The Witch's Guide to Magical Combat

by Lari Don

  For Gowan

  Thank you for the riddles, party games and bike helmets, and for asking awkward questions, insisting on the final scene and throwing socks. I really couldn’t do this without you

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Extract from ‘First Aid for Fairies and Other Fabled Beasts’

  Also By Lari Don

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  When Molly heard her neighbours’ cat miaow, she shrank instantly, feeling the familiar flash of heat through her bones.

  But when she ran from the noise of the cat, she felt an unfamiliar weight whipping around behind her. Did she have a long tail?

  She didn’t have time to worry about what animal she’d shifted into, because she realised she wasn’t running fast enough to get away from a cat. She wasn’t leaping and sprinting, she was scuttling and dashing.

  Why was she moving so slowly, so weakly?

  She glanced round. Yes, she did have a tail. A long thin brown tail. The skinny length meant she was probably a rodent, the brown hair meant she definitely wasn’t a rat.

  But her glance back had shown her something even more worrying than her new shape.

  Poppet, the fluffy white cat from next door, was stalking her. Belly low, paws stretching forward, eyes fixed on Molly’s ridiculous tail.

  Molly had a choice.

  She could run to one of the gaps in the garden fence, because fences and walls normally shifted her back to her girl form. But that might not work this time, because the rules of her own personal magic seemed to have altered today.

  Or she could hide from the cat now and shift back later, when she wasn’t in immediate danger.

  Her scared body decided for her. She desperately wanted to hide. So she darted towards the hole she could see under the shed. The hole was tiny, but as a mouse or a vole or a shrew or whatever she was, she might fit inside.

  She ran as fast as she could, on these spindly short legs, with that nonsensical tail and this light body too close to the ground, feeling exposed and vulnerable on the flat winter grass of her own back garden.

  Suddenly she was aware of the heat and speed of the cat behind her. She felt the air move round her tail as Poppet pounced.

  Molly veered to her left and the cat’s shadow passed over her. The cat’s body crashed down onto the patch of grass Molly had been scurrying across a fraction of a second before.

  Poppet whirled round, trying to work out where her prey had gone, and Molly kept running.

  She’d learnt two ways to run in the last four months. Full speed ahead in a straight line, to beat her friend Innes in shapeshifter races. And tricksy leaping and dodging, to evade predators.

  So she didn’t run straight towards the shed. Even with the smaller body, weaker legs and lesser speed of a tiny rodent, she moved like a hare across the grass: running fast, slowing down, leaping left, dodging right, constantly changing speed and direction.

  It wasn’t likely that Poppet had ever met a mouse who moved so unpredictably, and Molly kept just ahead of the cat’s claws.

  She reached the hole and dived in. She slid right to the back, snug and safe in the cramped dark.

  ***

  Molly Drummond was used to suddenly becoming small and fast. But suddenly becoming small and slow, that was new and scary.

  The noise of a cat had never triggered her curse before. She’d never become a long-tailed rodent either. Normally dog noises triggered the curse; normally she became a hare. But nothing was normal today.

  Poppet’s paw prodded at the entrance to the hole. Her hot fishy biscuity breath filled the space. However, the cat was too big to get in and Molly was too far back to be dragged out.

  As she crouched there, panting and shivering, she wondered what had just happened.

  Molly had been cursed by an angry witch last autumn, so that she turned into a hare – like a bigger stronger faster rabbit – whenever she heard a dog bark or growl. And she stayed a hare until she crossed a boundary, usually the boundary between gardens or farms.

  She’d learnt to control the curse, so she could shift into a hare whenever she wanted to, for speed or size or even for fun. But she still had to cross a boundary to become a girl again, so she was now an expert on land boundaries in her own Edinburgh neighbourhood, and boundaries round the town of Craigvenie, further north, where she’d been cursed.

  Apart from a few days last year when the witch had altered the curse so it was harder to shift back, Molly’s curse had been stable and manageable for months. Until today.

  So she’d better go north, to see if the friends whose curses she’d lifted last year could help her work out why her curse had become more dangerous. But she couldn’t go to Speyside until she got out from under this shed and became a girl again.

  Molly shivered as she watched Poppet’s paw withdraw at last. She crouched in the dark, wondering how she would cope if she was stuck as this trembling and terrified creature forever. Because if the rules or strength of her curse had somehow changed, perhaps crossing a boundary wouldn’t shift her back?

  There was only one way to find out. She moved to the entrance of the hole, her whiskers snuffling and jerking. She couldn’t smell cat breath. She couldn’t sense animal heat or hear a huge heartbeat.

  Poppet had probably given up. It was probably safe.

  Molly hesitated. She didn’t want to leave the security of this dusty dark hole. But she gathered all the courage she could find in her tiny shaking body, dashed out of the hole and ran towards the nearest gap in the fence.

  A white shape leapt from the shed roof, bounded onto the top of the fence and landed on the grass, paw slashing down to trap the tiny form on the ground.

  And Poppet scratched the knuckle of Molly’s human thumb.

  The cat backed off, white fur standing up along her spine.

  Molly smiled. “Sorry to give you a fright, Poppet.”

  She climbed over the wooden fence and ran to her back door, hoping the cat wouldn’t miaow again before she got inside.

  She rushed into the living room. “Mum, Dad, can I go to Aunt Doreen’s next week, for the February holidays?”

  Her mum said, “Again? You stayed with Doreen last tattie holidays and complained the whole way up the A9. But then you pestered us to take you up at Christmas, and now you want to go again next week? What’s in Speyside that you can’t get in Edinburgh?”

  “My friends in Craigvenie,” said Molly. But she was also thinking about the magic she’d discovered up north, which made Craigvenie the best place to find out why her curse had suddenly become so much stranger and more dangerous.

  She looked at her dad. “When I’m with my Craigvenie friends, we play in the woods, by the rivers and in the hills, like you did when you were wee.
”

  He smiled. “It’s a good place to grow up. If the snow holds off, I’ll drive you north.”

  So Molly went upstairs to pack, and to work out how to avoid cats as well as dogs for the next three days.

  Chapter Two

  Molly said hi to her Aunt Doreen and bye to her dad, who was having a scone before driving home, then she threw her bag into the tiny sloped-ceiling spare room and dashed back outside to lift her bike from the boot of the car.

  She cycled through Craigvenie and ran through the woods to her best friend Beth’s house. Beth’s Aunt Jean said, “She’s gone up into the hills with Innes and Atacama. Something about talking to a statue? They’ve just left; you might catch them.”

  Molly knew there was only one statue that Innes had conversations with, so she cycled fast on the road leading towards the snow-topped mountains in the distance, then more slowly over the moorland path to the river where the statue was hidden.

  Innes must have been heading towards the hills reluctantly, because if he’d galloped enthusiastically the whole way, she’d never have caught up. But eventually she saw her friends ahead of her. Beth, the dryad, with her black clothes and purple hair, her silver jewellery glinting in the cold sunlight. Innes, the kelpie, in his blond-haired jeans-wearing boy form, rather than his white-maned horse form. And Atacama, the sphinx, looking like a puma-sized black cat, apart from the small wings on his back and his long almost-human face.

  “Hey!” Molly yelled. “Wait for me!”

  They all stopped and waved cheerfully at her, as she wobbled along the bumpy path.

  When she reached them, she jumped off her bike and asked Innes, “Why are you still coming up here? He’s not going to get any politer.”

  “I only come up once a month now. You’re right, he’s still wasting the five minutes he’s free from the stone calling me names, rather than promising he won’t eat our neighbours. But I have to try.”

  “Have you told your mum yet?”

  “Have I told my mother that I cursed my father? You’ve got to be kidding! She thinks he’s on a long hunting expedition.”

  “Four months long?” Molly laid her bike on the heather.

  Innes shrugged. “She thinks he’s hunting far from home, when he’s actually stuck as a statue because he kept hunting too close to home.”

  Beth hugged Molly. “We didn’t think you were coming back until Easter.”

  “I need your help, because my curse has gone weird. Come over to this burn and I’ll show you. It’s a boundary, isn’t it?”

  They all nodded.

  Molly stood on the edge of the narrow burn. “Atacama, make a noise like a pet cat.”

  “Don’t be so insulting.”

  “Just as an experiment. Please.”

  He purred, lighter and softer than his normal big cat rattle.

  Molly became a mouse, jumped into the shockingly cold water, paddled across and pulled herself out on the other side, as a girl.

  She turned round. Beth looked worried, Innes was frowning and Atacama had his usual stony calm face.

  Molly said, “Now, Beth, hoot like an owl.”

  Beth made a long eerie noise, like the owls that swooped through her birch trees at night.

  Molly shifted into another tiny rodent, with less tail. She wondered if she was a vole, as she swam back across the burn.

  “It’s not just rodents,” she said, after she’d shifted to a girl again. “Can you do a smaller bird, Beth, a thrush or something?”

  Beth sang a quick trill of notes.

  And Molly became something she’d never been before. Something legless and spineless. She felt fingers pick her up and carry her over the boundary, then she fell to the ground.

  “A worm?” snapped Beth. “Really? You wanted me to turn you into a worm?”

  Molly shook her head. “I expected to become a snail: that’s what happened when I heard birdsong in the garden on Thursday. Anyway, this is how my curse has gone weird. Whatever predator I hear, I become its prey. Mousey things, creepy crawlies, all sorts of little edible creatures. It’s risky being too far from a boundary, because I can’t sprint as most of these animals. Though it could be fun too. Can anyone do a convincing wolf?”

  Innes raised his face to the sky and howled.

  Molly became a slim long-legged deer.

  Before she crossed the water, she turned away from her friends and bounded across the heather, to enjoy the speed, the smells, the drumming of hooves on the ground. Then she turned back and leapt the burn, landing and jumping up as a girl.

  Innes laughed.

  Molly grinned. “It’s only the hare I can choose to become. I think all the other animals have to be triggered by a noise outside me. But I haven’t experimented yet. It’s too dangerous on my own.”

  “Molly, that’s horrible,” said Beth.

  Innes said, “It’s not horrible. It’s amazing! You can shapeshift into lots more animals than I can. Most of which I’m going to thrash in a race. A horse against a mouse or a worm, that’s going to be so easy. I’m going to win everything this holiday!”

  “No more races!” said Beth. “You can’t stay like this, Molly. You have to get rid of this curse. You surely don’t want to be a worm ever again?”

  “I didn’t want to be a worm that time.”

  Beth frowned. “This wouldn’t have happened if you’d ever truly committed to doing whatever is necessary to lift your curse.”

  “That’s hardly fair, Beth! I’ve done magical homework, fought hungry monsters and defeated a warrior queen. I’ve even been polite to the witch who cursed me. I’m not sure how much more committed I could be to lifting my curse. Anyway, what do you mean by ‘whatever is necessary’? Do you mean becoming a witch? You know the only way I can force Mr Crottel to lift the curse is to beat him in magical combat, and the only way I can do that is to embrace my ancestors’ heritage and become a witch. But given the choice between being a part-time hare or a full-time witch, both of which you object to because you say all dark magic is bad, I still think the cursed hare is a better option.”

  “Which is handy for you, because you like being a hare,” said Beth.

  “Yes, I do.” She smiled at Beth. “I know it’s inconvenient and dangerous, but if I hadn’t been cursed I wouldn’t have met all of you. Also, I get to beat Innes in races.”

  Innes grinned. “You don’t always beat me, sometimes we cross the finish line together.”

  “That’s only happened once. You’ve never actually won. So, I’m good at being a hare and I enjoy it, most of the time. But I feel really vulnerable as a tiny rodent, and when I’m not a mammal I feel like I might forget about my real self and forget to cross a boundary. That’s why I got Dad to drive me up here: to find out why my curse has started turning me into other prey animals, and to stop it. Maybe Beth is right, and I should try one more time to get rid of the original curse.”

  Innes said, “When you helped us lift our curses, we promised to help you lift yours. So if you’re sure this is what you want…?”

  Molly nodded at him.

  “…then I will help you break your curse.”

  “Me too,” said Atacama.

  “And me,” said Beth. “But surely you don’t want to become a witch?”

  “Of course not. So we’d better find another way to stop me becoming a mouse or a worm.”

  Innes looked up at the sky. “It’s almost noon.”

  As they walked towards the pool where Innes’s father lay, Atacama asked Molly, “Did you annoy another witch? Someone who cast a more powerful curse or somehow enhanced Mr Crottel’s curse?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Beth said, “Do you think Mr Crottel made the curse stronger himself? He threatened to make it worse again if we kept nagging him to lift it, but you haven’t spoken to him since October.”

  Molly shrugged. “I suppose we could visit Mrs Sharpe, see how big the Promise Keeper is now and look at my curse mirror. It
might show what’s happened.”

  Atacama said, “Or we could ask Theo to use his family’s library of scrolls, to research what magic might enhance a curse.”

  “Or we could simply speak to Mr Crottel, find out what’s he’s done and persuade him to lift the whole curse,” said Beth.

  “First, I need to speak to my dad,” said Innes, as they reached the river. “Back off, everyone. I don’t want him blaming you.”

  Molly, Beth and Atacama sat down in the heather a dozen paces away.

  “Why hasn’t he told his mum?” whispered Molly.

  Beth whispered back, “I think he’s scared to…”

  Atacama nodded. “He’s convinced he can sort it out himself. But she’s starting to ask awkward questions.”

  “Innes cursed his dad and he’s lying to his mum,” said Beth. “All that dark magic and deception must be damaging him. Now that you’ve agreed your curse is a bad thing, Molly, you can help persuade Innes to lift this curse too. Then we can all be free of dark magic, before we even move up to secondary school!”

  Molly sighed. She wasn’t sure she had agreed that her curse was all bad. She wouldn’t miss being a mouse, but she would miss being a hare. And Innes had a good reason for cursing his dad.

  She looked over at Innes, standing at the edge of a large rock above a deep pool in the river. Then she glanced up at the sun, gleaming silver through the grey clouds. As far as she could tell, it was now noon. Innes’s dad was released from the curse at noon, for five minutes, every five days.

  Molly noticed a dark winged shape in the sky. She flinched, thinking it was a crow. But it was higher up, moving in a lazy circle, like a bird of prey. So long as she didn’t hear it make a sound, the bird wasn’t a danger to her.

  She looked back at Innes, still alone on the rock.

  Innes checked the position of the sun, glanced into the pool, then turned to his friends and shrugged. He knelt down and stared into the clear water moving beneath him.

  “I can see him,” Innes called. “But why isn’t he…?” Innes dived into the water, shifting on the way into a long silver-and-green stripy fish.