by B G Denvil
“So say goodbye and good riddance. You don’t need to see him. Imagine his face.”
“In spite of his overbearing pride and confidence, he was a bit of a wastrel,” Maggs said. “He sometimes worked a bit on my brother’s farm. Sometimes he stacked barrels at the tavern. He worked at the market erecting the stalls, and a couple of times he had my brother’s stall and sold eggs and chickens for him. He never had a proper job, though he’d started as an apprentice for an ironmonger in the village. But too much like hard work – so he stopped,”
“And no family left? Mothers? Fathers? Brothers?”
“He had none of them, and as an ill-behaved brat, his father had beaten him severely on a regular basis. Godwin grew up accepting a habit of both the bad behaviour and the beatings.”
“Mandrake likes you,” Peg said, changing the subject. “But perhaps he’s becoming a nuisance?”
Maggs blushed scarlet. “No, not exactly. After Godwin, you know, Mandrake is so handsome and so gallant and so kind. I do like him – very much indeed.”
Remembering that she had once been stupid enough to like Montague, Rosie could find no problem with this. She had very briefly even liked Dickon and shivered at the memory.
“Cold, my dear?” Peg asked her.
“No.” Rosie banished the memory. “But I was thinking perhaps I should get a list of anyone who disliked Godwin more than most. Anyone with a particular reason. And I think Mandrake would help me check on each and every one.”
“Would he? Does he really like me?” Maggs was still blushing.
“It would seem,” said Edna rather carefully, “that he is quite smitten with you, my dear. However, I cannot believe he’s the most suitable of gentlemen. Enjoy whatever you like now, but don’t expect it to last.”
It was naturally something she could not explain, but wizards and humans did not usually make a good match. Especially when the human had no idea that her suitor was a wizard.
The warm evening continued into first twilight as the blue sky switched behind the blackening tree silhouettes, appearing luminous as the first echo of the moon silvered to blue, and the horizon turned palest pink. Rosie, Peg and Edna left Maggs to her sweet dreams of Mandrake and took the empty platters with them, leaving the jug of ale.
Struggling down the first steps of the ladder as they waved goodbye to Maggs, Edna and Peg then swept off as Rosie locked the tree house door, then flew off herself to Edna’s chambers.
But Maggs had climbed into bed, more content than ever after a cosy evening of conversation and new friends, amazing food and the confirmation of a thrilling new romance. She was already half asleep when there was a persistent tap, tap on her bedchamber window. Wondering, and hoping, that this was Mandrake coming for a goodnight kiss, she leapt from the bed and hurried to the unshuttered window. It was, however, a very large owl tapping with its beak. Maggs, although disappointed, smiled at the beautiful feathers and turned for bed once more, when Cabbage called, “I don’t wish to bother you, madam, but is Rosie still there? Or Peg? Or Edna?”
Maggs lay still on her bed and looked deeply asleep. She had, however, fainted again and was deeply unconscious.
Back in Edna’s rooms, now brightly candle lit, Peg and Rosie were arguing the suitability of Mandrake’s romance, while Twizzle sat on the table and insisted that he was a jackeroo, but couldn’t count the herd until all the kangaroos stood still.
“I’m surprised you haven’t put the usual spell on him,” Peg told Edna, “to make him talk sense.”
“He’s an Aussie,” sighed Edna. “How could you possibly expect him to be sensible.”
“I’m not interested in Mandrake or cockatoos at the moment,” Rosie insisted. “Listen. Both Alice and the red cup have disappeared. Dickon is most certainly influenced by the shadow wizards, even though he’s a human. I think the entire village is under siege. Godwin seems to have been murdered in a very odd manner. Maybe the first sheriff too. None of that seems normal, and look how they all behaved in the tavern when we were there. Something is wrong.”
“Although the red spoon and toadstool disappeared long ago,” Edna said, “I would imagine there have been generations of the wiccan folk looking for both. But we did have the cup. Someone with access to the grave must have taken that.”
“Yes,” said Peg. “So someone from this house who saw where the cup was hidden.”
“And dug it up in the middle of the night?”
“No, who called it out with magic,” Rosie said. “The cup could just be summoned by anyone with the dark beginnings. The shadow will always fly to the call of another shadow.”
“So not just Alice and Boris,” Edna sighed. “We have another unpleasant soul in this house, though able to disguise the real shadow within.”
“Dickon couldn’t have known where we buried the cup,” Rosie said. “But I know he had it. The splashes of evil were right across his office.”
“Then we inspect every room in The Rookery,” said Peg. “No wiccan chooses to decorate his bedchamber with black paint in swirls and loops and splashes. They won’t like it, but it’s the easiest and quickest path.”
Rosie flew directly down to her own bedchamber and discovered a large yellow snake curled on her eiderdown. With no desire for more conversation, she wriggled into bed beside it, curled facing the opposite direction and soon drifted into sleep.
When she awoke the following morning, the snake had gone. She wondered for a brief moment whether this was a little odd, and perhaps it hadn’t been Whistle at all. It had, perhaps, been a genuine serpent which had luckily decided not to bite her in the night.
Taking breakfast, Mandrake flew over to the tree house and marched in to find Maggs sitting bleary-eyed, looking as though she hadn’t slept in a week.
“Breakfast,” said Mandrake, attempting to sound cheerful.
“I had another visitor last night,” sighed Maggs.
“Yes, they told me.” Mandrake poured her a cup of ale. “Rosie and Peg and Edna – delightful, all of them. Was there a problem?”
“Not at all,” Maggs told him. “They were lovely, and I had a wonderful evening until they left. But then I had another visitor.”
“Oh dear.” He guessed.
“It was an owl,” sighed Maggs. “Quite beautiful, very large – and extremely talkative.”
“Umm,” said Mandrake, drinking the ale himself.
The investigation of every bedchamber within The Rookery was not met with either polite acceptance, nor with success. Not one welcomed the three interfering biddies, and not one displayed a room of black splashes. Mandrake was with Maggs, so no one pushed into his room without his permission, but decided themselves that the killer could not possibly be him.
“To get hold of Maggs for himself?”
Rosie shook her head. “He didn’t even know Maggs until she came here.”
Sitting alone after midday dinner, Rosie leaned into deeper contemplation within a self-produced enchantment and sank ever-deeper until she felt herself positively drowning within the magic of the world beyond worlds.
No longer herself, she stretched into the floating colours, flying from lake to sky and sky to mountain. Beyond the mountain was the road of discovery. Sloping down from grass and rock, the road widened and its surface became a white mist of sweet knowledge. Travelling the road, Rosie felt nothing beneath her feet, and she floated, amazed, until she had passed with ease and entered challenge.
The way of challenge turned to a green mist, and its weight held, dragging downwards, holding to toes and legs.
Then, finally, the road seeped into the bog of difficulty. Each step demanded a struggle to pull one foot from the tugging squelch, and to set the other foot forwards. There was no longer a colour. The bog clamped and claimed, but Rosie continued to move forwards.
Finally, she came to the shadow.
There was no road. Within the shadows, there was only the clammy grasp of temptation. The pictures sprang, then faded.
Others leaked within her eyes, even when she banished them. The painful grip of long fingers brought the fall of coin, the sudden picture of gold, chests springing open. But once beyond the easiest of all temptations, she strode into the haunt of power, and the fingers grasped tighter.
Admiration and the envy of others tugged at her arms. The screaming adoration of the human masses clawed at her legs, and the calls of desire swam into her eyes. A king fell on his knees, gazing up with wonder. A great knight slowed his horse and flung down his sword, begging her to name him her hero. The pain of rejection burst like an explosion of stabbing knives, her head sobbed, and the tears rushed from her eyes until she was blind.
It was the temptation of love that stopped her, spinning her around and rejecting her as she tried, inept, to banish the temptation.
She saw the sweet smile of a mother leaping towards her, the arms of a father springing around in an embrace of kindness, warm breath in whispers of wonder, and then the light in the eyes of a man she had never met, and knew she never would.
Unable to continue, Rosie opened her eyes and was back in her own room at The Rookery. She had not come close to the revelation that she had hoped for, and knew no more of the red spoon and toadstool than she had before. She did not even know where she might find the red cup. The failure made her cry as the hope of love had done on the road to temptation.
Eleven
Mandrake said, “She knows. Oh yes, I’ve covered it. But she knows there’s something wrong. Murkey. Wanting to believe me doesn’t just make it happen.”
“Spondulix,” complained Edna, scratching her head beneath her brilliant red curls. “What happened? You didn’t produce a wine refill out of the air?”
“Or leap on her with kisses and cuddles and shout a spell to make her do the same?”
“Cabbage turned up,” Mandrake sighed, shaking his head. “She was looking for you, Rosie. Couldn’t find you anywhere, so called into the tree house. It was Splodge last time. Now poor Maggs thinks we have a garden full of demonic birds who talk.”
“Well, I suppose we do,” said Peg with a nose twitch.
“How did you explain it away? Rosie asked.
“Like last time,” Mandrake admitted, “which wasn’t very convincing. I said none of the birds could talk – naturally – it was her own dream, and confusion caused by – stress. Maybe even Godwin’s ghost. I think she’s terrified. Both talking birds and Godwin’s ghost are troubling thoughts.”
“I could deal with Godwin’s pathetic ghost,” Rosie said. “I’m sure I told all the birds to keep quiet. And what does Cabbage want?”
“Ask her,” Mandrake suggested. “I’m trying to deal with Maggs. How can I make her happy if she’s in a nightmare of confusion?”
“Tell her the truth,” said Rosie after a long pause, a deep breath and finally a shrug. “If she really does care for you, then perhaps she’ll understand. And if not, she can go back to Piddleton and tell her secret, but no one will believe her, and they’ll all think she’s gone bonkers.”
“I love the woman,” said Mandrake meekly. “I’ll try and tell her the truth without scaring the life out of her.”
“Take Rosie with you,” Peg suggested, but Rosie shook her head.
“I’m going to see Cabbage first. Then I have to visit Dickon.”
“I don’t want anyone with me,” sighed Mandrake. “But I should take something with me to show her. And it has to be something nice.”
Edna suggested, “Create a bunch of flowers and a vase to put them in. Singing flowers perhaps. She might like that.”
Opening the door of the tree house without locking it behind him, he discovered Maggs sitting at the table with her head in her hands and the signs of recent tears down her cheeks. She jumped up as he entered, and he flung his arms around her.
“You know, don’t you,” he murmured to one ear, “that I’m very much in love with you?”
Maggs blinked away the tears. “I do, and I don’t. Either you’re mad, or I am. And I’m frightened too. I’m beginning to think perhaps I did kill Godwin, but I’m too crazed to remember it. Is Godwin back to haunt me? It’s one disaster after another.” She gazed up at him, then looked away. “It was a miracle. To be saved by Rosie from the sheriff. I might have been hanged, and certainly arrested. But instead she brought me to this precious comfortable safety, demanded nothing in return and brought the most wonderful food I’ve ever tasted in my life.”
She laid her cheek on Mandrake’s chest. “Then you. Oh, I thought you were an even more wondrous miracle. Really, really, really all my dreams coming true.” She looked up again. “But it isn’t, is it? I’m just a mad woman. And I’ll never be normal again. Perhaps I never was, and that’s why Godwin beat me all the time.”
He let her finish, then swept her up in his arms, holding her tightly as if she weighed only as much as a feather from one of those talking birds. Then he sat on the well cushioned chair, keeping her snuggled on his lap and still within his unrelenting embrace.
“Listen, my love, and don’t be scared,” he murmured. “Not all magic is bad. Most is good, sweet, helpful and safe. You speak of miracles. Good magic can seem just like a miracle.”
“Magic?” she whispered, face white and cringing away.
Mandrake did not let her go. “Most folk with some magical powers can achieve very little. They have a count of two or three, even ten or fifteen. But with that they can just iron out a few wrinkles or improve a plate of stale bread into fresh bread and cheese.” He kissed her cheek with slow deliberation. “I can do more than that, my love.”
She shivered. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Am I frightening you?” he asked.
“You don’t,” she said. “But what you’re saying does.”
“Then watch,” he said, and without letting her go, he held up one index finger. “Cornflowers,” he said, “but larger.”
They folded outwards into the air, blue cascades growing and fluttering, then the ball of the cornflower, leaf and colour perfect, four large cornflowers waiting for water.
Once again Mandrake held up a finger. “Lilac blossom,” he called, “and blue roses, large as the cornflower.”
“There’s no such thing as a blue rose,” whispered Maggs, staring at the bobbing petals.
“And now,” Mandrake continued, “all into a large blue container, full of water which will keep all these flowers alive for a month.”
It happened before their eyes, and Maggs fell back into Mandrake’s embrace, closing her eyes. “I don’t believe it,” she said to his doublet lacing.
“What else would you like?” he asked, sending the vase of blue and lilac onto the table. “Some of our birds do talk, I’m afraid. They’re very friendly and can be helpful too. Of course, that’s only our regular residents. The other birds that fly by don’t talk at all. Just the odd chirp and tweet that we don’t understand. Now, my love, stop wriggling because I’m not letting you go. I won’t risk you running off until I’ve convinced you that everything is safe, especially me. So what would you like next?”
“I want you to kiss me properly,” she said. So he did.
Meanwhile Rosie flew up to the cavity below the thatch just over Peg’s bedchamber, and walked over to Cabbage, who was asleep, her head tucked beneath her wing. Rosie coughed.
“It’s all very well coming when I’m having nice dreams,” Cabbage muttered, her head reappearing. “But I won’t complain to my very favourite witch.”
Rosie smiled. “I apologise for interrupting your dreams,” she said. “But I was told you’d been looking for me last night?”
“It occurred to me,” she said, “that something bothered you concerning the third grave dug down there. For Boris Barnacle, if I remember rightly. Not that I ever liked him.”
Looking up at once, Rosie nodded. “Yes. You are quite astute, Cabbage, dear. What did you notice that I have not?”
“Oh, weeks ago,” Cabbage said, “and I t
hought nothing of it. I had just flown home with Dodger after the hunt and was entering the cavity here, when I looked down and saw something burrowing into that grave. Something so small I could not see it at first, but I do have excellent sight as you might have noticed. So I looked again and realised it was a Troilus bug. In other words, your dear mamma. I waited a very long time for the bug to reappear, but then I realised it was not returning the same way. Indeed, it continued to burrow, creating a very long, narrow tunnel below ground. The tunnel headed towards the village, but that is all I know. At the time I simply thought the beetle had found itself a warm home with the body of the wizard it had once known as a friend. But then I heard you speaking of the red cup and the shadow magic in Piddleton. So I thought it proper to tell you what I had seen.”
Leaning forwards and down a little, Rosie kissed the top of Cabbage’s feathered head. “Glorious,” she said. “Thank you very much indeed.”
She flew alone to the village, landing on the other side of the central green. The sun was slipping down towards the west, but it still sprang huge and golden in a cloudless sky. Rosie scurried around the little cottage belonging to Maggs, but found nothing of note. Nothing had been broken, no black stains littered inside or out, the chimney did not smoke, and the door was safely shut.
Rosie walked, heading back towards the sheriff’s office. This time the door was open but Dickon was not there. Nor were the black designs she had previously seen. The small room, it stools, table of papers and the stairs down to the cells were as clean as she had originally seen them before the shadows moved in. Assuming that Dickon had gone, as usual, to the Juggler and Goat, Rosie began to walk across the green. But then she saw Dickon walking towards her. His expression was a sullen scowl, and Rosie wondered if the shadow remained after all.