‘Of course she does!’ the witch forcefully answered for me. ‘Everything will be restored to how it should be!’
‘You’re letting more like her free!’ Once again, Lisa accusingly indicated the witch.
‘And why shouldn’t I be free?’ the witch coolly demanded.
I was completely confused.
Was there no one to help me decide what the right thing to do was?
*
‘Richard; I must touch Richard.’
‘No, no; you mean to kill him!
‘No, no: you’ll only come under his own spell, his own charm!’
I had to ignore both their protests.
Whenever I had touched something within this castle, it had revealed the truth to me.
How much more powerful would that be if I touched Richard himself?
I stepped forward, wondering if either of them would try to prevent me going ahead with this.
They both moved sharply, as if preparing to do so; and yet both relented.
The witch, I presumed, would have little effect in this world.
Lisa, I believed, was curious: a part of her reassuring her that this was the only solution.
I reached out.
I gently touched Richard’s heavily breathing chest.
*
Chapter 37
The angel was seated atop the tree, where it should be.
Alongside it, the blue wassail ball brightly glowed once more.
Yet this was no massive tree.
Yes, this was a tree that stretched as close as possible towards the room ceiling: yet the room was small, low, and heavily beamed.
It was an old cottage.
Mum and dad’s cottage.
The home I had been brought up in.
The presents that had been strewn around the bottom of the tree had been unwrapped. The gaily coloured wrapping tidied up by mum had been tightly forced into a nearby wastepaper basket.
She and dad had gone off to the kitchen. Going through the final preparations for Christmas dinner.
The light from the blue ball sparkled. It penetrated through even the thick, packed darkness of the tree’s branches and needles.
The light splayed across the tree’s base, revealing a forgotten present there; hidden within the shadows.
Lying on the floor, stretching out an arm, I retrieved the heavy present.
Its wrapping was of mainly white and black, with flashes of blue; the colours and sheen of heavily falling, of thickly laying, snow.
The present had no tag.
It was simply scrawled with a large ‘Mary’.
I eagerly opened up this extra-special present.
I opened up the unusual children’s book I found inside.
Grabbing a nearby pencil, I excitedly scrawled a few lines on the first page.
‘This book belongs to Mary Ibbots, December 1936.’
*
Chapter 38
Making your Own Wand: Part 5
Once you have carved your wand, you need to allow it time to dry out.
If you have taken all the bark off, store it in a shed.
A Guide for Young Wytches
I wasn’t the only one shocked by what I had just seen,
The English witch must have witnessed everything too, for even she appeared mystified.
Lisa was also awestruck, her expression one of bewilderment equal to my own.
‘But…I thought you had created the angel!’
The witch stared at me in complete puzzlement.
‘It was your route back; your memory.’
She was speaking now more to herself than to me, as if still trying to work out the meaning behind what she had just seen.
‘And yet it existed – when you were a child?’
She glanced at me now as if I might have the answer to her dilemma.
Yet I was far more mystified than she was.
Didn’t all this mean that I was the English witch?
*
The dark witch didn’t seem surprised that I was the English witch.
It seemed she was far more surprised to see the angel appearing farther back in my past.
She had spoken earlier of a witch providing for her own rebirth by installing her memory within an object. Obviously, she viewed the angel as just such an object.
‘I…must have brought the angel here with me,’ I stated uneasily, sharing my own thoughts with her in the hope that she could make sense of all this. ‘It would be the perfect object to store my – our – memory within, wouldn’t it?’
How easily I’ve slipped into accepting that I’m a reborn witch!
‘No, no!’
My other self, the witch imprisoned within the dark side, shook her head, her expression still one of wonderment.
‘Couldn’t you sense it?’ she asked. ‘The memory was already there. Which means…which means…which means perhaps I’m nowhere near as clever as I thought I was!’
She laughed.
‘I don’t understand what’s going on!’ Lisa grimaced. ‘What did I just see then? Why did it seem familiar to me?’
‘To you too?’
The witch (the other witch, my other self – although, strangely, I still didn’t feel like I was a witch!) stared at Lisa in even more surprise.
Was no one capable of working out what all this meant?
And yet there’s still another, even more puzzling aspect to all this – how had touching Richard given me this insight into my past?
*
Chapter 39
If you think of yourself as being you, you’re still limiting yourself, still living only within the protective shell you have created around yourself.
A Guide for Young Wytches
‘You don’t seen surprised that I’m you: that I’m the witch you were, before you were banished to the darkrealm.’
The dark witch shrugged noncommittedly as I pointed this out.
‘Because, of course, I already knew that; I was the one who’d recognised that your – our – memory was a part of the angel. The magpie – it still had its elements of white, rather than being the pure black of a raven. It meant that, somewhere, there was an element of you that was still alive in the crossover between our realms; a crossover that meant I could access and utilise it to bring you back to life!’
Hearing this, Lisa was stepping farther away from both of us, dropping back closer towards Richard once more.
‘So that I could accomplish here what you couldn’t affect?’ I asked.
‘Of course,’ the witch replied. ‘It was the only way.’
‘And yet – you say it wasn’t a memory that I’d created.’
‘The angel contained your memory when you were a child; which means that you, the child Mary Ibbots, were already a witch recalled to life.’
‘So I’m even older than half a century?’
‘Me too dear; and I was left completely unaware of it! But why? And how?’
‘But why did touching Richard show you your life?’
The way Lisa asks the question, it’s filled with more jealousy than curiosity.
‘I saw another vision; he seemed to flow from me – to be created by me! And yet – that can’t be possible, surely?’
‘Why would you create him? When our very task was to destroy him!’
My other self says this with a strange tone of unease.
‘So, I was right; you are here to destroy him!’
; Lisa leapt to her feet, ready to strike out at us in defence of Richard. Even though she must realise such an act could well be reckless.
She wasn’t to know that I still remained unaware of how to access any latent powers I might have. My imprisoned self, of course, was incapable of having much effect on this world.
‘I’m…I’m not sure I am!’ I answered honestly to Lisa’s question, adding with the most profound sense of relief, ‘In fact, I think I’m here to save him!’
*
Chapter 40
To stimulate psychic dreams, place fresh Ash leaves under your pillow.
A Guide for Young Wytches
A cold wind suddenly cut through my clothes.
I was outside, outside in the snow.
In the garden.
Lisa wasn’t there. Nor was Richard.
But the English witch – the dark witch – was.
She was standing in one of the darker squares of the garden. Smiling.
‘Save him? You?’ she snorted derisively. ‘Surely you’re not so naïve to think I would have recalled you with all your powers?’
A blue light emanated from her, rushed towards me. It struck me so hard across the chest that I was sent flying back through the snow covered bushes.
The striking of the light was intensely painful. Added to this, the thick branches of the bushes whipped at me as I was sent crashing through them.
When I landed amongst the snow, I already felt defeated.
Unlike in the earlier battle I had witnessed, I had no shield to protect me. I also had no idea how to conjure one up.
Around me, another square of the snow-covered garden abruptly turned dark and snowless.
The dark witch observed this with a knowing smile.
‘You know, it’s a little embarrassing knowing I’m connected to such a fool,’ she said sternly, unhurriedly walking over to me. ‘You’ve just made my role so much easier!’
*
Another bolt of blue light crackled around me, making me writhe all the more in agony.
Nearby, yet another dark square of garden overtook a snow-covered one.
‘I never expected you to be this weak.’ The dark witch grinned scornfully.
Every time she struck me with one of her spells – sometimes so hard it sent me flying across the garden, other times so weakly I was merely bowled over and over through the snow – the darkness around me grew.
Like I was losing a game. Losing badly.
I had the impression she could finish me off any time she wanted to.
She was playing with me. Making me suffer. Perhaps for past insults or injuries I could no longer recall.
‘Is this really why you recalled me?’ I asked, my voice croaking harshly. ‘You just wanted revenge? Revenge for something I did to you so far back in the past I can’t even remember it?’
‘No!’ She frowns, pouts as if affronted by such a dreadful suggestion. ‘I did want you to kill Richard, of course!’
‘Richard, your king? Why would you want me to kill him?’
The darkness of the squares shifted, flowed, as if fluid rather than merely air.
Richard stepped out of the darkness.
‘She didn’t want to kill me: she wanted to release me!’
*
Chapter 41
Making your Own Wand: Part 6
To prevent cracking, larger pieces should be left to dry out slowly under a hedge, where the wind, rain and sun can slowly season it.
A Guide for Young Wytches
‘Richard’s dying! What’s happen–’
Lisa’s cry died in her throat as she caught sight of the dark Richard.
She had rushed through the door, out into the garden: no doubt seeking me to see if I were responsible for what sounded like Richard’s increasingly weakened state.
But if Richard was still lying ill in bed, then who was this dark Richard?
Two Richards?
Of course!
Just as there were two of me, two of the English witch. One in this world, one in the darkrealm.
I hadn’t brought the dark Richard through into this side of the world: I’d only pretended to, to satisfy the watching Germans.
The Richard I’d created was there as a barrier; to stop the one from the darkrealm entering this world!
Lisa stared curiously, disbelievingly, at the amusedly grinning, dark Richard.
Her eyes began to open wide, as if in gradual understanding.
Releasing a sheen of blue energy towards her, Richard bathed Lisa in its light.
With a tortured shriek, Lisa crumpled to the floor.
‘It’s worked!’
The dark witch almost screamed in her joy.
Richard nodded, grimly satisfied.
‘It worked!’ he said with a pleased smile, abruptly disappearing once more into a swiftly enveloping darkness.
*
Chapter 42
We cocoon ourselves from what we fear in the world: and in this way, we never become the butterfly.
A Guide for Young Wytches
Lisa was dead.
The closer I managed to drag myself towards her, the more I was sure of it.
The bolt of light Richard had encased her in had been far more substantial than anything the dark witch had thrown at me.
So I had been right; she had only been toying with me.
Weakening me gradually; just for the pleasure of it.
How had Richard managed to kill Lisa though?
Wasn’t she purely in this world, and he in his?
Any affect he had should have been severely limited.
That’s why they had needed me, of course; because I existed mainly in this world, where the good Richard also existed.
They couldn’t weaken him, let alone kill him, apart from the slow process of gradually increasing the power of the darkness within the castle.
Once I had killed him, removed his presence from this world, then at last there would be a space for the dark Richard to occupy.
So why had they so suddenly changed their plan?
What had happened that made them decide instead to try and kill me?
No – they could have easily killed me.
Instead, they have been weakening me.
In a weakened state, I won’t be able to resist the dark witch taking me over. Then, as a part of this world, she can kill Richard!
The darkness in the garden is almost complete. Only a few squares remain covered with snow.
The English witch hadn’t been killed in that battle between her good and dark sides: she knew she couldn’t afford to let the witch of the darkrealm take her over.
Instead, she had – what?
As I try to work out all these puzzles, I keep my head bent over Lisa, as if weeping over her death.
But I don’t have time to weep.
I need to work out why I don’t have the powers that the recalled English witch should possess.
If I realised how I could recover them, I might at last be able to fight back.
Fortunately, for the moment, the dark witch seems content to let me suffer the injuries she’s already inflicted on me. Curiously she doesn’t appear to want to weaken me any further, or to take me over.
Why?
Why is she having to wait?
She must have been frustrated when the English witch denied her the chance to take her over so long ago.
She must want revenge; resenting the lost years when she could have lived freely in this world. When she could,
maybe, have even killed Richard herself.
Releasing the dark Richard into the world long ago.
The English witch had vanished – letting her memory flow into something close by, so she could be recalled when stronger.
The angel? But the angel already held a memory of her. And I never saw it hovering nearby within the later part of my vision.
No, it had to be something closer.
Richard!
She flowed into Richard!
The connection was already there, of course!
Richard had been formed from me.
That’s why, when I touched him, it revealed my past.
And the dark witch; she realised what that connection meant!
As I’m partly within their world, they can weaken me – and, through our connection, also weaken poor Richard!
*
Chapter 43
Making your Own Wand: Part 7
A large wand may take a few months to dry out, but thinner pencil wands should only take a week or two.
A Guide for Young Wytches
There was a fluttering of moving branches, high up above me.
In one of the darker areas, I caught the flash of white that was the magpie.
It settled, almost silently, on the top of the dark tree.
In an instant, it was no longer the magpie, but the angel. Gracing the top of this majestically towering tree.
Alongside the angel, there was also the glistening blue of the wassail ball.
Restored.
Indestructible.
Such power wasn’t lost; it was merely stored away someplace, waiting to be retrieved.
Its blue light sparkled, making what little remained of the snow lying around me shine with a similarly sky blue sheen.
No; the snow itself glistens like that, doesn’t it? A coruscating blue sheen glowing around its edges, where light passes through its myriad crystals.
It’s not the snow constraining the darkrealm. It’s the blue illumination, a crossover of realms, yet also therefore a barrier: a separator of two states of being.
I reached out and touched the blue light. It expanded, crackled, danced beneath my fingers, its revived effervescence shielded from my darker side’s view within my cupped palm.
If Richard has always held my powers, why hasn’t he used them, recognised them?
Why, come to that, hadn’t he inherited some of the powers inherent within the darker Richard?
Because, of course, I’d given him a faulty memory. Didn’t my darker self say that Lisa had suffered because Richard could never recall when they had been lovers?
With a faulty memory, he would never be in danger of recognising who he really was; of dabbling in the witchcraft that would lead him into the crossover of the realms, leaving him open to being eventually taken over by the darker Richard.
Yet I had granted him enough latent strength to shield him from any takeover while he remained wholly within this world.
Until now, that is; a time when he’s rapidly weakening.
Flinging my arm up and back, I cast the blue light towards my darker self.