A Witch Alone

by James Nicol

  And she was rewarded with a high-pitched chattering noise as well as the scratching.

  She took a few steps forwards in the dark. Perhaps it’s just mice?

  But there was a rather nasty smell as well, and as her eyes adjusted to the gloom she saw the cause.

  It was certainly not mice!

  Under the stone sink, stuck partly to the wall and partly to the small cupboard beside the sink was a sphere of matted bits of mud and scraps of material.

  It was without a doubt a snotling nest!

  Snotlings would build a nest out of just about anything. It was small, thankfully. A few snotling droppings littered the floor. ‘Just perfect,’ Arianwyn moaned. As if she needed anything else to be dealing with right now!

  ‘Are you going to be long, do you think?’ There was an urgent knock on the door that made her jump. It was Mrs Gubbage. ‘Only I do have other errands to run today, you know.’

  ‘I’ll be right with you.’ Arianwyn said brightly. She shoved the extra-large charm globes into the storeroom and made a mental note to deal with the snotlings later, then she slammed the door shut and – fixing a smile on her face – returned to the queue at the counter.

  ‘So, tamble-rats, was it?’ Arianwyn asked, reaching for the ledger.

  Chapter 11

  MUD AND MAGIC

  n here, miss!’ Farmer Eames called as Arianwyn flew towards the open gate, her broom wobbling as she made the sharp turn into the field.

  ‘Sorry I’m a bit late!’ Arianwyn replied, jumping down and crossing over to Farmer Eames.

  ‘Gus said he last saw the bogglin in the corner of the field yesterday afternoon, miss,’ Farmer Eames said, pointing to a tangle of trees and bushes bordering the field. It looked a bit boggy, an unusual place for a bogglin to build a nest; they usually liked cellars or outhouses, or occasionally coal sheds.

  ‘And you definitely tried the jessen seed powder?’ Arianwyn checked.

  ‘Yes . . .’ Farmer Eames said. ‘Gave my wife a nasty rash, it did!’

  ‘Oh, sorry about that,’ Arianwyn replied. ‘Well, I’ll see what I can do.’

  She stood watching the field for a few moments, the dusty yellow corn swaying in the damp breeze, but she couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary. The sky was grey and flat.

  Arianwyn started to cross the field, Farmer Eames following two steps behind. The corn brushed against her coat and she let her mind wander to all sorts of other thoughts: the book of glyphs, the expedition into the Great Wood, what she would have for tea, whether or not she had remembered to feed Bob before she left the Spellorium, anything in fact except for the bogglin. So when something dashed through the corn in front of her it was quite a surprise and she gave a little gasp of shock.

  She heard the grunting squeal of the bogglin and was just readying a spell orb to stun it when she saw it as clear as day. It had paused and now stood about six metres away, staring straight at her.

  But it wasn’t a standard bogglin at all. The creature squatted amongst the crops, its lumpy toad-like skin blending almost perfectly with its surroundings, not like the greyish skin of an ordinary bogglin. And its eyes gave it away entirely – bogglins generally had bulging yellow eyes, but these were bright, searing red.

  ‘Oh no,’ Arianwyn groaned.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Farmer Eames asked.

  ‘Well, I know now why the jessen seed powder didn’t work. That is a harvest bogglin, and it’s quite a different creature.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Farmer Eames. ‘Why’s that then?’

  ‘Harvest bogglins can camouflage themselves, they’re quite horribly vicious and have incredibly thick hides, to the point where standard spells often don’t work against them as their thick skins deflect the magic.’

  ‘Oh dear!’

  ‘Indeed!’ Arianwyn said.

  The harvest bogglin snorted and pounded the ground with a thick crusty fist that was as lumpy and gnarled as the rest of it.

  ‘Why’s it doing that?’ Farmer Eames asked.

  Arianwyn grabbed the farmer’s arm, a sinking feeling in her stomach, and slowly guided him to step backwards, away from the creature. ‘Because it’s about to run at us.’

  They had only taken two or three steps away from the bogglin when it began to bolt straight at them, head lowered and snarling as it charged. Unsure what else to do, Arianwyn shoved Farmer Eames to one side and dived in the opposite direction herself as the bogglin raced past them. It disappeared off somewhere into the field.

  ‘Well, what do we do now?’ Farmer Eames asked, peering at Arianwyn through the corn stalks.

  She sat in the mud, thinking. ‘We’re going to need some rope!’ she said eventually. ‘Lots and lots of rope!’

  Arianwyn stayed beside the field, trying to keep track of where the bogglin was and what it was doing while she thought through her plan. The bogglin seemed to be rushing in a very haphazard fashion around the field, but Arianwyn knew it was marking the field as its territory – she even caught the occasional pungent whiff of its scent and was forced to cover her nose with a handkerchief.

  She’d pulled out her copies of The Apprentice Witch’s Handbook and A Witch Alone. Although both had sections on bogglins (standard) and several other types, including bog bogglins, sand bogglins and even tree bogglins (which it turned out actually weren’t dark spirit creatures at all!) neither were particularly useful when it came to harvest bogglins. There was one small sketch of one in A Witch Alone, but a single line under the illustration said: ‘No recorded sightings for seventy-five years.’ And the book was at least fifty years old. Arianwyn shoved both the books into her bag and looked out across the field, watching the corn wobble this way and that as the bogglin charged about. She would just have to improvise.

  She sighed; this was taking far too long. But then from over the next field she saw Farmer Eames’s tractor trundling towards her. It was pulling a small trailer behind it.

  ‘Been through all my barns and brought as much rope as I had spare!’ Farmer Eames smiled as he pulled up alongside Arianwyn. The trailer held several coils of rope that looked rather like a nest of huge snakes or worms. ‘Now what do we do, miss?’ he asked.

  After an hour or so, Arianwyn and Farmer Eames had made a criss-crossing pattern with the various ropes across the field, like a wonky spider’s web. Every now and then the bogglin had sniffed at the ropes, occasionally flinging one aside as it continued its charging about.

  Once the ropes were placed Arianwyn knelt and quickly drew alternate Årdra and Erṯe glyphs into the soil between each rope. She hoped the two glyphs together would form a strong enough spell to hold the bogglin long enough to banish it. She was about a quarter of the way around the field when she heard a commotion from the other side: the bogglin was on the move again, the corn whipping about as though caught in a hurricane.

  ‘Farmer Eames, move!’ she called out. But Farmer Eames seemed quite oblivious to what was going on around him as he bit down on a sandwich.

  Arianwyn couldn’t risk Farmer Eames getting attacked by the bogglin, and she was now worried it might move into the next field once it had finished marking its territory in this one. She would have to set up the spell all over again, and she really didn’t have the time.

  ‘Boil it!’ she swore. Even though her improvised spell wasn’t complete she would have to go with what she had in place already: slightly less than half the ropes.

  But half was better than nothing. She drew one last glyph quickly. She let the seam of magic nearby pour towards her – it was like a warm breeze rushing at you – and her skin fizzed and tickled as the magic connected with the glyphs she had put in place. Ideally the bogglin would have been in the middle of the field, where the ropes overlapped, but this was clearly not going to be one of those afternoons.

  The magic surged around her, and Arianwyn directed it at the ropes that spread out nearby. The ropes jolted and rippled as the magic passed into them. And then the ropes closest to he
r were whizzing away, as though being pulled by strong invisible hands.

  There was a squealing noise from the opposite side of the field and Arianwyn saw Farmer Eames jump, drop his sandwich and leap backwards. The corn nearby was fluctuating and undulating like an angry golden sea under the stormy grey sky. He looked across at Arianwyn at last – she waved her hands hoping he would take the hint and run, but he was too slow and the bogglin was clearly moving closer. ‘RUN!’ Arianwyn shouted, just as the bogglin lurched from the cover of the cornfield straight towards Farmer Eames, its huge mouth wide open, its knot of stumpy teeth bared.

  But then something happened and the bogglin seemed to hang in the air for a second. Arianwyn had been running forwards, but she paused, trying to unravel the scene before her. And then she saw the twists of rope that had already wrapped themselves around the bogglin. As the creature hung in mid-air the ropes continued to twist and coil, wrapping first around its back legs and then further around its body and then its front legs. All the while the bogglin turned over and over in mid-air, snarling and snapping as Farmer Eames backed away.

  The ropes were anchored to the earth, holding the bogglin like a rather gruesome balloon. Arianwyn approached cautiously. ‘Are you OK?’ she called to Farmer Eames. He nodded mutely, staring up at the bogglin.

  Arianwyn raised her right hand and in the air before the creature she sketched the banishing glyph, feeling the cool slice of the void opening before her, like an icy pull on her heart.

  ‘Return to the void. Your spirit must not linger here. Go in peace. Return to the darkness.’

  The spelled ropes suddenly fell as the bogglin’s physical presence evaporated into the afternoon’s grey sky with a spattering of light. At its core hung a little wisp of darkness that hovered for a second before being sucked towards the rift. As the bogglin’s dark spirit disappeared through the rift, Arianwyn felt a moment of worry: what if her rift didn’t close itself now? What if something else got through? She could feel her heart racing; she felt hot and sweaty and not just from all the chasing around the field.

  But after a few seconds the rift twisted in on itself and collapsed, and the cold pull of the void was gone.

  Arianwyn clapped the mud from her hands and turned to smile at Farmer Eames. ‘There you go, I hope you’re happy with that?’

  Farmer Eames smiled. ‘That’s wonderful, Miss Gribble, but you did know we’ve got two of them, didn’t you?’ He scratched at his head and squinted at her.

  It was going to be a very long afternoon indeed!

  It was just growing dark as Arianwyn eventually arrived back at the Spellorium, her boots and uniform covered in mud. She was exhausted from her work with Farmer Eames, filthy and roaring hungry. It took all her effort to clamber off her broom and unlock the Spellorium door.

  Bob jumped around her excitedly and she paused to scratch the moon hare’s long white ears, which were sparkling in the last of the day’s light. As she stood, she felt all her muscles stiffen and she gave a little groan. A nice warm bath was exactly what she needed; the mere thought of it was making her feel better. She yawned and kicked off her muddy boots, heading upstairs. She started to run the bath, adding a generous amount of blueberry and star flower bubble bath. Then as the water filled the tub she quickly lit a fire, grabbed her book and made herself a huge steaming mug of hot chocolate.

  Five minutes later she was submerged in the deep bath and sipping on her hot chocolate, letting the aches and pains and mud of the day slip away. She gave a deep sigh of contentment.

  And then she heard a furious tapping on the Spellorium door.

  Chapter 12

  HARDLY A DISASTER

  ho can that be now?’ Arianwyn grumbled, reaching for a towel. Water splashed on to the floor of the bathroom. There was another knock, louder than the first. ‘All right, I’m coming.’ She wrapped herself in her dressing gown, pulled on a thick pair of socks and went back downstairs into the dark Spellorium.

  Bob danced around her feet as she hurried towards the door. A dark shape was silhouetted behind the blind drawn over the window. ‘Better not be any more harvest bogglins.’ She smiled down at Bob.

  The moon hare sneezed in agreement. She pulled open the door and nearly fell out into Kettle Lane with excitement. ‘Oh my goodness! Colin!’ She couldn’t believe her eyes. Colin stood on the doorstep, hair hanging into his eyes as usual. He looked tired and rumpled from travelling. ‘I didn’t know you’d be here so soon!’ She moved forwards, reaching out to offer him a friendly hug.

  But his cheeks bloomed two red spots and he half backed away. ‘Hello, Miss Gribble,’ he offered, rather formally.

  ‘I didn’t think you were arriving until next week!’ In her excitement, Arianwyn pulled him into a tight hug just as he said: ‘Wait! Arianwyn—’

  ‘MISS GRIBBLE!’ A sharp voice rang along Kettle Lane.

  In a nearby house a baby burst into tears and a dog started to howl. The voice was jarring and unmistakable. Arianwyn felt her stomach drop as if she were on a roller coaster. But this was much less fun. It couldn’t be . . . could it?

  ‘Good heavens,’ the sharp voice continued, ‘I trust this isn’t how all guests from the Civil Witchcraft Authority are greeted?’

  ‘Miss Newam?’ Arianwyn said, pulling away from Colin and turning slowly towards the voice, though she was hoping it was some sort of hallucination caused by tiredness and too much bubble bath. But no! Miss Newam stood hunched, arms folded tight over her chest, her thick spectacles sliding down her nose as her hard little eyes fixed on Arianwyn as though she was something she’d found on the bottom of her shoe. Arianwyn felt as if she was at her evaluation ceremony all over again. She could almost smell the smoke rising from the evaluation gauge as Miss Newam’s expression grew more disappointed with each passing second. Her mouth pulled into a sour little pout. And then realization hit, like a bucket of ice-cold water straight in the face. Could Miss Newam be the other person, the person the High Elder trusted with their secret mission? No, there had to have been some sort of mistake . . . Arianwyn crossed her fingers. Please let it be a mistake.

  ‘Miss Newam works for the Magical Research and Science Department now and was selected to join the team!’ Colin said, trying jolly hard to make it sound like good news.

  ‘Oh . . . really?’ Arianwyn couldn’t mask her shock. Then remembering her manners she said quickly, ‘Welcome to Lull, Miss Newam. It’s . . . nice to see you again.’ She extended her hand.

  Miss Newam sniffed and totally ignored the gesture. ‘Miss Gribble, we’ve had a very long day travelling, ending with a perfectly awful journey here on a bus of all things!’ She gestured to Beryl, parked a little further along Kettle Lane. ‘Ghastly business, and I’m in no mood for pleasantries. I’d just like to go to wherever it is we are staying, have a warm bath and lie down.’ She wiped at imaginary dirt on her sleeves and skirt, her dark grey clothes as drab and ill-fitting as ever.

  ‘Are you booked into the Blue Ox, then?’ Arianwyn asked brightly.

  ‘Well, I certainly hope so,’ Miss Newam snapped. ‘Naturally you were arranging accommodation!’

  She was? Arianwyn had a cold sinking feeling.

  ‘We sent a telegram ahead to let you know we were coming today,’ Colin explained quietly.

  Arianwyn glanced back inside at the unopened stack of letters and messages still on the counter of Spellorium.

  ‘With clear instructions to arrange lodging for us,’ Miss Newam added through gritted teeth.

  ‘I’m sorry!’ Arianwyn said in a small voice. ‘I’ve barely had time to check all the messages and letters. It’s been so busy since I got back—’

  ‘Oh, for pity’s sake!’ Miss Newam groaned and rolled her eyes to the darkening sky. ‘So what you are telling me is that we don’t actually have anywhere to stay. Is that a fair assessment of the situation?’ Tiny black eyes bored into Arianwyn. She felt herself flush.

  ‘Miss Newam, I really am—’

&nbs
p; ‘This is just what I was expecting!’ Miss Newam crowed, flinging her hands into the air. ‘I told the High Elder this would end in disaster—’

  ‘It’s hardly a disaster!’ Colin offered calmly.

  ‘Look, I’m sure I can get some rooms sorted,’ Arianwyn said. ‘Why don’t you, er, wait here. Make yourselves a cup of tea, pop your feet up.’ She smiled at Colin and pretended not to notice Miss Newam’s cold gaze.

  ‘And just what do you suggest we do with all our luggage?’ Miss Newam snapped.

  ‘I’m sure Mr Thorn can keep hold of it for now?’ Arianwyn gave Mr Thorn, who waited beside Beryl, a pleading look. He smiled kindly in response.

  Miss Newam made a disgruntled sound in the back of her throat that was part cough, part growl. Then she turned her apocalyptic gaze on to Colin.

  ‘I’ll be back in a flash!’ Arianwyn called as she started to head down Kettle Lane. She’d not gone far though when she did an immediate about-turn, rushing back past Mr Thorn, Colin and Miss Newam, clutching at her dressing gown. ‘Perhaps I ought to get dressed first, though!’

  Aunt Grace slid her hand across the ledger for the Blue Ox and pulled a face. ‘I’m sorry, Arianwyn love, we’re full tonight. I don’t think we can help until tomorrow.’

  Arianwyn chewed her lip and stared for a few seconds into the cheerful flames of the fire.

  ‘We’ve got plenty of spare blankets you can take back with you, and I think Mat might have an old camp bed around somewhere, if that helps? I am sorry. We’re been so busy with all the tourists coming to see the Great Wood. The other week, there was even one woman who clambered over the cordon and went in. Constable Perkins nearly had to have her arrested.’ She gave Arianwyn’s shoulder a gentle squeeze. ‘Just for one night. This Miss Newam can’t be that bad, can she?’ Aunt Grace smiled reassuringly. She always saw the best in everyone – it was like her very own magic.