Willow swallowed. ‘Um. That I shouldn’t?’ she mumbled, reluctantly opening an eye, only to blanch. Most of the attic had vanished. What remained was the single floorboard on which they stood.
It had all disappeared.
From the kitchen below, her mother and oldest sister, Juniper, were staring up at her with identical FURIOUS expressions.
‘I – um … erm … Sorry, Mum,’ stammered Willow.
This was bad enough, but things were about to get a whole lot worse rather quickly.
Juniper frowned, then looked at the empty seat next to her and paled. ‘W-where’s Camille?’
Willow scrunched up an eye, afraid to witness what would no doubt come next. Her mother looked from the empty seat back to Willow accusingly, her lips stretching into a thin, angry line. ‘You had better not have made your sister disappear. Again.’
Willow bit her lip, then shared a look of commiseration with Oswin, whose eyes were peeking out of the bag in fright.
‘Oh no …’
2
Magic Most Peculiar
It had started with the spoons.
No one could say for certain if the dessertspoons went first or the serving spoons, but, by the time the teaspoons had vanished throughout the village (and no one could make a decent cup of tea, which was enough reason for anyone to start sharpening their pitchfork), the whispers began to twist their way towards the youngest witch in the Moss family.
In an ordinary village, missing spoons wouldn’t cause that much concern, but in Grinfog, home to a family full of witches, it was natural that a few questions were raised. Some with raised voices to match.
Though, as Willow’s ability was to find things, not make them disappear, she along with the rest of the family had dismissed their neighbours’ concerns. A hiccough in the greening moon perhaps? A band of spoon-stealing poltergeists maybe? Nothing to do with her, though. Until the bunfire on Elth Night, that is, when even Willow began to wonder if she was, in fact, the person responsible for all the weird disappearances.
Elths, not to be confused with elves, are tiny, hairy, bearded creatures – and rather excellent bakers – who live underground. Many years ago, at the precise moment an evil wizard named Wollace Humperdink was passing over their mound, one of the elths’ ovens exploded and burnt him to a crisp. Now, all across Starfell, people celebrate the anniversary of this wondrous accident with elthish mushroom mead, ‘bunfires’ and beards.
Willow had just put aside the gumbo apple and currant bun she’d been toasting and removed her fake, sparkly beard to help a rather persistent neighbour who’d lost her anorak. The woman hadn’t quite got the memo that this was supposed to be Willow’s night off.
Nevertheless, Willow closed her eyes, lifted her palms to the sky and coughed, while she searched with her mind for Birdy Pondwater’s misplaced possession.
There was a faint popping sound, but nothing appeared in Willow’s outstretched hands, which was rather puzzling. Willow’s magic might not be exciting, but it was always reliable, which was something she’d always taken a bit of quiet pride in. As Granny Flossy used to say, ‘A bit of quiet pride does a body no harm. It’s the loud pride that can bend a nose right out of joint.’
Granny Flossy had been full of these sorts of observations. Along with lots of dodgy potions resulting from a cauldron explosion in the mountains of Nach.
Willow pushed up her mental sleeves, eyes still closed, and tried again. ‘Don’t worry,’ she reassured Birdy, who had begun to make a low panting sound a bit like a snuffling wild boar. ‘Sometimes lost things just need a bit of encouragement to be found … They can get too comfortable there, but I can coax them back.’
Except Birdy would not calm down. She began to shriek blue murder.
Willow saw why when she opened her eyes and found to her utter shock that Birdy’s dress had vanished, and she was standing in a vest and a pair of rather old-fashioned red-and-white bloomers while the entire village gawped at her, their currant buns left to burn on the bunfire.
‘What happened to your dress?’ Willow whispered, wishing she had something besides a sparkly beard to offer the poor woman to protect her modesty.
Birdy spluttered, turning violently red, while Willow looked around to see if the wind had blown the dress away. But there was no trace of it. When she turned back, what she saw caused her some dismay, as everyone was staring at her in sudden fear.
Which was a bit … odd.
While occasionally there was some grumbling about her family’s magic, the Mosses were mostly accepted as part of the community – like, say, the way your mother will remind you that your weird aunt with nineteen cats and a collection of dish towels with their faces on them is still, technically, part of the family …
A week later, Birdy Pondwater’s lost dress landed in Willow’s kitchen in a red-and-white flash. She left the dress at Birdy’s house, and a kind of stilted peace ensued, in which Willow was far less busy, and far poorer as a result, as most of her regular customers kept well away.
Camille had made the mistake of teasing her about this, which had led to her first disappearance and caused utter MAYHEM until she’d reappeared a minute later with a loud, angry pop.
Willow had never seen Camille so furious. She had threatened to transport Willow to the Mists of Mitlaire – the strange and ethereal fog that separated the world of the living from Netherfell, from which no one returned … mostly on account of losing their souls. It was a serious threat and Willow had retaliated that if Camille tried that, she’d figure out a way to make her disappear for good. At this point, their mother, Raine, had decided to take matters in hand.
‘I am taking matters in hand,’ she’d said, her mouth forming a grim line as Camille set a feather duster on Willow. It hadn’t done much aside from making her sneeze … but this had caused Camille to disappear again for a moment, and their mother had decided that the safest course of action was to separate them for a while.
‘For the time being, I think you can sleep in the spare bed in the attic, Willow. We will get to the bottom of this. You had a cold, and I think that’s the most likely culprit – look what happened when you sneezed, and you were coughing at the bunfire …’ Then Raine had narrowed her green eyes and said reproachfully, ‘Though you should not have used your magic if you were feeling unwell. You know this. The number-one rule for any witch who’s feeling unwell is what?’
Willow had opened her mouth to protest that she didn’t feel unwell, but changed her mind when her mother crossed her arms expectantly. Willow had sighed and recited in dull tones, ‘Not to use her magic.’
‘Correct.’
As far as witches went, this was a rather good rule, as being under the weather could cause a lot of magical misfires. Willow’s cousin, Petulant Moss, who had a talent for rather nasty hexes, had ignored it to her peril when she got a bad case of stutter pox. She had accidentally turned herself into a pig, instead of hexing her neighbour – to his delight. It was rumoured that she was still living up north somewhere with rather fluffy, spotted ears …
‘So, no magic, Willow. Understood? Not until we get you better,’ Raine had said.
Willow had agreed, and had moved into the attic that morning. She’d lasted half a day.