Mathilda, SuperWitch (26 page)

“Perhaps we can call her a ‘Neophyte Sage’,” Endora offered (somewhat sarcastically, if you ask me).

I think I’ve told you how I feel about the word “Neo” – I certainly didn’t want it connected to me.

* * * * *

Confused?

Let me help:

Young witches start serious Magical Training somewhere within the year they start their period.

Witch Moms know when their daughters are about to “become women” (magic, nature, woman’s intuition, etcetera). So they’ll plan the training to begin either a few months before or after the first cycle (depending on family tradition).

This meant that by my age, the Honeycutt tradition and the time my period started, I should have already had 20 years of training.

You start at Tenderfoot (all witches before their periods are given the class of Tenderfoot –they have powers, even experiment with them, but are not yet taught to harness them in any real way, like being taught to speak but not learning to read until much later).

Then the Rankings (or Classes) go like this:

Level One: Practitioner (at start of training or at start of your monthly cycle)

Then you move through the upper levels of:

Level Two: Proficient (somewhere in your twenties/thirties)

Advanced Magic (or Magical License – when you’re allowed to create your own spells and use them or have your own Spellbounds and guard them without guidance):

Level Three: Adept (Su)

Level Four: Mistress (where Viv and Mom were – very advanced for Viv but she was always an over-achiever)

Level Five: Natural (Gran)

Level Six (top level): Sage (Mavis and Me)

So obviously, I am Big Freak.

* * * * *

I passed the tests with flying colors.

Mainly they think this happened because I’m The Chosen One so they think it has always been there, just hibernating.

Not to mention, they said (or Endora did) I wasn’t using my magic for twenty years when most witches were so I had a lot stored up in me.

(Of course, it couldn’t be months of reading, studying, reading, practicing, more reading, meditating, reading, communing with nature, reading, ad nauseum and so forth.)

Can’t go into detail about the tests. They are very, very secret and had to make blood vow of secrecy (blood vows, by the way, are not real fun) and can’t even share it with my Book of Shadows.

* * * * *

Anyhoo – just for the record:

Took wand (of course!).

Took Daphne (just so she could have an outing – she was a very good little kitty, minded well and clearly a prodigy mainly because she didn’t wander off).

Took my cloak but not my broom (can’t fly yet mainly because I’m scared shitless of heights).

My confederate was Mavis.

My other was Lucy (pissed off the W. C. to have a non-magical, non-Société person at W.C. Trial but Lucy totally dug it, even the blood vow business didn’t put her off).

* * * * *

So now am clear to do what I need to do.

Though don’t know what that is, exactly.

But am not going to waste time.

The Month of June

3 June

All hell has broken loose.

Kah-ray-zee.

I need a vacation. That’s what I need. A getaway. Even a long weekend.

Something.

Anything.

Good thing is, have learned to write in journal without actually writing – use magic.

Wish I thought of
that
earlier.

* * * * *

So – anyway – what should I tell first?

* * * * *

Worcestershire:

Decided to go do a little investigating.

Some (Ash) would say I was a little cocky after the W.C. Trial went so well.

But I was tired of sitting on my hands.

Am I The Chosen One or what?

I had names, addresses and maps, not to mention a new Mini Cooper.

I wish I could say that the weather was gorgeous and I could break out my sunnies and put the top down.

Instead, it was cold, misty and miserable and the only thing I dared do was wear flip-flops (in fact, I was going to wear flip-flops even if they killed me, which they very nearly did).

Had the Mini outside The Dozen, my wand in the back waistband of my jeans and my toenails varnished in Ultra-Frost.

Was perfectly willing to go on my own. But, as I was putting my takeaway latte in the cup holder, in my mirror I noticed Lucy straggling down the seafront pavement looking for her morning caffeine fix.

I was just going to poke around in Worcestershire, maybe (just maybe) swing by Althea Appleton’s house. No harm bringing Lucy, right?

So I asked her to come.

As we got Lucy’s double espresso installed in her cup holder, Su surprised us by crashing out of the side door of the beat up VW van parked next to us.

“What’re you two up to?” she asked.

Figured, if we could find a toothbrush along the way, having the extra firepower of Su couldn’t hurt.

Su left her boy toy snoring in the VW, grabbed a chai and then, as we were about ready to roll, Josie came stalking out of The Dozen.

“Where are you going?” she demanded.

Then, before any of us could answer, off she was on a tangent about how she was always left out, left behind, everyone thought she was weak, meek little Josephine and couldn’t take care of herself.

I was still feeling guilty for the whole scene with Mom’s door blast so Su and I quickly conjured a kickass protection spell bubble (thank goddess for that, it came in handy later) for Josie and Lucy and off we went on our merry way.

To this day I will defend my decision to take Lucy and Josie along. I mean, sure, we were all in danger, but if it weren’t for them, Su and I’d be, well… it doesn’t bear thinking about.

* * * * *

So, off we went playing tunes on my new pink-iSkinned iPod (to go with my new Mini Cooper) blasting away some Guns ‘n’ Roses (“Take meeee home, yeah, yeah,” Axl Rose may be crazy as a jaybird but he’s the rockin’ shit and I’m sorry, but you take off that stupid hat and push back Slash’s hair, that man’s hot.)

* * * * *

Anyway.

* * * * *

People don’t have a lot of good things to say about Birmingham.

I have a one word retort: Selfridges.

And not the scary, shoulder-to-shoulder shopping nightmare that is the Selfridges on Oxford Street, no – a somewhat sedate, shopping extravaganza.

(Okay, so we were supposed to be investigating in Worcestershire, that isn’t far from Birmingham, a girl has to get in the mood. And anyway, Josie needed some new MAC lipglass. And Lucy was going to splash out on that Billy Bag she’d been dithering about for ages. And once I saw that rock and roll, long, thin, fringed scarf – well, it went with the Guns ‘n’ Roses!)

* * * * *

We cruised by Agatha Darling’s house.

Not much to say, really. An old manor, tucked in a hillside outside of Worcester. Just stately and such, none of the personality of The Gables.

Had the look about it that said, “No one home”.

We popped by the houses of a few of the Edward’s Coven.

Knocked on a few doors.

No one around.

Everyone gone.

Probably all out somewhere rigging wands to shoot out acid or something.

Finally, since it all seemed such a dud, decided just to swing round to Althea Appleton’s house. Just scope it out… get the lay of the land.

That was it.

I swear (ish).

* * * * *

By the way, I do know what an oracle is. I’ve seen
The Matrix,
as I think I may have already mentioned.

It’s just that oracles, in the witch world, are few and far between.

There are loads of seers, prophets, clairvoyants, etcetera.

But oracles are witches that not only see what is happening elsewhere in the present
and
can tell the future, but
also
are prophetesses who are the mouthpieces for the gods and goddesses.

Well, those folks are thin on the ground, let me tell you.

I’m not real certain I wanted to know what the goddesses had to say to me but I figured after lightning from Agatha Darling, Witch Trials at Ladye Bay and being the Object of Whatever in the Battle of Ash and Aidan, I could handle it.

* * * * *

Althea Appleton lived in a little, country cottage secluded in a lovely, peaceful glade. It had its own babbling brook and a riot of beautiful white wisteria climbing all over it. It looked older than time, made of stone that bulged here and there but somehow still held the building together. It even had a thatched roof.

It was the kind of place Sleeping Beauty would dance about gracefully while birds, squirrels and rabbits followed her and stared at her with rapt adoration.

Or it was the kind of place that a crazy old lady would cook a couple of kids in pies.

And it was deserted. No car, no dog, no cat, no movement – no nothing.

Completely still.

So, no harm going up and knocking on the door, right?

Which is what I did.

Su stayed behind with Lucy and Josie, keeping an eye (and wand) out.

I had my wand out too.

And just like in practically every horror film ever made, the moment I knocked on the door, it creaked open, slowly and weirdly.

I looked back at the car.

“Get back here,” Josie hissed (the voice of reason, that, in the throes of the temporary lunacy that precedes certain death, no one ever listens to).

“What if the old lady’s hurt, passed out, had a stroke?” Lucy asked (ah yes, the somewhat plausible but still completely mad explanation as to why the innocents walk, of their own free will, into the jaws of hell).

Su, being Su, shrugged.

Shit, fuck and everything in between.

* * * * *

According to our research, Althea Appleton was two hundred and three years old. She had a “fit” in 1877 and another in 1895, both of which, under modern medicine, could be classed as strokes. She was diagnosed with diabetes in 1941. Under healer’s orders, after a heart valve replacement (that caused the cardiac surgeons to ask some uncomfortable questions and sent the Edwards Coven scurrying for some serious document-forging-magic) she retired last year.

Out of the witch business.

Out of the oracle business.

Could be, she was in there, dead or dying.

* * * * *

Shit, fuck and everything in between.

* * * * *

I took charge.

“You two, get in the car, lock the doors, start the engine and wait for us to come out,” I bossed Lucy and Josie. “Su, you come with me.”

Su didn’t even hesitate (always up for an adventure, my Su).

“What are you, nuts? Get back here,” Josie hissed again.

“Don’t be such a Mom,” Su teased as she walked casually to the cottage.

“Don’t be stupid!” Josie napped, coming toward us.

“Listen!” I walked back to the car. “Lucy could be right. The woman is two hundred and three years old!”

“Wait,” Lucy said, looking around the glade, “I’m changing my mind.”

Great.

“So, call the police,” Josie suggested logically.

“I can’t!” (Me, not logically)

“Why not?” (Josie)

“Because she’s a two hundred and three year old witch! Just… calm down, get in the car. We’ll be out before you know it.” (Me)

“I don’t like this.” (Josie)

“Oh, pipe down, Mom Unit. She’s The Chosen One, for goddess’s sake. Give her a little credit.” (Su, as ever, the diplomat.)

We went in, careful, quiet, stealthy.

It was a cottage from a movie. I swear to the goddess, if a hobbit bobbed out of the kitchen smoking a thin pipe, it wouldn’t have surprised me.

“This place is cool beans, man, I want to live in a place like this when I grow up.”

I could see Su dinging around in a crumbling, flower-covered cottage, smoking pot and making brownies with her male harem.

We checked the downstairs and it was deserted.

There was a rickety, wooden staircase against the front inside of the house that led to the upstairs and Su and I stood at the base of it, staring up.

“You go first.” (Su)