Ruby sprang spryly from the table, scooped up Eddy and the paper, and popped them into her handbag. She made sure Chen was safely positioned in the centre of the table, ushered Tobias out of the door, shut it, locked it, jumped into her little silver coloured car and rumbled off down the road.
Chen listened, contentedly to the reassuring purr of Ruby's car engine fading off into the distance.
“Alone. Peace, serenity and sanity at last. Bliss!”
He closed his eyes and positioned himself comfortably at the bottom of his crystal bowl. He expected a long and uneventful wait...
**********
Tobias, meantime, was padding his way dutifully over to Dave's home. As he did so he chunnered to himself that he didn't really see the point of what he was doing. As far as Tobias was aware, the only things Dave the Postman ever did was go to work, deliver letters, go home, play his banjo and then go to bed. Every blooming day.
Arriving opposite Dave's small cottage, Tobias found a vantage point on the wall and stretched out, making himself as comfortable as he could, given the circumstances. This was going to be a long day. Even from this distance he could hear Dave tuning up his banjo and practising the musical scales, again and again and again.
And again.
Tobias nestled further down into a cavity in the wall and steeled himself for several seemingly endless hours of total boredom...
Chapter 4
Pearls of Wisdom
Pearl and Magpie Jack, her familiar, greeted Ruby at the door.
Pearl's cottage was so old that it had seen a lot of the original witch purges back in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The walls were of solid, rugged, local stone, painted with a simple whitewash – and not one of them was straight. The décor was more traditional than Ruby's eastern-influenced caravan furnishings, but like Ruby's home, it had masses of books, scrolls, jars, bottles, canisters, this, that, and the other, piled upon every available shelf and surface. The old place might have been a little draughty, now and again, especially in the winter time, but it was very homely and there was always a comforting smell of something baking or cooking within its walls. Pearl’s speciality was herbal remedies for common ailments, but she could also give Mrs Beaton a run for her money in the kitchen.
“I've been expecting you!” Pearl smiled (Her greeting was hardly surprising, given that Pearl, too, is a witch and has her own methods of divination).
Ruby and Pearl went through into the lounge and sat at Pearl's central dining table. It was a very old table, made of oak, with very heavy, chunky legs, crudely carved and almost black with age, but extremely sturdy; a table that had seen many, many meetings of witches and had had a multitude of spells cast over it over the years.
Ruby retrieved Eddy from her bag. He had NOT enjoyed the journey here at all.
“Lord alone knows what she's had in that bag over the years,” he reflected, miserably: “Dust, insects, mice, toads… and that’s just some of the nicer things. All very unhygienic as a mode of transport, and surely it must break some health and safety laws somewhere…”
Ruby placed him on the table top, telling him simply to be quiet and to focus his fertile imagination on the problem in hand.
Eddy retorted that he wasn't really that bothered about was “in hand”; he was more concerned – in fact downright alarmed – about what had been “in bag.”
“Honestly! When was the last time you cleaned that thing out? It was like the black hole of Calcutta in there! Disgraceful. Haven't you heard of dust mites? My sinuses will play havoc with me for weeks now; I'll be a total martyr to them. I can feel it coming on even now,” he wailed.
Ruby again told him to be quiet and to stop being such a drama queen; rather ungraciously pointing out that it had, in fact, been many, many years since Eddy had even owned any sinuses.
During this altercation Pearl had brought her huge self-filling silver samovar over to the table, setting it down with a deep, satisfying 'clunk'. Magpie Jack immediately perched himself on the top of it to gain an overall view of the proceedings. The samovar continued to emit a reassuring and soothing hiss of steam.
“Tea will help the brain cells,” assured Pearl.
“Given the amount of tea in that thing, you don't appear to have much confidence in any of us,” screeched Eddy.
Pearl said nothing, but gave Eddy a look which told him two things:
1) Shut up.
2) If Pearl was short of confidence in anybody around this table, it was him.
Eddy went quiet. It is never a good idea to upset a witch, especially in her own home; particularly if you might have to drink some potion that she has prepared, even if it's only a cup of tea. You never know what you might end up as.
With Eddy silent at last, Ruby was able to focus, finally, on the reason for her visit. Reaching again into her bag, she drew out the surviving scrap of Dave Hinchy’s mysterious letter and placed it on the table for all to see.
A telling quietness descended. Nobody offered any opinions.
Silence.
The samovar steamed leisurely as they all stared at the blank scrap in front of them.
Still nothing. More silence.
Hours seemed to pass, as they gazed and gazed, and all to no avail.
Finally, Eddy could stand it no longer. He was becoming insanely frustrated with the two witches’ lack of action.
“Oh what's the skulling point? We've hundreds of years experience between us! Why don't we give it the good old fashioned 'smoke it out’ treatment? You two... ” (indicating Ruby and Pearl) “ … Dim and Dimmer – use your hocus-pocus. What else are you here for? Morris dancing? Blimey, you wait countless centuries for a witch, then two of them turn up
