SonofaWitch! Read online

  “The whole thing was a test?” Olyvar said, the words felt slippery in his mouth. “It can’t be.”

  Carruthers waved his hands over his head and his appearance changed. His hair lengthened and faded in colour, his face softened. The bags beneath his eyes smoothed out and the broken red veins at the end of his bulbous nose disappeared. Even his clothing changed. His faded and patched trousers flared until it became a skirt, falling squarely around his ankles. His body became rounder and there was something alarming happening around his chest area.

  Olyvar’s stomach sank. “Mrs. Stanley?”

  “You bleedin’ plum,” Mrs. Stanley answered in her sharp voice.

  “What about Sarah?” He forced himself to ask.

  “She’s a student from last year.”

  The dreams of his future marriage collapsed like a house of cards near a stomping toddler. “A student,” Olyvar heard himself say.

  Mrs. Stanley/Carruthers put her hands on her hips. “Care to explain what the hell happened in there?”

  “Sir…” Stewart began, his face the colour of porridge. As the star pupil, he clearly wasn’t used to being torn apart by Carruthers. “We didn’t know…”

  Carruthers plowed on, the words harsher in Mrs. Stanley’s female voice. Though he was shouting at both of them, his tirade was mostly aimed at Stewart. “You failed to get the keys from Mrs. Stanley, you failed to give Sarah the slip, you failed to notice that magick was being used to protect the chest, you failed to use any of the books in the library—all of which would have told you how to get into that bleedin’ chest—and you failed to hand over your witch kit when I told you I’d broken my ankle! Any experienced witch always carries the basic supplies with them just in case of bone breakages. Where’s yours?”

  Sheepishly, Olyvar pulled the small box out of his pocket. Stewart did the same. They all had them. Olyvar was so used to carrying it around that he barely noticed it anymore.

  Carruthers shook his head in disgust. Wisps of Mrs. Stanley’s hair floated into his eyes and he dashed it away with a jerk of his head. “Do you know the purpose of the test?”

  They both shook their heads.

  “It’s to identify your strengths, if you bleedin’ had any, that is. If you’d have gotten past Mrs. Stanley without alerting her to your presence or crept out of the kitchen to get to the master’s room, then you’d have gone into espionage. If you’d have talked your way past her, then you’d be set up to be ambassadors. Read the books and got into the chest? It’d have been high leadership for you. Each choice would have highlighted your strengths and, in turn, driven up the price we could ask for you.”

  “So, what did we get? Where will we be placed?” Olyvar finally asked, his heart heavy. He wasn’t sure what answer he wanted to hear. He certainly didn’t want to be an ambassador or a spy. He wasn’t suited for it. In fact, he couldn’t think of anything worse.

  Carruthers studied Olyvar for a moment before answering. He was so angry that his jaw was pulsing. “I don’t know how you did it, but you scraped by with a pass, Cauldwell. You’ll end up on one of the middle rungs of society, if we can sell you. Agriculture, maybe. Or education. You actually surpassed my expectations despite being distracted by a pretty face.”

  “I wasn’t,” Olyvar lied, blood crashing to his face.

  Carruthers raised an eyebrow. “Do you want me to demonstrate how that’s not true?”

  “No, sir. Absolutely not.” The answer was immediate and firm.

  “Good, because Sarah is giving her report to the examiners as we speak.”

  The thought that Sarah was close by made Olyvar’s stomach do a funny little flip.

  “You passed. Count yourself lucky.” He jabbed a finger to where Stewart was sitting, his nostrils flaring. “But you? I expected great things and yet, somehow, you ended up being worse than him. What happened?”

  Stewart mumbled something beneath his breath but Carruthers rode over him. “You failed every single level of the test. You were worse than Cauldwell. Let that sink in.” He let out a sound of disgust. “Well, there’s only one place for you, I’m afraid; you’ll be an advisor to politicians.” He glared at them both. “A farmer and someone not even fit to be a politician. I’ll be lucky if I can keep my own damn job after this.” He gave them both one last disgusted look and then stalked off, his dress flapping around his ankles.

  Olyvar slumped to the floor, his heart barely beating in his chest. Stewart did the same next to him. He didn’t know how long they sat that way, staring at the wall as they imagined the rest of their lives spent in unanticipated careers.

  The difference was that where Stewart was devastated at this turn of event, Olyvar was ecstatic. Carruthers might think him a failure, but Olyvar knew he was anything but. He’d passed the test. Okay, Carruthers had said it was by the skin of his teeth, but what did that matter? It was more than anyone thought he’d manage, and if passing with flying colours meant a career as a high-flying witch, then he was glad he’d almost failed. Did he want to be an ambassador or spy? No way. No sir.

  Agriculture was fine by him. It would be a joy, in fact. No politics. No judgement. Just the pleasant life of helping people grow things. He could be very happy with that. His long-repressed dream of his own farm with his happy little wife came back so hard that it hurt. It was so close that he could almost taste it.

  Olyvar cast a sideways glance to where Stewart sat disconsolate, his head in hands, and he couldn’t help but smile. Stewart wasn’t used to failing; he was used to being the star of the show, surrounded by his cronies, the favourite of their teacher. This lowest rung on the ladder malarkey was all new to him.

  Olyvar’s smile grew wider. He’d started the day as the worst student in class, perhaps ever. He’d ended it as the second worst… and yet the happiest. That equalled a win in his mind. He stood up, shook the creases from his trousers, and walked away whistling. His new-found confidence burned deliciously in his veins. Maybe he’d take a little stroll by the examiner’s office. Maybe he’d bump into his future wife.

  All kinds of dreams were possible.

  Sometimes it just took a little perspective.

  Mara Malins is an English writer of romance who battles spreadsheets by day and fiction by night. She lives in Manchester with her menagerie of three cats, two turtles and a long-term partner. She has work published with Pen and Kink Publishing. Her story “Classification of Nerd” appears in Covalent Bonds.

  A Poppet Named Dave

  Adam Millard

  RULE ONE: KNOW YOURSELF

  River Everbleed had only been a witch for an hour when her head came off. Rolled across the carpet, it did, like a slightly-deflated football. If it wasn’t for her nose, aquiline as it was, she was almost certain she would have gone all the way under the sofa.

  “Can you tell me what you think you did wrong that time?” asked Evelyn Crowe. Evelyn stood tall at six-three, and liked to wear clothes embroidered with cats and moons and all that guff. She had been a witch for almost a century, and, as far as River was aware, not once had she accidentally lopped her own head off.

  “Apart from the obvious?” River’s head asked, spitting out a bit of fluff she’d acquired on the short journey between her shoulders and the sofa.

  Evelyn nodded. Show off.

  “Was it because I did the Latin wrong?” River had taken French at school because, up until the previous day, there had been more chance of her needing to order a crusty baguette in Paris than there had been of her having to curse an enemy for all eternity or turn water to Lambrini.

  Evelyn shook her head, and River knew she was taking the Mick. “Your Latin was fine, though quite why you did it in a Jamaican accent, one can only guess.”

  With a sigh, River’s disembodied head said, “If you could pop me back on my body, we can discuss it further. I think a woodlouse is coming for me.”

  “Young lady, you will never learn if you don’t—”

  “It’s going into
my ear!”

  “Okay, calm down.” Evelyn crouched, picked River’s head up from the carpet, and reattached it to the still standing body in the middle of the living room. River couldn’t help thinking what a lovely living room it was, all incense and cushions and spices, like a shaman’s lavatory. But she had expected nothing less of the High Priestess—and also her maths professor—who was about as classy as a lady could be before having her face printed on stamps and five-pound notes.

  “Is it on right?” River asked, for everything seemed to lean a little to the left. “It needs to go on straight, otherwise my hat will keep falling off, and it’ll be a nightmare to do my make-up.”

  Evelyn clicked her tongue and said, “It’s on just fine.” She took a step back, closed one eye and crouched a little so they were level. Then she did a strange twitching thing with her mouth and made a sonorous humming noise through her nose. It was as if she were trying to decide whether a newly-hung shelf was on the skew-whiff.

  “You’re not filling me with confidence,” River said.

  “It’ll be fine.” Evelyn straightened up. “Just needs to settle a bit, that’s all.”

  “Just needs to se—”

  “About the spell,” Evelyn interrupted. “What do you think you did wrong?”

  River ignored the fact that one ear was almost touching her shoulder and got back to the matter at hand. What could she possibly have done wrong, if it wasn’t her Jamaican-Latin? She was sure she’d been concentrating suitably on the apple to make it explode, and yet there it was, on the table, untouched and probably mocking her in its own little way. It was apparently one of the easiest spells in the book, which River might have agreed with if the book was called The Hardest Book of Spells EVER!

  Evelyn ran out of patience, as she was wont to do, especially if one mucked up on fluid dynamics or vector calculus. “You didn’t believe!” she said. “That’s why your head fell off. You were looking at the apple, sure, but you didn’t really think you could make it explode? Oh, and you put the emphasis on the wrong word. You should always emphasise the verb and not the noun.”

  Up until the day before, River hadn’t believed she could look at an apple for longer than was wholly necessary, and here she was, trying to destroy one with her mind. “I wanted it to blow up,” she said, staring down at the little red and green fruit as if it had dropped her in a right mess.

  “Wanting and believing are two very different things, River Everbleed,” said Evelyn, placing a withered yet strong hand upon River’s shoulder. “I want to live in a house filled with cats, but do I believe that will ever happen? No, because my husband’s allergic, and unless I divorce the poor sap or turn him into a cat—and he might have something to say about that—it’s just not on the cards. Therefore, it can’t happen.”

  It made sense, in that strange way something does when it doesn’t quite. “So, what you’re saying is that I have to know the apple is going to explode?”

  Evelyn clapped her hands together so suddenly that River’s head nearly came back off. “By George, I think she’s got it!”

  River smiled. She liked making Evelyn happy. Now she knew how dogs felt when they brought the ball back without first gnawing it into a hundred tiny rubbery pieces.

  “Try again,” said Evelyn, taking a couple of steps back. “Remember, it’s just an apple and you’re just a witch, and witches blow apples up with their minds. It’s the nature of the world. Don’t feel sorry for it.”

  “I won’t,” River said, dropping into a half-crouch. “It’s just a little bugger of an apple. That’s all it is—”

  “Why are you standing like that?”

  River regarded her stance for a moment before shrugging. “I thought it would help me blow up the apple.”

  “No, no, no. Probably would if you had your back to it and a bad tummy,” said Evelyn. “We don’t do silly stances in witchcraft. We hold ourselves straight, tall, powerful.” She demonstrated and almost banged her head on the light-fitting. “This isn’t Harry Potter. There will be no expelliarmuses here, not unless you want a kick up the ascendio.”

  “Point taken, High Priestess,” River said. She stood tall, powerful, straight, concentrated, focused only on the apple, just the apple, concentrate, focus…

  “Hang on a minute,” Evelyn said, marching across the room toward the fruit bowl. “This might be easier with a banana.”

  It was so strange sitting in class the following day, pretending she and her professor hadn’t spent much of the previous night exploding fruit. It was like having a best friend, only one that she couldn’t tell anyone about. A bit like being a ventriloquist.

  The coven was highly classified. The first rule of the coven was ‘never talk about the coven.’ The second rule was ‘no heavy petting.’ River didn’t know if there were any others. It was still early doors for her.

  At the front of the class, Mrs. Crowe—Evelyn to her, because once she’d wiped mashed banana off her face, she felt entitled to use her first name—was explaining the principles of quantum mechanics using three eggs and a lump-hammer, but River was paying her no mind, for across from her sat something far more interesting. Far more appealing to the eye. Far more… boy-band-y.

  Dave Quinn, the dreamiest guy in the entire university. His shoulder-length hair curled just a little at the back of his neck; his eyes looked as if they had been drawn on by a Disney animator; his teeth were all the same colour, and he wore his trousers correctly, not like the other boys, who looked and walked as if they were acting as drug mules for some Mexican cartel.

  No, Dave Quinn was perfect, or as close to perfect as any girl could ever hope to imagine. The trouble was, he bloody well knew it, too. River had learned that the hard way when he’d approached her just a few months ago with an assignment on Egyptian Horticulture. He knew there wasn’t a girl at the university who wouldn’t do an assignment for him if it was a little bit tricky, and he charmed the tutors just as easily as he manipulated the girls, for he was a right sort.

  Even now, the way he was sitting, nonchalantly turning a blunt pencil over and over in his perfect grip, suggested he was aware that, somewhere in the classroom, someone was watching him.

  River was that person.

  She was also drooling a little, for her head was still a smidge askew and unless she held it to the right a little, it was quite noticeable.

  Look at him. Look at the way he’s turning that pencil. I wish I were that pencil. If I were that pencil, I’d make him write “DAVE 4 RIVER” on the front of his notebook. Then I’d draw a cute little heart around it, and an arrow through the heart. Then I’d—

  “Ah!” Dave’s sudden scream startled everyone in the room, including Evelyn, who almost dropped her lump-hammer.

  All eyes turned to the professor to see what she might do next. She rushed across the room like a praying mantis, all arms and legs and lump-hammer, to where Dave Quinn now stared down at his notebook with a look of utter shock about his chops.

  As she arrived—in half-a-second flat, or so it seemed—Dave attempted to cover the offending article with both arms and, oddly, one leg.

  River watched, biting her nails, for she had an inkling what might have occurred.

  “Something the matter, Mr Quinn?” said Evelyn. “And get your foot off the desk. This isn’t Geography.”

  Dave turned to his peers, perhaps seeking an explanation, but from the looks on their faces, they had nothing.

  Except for River, of course.

  “I don’t… something happened to my notebook…” Dave looked up at Evelyn, those huge Disney eyes of his blinking frantically.

  “Well let’s see it, then,” Evelyn said. “If I am to make a proper diagnosis of your notebook, I shall have to see the ruddy thing.” She reached down for it, but Dave was having none of it. Even as the professor tugged at his arms, he managed to keep them in place over the book.

  “It’s a bit embarrassing, miss,” said Dave. He’d turned an awful shade of
beetroot.

  “I should imagine it is,” Evelyn said. “If it’s what I think it is, you’re not the only boy in the university to have thought of doodling one. So long as it’s in proportion, one might consider a one-week detention instead of the recommended two.”

  Dave looked at her with pleading eyes, and whispered, “I’ve written something I didn’t mean to.”

  Evelyn stood up, folded her wiry arms across her chest, and shook her head. “Mr. Quinn, if it is another one of your limericks, I shall not be impressed.”

  Dave’s arms moved aside, although, from the expression on his face, he wasn’t the one doing the moving. River could taste the magic in the air—cinnamon and Toilet Duck—which suggested Evelyn was at the end of her tether. Of course, Evelyn’s tether was shorter than a haiku.

  She snatched the notebook up from the desk and Dave’s arms, unceremoniously removed, snapped back into place.

  “Well,” said Evelyn. It was at this juncture that she turned and gave River a disapproving look.

  Does she know? Does she know that I used magic in class?

  Without speaking, she handed the notebook back to Dave and returned to the front of the room, lump-hammer swinging at her side. Once there, she set the hammer down and threw herself back into mathematics mode, semi-creepy smile and all. The class went on.

  When River looked over to Dave, he was watching her surreptitiously across his arm, with an accusatory glance which said, I know what you are! You’re one of those… telepathetics!

  She looked away. Well, that could have gone better.

  RULE TWO: KNOW YOUR CRAFT

  “You don’t know your craft!” Evelyn said. She was red in the face, against which blue veins stood out like bubblegum bootlaces. “And you certainly don’t know what you’re capable of, otherwise you wouldn’t have done what you did in class today. You could have made that poor boy’s head fall off.”