Chapter 3 Casimir Everald
Casimir Everald
The owner of the velvety voice peered over the top of the sandstone bridge and slapped the ledge with vigour.
“How are we, folks? I hope Sage here is giving you a good show. I know better than anyone that she can be rather frightening, but don’t be too scared of her. She saves the worst of her spells for me.”
Sage’s scowl curdled and she stared determinedly at the group in front of her, refusing to look up and give him the attention he thrived on.
But it was too late; they had all turned their gazes upwards to meet his and were evidently enamoured by the romantic balcony interruption.
He always had that maddening effect on people.
“Is this part of the performance?” a woman asked excitedly.
“Performance?” Sage glared. “Madam, I’ve studied these matters for the majority of my life to bring you acutely researched—”
“Dreadfully sorry to interrupt, folks,” the perpetual interruption of her life went on.
He took a few strides along the length of the bridge before swinging gracefully around the end pillar to descend onto the top step.
“It’s only that I need to borrow your dazzling host for just a tick.
” He sauntered down the wide sandstone steps, hands casually sunk into his pockets.
There were few things in this world that could be guaranteed, especially for a witch. But Casimir Everald appearing at the most inconvenient moment possible was one of those rare certainties.
“For all the bloody stars…” Sage muttered to the sky, willing herself to find one final crumb of patience for the man who constantly stole away each and every one of them. He was her best friend and her biggest headache, usually at the very same time.
Casimir addressed the enthralled group like a showman, with a sincere hand on heart and a small bow. “I promise to return her to you as soon as I can.”
Sage sighed flatly in defeat. “One moment, please,” she said to the group. She clicked off her microphone before scooping up her long skirt and her cape to traipse down the pathway and meet him halfway up the stairs of the bridge. She stopped on the step below him and peered up, furious.
“My favourite thing about our relationship is that you’re always so pleased to see me, Specs.”
“Oh, shut up,” she said crossly.
“See! Your natural, personable warmth is exactly what I’m talking about. Lovely hat, that one,” Cas said. He lifted the edge of the brim and bent slightly at the knees, lowering himself to meet her eyes with his own. “I always forget how much it suits you.”
She batted his hand away. “Stop it. I’ve got sixteen paying guests waiting down there. Either tell me what’s wrong or bugger off, will you? I’m sure there’s nothing so important or urgent that you need to interrupt a tour.”
“Well, that’s just it, you see. There’s a bit of an emergency back at HQ. The place really does fall apart as soon as you set foot outside of it.”
Sage felt her heart stutter and stall. An emergency? The archive. Her research.
“What is it? What did you do?”
“Me? Always the accusations,” Casimir replied in mock offence.
“Cas! Is the work okay?” Her mind raced with possibilities.
Her magic running amok, leaving a trail of flame and fury behind it.
It had been feeling more and more out of control in recent days.
Something terrible must have happened after she left.
She had let something slip. She would never forgive herself if—
“Oh, it’s nothing like that,” Casimir said, nonchalant as ever. “Everything’s fine in that department.”
Sage clutched her chest. The back room of the museum was where every single book, scroll, page and scrap of a lifetime of research was stored away.
Two lifetimes, if Casimir’s contributions were to be included.
Hundreds of boxes of files and notes and papers, essays and articles, sources and antiquities.
There was far too much riding on it for her ever to lose a single word, each scribbling carefully catalogued and cross-referenced just in case it should ever be required.
“What is it, then?” she asked, her heart rate still heightened.
“I just wondered if you knew where all the biscuits had gone? I think we may be all out, but I swear we only bought some the other day. You know, the posh jammy ones?”
Sage thundered, so cross that she actually stamped a foot against the sandstone steps. She gave Casimir a quick shove. “You interrupted my tour to ask me where the bloody biscuits are? Of all the brazen…”
Casimir threw his hands up in innocent protest. “Oi, watch the costume, will you? More of these white shirts come out of my pay cheque than I care to admit. I can’t afford another one this month.”
The costume in question was a flouncy white shirt, always with the sleeves pushed up, and dark close-fitting trousers tucked into riding boots.
It was entirely self-prescribed. Casimir insisted it was necessary for his own tour to be in an authentic 1800s costume for Cloak and Dagger fans, but Sage was convinced that it was just because he knew he looked, well, dashing in it.
She had overheard enough guests tell him as much, and she could barely prevent her eyes rolling somewhere far north each time they did.
Casimir shrugged the billowing fabric back onto his shoulders and dusted down the front where she’d pushed him. He sighed pitifully. “Sorry, didn’t mean to cause alarm. I suppose I’ll just pop to the shop on the way back, then.”
“No, you won’t. Because your version of ‘pop to the shop’ involves disappearing completely for hours on end, bumping into some friend or other, and leaving me to run the place without so much as a moment’s notice.
And we’ve got the school trip to prepare for.
Why aren’t you checking the gift shop stock?
Do we have enough bendy rulers? You know how many bloody bendy rulers we get through on a school trip, especially… ”
She promptly stopped unravelling when Casimir’s hands moved to hold her firmly by the shoulders. It was his go-to technique to calm her down, and, frustratingly, it always worked. Sage had given up trying to pretend it didn’t.
“Oh, Specs, come on. Why the bad mood?” Cas said, unhurried and peering under her hat again. “I know you’re a bit frazzled at the moment, but look around. It’s October, can’t you feel the magic of it all? It’s our speciality.”
At that, he took her hand and spun her around on the spot, making her cloak parachute in a way that felt utterly mortifying in front of their captive audience, and her plastic cauldron of coins jangled loudly against her microphone box.
Sage shook out of his grasp and put her hands on her hips, determined to remain cross with him.
It was a battle that she regularly fought and lost.
“You are a moron,” she said, unable to stifle a small, incredulous snort. “Go. And I’m not telling you where my biscuit stash is. You’ll only raid it.”
“Have I ever told you how charming you are when you’re sulking?” He smirked. “Fine, fine…I’ll stop by the Hedgehog House and see if there are any blackcurrant doughnuts left. Unlikely at this time, but…”
“Casimir,” Sage said. “Go. Back. To. Work.”
Feeling unfairly outstripped by height alone, she took an extra step to land on the same one as her colleague. Then another for good measure, giving her a rare height advantage. He seemed to appreciate the effort, as his tongue popped into his cheek to stop himself from laughing.
“You are the single most bothersome human that has ever walked this planet,” Sage said, determined to remain unaffected.
“And I know just how bothersome you consider every human being ever to exist, so coming from you, I take that as an enormous accolade. I’d better do my very best to maintain it.” He grinned, and the flash of bright white was almost enough to send Sage stumbling back down a couple of stairs.
“Anything else to say before I throw you off this bridge?” she asked with a glower.
“Oh! Actually, yes,” he said with new sincerity, the arrival of a singular thought almost visible behind his dark brown eyes.
It was a look of last-minute realization that plagued every single one of Sage’s working days and had done so for over a decade.
“There’s been a delivery for you. It’s your favourite sort—disgustingly dusty and mothball-scented. Quite possibly haunted or damned.”
“On a Wednesday? That’s unusual. What is it?”
“Haven’t the foggiest. There was nothing on the incoming calendar, which is very unlike you. Any guesses?”
Sage frowned. “I wasn’t expecting anything else, but…”
She had placed so many requests over the past few months, in the run-up to their new exhibition opening, that even Sage had to admit she had somewhat lost track of what still needed to be catalogued.
Casimir shrugged. “Popped it in the back room. But on my usual shake inspection, it feels like—would you believe?—more books! And there I was thinking that we had completed our excessive and entirely unnecessary collection of every single thing ever written about this place.”
She could put up with most of Casimir’s jibes, but an insult to her book collection was a step too far. “Go!” She pointed, throwing an arm out in the direction of the museum. “I’ll be back within the hour, so don’t do anything stupid until then, if at all possible.”
Reluctantly and with a bored tut, Casimir sauntered back up the steps to cross the bridge and walk towards the museum. One hand remained in his pocket and the other waved down to the crowd below, as though they were his royal subjects.
“As you were, folks. Next time, I’d recommend my Magical Media Tour—it’s a little more current than these offerings.
Oh, and don’t forget to stop by the heritage museum before you head home to complete your treasure map.
Lord knows you deserve a prize for enduring the company of Sage Hemlock for an hour.
If it were up to me, we’d hand out solid gold medals for your troubles, but alas, budget cuts… ”
Sage took a final calming breath. Having long ago found herself with Casimir—her exact opposite in every way—as an unlikely colleague and even more unlikely best friend since their teenage years, she was well rehearsed in this practice.
She returned to the group and took a quick glance at her notes to remind herself where she was in her script.
In her periphery, Sage sensed a young woman in a cream cardigan approaching shyly.
“Yes?” Sage snarled. She was behind schedule now, thanks to Cas.
“Your colleague…Is he running any more tours today? Or are we able to swap onto…?”
“No.” Sage scowled so emphatically that she was fairly sure the next time she looked in the mirror, she’d find a stone gargoyle looking back.
With aching feet and more spine-tingling, supernatural information about one small town than anyone could or probably should hope for, the tour was finally completed.
“I hope that our time together may serve as a reminder to if not believe entirely, then be open to the possibility that the most extraordinary of explanations may be hiding in plain sight. And often, magic may be the only possible answer.”
Sage gave a satisfied sigh with her final line as she received a timid smattering of applause.
They had warmed up eventually, with only a handful of inane questions about the films, TV shows and famous bands that Port Sylvan had played host to.
Despite Casimir’s best efforts and a conspiracy by the local seasonal displays to expose her secret, Sage would chalk the tour up as a success.
“Very enjoyable. Thanks for your time,” Mr. Williams said, slipping a folded five-pound note into the mini cauldron on her satchel. “Although, I do think it’s a bit much to call this ghost tour ‘historical.’ You’d be better to go for ‘fantastical.’ Or ‘weird and wondrous.’ Something fun like that.”
Sage glanced up at the man from underneath the wide brim of her hat. “I beg your pardon?”
“Come on, you’re off duty now. It’s all nonsense, isn’t it?” He winked, as though in on some joke. “Witches and magic, I mean.”
Sage swallowed against the ferocious flutter locked behind her ribs, roaring to escape. “Quite.”