Chapter 11 All Aflutter #2
There was another hiccup from the next boy, who was wearing a cardboard knight’s helmet that was far too big for his head. Seconds later, rainbow wings sprouted and began to tug him off the floor. He didn’t even flinch and continued vigorously bashing a foam sword at the book box.
Another high-pitched hiccup came from the wand station. Then another, combined with a sneeze from the colouring corner and one more from somewhere near the coat hooks.
“You’re the smart one around here. With a particular set of special skills for these sorts of circumstances,” Casimir said. “I’m assuming you know exactly what we do next in this extremely normal, unconcerning situation?”
“Me? I thought we’d established long ago that any matters regarding the general public were down to you?”
“Normally, yes, but I would say that perhaps this particular plot twist calls for…you know…a little of the M-word?” Casimir nodded with wide, open eyes.
That was enough to bring Sage firmly back down to earth. Her smile dropped. “No,” she hissed.
Casimir stared at her, stunned, then craned his neck towards the teachers at the front of the museum.
“I don’t think they’ve noticed anything yet.
Mrs. Gregory has gone to speak to the bus driver, and some little angel has had a nosebleed, which is keeping Miss Mellor occupied.
We can only hope he’s not floating away from the paper towels.
We’ve got a matter of minutes to get this under control. ”
“Oh, I am all ears as to how you plan on solving this one,” Sage whispered.
“Don’t mention ears,” Casimir hissed back before pulling himself together.
“Okay, gang, do you know what would be such a fun way to finish our adventure today?” Casimir said, raising his voice to call the children over to the corner.
“If we all sat on the carpet—very, very firmly on the carpet—and had one last story together.” He flung out his left arm to tug the boy knight back down to earth by his jumper while his right extended to push down the shoulder of a little girl at his side who was quickly heading towards the ceiling.
Sage did a quick count. A grand total of nine…
ten…eleven children were officially airborne and flapping around the museum, some more in control of their newly grown wings than others.
The rainbow wings were as thin as flower petals and shimmering with iridescence.
They caught the spotlights in pinks, blues and yellows and sent the finest dusting of glitter over everything below.
Casimir groaned. “Not on my cashmere…” He tugged an impressive four school jumpers back to the carpet and stretched for a fifth, who was beginning to show signs of hovering. “Miss Hemlock, any assistance when you’ve finished having a nervous breakdown would be much appreciated.”
The girl from the writing table had floated her way on top of a cabinet and was swinging her legs off the side while she happily watched the scene below.
Sage forced herself out of her horrified trance, bolted for the book box and cleared her throat.
“Once upon a time…” she said loudly, opening a picture book.
It was enough to commandeer everyone’s attention back towards her.
“Oh, this is my favourite. I love this story, it’s the very best one there is.
But before I tell you the rest, I’m going to need everyone sitting nicely on the carpet, as good as gold.
” She was slightly alarmed by her teacher voice, which sounded horrifically adult, but it seemed to be working.
All wings twitched in her direction. A few seconds later, even the most gravity-defying of children had landed back on the museum floor to listen.
While Sage read the story, Casimir wandered between them all, occasionally giving one of them a gentle push back down to the carpet when their attention began to wander.
In the dim lighting, among the fancy dress outfits that the children were already wearing, the addition of real wings wasn’t even all that noticeable.
And mercifully, the wings seemed to fold in on themselves when the children were concentrating.
Sage racked her brain for a quick-stop solution.
There had to be something she could dredge up from her limited witchery practice to quell this.
It was highly risky and almost entirely speculative, but what choice did she have?
The key seemed to be keeping the children focused and eliminating their need to fly…
well…away with the fairies. There was a small, understated concentration spell that she faintly remembered being interested by in the earliest days of her magic.
She had thought it would come in handy for looming exams. Nothing sinister, very limited room for danger, it simply heightened curiosity and fascination with a book, making for more productive reading and studying. It would have to do.
“Foci Verba,” she muttered under her breath.
A ribbon of burgundy magic wrapped itself around the storybook between her hands, and a perfectly quiet blanket of concentration seemed to spread over every little face looking up at her.
The small gesture would hold everything together for now but would wear off gradually in its own time when they had either resolved this mess or driven a getaway car off into the sunset.
“Oh, look at this perfect class!” Mrs. Gregory said in a sing-song voice as she returned inside to find every child enraptured and not a single pair of wings to be seen. “It looks like you have everything wonderfully under control! We’ll have to come back soon, won’t we?”
“We no longer offer school visits,” Sage said immediately.
“What my delightfully curmudgeonly colleague means to say,” Casimir said with a dazzling smile, somehow still pulling out his usual charm, “is that it’s been our pleasure. We’ll just go and prepare the party bags for everyone to take home.”
As the children began to gather their belongings, Casimir pushed Sage into the archive and bolted the door. He steadied himself with a calming breath.
“Nice little spell, there. Took you long enough,” he said, tension in his jaw.
Sage stuck her nose up in the air. “I haven’t the faintest idea what you mean. None of this has anything to do with me.”
“You mean to tell me that you don’t believe any of that”—he gestured emphatically out to the children—“is magic? You’ve admitted it yourself for weeks: It’s growing wilder and wilder.
They were flying, Sage. Fairies! One of those kids just wore the lampshade as a hat.
I saw it with my own eyes! You can’t blame the Celebration Committee for this one. ”
Sage folded her arms and shrugged. The tops of her shoes were suddenly fascinating.
“I know there’s something you’re not telling me.
” He sounded exasperated, maybe even a little cross.
“I was willing to go along with the charade this morning to stop you spiralling. I know that increasingly misbehaving magic is the exact opposite of what you need, and I didn’t want to add to the panic. ”
“You don’t know that it’s magic causing this.”
“Your house? My shadow? Now literally flying children?” He lifted her chin with a finger and stubbornly stole the eye contact she was determined not to give him. “Specs, you cannot tell me that magic is not at play.”
“Then I shan’t tell you anything.”
“You are too stubborn for your own damn good.”
Sage rolled her eyes reluctantly. “All right, I suppose there’s a very, very small chance that it might be magic.”
“And what else?”
“What do you mean?” Sage snarled, nose in the air.
Casimir sighed and leaned back against the bookcase, crossing his arms and scooting a foot up the frame. “Sage Hemlock, I have known you far, far too long for this game. You are incapable of keeping secrets; your pretty face betrays you every time.”
“It’s the book,” Sage blurted out. She sighed, annoyed with how quickly she always bent to him.
“I thought we agreed that it wasn’t definite, likely nothing.”
“Yes, yes, I know we did. But now I suspect that in fact it may be…something. A rather large something.”
“A something you’d like to share with the class?
Speaking of which, we should probably check that they haven’t all taken off again out there.
” He quickly crossed the back room, unlocked the door and poked his head around it.
A rush of noise flooded in. Cas sighed with relief.
“They’re all still earthbound, starting to board the bus and absolutely fascinated by the contents of those party bags.
It’s loud and chaotic enough that no one will notice if there’s a leprechaun or two among them. ”
“It was a concentration spell, enough to hold down the fort. They’ll only want to read more when they get home. Fortunately, children are known to be very calm around magic anyway. They won’t even bat an eyelid and the wings will disappear. Eventually. In time. Surely…” Sage insisted. “I think.”
Casimir returned to her side and raised one lazy eyebrow. “So…the book. Tell me what happened.”
Sage deliberated on how much to say, irritated that it was literally impossible for her to ever, ever keep a secret from this man who knew her far too well. She removed her glasses, breathed onto the lenses and began to clean them on the untucked tail of her shirt.
“It transpires that it could be some kind of…magical text after all.” She shrugged. “An active one at that.”
“And how do you know that, exactly?”
She pressed her lips together in a firm line. “There may have been a slight mishap when I opened it last night.”
“Sage!” Casimir looked incredulous. He took a step closer, towering over her. “You mean to tell me that this really is a genuine spell book? And it’s activated some kind of real spell?”