by Sam Short
“Nobody’s enjoying any meal until that brother of mine gets here,” said Mum, diverting the conversation from the subject of murder. “Trust him to be late to his own welcome meal!”
“He’ll be here soon enough,” said Granny. “Brian would never miss free food without a bloody good reason. He’s probably got stuck in traffic.”
Barney sat to my right, and I gasped as his hand tightened on my bare thigh beneath the table. There were better ways for a man to let a woman know he was interested in her than groping her at a family meal, and I lifted my hand in readiness to deliver the slap which would indicate to Barney Dobkins that he’d chosen the wrong method to woo me. My hand faltered inches from Barney’s face as his mouth opened and he made a sound which attracted the attention of everyone around the table.
“What’s wrong, Barney?” I said, worried the gargling in his throat and the tightening grip of his fingers on my leg were symptoms of some sort of seizure, maybe induced by the trauma of what he’d witnessed in the field earlier that day.
“Oh no,” said Willow. “Oh no!”
Granny and Mum both turned to look over their shoulders as Barney pointed a trembling finger at the lounge doorway. The deep humming sound that filled the room told me precisely what was happening before I dared to look for myself. A portal to the haven was opening, but as everybody in the room with magical powers was seated safely at the table, it could only mean one thing — it was an incoming portal, and judging by the colour of the light that filled the doorway, there could only be one person who had activated it. Uncle Brian.
The colour of a haven portal was said to reflect the personality of the person who’d conjured it, and the vivid lilac glow that bathed the kitchen in bright light, was certainly a reflection of my uncle’s personality.
The doorway quivered and creaked, and the light grew brighter as the throbbing hum grew louder. Barney did his best impression of a fish out of water, and his fingers hurt my thigh as they dug deep into muscle. His other hand shook as he pointed at the doorway, and a sliver of drool hung from his bottom lip. Poor Barney. He’d already been victim to a magic spell earlier in the day, seen a dead body, and was about to meet my Uncle Brian. How much more could one mortal take in one day?
Two matching green suitcases appeared from the shimmering pool of light, and the disembodied voice of my uncle echoed around the kitchen, throbbing in perfect harmony with the spell. “Only me-ee! Anybody home?”
His belly emerged before the rest of his body, and Barney released my thigh from his grip as he stood up slowly and picked up a steak knife from the table, holding it in front of him as Brian’s grinning face emerged.
“Who’s the ginger ninja with the knife?” said Brian, dropping his cases and removing his hat. “He could do somebody an injury. Oooh, you’ve got your best china on the table, Maggie!”
“Brian!” said Granny, standing and taking the bright blue Trilby from her son’s outstretched hand. “My first born! How are you, my sweet angel?”
Brian wrapped Granny in his arms, and Barney waved the knife in erratic circles as Granny led her son towards the empty seat at the head of the table.
“What are you doing, Brian?” said Mum, taking her brother’s herringbone tweed jacket from him, and tossing it onto the rocking chair in the corner, next to the fireplace. “You said you were coming by car! You know how dangerous it is to attempt a reverse portal, you could have ended up anywhere!”
That was true. It was brave witch indeed who conjured up a portal from the haven to a place they hadn’t entered the magical dimension from. Witches could utilise any entrance in our world to use as an anchor point for a portal into the haven, but it was standard, and safe, practice to use the same portal you’d arrived through as an exit point. Conjuring a portal to a place you hadn’t arrived from was tempting fate — a witch could end up anywhere if they couldn’t perfectly picture the place they wanted to arrive at in their mind’s eye. One witch had caused widespread panic, and a half-day for the staff at a hardware store, when her portal had inadvertently opened in a display door as a salesman pointed out the finer points of the brass fittings to a young couple hoping to upgrade their new home.
“I didn’t fancy driving,” explained Brian, “and anyway, I’ve stood in this kitchen enough times to know I can safely open a portal in it.”
“Erm…” I said, laying a reassuring hand on Barney’s arm. “There’s more to worry about than how Uncle Brian got here.” I jerked my thumb at Barney. “What about him?”
Brian leaned across the table and took the knife from Barney’s shaking hand. “Doesn’t he know we’re witches?” he said with a smile. “How exciting! It’s been a long time since I’ve seen that look on somebody’s face! Look, he’s terrified.” He softened his tone. “Don’t be scared,” he said, “we don’t bite… unless you want us to!”
Granny giggled and Barney gurgled.
“Oh, Brian!” said Granny. “It’s so good to have you home. It’s about time we had somebody with a sense of humour around here again. How are you, my beautiful strapping boy?”
I jerked my thumb at Barney again, who’d begun sweating. “Erm… what about Barney? He looks very peaky.”
“Never mind him,” said Mum, “we’ll sort him out in a moment. One of us will cast a spell on him, and he’ll be convinced Brian arrived by taxi — as he should have if he was too lazy to drive.”
Brian sat down and stuffed a napkin into the collar of his perfectly pressed shirt. “I’m not lazy — I’m hungry,” he declared. “I haven’t eaten since four.”
“Forget your stomach, uncle Brian,” I said, beginning to anger. “There’s a man standing next to me in fear for his life. Will somebody please help him?”
Willow stood up and raised her hand. “I’ll do it,” she said. “I’ll use the same spell I used on him this morning.”
Barney turned his head slowly and stared at me with pleading eyes. “What’s going on, Penny?” he said.
“Sit down, Willow,” said Granny, pushing her seat alongside Brian’s and placing an empty glass in front of him. “You can’t use the same spell on him twice in the same day. You’ll fry his wiring. Maggie, you do it, I’m sure Penelope doesn’t want to hex her beau.” She tapped Brian’s empty glass with a long fingernail. “Somebody fetch me a bottle of Wickford Headbanger. My little man looks thirsty.”
Wickford Headbanger was the town brewery’s most infamous and strongest beer. It had won awards all over Britain and was rumoured to be a cure for bunions and an elixir for dying plants. I’d once poured a little into one of my mother’s dried out and neglected basil plants, but rather than bringing it back to full health, the plant had immediately wilted into total oblivion. My mother was sure the sound we’d heard had been the wind blowing under the kitchen door, but I was convinced it had been a botanical sigh of acceptance as the plant had finally been able to give up its battle with life.
“That would be splendid,” said Brian. “Fetch that tall ginger chap one too. He looks like his whistle needs wetting.”
Brian’s plump red face widened into a toothy grin, and sparks of rage blossomed in the deepest pit of my stomach. I gritted my teeth and stared at my uncle through eyes which twitched with anger. “His name is Barney,” I hissed, “and he deserves your respect, not your ridicule. Can’t you see how scared he is?”
Barney slumped into his seat and stared up at me. “Who are you, Penny?” he said. “And why is that fat impeccably dressed man making fun of me?”
“Have a drink, Barney,” I said. “You’re in shock.” I looked around the table. “Okay,” I said. “It’s obviously only me and Willow who care about how Barney’s feeling. You three don’t seem to give a damn that Barney’s witnessing a dysfunctional witch family having dinner, so I’ve made a decision. I’m telling Barney all about us, and no-one is going to cast a spell on him to make him forget. He deserves to know the truth after what he’s been through today.”
Granny tit
tered under her breath and poured Brian’s beer into his glass. “You enjoy good head, don’t you, son?” she said as froth rose up the walls of the glass.
“I love a good head, Mother! A good head on my beer! Good grief, sometimes I wonder if you know what you’re saying.”
Granny smiled. “Maggie, cast a spell on young PC Dobkins would you. Penelope’s right, he shouldn’t be witnessing this.”
Mum waved an idle hand in front of her, and blue sparks danced at her fingertips.
Barney made a squeak like a balloon vomiting air, and I placed a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t worry,” I said. “You’ll be okay. Nobody’s going to hurt you.”
Mum pressed her finger and thumb together, but before she could click them and cast her spell, a swell of rising energy rushed through my body which exited my body through the fingertips of both hands. “I said no spells!” I shouted, crockery and cutlery shaking on the tabletop as magic streamed from me and counteracted Mum’s spell with a loud cracking sound which made her shriek.
Mum shook her hand in the air as if she’d been burnt, and her sparks fizzled out. Granny stood up, and Brian gazed at me with a nervous respect. My sister placed her hand in mine as I stumbled backwards, and Barney finally let out his fear in a scream which hurt my ears.
“Where on earth did you learn that?” said Granny. “That was real magic right there!”
“I don’t know,” I said, my eyes sliding closed with the sort of heavy sleepiness I hadn’t experienced since I’d had my first alcoholic drink. What I did know, though, as I gave myself to sleep, was that I knew how to open a portal in a doorway.
I’d been given my entry spell to the haven.
Chapter Eight
I woke to the gentle touch of Susie’s hand on mine and the rancid stench of Boris’s brandy breath burning my nostrils. Rosie licked my arm and I tickled her behind the ear.
“What happened?” I said, squeezing Susie’s fingers and pushing Boris away from my face with my free hand. I recognised the low white ceiling above me and the softness of the mattress below me. The picture of Granny, Mum and Willow on the wall to my right confirmed it. I was on my boat, in my bedroom. The unmistakeable sound of the bird dawn chorus outside told me I’d been asleep for a while. “How did I get here?” I asked, propping myself up on an elbow. I was certain I hadn’t so much as tasted a Wickford Headbanger at the meal, and the headache I had was not a hangover. “I remember what happened at the dinner table, but then everything’s a blank.”
“You passed out,” said Susie, moving aside as I swung my legs out of bed. “After you cast your spell. Willow said she’d never seen anything like it, and Barney was worried sick about you. He carried you onto the boat and wanted to stay with you until you woke up, but he had to go to work early this morning. The police are searching the field that Gerald was murdered in for clues.”
“Where’s Willow?” I said, the smell of bacon being fried giving me a clue.
“Making breakfast,” said Boris, “she was very worried about you so we gave her something to do, although I’m beginning to regret it. She tried to grill my bacon. She said it was more healthy, or some such hippy nonsense. I had quite the argument with her, didn’t I, Susie?”
Susie sighed. “Yes, Boris, you did, and the language you used made Barney blush.”
I stared at Boris. “You spoke in front of Barney?” I said. “So he still knows we’re witches? Mum didn’t cast a spell on him to make him forget when I passed out?”
Susie passed me my dressing gown, and I slipped it over my thigh length sleeping shirt. I hoped it had been Susie or Willow who had undressed me, and not Barney, or goddess forbid, Boris. I was sure his hooves couldn’t have undone the laces on my boots, but I wasn’t convinced he couldn’t have pulled my dress over my head.
“Barney knows everything,” said Susie. “Willow stopped anyone from casting a spell on him and he’s taking the whole thing remarkably well. Apart from when Boris first spoke to him of course. He was okay after a glass of brandy though.”
“I’ve never seen such a tall man fall over,” said Boris. “It was quite spectacular. Quite beautiful, really — he reminded me of a marionette at the ends of a master puppeteer’s strings.”
Willow appeared in the doorway to my bedroom, her hair tied in a loose bun, and the apron she wore splattered with the evidence of greasy cooking. “You’re awake!” she said, looking me up and down and taking me in her arms. “Are you alright?”
“I’m fine,” I said. “Really.”
“What happened?” said my sister. “How did you cast that spell? Mum and Granny said it was very advanced pure magic, and Uncle Brian said it was better than the Yorkshire puddings Mum had cooked.”
My memory was muddled. I could only recall the anger bubbling in my stomach as Barney sat next to me staring at me in fear, and the surge of power through my arms as I’d cast the spell. My mind began putting the pieces together and I caught my breath as the last thing I remembered came flooding back. “I know how to get to the haven,” I said, the hairs on the back of my neck standing rigid. “I have my entry spell.”
Willow shrieked and Susie clasped her hands together.
Boris snorted. “That’s all well and good,” he said, “but there’s more important things to consider. I can smell black pudding burning.”
“Do it,” said Willow, pointing at the door which led onto the stern decking. “Make your portal!”
Susie agreed. “You have to! This is so exciting!”
“Black pudding emergency,” said Boris, tapping Willow’s leg with a hoof.
Willow rushed out of the bedroom to deal with the cooking dilemma, and I took a deep breath. I was sure there had to be more to it than just casting my spell and expecting a portal to open, but I’d seen Mum and Granny do it hundreds of times. Maybe it was that simple.
“Shouldn’t I wait?” I said as Willow hurried back into the room, squeezing past Boris and standing next to me at the foot of the two steps that led from my bedroom onto the boat deck. “There’s a ritual, isn’t there? Mum will come through with me and Aunt Eva will want to meet me on the other side.”
“That’s only for the first time you go through it,” said Willow. “You can open it and see what colour it is, nobody will mind that!”
Susie smiled. “Go on,” she said. “Open it already!”
“If it means I’ll get my breakfast any quicker, I wholeheartedly agree,” said Boris. “Just open the damn thing before the sausages go cold! They’re pork and leek, Susie picked them up from the butcher’s for me yesterday. It’s an old family recipe, apparently. The leeks are Welsh and the pork is — ” The doorway creaking and quivering cut Boris short. “Wow,” he muttered.
“It’s beautiful,” said Willow, “and it matches your personality perfectly.”
A soft breeze blew across my face as I took a step closer to the inviting golden glow that filled the doorway. It had been easy to open, far easier than I’d ever imagined — almost an anti-climax after waiting for my spell for so long.
Willow took my hand in hers. “Congratulations, Penelope Weaver,” she whispered, her voice hardly audible above the gentle hum of the spell. “You’re a real witch now.”
I closed my eyes and allowed the portal to close. The temptation to walk through it was too great, but I knew it would devastate Mum if she couldn’t open her own portal and enter the haven with me on my first trip. “I am, aren’t I?” I said. I squeezed her hand tight. “It’ll be your turn soon, Willow.”
With breakfast eaten and Boris’s beard cleaned of the food detritus that clung to it, Willow and I prepared to take Boris home and pick Granny up for our trip to collect the credit card.
Susie had left to begin the job of reporting on Gerald’s murder. The police were holding a press conference at ten o’clock, and Barney had promised her a front row seat.
Willow had explained why nobody had cast a spell on Barney after I’d fainted. “They wanted to,” she s
aid, “but I talked them out of it. Barney promised he wouldn’t say a word to anyone, and Granny made him swear on his police badge. Uncle Brian was happy with a pinky promise.”
“What about Mum?” I said.
“She was more concerned with finding out if Barney thought the prawn cocktail starter would have been nicer with some melba toast, and checking whether you’d hurt yourself when you fell over.”
I put a hand to the back of my head and felt for lumps. “And?” I said.
“He said he wasn’t too fussed on any toast, Melba or not. He was in shock though. He could hardly speak.”
I laughed. “I meant was I injured at all!”
“Oh! Just a small bruise on your chin. Uncle Brian healed it, but he put on a bit of a show for Barney’s benefit. You know how he is.”
I nodded. Uncle Brian had always reminded me of the swanky magicians that made their money on TV shows. His three year infatuation with crushed velvet jackets had reinforced that image of him beyond any redemption.
“He draped his polka dot hanky over your face and asked me to be his assistant. I had to swipe the hanky away when he’d waved his hand over you. Barney clapped, but I think he was still in fear for his life at that stage. It was polite applause more than genuine admiration. You were fine though, Uncle Brian gave you a full medical inspection and declared you were in a temporary magical sleep. Mum insisted Barney finished his dinner before she let us take you back to the boat. She told me that the spotted dick she made for pudding would seal the deal on Barney keeping his mouth shut about us. It was quite nice, I have to admit. Barney had two helpings.”
Fourteen missed calls from Barney were displayed on my phone, and I messaged him to tell him I’d speak to him that evening and answer all his questions. I was sure he’d have a lot of them, and I proposed that we go to the little Italian place on the outskirts of town for a meal. Barney accepted with a text that finished with three kisses, and I sent him one of my own in return. The previous night’s events had proved to me that my feelings for Barney couldn’t be ignored anymore. I’d experienced a protectiveness for him that had ran deep in my veins, and I wasn’t one to ignore my emotions. There was a reason I cared for him, and I wanted to explore it.