An Ignorant Witch

by E M Graham

  I THOUGHT THINGS were the worst they could be, and there was no one left to turn to for help. I had to get the baby back (if it was indeed a changeling), and I had to free Benjy from the fairy hell. Dad was really the only person who could help me out of this jam, but he would banish me to some icy rock off Scotland if he knew the truth of what I’d done, and I just didn’t trust Hugh. Crying didn’t help at all.

  Yes, I thought things couldn’t get worse, but then Hugh tracked me down.

  I was riding the Number Ten Metrobus to the university the next day, because I might as well go to class. If I flunked out, then I really would have to do plumbing or something like that and work for a living for the rest of my life. I was soaked from having walked up the hill to the bus stop. It was a dark gray day, rain drizzling down the windows of the bus. A hurricane was brewing, the TV said, making its inexorable way up the eastern seaboard from the Carolinas.

  So one moment he wasn’t there, and the next he was sitting on the seat beside me. His leather jacket wasn’t one bit damp, but his black umbrella was dripping onto the floor. Didn’t he realize that umbrellas were useless in this climate? He’d find out soon enough.

  “I’ve been watching you. You’ve really put your foot in it now.”

  “Nosy bastard.” Bravado was all I had left now.

  “This is precisely the kind of thing that happens when witches are left untrained,” he began to lecture.

  “That’s not my fault!”

  “I agree,” he said, his voice surprised. “It’s not your fault that no one has admitted you have power and taken you in hand to learn how to control it. However, you’re smart enough that you should know not to dabble when you’re in over your head.”

  I stared out the window. The wind was starting to whip up the leaves on the trees which hadn’t yet begun to turn color. If it really was a hurricane coming, these same green leaves would be ripped away en masse, their wet weight taking the oldest branches down with them, and it would be messy and dangerous out there in the heart of the storm.

  “Don’t ignore me,” he said to the back of my head. “This is serious shite. I want to know how you think you can undo it all.”

  How much did he really know, I wondered?

  “I’m talking about the fairies who have been following you around,” he said. “Your little foray up the hill must have stirred up the hornets’ nest.”

  Okay, so maybe he wasn’t aware of the worst of it, about the changeling or the bottle of Jane’s milk. Unfortunately, this didn’t help lift my burden one bit.

  “What do you think I should do?” Yes, I was hedging a bit, to see exactly how much he knew.

  “Well, give back to the fairies whatever you took from their hall, for a start,” he said. “Hopefully, that will get them off your back.”

  I turned to face him, hurt at being unjustly accused. “I didn’t take anything from them!”

  “You have something they want,” he said. “Or they wouldn’t have come down off the hill. I saw them yesterday, following you around. That’s a long distance for them to stray from their den.”

  “I don’t have anything they want,” I said to him again, as miserably as I felt. “They already took what they needed. I probably won’t be seeing them again.”

  He blew out a long breath, and I sneaked a glance up at him. Those cheek bones were sharp enough to cut your heart on. In fact the whole package of Hugh was really something for although he wasn’t glamorous the way Seth was, there was something solid and strong and clean about him. He was larger than life, like a model in a magazine or an actor on the big screen. Too bad he was way out of my league, and a shithead witch to boot.

  “Look, I obviously don’t know the whole story, and I don’t think I really want to,” he said. “Just tell me something. Are you in danger, personally?”

  “Me?” I paused to think about it. Other people were in danger, and the baby was totally my fault. But I personally was safe, and it seemed rather unfair. I shook my head. “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Right then,” he said, his voice firm, but his eyes were taking on a kindness that seemed misplaced to my guilty mind. “You need to get out of this town. Now, before anything else happens.”

  “No!” I didn’t realize I’d shouted till I saw other people lift their heads in my direction, so I lowered my voice to a whisper. “No, I can’t leave here.”

  There was far too much at stake. I had to undo what I’d done and fulfill my promises.

  “Your friend in the fairy hall?”

  I clamped back down on my mind, and nodded. Of course, Dad had told him about Benjy.

  “Forget him, he made his own bed. He’s not your responsibility.”

  “This is none of your business,” I told him. “Subject closed.”

  We got off the bus outside the Arts Building. My first class of the day was Folklore, and we were looking at the history of Fairy Lore in the province. Boy, I could really ace my final essay for this one if I dared, using primary resources even. Too bad I couldn’t do any such thing, my prof would never believe it.

  Hugh opened his umbrella to walk the short distance to the building. I almost warned him about the uselessness of such an attempt, but decided to let him learn the hard way about brollies and the Newfoundland wind. Serve him right.

  But incredibly, the umbrella stayed right side out. It was as if Hugh was now the center of the storm, the peaceful inner spot. We walked to the building past the cars and the rose bushes with nary a drop of rain getting on us.

  “How’d you do that?”

  “You could, too. Easily. If you’d just go away for a bit of education like I suggested.”

  I probably glared at him as we entered through the main entrance.

  “Well look what came in out of the rain,” a cool voice greeted us.

  Sasha again. My older sister, number two of Cate’s litter, was waiting right inside. She looked just like her mother, long straight dark hair and dark eyes, a flawless skin and not an ounce of fat anywhere around her muscled torso. She was gorgeous of course, and doing her degree in Economics while a member of the rowing and rugby teams, definitely a force to be reckoned with. Sasha was no doubt eager to join Daddy darling in his business empire.

  But something about her made me look twice. Beneath the sheen of witch glamour, there was something murky around her edges, as if she was carrying a heaviness, and I could swear there were dark circles beneath her eyes, under the artfully applied makeup. But it was gone a second later when she narrowed her eyes at me. Just a trick of the light.

  She hooked her arm around Hugh’s and looked at me with all the superiority of a full blood witch to a half-breed.

  “You’ve met my friend, then?” She emphasized the word friend as if she was pissing to mark her territory. Jesus, she must still be rankling over that weird episode the day before with Seth in the library. But she didn’t need to worry, I wanted as little to do with that false witch Hugh as possible.

  Sasha kept hold to him, anchoring him down so he couldn’t follow me.

  “Remember what I said,” he called out to me as I made my way up the stairs.

  “Sorry, not happening,” I called back. “I’m staying right here.”

  IN CLASS, WE WERE discussing the latest assigned reading, which I hadn’t actually gotten round to, but no matter. Fables, Fairies and Folklore was a slim volume published in the early ‘Nineties, and three of its chapters were second or third or fourth hand accounts of human interactions with the fairies.

  I quickly read through them before class began. There were some common threads to my experience, like the fairies living up on the barrens away from the coastlines behind Conception and Placentia Bays, but some of the stuff just sounded foolish.

  According to these stories, I had put myself in danger by talking with the fairies, even just by acknowledging their presence. One man in the story was kept captive by them for merely wearing green inside the fairy circle where he happened t
o stray, and because he spoke with them, they could keep him as long as they wanted. Green was the color of the fairies, apparently. They tied him down, enslaved him, and whipped him, trying to get him to eat their food so they could keep him under enchantment forever.

  That made sense, for I remembered how Thursk had tried his damnedest to get me to come join their party. I wondered why, if I had spoken with him, that didn’t immediately put me in his power like the man in the story.

  It had to be my witch blood, diluted though it was. This realization floored me, for I had never viewed my accidental heritage in any way that was positive before. My eyes opened just a little to what Hugh had been trying to tell me.

  I leaned back in the chair, the class around me totally forgotten, and placed my hands inside my hoodie pocket as I tried to absorb this new self-knowledge. A paper bag crinkled under my touch. Zeta’s spell, I’d forgotten I was carrying it around with me. The sachet inside the bag was completely lifeless – not a tingle of magic came from it. It couldn’t chase a fly out of Alice’s house, let alone the ghost of her great-grandmother. It was useless.

  Whereas I had power. Real, supernatural power.

  10

  THIS REALIZATION WAS an eye-opener, that’s for sure. I had never before understood that I held actual power. It was an uncomfortable thought, yet thrilling at the same time.

  It was like... my whole world shifted right there and then. Here I was, sitting in a second-year Folklore class while the ponytailed prof intellectually discoursed on the finer points of fairy lore and magical thinking among the poor ignorant people of times gone by, the superstitious idiots of this island who had believed such outlandish things. He, the pompous come-from-away who thought he knew everything, dissecting the living soul of those people with his sharp razors of logic and not seeing a thing in front of him. Not seeing the real live witch sitting right before him.

  What the hell was I doing with my life, searching for answers from the likes of this man? I could have laughed; it all seemed so simple in that moment of time. How could I have lived this long without understanding who I truly was? And I had been searching for answers all this time, I realized, delving into books which hinted at anything supernatural.

  Yes, my whole world had shifted ninety degrees. And with this new understanding came responsibilities.

  I realized I wanted to take Hugh up on his offer for further education, I knew I sorely needed this. Yet, at the same time, there was no way I could run away to the Hebrides and leave the mess of Benjy and the baby behind. I needed to learn more about harnessing my power in order to help them, but I needed a crash course.

  I sat the rest of the class totally wrapped up in my own thoughts, and only realized I had bitten three nails down to the quick after the class was dismissed. I needed Hugh’s help, but could I trust him? Perhaps he was telling the truth about being a half-blood after all, but still, he was too close to Dad and Sasha for my comfort.

  In the little sitting area down on the first floor of the Arts Building, I grabbed a dark roast and searched my knapsack for Hugh’s card. I knew I hadn’t tossed it, it had to be there somewhere. At last my fingers found it and I withdrew the crumpled cardboard, blowing off the pastry crumbs which had left grease spots on the front of it.

  But what to say to him? I’d changed my mind and wanted to learn, but he had to teach me everything he knew right there and then. I had a feeling he would never go for that. Despite the fact of the company he was keeping, he seemed too upright, too righteous even, to bend the rules.

  If I even hinted at the shit I’d caused, he’d probably get my dad to pack me up and send me far, far away up to his precious northern island, and Benjy and the baby would be lost forever.

  Perhaps I could convince him to impart a little knowledge, just enough to tide me over, if I promised to go along with his advice. Yes, I could claim that I needed to finish this semester, of course, he would see the sense of that. A girl couldn’t live on witchcraft alone, right? She needed to have direction in life and a human education.

  Okay then. So the next question was – what did I need to learn in order to be able to rescue the baby from the fairy’s clutches? There, I drew a blank. I knew so little about the craft that I didn’t even know what I lacked.

  It was all Dad and Cate’s fault that I found myself in this peculiar situation. If Dad had taken responsibility for his action of sowing his seed so lightly into a human; if he had had the guts to go against Cate and his community and made sure I knew how to use my powers properly, instead of just throwing money at me and hoping I would go away; well then, I wouldn’t be in this boat right now, would I?

  I was going to have to wing it. There, Hugh’s number was punched in, all I had to do was tap to dial.

  But before I could do that, I was interrupted by Alice.

  She sat in the affixed plastic chair across from me. Her face was drawn, even paler than usual, yet her large gray eyes were glittering in a feverish way. Alice never left the Science Building except when she couldn’t avoid it. If she could, she would only take science courses and never bother with any of the humanities electives. But here she was in the Arts Building.

  “I got another text from Benjy,” she said, her smile heartbreakingly wide. “He wants me to join him.”

  “Alice, no!” It was out before I could stop myself.

  She looked at me, hurt in her eyes. “Dara, this is Benjy. He needs me, he says. He...” She looked back down at her phone. “He says he’s looking after someone’s baby, and he needs my help, because, well, you know Benjy...”

  “Do you remember when we found him?”

  She screwed up her face. “I haven’t seen him since he left,” she said. “But it’s okay, he says he’s staying up by the berry patch up the hill, though I can’t imagine what he’s doing up there with a baby. The things he gets into, I tell you.”

  The whole incident had been wiped from her mind, I could see, whether it was fairy magic or just her human inability to comprehend the supernatural. Yet, according to Nan Hoskins, Alice had elf-blood in her from way, way back. Why this disconnect?

  The pieces fell slowly into place. We had the same story. Just as I had been unable to accept that I had power, despite the evidence before my eyes as I slipped in and out of Alt and regularly talked with Maundy my ghost, so Alice had no reason to believe she had super-natural blood in her. She must surely have had hints of it in her life, though, at some point. But perhaps that’s why my friend liked science so much – in that space, you could disregard conjecture and only focus on the physical reality that could be measured.

  Now my troubles were triplicated. Not only did I need to rescue Benjy and the baby, I also had to prevent Alice from going up to the berry patch and drinking the fairy Kool-Aid. Aside from kidnapping her and locking her into the cellar of Richmond Cottage, there was no way I could stop her.

  And I also had the sinking feeling that if I confided in Hugh all about this additional twist he would have me packed off on the next plane out of here, no matter where it went. The Witch Kin would have no moral qualms about abduction to further their own means.

  “It’s raining out, and they’re expecting a storm,” I said. “Not a good day to go traipsing around the Southside Hills.”

  “What are you talking about? I know those barrens like the back of my hand,” Alice scoffed. “And Benjy needs me.”

  “Alice, please listen to me.” I leaned over and grasped both her hands in mine. She started in surprise, because despite our friendship, we rarely touched each other. It was one of those unwritten rules. “I need you to promise not to go up there without me.”

  “Why? You don’t even like babies.”

  True, but I’d never let on to that with Jane.

  “It’s not the baby I’m worried about, it’s you.”

  She rolled her eyes and shaking her hands free of mine, stretched her long lanky legs up on the chair beside her. “Why?”

  “Fairies, Al
ice,” I said. “Benjy is caught by the fairies. And it’s gotten worse than that, way worse. That baby he wants you to look after? Well, a fairy came by Jane’s last night when I was babysitting and stole her youngest, and left a changeling in its place. You just can’t go up to the fairies, Al, they’ll eat you alive.”

  I could tell by the way her jaw dropped that she thought I was cracked, yet the fact that she didn’t bust out laughing meant that something was getting through to her. Maybe her elf-blood was making her see sense, I don’t know.

  She looked down at the little red book in front of me, the Folklore text, and pointed at it. “Hello, Dara? Are you taking all this stuff a little too seriously?”

  “It’s real,” I said. “Do you remember me telling you I talk with ghosts?”

  She hesitated, then nodded.

  “And that your great-grandmother, Nan Hoskins, is the one haunting your house?”

  She didn’t want to nod, but I kept staring at her and at long last, she gave a quick dip to her head.

  “You can’t deny that is happening in your own home, can you?”

  She shook her head.

  “Well, all Nan’s activity started when Benjy got himself lost in the world of fairies,” I explained to her patiently, though I knew we had already gone over this. “Now do you remember being in the fairy hall?”

  Her eyes began to water, the luminous gray turning silver in the light. “I thought that was a bad dream,” she whispered.

  It was my turn to shake my head. She glanced back at her phone with longing.

  “But perhaps if I go up there I can help him.”

  “Not alone, you can’t,” I said. “Please don’t think for a moment that you can outwit the fairies.”

  “But...” She stroked her phone as if itching to reply to Benjy’s text.

  “Don’t do it,” I said and tried to appeal to the logical part of her mind. “Think about it, Alice – he’s been gone how long?”

  “Two weeks, maybe three...”

  “And he’s been up on the Southside Hills all that time, and his phone battery hasn’t died?”