Page 14 of Which Witch?


  A sharp noise from the top of the stairs made them both turn round. Terence was standing on the landing in his pyjamas. He was standing perfectly still, as though in a state of shock, and the glass of water he’d been fetching for Billy lay in splinters at his feet.

  ‘How dare you, Terence Mugg! How dare you get out of bed! Just you wait, you’ve gone too far this time. You’ve gone too far!’

  Terence waited. He felt very queer. There was a sort of roaring in his ears and the landing felt as though it was rocking and swaying beneath his feet.

  Matron was on the first step . . . the second . . . Now she was almost up to him, her arms outstretched to get him by the shoulders and shake him.

  Terence took a long deep breath. He closed his eyes . . .

  Nineteen

  The Wizard Watcher, returning from a holiday it hadn’t enjoyed at all, arrived at Darkington the following morning, and as all three heads agreed, it was like coming back to a blinking funeral.

  Arriman and Belladonna sat hopelessly entwined on the big sofa in the Black Drawing Room, gazing into each other’s eyes. Belladonna had packed her straw basket and folded her tent and was only waiting for Terence to be found before going away for ever to a life of loneliness, begonias and pain.

  Except that it was beginning to look as though Terence never would be found. Mr Leadbetter (who’d quite forgotten that the little boy was not really his nephew) had rung every hospital in the district in case there’d been an accident, but no one had news of him and the anxiety was dreadful.

  Meanwhile the Kraken wasn’t exactly helping by tottering back and forth saying ‘Daddy!’ to Arriman and ‘Mummy!’ to Belladonna and making both of them extremely wet. Nor did the wife-slayer take any notice of the fact that everyone was so upset, but plashed up and down droning on about how he’d smothered Lady Beatrice, strangled Lady Mary and knocked off Lady Henrietta with a halibut.

  It was to this scene of misery that the Wizard Watcher returned and it made no bones about saying that it wasn’t the sort of homecoming it had expected.

  Not that Arriman wasn’t terribly pleased to see it; he was, and immediately introduced Belladonna whom the monster took to at once.

  ‘Very nice,’ said the Middle Head, looking her up and down.

  ‘Better than all those goose-pimpled girls at Brighton,’ said the Left-Hand Head who had not felt really happy at the seaside.

  ‘When’s the wedding?’ asked the Right-Hand Head.

  But this, of course, started all the unhappiness off again, and the lovers went back to the business of sighing and looking into each other’s eyes, leaving the ogre and Mr Leadbetter to explain the events that had led up to this day.

  The Wizard Watcher did what it could to cheer everybody up, but after half an hour during which the Kraken kept trying to climb up its tail, Sir Simon told it in horrid detail what Lady Olivia had said to the lavatory attendant, and Arriman had declared for the hundredth time that he would die without Belladonna, the monster had had enough.

  ‘Proper carry-on in here,’ said the Middle Head. ‘It’s worse than Blackpool.’

  ‘Let’s go out and get some fresh air,’ said the Right-Hand Head.

  ‘Good idea,’ said the Left-Hand Head. ‘Get that little perisher off our tail, anyway.’

  And twitching the Kraken carefully on to the floor, the monster waddled out into the park.

  An hour passed. Mr Leadbetter had made a list of police stations and was just about to pick up the phone to try again for news of Terence, when they heard the great oak door in the hall burst open with a resounding crash. Next came the sound of footsteps pounding upstairs, then the drawing room door flew open as if pushed by a hurricane and the Wizard Watcher came skidding into the room. Its heads were trembling, its eyes were blazing and they could actually see its heart pounding in its chest. Never had anyone known the monster in such a state, and for a moment its excitement was such that it simply could not speak. Then the Middle Head began and the other two joined in.

  ‘The New Wizard Cometh!’

  ‘He Cometh!’

  ‘Right Now. He Cometh!’

  Arriman rose with shaking knees and went to the window, and everybody followed him.

  Stumbling with exhaustion, his small face lifted to the windows of the Hall, Terence Mugg was coming up the drive.

  Twenty

  ‘Are you suggesting we don’t know our job?’ said the Middle Head, looking very hurt.

  ‘Yes, are you? I mean, you made us, you know,’ said the Left-Hand Head.

  ‘No, no, my dear fellow,’ said Arriman, who knew how sensitive the monster was. ‘It’s just . . . well, you see, this is Leadbetter’s nephew. We’ve all been rather anxious about him. Of course you haven’t met him, you were away during the contest, but that’s who it is. Terence’s the name. Terence Mugg.’

  Terence was sitting on the sofa next to Belladonna who had rushed up to him, half carrying him into the room, and was now feeding him with cauliflower soup and bananas, pale things she’d been able to magic up quickly till Lester could get to the kitchen and rustle up a steak.

  Now he stood up. Already being with the people he loved had made his cheeks glow and chased the weariness from his face.

  ‘Actually, sir,’ he began. ‘Actually, I think maybe—’ But here he broke off because it was so difficult to explain. He didn’t really believe it himself yet and had walked all the way from Todcaster rather than try anything that might not work and prove him wrong. So instead he felt in his pocket and took out a piece of string, an apple core, an India rubber – and at last a blue sellotape tin punched with holes.

  Terence opened the tin. Inside it was a small spider with hairy legs and a black cross on its back.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Arriman as they all craned forward. Terence swallowed.

  ‘It’s . . . Matron, sir,’ he said.

  So then he began to explain, growing more confident as his story unfolded. And as he talked it all became quite clear, and the only surprising thing was that no one had suspected it before.

  He began by telling what he’d overheard at the Home and as he spoke they could see the tiny baby carried in and snapping at Matron with his full set of teeth so that she had hated him bitterly from that day. They could see a small boy who never cried because wizards, like witches, cannot shed tears, but a small boy who knew nothing of his powers because unlike Mr and Mrs Canker who had wisely encouraged their little Arriman, Terence had grown up in a place where people were ignorant and blind.

  And then, when he’d first met Belladonna, Terence went on, he’d felt – oh, not just that he loved her (‘Everyone,’ said Terence, ‘loves Belladonna,’) but a sort of feeling of belonging and from the first moment, when she’d tried to root Matron, Terence had said her spells along with her and worked with her and felt with her. ‘Whatever she did,’ he said, ‘I had to do it and sometimes I said extra spells of my own. Only I thought it was Rover the blackness came from – we both did. I was sure it was Rover. But then I met Miss Leadbetter and she told me that Mr Moon had never come to the Hall at all, he’d had an accident. But Sir Simon did appear and I knew it couldn’t be Rover because Rover had already gone. So—’

  But this part was news to Lester and Mr Leadbetter, and gobbledegook to Arriman and Belladonna, and Terence had to stop while everybody explained everything to everyone else. Arriman was most displeased to think that his servants had tried to play a trick on him, but when they explained that it was only because they were so sure that Belladonna was the wife for him, he couldn’t really make a fuss.

  ‘Anyway,’ Terence went on, ‘I couldn’t understand what had happened because I knew Belladonna was quite white without the earthworm. So if it wasn’t Rover and it wasn’t her, who was it? And then when they said that about me biting so hard when I was a tiny baby, everything sort of clicked into place, and when Matron came charging upstairs at me, I just shut my eyes and – well, there she is.’

  And
he held out the sellotape tin inside which the spider was scuttling dementedly to and fro.

  The rejoicing after Terence had finished his story may be imagined. Belladonna hugged him and kissed him, Lester seized a sabre and gulped it down joyfully in a single swallow, Arriman came and pumped him by the hand.

  ‘My dear, dear boy, what happiness, what joy! What a relief! Don’t you see, all our problems are solved. You shall stay here and attend to wizardry and darkness, and Belladonna and I can be married and live happily ever after!’

  ‘Oh, Arry, so we can, so we can!’ cried Belladonna, rushing into his arms. ‘It doesn’t matter what colour our babies are now, does it, with a mighty wizard like Terence to take charge of things?’

  ‘Am I really going to be a mighty wizard?’ said Terence, his eyes shining.

  Arriman turned to him, his dark face serious for a moment.

  ‘You have a great gift, my boy,’ he said. ‘A great gift. Necromancy at your age! I couldn’t have touched it. Why, if I called the thunder before the lightning I was as pleased as punch. No, it’s my belief you’re going to extend the frontiers of wizardry and darkness to unheard of depths. Of course, there’s a lot of work before you, but you understand that, I’m sure.’

  ‘Oh, yes, sir; I’ll work like anything.’

  In the excitement and happiness which followed, everyone was careful to give the Wizard Watcher his due and the useful monster sat there, contented smiles on its faces, receiving the congratulations it knew it had deserved.

  ‘Yes, it’s a relief,’ said the Middle Head nodding graciously. ‘No use pretending it isn’t.’

  ‘Those nine hundred and ninety days just sitting there took it out of us,’ said the Left-Hand Head, ‘not to mention the chilblains.’

  ‘Still, all’s well that ends well,’ said the Right-Hand Head.

  There was only one slight snag which Mr Leadbetter, drawing aside his employer, pointed out to Arriman.

  ‘If Sir Simon’s real, sir, which it seems he is, what’s to become of him? Because it’s my belief that if anyone else has to hear about Lady Mary or Lady Julia or Lady Letitia who guzzled, there’ll be murder done and it won’t be him doing it.’

  Arriman nodded. A look of deep wickedness had come into his fiery eyes.

  ‘Actually, Leadbetter, I have just had a very neat idea about Sir Simon. A very neat idea indeed. But first we must have our wedding party. I want you to invite everybody. A ll the witches that took part in the contest for a start.’

  ‘Even the enchantress, sir?’ said Mr Leadbetter frowning.

  Arriman smiled.

  ‘Particularly the enchantress,’ he said.

  Twenty-one

  The day of the wedding dawned, and from all over the land there came kobbolds and kelpies, goblins and niggets, furies and fiends, to share the magician’s happiness and to meet the new wizard whose coming had been foretold by the gypsy Esmeralda and whose power was said to be greater even than Arriman’s own.

  No handsomer couple than the Bridal Pair could be imagined. Arriman was in antlers and a gold-patterned cloak; Belladonna’s ink-black dress was loose and flowing and in her glorious hair she wore only a single, simple bat. It was the little short-eared bat that had invented an Aunt Screwtooth for her at the coven and it had flown up specially to be with her on her great day.

  In the centre of the table, on a blue velvet cushion which the ogre had fitted with a special sprinkler, lay Rover, looking rosy and peaceful now that it was understood that he was not a powerful familiar but just an ordinary worm. Opposite him in a high chair sat the Kraken, squeaking with excitement. Belladonna had managed to put him into nappies in spite of his eight legs, and with his underneath wrapped in snow-white muslin, he looked, as Terence said, almost like a bridesmaid or perhaps a page.

  None of their friends had failed them. Mr Chatterjee had flown back from Calcutta, the ghoul had left his slaughterhouse. Even Miss Leadbetter, though she didn’t hold with magic, was there, bringing news of the Sunnydene Home’s new Matron, a fat and friendly lady whom the children loved. (The old Matron had been let loose in the Rose Garden where she was making herself useful eating greenfly and other insect pests, as spiders will.)

  And the witches were there. However much they had sneered at Belladonna, now that she was Mrs Canker and Wizardess of the North, they were only too ready to be friendly.

  Belladonna, of course, forgave them everything. Not only that, but when the feasting and roistering had died down a little she laid a hand on Arriman’s arm and said: ‘Arry, shouldn’t we grant everyone a wish? Isn’t that the thing to do at weddings?’

  ‘Well, my treasure, if that’s what you want. Of course, granting wishes isn’t exactly black. Still, on such a happy day . . . We’ll get Terence to do it; it’ll be good practise.’

  It would take too long to tell what all the brownies and kelpies and niggets wanted, and anyway it was mostly money. Mr Chatterjee didn’t need a wish because he’d tracked down the Princess Shari (the one who’d been a penguin) and was engaged to be married. The ghoul and Miss Leadbetter didn’t hold with wishes, and Ethel Feedbag had fallen asleep with her head on her plate and couldn’t be roused.

  But Mother Bloodwart knew exactly what she wanted.

  ‘It’s that turning-myself-young-again spell,’ she said to Terence. ‘I can’t get it right myself, but you can. About twenty, I’d like to be, or maybe eighteen. Gladys Trotter, the name was, and I’d like to be dressed nice.’

  But when the wish had been granted and Mother Bloodwort stood staring into the mirror at the young girl she had been, a very odd look spread across her face.

  ‘I don’t like it,’ she said at last. ‘I’m sorry, but you’ll have to turn me back again. All that swollen flesh and those bulgy pink cheeks . . . And what did I want all that hair for?’

  So Terence turned her back again and the old woman went back contentedly to her shack where she lived for many more years being sometimes a coffee table and sometimes a witch, and not doing any harm to anyone because she had forgotten how.

  After that it was Mabel Wrack’s turn and what she wanted was to have her legs turned back into a mermaid’s tail. She said she was sick of them itching and sick of humping Doris about in polythene buckets and she felt bad, she said, about the way she had treated her aunts. ‘For when all’s said and done, water’s thicker than blood and you can’t beat a wet family,’ said Mabel, ‘so if you’ll drop me off at that bit of cliff where I did my trick, I’ll find them soon enough.’

  So the wedding guests, glad of some fresh air after all that eating, trooped off to the Devil’s Cauldron and Terence gave Mabel a splendid tail and two gill slits for breathing under water and Belladonna kissed Doris lovingly above her vile red eyes. And sure enough, as Mabel hit the waves, they could all see, distinctly, a set of plump and motherly arms pulling the witch and her octopus down into the foam.

  But when Nancy Shouter told the little boy what she wanted, Terence turned pale. For what Nancy wanted was no less than the impossible. She wanted Terence to reverse the bottomless hole, to turn it inside out and see if somewhere in its bottomlessness, her sister Nora might be found.

  ‘I don’t know if I can do that,’ said Terence anxiously.

  But with Arriman’s hand reassuringly on his shoulder, he walked bravely to the East Lawn and the wedding guests followed.

  If anyone had doubted up to then that Terence was a great and mighty wizard, they did not doubt again. For Terence just walked up to the hole with its notices saying Danger and Keep Out and took them down. Next, with his shoes, he scuffed out the pentacle of protection. And then he stepped forward and spoke to the hole.

  No one heard the words he used. What passed between him and it remains secret till the end of time. But the hole obeyed him, it knew its master – and with a frightful scream, a roaring judder and a fearful lurch, it gave up its bottomlessness, turned inside out, and from its new-found bottom, dredged up the crumpled, bewildered bo
dy of Nancy Shouter’s twin.

  ‘Nora!’ cried Nancy, rushing forward and sending her chickens flying.

  ‘Nancy!’ cried Nora, rushing into her sister’s arms.

  Taking no notice of anyone, the two sisters stood there, hugging each other and laughing for joy.

  Then, ‘You look a proper mess,’ said Nancy Shouter. ‘You’re all crumpled.’

  ‘Of course I’m crumpled, you stupid faggot,’ said Nora. ‘What do you expect? You shouldn’t have pushed me into the hole in the first place.’

  ‘I didn’t push you, you fell.’

  ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘You did.’

  And quarrelling happily, the two sisters picked up their chickens and walked away.

  But when Terence, carried shoulder-high by the wedding guests, got back to the Banqueting Hall to grant the enchantress her wish, he found her chair empty except for a pair of moth-eaten stays which she had bought in the Portobello Road and poisoned in her Parlour. Madame Olympia, it seemed, had returned to London – and with her had gone no less a person than Sir Simon Montpelier!

  ‘So my plan worked!’ said Arriman gleefully, rubbing his hands.

  ‘I’ll say it worked,’ said the ogre. ‘I put the love philtre in each of their drinks like you told me, and you should have seen them! The plasher down on his knees asking her to marry him and measuring her neck for a noose at the same time. And her accepting him and trying to get a squint at his molars to see how they’d look on her necklace. I nearly died!’

  ‘A well-matched pair,’ said Arriman. ‘I wonder which of them will knock the other off first.’ He turned to Belladonna. ‘Am I not clever, my little kitten?’

  And Belladonna, gazing at him adoringly, said: ‘The cleverest person in the world!’