‘No, love,’ intervened Perran. ‘This isn’t a Cardiubarn thing at all.’ Amanda was mollified. ‘In fact, it isn’t something either of us has hidden from you.’
‘Well, what then, Grandpa?’
‘It’s Cadabra magic. The most advanced.’ Now Amanda was interested. ‘Think of all the things you learned to lift and move.’
‘Yes? You want me to learn to move even heavier things?’ she queried.
‘Well, yes, that’s important. But this isn’t a very heavy thing.’
Amanda looked around the workshop.
‘I’m sure I can levitate everything that’s in here at the moment.’
‘All except one thing, bian.’
Frowning with perplexity, she continued to search the room with her eyes.
‘I don’t know, Grandpa. Whatever can it be?’
He replied simply,
‘You.’
‘Me?’
‘You might be able to learn to lift yourself.’
‘Levitate myself?’
‘Yes. Some Cadabras can.’
Amanda was stunned.
‘Wow … Can you, Grandpa?’
‘Well now, we don’t need to get into that, bian. This is about you. We think you’re ready, your granny and I. Ready to begin training to see if you’ve got the gift.’
‘Oh … Grandpa … are you sure? … I … The Cadabras can do this? They can … I … fly through the air on a broomstick?’
‘Well, the broomstick helps, but an advanced levitant doesn’t need it.’
His granddaughter stared at him wide-eyed at this string of revelations, finally managing, ‘Why didn’t you tell me this before?’
‘Because, my dear,’ replied Granny cheerfully, ‘it’s incredibly dangerous.’
‘Er …’
‘Anyway, I can see you have cleaning up here to finish, so don’t let us hold you up. We’ll discuss this further at tea-time,’ Senara concluded briskly.
‘That’s right, bian. Now, it’s nothing for you to worry about. Just have a think and see how you feel about it. We’d better be off or we’ll be late.’
‘Croquet, dear, with the Einsteins,’ Granny added. ‘Mileva really is a most interesting woman.’
‘Albert’s wife?’ asked Amanda curiously.
‘Indeed. Must go.’
‘See you later, love.’ And with a wave, they disappeared back into the ether.
Amanda shook her head in disbelief and looked instinctively at her familiar. He stared back, communicating; I can’t believe you didn’t see that coming.
Humans, Tempest marvelled, were astonishing. It was a miracle that they’d survived this long and got to what they fondly imagined was the top of the food chain, equipped only with such primitive intelligence. Still, it wasn’t enough to keep him awake at night. Or any time, for that matter. He curled up and promptly fell asleep.
***
‘Have you seen her, Mike?’ asked Vera of her brother, as she sat with him and her husband Harry, enjoying the sunset. The deck of their house in Spain looked out over the Mediterranean Sea.
‘Lucy? Not yet,’ replied Hogarth, ‘Tomorrow. She could have told me she was making a covert trip to Cornwall.’
‘You’d have made a fuss, especially if you knew she was going to infiltrate Cardiubarn Hall,’ stated Vera.
‘I never make a fuss,’ Mike replied blithely.
‘Here,’ put in Harry, passing over a second bowl of his own homemade cheese puffs. They were Mike’s favourite of all his chef brother-in-law’s specialities. Harry and Vera had been making a comfortable living for many years writing cookery books.
‘Hmmm, thanks, Harry.’
‘You’re welcome. So … Thomas and Amanda Cadabra in partnership, eh? That will be interesting.’
‘Do you think he’s falling in love with her,’ Vera asked her brother.
‘Too soon for that, but if he is, I’d say he’s fighting it tooth and nail every step of the way.’
‘Of course,’ said Harry, ‘he’s a man.’
‘Stuff and nonsense,’ declared his wife robustly. ‘I was just the same …’ She caught sight of her husband’s teasing smile. ‘Oh, you!’
‘You rise to the fly every time,’ Harry responded fondly. ‘It’s one of the many things I adore about you.’
She shook a playful finger at him. He grinned back at her, then, turning his attention again to his brother-in-law, asked,
‘Are you going to tell Amanda the whole of Lucy’s story?’
‘No, no. I doubt she’s ready for that.’
‘I wonder if the world is ready for any of it,’ mused Vera.
‘I like to think so. Or at least, perhaps one day they will. One day soon,’ replied Mike, hopefully.
‘The Strange Case of Lucy Penlowr, you used to call it,’ she recalled.
Mike smiled.
‘And so it was … is.’
‘Just enough then?’ suggested Vera.
‘Yes, I’ll just tell Amanda what she needs to know. In due course. She has enough to think about for now. Yes … quite enough.’
***
The temperature was, for March, fairly scorching, at 17 degrees Celsius. Certainly it was warm enough for Amanda and Tempest to have a picnic. They parked near the library and began the walk to their favourite spot.
‘Amanda!’ came a familiar voice from behind them.
‘Jonathan?’ He was hurrying to catch up. Amanda stopped and walked back to meet him. ‘Is everything all right? You haven’t had any more of those dreams, have you?’
‘Oh no, thank you, Amanda. Everything is all right. In fact, I think it may be more than all right. See this?’
Jonathan showed her a green clothbound book, embossed in black and gold. He opened it to the title page.
‘Look.’
There is was: Observations on the Geology of Hertfordshire, 1796 by Hugh G. Stowan.
‘Oh, I say.’
‘And look at the contents page, the title of chapter 13,’ Jonathan urged.
‘“Legends of the Soothsayer.” My goodness!’ She turned quickly to the page and scanned it. ‘Yes! It’s all here. Our Oracle. But … this book?’
‘I was down in the stacks, finally getting round to cataloguing some of my books that I’m giving to the library, when I found it. Amanda, I would swear in a court of law that this book was not there before, nor anywhere else in the library.’
‘You think this is a good sign?’
‘I do. I think the Oracle wanted me to find it, to show it to you too. I think it’s a sort of message,’ he added earnestly.
‘Like, sorry I tried to kill you last
