“I’m up now,” I said more to myself than to my two strange companions. “Why don’t you two take yourselves off so I can get dressed?”
Bob nodded obediently and flew out of the open window. I closed it behind him to keep out the October chill.
Peter settled himself back in my chair. “Don’t mind me,” he said, “I’ve seen you getting dressed hundreds of times.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t know you were there then! The free porn is over.” I went over to my chest of draws and started pulling out clothes.
“Wear the black lace undies, they’re my favourite,” he teased.
I collected a bundle of clothes, and added some huge grannie knickers to make a point, and said, “I’m going to change in the bathroom. If you even think of following me in there I will personally locate your bones and stomp on them, got it?”
He leaned back in the chair and laughed, but I figured he was smart enough not to push me.
Half an hour later I’d showered, dressed, and was fixing my makeup back in my bedroom.
“So I guess we should go and see my aunt?” I addressed Peter, who hadn’t moved. “She might be able to give me some advice about helping you.”
“I can’t leave the house, remember?” Peter sighed.
“Oh, right, of course. I’ll go see her and get back to you. I have a party to go to tonight so I need time to get ready for that. I’m going to have breakfast and then I’ll go straight there. I should be back around four, is that OK?
Peter shrugged. “I’ve waited this long, I can wait a few hours.”
Breakfast was great. Clare, my dad’s girlfriend, had laid the table for a birthday brunch, with me at the head and several presents in front of my plate. She can be quite nice sometimes.
“Hello, Pumpkin.” My dad put down his paper and gave me a kiss. “Happy birthday.” I think he calls me Pumpkin because I was born on Halloween.
They had all been waiting for me, and Clare went and made scrambled eggs with smoked salmon, which are my absolute favourites.
I opened my present from Duncan first; he’d got me all the Batman films in a box set, which was pretty cool, even though I suspected he just wanted to see them all again himself. I thought that Peter would probably enjoy them too.
Next I unwrapped one of the parcels from my dad and Clare. It was soft and black. I held it up. It was a floor-length black cloak, with fur trim and a velvet-lined hood. It was gorgeous, and just perfect for the party tonight.
“Thank you, I love it!” I gave my dad a hug, and even gave Clare a kiss on the cheek as she appeared with our food. She looked surprised and quite pleased.
I opened the others after we’d eaten and got a pretty good haul. Grannie Mara had sent me a book on the magical properties of plants, as well as fifty pounds. I wondered if she knew I would be getting my powers today.
Taking it all upstairs, I dumped it on my bed and then picked up my mother’s wand and Grimoire before heading out to see Iris.
I entered the shop behind a guy and two girls. Lyra was sitting on the counter giving all the customers a once-over. She was looking at the three people in front of me.
“Dead-beat. Time-waster and possible thief. Really ugly skirt,” I heard her say, commenting on each of them.
“Lyra!” I chided, really excited that I could hear her talking.
“Miss Emily.” Lyra jumped down off the counter, looking flatteringly pleased to see me. She rubbed her face against my ankle. “I’ll go and tell my Mistress you’re here.”
“Thank you.” I said it quite quietly because the girl that Aunt Iris employs to help her on a Saturday was looking at us.
Iris came out of the stock room at the back, cleaning charcoal off her hands.
“Emily, how lovely. You haven’t done anything, uh, unusual yet, have you?” Iris glanced at Jill, who was serving “ugly skirt”.
“Not really. But I would like to talk to you. Are you very busy?”
“Fairly. Halloween is always my best day, plus I have an awful lot to do before my Coven meeting tonight. But I think your needs probably merit some special attention, so Jill will just have to cope.” She raised her voice to Jill: “I’ll be upstairs, just push the bell if you need me.”
“Lyra said that one of those girls was a potential thief,” I whispered as we went over to the stairs.
“Not a problem,” Iris smiled. “There’s a protection spell on the shop. If she tries to steal anything in her pocket or bag it jumps right out again before she gets to the door. Very embarrassing for the thief; they never try it twice.”
Up in her flat, I noticed white powder along all the windowsills, and even a line across the doorway. “What’s that? Something magical?” I asked.
“Just regular salt,” she said. “It keeps out the evil spirits, they can’t cross a line of salt. And there will be a fair few of them out tonight. You should do the same at your house.”
“Yeah, I can just imagine Clare’s face if I put salt in all the windows!” I grimaced. “Speaking of spirits…” I filled her in on my encounter with Peter.
“Oh, that poor boy!” she said. “Do you have any idea what his unfinished business might be?”
I shook my head. “He doesn’t seem to remember much about his own life. Not even his last name. I can’t quite work out what his clothes are, some kind of suit I think, so it’s hard to date when he died; but I think it might be quite a long time ago. He speaks as if he is modern-day, but he does like to watch TV, so he might have caught up.” I shrugged. “If he died a long time ago then presumably anyone connected with his unfinished business would also be dead?”
“That is a problem.” Iris tapped her foot whilst she considered it. “It’s quite a specialist subject. If only your mother were here; she was great with helping ghosts pass on.”
“Really?” Another new bit of information about my mother, and perhaps another gift I might have inherited from her?
“Hmmm, but it takes a while to master—we really need someone who already knows what they are doing. I know!” She turned to me, excited, as a thought struck her. “You must come to my Coven meeting tonight. It would be a great chance for you to meet other witches, and I know they would all be thrilled to meet you too. There’s a witch there, Theresa, who has some experience with spirits. Bring Peter with you.”
“But he can’t leave the house,” I said, not at all enthusiastic about going to her Coven meeting.
“Can’t you bind him to you instead of to the house? I’m sure the instructions will be in your mother’s Grimoire. As I said, she did quite a bit of work with spirits.”
I shrugged, “Maybe. But I have a party to go to tonight. Would it take long?”
She pulled a face at my selfishness. “I don’t know, I’ll ask Theresa for you. We meet at eight at The Seven Sisters; you should have plenty of time to get to your party as well.”
The Seven Sisters were a famous group of beech trees on the town common near my house. It was right on the edge of town, so fairly private, but also fairly easy to get to. Planted hundreds of years ago, the trees were now incredibly tall, and stood in a large circle surrounded by open space. I could see how they would make a good place for a Coven to meet.
Despite several interruptions from the shop downstairs, Iris managed to teach me quite a lot over the next couple of hours.
I learned about casting a circle and about the four elements. It turns out my aunt is an Elemental Witch; her element is fire. I was excited about the idea of being able to control one of the elements, but after a lot of failure at trying to get a response from fire, earth, water and even the air, we had to conclude that I probably wasn’t one of the elemental witches.
I couldn’t imagine being a Kitchen Witch like my mother; my dad and I lived mainly on baked potatoes before Clare and Duncan moved in and Clare took over our meals. I could chop up a salad, no problems, but cooking was not my strong point. Only last month I had tried to microwave some eggs, but they had all exploded quite spectacularly; apparently you can’t microwave eggs still in the shell.
I also seriously doubted I was a Hedge Witch, like my Grannie. Years ago I had tried to grow cress and mustard for a school project. I was the only person in the class whose seeds did absolutely nothing at all.
Iris patted me and said we would find my “metier”, whatever that was. “You’re probably an Eclectic Witch, Emily,” she said, which confused me even more, “It means you have a bit of this and a bit of that, but hopefully a bit of everything you need. It would make sense.”
We went thorough some of the spells in my mother’s Grimoire. All the spells had to be said in rhyme, and some of them had to be said three times over, which seemed rather a faff.
We took a break for afternoon tea, and I slumped down on the sofa. I was starting to get frustrated. Apart from being able to hear animals talk and seeing a ghost, I had not actually managed to perform any magic at all so far.
I had waved my wand and said spells but nothing had happened. I had put ingredients in a cauldron and stirred it anticlockwise while chanting, but it could have been done by anyone; nothing magical occurred at all.
I could see Iris as well was beginning to wonder if I really had any magic. I felt a total idiot waving a wand, and like a total cliché stirring a cauldron. It was hardly inspiring.
“I think I’ll go home,” I told Iris. “I’m clearly not a risk as a witch. Less of the ‘powerful’ and more of the ‘pathetic’, I think.”
Iris gave me a hug. “It will come, Emily. I don’t think we’ve found where your talents lie, but I’m convinced you will have some. You must do.” She said the last bit forcefully and I wondered if she were trying to convince herself as much as me.
“Try to feel it a bit more,” was her last piece of advice as we went downstairs. “It’s not a mental thing, magic must come from the heart.”
As a birthday present, Iris said I could have any supplies I felt I needed from her shop, so I went round with a basket picking out the things that took my fancy. I stocked up on tall thin candles of all colours as well as some thick white pillar candles. I got some incense called Halloween, which had a lovely cinnamon smell, and a wicked-looking “ceremonial” knife called an Athame. I also selected a red velvet cushion, as a little present for Bob to sit on.
“Please think about coming to the Coven meeting,” Iris said as she showed me out.
“Mmm, maybe,” I said, deliberately not committing myself. There was no way I was missing the party for that.
When I got home the house was empty. I ran up to my room to get ready.
“Peter, are you in here?” I called. I got no response so I started to undress.
“Boo!” He popped out of my wardrobe.
“Aghh! You creep!” I was already down to my bra and knickers. “OUT!” I pointed at the door. He smirked at me and went through the wall instead.