A Witch Alone

by James Nicol

  She was ushered through the kitchen and into the dark sitting room. The curtains were drawn and only a single weak lamp offered any light. Arianwyn saw Gimma at once, her face like a pale beacon in the gloom.

  ‘Gimma? What’s the matter?’ Arianwyn asked.

  Mr and Mrs Guthrie sat on the sofa. Both of them looked beyond terrified. Arianwyn noticed that Mr Guthrie was draped in a towel but didn’t appear to have a shirt or jumper on.

  First things first, thought Arianwyn – she wouldn’t be able to do anything properly in such a dark room and certainly not with all those people watching from the kitchen. She shut the sitting-room door quickly and heard moans from the assembled watchers as she did so. ‘I think we could do with some more light as well. Can you open the curtains, Gimma?’

  Gimma appeared to be glad of something to do. She crossed the room quickly, flooding the room with late afternoon light as she pulled the curtains back. Mr Guthrie turned away from the light, wincing.

  When Gimma crossed back she grabbed Arianwyn’s hands in her own, still covered with her pink suede gloves. ‘They said it was brownie bite, Arianwyn. I didn’t know what to do and everything I tried just seemed to make it worse.’ She was shaking, and suddenly she burst into tears, burying her head against Arianwyn’s chest.

  ‘It’s OK,’ Arianwyn said slowly, patting Gimma’s back awkwardly. ‘Why don’t you sit down there for a second, Gimma. Mr Guthrie, can you tell me what’s happened?’

  ‘He can’t talk,’ Mrs Guthrie said. She fiddled with a thin gold chain around her neck. ‘It’s the thing, you see.’

  ‘I’m not sure I do.’ Arianwyn felt a cold dead weight in her stomach. She glanced at Gimma who wiped her tears away.

  ‘Show her,’ Gimma said, her voice wavering. ‘She’ll know what to do.’

  Mr Guthrie stood slowly; it seemed to take all his effort to do so, his face twisting in pain as he tried to stand upright. Mrs Guthrie stood at his side, then she reached for the towel and Mr Guthrie gave a small nod.

  As she pulled the towel from his back, Mrs Guthrie looked away and Arianwyn saw something coiled around Mr Guthrie’s neck and chest, dark and scaled like a snake. Arianwyn couldn’t stop herself from gasping.

  ‘He got home from work and said his back was sore where he’d been bitten by a brownie up at the farm,’ Mrs Guthrie explained as Arianwyn moved slowly across the room. ‘And when he took his shirt off so I could put some ointment on, well . . . there it was.’ Mrs Guthrie started to sob quietly into the towel.

  Mr Guthrie turned slowly then and Arianwyn saw exactly what they were dealing with. Clinging to Mr Guthrie’s back was a creature, dark green and scaled just like the tentacle around his neck and chest. It was about the size of a large dinner plate, spined with numerous shorter tentacles spreading out across Mr Guthrie’s back. The skin under the tentacles was grey-green.

  This was not good.

  ‘What is it?’ Gimma asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Arianwyn said slowly. Mrs Guthrie started to cry again. ‘Have you tried stunning it?’ Arianwyn asked Gimma.

  She nodded. ‘Every time I tried it just got bigger and the tentacles pulled tighter.’

  As they stood there watching the creature, it shifted slightly and then seemed to grow suddenly from the size of a dinner plate to a washing-up bowl. Mrs Guthrie gave a cry of fear, reaching to take her husband’s hand and Gimma gripped Arianwyn’s arm. ‘You have to do something!’ she hissed.

  Arianwyn went to the door and found Constable Perkins in the kitchen. ‘I need you to fetch Miss Delafield as soon as possible, please. She’ll be on duty in Flaxham today,’ she said. The constable nodded and left the kitchen.

  An hour and several failed spells later, the whatever-it-was had grown bigger still and Mr Guthrie was struggling to breathe as the tentacles tightened. Arianwyn was desperately attempting a charm, though her hands were shaking and she had dropped the errony stones and carrum flowers twice by the time Miss Delafield hurried through the sitting-room door.

  ‘I’m here!’ she called.

  Arianwyn felt hope flutter against the worry and fear in her chest, like a butterfly against a window.

  ‘Oh, heavens,’ Miss Delafield breathed as she took in the full horror of the situation. She stood beside Arianwyn and Gimma and placed an arm around each of them.

  ‘What is it?’ Arianwyn asked.

  ‘A pangorbak. Nasty little things as well. Haven’t seen one in years, thankfully.’ Miss Delafield stepped away and took off her coat, then turned to Constable Perkins. ‘We need everyone to leave, all those people in the kitchen – send them home. Right now.’

  The constable went away and they could hear the sounds of people leaving from the kitchen. Miss Delafield rolled up her sleeves. ‘We tried everything we could think of,’ Arianwyn explained as her supervisor approached Mr Guthrie and examined the pangorbak more closely. ‘But everything just seemed to make it get bigger. Was it feeding off the magic?’

  Miss Delafield sucked air in through her teeth. ‘No, it’s not the magic.’ She straightened and folded her hands together, then looked first at Mr and Mrs Guthrie and then at Arianwyn and Gimma. ‘You have to follow my instructions to the letter, do you all understand? No questions, no disagreeing.’

  They all nodded.

  ‘All right then. The secret to defeating a pangorbak is simple, but may seem strange. When I say so, everyone has to turn away from Mr Guthrie. Don’t look at the pangorbak. Try not to even think about it.’

  ‘What? Miss Delafield, are you sure?’ It sounded crazy.

  She gave Arianwyn a hard stare. ‘Quite certain, Miss Gribble.’

  The room fell silent. Miss Delafield turned to Mr Guthrie and took his hands. ‘Now, Mr Guthrie. At first the pangorbak will double its grip, but that means it’s weakening. You need to be prepared. Do you understand, dear?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Good. Now, everyone ready? One, two, three. NOW!’

  As Arianwyn turned to face the kitchen door, she cast one quick look at Gimma, pale and shivering. The room fell silent. Arianwyn fixed her eyes on the wall and in her head she counted, trying to think of anything but the pangorbak. After a few minutes the room was filled with the sound of Mr Guthrie’s laboured breathing. Arianwyn wanted to hold her hands over her ears.

  Surely it’s over by now?

  And then she heard a soft thud.

  ‘Quickly!’ Miss Delafield said, and everyone turned around.

  Mr Guthrie had collapsed on to the sofa, the pangorbak gone from his back. It lay on the rug, its tentacles moving slowly this way and that.

  ‘Don’t go near it!’ Miss Delafield warned, and then there was a bright flash as she sent a stunning orb towards it. Its flicking tentacles immediately stilled.

  ‘Now does anyone want to do the honours?’ Miss Delafield asked. She meant banishing it, of course.

  Gimma shook her head quickly. ‘No.’

  ‘Arianwyn? Not every day you get to banish a pangorbak, dear.’

  ‘Yes, all right then,’ Arianwyn said carefully.

  She took a few slow steps forwards and knelt down beside the pangorbak. Mrs Guthrie was tending to her husband, Miss Delafield was watching Arianwyn and Gimma stood by the fireplace, shaking.

  Arianwyn sketched L’ier, the banishing glyph, and recited the banishing spell as the pangorbak’s body slowly started to dissolve into small flecks of light.

  ‘Oh my goodness,’ Miss Delafield sighed as they walked into the dark Spellorium.

  ‘That was horrible,’ Arianwyn said, flicking on the lights. Bob skittered towards them.

  Gimma had been silent since they left the Guthries’. She stood quietly by the counter.

  ‘This is not good,’ Miss Delafield said. ‘Things are getting out of hand. We need something to slow the hex or we’ll soon be overrun with all manner of creatures. We certainly don’t want any more pangorbaks, do we? Any ideas, girls?’

  Arianwyn thought about w
hat Virean had said about Erraldur. Could the same future face Lull if they didn’t act fast? She looked at Gimma who simply shrugged her shoulders and mumbled, ‘A protection spell?’

  Miss Delafield tutted. ‘As a last resort perhaps, but no, dear, that wouldn’t work. Someone would have to maintain it all the time. We need something we can leave in place while we get on with our duties.’

  Arianwyn’s eyes fell on a batch of charms hanging from a hook by the window, mostly weather charms for the local farmers. Below them were stacked some of the large charm globes that had arrived by mistake. Her mind began to click as ideas filtered through.

  ‘Charms?’ Arianwyn said partly to herself.

  ‘You mean issue everyone with a charm, dear? I don’t see how that would help much.’

  ‘No, we could string charms up at the edge of the wood to hold off the hex,’ she said, as the idea unfolded in her mind. ‘The feylings were wearing a stone that they said warded off dark magic . . .’ She felt for the feyling charm under her clothes and pulled it out.

  ‘And you believed them?’ Gimma laughed. ‘That’s just a stone with some markings carved on it!’

  Arianwyn blushed. ‘Well, if the feylings say it works, I think it’s worth a try. The stones have to be from the river and gathered at full moon, they said, and they use this symbol.’ She traced the line of the carving with her finger. ‘And if we use Miss Delafield’s fire spell that she placed on our gloves and use other ingredients that might fend off hex as well, it might work.’ She looked hopefully at Miss Delafield.

  ‘Well, it’s the full moon early next week, and if anyone can make it work I’m sure it’s you, dear.’ Miss Delafield smiled. ‘It’s a good idea.’

  ‘Oh, of course it would be!’ Gimma sniffed.

  Chapter 24

  THE NEW GLYPH

  hank you, Mr Brown!’ Arianwyn called as the gentleman stepped out of the Spellorium, his package of charms safely tucked under his arm. ‘Those should keep the krecks away from your aviary! But come back if not, we can always try something else!’

  Mr Brown turned and waved gently.

  Arianwyn gave a deep, tired sigh and closed the door. The Spellorium had been packed all morning; she hadn’t stopped for a second – especially as Gimma was taking a day off and had gone into Flaxsham with her uncle. The increased sightings of spirit creatures and dark spirits seemed to have everyone worried. The incident with the pangorbak earlier in the week had sent them into a positive tailspin and she’d been busy making charms since news broke.

  Now, as the door clicked shut behind Mr Brown and the bell charms sang out in the empty Spellorium, she had a moment to gather her thoughts.

  She glanced up at the clock: it was after noon. Her stomach rumbled.

  ‘Lunch, I think!’ she said to Bob, who immediately scampered up the stairs to the apartment above. Arianwyn knew she would find the moon hare waiting on the kitchen rug, staring at the cupboard where she kept the ginger biscuits. They were Bob’s favourite.

  She turned and flipped the ‘Open’ sign to ‘Closed’ before heading upstairs to make a sandwich and some tea and give Bob a biscuit.

  Whilst the kettle boiled she sat at the small table and flicked idly though her copy of A Witch Alone.

  As she turned a page, absorbed in a chapter on how brownie droppings could be used to treat bogglin bites, she came across the page Tas had given her: the page that held the new glyph. Miss Delafield’s words of warning echoed in her mind – charms were all well and good, but what if this new glyph was somehow the key to fighting the hex?

  Her fingers hovered over it for a second, the glyph blooming faintly like its own ghost. Then the kettle whistled loudly and Arianwyn stepped away and carried on with preparing her lunch.

  A few moments later and she was back downstairs in the Spellorium with her mug of tea and a cheese sandwich. She sat at the counter, staring hard at the now empty piece of paper.

  Arianwyn tapped her fingers against the page, the glyph appearing and vanishing over and over. Would she summon the glyph? She’d had it tucked away this long and not tried to summon it. Why? Part of her wanted to know what she had before she showed it to Colin and Miss Newam. But part of her was scared of what power it might hold. Would it be like the shadow glyph? Dark and menacing?

  There was only one way she would find out.

  ‘Right then!’ she said feeling suddenly confident. ‘Let’s see what you do, my little friend!’

  Arianwyn pulled the small square of paper flat, the symbol becoming bolder as each second passed.

  A swirling spiral, a vertical line and three dots.

  Energy shimmered from the page.

  Something told Arianwyn to start at the centre of the swirl and work her way out.

  Almost at once she felt the fizz of energy from the glyph as she sketched it in the air. A seam of magic poured forth and connected with the glyph.

  There was a flash as glyph and magic connected. Arianwyn felt pressure on her ears, as though they might pop, but the sensation disappeared quickly.

  She glanced about the Spellorium, looking for some indication that something had changed, that anything was different. But everything looked exactly as it had before. As it always did. There was the curving counter, polished until it gleamed like a dark mirror. There were the white painted shelves that held supplies, and books.

  It was Bob who noticed it first – sniffing at something barely visible between the counter and the Spellorium’s bowed window. Floating nearly a metre off the floor was a sphere so clear it was almost impossible to see, like a large bubble.

  Arianwyn approached the sphere cautiously. She didn’t notice straight away, but drawing closer her footsteps became almost totally silent. She beckoned to Bob, who skipped across the floorboards towards her, but instead of the usual scratchy sound of small claws on the wood, there was nothing.

  ‘Well, that’s odd, isn’t it?’ Arianwyn said, her voice now the softest of whispers, almost inaudible. What was going on?

  She was right beside the sphere now and reached carefully towards it.

  Magic flowed from it in waves, pulsing towards her. It felt nothing like the shadow glyph, thankfully. But she could still feel its great power nonetheless. Her fingers brushed the sphere and created a muted vibrating noise, as if the sound was coming from deep below the earth.

  ‘Hmmm,’ Arianwyn murmured to herself, ‘you’re a curious one.’ The sound was still dampened, as though her ears were blocked. From the corner of her eye she caught sight of the radio. ‘I wonder . . .’

  She crossed the Spellorium quickly and turned the large dial on the front of the radio. The display lit up and the soft strains of a tune wafted to her. ‘Moonlight Magic’ – it was one of her grandmother’s favourites. She turned the dial a little more, increasing the volume. Then she moved back to the sphere, which hung in place as before.

  Standing with the sphere between herself and the radio, Arianwyn moved her hands around its outside, a few centimetres from the surface. The sphere contracted and expanded as she had hoped it might.

  The moon hare flattened itself against the floorboards of the Spellorium. ‘It’s OK, Bob. It’s not like the other one!’ Arianwyn said, but it was as if her words were stolen away even as she uttered them.

  She drew her hands towards herself she then pushed them at the sphere, sending the orb sailing across the Spellorium towards the radio, expanding as it moved, doubling and then tripling in size.

  Arianwyn felt a small pang of fear as the sphere bumped into the radio, worried it might spark or even blow up, but the sphere simply absorbed the radio inside itself with a gentle wobble. And as it did the Spellorium fell into complete silence.

  The radio’s display was still lit, the fine needle twitching a little, but there was no sound at all. Arianwyn felt a smile spread across her face as she dashed across the Spellorium, and without a second thought plunged her head inside the sphere.

  The wailing trumpets
from the song came to her as though she were underwater now and all sounds from beyond the sphere were completely gone. She gave a small laugh of surprise, but it was only the faintest of whispery sounds. She reached forwards and turned the dial on the radio as far as it would turn, but there was no increase in the volume from the song.

  Arianwyn pulled away from the sphere and gave a small cry of surprise to see Millicent Caruthers standing next to her, a look of great concern on her face.

  ‘Er, Miss Gribble, your’ – she gestured to the sphere – ‘thing, is poking through the wall into the ladies’ underwear department.’ She flushed a little. ‘I wonder if you could . . . make it stop, please. It rather alarmed one of my customers.’

  ‘Oh, Mrs Caruthers, I’m so so sorry. Of course.’ Arianwyn looked at the sphere, unsure now how to undo the spell. After a couple of moments where she moved her hands this way and that – only to make it bigger again – the sphere did at last contract and vanish with the smallest flash and a tiny pop. But as it did the music from the radio blasted throughout the Spellorium. Millicent Caruthers speedily covered her ears and Bob took cover under the chair.

  Arianwyn quickly reached for the dial and the radio clicked off.

  ‘Heavens, whatever sort of a spell was that?’ Millicent Caruthers asked, peering at the radio.

  ‘Something . . . new,’ Arianwyn said, blushing. ‘I’m sorry I disturbed you!’

  ‘Oh, it’s quite all right, you know. I was happy to escape for a moment or two. But if you could refrain from sending any more new spells through the wall I would be ever so grateful.’ She smiled warmly.

  ‘Of course, sorry – again!’ Arianwyn called as Millicent Caruthers left the Spellorium.

  As soon as the door clicked shut Arianwyn moved to the counter and gazed at the page, which was blank once more. Her hand shaking slightly, she lifted a pencil from where it rested on the open ledger and, pulling the page towards her, she carefully wrote across the bottom:

  The Glyph of Silence.