As I stood beside the Yeats sculpture in St Stephens Green with my broom cloaked and ready to go, Gabriel Godbody approached. ‘I’m on the telly this afternoon,’ he told me. ‘You should tune in if you get the chance.’
‘Great.’ I rolled my eyes. ‘My mother is missing, and all I get to do is watch your news report about it. Oh, I’m sorry Gabriel. It’s not your fault. It’s not anyone’s fault except the Minister’s. I just don’t get why she hates this coven so much.’
He wrinkled his eyebrows. Without whatever goop he used to slick them back on TV, they were bushy and unkempt. ‘You really don’t know the story?’
‘There’s a story?’
‘Well, yeah. Of course there’s a story.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘But it’s a long one, and I’ve really got to get to the station now. My hair and make up takes a lot of time. Hey, how about we meet up for a drink later on and I’ll tell you all about it then? Say I pick you up about eight-ish? Take you to Three Witches Brew?’
I shrugged. ‘It’s not like I’ll be working on finding my mother or anything, so sure. See you then.’
He flashed me a smile, clicked his fingers and disappeared.
15. We Are Experiencing a Technical Fault
Hyper-speed got me way too hyped up. By the time I arrived at Westerly Crescent, I was livid. It turned out that I needn’t have bothered making poor Christine play her vision so many times at the meeting. It was replaying in my mind anyway, over and over again.
Max was sitting on the couch, eating soup and watching cartoons, when I arrived. ‘I gave Dizzy some mango a while ago,’ he told me. ‘And I made sure he went to the loo afterwards. He’s gone for a nap now.’
‘Thanks.’ I huffed out a little sarcastic laugh. ‘I guess we know what it’ll be like when we have kids.’
Max spluttered out some soup and started to cough.
‘Oh, good goddess. I didn’t mean us obviously,’ I said. ‘Well … not together. I just meant, y’know, when we have our respective children. Separately. With other people.’
‘Uh huh. Of course that’s what you meant. Didn’t think anything else. Hey, I thought you’d be back before now.’ He muted the TV and looked my way. ‘Did the class go on a bit?’
I slumped onto the couch. ‘When I was doing that stupid class this morning I thought it was quite likely the worst experience of my life. Turns out I was wrong. It’s my mam, Max. She’s gone missing.’
He put his bowl onto the coffee table and gawped at me. ‘Gone missing missing? Like the other witches who’ve disappeared?’
‘Exactly like that.’
‘So … what are you doing here?’
‘What do you think I’m doing here? You think the Minister’s lifted her ban on me just because my mother’s joined the ever-growing numbers of the disappeared? I mean why would she do a thing like that when she could just continue being the biggest idiot in the world?’ I picked up a piece of crusty bread and dipped it into what was left of his soup. ‘This is really good minestrone. Did you make it?’
He nodded. ‘I made some for you, too. It’s in the kitchen though. Not in my bowl.’
‘You know, I’ve had a lot of housemates over the years,’ I said as I peeled myself off the couch. ‘And I have to say, you’re not the worst.’
‘Pssht!’ He followed behind me. ‘Not the worst? I’m the best, Wanda. Oh, and I got you a fresh carton of orange juice too, when I was out this morning.’
I paused in the kitchen doorway, grabbed him and pulled him into a massive, warm hug. ‘You are the best. Oh, Max, what am I going to do?’
He led me to the kitchen table, sat me down and placed a bowl of hot minestrone in front of me. ‘First, you’re going to eat. Second, you’re going to think. You’ve told me about all of the secret members of the Wayfairs. There are a gazillion of them, Wanda, in all walks of the witching world. And if there are a gazillion Wayfairs, then think of how many contacts they have. They will find your mam. And in the meantime, you should do exactly what your mam would want you to do in this situation. You should keep your head down, pass all of your tests, but never ever forget what the Minister is doing to you right now. Because revenge is a dish best served up in a fancy salad bowl. At the Minister’s favourite restaurant. Preferably laced with a deadly toxin that can never be traced back to you.’
I stared at him. ‘I’m beginning to worry about you, y’know.’
‘What can I say?’ He gave me a sweet smile. ‘Weredogs are a passionate species.’
≈
I was due at Bargain Bites that evening, and Max was working a late shift at the kennels, so we just had time to watch Wyrd News in the Afternoon together before we headed off.
‘Welcome to Wyrd News in the Afternoon with me, Gabriel Godbody.’ Gabriel let out a shaky sigh, wobbling his lips at the camera. ‘You might be wondering why I’m not my usual happy self.’ Another lip wobble. ‘Well, folks, that’s because today, on Wyrd News in the Afternoon, the very best show on the Wyrd News channel, I have some depressing news to share. Beatrice Wayfair, head of the Wayfair coven, has vanished.’
He sat down on a stylish armchair, crossed his legs and held a pile of cue cards up for the camera to focus in on. ‘You see these cards? Written on these is the news as the Minister for Magical Law would like me to tell it to you.’ He threw the pile to the ground. ‘But I think we’ve all had enough of that. I’m going to tell you all, in my very own words, what’s happening in the witch enclaves. Because people …’ He leant forward and lowered his voice. ‘What’s happening is super duper scary. Witches are disappearing left, right and centre, and with the head of the Wayfair coven having joined them, who can we expect to help us? Will it be Minister Justine Plimpton?’ He arched a shiny eyebrow. ‘I wish I could tell you that I believed our Minister would come through. I wish I could tell you that her Peacemakers would take up the slack and do some real work, but this is what those Peacemakers are doing today.’
Footage appeared of a group of ten or so Peacemakers, surrounding a female wizard, laughing at her and slagging her off with incredibly intelligent phrases such as, ‘Go back to your own enclave, you stupid stinking wizard.’
Wow. So Tommy was already at the standard required to become a Peacemaker.
Gabriel appeared onscreen once again. ‘And this is what the one and only remaining Wayfair is doing.’
More footage appeared, this time of Christine going about her day. The scenes had been expertly cut to show her hastily swallowing a mouthful of coffee as she scoured the missing persons’ reports, gazing into her scrying bowl for new developments, going door to door asking questions, testing the areas where the people had disappeared for magical traces, and then in one, final, powerful clip, fighting her way into the centre of the group of Peacemakers and pulling the bullied female wizard out.
Gabriel took the screen once again. ‘Peacemakers are spending their time bullying innocent women. While Christine Wayfair, the one remaining Wayfair, is spending night and day, working through exhaustion to find our missing community members. And yet she still finds the time to extend empathy to all supernaturals. And that is why we need Wayfairs, now more than ever. So I’m going to pose a question to you all, and I want you to really, really think about it.’ The camera zoomed in on his face. ‘Why has the Minister for Magical Law set the entry level wages for a Wayfair far below minimum wage, thus discouraging new trainees? Why has this same Minister hired thugs and bullies to join her Peacemaking force, and paid those same bullies three times what a Wayfair is paid? Why is she working long and hard to prevent Wanda Wayfair from working with her coven? And why, most importantly of all, did Minister Justine Plimpton hide one of the very first disappearances – that of Harold Berry, lead architect on the Warlock Arms – from the public, and from the Wayfair Coven?’
The screen went suddenly black. A message played across it: We are experiencing a technical fault. Wyrd News in the Afternoon will return as soon as possible.
&nb
sp; Max let out a whistle. ‘Well, it’s official. I no longer want to punch him in the face.’
16. A Flashlight Would Be Handy
Once Max left I realised his presence had been the only thing holding me together. For weeks I’d been frustrated with the curtailments the Minister had put upon me, but never more than now.
As I stumbled around my bedroom, changing into the ugliest work uniform in the universe, I found myself mumbling, grumbling, and banging into things. ‘So … what? My mother is missing and I’m supposed to just go to work like it’s any other day?’
A squeaky voice reached my ears. ‘That might be best, Wanda, all things considered.’
I looked up at the Lesser-known Mango Bat and scowled. ‘I thought you were asleep.’
‘Hard to sleep when someone is pacing and mumbling. Wanda, Max is right. Your coven is right. Let them do their work. They’ll find her.’
I increased the power of my scowl, making Dizzy squeak some more. ‘You were listening in when I was talking to Max, too?’
The bat shook his head. ‘Not on purpose. But Max is a weredog and I’m a bat.’
‘So?’
‘So his voice has certain frequencies.’
‘Sure. Frequencies. Dizzy … you can see I’m going round the bend here, right? My mother is missing, Dizzy. My mother. So maybe it would help if you finally told me who your witch was.’
Dizzy hid his face in his wings. ‘This pressure isn’t going to help, you know. Quite the opposite. If you keep this up, then this bout of amnesia could well last from now until my deathbed. Anyway, it’s not like you could investigate if I did manage to remember anything, is it?’
I kicked the bottom of my bed. ‘Dizzy! You know, just because I can’t officially investigate doesn’t mean my brain has turned to mush. I might not be allowed to work on this, but I’ve managed to pick some things up through my coven.’
‘Through eavesdropping on your coven?’
‘Whatever. Look, it’s time to stop deflecting, Dizzy. It doesn’t matter how I found things out. All that matters is that I did. And according to the talk in the witch homeless shelters, the first witches went missing in the summer. Y’know, right around the time you crashed to the ground in Luna Park. Bit of a coincidence, no?’
Wisely – or annoyingly, depending on your perspective – the bat chose silence as his best defence.
‘Well if that’s not going to get you talking,’ I said, ‘then how about this? I’m going off out now, Dizzy. But I’m not going to go to Bargain Bites to work my shift. I’m going to do what I should have done all along. I’m going out there to investigate. And I think I’ll begin at the Warlock Arms.’
A nervous squeal came from the light fixture. Dizzy’s wings fluttered and he looked down at me. ‘You can’t do that, Wanda. Please don’t do that. Don’t go there!’
He landed on my shoulder, and I swear to the goddess, he began putting little bat-kisses all over my face, cuddling into me, grabbing onto me with his little leg-paw thingies and begging me, ‘Please don’t go,’ over and over.
Gently, I laid him on the bed and said, ‘You’ve just proved what I thought, Dizzy. You’re connected to all of this. And so is the Warlock Arms. I was bluffing a second ago, but now … now I really am going to go and investigate.’
I picked up my wizard broom and headed for the door.
≈
Okay, so I know what you’re thinking. Surely Wanda is going to be sensible and tell her coven about all of the conclusions her mind is currently jumping to? Well … yes and no. I had no intention of telling my coven where I was headed or why. I had no intention of revealing the theories that were fermenting in my mind. But before you start to accuse me of being the dumbest girl in the world, just sit back and hear me out.
Given the fact that it was my mother who had gone missing, the whole coven was already working to find her. That was dangerous enough – if they weren’t careful, the Minister might soon cop on that there were a lot more Wayfairs than she thought. They were walking a tight line as it was. If they came along with me right now, they would be aiding me in breaking the Minister’s rules. They would be condoning my part in the investigation.
I might well have to face the wrath of Justine Plimpton once all this was over, but if it came to that, I wanted to face her wrath alone. I was not going to take the whole coven down with me.
So you see … I wasn’t going into this without thinking things through. From my own point of view, I might have been a little bit gung-ho, sure. But maybe even a little bit selfless and heroic. Too far? Okay, forget selfless and heroic. Let’s stick with gung-ho.
The hyper-speed setting on my broom took me to Dublin City in a matter of minutes. When I landed at the back of the Warlock Arms, I remained on the broom so that I could stay cloaked while I decided on the best course of action. What’s that you say? I should have finalised my plan before I arrived? Well, you’d be wrong – because if I had thought this through from every angle, I probably would have frightened myself out of coming at all.
It was late afternoon, and I could see a lot of the materialization workers finishing up and travelling home. Inside, I could see no one at all, although the back door through which Will had come out the last time I was here was still open. Will was probably at work somewhere inside the building.
I flew in through the open door, but that was about as far as I could get on the broom. I couldn’t possibly make the angle into his office without dismounting. The broom only cloaked me while I was sitting on it, though. Once I dismounted, I would no longer be invisible.
Before I could change my mind and fly back home with my tail between my legs, I jumped to the floor and ran into Will’s office. I had no way of knowing whether the Minister was really tracking me, but it wasn’t something I wanted to risk until I absolutely had to. I would go without magic for as long as I possibly could.
I made straight for the filing cabinets. Will had pulled open the second from the top of the larger drawers. I opened it quickly, pulling out a pile of plans. Okay, so maybe I didn’t know exactly what I was looking for, but I’d know it when I saw it. Hopefully.
All of the plans looked like your usual building plans (because I totally knew what those looked like) and they showed the building from top to bottom. The letters HB were jotted in the corner of each one, and I had to assume that was the signature of the missing architect. As I found the plans for the lower floors, where there would be a residents’ gym, sauna and swimming pool, I came upon two more drawings. One was labelled the sub-sub basement. All it showed, though, was an enormous cylindrical brick wall. Scrawled atop the brick wall was a large question mark. ‘I share your confusion, Harry Berry,’ I muttered. ‘I really do.’
The next and final drawing was of the upper floor, and the penthouse apartment. I almost threw it aside in frustration when I noticed that the initials in the corner of this one were KB instead of HB.
Will’s conversation with his father the night before suddenly made a lot more sense. It seemed he had recently become a man of many talents. And although I was sure his penthouse apartment would be well worth a view (judging by the way the guy dressed, I had an inkling that it would be just the place to see if I was ever having trouble throwing up) I decided to find this sub-sub basement instead.
As I made my way back out onto the corridor I could hear a ringing close by, followed by Will’s voice. He must have been answering his phone. I saw him then, through the small glass pane in a set of double doors.
‘Cat in a hat!’ I hissed, pressing myself back against the wall. Wouldn’t you know it – the elevator was just beyond those double doors, about two feet away from Will. The alcove I was hiding in seemed to house the back stairs, so I’d have to take that route instead. Probably for the best. This might not be the best of times to get stuck in a big metal box. Also – do witches even need elevators? From what I’d heard about warlocks, I knew they didn’t allow the unempowered into their little boys�
�� club. Maybe some of them were just too lazy to use the magic they were born with.
I was about five steps down when the light above me made a buzzing sound, and went out. I heard a clunking noise, followed by a few swift beeps.
Poop on a stick! That must have been Will putting the building on lock down for the evening. No lights. And also … no way out. But I could worry about how to get out once I’d actually found the mysterious brick wall. For now, my main worry was the fact that I could barely see a foot ahead of me. My broom, for all its bells and whistles, was sorely lacking in the taillight and headlight departments.
I thought back to the sarcastic comeback I’d managed to withhold in the Simple Spells and Incantations class. A flashlight would have been just peachy round about now. Note to future self: gung-ho can only get you so far, but a flashlight can get you further.
I tried feeling my way along the walls, moving slowly, but apart from three minor tripping incidents (I was not looking forward to seeing what I looked like when this was all over) there was also the much bigger issue – time was of the essence here. Who knew how long I’d have in this place before an alarm went off? And if the Warlock Arms had something to do with my mother going missing, then every minute I had to find her was precious.
I went over the Solas spell in my mind. I wasn’t fond of the incantation Mizz Plimpton had taught me – and I didn’t have my stupid training wand with me, either. If I was going to have to use magic to get me down to the sub-sub basement, then I was going to have to do some magic that I was comfortable with.
And also, if there were cameras around here, then I needed a spell that would do more than just let me see. I would need one that would let me be unseen, too. I thought of a new incantation and whispered it, concentrating on my intention as hard as I possibly could:
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