CHAPTER 4
WICCA WORK
“Tower Hamlets Cemetery,” said Frankie, expansively, spreading her arms wide like a Lord of the Manor embracing his estate. “One of the Magnificent Seven.”
All Rhian could see was a very high brick wall.
“Even the wall is a listed monument,” said Frankie, meaning that it was on the list of buildings protected by preservation orders.
She waved her arm to encompass the wall, as if she was personally responsible for its all-round awesomeness and preservation.
“The Magnificent Seven?” asked Rhian.
“London’s population exploded in the nineteenth century. The little village parish churchyards absorbed by the spreading city couldn’t cope with the massive increase in demand. They ended up recycling the graves every couple of years.”
“How do you recycle a grave?” asked Rhian, unsure whether to be intrigued or horrified.
“You dig down and smash the coffin underneath. You hammer it and any human remains flat, then you bury the new coffin on top. As well as disrespect to the dead, it was a golden recipe for spreading disease through drinking water contamination.”
“That’s disgusting,” said Rhian.
“Yah, well, a special act of Parliament was passed to build seven giant municipal graveyards on what was the edge of London. One of them was Highgate, where all the famous people like Karl Marx are buried. Tower Hamlets was another. It was the wonder of East London; the Lord Mayor himself was on the Board of Directors. It all went wrong quite early on, of course. The East End has always been poor, and most of the burials were mass graves of up to thirty people a time, paid for using public funds. The middle classes soon shunned the cemetery because it was unfashionable. It fell into disrepair and disuse after only a few decades.”
They walked through a gate into what looked like lightly wooded parkland.
“I thought it was a cemetery,” said Rhian, confused.
The sun chose that moment to break through the intermittent cloud cover, warming Rhian’s face and adding to the illusion that she was in the countryside. This was the traditional southern English weather, officially described as scattered cloud with sunny periods.
“There were still a few burials up to 1966 but the Anglican and free-church chapels were wrecked in the war. The Luftwaffe kept bombing the place. I don’t think they ever found out what Adolf Hitler had against the graveyard.”
“Hitler?” said Rhian vaguely. She was a little unsure where Adolf Hitler fitted in. She had a vague idea that he had been President of Europe or maybe the Milk Marketing Board.
“The Greater London Council bought the cemetery in the sixties and started to clear the ruins and gravestones to turn it into a park. Fortunately, they ran out of money, and the nascent Wicca community managed to bring pressure to bear. This place is magical, you see, and has been so for a long time. The location of the Magnificent Seven was not an accident, but a topographical pattern of geomancy.”
“Geomancy?” asked Rhian, wondering if Geomancy was one of the new European Union States in the Balkans or Baltic or somewhere. Maybe Adolf Hitler was Prime Minister of Geomancy.
“Magic associated with spatial layouts,” said Frankie, slipping into lecture mode. “All strong magic is geomantic to some degree, hence pentagrams and the like. Arabs used geomancy for divination by throwing soil thrown onto stone but in the European tradition it is associated with landscape magic.”
“Like ley lines?” asked Rhian, vaguely remembering an old TV program about Stonehenge and glad to seize on an anchor point in what was an increasingly bizarre conversation.
“That’s right,” said Frankie. “Shakespeare made fun of geomancy in his plays, but that was the religious politics of the time. They sometimes burnt witches in those days. But everyone relied on them for medical treatment once King Henry put the monasteries out of business.”
Frankie gazed around reflectively.
“The interment of a quarter of a million East Enders only added to the aura that soaks the cemetery. This place is best left to slumber in peace.”
“Right,” said Rhian, “but who’s Adolf Hitler?”
“I see that you’ve enjoyed all the benefits of a modern British comprehensive state education,” said Frankie, dryly. “He was dictator of Germany in World War Two.”
“Oh, right,” said Rhian, “World War Two. We had to write an essay at school on how it felt to be bombed. Our history teacher said that the bombing of Germany by the American and British air forces was a great crime.”
“He did, did he?” said Frankie. “How politically correct of him. What did he have to say about the German bombing of London?”
“I don’t think that he mentioned that,” said Rhian.
“No,” said Frankie. “I don’t suppose he did.”
Their walk brought them to the edge of the park area and into the wilderness. They followed a path delineated by salvaged gravestones, which wound into thicker clumps of sycamore trees. The way was soon hemmed in by bushes lining the path like green walls. The sun was splintered into moving shafts of light by tree branches swaying in the breeze, and the scent of flowers filled the air. The soft buzz of insects flying from bloom to bloom was soporific. Occasionally a bird sang, and, if she looked carefully, Rhian could see grey squirrels in the branches. She stopped to trace a name with a forefinger on one of the stones that was in better condition than its fellows: Isaiah Fowler, 1852.
“See the dove, ascending,” said Frankie, kneeling beside her. “That symbolizes the deceased’s spirit reaching for heaven. Victorian gravestones are filled with hidden meaning, if you know how to decode them.”
“The next one has a dove swooping down,” said Rhian, teasingly. “Does that mean that the dead person was doomed to go to hell?”
“No, silly, that’s the Holy Spirit coming down from heaven to greet his soul. Come with me.”
Frankie searched and found an old stone, set a little way back from the path under a sycamore. She brushed away some dirt.
“I haven’t looked at this stone for ages. See the name here?” asked Frankie.
Rhian traced her finger across the letters. “E T H E L,-Ethel, but I can’t see a surname.”
“I don’t think they put one on the stone. What do you think this is?” Frankie pointed to a symbol above the name.
“It’s a tree,” said Rhian.
“A yew tree, to be precise. The Church claims that yew was the symbol of everlasting life, partly because yew trees regenerate and so seem to live forever, and partly because they are evergreen. That is why you always find them in churchyards. Yews certainly do live a long time; one in Scotland is thought to be two thousand years old. The yews were often there first before the Christian churches were built. Christians often built on pagan religious centers, and yews were sacred to druids.”
Rhian noticed that they were back to pagans and witchcraft again. Frankie seemed obsessed by the subject.
“Ethel was religious,” said Rhian.
“In a way,” said Frankie, smiling. “Do you notice anything else odd about the grave?”
Rhian considered. It was just another old grave in a tangled wilderness. An anomaly caught her eye. “All the graves are lined up the same way except this one.”
“Give the girl a house point.” Frankie mock-clapped her. “All the other graves are aligned east-west while Ethel’s is north-south. Christian graves point west because the ancient Egyptians believed that the spirit world was in the west beyond the setting sun. The grave alignment helped the dead person’s spirit on their way.”
“I never noticed that before,” said Rhian. “Why on earth should Christianity care about Ancient Egyptian beliefs?”
“Christianity has stolen bits from everyone. Don’t get me started on what they stole off the pagans—Christmas, for a start!”
Rhian started to speak, but Frankie talked over her.
“The grave is aligned north-south so that Ethel’s soul is trapped inside, preventing it from getting out and harming the living. Don’t you get it, Rhian? The yew is also a symbol of Hecate, the Queen of Magic. Ethel was almost certainly a witch, something that was still illegal in the nineteenth century. The vicar who buried her must have feared her spirit haunting him so he buried her north-south on consecrated ground.”
Rhian ran her hand across an old, weathered gouge in the stone.
“Shrapnel damage,” said Frankie. “I told you that the Germans kept bombing the cemetery. Perhaps Hitler feared witches as well.” Frankie laughed.
She pushed her glasses back on her nose, in what Rhian was coming to recognise as a characteristic gesture, and strode off, long skirt swishing around her legs. Rhian had to half run to keep up. The sycamores crowded ever closer on the path, shading it from the sun and dampening out the sounds of London.
Frankie finally stopped in a low-lying glade in the trees, a bowl filled with rich, wet soil. It was full of patches of mint plants, eight inches high with crinkly green leaves arranged in opposite pairs. Some of the plants had vertical spikes consisting of clusters of small purple flowers.
“I keep trying to grow mint but without success,” said Frankie. “It must be too dry or something in my garden.”
She picked a handful of stalks and placed them in her bag. Frankie carried a large earth-mother linen bag depicting flowers and fairies in pastel colors. It was just too chintzy to be true.
In the meantime, Rhian found another grave almost buried in the undergrowth. She cleared the vegetation to expose a horizontal gravestone decorated by a sculpture of a horse positioned on its stomach. Its head was bowed, like a much-loved animal waiting for a master that would never return. A century and a half of subsidence had caused the grave to tilt over. Rhian preferred not to speculate on what was responsible for the subsidence. The stone was decorated by a carved outline of a climbing plant covered in what could have been bunches of grapes.
“It’s another evergreen sign, this time symbolizing that the deceased will be remembered,” said Frankie, joining Rhian.
“There’s no name that I can see,” said Rhian. “I suppose that the people who vowed to remember are also dead and forgotten.”
A large drop of water fell on the stone in front of Rhian. More began to filter through the trees, pattering gently on the leaves.
“How irritating,” said Frankie, grimacing. “I packed some sandwiches and pies so that we could have a picnic.”
“That’s what you get for performing rain magic,” Rhian said.
“What rain magic?” Frankie asked, looking confused and a little worried.
“Planning a picnic, of course. It always works as a rain spell. My pub, that is, the pub where I work, is just around the corner,” said Rhian. “They don’t sell food, so I’m sure that Gary wouldn’t mind us eating our lunch there, provided we buy some drinks.”
“I’d love to see the Dirty Duck, honey,” said Frankie, with a broad smile.
“I believe Gary prefers to call it the Black Swan,” Rhian said.
“Really, he can’t be from round these parts, then,” Frankie said, dropping into a faux Wild West accent.
Thier labyrinthine route out terminated at a small gate in the cemetery wall on the side close by the Black Swan. Rhian had begun to have doubts about the wisdom of getting her home life mixed up with work. Still, it’s only a lunch, she thought, what can go wrong?
She sat Frankie down at a table near the window. Gary materialized beside her.
“Frankie, this is Gary, my boss; Gary, this is Frankie, my landlady,” said Rhian, introducing them.
“Can I get you drinks?” said Gary, eying Frankie speculatively.
“A glass of red wine, please,” said Frankie, giving Gary a wide smile.
Rhian settled for a Coke.
Gary walked back to the bar to get their drinks, swinging his legs over without bothering to open the hatch. Rhian narrowed her eyes. Gary had not normally been given to athletic gestures. She noticed that Frankie watched him all the way.
“Here you go, ladies,” said Gary, returning with the drinks.
Frankie handed some money over.
“You don’t mind if we eat our lunch here, do you, Gary?” Rhian asked.
“Of course not, Rhian. I don’t suppose that Old Fred or Willie the Dog mind either,” said Gary, gesturing to the only other customers.
Two old boys sat in the corner, sharing a packet of ten Woodbines while picking winners from the greyhound racing column at the back of a paper.
“Mind if I join you?” said Gary, when he brought back the change. He sat down without waiting for an answer.
“Please do,” said Frankie.
Rhian noticed to her horror that Frankie was flashing her eyes from side to side and patting her hair.
After lunch, the women tracked down the location of Frankie’s commission using Rhian’s A to Z. The office suite was in a low, rectangular, concrete-and-glass block built in the sixties. It reminded Rhian of her comprehensive school in Wales. The shower of rain had left dark grey streaks on the concrete, making the building look even more depressing than it would normally. Rust marks around cracks in the walls suggested that concrete rot would soon bring the block’s miserable existence to a close.
“They put people in corporate prisons and then wonder why the sickness rate is so high,” said Frankie, more to herself than Rhian.
Frankie rang a bell at the entrance, but nothing happened. After a while, she leaned on the button impatiently.
“All right, keep your hair on. I’ve only got one pair of hands.”
A blue-black peaked cap unlocked the glass door. Under the peak, a large grey moustache, stained yellow by cigarette smoke, jutted aggressively on the face of a gaunt, elderly man. He looked at them suspiciously through ancient National Health spectacles with round wire-framed lenses.
“We’re here to carry out some maintenance work on one of the office suites,” said Frankie. “It’s all arranged, look.”
She thrust a letter on headed notepaper at the caretaker, who peered at it myopically.
“No one told me,” he said. “You don’t look like plumbers.”
He gazed at the two women, suspiciously.
“Why don’t we look like plumbers? Women can do plumbing. Women can do anything men can do,” Frankie said, pugnaciously sticking out her chin.
“If you’re plumbers, then where’s your tools?” Peaked Cap said suspiciously, with the air of a man who had discovered the killer argument against Special Relativity.
Frankie opened her mouth, a dangerous glint in her eye.
“We don’t have tools because we are not plumbers,” Rhian said quickly, in an attempt to forestall further political debate.
“So why did you say you were plumbers?” he asked.
“I didn’t, you did,” said Frankie, her voice rising to a near shriek. “We are more in the office furnishings line. The letter instructs you to give us access to Unit Five, Ravion PLC.”
“Oh, curtains and things,” said Peaked Cap. “I suppose that is proper work for women.”
Frankie looked as if she was about to explode.
“You’d better come in,” he said, grudgingly. “It’s normally plumbers in this building. Sometimes, the leaks are so bad that the water runs down the stairs.”
The thought seemed to cheer him up.
The women followed him past the empty receptionist’s area. A bottle of scarlet nail varnish strategically placed in the middle of the empty desk conjured up an image to Rhian of a streaky-blonde with breasts that were too large and a workload too small, who was secretly lusted after by all the middle management.
“The lifts are switched off, so you’ll have to walk,” said Peaked Cap with grim satisfaction.
Ravion’s offices were on the top floor, but the climb was hardly onerous. There were only a couple of flights. Nevertheless, Peaked Cap made a three-course banquet of it. The company occupied the whole top floor behind a glass door. The caretaker finally unlocked it after trying several wrong keys first.
“Thank you,” said Frankie, firmly. “We can manage now.”
“I ought to stay and watch,” said the caretaker. “I’m in charge of security.”
“You have our letter of authorization,” Frankie said, firmly. “We must be left on our own while working—health and safety, you know.”
The caretaker allowed himself to be propelled out of the door. Frankie shut it decisively behind him. Health and safety, Rhian reflected, was the new religious mantra that allowed one to justify almost anything.
“I think that we will start by just walking around and sensing the vibes,” said Frankie.
The top floor was entirely glass-walled, so Rhian could see from one end to the other. Desks with computers and headsets were laid out in rows. Frankie walked through a reception area into an open-plan office occupying most of the floor. She paraded backwards and forwards, waving her arms theatrically and touching her forehead with the tips of her fingers. Rhian managed not to laugh.
“What do they do here?” asked Rhian.
“It’s a call center. I believe they give telephone advice on broadband installation or some such,” said Frankie, vaguely. “I’m surprised they haven’t bangalored it.”
Management and interview offices lined one of the walls, like glass cells for giant honeybees. A substantial double office at the end indicated the location of the chief executive and his secretary. Rhian touched one of the computer screens. Her finger sparked before contact with the plastic. She kicked the floor, reflexively.
“I’ve worked in stores with cheap, hard-wearing nylon carpets like this. Sometimes the static builds up so badly that your skirt sticks to your legs,” Rhian said.
The room was lit with fluorescent lights that flickered annoyingly at a rate just detectable to the human eye. One emitted an intermittent background buzz. Some of the office workers had attempted to personalize their working areas with photos or office toys but that merely emphasized the sheer inhumanity of the environment. The management had scattered potted plants around to improve the ambience, but they were doing badly. The one nearest Rhian showed every sign of being dead. The plastic in the new computers leaked organic vapours.
Rhian had only been in the office for ten minutes or so, but already her head ached. She rubbed her eyes and tried to open a window, but they were double glazed and sealed. The only fresh air came via an air conditioning system that smelled stale and metallic.
“Not feeling too well, honey? You seem very sensitive to auras,” Frankie looked at her.
“What exactly have you been hired to do here?” asked Rhian, deflecting the woman.
“The chief executive apparently read an article about feng shui in an airline magazine, so he thought he would give it a try to cure his sick building syndrome. Eastern mysticism is currently fashionable amongst the managerial classes.”
“I see. and you are an expert on feng shui, are you?” asked Rhian.
“I am—not,” Frankie replied, with a bright grin. “I know next to nothing about it. Hardly anyone in the West does, although there are plenty of people wafting around claiming otherwise.”
“Then what are we doing here?” Rhian asked, trying to keep the disapproval from her voice.
“Don’t look so priggish, madam,” said Frankie, laughing and wagging a finger at Rhian. “We are going to cure their sick building. You didn’t think that I’d take their money and cheat them, did you?”
Rhian colored up because that was precisely what she suspected. “Of course not,” she said.
“Feng shui has to be applied at the architectural stage of a building. The choice of location is critical, as is the exact shape of the building. Just rearranging the furniture wouldn’t achieve much.”
“So what are you going to do?” asked Rhian, intrigued.
“Feng shui translates to wind and water, and by a strange coincidence, we are going to apply the principles of wind and water. Now where did I put the herbs?”
Frankie reached into her linen bag and rummaged around, eventually hauling out a wooden container. She handed the box to Rhian, who opened it to find dried herbs mixed in with newly chopped-up leaves that smelt of mint. Frankie took out a tiny electric oven, and, after some thought, placed it on a desk by the air-conditioning outlet.
“This is where air is piped in from the sky,” Frankie said, licking her finger and holding it up to detect air movements.
The little oven had an open bowl of the sort used by jewelers. Frankie plugged it in and let it stand until red hot. She took the wooden box off Rhian and sprinkled the plant material into the bowl. The chopped leaves curled up, turned brown and smoldered. White smoke drifted up towards the ceiling. It scattered as it hit the turbulent flow from the air-conditioning outlet.
Rhian used her hand to waft some of the vapor towards her and cautiously sniffed at it.
“It smells quite pleasant,” Rhian said. “I suppose it works like an air freshener, but surely it won’t last long.”
Frankie gave Rhian what her grandmother would have called ‘an old fashioned expression.’ The woman took her glasses off and fiddled with them, wiping the lenses with a piece of felt. Rhian had once had a boss who had the same habit. He used it to pause the conversation while he considered how to phrase a statement he found difficult. Rhian waited patiently.
“It’s a little more than an air freshener. You see, I’m a pagan,” said Frankie, diffidently.
Rhian wondered what in the world the woman meant. Arsenal football team were “The Gunners,” Southampton “The Seagulls,” England “The Lions,” but who were “The Pagans”? She had a vague idea that there was a motorcycle gang of that name, but the thought of the intellectual Frankie in a black leather jacket, perched on the back of a bike, with her arms wrapped around a hairy-arsed gang-lord stretched credulity.
Frankie rushed on, almost garbling her words in an effort to get them out.
“A pagan, Rhian. You know, a Wicca.”
A stray memory popped into Rhian’s head of comedienne Jo Brand on a quiz show being asked to define Wicca. “Wicca—isn’t that Old English for a mental basket case?”
Rhian’s face had a tendency to reflect her thoughts, something that had got her into trouble before. She did her best to blank her expression, but, as usual, she was not entirely successful.
“You’re thinking of Jo Brand, aren’t you,” said Frankie, accusingly. “There’s a woman who needs a good slapping. Still, what can one expect from a woman who chose to be educated at a jumped-up poly like Brunel University of Technology? It doesn’t even have a History School.”
Rhian deduced from this that Frankie had read history at one of England’s more traditional establishments. As Rhian had never got beyond the sixth form of a Welsh comprehensive school, she tended to view graduate academic squabbles with a degree of detachment. She pointedly failed to ask Frankie the name of her old college.
Frankie mumbled something.
“What?” Rhian asked.
“I’m a witch,” Frankie said. “I perform magic spells for people. I’m a consultant in white magic. I don’t touch anything nasty. My previous tenants all left as soon as they found out. I thought that if you could see what I actually did, then you wouldn’t be scared of me. I haven’t spooked you, have I?”
Rhian stared at Frankie. This nice, silly, bespectacled, middle-class, new-age earth mother actually thought that Rhian might be frightened of her. Frightened because she made a living burning herbs and chanting spells for deluded businessmen! Rhian, frightened of a Wicca?
Her lip twitched. She tried to keep a straight face but she just couldn’t. Her shoulders shook and an explosive guffaw burst from her lips.
“What?” asked Frankie, affronted. “I don’t see what’s so funny. One of my ex-tenants organized a candle-lit vigil of Evangelical Christians outside my door.”
Rhian laughed all the harder until tears ran down her cheeks.
“There’s nothing funny about a dozen loonies screaming ‘burn the witch’ and ‘you’ll rot in Hell’ all night outside your flat window. You try it some time. The neighbors didn’t speak to me for weeks.”
Rhian clung to a desk for support.
Frankie lost the outraged expression and laughed along with the girl. “Enough,” Frankie said. “So I may assume that you do not intend to flee in maidenly terror any time soon?”
Rhian shook her head. It was a few moments before she could trust herself to speak. “Sorry, Frankie, it’s just that I had trouble seeing you as an emissary of Beelzebub. The, um, plant mix smells rather nice.”
“I have a mix of air herbs in here—witch’s broom, holy vanilla, sweetgrass, lavender, and, of course, mint. I need to activate the spell now, if you can contain yourself? ” Frankie asked.
“Carry on,” said Rhian. “I’ll be good; I promise.”
“Well, please keep quiet and don’t do anything to break my concentration.”
The woman closed her eyes, and, stretching up her arms into the air like a Mexican priest hailing the Sun, she began to sing.
“Great Jupiter, cleanse the air,
Holy Indrus, give power of thought,
Swift Mercury, send agility of intellect,
“Sylphs of the air, grant concentration.”
Frankie repeated the song over and over, adding more of the herbal mix to the heater whenever the vapor flow diminished.
Scent drifted through the office. Rhian felt light-headed, and her fingers and toes tingled. She felt tired, so she sat on one of the swivel office chairs, rocking it gently. Frankie droned on, her voice retreating into the distance. Rhian closed her eyes and her head drooped. She drifted away and began to daydream.
Frankie’s voice was a distant murmur and was overlaid by the sound of leaves rustling in a breeze. The wind increased in force, gusts buffeting Rhian’s ears and whipping her clothes against her legs. She opened her eyes. She stood one leg each side of a great ridge that was surrounded by ice-capped mountain peaks. Splintered rock fell away precipitously each side of her for hundreds of meters, gradually disappearing into clouds.
Rhian could see as well as hear the wind. It caressed her with sub-zero icy tendrils, but she felt no pain. Faces in the gusts called to her, and she felt a compulsion to step off the ridge into empty air, to lose herself, to walk in the wind. She took a tentative step, adjusting her balance.
“Rhian.” Frankie’s voice sounded from a long way away. “RHIAN!”
Hands shook her shoulders and she opened her eyes.
“Snap out of it, Rhian. Air magic is very powerful in high buildings. Don’t go to sleep on me, honey,” Frankie said, smiling at her, “You had me worried for a moment there.”
The little oven was unplugged and looked quite cold. Rhian glanced at her watch and was astonished to see that she had lost half an hour. She rubbed her eyes.
“I must have dozed off. I haven’t been sleeping well lately,” Rhian said, by way of explanation.
“I know, honey. I heard you,” said Frankie, in a noncommittal tone of voice.
This was not a conversation that Rhian wished to pursue, so she changed the subject.
“Are we finished?”
“The air spell is finished but I still have to work water magic. Are you okay to continue?” asked Frankie.
“Sure, you go ahead,” Rhian replied.
Frankie moved her apparatus to the other side of the open-plan office, near to the washrooms.
“This is where the water is piped in from the ground,” Frankie said. She smiled at Rhian. “I will use water plants, coltsfoot, bulrushes, water lily, and mint for this spell,” Frankie said, getting another box out of her bag.
“Mint, again?” asked Rhian.
“Mint is a connecting plant that links water to the sky,” said Frankie. “It magnifies the effect of the two spells synergistically. That is why it was so important for us to get some this morning.”
She placed the oven on a metal tray on the carpet and knelt in front of it. Dropping the new herbal mix into the red-hot bowl, she sang again. This time, the vapor was heavier than air, flowing across the floor like mist.
“Great Poseidon, cleanse the waters,
“Coventina, give placid flow,
“Nammu, send depth of thought,
“Undines of the water, grant concentration.”
This time Rhian kept a firm grip on reality when she felt the tingling in her fingers and toes. She forced off fatigue and kept her eyes wide open, but, even so, she seemed to see two realities simultaneously. Around her was a normal office, empty except for Frankie and herself. Overlaying it, a wild grey-green sea phased in and out. Huge white-topped waves swept over her head and then dropped away beneath her. Frothy faces formed in the in the surf. Watery fingers beckoned to her, but she resolutely ignored them, concentrating on reality. She dug her fingernails into her hands until they hurt. Pain was good. Pain was a friend. Pain was absolution.
Rhian checked her watch every few moments, and the illusion of time speeding by happened again. She was beginning to suspect that Frankie added some pretty powerful dank to her herbal mix.
Frankie’s voice faded into silence, and the seascape dimmed until it disappeared. Frankie hung her head as if she were exhausted. It was some time before she spoke.
“Will you rearrange the furniture, Rhian, while I rest for a bit? We must give the punters their money’s worth by showing them what they expect to see.”
Her voice was thick, like she had the first symptoms of a head cold.
“Sure, Frankie.”
Rhian pushed and pulled various objects around into artistic curves and patterns while Frankie watched.
“You’re a lot stronger than you look, aren’t you?” said Frankie. “You know, that went really rather well. I thought that this might be a difficult one, but it all worked first time. Do you notice any change in the office?”
Rhian considered. “Yes, it feels airy and light, and my headache’s gone.”
“There is nothing better than air and water magic for sick building syndrome,” said Frankie complacently.
It was Rhian’s night off, as Gary had another barmaid on the shift. Frankie prepared a potato salad, then she and Rhian shared a bottle of Californian rosé in the garden, watching the play of light as the day changed imperceptibly into twilight.
“Thank you for being so welcoming, but you don’t have to look after me,” Rhian said. “I am used to living on my own.”
“To be honest, it’s rather nice to have someone around,” Frankie said. “What with my work and Pete, my partner, I never really made civilian friends.”
“Civilians?” Rhian asked. “Were you in the army?”
“Good Lord, no,” Frankie said. “I worked for a close-knit organization, and civilians are what we called outsiders, silly really. How about you? What brought you to our fair neighborhood?”
“I just needed a fresh start.” Rhian shrugged.
“Boy trouble,” said Frankie, raising an eyebrow.
“There was someone, but it didn’t work out, so I left.” Her tone was designed to discourage further questions.
It was a moment Rhian relived over and over in her dreams. The heavy iron bar smashed James’ head, with the sound like you get from crushing a beer can. His skull pulped. Blood and dark brain matter spurted from the wound. The bar swung back for a second hit, trailing a fan of red droplets that glittered in the streetlights.
Frankie took the hint. She got up and, wandering to the curtains, peered around them. “The Moon’s up. Would you like to see my moon garden?”
“Moon garden?” Rhian asked.
Frankie was just full of strange surprises, as mad as a March hatter. Hang on, that wasn’t right. Frankie started talking again, interrupting Rhian’s thought process.
“Night flowers, Rhian. I have a witch’s herb garden, and one corner is devoted to night flowers. Come on. Switch the lights off because you just have to see it in the moonlight.”
Rhian was intrigued, it sounded wonderfully exotic. Outside, Frankie steered Rhian to the right area, knelt down, and pointed to some round white flowers that were about three inches across.
“This patch is the Arctic globe thistle, Echinops.”
Rhian knelt beside her. “They’re beautiful, Frankie.” She touched the petals and then smelled her fingers.
“Mind the leaves, honey, they are very prickly.”
“The flowers seem to glow in the moonlight, like when you wear a white top in a club with ultraviolet lights.”
“You see that, do you, Rhian? That’s very interesting.”
Rhian looked up sharply. How could she not see something so obvious? Something about the tone of Frankie’s voice bothered her, but the woman’s face was in dark shadow, making her expression unreadable.
Frankie moved to a trellis where a climbing plant grew. She teased out a bud so that she could display it in the silver moonlight.
“This is the moonflower, what botanists call Ipomoea. One afternoon, these buds will open and the large white flowers will bloom all night under the Moon. A heavy scent will flow out of them, a scent that only a few can smell, filling my garden and attracting moths. With the moths will come bats, Hecate’s bats, and in the morning the flowers will die.”
“That’s a sad fate,” said Rhian. “To grow all year and have just one night to bloom.”
“We all have only a short time to bloom; it’s only the scale that differs. Not even the gods are immortal.”
“I still think it’s sad,” said Rhian.
“I’ll harvest the flowers with the Sun, saying the right ritual so that the dried petals, when burnt, will make incense suitable for divination.”
“Divination?” asked Rhian, doubtfully.
“Fortune telling, honey, I will inhale the vapor before sleeping, and in my dreams I will see the future. At least that’s the theory. Sometimes all I get is heartburn,” Frankie said. “You know, the spells today were almost too powerful, as if something else was pushing my magic along.”
“Such as what?” asked Rhian.
“It could be any one of a number of things,” Frankie replied. “For example, an artifact or haunting in the office that acted as a magical amplifier, but I think that unlikely, don’t you?”
“I don’t know,” Rhian replied, politely. Frankie was very weird. Harmlessly weird in an eccentric English sort of way, to be sure, but definitely not quite in phase with reality.
Frankie continued as if she had not spoken. “Or it could be another witch pushing my spell along, someone who could see the moon-glow of Arctic thistles, perhaps?” Frankie looked at Rhian and raised an eyebrow.
“You think that I’m a witch?” Rhian laughed. She knew that was impolite, but she couldn’t help it.
“Not consciously, honey, but you may have untrained powers. Do strange things happen to you?” Frankie asked.
“Like what?” Rhian replied, answering a question with a question, as this was tricky ground.
“Oh, it could be something quite trivial. Do you ever know who’s on a ringing phone before you pick it up? Can you predict the results of random events more often than not? Does your toast always land butter side up?”
Rhian shook her head, laughing. “No, nothing like that ever happens to me. I am just an ordinary girl from the valleys.”
“Do you mind if I tried a little experiment?” asked Frankie, clearly unconvinced.
“An experiment, that sounds fun,” replied Rhian, tolerantly.
Frankie cupped her hands together, as if she was holding something in them. She sang softly, too quiet for Rhian to hear the words. Then she blew on her hands and opened them.
A beautiful white sphere of light hung there, making Rhian gasp. This was magic—real magic. Maybe Frankie was a witch. Six months ago Rhian did not believe in magic, but that was before the wolf.
“You can see it, can’t you, Rhian?”
Rhian nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
“Put your hand into it so I can see the color of your aura. Let’s find out what sort of witch you are.”
Rhian tentatively reached out her finger to the ball of light and poked it. For a brief instant the ball resisted her touch, deforming and moving away. Then it exploded soundlessly into shards of white light. They writhed like streamers before fading away in hissing sparkles of silver.
“What!” said Rhian, startled. “Is it supposed to do that?”
“No,” Frankie replied. “It’s just a simple marker spell. If you have no talent, then it stays white. If you’ve talent it changes color, the shade and intensity indicating your power and skills. It’s not supposed to run away. One might almost think that it was frightened of you.”