Amanda Cadabra and The Strange Case of Lucy Penlowr

by Holly Bell

  ‘Oh? Really?’

  Amanda had a moment of realisation. ‘The Cadabras ... yes, of course ... they must have been running the escape lines.’

  ‘I don’t know ... just a farmer, I think ... farmers ....’

  ‘The Cadabras are farmers,’ Amanda explained excitedly. ‘The Cadabras got you out and handed you to others in the family for safe-keeping. Lucy, what they taught you is the same thing Grandpa taught me: a witch does not strike out.’

  ‘Well ... I know one branch of the Charpentier family escaped to England during the Revolution and ... their name was changed, but I don't know what it was changed to. The Charpentiers always spoke as though they lost contact a long time ago.’

  ‘But what if they didn’t?’ Amanda asked excitedly. ‘And you said a lady who made hats paid for your upkeep.’

  ‘Yes, Madame Charpentier of Maison Chapeaux Charpentier.’

  ‘And that fits. Because at Grandpa’s funeral, there was this mysterious lady who came by, in the most beautiful hat I’d ever seen.’

  Perran was suddenly there, perching on the arm of the sofa smiling down at her, gently clapping his hands. He nodded and disappeared. Amanda beamed. ‘You were brought up by my Grandpa’s relations. Well then, Lucy, this makes us practically family!’ That brought forth a smile.

  ‘Family ... yes. Yes, it does.’

  ‘And it means that it’s all right, you see,’ Amanda insisted earnestly, taking Lucy’s hands, ‘what happened. Because if the Cadabras had thought that what you did was terrible, they would never have helped you.’

  ‘Honestly?’ asked Elodie.

  ‘They knew you are a good person. And you are Elodie.’

  Elodie looked just a little doubtful, but Hogarth nodded to her and Thomas too.

  ‘No question about it,’ stated Mike. ‘Very well. Enough of that part of the past. Where do we go from here, is the question.’

  ‘Surely,’ replied Trelawney, ‘we need to know about what was taken from Growan House, and the use, significance and location of each piece.’

  ‘And,’ added Amanda, ‘where was it taken from exactly? It seems that the swag the Flamgoynes took could only have come from the crypt, and they took it after my aunt-or-mother Cardiubarn, let’s say Skorna, looted the grimoire. If so, why didn’t she take it all?’

  ‘Either because The Grimoire was the only thing of value to the Cardiubarns, there was no time, or she didn’t see, or didn’t know that the other things were down there,’ suggested Trelawney.

  ‘Well,’ put in Elodie, ‘there was a cupboard at the bottom of the shelves. But I didn’t try to open it because everything I needed was on the shelves themselves.’

  ‘So, maybe the Flamgoynes went down to get The Grimoire,’ suggested Amanda, ‘saw it was gone and so looked around for what else there was and broke into the cupboard.’

  ‘Or, they knew about the cupboard and its contents,’ said Trelawney. ‘And if so, how?’

  ‘Good,’ replied Hogarth. ‘So, tell us again, Amanda, what your friend on the Moor saw, and Thomas, what Pasco saw in the hands of the Flamgoynes on their return after the attack.’

  Together, Trelawney and Amanda assembled a speculative list of what was looted from Growan House: The Grimoire, possibly more spellbooks too, maybe a box or two, a chalice, a candlestick, a bell and maybe a mirror.

  Thomas asked Lucy, ‘You didn’t see anything taken out while you were inside the house?’

  ‘No, none of us. Though while we were turned to look up the stairs, someone could have sneaked out with something, I suppose, without being seen. To be honest,’ said Elodie, ‘I was too intent on not being seen myself.’

  ‘At least we have some idea of what, if not by whom, where to and what for.’

  However, those words of Elodie’s: ‘intent on not being seen myself’ had sparked off a vague connection in Amanda’s head. Something about ‘not being seen.’ Yes, Polly had said it about the mermaid in the painting, and yes, it was when Gran Flossie was playing hide-and-seek with Polly and Wella. She said something about pixies or pyskies and how they couldn’t be seen if they didn’t want to be ....

  ‘We just may have a secret weapon,’ said Amanda quietly. ‘Elodie, I have a theory. I’d like to test it. But it won’t be very nice.’

  ‘As long as it doesn’t involve inhaling fumes and I don’t much like needles,’ she answered lightly. ‘I trust you, Amanda.’ There was a brief moment of internal colloquy. ‘We all trust you.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Amanda took a stool and sat near Lucy’s chair. ‘Elodie, I need you to be scared.’

  ‘I’m not playing this game,’ said Zoe decidedly.

  ‘Is it just Elodie you want?’ asked Peter.

  ‘Please,’ Amanda replied.

  ‘All right. Zoe’s gone, but the rest of us will just be on stand-by. I expect you’d rather we didn’t reassure Elodie.’

  ‘If you don't mind. Ready?’

  Elodie nodded confidently.

  ‘Ok.’

  ‘Please close your eyes. You’re back in Growan House, in bed. It’s night. There’s a storm. You’ve woken up. The ceiling is going brown. It’s getting hot. There’s the sound of commotion, people running down the hall outside. You have to be careful, so careful. You get Shilpa, Mimi and Roger onto the stairs. There are balls of light flaring up outside the windows. Danger surrounds all of you. There’s fighting in the hall below. Fighting like nothing you’ve ever seen before. You feel the heat from the fire above, smoke, shouts, bangs, flashes. You get the children onto the stairs. It looks clear. You start to run down, then, suddenly, you see the Arlodh!’

  It happened. Right before their eyes. There was a moment of stunned silence, as Trelawney and Hogarth looked on.

  Amanda broke the spell. ‘It’s ok, Elodie, it’s over. That’s all.’

  ‘Oh!’ she breathed.

  Amanda turned around, smiling. ‘Did you see it, Inspector, Uncle Mike?’

  ‘Indeed,’ Hogarth replied.

  Trelawney nodded; a trifle dazed.

  Elodie looked around from one to the other.

  ‘What? What did I do?’

  ‘You faded, Elodie,’ Amanda told her. ‘When you’re scared, you fade. You wanted to be invisible. And you can be. You, Elodie, you’re the one who has it: you’ve had a magical power all along, don’t you see? You never needed anything the Dowrkampyers could give you. They had a real witch in their midst, running their errands, all the time, right under their noses and they never knew.’

  ‘Me? Really?’ she looked at Hogarth.

  ‘Really,’ he answered, smiling, ‘That was quite ... astounding, my dear.’

  ‘I’m a witch, a real witch witch? I can make myself invisible? Don’t you see what that means? I can really be your man on the inside. Well, people actually.’

  Mike added a rider. ‘You don’t go completely transparent, though.’

  ‘But if I could develop it?’ responded Elodie. ‘If I could do it at will? Imagine.’

  ‘I’d never be able to find you when it was time to do the washing up,’ jested Hogarth.

  ‘Or take the rubbish out!’ she returned.

  ‘Well done, Amanda. We should have got that, eh, Thomas?’

  ‘What made you think of that, Miss Cadabra?’ Trelawney asked.

  ‘It was just more of what Granny and Grandpa and Uncle Mike said: feel your way. I’ve known what it’s like to be so afraid you just wish you could disappear. Neither you, Inspector nor Uncle Mike has ever been that scared. And I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.’

  ‘Nor would I,’ Elodie agreed earnestly. ‘And of course, I couldn’t have seen it myself. It’s not like Growan House was full of mirrors.’

  ‘So, a new project for us, my love,’ Hogarth said. ‘Now who do you go to for invisibility training?’

  ‘I wonder who you inherited that from,’ Trelawney pondered.

  ‘Hm,’ said Hogarth looking at his bride. ‘Who are you, Lucy Penlowr Hogarth?’r />
  ‘Another puzzle!’ exclaimed Amanda excitedly.

  ‘Enough for today,’ pronounced Mike. ‘Drop in, in the morning before you go.’

  Chapter 51

  One More for the Road

  ‘So, you’re off after this cuppa,’ remarked Hogarth, giving the fire a poke. It was early and the previous night’s chill had yet to be entirely banished from the sitting-room.

  ‘Yes,’ replied Amanda. ‘But I’ll be back soon. I got a call from the solicitor. He says there’ll be something else he’ll want me to read or sign. Oh. There was one more thing I wanted to mention. It’s probably nothing, and I may well have imagined it ....’

  ‘But?’ he prompted.

  ‘Well, when I was up on the Moor at Dozmary Pool, and Kyt was telling me stories about it, there was a ripple, but it wasn't circular. It was more like a wedge, like you see sound on sonar equipment, and it came to my feet.’ She laughed. ‘Kyt said it was the Old Woman of the Storm saying “hello”.’

  ‘Rea—?’ began Hogarth.

  ‘Oh, good grief!’ she exclaimed. An enraged shriek had erupted in the garden, followed by a kukk-kukk-kukk. Amanda got up and swiftly headed for the kitchen door to the garden, calling, ‘Tempest! Leave the squirrels alone .... No ... stop it!’

  ‘Dear me, perhaps Amanda would like some help,’ commented Elodie kindly, rising and following her.

  Trelawney looked at Hogarth. ‘You think it is significant?’

  ‘I do. Please don’t say anything to Amanda, at least not yet. But… haven’t you noticed when she goes into the past when there was a storm, then a storm brews up in the present, too?’

  ‘Well … I don’t know about every instance when she’s gone back in the past.’

  ‘But the ones you do know?’

  Thomas thought.

  ‘Could it be a coincidence?’

  ‘She has Flamgoyne genes,’ Hogarth pointed out.

  ‘Yes, but it was their forebears, the Polgoynes, who were said to be able to control the weather. That’s a long way back. I don’t know; it sounds so far-fetched.’

  ‘I’m not sure if she can control the weather. Not that ... but she could be a storm-caller.’

  ‘A storm-caller. Hm, first time I’ve heard of such a thing.’

  ‘Just be aware of the possibility, Thomas. You’re going to be looking for links between the deaths in Sunken Madley. Look for links to do with Amanda too.’

  ‘Yes, I had thought of that but ... you really think Miss Cadabra can summon a storm?’

  ‘I think it’s a possibility.’

  ‘What’s a possibility?’ asked Zoe, as they returned to the room. Amanda was bearing an unrepentant cat on one shoulder appearing to be riding home in triumph.

  ‘No harm done,’ confirmed Elodie.

  ‘Oh no, he doesn’t want to harm them,’ Amanda insisted. ‘Not physically. He just likes to annoy them.’

  ‘No casualties: good,’ responded Hogarth, looking on the bright side.

  ‘We really must be off now,’ pronounced Trelawney, putting down his tea mug.

  ‘Well, I hope all goes well with setting up the new establishment in Sunken Madley.’

  ‘Thank you, Mike.’

  ‘Take it slowly now,’ Hogarth advised. ‘No need to hit the ground running, you two.’

  ‘Noted.’

  ‘All right, Uncle Mike.’ Amanda was then silent, her cogitation betrayed by the slight frown. Hogarth asked,

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Uncle Mike, I was wondering: whatever happened to Department 14. Is it still running?’ He shook his head resignedly,

  ‘Squeezed out of Whitehall. Declared voodoo, a word used by politicians and scientists for “something that makes us feel uncomfortable”.’

  ‘Yes, Grandpa always says if people really believe something is nonsense they just ignore it, they don’t feel the need to attack it.’

  ‘How right he is, my dear.’

  ‘And what about your parents, Uncle Mike? What happened to them when the department was closed?’

  ‘Oh, what happens to the elderly,’ Hogarth replied airily.

  ‘Ah.’ Amanda hesitated to enquire further as what they had perished from. It seemed indelicate.

  ‘We carry on regardless, that’s the point,’ he continued in his cheery manner.

  ‘Yes,’ she agreed.

  ‘Let’s drink to that.’ He raised his mug.

  They said their goodbyes to the Lucy family, who was called indoors by the oven alarm, and got into the car. Hogarth stood on the pavement to wave them off. Trelawney put the car in gear and was about to pull away, when Amanda suddenly asked him to stop. She leaned out of the window.

  ‘Uncle Mike, in the department, who was the equivalent of James Bond’s M or was it your father who was at the top? Won’t you tell me?’

  ‘Oh ... well ....’

  At that moment a delivery lorry approached from behind, needing to get through the too-narrow gap between the Ford and the hedge opposite.

  ‘Sorry,’ apologised Trelawney and moved the car off. Amanda heard a jumbled reply on the wind over the noise of the two engines. She waved and put up her window. ‘Whatever did that mean?’

  ‘What?’ he asked. ‘I couldn’t hear.’

  ‘It sounded like “Emmy quells jeans”,’ she answered in perplexity.

  ‘How odd,’ he agreed.

  ‘Perhaps he meant Ammy. Although, I don’t think he’s ever called me that before. Oh well, affectionate, I suppose, and that’s nice. But still … “Ammy quells jeans”?’

  ‘Maybe he was praising your sartorial choices,’ Trelawney speculated, proceeding watchfully along the narrow lane.

  ‘Oh, like “rocking” those jeans or “crushing”?’

  ‘Is that what they’re saying these days?’ asked Trelawney with amused curiosity.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Amanda confessed frankly. ‘It does seem to change with alarming frequency. I’d probably embarrass myself if I tried that on any of the teenagers in the village.’

  ‘Almost certainly. Best not,’ he advised.

  Amanda was still confused.

  ‘All the same, it doesn’t seem apropos of what I was asking.’

  ‘Probably being evasive. He does that,’ Trelawney pointed out unnecessarily.

  ‘I’d noticed,’ Amanda replied with feeling. ‘Oh well. I dare say one day I’ll find out.’

  ‘Very possibly.’

  ‘Where shall we stop for breakfast?’

  Finally, thought Tempest on the back seat, raising his chin off his paws. A subject of importance.

  Chapter 52

  Sunken Madley

  Amanda woke up as they joined the M25 London orbital road. She looked over her shoulder. Tempest was snoring at a moderate volume for once.

  ‘Good sleep?’ asked Trelawney, glancing at her.

  She stretched her shoulders.

  ‘Hmm, yes, thank you.’

  ‘Not far to go now.’

  ‘No. Not far.’

  And here they were, driving down the A1000, joining The Great North Road, following the ancient tracks linking the villages on the way up out of London. Chestnuts, maple, hornbeam, oak, and pine flashed past. Now the sharp turn-off to the left when you’d least expect it, between two fine lime trees. The scent of the first early apple blossom wafted all the way over from the tree in Mrs Irma Uberhausfest’s garden. Now came the sight of the south gate, marked by The Snout and Trough Victorian pub. Sandra, the proprietor, was putting out the board for lunch and waved to Amanda and Trelawney, as they slowed down and passed up the High Street.

  The Sharma’s shop-to-let was still vacant.

  ‘I wonder who’ll take that,’ Amanda said to the inspector.

  ‘No one’s had much luck with it so far,’ he remarked. He braked at the sight of a stop sign. It was being brandished enthusiastically by a lady of some eighty-odd summers who came to the window. Trelawney opened it.

  ‘Hello, Sylvia
,’ Amanda called across the inspector.

  ‘’Ello, you two strangers. You been gone a while, ’avent you! All right, are you?’

  Amanda nodded.

  ‘Yes, thank you, Sylvia,’ Trelawney answered indulgently. ‘But you do know that stop sign is really just to be used to halt the traffic for the school children to cro—’

  ‘Perk of the job, Inspector, perk of the job. Mr Branscombe is startin’ on your new residence, next Tuesday, you know.’

  ‘Oh, Tuesday is it?’ asked Amanda.

  ‘That’s right, dearies. Well, I expect you’ll be wantin’ to get home and put the kettle on. See you soon!’

  With that, she was off in the direction of the Snout and Trough. No doubt, to deliver the news that Amanda and her inspector had returned.

  As they passed the chemist, Mr Sharma happened to look up and nodded a greeting. Amanda waved back enthusiastically.

  ‘Mwrrorrrl!’ came the demand from the back seat.

  ‘Oh, can’t you wait for cream until tomorrow, Tempest?’

  Trelawney observed the citrine glare in his rearview mirror.

  ‘Apparently not,’ he commented drily. Amanda groaned. ‘It’s all right, Miss Cadabra, I can hover here if you aren't long.’

  ‘Thank you, Inspector.’

  Tempest heaved his furry bulk off the back seat. I’d better go with her, he thought. She’s bound to get the wrong one if I don’t. Humans, he sighed. They were like children; they needed constant supervision.

  The shop door dinged as Amanda entered.

  ‘There she is!’ cried Joan the post-lady, enfolding her in a loving hug. Amanda held her tightly for a moment, glad beyond her imagining to be back amongst her neighbours. ‘Where is he? Your inspector?’ Beloved, in spite of their irritating matchmaking proclivities.

  ‘Hello, stranger,’ Mr Hanley-Page greeted her jubilantly. ‘The return of the native.’

  Mrs Sharma sailed out of the rear of the shop with a packet for him.

  ‘Here you are, Dennis. Don’t smoke them all at once.’

  ‘Oh, my Cubans! Bless you, Nalini. Your inspector not with you?’ he asked Amanda.