Monk, my experiments are sanctioned, which is more than we can say for yours!”
“Sympathetic ethergenics,” Monk muttered. “Hocus bloody pocus, you mean.”
Melissande exchanged an alarmed look with Gerald, who tucked Reg into the crook of his arm and raised a warning finger at his friend. “Hey! Remember the house rule? No disparaging witchcraft!”
“I don’t see why I can’t disparage it if I want to,” said Monk, truculent. “I mean, it’s my bloody house.”
Bibbie stamped her stylishly-shod foot. “Oh fine, yes, rub it in, why don’t you? Honestly, Monk, why is it you never pass up the chance to remind me that I’m only living here out of charity and-and your insatiable need to feel superior? And your inability to keep a housekeeper for longer than five minutes?”
Sighing, Melissande rolled her eyes. Truly, I might as well hobnob with the inmates of the Ott Insane Asylum. I mean, it’s not like there’s any appreciable difference. She looked at Gerald again.
“Feel free to hex the pair of them, Mr. Dunwoody. I won’t object.”
“No,” he said, grinning, “but Sir Alec probably would.”
“Oh, who cares about him?” said Reg, hopping onto his shoulder. “That tight-lipped, dictatorial, secret Department stooge.”
Gerald flicked her wing with his fingertip, still grinning. “As it happens, I care. You know, seeing how he’s my boss. In fact, seeing how he’s everyone’s boss, at least in a roundabout way, I’d say we should all care.” Then he turned back to squabbling Monk and Bibbie. “That’s enough, you two! Monk- ”
“I know, I know,” Monk groaned, and flicked his exasperated sister a grudgingly apologetic look. “Sorry, Bibs. It’s just-I’m going spare here, not being able to work at full capacity.” He dragged his fingers through his floppy dark hair. It needed cutting. Monk’s hair almost always needed cutting. “Honestly, I don’t know how much longer I can stand it.”
Bibbie’s crossness collapsed into heartfelt sympathy. “Oh, Monk.” She smothered him in an enthusiastic hug. “I know. It’s awful. But it won’t be forever. At least, it won’t be forever if you manage not to tip off Uncle Ralph. Are you sure you’re not doing anything up here that’s going to trigger one of his stupid alarms?”
“Of course I’m sure,” said Monk. Then he frowned. “Well. You know. Pretty sure.”
“You need to be more than pretty sure,” she said, leaning away from him. “I mean, those alarms of his are dreadfully sensitive.”
Monk wriggled free of her. “I know, Bibbie. I’m the one he tricked into souping them up, remember?”
Bibbie giggled. “I still can’t believe you fell for that, you silly goose. The whole family knows you never trust a thing Uncle Ralph says.”
“Yeah, well,” Monk muttered. “I won’t be trusting him again any time soon.”
“So,” said Gerald brightly. “Are we done now? Have we generated enough thaumic energy to keep you experimenting for a couple of days at least?”
Monk checked the monitors on his row of thaumatic containers. “I think so,” he said at last. “Mainly it depends on what happens with the multi-dimensional etheretic wavelength expander.”
Melissande looked at the expander, Monk’s latest pride and joy, which was the most convoluted contraption she’d ever laid eyes on. Taking up a full third of the large attic’s floor, a complex, confusing tangle of wiring and prisms and conductive coils and strange, disconcerting bits and bobs of questionably borrowed Department equipment, it had the alarming habit of drifting in and out of dimensional phase. The thaumic dampeners he’d set up to contain its etheretic undulations were supposed to prevent that, but the restrictions his incensed uncle Ralph had placed on his thaumic usage meant that the contraption’s containment was sporadic, at best.
She jumped as Monk put his hand on her shoulder. “How many times do you need me to say it?” he murmured. “I promise, Mel. It’s perfectly safe.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, with a little shudder. “I can’t help it. I don’t mean to doubt you, it’s just I wish it looked safe.”
Even as they stared at the expander it began another dimensional slide. Shimmering like a mirage, random sections of its convoluted construction started fading then pulsing back into brief visibility.
“Dammit!” said Monk, and leaped for the contraption’s control box. “Why does it keep doing that?”
“Um,” said Gerald, diffident behind them. “I can take a gander at it, if you like.”
Melissande watched Monk hesitate. Not because he didn’t trust Gerald’s thaumaturgic abilities, but because the only thing in the world he was possessive about was his experiments. Generous to a fault, willing to strip himself naked to clothe someone less fortunate, when it came to his experiments he was the most miserly man she knew.
“Ah,” said Monk, his gaze sliding sideways to his precious interdimensional expander. “Well-”
Gerald sighed. “Sorry. I should know better than to-”
“No, no, it’s me, mate,” said Monk, hair flopping into his face the way it tended to when he was annoyed. “Not you. I’m a pillock and a plonker.” He waved an inviting hand and retreated. “Go on. Have at it. Lord knows I’ve tried a dozen times to stop its bloody shenanigans.”
Melissande looked at the bird, still perched on Gerald’s shoulder. “Come sit on me, Reg. Just in case.”
Reg hopped across, and with an almost shy smile Gerald hunkered down beside the fluctuating expander. Held his right hand out over the bit nearest him, fingers spread, and closed his eyes.
“What’s he doing?” Bibbie whispered, joining them. “Saying a prayer? Gosh. I didn’t realize it was that far gone.”
“No, he’s not saying a bloody prayer,” Monk whispered back. “I don’t know what he’s doing, exactly. He’s- he’s pulling a Dunnywood.”
Reg looked down at her beak at him. “I beg your pardon?”
“That’s what we call it down at the Department,” said Monk, half-amused, half-sheepish. “Nobody understands what he does, you see. Or how he does it. According to everything we thought we knew about thaumaturgics what Gerald can do isn’t supposed to be possible. Mind you, Gerald’s not supposed to be possible.” He shrugged. “And yet there he is, large as life and twice as tricky.”
“Oy,” said Reg. “Mind your language, sunshine. My Gerald’s not tricky.”
“Well, Reg, he’s something,” said Bibbie, and whistled. “Phew! Feel those etheretic particles dance, Monk!”
Not for the first time, and definitely not the last either, she knew it, Melissande felt a sharp twinge of regret as her erratic young man and his scatty sister marveled in low voices at something she’d never be able to feel. Very nearly a year now she’d had to get used to the knowledge that whatever else she was destined to be in this world, a dazzlingly stupendous witch wasn’t part of the picture.
Almost a year. Shouldn’t it have stopped hurting by now?
Startled, she felt Reg’s beak brush swiftly and lightly against her braided hair. “Takes all kinds, ducky,” the bird said softly. “Flash and fireworks are all fine and dandy provided someone’s remembered to stock the pantry- and don’t you forget it.”
Oh, yes. The pantry. “I didn’t know you knew about that.”
“Ha,” Reg snorted. “Bugger all escapes these beady eyes, madam. And if that young man of yours starts making a habit of taking credit where it’s not due I shall definitely be poking him in the unmentionables.” Another snort. “I must say I’m surprised at you for letting him get away with it.”
“Oh well,” she said, resigned. “It’s just this once. I mean, he’s been so terribly depressed about having his thaumaturgic usage curtailed. You know what he’s like, Reg. Without his experiments and inventions I think he’d curl up and die.”
“Who’d curl up and die?” said Monk, turning aside from Bibbie. “What are you going on about?”
She smiled at him. “Nothing. What’s happening now?”
“Your guess is as good as ours,” said Bibbie. “Gerald, what are you doing?”
But Gerald didn’t answer. Still hunkered down beside Monk’s wonky contraption, his pleasantly plain face was oddly serene. His outstretched hand moved gently, waving above the dimensionally-sliding equipment.
And then he nodded, sharply. “Right. I see it. That’s your trouble, Monk.” He opened his eyes. “You’ve got an inherently unstable connection between the dimensional phase inducer and the etheretic sub-stabilizer. They’re like you and Bibbie-put them side by side and they can’t stop themselves from squabbling.”
“Huh,” said Monk, frowning. “So are we talking fatal or fixable?”
Gerald straightened out of his crouch. “Oh, fixable,” he said confidently. “Completely.”
“Yeah, but by whose standards?” Monk said, his smile wry. “I mean, I’m only a genius. You’re the freak of
