CHAPTER NINE #2
‘Admiring Leda?’ asked Theodora, as she placed a large cup of tea beside Dot. She took the armchair by the window. ‘A friend of mine from the studio sculpted her. She was a gift for my twenty-eighth birthday.’
‘She’s lovely,’ said Dot, picking up the tea. It had a strange fragrance. Liquorice, perhaps, or some bitter herb she could not name. She took a sip and scowled.
‘It’s an old Calléan recipe,’ said Theodora. ‘Have you had it before?’
‘No,’ said Dot. ‘My grandparents are all from Eyre. We only drink Eyreish breakfast tea. Dad imports it. He’s never even been.
Mum came over when she was a baby. They met at school – there are a lot of foreigners in Seafarthing, actually.
The fishing brought a lot of us in, I suppose and .
. .’ Dot stopped. She laughed in her forced, awkward way. ‘I’m speaking too much.’
‘Not at all,’ said Theodora. ‘My ancestors were once from Levatu.’
‘Really?’ asked Dot. ‘Have you visited? The islands are said to be so beautiful.’
‘So I’ve heard,’ said Theodora.
A silence Dot did not quite understand fell then. She sipped at the medicinal liquid. ‘This is nice.’
‘Dorothy, it’s foul.’
Dot sputtered and the witch smiled.
‘But it’s the thing one does,’ said Theodora, taking off her boots and folding her legs under herself, ‘when another is bereaved or befallen by tragedy. Tea is the warmth one brings to another who has none to give themselves.’
‘Is that why you run a tea shop?’ asked Dot.
‘No, I hate tea.’
A rapid thumping rose from the hall and the living room door flung open. The red-haired boy froze as he saw Dot.
‘She’s awake,’ he said.
‘Dorothy,’ said Theodora, ‘this is Rupert Armstrong.’
His eyes flickered to Dot’s bandaged hand. She promptly hid it.
‘What is it, Rupe?’ asked Theodora.
‘Lio’s asking a lot of questions.’
‘The answer to every one of them is, “No, you dandyish twit.”’
‘He wants to know where you are.’
‘Saints,’ said Theodora. ‘You didn’t tell him I’m up here, did you?’
‘Of course not,’ said Rupert. ‘You said not to.’
‘Good lad. As far as he’s concerned, I do not even live here. Go on then. What other questions?’
‘He wants to know if the wards have been updated since New Year’s.’
‘It’s none of Lio’s business when the wards were last updated,’ said Theodora.
‘I said you’d say that,’ said Rupert, scratching the back of his head. ‘He said, “If I’m stuck in this bloody house, I need to know Acanthi won’t make ribbons of me in my sleep.”’
‘If he asks any more stupid questions, I’ll be the one to make ribbons of him,’ said Theodora. ‘Go do something else, Rupert. Something away from Lio. Are you sleeping here tonight?’
‘If I may,’ said the boy, glancing again at Dot. There was a flicker of malice to his expression, as if her being on the couch inconvenienced him terribly.
‘Of course,’ said Theodora.
Rupert promptly left.
‘Is Lio alright?’ asked Dot. ‘He was in the river. He was screaming.’
‘He’s quite fine,’ said Theodora, leaning back against the armchair.
‘I gave him the other spare room to sleep in. Thanks to my talent for wards, my home is unfortunately the safest place for him. I have been generous, and you know how he’s repaying me?
By whinging.’ She paused, then asked, ‘What did he tell you about me?’
‘Only that he wanted to warn you about those women.’
Theodora relaxed a little.
‘Most of what Lio says is rubbish,’ said the witch.
‘If he tries to tell you anything more, don’t listen to a word of it.
And, Dorothy, I should say . . .’ Theodora smiled.
Her face held so much warmth Dot almost had to look away.
‘Next time a bizarre man asks you to deliver something for him, say no.’
‘It got me to you,’ said Dot.
‘It got you half drowned and injured with a nasty cut,’ said Theodora.
‘Why Moira pounced into the water holding her knife, I cannot fathom. Nevertheless, do you know how much salve I had to put on your shoulder to stop an infection? With a revolver to my head, I would not place my littlest toe in that river, much less dunk a bleeding wound into it.’
‘Perhaps it was the river, then, that did this?’ asked Dot, raising her bandaged hand.
‘It was you.’
‘Me?’
‘You and your magic,’ said Theodora, eyes glittering. ‘That was your spell that sent a wave across the Lourdes.’
Dot’s brow furrowed. The witch was surely mistaken.
‘Why are you looking at me like I’ve just insulted you?’ laughed Theodora. ‘Don’t you want to learn magic? Isn’t that why you sought me out?’
‘Well – yes,’ said Dot. ‘But—’
‘What do you remember?’
‘Not very much,’ said Dot.
‘I saw it,’ said Theodora. ‘I watched you slap Moira and Agytha right out of the water.’
‘That was real?’ asked Dot.
‘It wasn’t just real,’ said Theodora. ‘It was you. The proof of it is underneath that bandage.’
Dot stared down at the whiteness censoring her hand.
‘This isn’t common magic,’ said Theodora. ‘I can’t cast spells like that. Lio certainly can’t.’
‘Can you fix it?’ asked Dot, her voice wobbling.
The witch’s face faltered.
‘There are a lot of things I can do,’ said Theodora. ‘Returning your hand to the way it was is not one of them.’
Dot nodded and she rubbed at her stinging eyes. The witch asked a little more softly, ‘How old are you?’
‘Twenty-three,’ said Dot.
‘When did you turn twenty-three?’
‘Right before the winter solstice.’
‘Not long before Rupert’s birthday,’ said Theodora, smiling. ‘Though, he’s only sixteen.’
Dot nodded again and sniffed.
‘Have you ever used magic before?’ asked Theodora.
‘No,’ said Dot.
‘Did anything strange happen when you were young?’
Crashing waves. Emily screaming. An otherworldly voice from the belly of the ocean.
‘You look sad, Dorothy.’
‘I’m quite fine,’ said Dot. She took up her tea; she was growing used to the bitterness. ‘Actually, there was an incident. I fell in the ocean. I – well, I almost drowned.’
‘Go on.’
Dot studied the tea cup. ‘When I was in the water, I heard a voice. It was in a strange language and I’ve hardly the imagination to come up with something like that, so I believe it was real.
When I woke up on the sand, I felt like I was buzzing with magic.
My body, however, was terribly fatigued.
The weeks after were difficult. The feeling of magic left me, but my condition remained. ’
‘You haven’t felt the magic since?’
Dot shook her head.
‘What’s your condition?’ asked the witch.
‘We never really found out,’ said Dot. ‘It’s fatigue, mostly.
Dizziness, fogginess. My memory is shocking unless I’m recalling a subject I especially love.
Some days I’m lively and I can run or dance and I feel utterly normal and then I do a little too much and I’ll be in bed for days.
It’ll hit me as I’m climbing the stairs or washing dishes and, quite suddenly, I’m so tired I can’t walk.
I collapse sometimes. The doctors never diagnosed me.
One of them told me I was making it all up. ’
Theodora nodded, and then asked, ‘How did you fall in the ocean?’
Dot looked away. She opened her mouth and closed it. She shook her head.
Theodora moved on. ‘How did you come by the medicine in the green bottles?’
‘My grandfather,’ said Dot, warming.
‘Is he a Magician?’
‘Goodness, no,’ said Dot. ‘He’s a biologist.’
‘A biologist?’
‘Well,’ said Dot, ‘he’s a fisherman, but he didn’t like hurting the fish, so after my grandmother died, he started studying.
He still does the trawler work so he can save up the money for his expeditions.
As I said, they moved here from Eyre before my father was born and there weren’t many options for him, I suppose. ’
‘Do you mean to say,’ said Theodora, ‘that the man who taught you to make those tonics has no magical ability at all?’
‘He doesn’t have a licence.’
‘Neither do I,’ said Theodora. ‘Although, if he isn’t a Magician, that would explain the garlic.
’ And off the witch went, scribbling in a notebook that she had tugged from her pocket.
Dot watched her, enamoured. Then, a wave of melancholy crashed upon her.
Soon, she would be on a train home. She would have to borrow money for the ticket.
Her purse and half the contents of her bag had been lost to the river.
‘Theodora,’ said Dot. ‘You’ve lent me your clothes and a bed in your house, and I am incomprehensibly grateful, but I must ask for a final favour.
I need to take the train home to Seafarthing and, well, as I mentioned, I haven’t any money but I promise that the moment I take my job back at the café, I will—’
‘Don’t be absurd,’ said Theodora.
‘No,’ said Dot, ‘I must insist on repaying—’
‘That’s not what I mean,’ said the witch. ‘The money is arbitrary because you aren’t going back to Seafarthing. You can’t very well be my apprentice from a thousand kilometres away, can you?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘You asked to become my apprentice.’
‘I – I did.’
‘I’m telling you that you can be my apprentice.’
Dot opened and closed her mouth several times. ‘You changed your mind.’
‘Indeed,’ said Theodora, ‘which is fortunate for you but a touch inconvenient for me if I’m being honest, because you need to learn to use your magic properly and I am hardly the best person to teach you.
However, when you’re a little more rested, we will begin.
You can pick up some work in the tea shop and I’ll pay you a wage and you, in return, can help me with my own myriad problems.’
‘Like what?’ asked Dot.
‘Banishing Acanthi from my city,’ said Theodora. ‘And, more importantly, banishing Lio from my house.’