by Elle Adams
“You missed out an ‘i,’” said Grandma.
“Thanks.” I gingerly corrected the word, holding my hand as steady as possible to avoid having to rewrite the whole thing again. Then I pulled out my wand to cast a spellchecker charm, not quite trusting the sceptre after the mishap with the levitation spell earlier. Nothing lit up in red, so I didn’t have any more errors to fix. Good.
Chloe sprang over to the desk. “Need me to cast the spell?”
“Yes, please.” I handed her the piece of paper. “Make a couple of spares just in case I need to send out some more later on.”
“Good idea.”
While she waved her wand over the paper, I signed each duplicate as she handed them to me and then sorted them into piles according to the region or town that I needed to send them to.
“You have five minutes until your meeting with the council,” Carmilla said from over my shoulder.
“Noted.” So much for getting to take a nap beforehand. I’d barely slept the night before, both from nerves and from the fact that Carmilla had decided to sleep in my room to “guard” the sceptre and kept meowing in her sleep.
Tansy scampered across my shoulders and wrapped her fluffy tail around the back of my neck. “It’ll get easier. I doubt they’ll have you writing letters every day.”
“Don’t give them ideas,” I murmured. “I think I’d rather have another magical duel with Aunt Shannon.”
She hadn’t offered her congratulations to me, but I preferred to put off the moment when I inevitably had to speak to her for the first time since her failed attempt to snag the Head Witch title.
“That’s because you’re better at practical magic than paperwork,” she said. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“It’s not exactly a huge part of being Head Witch.” While the person chosen was generally a strong witch, that didn’t mean they often got to use the sceptre’s magic—another reason Grandma’s warnings about assassins made me sceptical.
Besides, powerful magic did not equal expertise. I might have inherited my family’s unique talent for speaking to and understanding any animal, but when I lost my temper, I had a tendency to lose my grip on controlling my magic altogether. Granted, it had come in handy when I’d had to chase off reporters and stop Grandma’s killer from getting away, but not so much when it came to sitting in meetings.
Outside, a clicking noise from the office door next to mine indicated that Mum had left for the meeting. As the new leader of the Wildwood Coven, it was technically her first day on the job, too, though I doubted she felt as unprepared as I did. Before I could join her, she pushed open my office door without knocking, appearing in the entryway with her ginger-and-white cat familiar, Horace.
“Are you ready for the meeting?” Mum asked. “You’ll have to leave your familiar behind. Chloe can keep an eye on her, or you can send her outside instead.”
Tansy scampered onto my desk. “I don’t mind staying in here.”
“We might be a while.” I turned to Mum. “What is the meeting about, exactly?”
“You’ll be introducing yourself to the rest of the council, primarily,” she said. “It’s—ah, not typical for us to have a Head Witch who isn’t up to date on current events, so we’ll give you a rundown of the main ones.”
“Thanks.” I think. I hadn’t exactly come to my childhood home expecting to end up tied to my old coven, much less to be put in charge of important decisions. Since the entirety of the past week had been dominated by arrangements for Grandma’s funeral and the votes for the new coven leader and Head Witch, nobody had even begun to talk about the aftermath until now. Nobody had left me a list of instructions either, though if they had, I wouldn’t have been able to find it amid all the paperwork in Grandma’s office.
As I followed Mum and Horace out the door, Chloe cleared her throat behind me. “Ah, Head Witch? Is there anything you want me to do during the meeting?”
“Yes.” I turned back to the office. “Chloe, can you arrange those papers from my desk in order of importance and pick out anything that needs to be urgently attended to when I get back?”
“No,” Grandma interjected. “I don’t want anything moved.”
“This isn’t your office anymore, remember?” Closing the door on her, I found Mum giving me a look I couldn’t decipher. “I can’t have her under my feet all the time. Besides, it doesn’t give much of a good impression if everyone knows what’s going on except for me.”
“I hired Chloe myself,” said Mum. “I’m glad to see you’re making use of her.”
Reading between the lines, she’d probably arranged for Chloe to work as her assistant when she’d assumed she’d be taking the title of Head Witch as well as coven leader. We both had a lot of adjusting to do, that was for sure.
“I hope Grandma lets her do her job, then.” I hadn’t a hope of sorting through all that paperwork myself. There was a good reason I’d opted out of working for the coven as soon as I’d been old enough to find an alternative, aside from the fact that I’d struggled to maintain a passing grade in most of my classes at the academy. Too bad the sceptre had seen to it that I didn’t have a choice after all.
I followed Mum across the lobby to the meeting room, worry fluttering inside my chest. Aunt Shannon would be present at the meeting as a fellow council member, and I hadn’t spoken to her since she’d been hauled out of my office after trying to steal the sceptre for herself. I wouldn’t forgive or forget what she’d done anytime soon, including bullying my cousin Rowan so badly that she’d seen betraying the coven as her only way out.
I hoped Rowan was having a better day than I was. She’d moved out of my aunt’s house yesterday at the price of giving up her membership in the Wildwood Coven altogether, and while Aunt Shannon had doubtlessly been furious, she hadn’t been able to stop her.
Mum opened the door to a room containing a long table set with chairs. Everyone inside the room rose to their feet, which made me squirm with discomfort, but two members were notably absent at the moment, namely Aunt Shannon and my cousin Vanessa.
When Mum and I reached the table, she edged me towards the seat at the head and whispered, “You have to start the meeting.”
I did? Nerves swarmed me as I looked at the faces watching me around the table. “We’ll start by introducing ourselves. I am Robin Wildwood, Head Witch.”
The title still didn’t feel like it applied to me, but saying it aloud broke the tension among the others.
Mum spoke next. “I am Lady Wildwood.”
I’d forgotten she’d be going by a new title now. This would take some getting used to. The others I mostly knew, though the council members from the Wildwood Coven weren’t the only ones I’d need to get to know, since the town’s other smaller covens had their own representatives and so did the ones in the neighbouring magical communities.
When the introductions were over, Mum said, “The Head Witch usually begins by explaining her actions, decisions, and achievements since the last meeting. Or since this morning, in your case.”
What did they expect me to have achieved in an hour, really? Everyone looked at me expectantly, so I said, “I sent out responses to the congratulatory letters from the other Head Witches.”
“And?” Mum pressed.
I fidgeted in my seat. “Each letter required a handwritten personalised response, so I haven’t had time to get anything else done.”
Mum’s brows shot up. “That’s not customary. A printed one would be fine.”
“It was Grandma’s idea.” I should have known not everyone would have agreed with her, even her daughter.
One of the other council members raised her brows. “Is the former Head Witch offering you her counsel, then?”
More like nagging me from beyond the grave. “Yes, she is, as well as my new assistant.”
“Good,” said Mum. “You’ve entered the position at a busy time, so I thought it wise for you to have Chloe around to help you.”
“I thought we were still in the mourning period,” I said. “For Grandma, I mean.”
“You’ll work it out between yourselves, I’m sure,” said Mum. “The funeral delayed some other events, so the familiar contest was moved to this week. The contenders will start arriving this afternoon.”
A heartbeat passed before her words sank in. “The what will start arriving?”
2
Back in my office, I took a seat at my desk again and tried not to groan at the mountain of fresh paperwork which had materialised in the hour I’d been absent. At least Chloe had arranged the papers in order of importance, but I didn’t have the time to check them all if I was expected to judge the preliminary round of a contest that afternoon. Wildwood Heath often hosted the sort of weird contests common to small magical communities, but I’d hoped I’d get some lead-up time to prepare before jumping into the deep end.
“What even is this familiar contest?” I asked Tansy, who came scurrying in after having spent a productive hour chasing birds around the garden while I was in the meeting room. “Do you know?”
“I don’t know any more than you do,” she said, hopping onto the desk. “Carmilla?”
Grandma’s familiar lay napping on the windowsill and didn’t stir, while the woman herself was notably absent.
“Grandma?” I called out.
“Don’t bother her,” Carmilla said without opening her eyes. “She had a very tiring day.”
“She’s a ghost.” Unlike me, Grandma didn’t require sleep. Not that I’d be getting a nap this afternoon either by the looks of things. I wouldn’t be at my best if I was constantly sleep-deprived, but even magic couldn’t make extra hours in the day materialise out of nothing. “Where’s the information on this familiar contest, then?”
“Over there on the left of the desk.” Chloe popped up from behind me and made me jump a foot in the air. I hadn’t even known she was still in the room. “Sorry, I was tidying.”
Tansy scampered over and handed me the topmost file from the teetering stack. “The event starts after lunchtime at the town hall.”
“It’s an athletic-themed contest intended for witches and wizards who have a strong bond with their familiars,” I read. “Ah… Mum’s organising this one.”
“Yes, she’s spent the last few weeks making preparations,” Chloe said. “She had to take some time off last week due to the funeral, of course, but everything is set to go according to plan.”
Good, because I didn’t know the first thing about organising contests, and Mum hadn’t clued me in until now. Given how she’d frequently rearranged my room when I was a kid or signed me up for social activities behind my back, I suspected that getting her to kick the habit of not telling me anything would be challenging even as Head Witch.
Tansy bounced across the desk in excitement. “I’m good at athletic challenges. Do you qualify to enter?”
“Probably not,” I said. “I’m a judge and announcer, which would make it a conflict of interest. I think the rest of the council would object.”
Though I had to wonder if certain members would show up for the contest that afternoon, given that they’d skipped out on the meeting. Aunt Shannon had recently suffered a dramatic defeat in her quest to become Head Witch, so I was willing to bet she’d be looking to restore her reputation by any means possible. Winning a contest would certainly qualify.
I began to read through the file, but I didn’t get very far before the door opened and Ramsey walked in—without knocking. His familiar, Prickles the hedgehog, sat on his shoulder.
“Robin,” he said. “Good, you have the file on the familiar contest. Will you be ready to greet the contenders this afternoon?”
“I’m doing great, thanks for asking.” Honestly. My brother had been nice enough to buy me the camera Mum had promised me in exchange for helping out in the Head Witch ceremony over the weekend, but I should have guessed he’d be back to his annoying self by now. “What do you mean by greeting the contenders?”
“A number of the contenders will be coming from outside Wildwood Heath, as it’s a regional contest,” he said. “It’s customary for the Head Witch to greet the new arrivals in person as they fly in.”
“I thought I was supposed to greet the entrants from this town too,” I said. “I can’t spend half the afternoon standing on a hillside and running the risk of being ambushed by reporters. I have work to do.”
“Grandma—”
I raised a hand the way Mum did when she wanted silence, and to my surprise, it worked. “If Grandma was capable of being in multiple places at once, then I’m not. I’ll send my assistant.”
“Chloe?” His gaze went over to her. “Isn’t she supposed to be protecting you?”
Of course he knew about her, since he and Mum had doubtless put their heads together to discuss how to ensure I didn’t embarrass the family. Grandma herself remained hidden from sight, but that was probably for the best, considering that being a ghost had in no way dissuaded her from trying to exert her own control-freak tendencies over me.
Wait… did he say protecting me? Was he concerned about assassins too? That was all I needed. “Protecting me from what, exactly?”
“Need I spell it out?” he said. “You are a target.”
“It’d be nice if you could give me a list of all these people who want me dead,” I said. “Grandma hasn’t been very specific.”
He dropped his voice. “Nobody would suggest such a thing openly, but there are rumours. The Henbanes talked to the press about how they don’t expect you to last the month.”
“I make a point of not reading that nonsense, Ramsey,” I said testily. “Don’t you have work to be getting on with?”
He looked down his nose at me. “Think about it, please.”
“Way ahead of you.” I had the sceptre at my side, and my reflexes were good. Better than my handwriting, anyway. “See you later.”
While he departed, I turned back to the file on the familiar contest. Mum had certainly been thorough in her preparations, and I’d have my work cut out if I was expected to do exactly the same for any future events I was put in charge of. With Grandma no longer hovering over my shoulder, I risked getting out her laptop and clearing a space on the desk. “Chloe, do you know where Grandma wrote down her passwords?”
“I don’t know,” Chloe said. “I think your mother said she memorised them.”
“She did what?” Of all the things to not write down. “She isn’t here. Does Carmilla know?”
“Let me try.” Chloe held out her hands for the laptop, and I gave it to her resignedly. “I’ll see if I can figure them out.”
In the meantime, I picked up the planner Chloe had left on the desk and checked the dates and times of the various meetings and events which would take place over the next few weeks. Then I went back to the familiar contest file.
“The contest will be spread over the next two days,” I read. “Today will be the preliminary round to see who qualifies, and the bulk of the contest will take place tomorrow, with a trophy ceremony in the evening. Why is the event on a weekday and not a weekend? Do you know?”
“I believe it was postponed due to the funeral last week,” Chloe said. “I can’t get any of the most obvious passwords to work. I might have to reboot the laptop and start from scratch.”
“You can do that?”
She gave a nervous glance in Carmilla’s direction. “I’d need the Head Witch’s permission first…”
“Meaning mine, not Grandma’s,” I surmised. “All right, go ahead. If she objects… well, it’s not like she can use a computer as a ghost.”
I was probably speaking too soon, but the sooner I adapted this office for the digital age, the better. Leaving Chloe in charge of the computer, I returned to my files. As was typical when I got absorbed in a task, I lost track of time. At least until Grandma’s voice rang out across the office. “What are you doing to my computer?”
“It’s mine now,” I told
her. “And we couldn’t get into it without your passwords.”
“How dare you!”
Chloe sprang upright. “I’m sorry, Head… er, Mrs Wildwood. The Head Witch asked me to—”
“Put that down right now,” Grandma commanded.
“Did you even use the laptop yourself?” I asked. “It looks like it’s been gathering dust for years.”
“The disrespect!” An angry breeze rose and knocked several papers off the desk. It also woke up Carmilla, who hissed in my general direction.
“Carmilla, can you please tell your witch that I need to use the laptop for work?”
“I don’t mind you using it,” said Grandma. “But she’s destroying it.”
“You vanished, and we didn’t have the passwords,” I said. “Besides, I’ll need my own accounts.”
“She will.” Chloe ducked her head when Grandma glared at her. “I can access your emails if you give me the password.”
“There’s no time for that,” said Grandma. “You have a contest to judge.”
“It’s that time already?” I checked the time, seeing that I had an hour left, but I’d need to grab some lunch on the way. “I have to meet the contenders at the town hall, right?”
“Exactly,” said Carmilla. “If you’re going to insist on snubbing the ones who flew so far from out of town to be here.”
“Chloe,” I said, ignoring Grandma’s familiar. “Can you go to the woodland path and give the arriving contenders directions towards the right place for the contest? I’ll wait at the town hall and greet everyone when they show up. That way nobody will be left out.”
“Of course,” she said. “Should I leave the laptop here?”
“Go ahead. Maybe Grandma will be generous enough to give me her passwords when we come back.”
Grandma herself scoffed. “The sheer nerve. Don’t you forget that sceptre!”
I nearly had forgotten to pick up the sceptre on my way out of the office. Ducking behind the desk, I lifted the long instrument into the air. At least it wasn’t heavy, despite being a little too cumbersome not to draw attention. The glowing purple gem on the end was pretty noticeable too.