Witched!

by Rebecca McRitchie

  Cora and the fairies crouched down behind a row of tall, spiky plants. Across from where they squatted was the fairy-sized door built into the side of the house. A gold plaque hung next to the fairy entrance. Drake Manor, it read. Cora recognised it as the small door they had entered through when the fairies had brought her here last time. It was designed for fairy messengers and was much too small for adults. She had had to squeeze through it herself.

  ‘What is the best way inside?’ Tick asked. ‘The roof? There might be an attic.’

  ‘We could fly up to the first line of windows? One of them might be open?’ Tock suggested.

  Cora recalled what had happened when she had magicked into Belle’s home unannounced. Archibald was a warlock. If he had traps in his house for unwanted visitors, they would most likely be much worse than the hobgoblin’s sinking whirlpool floor.

  No, thought Cora. We need to be let inside.

  ‘We knock,’ Cora said.

  Tick and Tock looked at her like she had just suggested that they dance down the street naked.

  ‘If you remove your witch disguises and say you have a message for him,’ Cora said, thinking as she spoke, ‘do you think you will be let in, like you were last time?’

  ‘Who is the message from?’ Tock asked.

  Cora shrugged. ‘I don’t know. The council?’ she offered.

  ‘What does the message say?’ Tock asked.

  ‘It’s not important,’ said Cora.

  ‘Question. Are we Tick and Tock in this scenario?’ asked Tick.

  ‘Yes,’ said Cora. ‘If you can get to his study and open the window, I can levitate inside.’

  Tock looked at Tick. ‘It might work.’

  ‘In and out,’ said Tick, repeating the words Tock had said when the fairies had first brought Cora to Drake Manor.

  The fairies zapped themselves with their fairy magic, removing their witch disguises and returning to their normal selves, their wings batting freely behind them. The fairies then turned to Cora and zapped her with fairy magic too.

  Cora felt her face. It was smooth and free of boils. And then she felt her back. Straightening it, she bent backwards and forwards on the spot with ease. Happy that her face and spine were both back to normal, Cora glanced down, and saw that she had also returned to wearing her usual dress, leggings and boots. She looked like herself again.

  ‘Wait. What if Barty recognises us?’ asked Tick.

  ‘Who is Barty?’ Cora asked, not following.

  ‘Archibald’s butler. The one with the tail,’ explained Tick as he made a swooshing motion on his backside with one of his arms.

  Cora remembered the man they had met when they were last at the manor house. He was dressed in black, wore glasses and a bored expression.

  ‘If you’re recognised, magic out of there. I will meet you at the windmill,’ said Cora.

  Tick and Tock nodded, squaring their shoulders. The pair flew over to the fairy door that sat on the side of Archibald’s house.

  Cora watched as Tock knocked once, then twice and then once more on the door.

  The fairies waited. And waited some more.

  Tick and Tock turned to look at her over their shoulders, shrugging.

  Tock placed a hand on the door handle and jiggled. It was locked.

  Perhaps nobody was home? Perhaps they needed a second plan to get inside the manor house. Cora wondered if they should have stayed in their disguises after all.

  Just as she was about to wave to the fairies tir and tell them to come back, the small door on the side of Drake Manor opened with a creak. And the fairies flew inside.

  Chapter Twelve

  Cora made sure that she stayed hidden behind the trees and shrubs in the field surrounding Drake Manor as she made her way around to the back of the house. Looking up at the large structure, Cora wondered which of the many heavily curtained windows was the one belonging to the warlock’s study.

  As she watched and waited behind a prickly bush, nervousness crept into Cora’s stomach. She had let the fairies enter Archibald’s house, not knowing what they were going to find. What if Archibald captured them? Or worse?

  Cora kept her eye glued to the windows for the slightest sign from Tick and Tock, but the many-curtained windows remained still and unchanged.

  Minutes ticked by. Cora pulled out Dot’s pocket watch.

  What is taking them so long? she wondered. Then she remembered how big Drake Manor was inside. She remembered the hallways, the emerald-tiled floor, the polished couches and the portraits sitting alone in the many cold and dark rooms.

  Then, out of the corner of her eye, Cora spied a jostling movement in one of the manor windows at the far end of the house. A set of dark curtains swished and a soft growing flicker of amber light appeared in the window. The glow of light was like that from a fireplace, and Cora recalled that when she had first met Archibald, he had stood in front of a large fireplace in his study.

  Quickly and quietly, Cora left the prickly bush and ran across the field. Positioning herself below the window, she searched inside herself for the sluggish magic that she had accidentally syphoned from a vampire named Sircane Montague when she was caught by the council. Cora held onto the magic, and standing still, closed her eye and focused. She felt her feet lift off the ground as she rose upwards. Opening her eye, Cora quickly thrust her arms out for balance. Hovering hesitantly in the air, she floated up until she reached the window with the glow of firelight emanating from it.

  Peering inside through a gap in the curtains, Cora saw the fairies talking to a man dressed all in black. A long, furry tail poked out from the back of his pants and stretched down to his ankles. Cora watched as the butler abruptly stepped past the fairies and left Archibald’s study. When the door had closed firmly behind him, Cora tapped a finger on the glass.

  Tock flew over to the window and opened it.

  Carefully, Cora clambered inside.

  The study was exactly how she remembered it. Bookcases, packed with too many books to count, lined three of the four walls. A long, polished, black lounge sat near the middle of the room, covered in half-opened books. A desk obscured in parchment and paper stood near it. More books lay in strewn piles on the floor on both sides of the desk and lounge. Even though the fireplace was lit with a small fire, the room somehow still felt cold.

  ‘Archibald isn’t here,’ said Tick.

  Cora nodded, relieved.

  ‘But we don’t have much time,’ said Tock. ‘Barty told us not to move from here and he will be back in a moment.’

  ‘Let’s spread out,’ Cora said. ‘The stone might be hidden somewhere.’

  The fairies flew over to the tall bookcases.

  Cora walked over to the ornate desk made of dark, almost burnt, wood. Scrolls and parchments lay over the top of the desk in messy mounds. Cora pulled on one of the drawer handles. Inside the drawer lay . . . more parchment, scrolls and papers. She picked up one of the papers sitting inside the drawer and gazed at it. Scribbled in short lines were symbols and words she didn’t understand. Are they spells? Incantations? The warlock’s diary?

  Shuffling through the papers, Cora searched the drawer for anything else that might have been hidden inside. But there was just more paper and more scribbled symbols. Pushing the drawer closed, Cora tried the second drawer next to it. It was also filled with similar pieces of paper. Pushing it closed, Cora then pulled on the gold handle of the next drawer up. But the drawer didn’t budge. It remained closed. Cora tried again. Looking at the handle, Cora could see that there wasn’t a keyhole or lock on the front of the drawer. It looked like all the rest.

  Her heart fluttered with anticipation.

  Cora gripped onto the Jinx’s magic and gave the handle on the drawer another tug. It opened. Or broke. Which she wasn’t sure, but she could now see inside the drawer. Sitting inside it, Cora found a small spinning orb the size of her palm; a metal triangle that stood on one of its points; a very large, gold feather, but no o
bsidian stone. Cora recognised the feather. It was exactly like Artemis the avian’s. The avians were a group of ancient magical beings who could transform into giant gold birds. Artemis had helped Cora in her battle with the Jinx in Jade City. But why does Archibald have an avian feather?

  Closing the drawer, Cora turned her attention to the top of the desk which was littered with more of the same scribbled-on parchment and paper. In the middle of the desk, Cora noticed an oddly shaped, glimmering rock. The rock had green shimmering specks dotted all over it. She reached out a hand to lift the rock.

  ‘Don’t touch that,’ said Tick from the other side of the room.

  Cora paused, her hand inches away from the rock on the desk. Then Cora watched as what she thought was a rock suddenly moved. The rock turned over and stretched itself out, revealing a pair of arms, legs, eyes and a tongue. The creature’s eyes remained closed as Cora stared down at it. When it finished stretching, the creature opened its mouth wide in a yawn before rolling over on its side and curling back up into a rock-like ball again.

  Tock flew over to her. ‘It’s a golem,’ the fairy whispered. ‘A child. Golem are strong creatures that keep watch. When they want, they can grow ten times that size.’

  Cora paused, unsure of whether to move. Could the golem sense her? Smell her?

  They waited for the golem to stir again. When it didn’t, Cora continued to search Archibald’s desk, this time more carefully. She searched through the papers, her eye glancing back to the sleeping golem with each movement.

  ‘Found anything?’ Tock asked.

  Cora shook her head. She was beginning to think that their search of Drake Manor was pointless. She pushed a few more papers aside and then spotted something drawn in the corner of one of them. The drawing was of something she recognised. Something that she had worn for almost every day of her life. Ice stone. A sparkling white chain, similar to the bracelet she had worn before it had been broken by Archibald in Jade City, glittered at her on the page. Below the drawing were many neat rows of markings in a deep-red ink.

  Cora held the parchment up to Tock.

  ‘That looks like ice stone,’ Cora said.

  Tock eyed the symbols below the drawing. ‘It’s more than that,’ the fairy said. ‘This is how the warlock was able to dissolve your bracelet.’

  ‘What does it say?’ Cora asked.

  ‘It’s a very strong, dark-magic spell,’ said Tock. ‘These kinds of spells . . . they’re so powerful they require a sacrifice.’

  A spell that requires a sacrifice . . . Cora remembered what Hythia Halfache had said when she saw Cora’s scar. Hythia the witch had said they call it a witch’s mark because some powerful spells like ones for manipulation, location and protection . . . require a sacrifice.

  ‘The ice stone is one of the most powerful stones in the kingdom. It was tied to you. Protecting you. It should have been unbreakable . . . Archibald had to give something up to wield that kind of power.’

  ‘Like a trade?’ Cora asked.

  Tock nodded.

  What would Archibald have traded? And just to break her bracelet? Why? Cora reached up to feel where her eye once was. Kaede’s words suddenly entering her mind: Your parents did that. Had her parents used a powerful dark-magic spell to protect her?

  ‘We should keep looking,’ Cora said, pushing the thought away.

  A loud thud sounded from the opposite side of the study. Cora and Tock jumped in fright, but it was just Tick dropping a book. Wide-eyed, Cora glanced down at the golem on the desk in front of her. Holding her breath, she waited for the stone creature to wake up. When it didn’t move, Cora relaxed.

  ‘What are you doing?’ whispered Tock angrily to his brother. Tock flew over to Tick. ‘Do you think Archibald would keep his rare, obsidian-stone ring in a book about the lost city of mermaids?’

  Tick picked up the fallen book and put it back on the shelf. ‘Maybe,’ said the fairy. Then he pulled out another book from the shelf. ‘Warlocks are very unpredictable.’

  When Tick’s hand reached the third book, he pulled on it but the book didn’t move off the shelf. It stayed stuck to it. Cora heard a loud echo, and then the bookcase on the opposite side of the room suddenly opened outwards with a low groan.

  ‘Whoops,’ said Tick.

  Cora and Tock stared as a secret part of the study was revealed behind the bookcase. Quickly and quietly, Cora, Tick and Tock moved over to the open bookcase and walked inside the hidden room. The walls of the room had markings on them. They glowed in a deep-red ink. In the centre of the room stood a podium and on it was a large open book with golden pages, some parchment and a candle with a green flame still burning. Next to the candle was a burnt feather. Picking it up, Cora could see the feather was mostly charred black, but the end of it was gold. It was the same kind of feather as she had found in Archibald’s desk.

  ‘An avian feather,’ said Tock.

  ‘Where did he get one of those?’ asked Tick.

  Tock picked up a piece of parchment that lay on top of the gilded pages of the book.

  ‘Whoa,’ said the fairy.

  Cora and Tick looked over his shoulder. On the paper were more symbols Cora didn’t understand and a drawing. A moving, inked drawing of a person stared back at her. His magic was being pulled from his body. The swirls of magic then floated in the air and over to the other page, where they went straight into someone else.

  ‘Archibald has made a tractor spell,’ said Tick.

  ‘Transfer spell,’ corrected Tock.

  ‘He must want his magic back pretty badly,’ said Tick.

  Cora remembered when she had syphoned Archibald’s warlock magic. It had been after he had broken her ice-stone bracelet, and without it Cora had almost become a Havoc — a creature with uncontrollable and dangerous magic.

  ‘Wait. He has written here that syphons can give their syphoned magic back,’ said Tock reading the symbols. ‘Did you know that, Cora?’

  ‘No,’ Cora said. She let the fairy’s words sink in. She could give the magic back? The witch magic? The Jinx magic? All of it? ‘How?’ she asked.

  The fairies shook their heads.

  ‘It doesn’t say,’ said Tock.

  There was a loud bang. The fairies and Cora jumped in the air in fright. The noise had come from somewhere outside of the study in another part of the manor. They stopped and listened. The muffled sound of a man yelling could be heard through the walls. And then they heard hurried footsteps.

  Tick’s eyes widened.

  ‘That sounds like . . .’ said Tock.

  Cora knew exactly what that sounded like. It was unmistakable.

  Archibald was home.

  Chapter Thirteen

  ‘We have to go,’ whispered Tock. ‘Now.’

  Cora shoved the paper with the transfer spell on it into her pocket. They had run out of time and they still hadn’t found the obsidian stone.

  Quickly, Cora and the fairies searched the hidden room. The podium, the walls, the book and parchment pages. Their only other option was to go back to Troll Town. But Tock had said it would take them hours to get there . . . and Dot might not have hours.

  Carefully, Cora crept out of the hidden room behind the bookcase. She took two steps and stopped.

  The golem that had been sleeping on Archibald’s desk was now wide awake and walking around the study.

  Crud.

  The creature stopped in front of the fireplace, stretching its arms and rock-like legs. Then it bent over and touched its toes.

  Cora looked over at the open window. Then she glanced at the study doors. Outside, Cora heard the approaching footsteps grow louder. And then she heard a scuffle and a groan.

  They were stuck. Hurriedly Cora tip-toed backwards, pushing the fairies back inside the hidden room before the golem turned around. Cora quietly closed the bookcase door, leaving it slightly ajar so that the three of them could still see out into the study through a gap.

  ‘We can magic out of here
,’ whispered Tock.

  Cora heard the tapping of shoes on the emerald-tiled hallway outside the study’s double doors. They could leave now, safely, and be on their way to Troll Town in search of the obsidian stone. But there was something that kept Cora crouching behind the wall of the bookcase. Something about what they had found in the study made her want to stay.

  Tick placed his hand on her shoulder.

  ‘Wait,’ she whispered.

  Then suddenly the double doors of the study burst open. Stepping into the room was Barty the butler, and in his arms . . . he dragged Archibald. The warlock was barely able to stand on his own. One of his arms hung limply over Barty’s shoulders and the other he cradled at his chest. His legs stumbled beneath him. His face was paler, and his hair was greying.

  What happened to him? Cora wondered. He looked far worse than when they had seen him in Tynth only a day ago. It looked like he had fought an entire army of magical beings . . . and lost.

  Barty helped the warlock over to the lounge in the middle of the study. Pushing aside the papers and books that lay on top of it, he placed the warlock down.

  ‘Should I call for a healer, sir, a hob—’ Barty tried.

  ‘No, you fool!’ Archibald spat. ‘Don’t you think I would have healed myself by now if it were possible?’

  Barty recoiled from the warlock.

  ‘A warlock that can’t be healed?’ whispered Tick by Cora’s ear.

  ‘That wretched, snivelling syphon,’ growled Archibald. ‘He knew this would happen.’

  Archibald sat up.

  ‘Sir—’ Barty began.

  But Archibald pushed the butler aside and stood up from the lounge. He hobbled uncertainly on his feet. Cora saw the warlock’s face contort into a grimace and his eyes flare with anger. ‘He knew this would happen . . . when I broke that brat’s bracelet.’

  Cora swallowed. Tock had said casting a dark-magic spell would have required a sacrifice. Archibald still had his other powers but he couldn’t be healed of his injuries. Why would the warlock agree to such a sacrifice? Cora wondered. What did Kaede promise him in return? Then the words Dann the troll had spoken in Troll Town hung in her mind. Dark magic can destroy many things. Even sometimes the magical beings who wield it.