Bottling It
Wayfair Witches Book One
by A.A. Albright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organisations, places, events and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously.
Text Copyright © A.A. Albright 2017
All Rights Reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the author.
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Website: https://aaalbright.com
Table of Contents
1. Unfit for Humans
2.That Old Familiar Feeling
3.And Other Stuff…
4.Home Sweet Home
5.At the Click of a Finger
6.Frozen Stare
7.Familiarity Breeds Unkempt
8.Dudley’s Witch
9.Privileged
10.Two Hundred and Forty
11.Lost and Found
12.Wyrd News Nightly
13.An Empire of Berrys
14.Lassie Come Home
15.The Water Bowl
16.The Longest Library
17.Happy Birthday
18.Inferno
19.A Snitch in Time
20.Goodbye Old Familiar
21.Dizzy
Extract from the Compendium of Supernatural Beings
1. Unfit for Humans
When it comes down to it, most of us put our own interests first. So when I turned the corner onto my road, and I saw two things happening at once, I did what most of us would do: I veered towards the event that actually affected me.
I did incline my head towards the macabre scene across the road. I mean, come on. A body was being wheeled into an ambulance and a twenty-something-year-old girl was being shoved into a police car, screaming, ‘I dunno why I done it!’ over and over again. It would have been remiss of me not to look. But I barely knew the residents in that house, and I was still far more concerned with what was happening at my own place.
‘Are you kidding?’ I asked the council worker who stood at the front steps, blocking my way. I peered over his shoulder. Two of his co-workers were hammering a sign to my front door. I stared at it: No Entry. This property has been deemed unfit for human habitation, and has been condemned. Cross this line at your own risk.
‘Nope, not kidding. You’ve got every kind of mould there is.’
‘I’ve never seen any mould.’
‘Sorry love.’ The council worker gave me a very un-sorry shrug. ‘But it is what it is. The council are putting you and all the other residents up in hotels until you find somewhere else.’
‘Can I at least go in and get my stuff?’
He sighed. ‘Of course you can’t go in. The sign says No Entry, doesn’t it? Can’t you read?’
‘Yes, I can read. But it doesn’t change the fact that I have to go in there. I have an exam on Friday. I need to study. And I have an interview today, too. I can hardly go in this.’ I held my hands out, indicating my poorly-fitting supermarket uniform.
He opened the door of the council van and peered inside. ‘Adrian Percy’s already been and gone. So that makes you either Wanda Wayfair or Stacey Byrne. Which is it?’
‘Um, Wanda?’ I had to phrase it as a question. In fact, I had the sinking feeling that I’d be phrasing everything as a question for the rest of the day.
He grunted, then pulled three large, black plastic bags out and set them at my feet.
I gaped at him. ‘Seriously? You packed up my stuff. Meaning you went through my stuff. My stuff.’
He curled his lip. ‘No need to thank me. Oh, and here.’ He pulled a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket. ‘Seeing as you’re Wanda, then this one is for you.’
I took the piece of paper: This voucher entitles the bearer to a one month stay at the Hilltop Hotel, Warren Lane (Off Grafton Street), Dublin 2.
‘But … there is no Warren Lane near Grafton Street,’ I said perplexedly.
The council worker shrugged, said, ‘Take it up with someone who cares, love,’ and proceeded to board up the windows of my former home.
≈
There was no telephone number on the voucher. Of course there wasn’t. I mean, a wonderful day like this one didn’t need much to make it better. I glanced at my watch. It was half past twelve. If I cut through St Stephen’s Green, then I could make it to Grafton Street in ten minutes or so. Assuming I got settled into the hotel (if I could find it first) within the next half hour, I could probably make my job interview on time. I heaved one bag over my shoulder and took the other two in my hands, and then I ran.
Since I moved to Dublin at seventeen, I’d walked up and down Grafton Street countless times. There were many little roads leading off the main thoroughfare, but I’d never noticed one called Warren Lane. Given how perfectly my day was turning out so far, I doubted I’d find it today. A frantic search on the internet (via my mobile phone) was no help at all. There was a place called Warrenmount in Dublin 8, but nothing in Dublin 2.
Huffing and puffing, readjusting my bags a hundred times, I decided to search Grafton Street anyway. Because what else could I do? I was about halfway along the street, feeling evermore dejected, when a flower-seller wheeled a cart out in front of me and knocked me to the ground.
‘Perfect,’ I muttered, as they kept going without so much as a sorry. ‘And I see you’ve left a fine mess behind you, too.’ I picked a daisy out from under my right foot and stood up. The flower-seller had left a long trail of daisies behind them, a trail that led right up to a side-street called Warren Lane.
For a good minute or so, I just stared. For another minute or two, I shook my head. Eventually I snapped back to action, and turned into Warren Lane. I saw the hotel straight away, on the right side of the street. It wasn’t on a hill, but I wasn’t about to quibble. It was an old stone building, with stunning mullioned windows looking out onto the street. Wishing I had a free hand to wipe the sweat off my forehead, I rushed through the doors.
The foyer was large and cool, a welcome break after the June heat on the street outside. The ceilings were high, enormous black chandeliers hanging down – the largest, most decorative of all was in the centre of the ceiling. The walls were panelled at the bottom, with old-fashioned stonework at the top. Antique paintings of men and women decorated the upper part of the walls. Most of the subjects seemed to be stroking cats. I resisted the urge to look at each and every painting (difficult, when some of the people were wearing ridiculously awesome clothing), and denied myself the even stronger urge to sit on one of the foyer’s many squidgy chairs.
Instead, I rushed to the reception desk. I was just about to put my hand to the brass bell when a short, curvaceous blonde appeared. She was dressed in a fitted jacket, tight skirt and high heels. On the lapel of her jacket was a large, gaudy, gold brooch shaped like a cat.
‘Ah.’ She glanced at the voucher in my hand. ‘You must be Wanda Wayfair.’
I nodded, then asked breathlessly, ‘Is anyone else from my house here yet?’
‘Oh no, dear. Why on earth would you think they’d be here?’
To be honest, everyone in my house stayed in their own rooms, only coming out to occasionally use the loo or argue about who stole a tin of beans. We weren’t close. We were barely civil. But still. It’d be nice to have someone familiar to grunt at. ‘Because … well have the council put them somewhere else?’
She shrugged. ‘I have no idea. You’re the only one I have booked. Now
… there’s a bit of a problem with that too, love.’
‘Well, of course there is. Let me guess. There’s been a flood. Or a gas leak. Or a meteor’s crashed into the hotel and only destroyed the room I’m booked into.’
‘Wouldn’t that be funny?’ She laughed. I didn’t join her. ‘No. No, it’s just that Maureen O’Mara was due to vacate her room this evening, only now she’s decided to stay on a few more days. Now, the room’s yours, technically. But well, you know what Maureen’s like.’
‘No.’ I shook my head. ‘I don’t.’
‘Oh, come off it. Everyone knows Maureen. And, that being the case, I didn’t think you’d mind sharing.’ She waved across the room, pointing towards a cluster of armchairs by the fireplace. ‘There she is now.’
I turned and looked across the foyer. A tiny, skinny, grey-haired woman was sitting in an armchair, looking very nearly like she was being swallowed by it. On her lap was an enormous, leather-bound book. She wore a long, fitted black dress and a pearl-grey shawl. She looked at me, then opened her almost-entirely toothless mouth into a wide grin. ‘Hello Wanda!’ she called. ‘Won’t it be fun, us girls together!’
I made a non-committal shrug and turned back to the receptionist. ‘Listen, can we sort this out later? For now I just need to get changed really quickly, because I have an interview in–’ I glanced at my watch. ‘–forty-five minutes. And it’s all the way in Berrys’ Bottlers.’
‘Oh.’ She gave me an impressed looking nod. ‘Aren’t they doing well for themselves, that lot? Well, good luck to you, Wanda. I’m sure you’ll get the job. Now, your room is on the top floor – thirteen flights up – or you could pop into the ladies’ room just next to reception and I could have the bellboy take your bags up for later.’
‘Yes. Yes, the second thing you said.’ I couldn’t manage any more small-talk. I grabbed what I needed and ran to the ladies’ room.
I changed my clothes quickly, and I was just smoothing down my brown hair and thinking that, actually, this wasn’t the worst day in the world. But then I saw it. My earlier sense of doom was reconfirmed. It sat there on the edge of the vanity unit, grinning at me. It was the oldest rat I had ever seen. Its toothless mouth was formed into a wide grin, and one of its scrawny, sharp-nailed little paws was raised in my direction.
I picked up my handbag, pushed my way out of the room, and ran to the bus stop on Dame Street as fast as my legs would carry me.
≈
I got to the bus stop with five minutes to spare, but my rush had made me thirsty, so I dashed into a nearby newsagent to grab a drink. I scanned the shelves for the cheapest, and spied something new.
‘Berry Good Go Juice. Never seen you before.’ I read the label, saw that it was well within my price range (dirt cheap) and paid for the drink. I drained the bottle quickly – it really was berry good – and was just about to throw it in the bin next to the bus stop when a newspaper came flying at me, thrown by a passenger in a nearby van.
‘Today’s is a good one,’ said a gravelly voice beside me as I peeled the newspaper off my face.
I turned around. Normally, I’m not very good with faces. People often describe me as having my head in the clouds or being away with the fairies when it comes to such things as noticing hair-colour, eye-colour and so on. But even with my wonderful attention to detail, there are some people I’ll never forget.
‘Maureen O’Mara?’
The tiny woman from the Hilltop Hotel stood a few feet away, grinning at me. She wrapped her grey shawl tighter around her shoulders and said, ‘I do like their papers. Great laugh so they are. Might keep you entertained on the bus, love. Keep your mind off your interview.’
I was just about to ask her how on earth she’d gotten from Warren Lane to Dame Street so quickly, when the bus pulled up. Clutching the newspaper in my hand, I stood back to let her go on ahead of me.
‘Oh no, love. I’m not getting on. Just came to wish you luck.’
I had so many questions for Maureen. Why wasn’t she out of breath? Why was she dressed like a lady from a horror film? Why did she act like she knew me? But I’d spent a lifetime avoiding the oddities of the world, and I wasn’t about to become entrenched in them now. So I merely said, ‘Well, bye then,’ and boarded the bus.
As I took my seat, I did my best not to glance out. But I’m weak-willed, apparently, because I didn’t so much look as I did gawp. As the bus pulled away from the stop, Maureen O’Mara stood on the street, waving me off and grinning like a madwoman.
I put the Daily Dubliner on the seat beside me, and picked up my beeping phone. I had ten text messages. All from my mother and her cohorts. I read the first:
We’re moving again.
Then the second:
We’ll send you the address when we get there so you can come for your birthday.
Pretty sure the rest of the messages would be similar, I put my phone away and picked up the paper. The headline on the front page was a little more exciting than usual – y’know, if you consider murder and mayhem exciting.
In Dublin’s Scare City
Yes, you read it right. It’s time to be scared, folks. The recent spate of seemingly random attacks in our formerly fair city has escalated. After days of people randomly knifing and strangling strangers, this morning, things got fatal. Connor Cramer of Cramer’s Candles was killed with one of his very own candleholders, inside his very own shop. When the gardaí arrived at the scene, the attacker was still present, grasping the bloodied candleholder and screaming, ‘I dunno why I done it!’
Last night, another attack victim, Adeline Albright, who calls herself an academic, managed to narrowly escape a similar attack.
‘I suppose I was just lucky,’ Adeline told our reporters. ‘Listen, can I go now? I have to get home and feed the dog.’
As I read through paragraph after paragraph of questionable journalism, I wondered: could the scene across the road from my house have been connected?
The bus pulled up to the next stop, and a gust of breeze came in as more passengers boarded, whooshing the newspaper open right onto the Rooms to Let page.
I considered things. A rat-infested hotel that was free, or a room in a houseshare I could barely afford?
I put thoughts of In Dublin’s Scare City aside, and scanned the listings.
Six hundred and fifty a month. Must smoke.
Six hundred a month. Vegetarians not welcome.
Eight hundred and eighty a month. Must be alright with roommates who watch a lot of porn.
Seven hundred a month. Swingers preferred but not required.
Two hundred and forty a month–
My eyes rounded. ‘Two Hundred and forty!’ I looked around, wondering if anyone had noticed my outburst, but they were all glued to their smartphone screens, so I returned to reading. ‘“Number Three Westerly Crescent, Luna Park. Two hundred and forty a month. If interested, call before six.”’
I chewed at my fingernails. Today had been a very strange day, but a room in Dublin for two-forty a month was possibly the strangest thing of all. As much as I was looking forward to sharing a room with Maureen (ahem), I decided that I might as well at least check if the price in the listing was a mistake. I picked up my mobile, and rang.
‘Hi, I’m just calling about the room to let,’ I said as soon as the phone was answered. ‘The one for two-forty in the Daily Dubliner?’
‘Oh. Right.’ The voice sounded deep, male, and distracted. ‘Sorry, what did you say your name was?’
‘I didn’t. It’s Wanda Wayfair.’
‘Wayfair? Seriously? And you want to live here?’
‘It’s not that unusual a name, is it? And look, I wouldn’t be calling if I didn’t need a room, now would I?’
‘Hmm. Suppose not. But two-forty really doesn’t bother you?’
I stifled a scream. ‘Listen, is the room for rent or not?’
‘It’s for rent. Are you sure though? I mean … two-forty is a bit steep for the likes of yo
u.’
I continued to stifle that same scream. It wasn’t easy. ‘Can you text me directions?’
‘Well … I suppose. If you need them. But delete the message straight afterwards. Oh, and you have to get here before six, Wanda, because I go out at six.’
I hesitated a moment. Berrys’ Bottlers was at a close-by industrial estate. If my interview there didn’t take too long, then I could probably make it to Luna Park by six. Assuming the buses were on time, and I ran in between stops very very fast. ‘I … yes. Yes I can be there before six.’
‘Brilliant. Room’s yours, so.’ The phone hung up. A few seconds later, a text came through with directions.
≈
Berrys’ Bottlers didn’t seem to be having its best day. But who was I to judge? If anything, I sympathised with them. If my mother were here she’d blame today’s oddities on the phase of the moon. Actually, that wasn’t true. If my mother were here, she’d probably find nothing odd about this day at all.
Garda cars were in the company car park when I arrived, and two gardaí were questioning a tall, attractive, fifty-something blonde woman at the front doors. I stood awkwardly for a moment, wondering what to do, when a man approached me from the side.
‘Wanda Wayfair?’ he whispered, glancing anxiously at the scene in the carpark. ‘I’m William Berry. You’re here for the interview?’
‘Um, yes,’ I replied, doing my best not to stare. This was who I’d been emailing with? He was younger than I expected. And taller. And buffer. ‘But … I can see there’s been some trouble, so if you want to rearrange ...’
‘This way, this way. Never mind all that,’ he whispered, grabbing my hand and ushering me towards a staircase at the side of the building. ‘We had a break-in last night, but it’s all sorted now.’
He pushed open the door into a large office and stood back so that I could enter before him. Feminist me was enraged. Other parts of me … not so much. As I made my way in past him, I did my best not to stop and sniff. It was probably my most difficult feat of the day so far. Even at a semi-acceptable distance, his cologne smelled like heaven.
Bottling It (A Wayfair Witches' Cozy Mystery #1) Page 1