CHAPTER EIGHT #2
‘Of course it was,’ said the witch. ‘I was the one who unlocked it. I wanted to see what you would do, especially after all that sulking you did on my front step. The customers could see you. I’ve a spell that could help with that. You know, melancholy.’
‘I wasn’t melancholy,’ said Dot, mortified. ‘I couldn’t find you. I was frustrated. I—’ She looked at the witch. ‘Sorry.’
‘If you say that one more time, I will cast you into the street.’
Dot opened her mouth to apologise again and then snapped it shut.
There came a silence and Theodora’s eyes narrowed as if in appraisal. ‘Why do you wish to learn magic?’
Dot’s words failed her.
‘Have you no reason?’ asked Theodora.
‘I – I do,’ said Dot.
‘If you did, you would have said it.’
‘I—’
‘Never mind,’ said Theodora, sighing, ‘I don’t know why I asked. I am begged at least three times a week by any old William or Mary to teach them witchcraft. Frankly, I’ve heard every story, every reason, most of them absolute rot. They all received from me the same answer. No.’
Dot felt as if she were drowning.
‘I – um—’
‘Is that all?’ asked Theodora calmly.
‘No,’ said Dot, defeated.
She pulled Lio’s letter from her pocket and handed it to the witch.
Theodora eyed the parchment. She raised the bulb of firelight into the air and took the letter.
The moment she did, her expression turned dark.
The witch read it in one glance and then she looked at Dot as if she’d been struck by her.
‘What do you mean by giving this to me?’
‘I—’
‘I suppose he paid you?’
‘What?’ asked Dot.
‘You must be an actress,’ said Theodora. ‘That was a beautiful performance.’
‘I don’t understand,’ said Dot, stepping forward.
‘Lio,’ said Theodora, shaking the letter. ‘Only he would pay some girl off the street to skirt my wards and deliver me his bizarre propaganda.’
‘I wasn’t—’
Theodora threw out her hand and a loud bang rang out.
Dot was cast backward into the darkness.
She soared through a wooden door, caught glimpses of tables and armchairs and copper pots, and then burst out into the street and landed without injury on the pavement.
She blinked, dazed. She was back on the corner of Wren Court and Ethel Avenue, in front of Hoot Dear Ashtepo’s with its papered windows.
This was the tea shop, after all. The building’s derelict appearance was an enchantment.
Winded, shoe-less, arms wrapped around her carpet bag, Dot stared up at the city-dimmed stars. She lay there on the footpath for a long time.
‘You gave her the letter, then.’
Dot did not stir at the sound of Lio’s voice, nor did she have the energy to wonder how the young man had arrived so quickly from the Cathedral. Only once he repeated himself did she whisper, ‘You tricked me.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘You promised to help me,’ said Dot. She longed for something eloquent or cutting, but in her shock could only manage this. She did not look at him as she heaved herself up.
‘I did,’ said Lio.
‘She hates me,’ said Dot, tears spilling.
‘That is quite the reach, Miss Walcott. You have to care for someone, know someone, to hate them. It seems that I am the one who has her hatred.’
‘You knew this would be the outcome, then?’ Dot snatched up her wool hat from the pavement. ‘And yet you sent me in there to play your delivery girl, anyway.’
Lio rubbed his brow. ‘I did tell you she barred me from the tea shop.’
Dot yanked her carpet bag over her shoulder and stumbled off down the street.
‘Miss Walcott.’
‘Goodbye, Mr Lashkari.’
She skirted down Wren Court as quickly as her fatigued body would allow.
The heaviness of her limbs grew with each step and waves of dizziness broke over her.
Not ten houses from the tea shop, Dot latched onto an oak tree to stop herself collapsing.
Somewhere behind her, Lio called her name.
She ignored him and slowly stomped on, faint, teary and furious.
Dot trotted in her socks for a long while, paying little mind to her direction.
She took a swig of her tonic. Miraculously, none of the phials had broken when she had been cast out of the tea shop.
She wiped her nose and checked her watch.
She might still make the train back to Seafarthing.
There came footsteps behind her. Expecting to see Lio, she turned and said, ‘What do you want?’
‘A great deal,’ replied an old woman. Her hungry, uncanny gaze turned Dot cold.
‘Moira,’ said a new voice. Dot turned to see another woman, younger than the first. She wove red twine between her fingers. ‘No need to frighten the girl.’
A third seized Dot’s wrist. She had rouge on her cheeks. ‘Poor thing is terrified, Moira. What have you done?’
Then, Dot’s eyes landed on the jars at the eldest’s hips. She saw the unmistakable shapes of teeth, eyeballs, and fingertips and, among them, dark phials of blood. Dot opened her mouth to scream – and just as she did, a hand reached out of nowhere and seized her.
Dot was yanked backward. All went black and wind whipped at her eyes. The scream that had begun a moment before for something else entirely rung out now in earnest, for she was hurtling from a great height through the whirling darkness. Then it was over. She collided with the grassy ground.
Lio pulled her to a stand. They were in Penn Park, beside the fountain.
‘What—’ gasped Dot ‘—in heaven’s name?’
‘Come on,’ said Lio.
‘How did we get here?’ she asked.
‘A portal,’ said Lio. ‘Like the one in Saint Penelope’s, but less polished.’
He dragged her by the arm into the fountain and across the shallow water. Her socks and skirt were drenched at once. He tugged her to the centre of the fountain and flourished his hands. The scent of magic kicked up again, but Dot tugged her arm away.
‘Miss Walcott, we need to hurry.’
‘I’m not going anywhere with you,’ said Dot. ‘Who were those women?’
‘Those women,’ said Lio, ‘are the very thing I was trying to warn the witch about.’ He huffed. ‘I don’t know how they found me so quickly, but now they probably think you’re involved with this nonsense.’
He dragged her into the next portal. She shrieked again as she fell.