryer were set back into the left wall beneath a granite countertop in which a sink had been fitted. The wall on the right was blank, just smooth plaster that had been painted electric blue.
There was a framed print on the ground leaning against the wall that I hadn’t gotten around to hanging yet. It said “laundry today or naked tomorrow” beneath a silhouette of a clothesline carrying a t-shirt and jeans. I had bought it from a Sunday market in town a month or so ago and looking at it now as it observed the chaos, it seemed frivolous.
The lights were off in the room but the light from the moon was bright enough for us all to avoid stepping on any cats. They were focusing on the spell; I could see the twirling color spectrums on the translucent wall that shimmered around the house. I could see the bubble, and just beyond it, a large man in the yard with one arm raised. A burst of light fired towards the house and the bubble wobbled. The house shook and my stupid little print fell over.
“Amber, get the cats up on this counter. Ryan and I will need to run back in and I don’t want to get anyone hurt,” I said with the confidence of a woman that thought she would be making a return journey from outside. We all looked at each other in silence. Jen and Justin immediately began contributing to the repair of the fortification as Amber lifted cat after cat off the ground. Once the ground was clear she began repairing the fortification shield too. Now it was my turn.
I stepped forward with Ryan by my side. The room was wide enough for us to stand shoulder to shoulder as we gazed out into the night. How could we get outside without immediately getting killed? I really hoped that Ryan had a better idea about what was going on because I felt like every spell I knew was tumbling out of my memory, I worried that I would take two steps beyond the back door and freeze up.
“Are you ready?” he asked me. I shook my head.
“Nope. But you don’t always have to be ready to get started, right?”
“The spell he is using to attack the house, the energy wave, he can’t do that in rapid fire. It takes time to sort of load it, to build up enough magic to cast it. I think if we wait until he fires the next one then immediately run out of the door, he won’t be able to attack us straight away. It buys us a few s
econds to get some of our own shots in. We get out, then split. He can’t attack us both if we are on opposite sides of him. Just remember, all we have to do is keep him busy long enough for them to mostly repair this bubble, okay?”
I know he meant for his speech to be motivating or optimistic, but all I was focusing on was the part where we split. I would be facing this intruder alone. Ryan would be on the other side of the yard, but I would be completely open if the figure turned in my direction to try and harm me. I could taste the rush of metallic liquid in my mouth again, it was the memory from the premonition. Was this how I got hurt, fighting this intruder?
I watched as the stranger lifted his arms. Our plan to exit this house was like that game I played as a kid with a little frog trying to cross the road, trying to figure out the patterns of the traffic in each lane to know when it was safe to cross. We needed to see how long it would take to create this energy wave spell, it had been just short of two minutes since the last one hit.
The light at the end of his wand grew to the size of a softball, it seemed dense as if it would be heavy to hold. I had no way of knowing that, but as it hit the house harder than any previous wave, I worried that either the protection spell was growing too weak, or he was getting stronger. Ryan grabbed my hand, swung the back door open and pulled me through. I heard the back door slam behind me.
“Go!” he shouted, pointing to the left of the yard. I looked back at him and saw him running to the right. Something shifted in the air. The man in the yard was not someone I had seen before. He was younger than I had first thought, the moonlight bounced off his glasses and allowed me to see his muscular body. Great. If his magic didn’t get me then he could easily win any physical fight.