So I pulled out my wand and shouted, “Freeze!” and zapped the man coming at me.
Hot pink pixie dust flew out of my wand and slammed him with great velocity right in the gut.
Except it didn’t freeze him, instead, it seemed sort of to shatter and fly off in bits and hit dozens of faeries that were flying toward him and froze them instead.
“Shit!” I shouted as he carried on toward me.
I tried again.
“Freeze!”
Zap.
Pixie Dust.
Nothing.
It had worked on Lulubelle!
So I tried again.
“Freeze!”
Zap.
Pixie Dust.
Zip.
And again!
“Freeze, dammit!”
Zap.
Pixie Dust.
Nada.
There were faeries frozen in mid-air everywhere and the rest were avoiding him, me and my wayward spells.
Shit.
He lunged at me; I ducked, slipped, lost control, fell and rolled under him accidentally taking him down with me.
We wrestled. He seemed huge. He definitely was strong.
I kept hold of my wand and fought as hard as I could and under my breath chanted:
I call the powers of nature, the might of the sea,
Protect all things good and magical in these woods.
As I will, so mote it be.
Over and over again I said it, getting louder and louder as I tried to find an opening to kick the big lout in the balls.
“Shut up, witch!” he hissed at me, his breath smelling of peppermint.
I’m sorry but a bad guy should not have good breath. I don’t know who to complain to about this but I just don’t think it’s fair. They should be balding, heavy, poorly dressed and smelly. This should be a rule.
Anyway.
I ignored him (obviously) and carried on chanting, struggling and holding on to my wand.
Then we rolled, rolled again, I managed to get up and I ran with him after me until he tackled me. We rolled again and then I slammed up against something hard.
“Oof,” I wheezed.
And then I got my chance, a clear shot and I used every bit of leverage and strength I had and kicked him right between the legs.
He went down on his knees and a branch came swinging round as if taken by a huge force of wind and it broadsided him, slamming him completely to the ground.
“Fucking witch.” I heard him groan as I looked up at my tree (which was, by the way, the something hard I slammed up against and the branch that hit the baddie belonged to it).
I gave my tree a thumbs up and gestured with my wand (which was safe and sound) and turned to the bad guy.
“Stupid dickhead,” I said. (I know, I should be classier but the guy had me rolling around in the wet leaves in the woods in the middle of the night in the middle of winter for goddess’s sake. Not to mention I was wearing my very cool new tweedy hipster slacks that I got from Jigsaw which were probably now ruined. Jerk.)
The trees were all acting pissed off, the wind was blowing fiercely, I could hear the sea smashing against the cliffs and the faeries were in what looked like the battle of their little faerie lives dropping acorns and shit on the baddies and whizzing around them in flashes of salmony-orange, lemon yellow and pistachio green. And the trees were swinging their branches in scary wide arcs.
It would have been very cool if it wasn’t so fucking scary.
Aidan was still struggling with the other guy in what looked like a not-as-amusing-because-it’s-real rendition of the Hugh Grant and Colin Firth fight in Bridget Jones’ Diary (except, of course, Aidan looked hot while struggling, mainly because Aidan was hot and he’d look it doing anything, the other guy just looked silly).
It was my turn to charge and I was gearing up for it, still chanting my little ditty to whip the trees into a frenzy, when a tree caught the baddie that Aidan was struggling with and sent him flying into another tree.
“Come on!” he shouted and reached a hand out to me.
Uh-oh.
I had a decision to make.
Baddie behind me was recovering and cutting off escape route to The Gables.
Aidan was in front of me and seemed to have both trees and faeries on his side (or at least not against him).
Hmm.
I had two choices.
Take on bad guy again (and I had kicked bad guy in the crotch so would be slightly more angry at me now which I guessed would put him off-the-charts-angry).
Or go toward Aidan.
Oh, wait. Pandora calling me.
* * * * *
Later:
Sometimes customers are so annoying, wanting coffee and muffins when I’m writing in my journal.
Anyway, where was I?
Oh… yeah.
I ran toward Aidan.
We took off, the baddies after us, the faeries after them.
Aidan stopped at a car (not any car, a metallic blue BMW Z4 Roadster, oh me, oh my).
He beeped the locks, the lights flashed and as I stood there (half indecisive, half admiring the car) he shouted, “For God’s sake, Matty, get in.”
I turned and looked back. One of the baddies was closing in on us, faeries rocketing around him like very pretty firework-esque gnats.
I got in the car.
At this point, you would expect me to demand an explanation of midnight rendez vous and plumbers owning £35,000 cars.
But no. Instead I kept quiet because Aidan drove like a bat out of hell.
I mean, it was Indy 500 time.
I thought it best to let him concentrate.
When we got on the motorway, he said, “Who were those guys?”
I said, “I don’t know, I thought you knew.”
He said, “Hell, I don’t know.”
Mm.
New subject.
“Why did you want to meet at midnight?”
Silence.
I tried another.
“How did you know about my tree?” I asked.
Silence.
Then he sighed.
“Long story,” he murmured.
“How about sharing just a little bit,” I suggested.
“I can’t,” he replied.
He looked at me out of the corner of his eye (which I wished he wouldn’t do, he should keep his eyes on the road, especially when whizzing up the M5 at over 110 mph).
“Damn, let’s get somewhere safe and then we’ll talk,” he muttered.
That sounded like a plan.
* * * * *
We drove and then drove back and then drove on again. Aidan said he wanted to lose them just in case they were following (?!).
We stopped at one of the few all night gas stations that existed in all of England (my guesstimate, there were three, if you didn’t count Services, which I wasn’t because we weren’t at one of those, “Too exposed,” Aidan murmured) and he filled up and went inside to pay. He got in the car and handed me a bag of Jelly Babies and a Diet Coke (bless him). I tore into the Jelly Babies and instantly commenced my search for the orange and green ones (because they were the best) and ignored the dark purple ones (because they were blackcurrant and blackcurrant-flavored candy was the work of Satan).
He watched me bite the heads off Jelly Babies for a minute and then asked, “Did you use magic back there?”
My head shot up and I stared at him. He didn’t see? Pixie dust and faeries frozen in mid-air?
“Uh,” I answered.
“It didn’t work, did it?”
“Er,” I answered.
“Just as I thought,” he said then he said quietly to himself, “Damn.”
He drove on. We stopped at a telephone booth and he told me to call Mavis and let her know I was safe. It was nearly three in the morning but she answered the phone, “Hello, darling,” sounding wide awake and cheerful then went on to ask, “Having fun?”
Ack!
“Fun? No, I’m with Aidan, we’re… somewhere… I don’t know where.”
“Tell her you’ll call her when you’re safe,” Aidan suggested, all snuggled up in the red phone box with me smelling all manly-musky and making certain parts of me quiver.
I took a deep breath, ignored the quivering and did as I was instructed.
“I’ll call you when I’m somewhere safe.”
“Okay, my dear… oh wait here’s –”
The phone clamored and then Ash, sounding wide awake but not-so-cheerful, “Where are you?”
“Ash, I think there are a couple of bad guys in the wood –”
“Not anymore,” he interrupted in a tone that made my quiver turn to a shiver. “Where are you?”
“Hang up.” (Aidan)
“Um.” (Me)
“Who’s that? Where the fuck are you?” (Ash – deep voice very scary now)
“Er.” (Me)
“Hang up now, we’ve got to go!” (Aidan)
“Dammit!” (Ash)
Then Aidan hung up for me and tugged me out of the booth.
“They’re here.” He pointed at lights, far off, coming down the road at us.
We got in the car and off we went, Aidan doing his bat-out-of-hell-in-a-BMW routine and me being quiet.
We drove forever and ever, stopping for Aidan to make a phone call. I played sentry with my hand on my wand inside my cloak, practicing spells under my breath. He seemed very animated and yelled, well, not exactly, too posh for yelling but he said things loudly like:
“I know I’m not supposed to…”
And.
“I have nowhere else to take her.” (!)
And.
“What would you do?”
Then he hung up looking annoyed and we got in the car. Aidan definitely didn’t seem pleased but he said, “I’ve got somewhere to go. It’s safe.”
Oh goodie.
“Or, at least I think it is,” he continued.
Ack!
He turned toward me, looked me straight in the eye and said, “You think you could help… do something to put them off?”
Uh-oh.
Magic.
“Er, so… um, you know?”
“That you’re a witch?”
I stared.
“Or,” he went on, “that you’re the Witch?”
My mouth dropped open.
(Okay, so I shouldn’t play poker.)
“Jesus,” he whispered.
I nodded.
“Yes, I know,” he said.
Yikes.
I knew that, I guess.
“Just wanted to make sure,” I said, trying to sound cool (failing).
“About that help…?” he prompted.
“Okay, yeah. Sure,” I said with what I hoped was confidence. I hadn’t been doing so well in the magical arena that night.
I got out of the car and stood there.
Aidan got out of the car and stood inside his open door and watched me over the top of the BMW.
Damn, damn, damn. Under the gun. Not good conditions – performing magic in front of the hot, posh, sexy Sawyer-from-Lost-like guy.
I cleared my throat.
ACK!
I took a deep breath, concentrated, took my three turns, called to my goddess and:
Under cover of darkness,
Through the night
Cover Aidan and I,
Shadow our flight
Let our route and destination,
Remain a mystery
As I will, so mote it be.
(Must admit, that was pretty good.)
I chanted it again and again then brought my wand up and out in a wide arc scattering Aidan, the Roadster and myself with hot pink pixie dust and met both hands above my head with a final splurge of pixie dust raining over us.
Then I got back in the car.
Aidan did too.
“That should do it,” I told him.
(I hope.)
Aidan looked at me for a second. Shook his head and started the car (don’t know what that was all about).
And then we drove forever and ever again.
I was tired and cranky and the Jelly Babies were wearing off fast.
We needed to get somewhere soon.
I needed breakfast.
And I needed coffee.
* * * * *
10 February
(Late Night)
Had to go – there was a slight flapjack emergency that Nerissa couldn’t contain (I was tinkering with a Nigella recipe - should just follow the way of the Goddess of Cookery and not tinker but I couldn’t help myself – it needed chocolate!). Not to mention we had a bit of a rush and Pandora still hasn’t become quite comfortable with Big Red (Lucy and my nickname for the espresso machine).
Haven’t had a moment until now.
Note to self: Nestle Toll House Morsels do not melt very well in microwave.
Another note to self: Use expensive, possibly illegally imported (by Mavis) Toll House Morsels only for cookies, brownies, etcetera.
Another note to self: Don’t mess with Nigella recipes! (Except that one that has way too much Cointreau in it).
Where was I?
Oh yes, Aidan and I were off to someplace safe.
We rounded a turn, came out of a wood and then I saw nestled in some sloping, gently rolling, mini-hills a massive manor house-slash-castle.
It was beautiful, perfect and fucking scary.
“There it is,” Aidan said with not a little relief.
“What is it?” I asked with not a little panic.
“The Royal Institute of Psychical Research,” he answered as if that explained everything.
“Hunh?” I asked because that didn’t explain anything.
Aidan didn’t answer for as we drove toward it, a car drove out of it coming through the raised portcullis in the outer wall right at us. On the one lane road we stopped nose-to-nose with a black Rolls Royce.
“You boys have got some killer cars,” I said, to myself apparently as Aidan was getting out.
Four men were getting out of the Rolls too.
All of them were about Mavis’s age, except without the Elixir to Look Forever Fifty. They were ancient.
All except one. He looked exactly like I always thought Ichabod Crane would look. Tall, gaunt, with a hooked nose and a receding hairline, hair longish and thin, pulled back in a pipsqueak ponytail.
All of the men were staring curiously… at me.
I got out of the car.
No one spoke.
Everyone just stood there.
Staring at me.
“Er…” I said, clearly destined to be a Honeycutt diplomat (not).
Ack!
“Hi.” I finally got out.
“Amazing,” said one.
“Remarkable,” said another.
“Inconceivable,” said a third.
I was beginning to get pissed. What? They thought witches spoke in tongues or something?
“I don’t like it,” said Ichabod. He wasn’t looking at me curiously; he was looking at me like he wished he wasn’t looking at me.
Then everyone started talking all at once.
“Now Jeremy –” started one.
“We talked about this –” started another.
“I thought we agreed –” started the third.
“There’s nothing we can do now –” started Aidan.
“I didn’t agree,” said Ichabod. “And furthermore, the Directors weren’t contacted –”
“There wasn’t time!” said one.
“We couldn’t stand by –” said another.
“Um… boys?” I tried to interrupt.
Nothing but more genteel interrupting of each other.
“Er… gentleman?” I said, a little louder.
They were beginning… well, not exactly to yell at each other but the conversation was becoming heated.
“Yo!” I shouted.
They stopped and stared at me.
&nbs
p; “Sorry to interrupt but there are some bad guys after me and I’d rather be…” I looked at the building that made The Gables look homey. “In there.” And to myself I finished, “I think.”
“But of course!” said one.
And off we went in the cars, down the lane, one of the ancient dudes backing the Rolls the whole way on the single lane drive while I held my breath – scary!
Then we were out in a courtyard, the more ancient bit of the place looking positively medieval ensconced inside the manor house-slash-castle walls.
“Wow, this place is wicked,” I said, not able to stop myself.
Old Dude Number One stepped forward. “Yes, my dear, let’s get you inside, where it’s safe.”
He touched my arm to guide me inside but I cleared my throat awkwardly.
“I, er, have to, um…”
How exactly does one go about this?
“Yes?” Old Dude Number Two asked.
“Um, do you all mind if I put a protection spell on the place? Just a bit of a shadow glamour to hide Aidan and myself.”
Gasps all around. Shock and horror on some of the faces, fascination on others.
“If you’d rather not –” I began.
Now a new voice:
“By all means, Miss Honeycutt, be our guest.”
This was Old Dude Number Four – or New Old Dude – who came out of the medieval castle part and was tottering toward us on a cane and a prayer.
“Uh, hello,” I greeted.
He stopped and squinted at me, the new sun playing in his eyes.
“Mathilda Guinevere Honeycutt standing in the courtyard of the Royal Institute of Psychical Research.” He stopped and pinned Aidan with the squint. “I fear there is some grave spinning. Oh yes.”
Ack!
What a weird guy.
What the hell is grave spinning?
Then I got it. (Duh!)
“Sir, you obviously know me, may I ask –” I started.
“Of course, Miss Honeycutt. I’m Ambrose Bennett, Executive Director of the Royal Institute of Psychical Research at your service.”
Then he bowed, all dramatic.
“Nice to meet you,” I said. Sounded lame but what was I supposed to say?
“Your spell, my dear?” he prompted.
So, there I was, being watched by a bunch of old dudes, Ichabod Crane and Aidan.
Ack!
No pressure, right?
I had to focus, breathe deep, open my chakras, find my power source and block out the audience. It was going to take some fierce magic – everything I had – if I had anything at all – or anything left – to protect this big behemoth with me and Aidan in it.