A Sprinkle of Sorcery

by Michelle Harrison

  Willow looked uncertain. ‘My family isn’t from Crowstone. We’ve only lived on Torment for the past year, since my father was put in prison. But there was something about a cursed shipwreck, only people told it differently. I guess that’s the thing about small places. The same stories get . . .’

  ‘Retold?’ Fliss said gently. ‘That makes sense. Up until recently, we’d never left Crowstone.’ She gazed past Betty into the thinning mist. ‘Our world was very small, but on Torment yours must have been smaller still.’

  The words hung in the air, sinking into Betty’s damp clothes and weighing them down. She had thought about life on Torment before, of course, and wondered what it must be like – but not in any real depth. She had been too busy plotting her own freedom to give much consideration to the people who had even less than she did.

  ‘The story goes that Rusty Swindles was one of the most notorious smugglers in these parts,’ Fliss continued. ‘And his most valuable stolen treasure was rumoured to be a magical compass that had once belonged to an old sorcerer—’

  ‘Some say magician,’ Betty interjected. ‘And the compass was rumoured to lead its owner anywhere they wanted to go – or to anything they wanted to find. After he stole it, Rusty even renamed his ship to celebrate his victory.’

  ‘Big mistake,’ said Fliss, appearing to forget her queasiness a little as she warmed to her subject. ‘Our granny always says that renaming a ship leads to terrible luck, as Rusty was about to find out. Shortly after the compass came into his possession, the ship was ambushed by pirates who wanted it for themselves. Although Rusty was killed, his body was never found – and neither were any of his stolen treasures. But they say he went down with the wreck – and the compass with him.’

  ‘How did they know he was dead?’ Willow asked, her eyes as round as buttons.

  ‘Some of his crew survived to tell the tale,’ said Betty. ‘And, as you’ve heard, the shipwreck’s said to be cursed – by the ghost of Rusty Swindles. Anyone who tries to move it, or rob it, meets a grisly end.’

  ‘So . . . do you think . . . ?’ Fliss bit her lip, pondering. ‘If the trappers mentioned Rusty Swindles, could they be searching for something of his? His treasure? The compass?’ Her face crumpled suddenly. ‘What if Granny misheard? And, even if they did say Rusty’s name, how do we know there’s a link at all? Perhaps it was something they said in conversation – or to throw Granny off the scent!’

  ‘No.’ Betty gripped the wheel tightly, feeling more and more certain that she was on to something. ‘They didn’t need to throw Granny off the trail – think about it. She was already locked up, out of the way! As far as the trappers know, no one’s following them.’ She narrowed her eyes, glancing at the map in front of her. ‘And, if you’d just kidnapped two people, you’d be focusing on your plan, wouldn’t you? I know I would. Not talking about old smugglers and shipwreck stories for the fun of it.’

  ‘So where does Charlie come into it?’ Fliss asked. ‘Or rather Willow? You said they wanted you because you can . . . can catch wisps?’

  Willow nodded. ‘My parents always warned me I’d be in danger if I was found out,’ she said, her voice barely above a whisper. ‘We tried so hard to keep it a secret, but someone must have been watching us.’ Her lip trembled. ‘And, when we escaped, they took their chance . . . to catch me.’

  ‘But why?’ asked Betty. She turned to Willow as a thought flared in her mind. ‘Back at the Poacher’s Pocket you said that wisp was alive once . . . so it must be true that they’re souls, just like Granny always said.’ A chill colder than the mist wrapped round her heart. She had always preferred to think of the wisps as marsh gases, a practical explanation that suited her. But, having had the chance to watch this one closely, she could see it was no such thing.

  ‘Who?’ Fliss whispered, ashen-faced. ‘Who was it? What does it want from you?’

  ‘I think it’s someone who can clear my family’s name,’ Willow murmured finally.

  ‘Why do you think that?’ asked Betty.

  When Willow spoke again, her voice was haunted. ‘Because it appeared today – the day my mother and I set out for the island I showed you on the map.’

  ‘So what’s there?’ Betty asked. If anything, she found Willow’s answer more troubling. ‘Why is the island hidden? Is it even safe?’

  ‘I . . . I don’t know.’ Willow’s voice had risen, and the wisp seemed to share her agitation, for it zipped out of the lamp and swiftly circled round Betty’s legs.

  Betty exhaled sharply, prickling with fear. How had Willow come by the map? And what exactly did she expect to find on the island? ‘There seems to be a lot you don’t know,’ she muttered. Or won’t say.

  She gazed at the wisp, and for the first time a pang of sadness touched her. It wasn’t just a little light on a marsh. It had been someone once. Living, breathing, with hopes and feelings and memories. Was this all that remained? ‘If they want you, to be able to trap a wisp, and not just any wisp . . .’

  Fliss gave a little gasp. ‘Then that must mean they want Charlie to . . . to . . .’

  Betty stared at the wisp, dread clutching at her. ‘To capture the spirit of Rusty Swindles.’

  Chapter Nine

  The Wisp Catcher

  ‘THEY WANT CHARLIE TO RAISE the dead?’ Fliss squeaked.

  ‘We can’t know for sure,’ said Betty, swallowing hard. ‘But I think it makes sense. To take the risks they have, it would have to be something big. If they want Rusty Swindles, they must be heading for the shipwreck – The Sorcerer’s Compass.’

  They were approaching Repent now, the second largest of the Sorrow Isles, and Crowstone’s closest neighbour. But, although the population was higher here, there were no families on Repent – only families divided. A huge, ugly stone prison took up the bulk of the land.

  Through sheets of drifting mist, Betty caught glimpses of lit beacons at the edge of the island, serving as warnings of the land mass to passing boats. Beyond them, dim lights flickered from a handful of windows where warders were on their nightly duties. Though they were not visible now, Betty knew that there were hundreds more windows. Each one was barred, keeping in a prisoner. It wasn’t long ago that their own father had been locked away there for selling stolen goods after gambling all their money away. Thankfully, those days were past them now – but Betty shuddered, remembering the stink and despair of the place only too well. On the far side of the island, separate from the prison, stood an ancient stone tower reaching into the low cloud.

  She caught Fliss’s eye, silent memories passing between them. As well as the prison, Crowstone Tower had been part of the Widdershins’ past and the terrible curse that had hung over their family for generations. Though it no longer posed any threat to them, Betty had no wish to look at it. Or to return to it ever again.

  She was so caught up in her own thoughts of Repent that it took her a moment to notice that Willow had gone completely rigid, and was staring at the prison with haunted eyes. It was a look Betty recognised.

  ‘Willow?’ she said softly. ‘Earlier, you said you and your mother escaped, but that you weren’t on Torment because of something you’d done.’ She glanced at the prison, leaving the unspoken question hanging in the air.

  Willow nodded, her gaze dropping. ‘My father,’ she whispered. ‘He’s in there. Has been for almost a year now. When he was jailed, my mother and I were sent from our home in Merry-on-the-Marsh to Torment.’ Once again, her eyes took on the look of someone who was much older. ‘We haven’t even been allowed to visit him.’

  ‘Oh, Willow.’ A tiny part of Betty’s hardness softened. She knew how it felt: the shame of a father locked away. The ache of missing them, the sting of having visits denied. She reached out and touched Willow’s hand. It was still worryingly cold, though Willow seemed numb to it. She wondered what Willow’s father had done. It must have been something serious to get his family banished, but, before she could ask, Fliss spoke.

  ‘Bett
y, what if the boat’s stopped and searched?’ Fliss gazed out of the window fearfully, searching the waters for any sign of warders. ‘They’ll still be looking for Willow.’

  ‘We keep her hidden,’ Betty replied. ‘You’re the eldest, so you’ll have to say we’ve received word our cousin in Marshfoot has fallen ill and we’re going to look after him.’

  Fliss nodded, but didn’t look particularly happy about it. ‘You know I hate lying.’

  ‘Well, it’s not your lie, is it?’ Betty reasoned. ‘It’s mine, and I don’t mind lying at all. You’ll just be the one actually saying it.’

  ‘All right,’ Fliss said rather ungraciously.

  ‘Speaking of keeping hidden,’ Betty added, ‘we’d better put something of ours inside the dolls, just in case we all need to disappear.’ She pulled the dolls from her pocket and passed them to her sister.

  Fliss twisted the dolls apart, then plucked one of her short hairs out and placed it into the third nesting doll. Betty added a hair of her own to the second doll, wistfully noticing how dull and frizzy it was compared to her sister’s glossy, smooth one. She stacked the dolls inside each other again, but kept the outer halves not quite lined up so the girls remained visible – for now.

  Fliss shuffled along the seat to get a better look at the map, bumping into the potato sack. ‘It’s about time we dumped this, isn’t it?’

  ‘Perhaps we should keep hold of it awhile,’ said Betty.

  ‘What?’ Fliss demanded. ‘Why? You know what could happen if we’re caught with it! The safest thing to do is throw it overboard and be done with it.’

  ‘There’s a lot of tobacco in there,’ said Betty. ‘Might be worth something.’

  ‘Worth getting caught?’

  ‘No,’ Betty argued. ‘But it’s not like we have any money – this is all we have to trade with!’

  Fliss sniffed. ‘You’re starting to sound like a crook.’

  Betty shrugged. ‘Crooks have got Charlie. If we’re going to get her back, we need to think like them.’

  Fliss pursed her lips, then clutched the edge of the bench as the boat tilted. ‘So we have to find Rusty Swindles’ shipwreck. How far away is it?’

  Wordlessly, Willow handed Betty the yellowed old map and the hagstone. Betty took them, half afraid that the map was at risk of being damaged, for Willow’s wet hair had trailed damp patches all the way down her front. But, when she took it, the map was mysteriously dry. Staring through the hagstone again, the peculiar thrill of it made Betty’s fingers tingle.

  Betty eyed Willow’s map, then compared it with her own. Though Willow’s was smaller, she could see it was perfectly to scale, and drawn with finer detail than her own. Quickly, she calculated the distance and their speed. ‘A good few hours at least.’ She sneaked a look at Willow, who was staring into her lap. ‘Plenty of time for you to tell us what or who that wisp is, and why you escaped from Torment. And then there’s the question of where you got this map.’

  Willow drew her feet up on to the seat, her long hair falling in straggles round her face. Odd, Betty thought, that it was still dripping, even now. The damp mist had a lot to answer for.

  ‘Come on, Willow,’ Betty urged. ‘Time to start talking. We can’t help you unless we know exactly what it is you’re trying to do.’ She heard the harsh note in her voice, saw Willow flinching and forced herself to speak more kindly. Willow had already been through enough. ‘Whether any of us like it or not, we’re involved now. All of us.’

  Willow nodded, sniffling. ‘Like I said, my mother was with me most of the way. She told me, over and over, that if we got separated I should follow the signs for Nestynook Green and then head for your yard.’

  ‘Wait, what?’ Betty demanded, shocked at this revelation. ‘I thought you just saw the hole in our gate and got in by chance. But you’re saying you headed there on purpose? Why?’

  ‘My mother paid people to get us across,’ Willow admitted. ‘A cloth trader. It was all arranged by one of the warders—’

  ‘Jumping jackdaws!’ Fliss exclaimed. ‘You trusted a warder? Don’t you know half of them are crooks?’

  Willow’s eyes filled with tears, becoming glassy and distant. ‘We didn’t then. I never saw him, only heard him speaking to Mother downstairs late one night. He said . . . he said it was wrong that we were there, and he wanted to help us escape. He knew I could catch wisps, too. He said it was dangerous, that if the wrong people found out I’d be in trouble. That’s why we trusted him – because he knew and didn’t tell. After it was all arranged and Mother had paid him, we never saw him again.’

  ‘Never saw him again?’ Betty repeated, thinking of the two warders who had vanished.

  Willow shook her head. ‘At first Mother was afraid he’d taken our money and tricked us – or perhaps even been found out – but no one came for us and the day for the escape came closer and closer.’ She wrung her hands. ‘It was our only chance – we had to take it. Mother and I hid in rolls of fabric being shipped to Crowstone. She thought it was safer to go that way rather than risk travelling straight to the island from Torment. Our plan was to hide out, then stow away on another boat leaving Crowstone.’

  ‘So where does the Poacher’s Pocket come into it?’ Betty asked.

  ‘The barrels in the backyard,’ said Willow. ‘Mother told me to wait until the brewery wagon came to collect the empties, then sneak into one once they were on the wagon.’

  ‘And then it’d be shipped off across the water,’ said Betty. ‘With you hidden inside.’

  The fog was lifting, dissolving into patchy puffs over the water. They were almost past the prison now, heading in the direction of Marshfoot.

  ‘Why the Poacher’s Pocket, though?’ Fliss asked. ‘The Snooty Fox is on the other side of Crowstone. Surely it would’ve made sense for you to head there if you wanted to stow away in a barrel? It’s much closer to Torment.’

  Willow drew her legs up and hugged her knees. ‘Mother thought our chances were better from the Poacher’s Pocket. We heard it was shabby and run-down, and that getting into the yard would be easier—’

  ‘Shabby?’ Fliss fumed, clearly insulted. ‘Run-down?’

  ‘Oh, come off it, Fliss,’ Betty snorted. ‘The place is falling to bits! No point getting hoity-toity.’

  Fliss pursed her lips, looking remarkably like Charlie in a sulk. ‘And after everything Father’s done to smarten the place up, too,’ she muttered, shooting Willow an injured look.

  ‘That wasn’t all we heard,’ Willow added, in a small voice.

  ‘What else, then?’ Fliss demanded. ‘That our granny’s a drunk? Or our home-cooked food is lousy?’

  ‘Only when you’re cooking,’ Betty said under her breath.

  Fliss glared. ‘I heard that.’

  Betty raised an eyebrow. Fliss rarely lost her temper, but seasickness and loyalty were proving an interesting combination.

  ‘N-no,’ Willow stammered. ‘Nothing like that. Mother heard that the people who lived there were good people. Kind. That . . . that they wouldn’t turn us over to the warders if they found us.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Fliss, softening immediately. She shivered, leaning over the bucket. ‘Better that we’re known for being kind than for being wealthy, I suppose.’

  Betty wriggled her toes in her hand-me-down boots. ‘There’s never been any danger of that.’

  An ugly thought occurred to her, but she kept it to herself. It was all very well being known as kind, but that kindness had led to Charlie being snatched. Kindness had made them vulnerable. She shifted uncomfortably at the wheel. Handing Willow over wouldn’t have been easy or felt good – but it would have meant that the Widdershins would all be sound asleep in their beds. Instead, they’d been scattered to the winds. She pushed the horrid little thought away, clasping the wheel more tightly.

  ‘I don’t understand how that would’ve helped you get to this . . . this invisible island, though? The brewery ship certainly wouldn’t be stopping off
there, or anywhere close.’

  ‘It wouldn’t,’ said Willow. ‘It would only have got me safely away from Crowstone. From there, I needed to get to the Winking Witch. The brewery ship passes close by, close enough to swim to.’

  ‘The Winking Witch?’ Betty asked, feeling a shiver of fear and excitement trickle down her spine. She examined Willow’s map again, peering closer at the two unusual landmarks. At first she’d been too caught up with the mysterious island to take much notice of anything else. There was The Sorcerer’s Compass, inked as a tiny wreck. Situated between the shipwreck and the secret island was a tiny, craggy isle that showed the silhouette of a standing figure in a distinctive, pointed hat. On its shoulder was a large black bird and beside it a cauldron. Betty had seen the landmark before on her own maps, but never detailed so exquisitely as it was here. Ordinary maps offered something far less fantastical: a pile of rocks that vaguely resembled a face with a hooked nose and something that could’ve been a witch’s hat. But on Willow’s map . . . there was something odd about the figure, Betty saw now. A fleck of white stood out within the face, like a tiny white eye.

  ‘Look through the hagstone,’ Willow told her.

  Betty lifted the stone and, for a moment, saw nothing. Then the figure fluttered, as though caught in an invisible breeze. And, unmistakably, there was another movement.

  ‘It winked!’ Betty exclaimed, thrusting the map and hagstone at Fliss in shock. ‘It winked at me!’

  ‘Jumping jackdaws – it really is winking!’ Fliss passed the stone and map back to Betty, fingers shaking.

  ‘I think the Winking Witch is connected to the island, somehow,’ said Willow. ‘That’s why I have to go there.’

  A frown crinkled Fliss’s forehead. ‘Wait – wasn’t there a story Father used to tell us? About a one-eyed witch on the marshes, and an island . . .’

  ‘That’s right!’ Betty exclaimed. ‘Something about her granting requests or wishes.’ Memories of her childhood flooded back, of Betty and Fliss cuddling up to Father as Charlie babbled in her cot, chewing her own feet.