The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches — Chapter no 8

CHAPTER EIGHT

he next morning, Mika waited outside for the children. She’d found the perfect place for their first proper magic class, in the back garden byT the koi pond, where they could be out in the open while still sheltered from the blustery November wind.

She’d been watching Circe gambol around the garden in pursuit of a butterfly, but at the sound of the girls’ voices, she turned. Altamira shot towards Mika like a bullet, all flailing golden limbs and bouncing ponytail, while Rosetta and Terracotta followed at a more sensible pace, their heads bent together over a comic book in Rosetta’s hands. There was an easy affection between the girls as they argued good-naturedly.

Mika scarcely had a moment to marvel at this friendlier, softer side of Terracotta before her spirits took a nosedive at the sight of someone else following the girls down to the pond.

She and Jamie had come to something of an understanding the previous night, but that didn’t mean she wanted to teach her first proper lesson with his intent, stormy eyes on her.

But she included him in her smile because she had no good reason to object to his presence. She was in her two-week trial period, after all, and she had known this first lesson at least would be supervised. It was perfectly reasonable. You didn’t hire someone to look after and teach children without at least making sure they were safe, responsible, and capable of doing their job. And truthfully, Mika was fine with that.

She just wished it were someone else doing the supervising. Couldn’t it have been Lucie or Ian or Ken, any of whom she suspected would have been kind and understanding if she messed up?

But no, she’d gotten Jamie, who loomed and scowled and who, truce or no truce, reminded her of nothing so much as a grim spectre waiting for Satan to summon him home.

She waited for the girls to get settled on the grass with her. Jamie took the comic book from Rosetta and found himself a spot beneath the nearest tree, his back against the trunk and his hands tucked deep into the pockets of his coat.

Mika tried to pretend he wasn’t there. “There’s a couple of things I want to talk about today,” she said to the children, hoping her voice didn’t sound as unsure and awkward as she felt, “but first, I wanted to find out if any of you have any questions about me or magic or anything else. I gather Lillian hasn’t had the time to teach you, so I’m guessing there’s a lot of stuff you’ve wondered about and—”

“How many other witches do you know?” Rosetta asked shyly, her eyes bright and eager.

“Are there any boy witches?” Altamira asked, sounding rather disgusted.

And Terracotta, her tone downright belligerent, asked, “Do you really think you can teach us how to control our magic by Christmas?”

Mika knew she had to tackle that first. “Absolutely not,” she said. “I’ve already told your grown-ups that there’s no way any of you will be able to completely control your magic in just a few weeks. That’s not why I’m here. I’m here to help you start. I’ll teach you how to use your power, show you how to begin controlling it, and protect you from any magical blowback.”

Terracotta scoffed. “We don’t need you to protect us.”

Mika considered her. “Big magical outbursts can be extremely unsafe.

Especially for people like Ian, Ken, Lucie, and Jamie, who don’t have the power we do.”

Terracotta blinked, taken aback. She’d never considered that before, Mika realised, watching the little girl dart a surreptitious and worried look at Jamie. Maybe Terracotta’s hostility wasn’t coming from a place of unkindness. Maybe it was, in fact, just the opposite. Maybe it was coming from a place of love.

“This is because of Edward, too, isn’t it?” Rosetta asked Mika.

Mika glanced uncertainly at Jamie, her question obvious. He gave her a short nod. “It’s fine, they know Edward’s coming. You can talk about him.”

“Okay, then,” Mika said. “Yes, Lillian’s solicitor will be coming to visit in December and it’s very important that we make sure he doesn’t find out the truth about the three of you.”

“Would it be so bad?” There was a wistful note in Rosetta’s voice that arrowed directly into Mika’s heart. “I mean, would it really be the end of the world if more people found out about us?”

“I’ve often wondered that,” Mika said. “It would be nice, wouldn’t it? To not have to keep secrets anymore? To have friends?” Rosetta nodded, and Mika nodded, too, wishing with all her heart that she could give her a different answer. “But we can never know for sure how someone will react to finding out the truth, so it’s just too much of a risk.”

It was exactly the kind of thing Primrose would have said. The thought brought Mika no comfort.

Mika tried to soften the blow with the one thing that usually made her feel better. “Of course, you have to remember that more people know about witches than we think. Look at your own caretakers. They’re not witches, but they know about us. And I know for a fact that plenty of witches have grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and a whole lot of other relatives who raised them.” She smiled. “The way I see it, there must be quite a few people out there who already know our secret and accept us. That could be a good place to start looking for new friends.”

She didn’t mention the one thing that made this almost impossible: the Rules. How was a witch to find a community of witches and non-witches who would embrace her when she was supposed to stay away from other witches, keep her life completely disconnected from theirs, and only see those other witches a few times a year?

“Anyway,” Mika went on, injecting some cheer back into her voice, “to answer your earlier question, Altamira, I don’t know if there are any boy witches. I’ve never met one. And, Rosetta, I know a few other witches.

Twenty, to be exact.”

“Twenty?” Altamira squeaked. “How do you know them? Are they your friends?”

“Um, not exactly,” said Mika. “We meet once every three months. I call us the Very Secret Society of Witches. Primrose, the head of our group, doesn’t like it when I call us that.” Mika grinned. “Which may or may not be why I keep doing it.”

Rosetta and Altamira laughed. Even Terracotta looked like she wanted to. “How come Primrose is the head of the Society?”

“Because she’s the oldest, most powerful, and, most importantly, the bossiest.”

“Then why isn’t she here instead of you?” Terracotta, of course. “Ian said he found you, but why didn’t you tell him to speak to Primrose instead?”

Mika hesitated. She glanced at Jamie, who was looking back at her with a furrow between his eyebrows. She decided to be honest.

“Primrose isn’t here because she doesn’t know about you,” Mika said to the children. “I don’t know how you’ve escaped her notice, but for now, at least, it would be best to keep it that way.”

“Why?” Rosetta asked, her little face solemn.

“Because Primrose believes keeping all witches safe and secret is more important than anything else,” said Mika. “She’ll think all this magic in one place is too dangerous to you, to your caretakers, and to the safety of all witches, so she’ll want to separate you.”

“But she can’t, can she?” Altamira sounded horrified. Mika noticed the way she tucked her hand into Terracotta’s. “We don’t belong to her!”

“She’ll want to separate you, but that doesn’t mean she can,” Mika clarified. “As far as I know, Lillian is the only one who gets to make those decisions. But Primrose can be very persuasive, and”—She hesitated, glancing once again at Jamie, whose expression had darkened—“Well, the thing is, I don’t know whether Lillian would give in. I don’t know her.”

“Primrose sounds dreadful,” Altamira said emphatically.

“Her heart’s in the right place. She just believes she has to do whatever is necessary to protect us all.”

“Hmm,” Terracotta said, almost admiring.

“In any case, Primrose isn’t going to find out about the three of you, so it’s a moot point,” Mika added.

“You sound like you know Primrose pretty well,” Jamie remarked, his rough voice scraping away the layers of her history.

Mika avoided his steady gaze and kept her eyes on Circe, who had draped herself under the tree beside Jamie and had put her head on his knee.

“I grew up in Primrose’s house. One of her houses. She visited quite often, so I’ve known her all my life. I know her as well anyone does.”

“If she wasn’t there all the time, who looked after you?” Rosetta asked.

“I had nannies.”

“They knew you were a witch?”

Mika felt twitchy. Her past felt too raw and exposed, but she didn’t have the heart to shut down the girls’ questions, especially not after specifically telling them they could ask her anything. And not when she knew only too well what it was like to have questions that never got answered.

“No,” she said after a moment. “They didn’t know. Not to start with.

When I was very young, I lost control of my power just like you do, so they always found out sooner or later. Primrose would replace them as soon as they saw anything they weren’t supposed to.”

“But didn’t they ever tell people what they saw?” Altamira asked, wide- eyed.

Mika shook her head. “Primrose took away their memories when they left. It’s a very powerful and difficult spell, one she’s never shared with the rest of us.”

What she didn’t say was that Primrose had not just taken away the nannies’ memories of magic. She’d taken away their memories of Mika.

She had seamlessly replaced every memory of Mika with false memories of another, perfectly normal girl. “Better they move on to their next position with nothing about you in their heads, poppet,” Primrose had said when Mika had protested. “Better safe than sorry.”

And so all those nannies had gone on with their lives and none of them, not one, remembered a little girl named Mika Moon.

Mika could feel that Jamie’s eyes were still on her, but she didn’t dare look up at him. She conjured a smile. “It’s probably for the best that the rest of us don’t know how to mess about with memories anyway,” she said to the girls. “I don’t know about you, but the idea of breaking into someone’s mind and stealing away their memories feels a bit icky to me.”

Terracotta did not look convinced. “Sometimes you have to do icky things to protect the people you care about,” she said, arms crossed tightly over her chest. “It sounds like Primrose understands that even if you don’t.”

Rosetta blushed a deep red, obviously embarrassed, but Mika smiled at her. “It’s okay. I don’t mind you saying stuff you think I might not like. I’d rather you did that than lied to me.”

“Ken says lies are okay if you’re saying them to be kind,” said Altamira.

“Those are called white lies and, yes, I suppose Ken’s right. If you have to choose between being kind or being truthful, it’s usually better to be kind. That said,” she added firmly, “I think I would prefer the truth from the three of you.”

Goodness, this lesson had gotten way too existential. Maybe a small explosion would be a good diversion?

Then, with the blessedly short attention span of a child, Altamira interrupted Mika’s decidedly irresponsible plans.

“Do the fish have names?” she asked, lying on her belly with her chin propped on one of the smooth stones of the pond. One little hand trailed in the cold water, waiting for the koi to come give her a friendly nibble.

“Of course,” said Mika, relieved. She pointed to each fish in turn.

“Hecate’s the one with two black splotches on her back. Medusa’s over there. She has one misshapen fin. The golden one is Ceridwen, and Freyja’s tail is all white.”

From under the tree, Jamie said, with what almost sounded like a smile in his voice: “Hecate, Medusa, Ceridwen, Freyja. And Circe. All witches.”

“I’ve never pretended to be subtle,” said Mika cheerfully.

She let Altamira have another minute to play with the fish before clearing her throat, deciding it was time to do some actual spellwork. “For now, I think the best way to start these lessons is for me to get an idea of

how much power and control you already have.” She reached into the koi pond and retrieved three smooth pebbles, placing one in front of each child.

“An animation spell is one of the simplest there is, and it doesn’t require the use of runes, so it’s a good one for you to try.”

“Animation?” Altamira asked.

“Making something move,” Rosetta said to her sister, her eyes shining with enthusiasm. “Something that doesn’t already move, I mean. Like stones. Is that right?”

“That’s exactly it,” said Mika. “What I want you to do is use your magic to make the pebble in front of you move. Make it rise a few inches into the air or make it stand on its end and spin, whatever you like. Magic is so keen to be used that it’s always right at your fingertips, waiting, so you should be able to feel it as soon as you reach for it. Once you can feel it, ask it to do what you want it to. Just keep it simple, and be specific.”

She watched their faces. Rosetta’s enthusiasm had given way to uncertainty, like she wasn’t sure of her own abilities. Altamira was clearly excited, but as the youngest, she glanced at her sisters to take her lead from them. Terracotta, on the other hand, took one look at the others’ faces and

lifted her chin.

“I’ll go first,” she said.

She was stepping up so that the others wouldn’t have to, Mika thought.

She couldn’t help admiring the marshmallow heart hiding beneath Terracotta’s porcupine prickles. She knew she would probably fight a lot of battles with the little girl in the next few weeks, but now she was pretty sure that Terracotta wouldn’t be fighting them just because she wanted to be difficult. She’d be fighting them because she was ferociously protective of her sisters, the grown-ups who looked after them, and this safe haven they’d built together.

It made Mika ache in a way that was as joyful as it was painful. She couldn’t fathom what it must be like to be so loved and to be so sure of that love that you would fight tooth and nail to protect it, but she was incredibly glad that these girls had that.

And if it was just a little heartbreaking to be reminded of what she’d never had and likely never would, well, she could live with that.

She smiled at Terracotta, who did not return it, and said, “Take your time. Close your eyes if it helps. Rosetta, Altamira, if you’d like to try with your own pebbles at the same time, that’s fine. You don’t have to take it in turns. And if you make a mistake or get it wrong, you can just try again.”

“What if we cause a big burst of power?” Rosetta asked quietly.

“I’ll be here to keep it in check,” Mika promised her.

Quiet fell as the girls concentrated on the stones gleaming in the sunlight in front of them. Jamie stood and approached them, blowing on his hands to stay warm, his brows drawn together as he watched. Circe, having lost the use of his leg as a pillow, came to sit beside Mika and cocked her head as if she, too, was interested in the children’s progress.

Beads of sweat popped up on Altamira’s brow. “It’s heavy,” she complained. “It’s like it doesn’t want to move.”

“The pebble has weight,” Mika said gently. “You don’t notice it when you pick it up in your hand because you’ve developed those muscles, but spellwork uses a different kind of power.”

None of the pebbles moved, but Mika could feel the ripples of the girls’ spellwork in the air. They were so close. When they stopped and turned back to her with slightly crestfallen expressions on their faces, she told them as much.

“You did really well,” she said. “You held your focus for much longer than I expected you to be able to, and I think you were all really close to getting it right.”

“I’m no expert, but I could have sworn I saw the pebbles twitch,” Jamie added, tousling Terracotta’s hair. His voice was warmer than she’d ever heard it, and his eyes were fond and twinkly, and she was rather distressed to discover that this meant his Annoyingly Handsome score was now even higher than it had been before.

“Why didn’t it work?” Rosetta asked Mika.

“I think you just need time and practice,” she replied. “I could see how hard you were all working just then, and putting the work in is the most

important part. Instead of growing up having fun with your power and befriending magic, you’ve been taught to be afraid of it, to be afraid of mistakes and accidents, so right now, your power is in control of you rather than the other way round.”

No one spoke. Mika could see they were doubtful.

“The thing is, being a witch is extraordinary,” she said. “It might seem sometimes that all we are is odd and different, but the truth is, we’re amazing. We’re part of the earth below us and the sky above us. Our veins echo the patterns of rivers and roots. There’s sunlight and moonlight in our bones.” Heartened by the smiles that had started to light Rosetta’s and Altamira’s faces, she went on: “It’s always a good idea to be cautious and respectful when you use a powerful force like magic, but you don’t have to be afraid of it. That’s why you practice. With practice, you’ll lose your fear

and gain the confidence you need.”

“You can’t know that,” Terracotta said.

“I do know that,” Mika said simply. “Because the three of you have something incredible to help you. You have each other.”

As he watched part of the children’s first lesson from the kitchen window, Ian was positively quivering with delight. As he watched Ian, Ken sighed.

He was only too familiar with the warning signs.

“Ian,” he said, calmly and sensibly and, he knew, entirely pointlessly.

“Do not.”

“What can you possibly mean, my darling?” Ian asked, turning wide, innocent eyes on his husband.

Ken scoffed. “I know what you’re thinking.”

Ian cracked. “It would be perfect,” he gushed.

“Ian,” Ken groaned. “You don’t know if poor Mika even likes men.”

At this, Lucie, who was seated at the table with her laptop and entering the latest household budget figures into a spreadsheet, looked up in alarm.

“Don’t you dare,” she said. “Mika didn’t come here to be roped into one of

your ridiculous attempts to play matchmaker! Jamie will skin you alive.

Don’t you remember what happened last time?”

Ken grimaced. He remembered. Vividly. Four years ago, Ken had injured his knee and Ian had persuaded him to hire a sweet, enthusiastic girl as a temporary gardening assistant. Lizzie had only been with them for a week before Ian, the world’s worst matchmaker, had locked her in the barn with Jamie and hoped sparks would fly. Jamie had promptly broken the skylight, gotten them both out, and politely (well, politely for Jamie, anyway) asked Lizzie to leave, with a month’s pay. He hadn’t spoken to Ian for days after that.

“But the thing is,” Ian said now, using his serious voice, which was even more worrying than his mischief-making voice, “we all love Jamie too much to see him spend the rest of his life with only three decrepit old bags of bones for company.”

“I’m fifty-six,” said Lucie indignantly. “I’m closer to Jamie’s age than yours! Watch who you’re calling a decrepit bag of bones.”

“More to the point,” said Ken, “we haven’t exactly told Mika everything, have we? How well do you think it’ll go over if you push them into a romantic relationship and she finds out he has secrets? Jamie doesn’t need to lose anyone else.”

There was a pause as Ken remembered, with a sudden, piercing pain, the very first time he’d met Jamie. He knew from the looks on Ian’s and Lucie’s faces that they were remembering it, too.

Lucie diverted them quickly. “Why is it you’re never concerned about my romantic life, or lack thereof?”

“Darling, you said it yourself, you’re fifty-six,” Ian said soothingly.

“You’re an established spin—”

“If you say the word spinster, I’ll skewer you on a spit.”

“You’re an established spinner of stability and comfort,” Ian finished quickly, his eyes full of merriment. “We would all fall apart without you!

For my own selfish reasons, I can’t have you going off on romantic adventures.”

Lucie rolled her eyes, clearly trying not to laugh. “Nicely saved.”

Outside, the girls were scrambling to their feet. They’d be in for a break and a snack any minute.

“Ian,” Ken said firmly, before the others could get within earshot. “I mean it. Don’t stick your nose in this.”

“Of course not, my love,” Ian said brightly.

Ken didn’t believe him.

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