Chapter 5 Impractical Magic #2
No croissants and aching shoulders…Unscheduled levitation was no good for her back.
She glanced around the bustling coffee shop and contemplated whether she could get away with stealing ten minutes for herself.
First on her agenda was to unpack that final delivery for the exhibition, but such a terrible morning called for burrowing herself into her chunky scarf and getting lost in her own thoughts for a while on one of the comfy gingham seats nestled in the corner.
The Hedgehog House felt foggy and soothing, with its warm lighting and cloudy condensation covering lattice windows.
Overgrown ivy climbed the walls outside and a bizarre collection of trinkets climbed them within.
The busy shelves were a jumble of Bridgey’s teapots, postcards, candlesticks, knick-knacks, treasures, ceramic ornaments…
Mostly, they were hedgehogs. A lot of hedgehogs.
“Make yourself at home, Flower. You look done in. I’ll bring you a flapjack instead,” Bridgey said, seeming to read her mind.
In her sleepy stupor, Sage made her way to a table that was hidden nicely behind a coat rack and did not invite conversation.
She sipped through a sigh, and as her eyes closed, she swore she could feel the caffeine connecting neurons and pathways as it slipped through her bloodstream.
It promptly got to work, lacing her nerves back together one by one, and soon a sense of life began to spark at her fingertips.
Everything would be fine. Maybe she could handle whatever else the day threw at her after all.
Pinpricks of warmth at her fingers tingled so contentedly she had to flex her hands around the hot cup.
Sage bolted upright, suddenly awake. That wasn’t caffeine.
That was magic.
The sensations of the two were often interchangeable.
She’d made journal entries on the topic, interested in the connections between witchery and non-wicche comparatives.
But her concentration had slipped as she’d dozed.
The control was gone. And this was not just a pesky, unspecific pop of magic either. This was an incoming incantation.
“No…No, no, no…”
Without warning, a shock of crimson magic jolted from her left palm like a sneeze, so sudden and static that the hot cup slipped from her hand and spilled over the table.
Sage flew back in her chair, and the sparks of the spell rebounded straight off the windowpane to her right, travelled in a frantic zigzag and headed straight back towards her.
Sage ducked just in time but immediately wished that she’d taken the brunt herself.
She watched in horror as the escaped spell shot directly into a life-size ornament of a hedgehog leaning against a tree stump, wearing a very twee flat cap and smoking a pipe.
Seconds later, the once-ceramic-now-very-much-alive hedgehog shook off the cap, spat out the pipe and gave itself a thorough shakedown.
Sage gasped and lurched up from her chair. She recognized the accidental spell. “Vividus Animo…Of all the…Why must you…? Blasted, blasted, blasted magic.”
The hedgehog began to shuffle along the shelf, delighted with its new lease of life, and proceeded to bump into every precious ornament along the way.
A trail of china rattled noisily and dangerously close to the edge.
A couple of heads turned towards the racket.
Sage bolted to catch the trinkets, one after another, then froze as she spotted Bridgey finishing her conversation and picking up a flapjack.
Sage rushed to replace everything that had tumbled, then carefully scooped up the hedgehog to avoid any further damage.
She glanced around the coat rack with wide eyes.
What did one do with an accidentally enchanted spiny mammal of the subfamily Erinaceinae?
She certainly didn’t have the practical experience to just fire off an “undo” spell, and it was too unreliable, too risky, and the karma would almost certainly make matters ten times worse…
Without much of a choice, Sage placed the creature gently but hastily into her coat pocket.
She tried to see reason through blind panic.
The place was a hubbub of chatter, takeaway orders now bustling in the morning rush, and the coat rack had been a fortunate shield.
But still, had anyone seen the overt display of magic?
She had to get outside. She had to catch her breath.
“Excuse me. Pardon me. If I could just…” Sage said as she began to shuffle her way out towards the door.
“On your way already, Flower?” Bridgey called, waving the flapjack at her.
“Can’t stop, Bridge!” she shouted back from the doorway. A very tiny wet nose gave a snuffle against her palm, followed by a sharp nip. Sage tried not to shriek. “Yeeeoow…you know how new exhibition weeks are.”
“Ey, you’re sure? Thought I saw something back there. Is that lamp on the blink again?”
“No trouble here, no trouble at all! Thank you for the coffee. I’ll be seeing you!”
Sage bolted outside while trying her level best to keep a comforting hand wrapped around the hedgehog and simultaneously not impale herself on its prickly armour.
She heard Bridgey call after her. Sage picked up the pace.
Magic crackled across her palms and sent a threatening shiver down her spine.
There was more to come. She needed to get away from everyone before it happened again.
Sage couldn’t recall when the bright morning had seen the clouds come in, but the sky had darkened to moody grey.
A misty storm rolled in over the town, thick rain beginning to pepper the ground in heavy droplets, and then, without warning, a crack of lightning struck the boat-shaped weather vane atop the Lyceum spire. The arrow spun frantically on its axis.
Sage swallowed down a stressed sob. It was getting angrier.
“Blasted, blasted, blasted magic…”
If it was firing out unexpectedly after a mere caffeine boost, who knew what else it was capable of today?
She cursed the conspiratorial clouds and kept her chin pressed to her chest, determined not to make eye contact with any passers-by.
She yanked her coat over her head to hide from the downpour, shuffling through the mist and rain, hunching and walking awkwardly to make sure the hedgehog wasn’t bumping around too much.
She must have looked like the town’s old crone, giving the typical silhouette of a wicked witch against a crackling, thundery sky.
Her magic had a twisted sense of humour.
Her heart was racing, adrenaline beating at her bones.
“Come on, come on…” Sage muttered to herself, willing her legs to move faster.
After hotfooting it across the cobblestones, past the train station, the Founders’ Fountain and the dell, she finally saw the museum.
The hanging dark green sign, foiled in gold and mounted above the door, was spotted with fat droplets of rain and was swinging against the wild weather.
Beneath another crack of lightning, Sage shoved her key into the lock and jiggled the door handle in the precise way that it required, before stumbling over the threshold and slamming it firmly behind her.
She rested against the door and took a deep rattling breath of relief within the confines of the place she felt safest.
Immediately, her crazed magic calmed.
Even against the quaint backdrop of Port Sylvan, the heritage museum was a strange little place, which no one could quite believe still existed.
Somehow, it just about managed to remain open, against all odds.
Sage and Casimir did what they could to keep it going, endlessly overworked, but extra ideas like the walking tours were necessary for much-needed additional revenue.
At least the steady stream of tourists could be trusted to pay a visit, tempted in by the building’s beauty.
The pointed overhanging gables, tall chimneys and leafy pattern beneath the slate roof found themselves framed in pink blossom during the spring or gorgeous golden foliage when autumn began to glow like a lantern in Port Sylvan.
Like the rest of the town, the museum was something straight out of a storybook.
Sage scooped the hedgehog out of her pocket and examined it more closely, nose to snout. The treacherous creature may have threatened to expose her to a town full of non-wicchefolk, but it really was rather cute.
“There you are,” Casimir said. “I bought you the last croissant, before you accuse me of— What on earth is that?”
He stumbled out of the archive and into the foyer and froze in his tracks at the sight of Sage with her new friend. He removed his reading glasses and folded them over his pocket, as though he couldn’t quite get an accurate focus on the matter.
“A hedgehog,” Sage said.
“I see. And what exactly are you doing with a hedgehog, Specs?”
“Thought I’d take it for a walk.”
“Wouldn’t think he’s too thrilled about that. You should probably have left it alone.”
“Do you think?” Sage asked innocently, her voice an octave higher than usual.
“I’d say so. Unless, of course, you’re lying,” Casimir said, stepping closer, “and have in fact gone and transformed one of our dear neighbours into a woodland creature. But you’d never do such a thing, would you?”
Besides her siblings, the one person in Port Sylvan (of this physical, non-spectral plane, at least) who knew Sage’s well-guarded witch-shaped secret was, unfortunately, Casimir Everald.
“Incorrect,” Sage said, giving a grumpy sniff before adding, “It is in fact a transfiguration, not a transformation. And it’s not a neighbour.”
“Oh, but this is a result of your magic,” Casimir said smugly.
Sage noticed in her periphery that as her frustration at being called out rose, so did her hair. Her ginger spiral ringlets were getting tighter and tighter, curlier and curlier. She could always rely on Casimir’s lack of tact to make her curls spring.