The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches — Chapter no 16

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

ika picked a café in a formidably posh hotel in Cambridge, the kind of place that met Primrose’s exacting and snobbish standards, and,M when it was time to leave the following afternoon, used the Broomstick’s speed spell to get her there in fifteen minutes.

She regretted the folly of this as soon as she stumbled out of the Broomstick on wobbly legs, feeling nauseated, exhausted, and entirely too weak to put on a convincing show. The Disaster had fucked her up in a big way, casting and maintaining a powerful spell for several minutes had done her no favours, and, much as she hated to admit it, Jamie had probably been right to tell her it was too soon for her to be gallivanting about the country.

But she was here now, and she had to get her mask firmly in place. She glanced at her watch. Two-fifty-five. She took a few deep breaths of damp, cold, clean air (well, clean-ish, considering she was in a hotel’s carpark), then ducked back into her car to reapply her eyeliner, dust her face with setting powder, twist her hair up into an approximation of elegance, and text Ian to let him know she’d got here safe and sound. (She didn’t bother texting anyone else because she had no doubt Ian would tell them himself.

He was probably already shouting at Lucie across the house and texting Jamie and Ken, who had gone out earlier in the day.) Primrose, who subscribed to the belief that if you weren’t five minutes early, you were late, was already at a frilly, dainty corner table when Mika entered the café. Pinning her sunniest smile to her face, Mika joined her.

With the exception of an impeccably polite greeting, Primrose said nothing more until they’d ordered a pot of Earl Grey—and Mika had ordered an entire plate of scones with jam and clotted cream—before throwing down the gauntlet.

“So it was you,” Primrose said, looking rather satisfied. “I suspected as

much.”

“What was me?” Mika asked innocently.

“The surge,” said Primrose, raising her eyebrows. “On Sunday morning.

I didn’t feel it myself, but Agatha says there was a distinct disruption from somewhere north of Essex. You came to mind at once.”

“Of course I did.”

“Don’t give me that look, Mika. Your recklessness this past year has not gone unnoticed. That said,” Primrose went on, cocking her head to one side, “I noticed your social media accounts have been deactivated, dear. Dare I assume I have finally had some influence over you?”

Mika crammed her mouth full of an excessively jammy, creamy scone to make herself feel better about the indignity of having to allow Primrose to believe she was the reason Mika had stopped posting witchy videos online.

And a happy bonus: the ludicrous quantity of sugar made her feel just a teeny bit less like a tired, delicate flower about to crumple beneath a stiff breeze.

“I was puzzled by the surge,” Primrose went on, sipping her tea in the daintiest of fashions, “because you’ve been living in Brighton these past few months, haven’t you? Or do you live somewhere else now? Frankly,” she tutted, “it seems to me absurd that you keep moving around like an overenthusiastic mayfly when there’s a perfectly good house going to waste.”

This was not a new complaint, and from Primrose’s point of view, Mika knew it was a reasonable one. After all, there was an empty house on a quiet street in the city of York, and it did indeed seem like madness not to use it. But it was the house of Mika’s childhood, and she did not know how to tell Primrose that nothing could convince her to go back to the ghosts and memories that haunted it.

“In any case,” Primrose went on, impervious to the thoughts clattering around Mika’s mind, “I did wonder if perhaps you weren’t the cause of the surge after all, but now that I see you, it’s obvious you were. If you don’t mind my saying so, dear, you look positively sickly.”

“I can always count on you to bolster my self-esteem, Primrose,” said Mika in her most cheerful voice.

“Well? Are you going to explain what happened?”

“Are you going to give me a choice?”

Primrose looked taken aback. And was that even a bit of hurt in the flattening of her lips? “I only ask because I can help, if you need help,” she said crisply.

“I don’t need help,” Mika said. Fortunately, she had a cast-iron excuse for her presence in Norfolk, one that would distract totally from a beautiful, lonely house on the coast. “I went to UEA over the weekend. A class reunion.”

Primrose blinked. “Do they invite you to reunions if you don’t graduate?”

“Apparently,” said Mika, her smile just this side of robotic. Primrose knew exactly why she’d dropped out of university a year early. “Anyway, while I was there, I saw him.”

“Him,” Primrose repeated, in the voice she might have used if she’d said bird shit or full-fat milk.

For once, Mika was in complete agreement with Primrose. “Yep. Him.

We had a bit of a row. I’m not proud of it, but I lost my temper. Not in front of him, or anyone else, but outside.”

“I see,” said Primrose, and she actually sounded sympathetic. Mika almost felt guilty for the lie. “That is regrettable, but understandable. You’re quite certain no one noticed anything? Because I can—”

“Wipe their memories?” Mika said a little bitterly. “No, that won’t be necessary. No one saw me.”

There was a pause, during which Mika demolished another scone, drank a full cup of tea and poured a second, and Primrose took all of two dainty sips. After a moment, Primrose said, “We all have types of magic we excel in. For me, it’s the manipulation of memory. I am aware that you don’t like it, but it has gotten you, me, and a number of other witches out of tight spots over the years. You, on the other hand, excel at potion-making. And my late sister, may she rest in—”

Mika blinked. “Sorry, what?”

“My late sister?” Primrose repeated doubtfully. “Yes, she—”

“No, what you said before that.”

“Oh. Potions, dear. That’s what you excel at.”

“You think I’m good at potion-making?”

“Of course. You’ve always had such a knack for the creation and conjuring of potions. Your teas, in particular, are extraordinary. Indeed, at least a third of the most powerful potions in my spellbook are yours.”

Mika felt like she’d fallen into a parallel universe between one bite of scone and the next. “Is that a compliment?”

Primrose sniffed. “You needn’t act like I’ve never given you one before.”

Mika was quite certain she never had, but resisted the temptation to say so. Instead, she said, “So you’re not cross, then, that I lost control of my power?”

“It happens,” said Primrose. “I wish that man didn’t still have so much power over you, but it is what it is.”

Mika would have liked to tell Primrose that that man had no power over her at all anymore, but that would put rather a big hole in her carefully constructed lie. She swallowed another mouthful of scone. “I expected you to be more judgy.”

“You know my views,” said Primrose primly. “As a child, I instructed your nannies and tutors very specifically not to tell you what to drink, what to eat, and what to wear. That is because I believe what you put in your body is your business, and that,” she added, raising her teacup to her lips, “includes penises.”

Mika almost dropped her own teacup, betrayed into a fit of schoolgirlish giggles.

Primrose eyed her askance. “You’re thirty-one, Mika. Do try to act like it. And if you would care for my opinion, perhaps you might choose a worthier penis next time.”

Mika did not at all like the fact that a certain scowly someone came immediately to mind.

“Damn it, Primrose,” she muttered under her breath.

“What was that?”

“Nothing,” Mika said too quickly, then backtracked, seizing on the first thing she could think of that had nothing whatsoever to do with Jamie Kelly. “I just asked if you ever knew a witch with the last name Hawthorn?”

“Minerva Hawthorn?” Primrose said, pausing to signal imperiously for another pot of tea. “Of course I knew her. Lovely woman. She contracted a particular aggressive form of cancer about thirty years ago. She had a child,” Primrose added, stirring the dregs of her tea with a faraway look on her face. “A little boy. I met him once. I wonder what became of him.”

Mika kept her face studiously blank.

“How do you know about Minerva Hawthorn?” Primrose asked, those sharp eyes skewering Mika in place.

Mika took a chance on the fact that the second-oldest witch in the Society might also have known Ian’s mother. “Oh, Agatha mentioned her, but you know what Agatha’s like. Most of the stuff she says is only half- remembered.” And then, suffering only the smallest qualm of guilt for throwing Agatha under the bus, she added: “She also told me why we’re all orphaned.”

It was a shameless attempt to find out more about their history. Primrose had only ever referred in the loosest terms to a spell that once went wrong, and according to the girls, Lillian had done much the same.

Primrose looked unimpressed. “You know why we’re orphaned. The spell.”

“Yes,” Mika said, irked. “So you’ve always said. Agatha, on the other hand, told me a little more. At our last meeting, while the rest of you were talking about Zuzanna’s peonies.” She thought fast, sent a silent apology Agatha’s way, and fibbed: “She said the Witchfinder General cursed us.”

This was a throwaway gambit, a piece of infamous British history she’d plucked out of thin air in the hope that Primrose would be so annoyed that she would pooh-pooh this theory and tell Mika the real story.

Instead, the response Mika got was: “I wouldn’t put it quite like that, but yes, the blame lies with him. And others like him.”

Primrose said this so matter-of-factly, so nonchalantly, that for a moment Mika was stunned into speechlessness, her cup frozen halfway between her mouth and the saucer. “It’s true?” she spluttered at last, astonishment giving

way to indignation.

“More or less.”

“And you never thought about mentioning this before?”

“You never asked, poppet,” said Primrose serenely.

Mika had to very sternly remind herself that it was not polite to throw teacups at people. Teeth gritted, she pointed out the obvious. “You always told me not to ask questions.”

“Naturally, dear. That was for your own good.”

Mika tightened her grip on her cup, genuinely concerned that if she relaxed her hold a fraction too much, the teacup would fly out of her hands and knock Primrose out cold. She took a handful of deep breaths before saying, in what was frankly a voice of heroic calm, “So you’re saying witch-hunters cursed us? That’s why we’re orphaned soon after we’re born?”

“Don’t be absurd,” said Primrose, sniffing. “The Witchfinder General and his ilk wielded a great deal of power, but it was the power of politics, not enchantment. How could they possibly have cursed us?”

“But you just said—”

“I said the blame lies with them, not that they cast a curse on us.”

Somewhere in the mess of Primrose’s half-explanations and woolly maybes, Mika thought she could see a glimmer of the truth. “They hunted us, so we tried to defend ourselves,” she guessed, tracking the inevitable sequence of events to its tragic end. “Only we cursed ourselves instead.”

“Which is just as I’ve always said,” said Primrose. “A spell went wrong, for which we can thank the prejudices of an uncaring, patriarchal society that went out of its way to punish anybody it deemed too wilful, too powerful, or too different.” Her lips twisted. “Not unlike the society we live in today.”

“But what kind of spell was cast? How could it go so badly wrong?”

“You are irksomely inquisitive today, Mika,” Primrose replied, looking very put-upon. “There isn’t much more to tell you. The seventeenth century was a time of growing prejudice and peril all over the world, and young witches were particularly vulnerable. The spell was supposed to give newborn witches greater protection. It went wrong, and essentially did the opposite. It killed the parents of new witches, a curse that has persisted in every generation since.”

Mika was baffled. “But all new witches are orphaned, not just the ones in a certain place or country. I’m struggling to believe any one witch could have had the power to cast such a timeless, far-reaching spell.”

“Well, of course not,” said Primrose, tutting like Mika should have somehow known the impossible. “It wasn’t just one witch who cast the spell, was it? It was fifty-three.”

“Fifty-three—” Mika broke off, incredulous. A fourth scone seemed like the only logical next step. “Fifty-three witches? Cast a spell? Together?”

Primrose didn’t reply immediately because the stiff, butler-like waiter had returned with the second pot of tea. Once he had left, she poured a fresh cup and said: “Haven’t you ever wondered why witches never spend too much time together?”

“Yes,” Mika said tartly, “and I have also asked the question many times, only to be told We would attract too much attention, poppet and Dangerous things happen when too much magic gathers in one place, poppet.”

“Both true,” said Primrose. “But both of those things were true back then, too, and yet witches took those risks because they believed the benefits were greater. Then the spell went wrong, proving that some risks are just not worth taking, and we scattered.” She took a sip of her tea. “For centuries, witches formed friendships with other witches. Every few months, representatives from every part of the world met to share spells, offer each other advice and assistance, and chat. Just as we do now, but on a much bigger scale.”

“But it must have taken forever for everyone to travel to one place!”

“Hardly,” Primrose sniffed. “They were witches. They flew.”

“On actual broomsticks, you mean?”

“Well, the specific tool depended on the culture, but yes, broomsticks were the most common. It was a simpler time. There were no aircrafts, no satellites, nothing in the sky to catch them out. Our ancestors were free to travel as fast as their magic could take them.”

Mika pictured this rather wistfully, this world where witches from all over the world were friends. She couldn’t help thinking it a terrible, beastly pity that here they were, centuries later, in a world where, no, it wasn’t possible to ride broomsticks across the skies without attracting an awful lot of attention, but a group chat on a phone that fit in their pockets could serve exactly the same purpose. How long were generations of witches supposed to let an old spell dictate the way they lived their lives?

“So when the witch-hunters started gaining a lot of political power, a generation of witches decided to cast a spell together, one that was supposed to protect all new witches across the world,” Mika said, thinking out loud as much as anything else. “Primrose, please tell me you weren’t one of the witches who cast that spell!”

Primrose’s expression was glacial. “You really do have the most irregular ideas,” she said severely. “You may find this hard to believe, Mika, but I was not alive four hundred years ago. I know the story because I heard it from an older witch, who heard it from an older witch, and so on.

It’s how we preserve our histories, you know.”

“I don’t know, actually,” said Mika, goaded. “How do you expect all this to survive your death when you don’t tell anyone anything?”

“I’m telling you now, aren’t I?”

Mika prayed for patience. “What did the witches do after the spell went wrong?”

“It took a generation or two for the reality of what they’d actually done to sink in,” said Primrose. “Once it did, it was decided that witches would stay apart. It was inevitable, between the deaths of so many parents, the orphaning of new witches, and the ill will that followed the spell. I can’t speak for elsewhere, but here in Britain, the witches chose to continue the tradition of meeting every few months. Careful consideration was given to

the risks, and rules were imposed to reduce them, and, so far, our existence has remained safe and secret.”

“And we have no contact with witches anywhere else.”

“I wouldn’t say no contact,” said Primrose. “I have been known to correspond with other witches on occasion. Your grandmother, for example.”

Mika hastily swallowed a mouthful of scone, startled. “You actually knew my grandmother? I mean, I knew you had to have known of her if you knew she and my mother had been witches, but I didn’t realise you knew

her.”

“She was the head of her—”

“Society?” Mika couldn’t resist asking.

“I would prefer to use the term group of witches sharing a similar geography,” said Primrose coldly.

Mika rolled her eyes. “Yes, that sounds much better.”

“Your grandmother, Sita, occupied the same position I do. So we corresponded.”

“She was the leader of all the witches in India?”

“Just the south of India,” said Primrose. “It’s a big country. It has at least six groups of witches. Your grandmother was the leader of one. She died shortly after your mother was born, of course, and I took it upon myself to look in on your mother every now and then.” She paused, and then added almost kindly: “Neither your mother nor your grandmother ever planned to have children. I think they would have liked to if it hadn’t been for the spell, but they did not have the luxury of choosing in the end.”

Mika felt absolutely no resentment at the likelihood that she wouldn’t have existed if her mother had had a choice in the matter. She was very glad she was alive, of course, but she also wished her mother had had a choice.

Everyone deserved a choice.

“How did I end up with you?” she asked curiously. “Why didn’t one of the witches in India take me instead?”

“It was the early nineties,” Primrose explained. “By the time you were born, all the adult witches your mother and grandmother had known were

married, with their power kept secret from husbands and in-laws, and none of them could afford the risk of taking in an orphaned child who would inevitably display uncontrollable bursts of magic. It was not so different here, either,” she went on, “but I was unusually privileged. I had money, and I was beholden to no one, so it seemed only right that I take you into my care. And for what it’s worth, Mika, I have never regretted it.”

This was quite possibly the most astonishing revelation of the entire hour. Mika demolished the last scone to cover up her surprise.

“Am I supposed to pass all this history down to other witches once you’re dust in the ground?” she eventually asked.

Primrose let out a peal of ladylike laughter, so long and full of mirth that Mika would have been downright offended if she hadn’t had such a ready sense of humour. “No, poppet, I don’t expect that of you,” Primrose said, dabbing at the corners of her eyes with her napkin. “Our tradition is to pass our history down from eldest witch to eldest witch. I use the term eldest loosely, as each leader chooses her successor and it does not necessarily have to be the next witch in age.”

“Is this your subtle way of telling me you won’t be appointing me leader of the Very Secret Society of Witches anytime soon?”

“The fact that you persist in calling it that should give you your answer,” said Primrose acidly.

Mika hid a smile. “Out of curiosity, who are you going to pick?”

“I don’t expect to shuffle off this mortal coil for a while yet, dear, so I haven’t settled on anybody. At the moment, however, I am inclined to

choose Belinda.”

“She’d be good at it.”

“I’m aware. Believe it or not, I do know what I’m doing.”

Mika toyed with her teaspoon, studying her warped reflection in the back. One last question nagged at the back of her mind and she knew that if she didn’t spit it out now, quickly, she’d lose her nerve. “Have you ever considered breaking with tradition and letting witches spend more time together?”

“Why would I do that?” Primrose asked, her eyes instantly shrewd and suspicious. “Even if the old spell hadn’t shown us exactly what happens when too many witches get together and lose their heads to arrogance, you know accidents are inevitable when too much power gathers in one place.

Look around you,” she went on, lips pursed as she indicated the phones clutched in almost every hand. “In this world, someone’s always watching.

How long do you think we could keep our secret?”

“But—”

“No, Mika,” said Primrose, and she was utterly unyielding. “You know how this works. Alone is the only way we survive.”

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