Abby the Witch (27 page)

Abby did so
want to be old. She seemed to be on a constant quest to become an
old diddy. She didn't have wrinkles yet, but they would come. Nor
did she always tut when walking past young couples, or sniff wildly
at any mention of parties, picnics, or balls. But all that would
come, given time.

If Abby wanted
to be old for the rest of her life, then that is precisely what she
would be.

Abby had
resigned herself from an early age to act beyond her years. But in
doing so, she eliminated a formative section of her youth. As a
16-year-old she was more interested in collecting herbs from the
forest than accompanying the other village girls to the harvest
dance. And then again as an 18-year-old she would prefer to cross
the street from a group of bubbly chatting girls her own age rather
than have to listen to whatever it was that made girls like her
happy. Finally as a 21 the commentary had started. To Mrs Hunter or
whatever other old diddy Abby could find to chat with, she would
fondly raise the topic of today's youth and the problems plaguing
them. She enjoyed her status of having wisdom beyond her years, but
that wisdom was full of glaring holes.

In skipping
youth, Abby had missed out on several important lessons. Lessons
that, if she knew now, would equip her to put Pembrake in the place
he deserved. If Abby had spent even half her teenage years doing
what she was supposed to, then she wouldn't find that arrogant thug
of a man so intriguing. She wouldn't catch glimpses of him as he
walked beside her, or have that open-faced honesty after she fought
with him.

Charlie knew
precisely what was happening, even if Abby was still convincing
herself that she hated the very sight of him. Eghh, it was so hard
being so right sometimes. He could see what would happen, even if
both of them were dumb to the truth.

What a bother
it was being a sharp-eared, clear-eyed cat. He may not have the
precognition of a witch, but sure as pleck a bit of common sense
would suffice in this situation.

So there she
was, staring at some strange sky-blue dress with more puffs than a
forest fire, her eyes round with interest. He half felt like
jumping on her feet and biting some sense in her.

'So,' he
settled for a simple startle, 'where exactly have you been, young
lady?' She hated it when he called her that; it was the
ultimate insult in her books.

Abby took a
startled breath and swung her head down to see him sitting right by
her feet. Her head must have been firmly in the clouds if she
hadn't even noticed the approach of her cat.

'Charlie!' she
bent down to pat him, 'I'm so glad to see you!'

'Glad?' he
looked up at her slightly flushed face and spoke with a stiff
mouth, his whiskers twitching with the movement.

'Of course I
am!' she tried to pick him up.

'Of course you
are,' he dodged out of her way.

'Oh, Charlie,
you can't be upset with me! There's just been so much going on at
the moment... there's just been so much on my mind,' she got a
certain kind of look in her eyes, a look that if she was half as
wise as she'd like to believe, she would have know exactly what it
meant.

'Oh really,
temporal disturbance getting to you? Can't sleep at night due to
worry over how our very presence in the past could alter the nature
of time itself?'

'What?' Abby's
eyes had drifted back to the dress. 'There's just a lot that has to
be done. According to the Gov, I have to get into the Ball – and
how am I supposed to do that?' Abby put her thin fingers around her
thin wrist and stared back at the dress in the shop window. 'And
now it turns out that the Colonel is using Pembrake as some kind of
distraction and that the Gov and most of the Guards are against the
Colonel and are sure he's up to something. Really,
Charlie, there's just so much going on!'

Abby wasn't
usually the most eloquent of speakers, but even for her the
shopping list of thoughts she was blurting out represented a new
low in coherence.

'Thank you for
asking,' he wasn't about to ease her headache yet, 'I have been
having a wonderful time fending for myself. It has been
just great following you around at a distance and
watching you getting into ridiculous, childish situations with that
buffoon. You are so kind to have wondered about me these last
several days, so kind.'

Was that
little wince and gulp Abby finally picking up on his disdain?

'Oh, Charlie,
I'm so sorry,' she leant down and bunched up her horrible grey
skirt in her tight hands, 'things have just been
so... different. I just don't know what to think or do at the
moment. I mean,' she lowered her voice even though there was no one
else on the street, 'I've never been stuck back in time before –
I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do. I'm just so fraught with
worry over changing the timeline! I mean, Charlie, we don't have
any destinies anymore, what am I supposed to do? I'm just so
confused!'

You would have
to be a half-dead crab not to pick up on the subtext in that
statement, and a stupid half-dead crab at that. Never been stuck
back in time? Or never been stuck in the sights of an allegedly
handsome man?

Charlie would
play along for now. If she wanted to discuss time, then that's what
they would do. 'You could always start by stopping and thinking
about what you are doing. I thought Ms Crowthy taught you all she
knew about time?'

Abby rocked
back on her feet slightly. 'I-'

'I thought she
told you over and over again that time was a tricky bugger that was
hard as pleck to stuff around with, let alone stuff into a
clock.'

'Well she
did-'

'I remember
she said time was the hardest substance in the universe. It can be
pushed, pulled, and contorted. Twisted like twine and tied like
rope. Stacked like bricks and carved like stone. It can support
civilisations and see them topple to the ground. It can create life
and destroy it. What with time being so tough and all, do you
really think you can ruin it by a simple bit of time travel?'

Abby opened
her mouth, her bottom lip jutting out as it always did when she was
racing to catch up to a complex thought.

'But I don't
mean time will be ruined, as such..,I just mean
that our time will be ruined. That the Bridgestock we
know, that the people we have left in the future – that it will all
be destroyed. That we will stop it from existing at all!'

'You assume
that time has not already accommodated you. Time can see forward,
backward, and straight ahead. Do you really think you travelling
back in time and poking around a bit has ruined time's plan for the
future? Do you really think the most powerful force in the universe
would allow a skinny little witch from the future to destroy its
plans so easily?' As Charlie berated Abby, he kept an eye on the
street to ensure no unsuspecting Bridgestockian came across them
arguing about time travel, responsibility, and temporal change.

'But I'm
responsible –'

'You're
responsible for doing the best you can, with the resources you
have, with the time you have. If time has sent you backwards,
then it has merely changed the location of the game, not the rules.
You are still a witch, you are still Abby – how
would you deal with this? What would you do if you were
sent back in the past? What would a witch do? Would she allow
herself to be paralysed by the fear of destroying the timeline, of
creating a world more horrible even than the one that preceded it?
Or would she play the same game, and challenge time to create a
better place?'

Abby was
huffing, her cheeks blotched red and her grey eyes drawn thin. It
was clear she didn't like the track of the conversation, but she'd
needed to have this discussion ever since getting here. The first
thing a smart prepared person would do, or a cat rather, upon going
backwards in time would be to discuss the rules of engagement.

Do you try to
change the past to make a better future, or do you try to do as
little as possible, leaving what shape the future will take up to
chance? If the mere presence of his whipping black tail and
rakishly smooth fur in the past was enough to change the timeline,
then he would be damn sure that the other changes to the future
would be ones he approved of.

You act or be
acted upon. That is a constant rule no matter where you are. A rule
Abby would have to take to heart before she could find a way to
take them all home.

'Look,
Charlie, I'm trying my best, I really am,' her voice was quiet and
distant. She always withdrew when she was thinking hard. She wasn't
one to admit that she was wrong, but it was clear Abby was thinking
over his words. Even if she did not accept his advise, at least it
would force her to think harder about why she was actually here and
what she could do. 'I'm just not sure what to do from here.'

He hated
himself for thinking this, and he would hate himself even more once
he'd said it. But it was the only logical suggestion. 'Find
Pembrake and ask him.'

Abby was
shocked, her eyes were wide and lips open a crack. She hadn't
expected that. 'Pembrake?' the blotches on her cheeks grew redder,
'but why?'

'Because
you're both stuck here together. Neither of you are smart enough or
capable enough to get home on your own, let alone open a can of
sardines without quibbling. So the both of you are going to have to
work together.'

There he'd
said it.

'But Pembrake
is,' her eyes flickered back to that dress. Damn she was easy to
read.

'Probably
formulating the wrong kind of plan of action as we speak. He needs
you, Abby, he needs you to stop him from fathering future time
paradoxes and from making an arse out the past. But more than that,
he needs you to bring a bit of common sense, or as little as you
can bring anyway. Because trust me, Abby, while you've been roaming
the streets worried about stepping on the world's most important
bug and ruining the future, he's been planning how to fix it all
along. And the plan of a muscle-bound, arrogant little pleck of a
Commander isn't going to be a pleasant one.'

'You don't
think Pembrake would do something to change the timeline?' Abby
asked breathily, 'he wouldn't!'

'That's
exactly what he'd do. That boy would whack time over the head with
a stick and kick it in the shins if he knew it would make a real
difference to the future. I may not like the pleck, but at least he
knows what he wants and tries to get it.'

Abby tipped
her head upwards, her eyes drifting towards where the castle would
be behind the houses and shops.

Charlie
watched the way her face flicked open a notch, like a door being
taken by the wind.

Mentioning
Pembrake had taken her back into that dreamy state, even though
she'd never admit it. And it wasn't something he was proud of, but
it was something that he needed to do.

A cat,
especially a witch's cat, should be skilled in many things.
Balancing on a broom was one, hissing at ghosts was another. But
over the years Charlie had found that he needed another skill in
the service of his mistress – manipulation. She would never do what
she was told, nor what would be the most sensible thing to do. So
Charlie, as the wisest of the pair, would have to shove her in the
direction of right until she took the path with her own gusto.

If he came
right out and told her that the Colonel was trying to capture a
witch and that, what with all the other witches leaving town, it
seemed like a great idea to get the pleck out of Bridgestock, she
would do the opposite. She always found a way to find herself right
in the midst of trouble despite her good intentions.

Tell Abby that
the Colonel was after a witch, and she would probably fly a broom
right up to him and declare in a happy tone that 'hey, I'm a
witch!'. No, if Charlie wanted Abby to be free from the Colonel's
dastard trap, then there was only one thing he could do. Get her to
Pembrake.

The boy was a
buffoon, the boy was a troll, the boy was exquisitely irritating.
But he wouldn't let Abby fall to the Colonel, no matter how much of
a pleck he was.

Charlie didn't
like what he was being forced to do. In an ideal world he would
lock Pembrake in a trunk and pretend he'd never existed at all. But
Bridgestock of 28 years ago was not an ideal world, and he was
being forced to make uncomfortable compromises.

It was lucky
really, for everyone else, that Charlie was so very smart and
mature.

With the
thought of meeting up with Pembrake still swilling around in her
head, Charlie suggested to Abby that they head back to Martha and
Alfred's to work on a plan for Abby to get into the Ball.

While, on the
face of it, going to the Ball seemed like an atrocious plan, it
seemed to be the only viable move. Abby was hell bent that they had
to go, what with the witches predicting it and the Gov mentioning
it also. Walking back into spitting distance of the Colonel was
inviting trouble, but at least it would reunite her with Pembrake.
And that was the essential part of the plan. Pembrake could
mitigate Abby's insane urge to find trouble. Even if they didn't
plan on going to the Ball, Abby would find some way of accidentally
finding herself there at the fancy of the evil overlord. No, it was
better to plan ahead and push Abby towards the single most
destructive force she'd ever met – Pembrake Hunter. Around him,
Abby just wasn't the same trouble-seeking, unfortunate, drawn
girl.

It was at
times like this that had Charlie feeling like a shepherd leading
his flock.

As they left,
Charlie finally allowing Abby to move closer and pet him across the
tail, a shadow moved along a side alley. For an allegedly empty
street, the shadow moved fast, pointedly, and obviously back in the
direction of the palace.