by R K Dreaming
Percy rubbed her eyes in exhaustion. Despite her solid night of sleep, she suddenly felt weary.
She needed a pick me up. She needed time to think and come up with a new idea.
Now she was in Whitechapel in East London, she was not much in the mood to all the way back to West London to get home again. And it would do her no good to be sulking around her house so that Jeeves and Mr Bramble would get worried and ask her too many questions.
She found herself heading on the tube again towards Tottenham Court Road station, which wasn’t very far. From there, she went to the narrow alley that led to the boundary of the Magicwild Market.
The tingle on her skin as she crossed over the perimeter into the market itself immediately enlivened her, making her feel like anything was possible.
She immediately knew she’d come to the right place. If anywhere was going to spark a brilliant idea, it was here.
Percy headed to Flaffiness Emporium, which had been her favorite shop as a child. She’d spent many an hour walking up and down the fascinating aisles, trying to persuade her mum to buy her everything her heart desired, a nanny meandering after the both of them, weighted down with bags.
When they had finished their shopping Gwendolyn had always treated Percy to a Flaffiness ice cream in the café inside, while the two adults caught up on gossip and rested their feet.
Now Percy spent an hour walking up and down the aisles trying to recreate that feeling from her childhood, buying herself whichever sweets took her fancy, marveling at the brand-new selections of toys that she was too old for.
There were sweets that Lucifer would love, and weird plants that Mr Bramble would be fascinated or outraged by, and books that Nan would want to buy every one of. All the colors and sights and sounds here had been invented to make people feel bouncy and light and free.
But instead of feeling happier, it only made her feel glum. The enormous shop was full of couples and families and teens with their friends. Percy’s eyes kept landing on parents with their young children wherever she looked, the little kids so excited just like Percy had once been herself. And then her mum had realized that Percy was never going to fulfil the role in life that the great and wonderful Gwendolyn Prince’s daughter was supposed to.
Percy had been so full of laughter and hope once, just like these children were now. How many of them would grow up to find the one thing they wanted most in all the world would never come into their reach? You couldn’t just buy it off a darn shelf.
Percy was beginning to suspect that Flaffiness Emporium magnified joy if you had it, but it magnified misery if you had that too.
Feeling dejected, and suddenly queasy from all of the chocolate and candy she had eaten, Percy left the shop. She took her photo out of her backpack and wandered the length of the main market road, asking people whether they had seen the green-haired man.
Now that cherubic looking Nan was no longer with her, people seemed to stare harder at Percy’s green hair, and scowled at the photograph.
“Why do you want to find him for?” one woman demanded. “That sort does no one any good!”
Before Percy could demand what sort, the woman had marched on, throwing Percy a reproachful look over her shoulder.
“Bad sort,” an elderly man with a massive great, white beard tutted, shaking his head at the young man in the photo is if he had personally offended him. “I wouldn’t bother looking if I were you.”
When she explained that the man in the photograph was her father, a fact which she was increasingly certain of even though she had no proof of it, the old man had said, “You’re better off without him, love. Probably gone off to his other family!”
“Why would you assume he’s got another family?” Percy demanded with a scowl.
The man gruffly said, “What do you expect? You’re here and he’s there. Get on with your life, girl. You can bet he is.” And he had marched off, looking angry, his beard trembling dangerously.
The kindest comments that Percy got were along the lines of, “You poor dear. He won’t come back you know. They never do. You’re better off forgetting all about it.”
Finally, getting nowhere, and thinking with annoyance that Nan had warned her this would be the case seeing as the picture was decades out of date, Percy gave up and stuffed the photograph back into her bag.
She traipsed into The Batty Budgie to get some treats for Lucky kitten. In the toy section she picked up a Magic-Mouse, a handful of Barmy Bug-Runners, and a Skittish-Skitter Spider for her to play with too.
She was heavily aware of the sense that her Saturday was flying by and she was wasting her time, but she still had no idea what to do. She supposed she could wait until tomorrow when Nan would help her think up what to do next, but that would mean wasting a whole day.
Percy stumped into The Handy Cabinet next, a shop that sold cauldrons and potion ingredients, struck with the idea that she might as well find out how many things in the witching world emitted clouds of doom.
She walked up and down the aisles of pickled slugs, and brine of speckled toad, and eye of newt, and powdered unicorn horn. The latter came in tiny jars that carried even tinier notes clarifying this was an artificial replacement rather than the real thing, but assuring the customer it worked just as well, which Percy very much doubted.
Not one thing had a cloud of doom on it. Not even the jars of vampire talon clippings. Percy picked one up, wondering if these were fake too, but the label assured Percy they were the real thing.
Percy found herself staring at a bunch of ready-made cleaning potions that encouraged witches and wizards not to Bumble like a Humble when doing their household chores. It struck her suddenly that Mrs Delancey was the odd one out.
Mrs Delancey, the Humble with a potion in her handbag.
Mrs Gooding said that the potion wasn’t a real love potion, and yet she had also said it had exactly the same ingredients as a real love potion. So where would Mrs Delancey get something like that?
Percy found herself wondering whether the potion really had been brewed up by a witch, but simply been botched. And why would Humble Mrs Delancey have needed to buy herself a love potion in the first place. Was it really because of Lucifer? Or was it because of someone else?
The longer she stood there staring at the cleaning potions, the more she was certain that the key to all this lay with Mrs Delancey. After all, Mrs Delancey had been the first one.
“Can I help you, love?” said one of the shop assistants, coming up behind Percy.
Percy turned to see an older witch staring at her suspiciously, as if Percy had been standing here trying to figure out how to steal a cleaning potion of all things.
Percy’s brain was wrapped up in her thoughts and unwilling to leave the little epiphany she’d just had, so she mumbled, “Er…er…”
The witch decided that Percy was too much of a dimwit to be a thief. She said impatiently, “When you’ve thought of what you want, give me a shout.”
“No wait!” said Percy, stopping the witch, who was already walking away.
Percy had thought of what it was that she wanted. She wanted to talk to Arthur Delancey about his mum. She wanted to visit Arthur Delancey’s house and take a look around it to find out what kind of person Mrs Delancey had really been.
But Arthur Delancey hated her now. He thought she had murdered his girlfriend, or at least tried to. He would never let her in.
The witch was looking at Percy expectantly.
“Er… My mum told me about a potion that you can use to look like someone else for a while,” said Percy trying to sound casual. “You don’t happen to sell something like that, do you?”
The witch’s eyes narrowed. “That’s a very complex potion,” she said. “You can buy the ingredients from here, but you’ll have to brew it up yourself.”
She pointedly looked at Percy’s pockets, in which there was no sign of a wand sticking out.
“But you sell ready-made potions,” said Percy po
inting at the cleaning ones. “Don’t you sell a ready-made version of what I want?”
The witch puffed up a couple of inches, looking offended. “We are a reputable establishment and we don’t sell anything like that, and certainly not to underage... witches.”
The way she said witches made it clear that she did not think that Percy was a witch.
“Can you make me one?” asked Percy. “For an extra fee?”
“I most certainly will not!” She marched off.
There was a chuckle behind Percy. It was another shop assistant, this one much younger than the other. She winked at Percy.
“I’ll tell you somewhere you can get what you want,” she said under her breath. “For a price.”
“How much?” Percy demanded bluntly.
“A piddlo.”
A piddlo was a quarter gold, worth more than this witch earned in an hour.
Percy raised an eyebrow at her.
The witch raised an eyebrow back. She didn’t look much older than Percy, but she was eyeing Percy up with a very shrewd look.
She turned away from Percy and pretended to tidy up the rows of bottles on the next shelf.
From out of the side of her mouth, she said quietly, “You’ll need much more than a piddlo to buy what you want. Do want to know where it is or not?”
Percy handed her a thingo, double the gold that the witch had asked for. The witch pocketed it as quick as a flash, and told Percy in a whisper exactly which disreputable establishment she could find what she wanted in.
Percy left the store and made her way down to the dark and twisty alley the witch had told her of. It went off the main market road, and was full of shabby-looking witches and wizards and hags who stared at Percy rather menacingly. Their shrewd gazes assessed her expertly and Percy suspected too many of them reached the conclusion that she was a magicless Meek, helpless as a kitten.
She glared back at them, reminding herself that she was the daughter of a Lord of Hell, and that was what she would give them if they came for her. She tried not to remember how badly a mere hockey stick wielded by a schoolgirl succubus had hurt.
Channeling her former badass self seemed to work, because none of the disreputable patrons of the alley chose to bother her.
When Percy got to the store that she had been told about, she found it was nothing more than one small dusty and dark room. Various books had been displayed in the window as if to give is semblance of normality, but inside there was not a single shelf of goods.
Behind the counter, a woman was sitting on a chair and looked like she had not stood up for a customer all day. As Percy approached her, she rose rather creakily, as if her bones hurt. She had on a pointed witch’s hat from which hung a veil that covered her face. It gave her an ominous air.
When Percy told her what she wanted, the witch demanded five fat gold coins for it, which was an astonishing amount. Percy haggled her down to three.
“I could make it myself for a fraction of that and you know it,” Percy said firmly. “Is just that I haven’t the… er… time.”
She vaguely recalled her mother mentioning that this particular potion took more than a month to brew. Or at least she hoped it was this potion. It must have been, because the witch disappeared behind a curtain into a dark room.
She didn’t come out for a full twenty minutes, which made Percy worry. When she eventually did return, she handed over a grimy bottle containing a thick, gloopy, disgusting looking potion that could have been anything.
“Popular one, is it?” said Percy sourly, wondering how long this potion must have been lying in some miserable corner if it had taken the witch twenty minutes to find it.
“More than you know,” said the witch in her cracked voice. “A good seller, that one. Thought I was fresh out.”
Percy scrutinized it as if she knew exactly what she was looking for. From the corner of her eyes she watched the witch for any signs of uneasiness, but the witch seemed fully confident that her product was exactly what she had said it was.
The witch cackled an unpleasant laugh. “I always give my customers exactly what they want,” she said almost arrogantly, her voice hoarse and deep. “What’s the point if they never come back with all their lovely gold? And you will be back, little birdie. I know it.”
“Is that right?” said Percy trying to sound cocky. “If I find out you’ve duped me, you can be sure I will be back!”
She marched off, and the witch called behind her, “All you have to do before you drink it is add a body part from the person you want to become. And stir it well.”
Percy shuddered. Body part? Surely the woman was exaggerating.
When Percy got home and called Nan, she found out that indeed the veiled witch had not been exaggerating.
Nan had listened to Percy with astonishment about her plan, and said faintly, “That’s… that’s… Tell me you’re not really going to do it?”
“It’s all I’ve got left,” said Percy. “Now, was that witch being serious about the body parts?”
“You only need a hair. Or a pinch of tears or dried skin or toenail clippings would do,” said Nan. “So don’t be thinking about going around chopping off people’s fingers.”
“Oh, ha ha!”
“I’m glad you’re laughing, because I am not,” said Nan.
“Excellent,” said Percy. “Are you going to come with me?”
“The hell I will,” said Nan. “I’m not getting involved in that. You’re mad.”
11. The Wake
Nan stuck to her threat. The next morning she turned up to Percy’s house, determined to persuade Percy not to go through with her plan.
Percy, who had been in the middle of breakfast, hustled Nan up to her bedroom, where Jeeves would not be able to eavesdrop.
“You are going to get in so much trouble,” Nan said. “If you get caught, the Eldritch Council will consider it proof that you were trying to sabotage their investigation! This time they really do think it was attempted murder, and they think that you are the attempted murderer!”
Her voice went really squeaky at that last part, and she looked like she still couldn’t believe the mess that Percy had managed to get herself into.
“I didn’t mean for it to happen,” said Percy. “Delphine trapped me. And I still don’t understand why she did it. She must be mad. She didn’t seem mad, did she?”
“One day!” moaned Nan. “One day after you promised me you’d stay out of this whole affair you make it worse! Your current biggest hater is in a coma and they think you’re the one who pushed her. It’s because of Lucifer, isn’t it? You’ve been hanging around with him too often, and his bad karma has rubbed off on you.”
Percy groaned. “Stop talking about bad karma,” she said. “That’s what Mr Bramble was saying about Lucky kitten and refusing to look after her. I left her with him for one day, and when I came back the poor thing was frantic. Mr Bramble said some other cat’s been lurking around the place and terrifying her!”
“Will you stop harping on about the kitten and pay attention to what I am saying?” Nan complained.
“But it’s so cute,” Percy wheedled, trying to soften Nan up. She had decided what she was going to do and she was sick of hearing Nan trying to talk her out of it.
The kitten did not currently looked terrified. She was charging around Percy’s bedroom, happily chasing the Skitter Spider which seem to be her favorite of her new toys. Percy and Nan sat on the floor and watched.
The Skitter Spider scuttled across the floor with its little legs clicking, and found refuge in a crack under Percy’s chest of drawers. From there its eyes blinked a red light, taunting the kitten, who tried to swipe it out with her paws.
Percy tugged the kitten’s tail playfully and the kitten immediately sprang around and swiped at Percy’s fingers. Laughing, Percy scooped the kitten up against her chest and cuddled her. The kitten promptly climbed onto Percy’s shoulders, on which she liked to rest.
Str
oking the kitten’s soft fur, Percy suddenly had an idea.
“I’ll return the kitten!” she exclaimed.
“Huh?” said Nan. “To where?”
“To Arthur Delancey of course.”
“But I thought you liked the kitten!”
“I do. And I’m not giving her back to that git Arthur really. But I can say that I’ve come to give her back. I’ll go there as one of his neighbors, and say that I found the kitten in the neighborhood. He might not know that his mum bought the kitten to school that day. For all he knows, it is running around the neighborhood! It’s the perfect plan!”
Only part of her plan that had stumped her was who she would be when she turned up at Arthur’s house. He was smart and stubborn, and she doubted he would just let anybody into his home. She needed a reasonable cover. And it had to be someone whose DNA she could get access to.
Percy stood up and began to pace. The kitten sprang off her shoulder and went to chase the spider again, who had come out of hiding.
“Now all I need to do is go to his neighborhood and find whichever neighbor is nearest,” said Percy brightly. “How hard can that be?”
Nan dropped her head into her hands. “I’m not going to be able to persuade you otherwise, am I?” she said. And then she brightened. “You don’t know where he lives!” she said excitedly, clearly thinking that this was going to stump Percy.
And indeed Percy was stumped. But Percy got out her phone and searched for Arthur Delancey’s name and tracked down his social media accounts.
He was a handsome and popular boy, and it turned out she was right in thinking his accounts were open for public viewing.
She showed one of his posts to Nan. “Look, it’s the details for his mum’s funeral. See where they’re holding the wake? That has to be his address. And it’s today! It’s perfect!”
Nan looked even more horrified. “You can’t go to his mum’s funeral,” she said in tones of despair.
“I’m not going to the funeral. Just the wake,” said Percy reasonably. “And anyway, he’s put it up online, which means he wants people to come. I bet there’ll be people from school there. He won’t notice one extra. I mean, of course his neighbors are going to come, right?”