by K. E. Mills
“Get closer!” hissed Bibbie, handily muffled by the continued applause.
Melissande glared at her. “I can’t,” she muttered. “Not without making a scene.”
The judges were already inspecting the first simpering contestant’s offerings. Ceremoniously they sliced into an oozing jam roll with a large silver knife supplied for the purpose, popped bite-size portions into their eager mouths and masticated solemnly, like judicial cows. There followed a great deal of nodding and eyebrow-waggling, and the furtive recording of notes in official notebooks. Next they partook of cherry tart, and after that blueberry scones. Judging concluded, they proceeded to the next contestant and began assessing the relative merits of a custard flan.
“This is no good, Mel. We’re running out of time,” whispered Bibbie, as the crowd commented and tittered and passed judgement on the cakes they were never going to taste for themselves. “I’m going to create a diversion.”
Alarmed, Melissande shook her head. She didn’t dare remonstrate aloud because the ladies crowded beside and behind them, many of whose silk-covered chests were decorated with enamelled chocolate éclair pins, were clearly irritated by the non-cake based conversation and were muttering and frowning and threatening an all-out protest.
Naturally, Bibbie paid no attention to that. Instead she closed her eyes, wiggled her fingers, and waited.
Nothing happened.
“Damn, my thaumics are fritzed,” she whispered. “It’s the sprite. Unlike Millicent’s cakes I’m too close to the little darling.”
“Then what are we going to do?” Melissande whispered back. She darted a glance along the row of tables. The judges, having finished with the second contestant’s offerings, were now sampling the third contestant’s vividly-hued pumpkin cheesecake. “Permelia looks ready to burst into flames.”
Bibbie flapped her hands, heedless of the annoyed “hushes” and “well, reallys” and “disgracefuls” being uttered all around them. “I don’t know, Mel! You’re the organised one, you think of something!”
Think of something? Think of what? What could she possibly think of that would save them from this horrendous debacle? This was all Bibbie’s fault, volunteering the agency’s aid without consultation, practically promising that awful Permelia Wycliffe they’d save her from Millicent Grimwade’s unhinged machinations.
I never should’ve agreed to this. I should’ve known it’d go arse over teakettle.
“Blimey,” said Reg, rattling her tail feathers. “So it’s up to me to save the day again, is it? That’d be right. Fine, you two. Listen to me. As soon as I’ve got everyone’s attention, someone shove that bloody birdcage under Millicent Grimwade’s table, right? That should get our invisible friend close enough to trigger the hex in the cakes. If there’s a hex in the cakes, that is. And if there isn’t… run.”
Before Melissande could stop her Reg uttered a piercing shriek and launched herself off Bibbie’s shoulder to fly in manic circles beneath the chamber’s ceiling. Still shrieking, she flapped round and round at speed, eliciting ladylike cries of fear and alarm from the startled contestants and spectators below.
“Quick!” said Bibbie. “While the old cat’s not looking at us!”
With a helpful shove from Monk’s mad sister, Melissande ducked awkwardly under the scarlet cordon-rope, one hand tugging at the birdcage round her neck. The velvet choker gave way and she thrust the sprite beneath the long lace cloth covering Millicent Grimwade’s table.
Mission accomplished, she staggered back under the cordon-rope and looked up. “Done!” she shouted, hoping Reg could hear her over the increasingly agitated cries from the crowd.
With one last piercing shriek Reg stopped imitating a crazed falcon and instead dived through the nearest open window. Three determined strokes of her wings and she was gone from sight, lost among the city’s prosperous rooftops.
“Gosh,” said Bibbie, eyes wide with repressed hilarity. “She’s better than a circus, isn’t she?”
“Never mind Reg,” said Melissande, staring at Millicent Grimwade’s cakes. “Just cross your fingers that this actually works!”
Even as she spoke, the lace cloth rippled as though a breeze had sprung up beneath it. On the table’s top, the three cake-laden plates jittered. Millicent Grimwade leapt back with a startled cry.
The plates began to dance in earnest. Squeals of surprise and consternation went up as spectator after spectator noticed blobs of over-whipped cream fly into the air, primrose-yellow icing turn an embarrassed vermilion and all the chocolate smothering the chocolate log begin to curdle. One of the Invigilators marched along the row of staring, whispering contestants to investigate, wooden spoon at the ready.
“What is this?” she demanded, goggling at the metamorphosing cakes as they shimmied back and forth across the lace tablecloth. “Miss Grimwade, please explain!”
“I—I can’t!” said ashen-faced Millicent Grim-wade. “It’s a trick—it’s foul play—it’s—it’s—” Staring wildly about her, she caught sight of Permelia Wycliffe’s expression of undisguised triumph. “It’s sabotage!” she cried and pointed an unsteady finger. “That woman has sabotaged me! She’s pea-green with envy because I’ve beaten her at every turn and now she’s trying to steal the grand prize. But the Golden Whisk is mine, I tell you! Mine!”
Uproar as Permelia advanced upon Millicent Grimwade with dreadful solemnity, Eudora Telford bleating loyally in her wake. The judges scattered like lawn bowls before her barely-restrained wrath. Helpless, because Permelia Wycliffe was Guild president and no-one in her right mind smacked the president with a wooden spoon, not if they wanted to keep their prestigious position, the Invigilators dithered on the fringes of the fray. And all around them the spectators gasped and wittered and repeated the dreadful accusations until the Town Hall chamber sounded like a henhouse routed by a fox.
Now the transformed cakes were leaping up and down as though they’d been imbued with unnatural, frantic life.
“Stop it! Stop it!” sobbed Millicent Grimwade. “Permelia Wycliffe, I demand that you stop this sabotage at once!”
“And I demand that you confess you’ve been cheating, Millicent Grimwade!” cried Permelia Wycliffe, majestic in her triumph. “You’ve hexed your cakes so they’ll win the Golden Whisk!”
Millicent Grimwade’s hatchet face flushed as vermilion as her pound cake. “How dare you? I have done no such thing! How could I? I’m not a witch.”
“Then you hired a witch to do it for you!” Permelia retorted. “Or a wizard. It’s plain for all to see, so don’t go trying to split hairs now you—you termagant!”
Highly entertained, Melissande felt a sharp elbow-nudge in her ribs and looked at Bibbie. “Don’t do that, this is just getting interesting.”
“I’ll say,” said Bibbie, her sharkish grin on full display, and unfolded her fingers. In the palm of her hand the green hex-detecting crystal pulsed a deep and vibrant black. “Looks like we’ve got her, Miss Cadwallader.”
“Indeed it does, Miss Markham,” she replied, feeling an equally sharkish smile spread across her own face. “Don’t look now, but I think that’s your cue.”
“I say that you have done this dreadful thing!” Permelia Wycliffe continued in her vindicated glory. “And not just today. You’ve been cheating all year! You, Millicent Grimwade, have single-handedly brought the Baking and Pastry Guild into dire disrepute! By the power vested in me as president I demand that you hand over your Guild badge at once! You are a disgrace to the chocolate éclair!”
“I’ll do no such thing!” cried Millicent Grimwade. She was practically panting. “You can’t prove I’ve cheated, Permelia Wycliffe. You can’t prove a thing!”
“She might not be able to, Miss Grimwade,” said Bibbie, ducking under the scarlet cordon-rope. “But I can. And I will.” She held up the black crystal in full sight of the crowd. “Do you see this?” she demanded in a loud and carrying voice, brandishing the crystal overhead. The closest o
f the deliciously shocked spectators craned their necks for a closer look. “It’s a hexometer, ladies. Designed to register thaumaturgic activity. If there isn’t any in the immediate vicinity it’s a pleasant pale green. But if there is it turns black. And as you can see, this crystal is indeed black.” She spun round to face a shocked and gibbering Millicent Grimwade. “As black as the heart of a woman who’d stoop to illegal thaumaturgy to win the Golden Whisk!”
A fresh outcry, as the direness of Bibbie’s claims registered with every Guild member in the room.
Despite the desperately dancing plates on her table, which was starting an alarming shimmy in counterpoint, Millicent Grimwade managed to rally. “And who are you, pray tell? Some hussy Permelia’s dragged in off the street?”
“Hussy?” said Bibbie, milking her moment. “How dare you, madam? I am Miss Emmerabiblia Markham, one third of Witches Incorporated, the new witching locum agency recently opened in town. No task too large or too small, reasonable rates, absolute discretion guaranteed. Unmasking thaumaturgical villainy is our business and you, Millicent Grimwade, may consider yourself unmasked!”
Still Millicent Grimwade stood her ground. “Poppycock!” she retorted. “Do you think we’re going to take one look at your silly little crystal and believe that a woman of my social stature would stoop to cheating? That my Guild sisters would take your word over mine, some upstart young person who dares to show her ankles in public? Do you?”
As Bibbie stared, momentarily silenced, Melissande shoved under the scarlet cordon-rope and ranged herself at Bibbie’s side.
“Yes!” she said, in a loud, commanding voice. “Because those ankles belong to none other than the great-niece of former Guild President Antigone Markham!”
Outright chaos ensued. The judges shouted, the shrieking Invigilators waved their wooden spoons, Eudora Telford bleated her support, Permelia Wycliffe demanded Millicent Grimwade’s confession and Millicent Grimwade demanded her presidential resignation in return. Not a single woman in the chamber kept her opinion to herself. The noise was so loud the windows started to vibrate.
And at the height of the uproar… Millicent Grimwade’s hexed cakes exploded.
“Well,” said Bibbie into the ringing silence, flicking a blob of chocolate log off the end of her nose. “I suppose that’s one way of winning the argument.”
Everyone within twenty feet of Millicent’s table was now wearing a sticky souvenir from the most exciting Golden Whisk competition in the Baking and Pastry Guild’s long and chequered history.
“Urrrgghhh…” said Millicent Grimwade, dripping gooseberry sponge, and fainted theatrically onto the floor.
Which was a signal for the room to erupt into fresh cacophony. Ignoring the outcry, Permelia Wycliffe stepped over Millicent Grimwade’s prostrate body to snatch Bibbie’s chocolate-daubed hands in a convulsive clasp. Incredibly, she seemed on the verge of tears. It made her all of a sudden more human. Less dislikeable.
“Oh, thank you, Miss Markham. Thank you.”
Reprehensible Bibbie grinned. “You’re welcome, Miss Wycliffe. We guardians of the Baking and Pastry Guild have to stick together, after all.”
Permelia Wycliffe leaned close, still clutching, her black silk-clad bosom painted with sloppy vermilion icing. “I must speak to you on another matter, Miss Markham,” she said, eyes narrowed with purpose. “Now that I know I can trust you implicitly. The Wycliffe honour is at stake and I feel you might be my only hope.”
Smeared with cream and bits of gooseberry, Melissande turned away from incoherently gushing Eudora Telford, determined to step in before Bibbie had the bright idea of volunteering their unpaid services in the name of Baking and Pastry Guild sisterhood.
“I’m sure it sounds most serious, Miss Wycliffe,” she said briskly. “And of course Witches Inc. would be only too pleased to undertake any commission on your behalf. Perhaps we might discuss the particulars tomorrow morning, at ten?” She fished in her reticule for the account she’d prepared last night, and held it out. “When you come by the office to settle today’s successfully concluded assignment?”
Permelia Wycliffe stared at her blankly for a moment, then nodded and took the sealed envelope. “Why, er, yes. Yes, certainly.” She turned. “You will be in attendance, won’t you, Miss Markham?”
“We’ll both be there, Miss Wycliffe,” said Melissande firmly. “The agency is our joint endeavour.”
Permelia Wycliffe drew breath to say something blighting, but before things could go from wonderful to woeful she was swept away by a gaggle of voluble Invigilators and various other agitated Guild members.
Melissande felt a plucking at her stained sleeve, and turned. Oh, dear. “Yes, Miss Telford?”
“I must go, Your Highness. Permelia will need me,” Eudora Telford whispered. Tears sparkled in her faded brown eyes. “I just wanted to thank you, again. This was so important to her… and I couldn’t help.”
Honestly, she really was the soggiest woman. “It was my pleasure, Miss Telford.”
“Gosh,” said Bibbie, emerging from under Millicent Grimwade’s table with the sprite trap as Eudora scuttled after her friend. “So that’s another job for Witches Inc., eh? Hmmm, didn’t someone recently say that using Monk’s interdimensional escapee to solve the Case of the Cheating Cake Cook might well work out to our advantage? Who could that have been, I wonder?”
Melissande sighed. “Yes, yes, rub it in, why don’t you?”
“Don’t worry, I will,” said Bibbie, grinning, the sprite trap dangling on the end of one careless finger. “I’m going to rub it in until—”
“I say! I say!” an excited voice called out. “Can you look this way?”
“What?” said Melissande, turning. “I know that voice! It’s—”
And then she was blinded by a flash of thaumically-enhanced light as the appalling photographer from the Times assaulted her yet again with his camera.
A tide of red and righteous wrath rose within her. “You! What are you doing here? Give me that camera, you revolting little man!”
The photographer yelped and ran. Hurdling the still-prostrate Millicent Grimwade, scattering spectators like skittles, she chased the mingy weasel out of the chamber, down the Town Hall steps and into the busy carriage-filled street.
“That’s right, you little rodent!” she bellowed after him. “Run, go on! And just you keep on running, you hear? Keep on running and don’t look back!”
“Now, now,” said Reg, landing on her shoulder in a fluttering of brown-and-black feathers. “That’s not very nice of you, ducky. I mean, in a roundabout way he did get us this job.”
Hotly aware of the stares and imprecations she was collecting from various shocked pedestrians and carriage-drivers, Melissande leapt back onto the sidewalk and lifted her chin, refusing to be embarrassed. “I don’t care. It’s an invasion of privacy, that’s what it is. He’s a weasel and a toad and I’ve half a mind to slap Millicent Grimwade silly with a soggy cooked noodle until she gives up the name of the witch or wizard who devised that hex of hers. Could be I might have some business for them. There’s a certain camera I need to futz with.”
“No, don’t do that,” said Monk, behind her. “Black market thaumaturgy is kept strictly hush-hush. If you stick your nose in I’ll have to report you to the Department and that could get a bit awkward. And speaking of awkward, Mel, what have you done with my sprite?”
Melissande spun on her heel. “Monk? What are you doing here?”
“Reg came and got me,” he said, his eyes warm, his expression guarded. “Now can I have my sprite back, please? We’re up to our armpits in a controlled thaumic inversion back in the lab, and Macklewhite won’t cover my absent arse forever.”
“The wretched thing’s inside,” she said, desperately attempting to recover her poise. If only she wasn’t wearing quite so much whipped cream…
“Inside?” Monk repeated, horrified. “What do you mean, inside? You mean inside the Town Hall? Where
people can see it? Mel, what were you thinking?”
“I wasn’t!” she said hotly. “This was all your mad sister’s idea! So if you want to shout at someone I strongly suggest you shout at her!”
Monk scrubbed a distracted hand over his face. “Mmm. Yes. That never turns out well for me.”
“And you think this conversation is destined for a happy ending?”
“Quit while you’re ahead, sunshine,” said Reg, snickering. “Want me to go and fetch Mad Miss Markham?”
They stared at her in mutual dismay. “Absolutely not!”
Reg sniffed. “Suit yourselves.”
Melissande watched her flap away, then sighed. “Wait here, Monk. I’ll fetch Bibbie and your precious sprite.”
But there was no need, for as she turned to trudge back into the Town Hall Bibbie came out with the deactivated sprite trap.
“There you are!” said Monk, wrathfully advancing. “Bibbie, are you completely cracked?”
Ignoring the question, his sibling thrust the seemingly-empty birdcage at him. “Here’s your sprite, Monk. Lucky for you it came in handy or I might’ve had to devise a truly awful payback hex. As things stand, we’ll call us even.”
“Even?” he said, flicking on the etheretic normaliser. “Not bloody likely!”
“Honestly, it’s in there, Monk,” said Bibbie, with unrestrained sisterly scorn. “Do you really think I’d—oh.”
Oh was right. The interdimensional sprite was puddled on the bottom of the birdcage, its only sign of life a faint, pulsating blue twitch.
Melissande stared at it, aghast. “Oh yes? My imagination, was it? I said the thing didn’t look very well, didn’t I say that? But no-one ever listens to me. Just because I’m not a thaumaturgical genius I get ignored!”
It was true. Bibbie was ignoring her now. “You’d better do something, Monk. If the stupid thing dies it’ll be your fault.”
“My fault?” He looked in danger of falling to the pavement in an apoplectic fit. “Bugger that, Bibbie! If you’d done what I asked in the first place and brought me the damned sprite as soon as you caught it—”