“Mum, did you know about the safe house before all this?”
“Of course. Why?”
“But you didn’t know what work they were doing here?”
Elodie shakes her head. “Your dad just said it was witch business. To be honest, I kept out of it. I let him get on with his stuff, being head witch, and I got on with mine... looking after you, making my pots.” She shrugs. “I had no interest in what he was doing. Maybe that’s why he didn’t tell me about the rebels.” She cries, and Fletcher goes to her side, tucking an arm around her.
“Mum, now’s not the time. You did a brilliant job of looking after me and running a business. We can’t try to understand why dad did what he did, shared what he shared, kept things from you. But you knew him better than me. All he did, he would have done for the right reasons.”
She wipes her eyes. “I loved your dad, and he was an outstanding man, but I just feel stupid. How did I miss all of this? Rebels, dead witches, Zeta? And your poor dad had to go through it all on his own.”
“He wasn’t on his own. He had a team of people helping him, and even they didn’t know about Zeta. Stop feeling guilty. Let’s look. Maybe the answers are all here!”
She stands up and hugs him, nodding and wiping her eyes again. “You’re right. I cannot undo the past, but maybe your dad was trying to change the future. And if he was, then maybe we can continue his good work.”
“Exactly. Chin up.”
They each take a seat at a different desk and start shuffling through the papers, reading them, trying to find out if they are useful or not.
“What am I looking for?” Ellis asks Fletcher.
“Anything.”
Ellis
Anything?
Helpful.
I cannot even concentrate on the papers in front of me, looking for anything helpful or otherwise because I am still shaken from the demons.
It was a thousand times easier than I thought it would be, but now and then a shudder runs through me, and it’s like I can’t believe it’s over. Yes, we faced the demons. Yes, Fletcher’s mum’s magic called them all back. Yes, I didn’t let go of anybody’s hand.
I think it’s relief that I’m feeling, maybe. I didn’t cock it up. I held on. I faced the demons, and I didn’t let go.
Go me!
Okay, so Fletcher and his mum are concentrating on their papers and I need to do the same. No point letting the side down now.
I pick up a sheet of paper, typed, maybe a report. This is the problem: I don’t know these people, or these places, and so none of it means anything to me. Is it important that Mitchell and Grace went to the penguin house in the local zoo to meet three witches from Neath? Maybe. Maybe not. The report doesn’t go into any detail – they could have been meeting because they love penguins or because they want to steal them and put them into a potion they knock up in their cauldron.
Next piece of paper. Same. Does it mean anything, does it not?
Next piece, the same.
This is less fun than I thought it would be. Fletcher has this bee in his bonnet that his father, as head witch, was a better head witch than any head witch before him and figures that he wanted to give the other creatures their autonomy but couldn’t.
Why couldn’t he?
Because the original magic didn’t allow for it.
The thought pops into my head and I frown. Is that true? I have no idea.
“Fletcher,” I whisper to him, and he turns to face me, hope making him even more gorgeous: he really wants his dad to be the good guy in all this. “Have you got something?”
I nod.
“Show me.”
I shake my head. “I can’t. I was just thinking about your dad, thinking about this total mess, and something popped into my head.”
“Like a vision?”
I shake my head, sorry to disappoint him. My visions aren’t something I can control, but they’ve been useful so far. This doesn’t seem useful. It might not even be true. “No, just a thought....”
He still looks hopeful and then calls his mother over.
She looks hopeful too.
Great.
“I just thought about Fletcher’s dad and how much we think he wanted to help the other creatures but couldn’t. And I wondered why he couldn’t. And then this popped into my head: because the original magic didn’t allow for it. I have no idea if that’s true.”
They both sit down, frowns on their faces, and it strikes me how similar they are. I think I’ve disappointed them. It’s too easy.
The head witches kept hold of the power, because they had no other choice?
If Fletcher’s dad had wanted to do the right thing, but the original magic meant that he couldn’t, would that have been enough to stop him? Is that what all the other head witches did, just gave up, but Fletcher’s dad wasn’t able to?
“Do you think that’s true?” Fletcher looks to his mum, but she just shrugs.
I feel sad now. Sometimes no help at all is better than rubbish help. And then it hits me. “The original magic didn’t allow it because Sadie put a clause in, if someone tried to undo the magic, should a single soul seek to gain their power back, every creature except a true-hearted witch would die in pain, tortured and burnt.”
Fletcher looks at me, his face shocked, and I wish I didn’t know the stuff I know.
“She really put a clause in? That’s why the other head witches never gave the power back. Because it would kill everybody?”
I nod. I think so.
Fletcher’s mum looks as upset as he does. She’s rubbing at her face, looking exhausted by it all. “You can’t undo magic, but sometimes you can change it. Sadie wanted to make sure nobody changed it. Sadie was an evil witch, and she tricked her way
