Borage Read online

  “She wants to bake for you now?” Iraldine scoffed in a velvet voice that was as flirtatious as it was deriding, and hinted at—interesting—an existing intimacy. “Cheeky little bootlick.”

  The door swung slowly shut on Astral’s scarlet face, but not before she caught Ms Black’s bemused gaze staring right back at her in the restroom mirror.

  Chapter 4

  Astral approached her desk warily, but all was calm. no sea of frosting enveloped her work station. The space under her desk was clear of sugar pyramids. Fergal had returned from his meeting and was kicking back at his own desk. She looked around, cautiously, and slid into her seat opposite him and tried to relax.

  Hecate only knew what Ms Black must think of her. Humiliation rattled around her brain, playing chase with low self-esteem. All that time, the poor woman had been waiting to use the hand dryer and Astral, like a big bumpkin, had stood there blocking her way and blathering on about baking. Most of all, Ms Black’s expression in the bathroom mirror hurt in an unexpected way. Astral may be a temp, but she was good at her job, excellent, in fact, and she wanted respect from Abby Black as much as she wanted it from any other member of staff.

  Gingerly, she opened the top drawer. No cupcakes. The other drawers were empty, too. Her desk was clear of all manner of confectionary magic.

  “All okay?” Fergal asked, and flashed her a rosy smile.

  “Yes,” she answered in a weak voice. “Fine for now, thanks.” Her body fizzed with excess adrenaline and her hands shook a little. She opted to keep her head down for the rest of the afternoon and hope that whoever was directing magic at her had made enough mischief for the day. She didn’t ask Fergal any of her questions. She hadn’t any energy left for either him or her notebook. All of that could wait until tomorrow. If there was a tomorrow. She wasn’t sure of anything anymore. She felt skinless. Exposed and vulnerable in this place. The stark reality of the danger Magdalene Curdle had tossed her into was deeply imprinted. One thing she did know for sure, though. She needed to talk to Dulcie as soon as she got out of here.

  *

  “Look at the state of your hair. Is it windy out?” Damián greeted her the minute she set foot in Whoops a Daisy, Dulcie’s small, brightly festooned florist shop.

  Damián Murk was Dulcie’s small, brightly festooned shop assistant. He made a show of sticking his head out the door to check on the weather, ducked back in, and glared at her fuzzy halo and tsked. “You’ve been naughty.”

  “I’ve been in mortal peril while you ponced about like Titania with your…your gladioli.”

  Merryman chirped from his perch high in the corner by a small window that allowed him to come and go as he pleased.

  “Even Merryman knows gladioli are yesterday.” Damián sniffed. “I was poncing about with eucalyptus and forest berries.” He shook a festive table wreath at her. “’Tis the season to look like you forage on the weekends—according to the best home design magazines.”

  Astral knew nothing about floral trends and even less about Merryman’s warbling ways. Not that she was going to admit that to Damián. The art of talking to familiars was difficult to master. Borage’s dissatisfied yowling was an itch inside her head, but at least she could understand him, whereas Merryman’s high-pitched trilling only gave her tinnitus.

  “What mortal peril?” Dulcie came through the curtain that closed off the shop from her tiny office, kitchen, and storage space. “Wow.” She eyed Astral’s frizz. “Big mortal peril.”

  “I was sabotaged,” Astral declared, patting down her hair to little avail.

  “How exciting.” Damián took a seat behind the counter, chin in hand, waiting for a story.

  “It’s not exciting—well, actually it was. It was very exciting, but mostly dangerous.” Astral liked the attention because usually all Damián did was make fun of her. She lowered her voice. “I’m on a secret mission.”

  “Astral,” Dulcie warned. “Should you be sharing coven business like this?”

  “It’s only Damián.”

  “It’s only me.” He managed to sound insulted and needy at the same time.

  “He’s as good as a coven member.”

  “But he’s not one.” Dulcie pointed out. “Not yet.”

  “I’m too cool for coven. That’s why Magdalene shoots me down. She’s jealous.” Damián began his end-of-day procedures, which consisted of dumping the cash tray out of the register and into Dulcie’s hands.

  “You’re not in our coven because you’re not a certified witch,” Dulcie said in her no-nonsense voice as she took the tray to her office. “Finish your schooling, then see what Magdalene does and doesn’t do.”

  “Astral got in,” he whined.

  “Hey, I did my exams, witchling.”

  He sniffed. “And it had nothing to do with your grandma being a Grand Dame.”

  “There’s always been a Projector in The Plague Tree Coven. It was founded by Astral’s great-great-great aunt Clementine,” Dulcie called from behind the curtain. “And, she passed her exams, whereas you need to sit down and study for yours.” The familiar thud of the safe door emanated from the back office.

  “Can we please revert this conversation back to my mortal peril, or is that too much to ask?” Astral had some serious unloading to do. “My desk drawers were full of cupcakes and doughnuts.”

  “But you always bring cake.” Dulcie’s voice echoed from the back room. “You’re a Fireside witch, so you can’t help but bring cake.”

  “I bet there’s a cookie in your handbag right now.” Damián continued his shutting-up-shop duties by idly flicking a duster over the gutted cash register.

  “That may be true, but this was different. They were magicked there, Dulcie,” Astral said to the curtain. “I didn’t bake them.”

  “What?” Dulcie stuck her head out from the back room. “They were magicked.”

  “Not even for a teeny weeny snack?” Damián asked. He eyed her handbag suspiciously.

  Astral glared at him. “The cakes were put in my drawers deliberately, by magical means.”

  “Which is the only way to get into your drawers,” he muttered under his breath.

  “I heard that.” She turned her back on him as Dulcie reemerged. “It was magical sabotage, Dulcie. The desk drawers were full of baked goods that kept expanding. I was exposed to magic in a place where there shouldn’t be any. I had to Mindcoddle all afternoon. My head is spinning. Look at my hair.”

  “What’s a Mindcoddle?” Damián demanded.

  “Go to school and learn something,” Dulcie snapped. “What do you mean, magical sabotage?” She keyed the alarm and ushered them towards the door. “Okay,” she told Astral. “The money’s in the safe, alarm is set, let’s head for the Big Bus and talk about this.” She grabbed her coat and wrapped her scarf about her neck while Damián mirrored her with his own outdoor garb.

  Dulcie held the door open as they trailed out into the night. Fog hung on the hills and the air chilled Astral’s lungs. The tip of her nose burned with cold and her eyes watered. Winter was around the corner, and it promised a grand entrance. Merryman trilled in joy and flitted off to bully the bats that darted around the streetlights. Dulcie flipped the “open” sign on the door to “Closed” and turned the key in the lock.

  “There. We’re done for the day,” she said with satisfaction and hooked arms with Astral. They had taken barely two steps when Astral’s free arm was weighed down by Damián looping through her other side.

  Dulcie looked over quizzically. “Who invited you?”

  “I’m a friend of a friend of a friend in need. Plus, I’m nosy.” He held on ruthlessly as they walked across the square to the Big Bus Café, which, in the early evenings, became a bistro and served the best food in town. Astral shrugged away any objections to his presence, since she was in need, and he was a friend of a friend.

  The top floor of the old London double-decker had been renovated to accommodate several booths. Seats had been reversed a
nd tables added to make intimate candlelit nooks. Damián headed for a table at the front and they settled in and ordered a jug of margaritas.

  “It’s just like Friday nights,” he said happily.

  Once the waitress moved away, Dulcie began her inquisition. “Your work desk filled up with baked goods and it had nothing to do with you?”

  Astral nodded vigorously. “It was magic, and these were aggressive pastries. They were determined to escape. A meringue attacked me.” She told them about the strange and terrible invasion that stopped as suddenly as it had started. The incident in the washrooms with Ms Black remained her own business. Some things were too unsettling and embarrassing to share even with a best friend, and a friend of a friend.

  “A drawer full of meringue,” Damián mused dreamily. “I could swim in it.”

  “It’s not funny, especially in a place where a critter is lurking. I could have been attacked by more than a meringue.”

  “What critter?” Damián asked, sitting up straighter. “You never mentioned a critter.”

  “That’s my undercover coven job, I’m on a critter hunt and—”

  “Astral,” Dulcie warned, giving a furtive look around the bistro, “Damián is not a coven member, so he shouldn’t hear this stuff.”

  “Well, how can he help if he doesn’t know anything?”

  “Poor Astral.” He grabbed for her hand. “You’re so brave. I’m seeing a whole new side to you.”

  “It’s called my back, also known as a retreat.”

  “I can understand why you want to walk away from this,” Dulcie said. “Magdalene should never have—”

  “Oh, look. It’s your mother,” Damián interrupted as he pointed at a wall poster for a West End musical. “She’s in Les Misérables. How marvellous.”

  Astral jumped up to check. “It is her,” she confirmed as she stared at the poster, a pang of loneliness in her chest.

  “I went to see it twice,” Damián said. “So sad. But I can’t remember Myriad being in it.”

  “She appears from time to time on printed surfaces,” Dulcie told him quietly. “She’s been doing so ever since she disappeared. Nobody knows what it means. If she’s trying to communicate, if she’s trapped…” She petered out as Astral rejoined the table, but she had heard the comment.

  “Apparently she’s Fantine,” she informed them flatly.

  Damián frowned. “I saw it twice and she was never Fant—”

  “Only on the poster, twithead,” Dulcie told him crossly. “Pay attention. Myriad pops up all over the place, on postage stamps, posters, soup cans, and other people’s photographs. What she’s on means nothing. I once saw her in The Guardian as Angela Merkel shaking Bill gates’ hand at a G20 conference.”

  “Ah, she’s a politician, then,” Damián nodded sagely.

  Dulcie sighed and swung her attention back to Astral. “You saw no sign of a critter at all, despite being ambushed?”

  “It’s difficult to tell. Once you start to really look at people, you realise everyone is weird in a crittery way.”

  “Like?”

  “Well, at first Ms Ping, the receptionist, seemed strange, but it turned out she was only flaky. Then I suspected Fergal, my supervisor, but now I’m thinking he’s more of a drunk. And the head of ops, Ms Black—at first glance, she’d scare the crap out of Satan’s colostomy bag, but…” She shrugged. Abby Black had lost her gut-shrinking fearfulness. The wry amusement in her eyes at Astral’s washroom drama had humanized her. And, strangely, made Astral want to know a little more about her. “They’re all weird, but no one feels especially otherworldly.”

  “Do you think you can do it?” Dulcie looked worried. “There’re only a few days to go, and honestly, if it’s dangerous, I think you should stop right now. Magdalene will have to come up with another plan.”

  “I fancy the steak and Guinness pie, what about you?” Damián looked up from his menu.

  “Really?” Dulcie snapped, her exasperation evident. “We have a friend in danger here, and you want to talk about pie.”

  He looked hurt and fumbled with the edge of the menu. “Well, yes. They have a fabulous one here,” he answered, subdued.

  “Order one for me, too, please,” Astral said, trying to smooth things over.

  “Same here.” Dulcie seemed to let go of her anger, though her eyes still glinted with it behind her spectacles.

  The waitress came along and took their order, which included copious side orders and the obligatory bottle of wine.

  “Do you think the Mindcoddle saved me from a critter attack this afternoon?” Astral asked, once they were alone. “Did it disguise me enough? Am I safe to go back?” She had so many questions.

  “A Mindcoddle won’t undo a spell like that,” Dulcie said. “The spell-caster already knew exactly who you were to fill the desk up with cakes in the first place. I bet whoever did it either couldn’t maintain the spell from a distance, or else was in the office with you and stopped once you ran away.”

  “This is awful. I don’t like any of those ideas. It means either a witch is setting me up from long distance, or worse, the critter has me tagged already and is playing with me. What should I do?”

  “Don’t go back,” Damián said.

  She nodded. “I tend to agree.” Astral looked around furtively, as if Magdalene’s spies were lurking under every candlelit table. “I’ll tell the coven it’s just too dangerous.”

  Dulcie nodded as well as Astral continued her uneasy examination of every dark corner. She sighed. “I have to go back,” she announced after a second of indecision.

  “Why?” Damián asked.

  “I don’t want to tell the coven I failed.”

  Dulcie offered a smile of tacit agreement. “You’re a Projector. You have to be strong. You have a heritage to uphold.”

  “Stop encouraging her,” Damián scolded Dulcie. “There’re critters and backstabbing witches involved.”

  “Damián,” Dulcie said with her warning tone.

  “Let’s talk about backstabbers,” he continued, ignoring her. “Who do you not like? I think Eve Wormrider’s new hairdo looks awful on her. Her face is shaped completely wrong for it.”

  Dulcie’s frown deepened. “You’re not helping,” she said to him.

  “What should I do?” Astral asked her.

  “Avoid Eve Wormrider’s hairstylist.”

  “Damián, shut up.” Dulcie turned to Astral. “I can’t see why a critter would go to all the trouble of manifesting baked goods in your desk. They’re not sophisticated creatures and if it identified you, it would have attacked, not wasted its magic on muffins.”

  That made sense. “What if it was a scare tactic?”

  “That’s still too sophisticated for a critter. It seems more like a witch did this. A witch who wanted to unnerve you,” Dulcie said.

  “And make you run away screaming,” Damián added. “Like a certain hairdo did to me.”

  Dulcie rolled her eyes.

  “A witch who wanted me to fail.” Astral absently patted her hair, which had stopped frizzing as much, now that she was among friends. “But the only witches who knew about this were from our coven.” She held Dulcie’s gaze. “Oh, Hecate. Do you think Magdalene is behind it?” It was a sickening thought.

  “I don’t know, but she’s the best bet, given the way she’s behaved.” Dulcie tugged on her chin. “What I don’t understand is why sabotage you if we need to find the critter to save coven funds? It seems a little counterproductive.”

  “What’s a critter got to do with coven funds?” Damián asked.

  “Nothing,” Astral and Dulcie answered in unison, and they exchanged a guilty look.

  “Regardless, I’m negligible. No threat whatsoever. If anything, I’m bait,” Astral pointed out.

  Dulcie sat back, thoughtful. “So why use coven energy to protect you? The Cuckoo spell would be gone by now if she wanted to dump you in this mess. I believe there is a critter and Magdalene wan
ts it caught. She’s an Ironwitch, and they love wealth far too much to have a critter anywhere near them.”

  They all fell into a broody silence until Damián offered up his latest thought. “So, if Astral’s mum pops up all over the place, does her magic do the same?”

  Dulcie dropped the spoon she’d been idly playing with. It landed on the table with a thunk. “Oh, my Hecate, I think you’ve actually said something sensible for the first time today. Maybe even this year.”

  “I have?”

  “I knew you could do it.” Astral gave his hand a condescending squeeze.

  “No, he actually has said something sensible,” Dulcie said. “Your broken wand. Don’t you see? All that magic is on the loose. It’s out there cannoning about.” She waved towards the window to the village and hills beyond. “The Projector magic is looking for a Projector.” There was awe in her voice.

  “And because it can’t find my mother, it’s zoning in on me.” Astral stared at her. Dulcie’s theory made sense. “How on earth did you make that leap from what he said?”

  “I work with him. I have to listen to his nonsense every day, so I’ve gotten good at following his flights of fancy.” She gazed out the window at the market square below. “All that aimless power. It’s too terrifying to contemplate.”

  “Why didn’t Magdalene think of that before she broke my wand?” Astral rubbed her temples. “Magic can’t keep popping up sabotaging my mission. This is impossible.”

  “Impossible,” Damián echoed sympathetically, then, “Oh, look, here’s dinner.”

  There was another silence as their food was set before them and a robust Merlot splashed into their glasses. After the waitress had retreated, they continued their conversation. Witches loved good food, great wine, and clever conversation.

  “I need to go back, don’t I?” Astral stated, miserable. She wanted a hero figure to jump up to their table and say, “no, never go back there, Astral. I’ll keep you safe.” A hero who was strong, and tall, and dark…and who unexpectedly morphed into Abby Black, eyebrow raised and the hint of a smile on her lips…