CHAPTER NINETEEN
The summer heat abated at last and still Archie Walcott had not replied to Dot’s telegram.
When had he been due to leave for the Southern Archipelago?
Could her brother or parents have somehow intercepted the telegram?
Dot stood behind the bar in the Raven’s Attic, sorting packet spells, riddling it all.
Still, she could not bring herself to speak with her family; still, she could not cast a spell.
Theodora had tried almost everything to unblock her magic: chanting, chalk, meditation. The witch had even snuck up on Dot several times and tried to scare the magic out of her. All of it was to no avail.
When Dot had been in university, she used to tell herself that it was quite alright that she was not especially beautiful nor charming nor anything a young woman was supposed to be, because, instead, she was clever.
She had no friends, of course, but she was good at mathematics.
She could not converse with young men, but she could memorise long textbooks on the history of Alliaster; she could not be liked, but she could do puzzles; she could not be loved, but she could fix the radio.
But magic, it seemed, did not heed this logic and so Dot, heartbroken, muttered bitterly to herself as she sorted the spells. This was when Phillip, the barman of the Raven’s Attic, cleared his throat.
‘Excuse me?’
‘Phillip!’ she said, flinching. ‘Hello. Can I help with something?’
‘Well,’ said Phillip. He had sand-coloured hair and was only a few years older than her. ‘Minister De León is late on our wages.’
‘How terrible,’ said Dot, almost tipping over the box of spells. ‘I’ll ask her about it right away.’
‘Of course,’ said Phillip, trying to catch her eye. She deftly darted away, so he called, ‘Thank you ever so much, Miss.’
Dot hurried out, box in hand. Her life in Alliaster was beginning to exhaust her.
She had recently started working two nights per week in the Raven’s Attic in addition to her days in the tea shop and all of her studying; she drank her tonic three times per day, and on most weekends hardly had the energy to leave her bed.
At the club, she wore patent heels that she had ordered from a magazine.
She imitated with make-up the vampish look Theodora had given her the day she’d met the King.
Each evening, Dot wet a mascara block, stippled brown powder over her lids, smeared lipstick onto her mouth, and felt she was painting right onto her face the mask of exquisite femininity.
In the club, dowdy Dot from the seaside had never lived nor breathed.
There, she was Dot the mysterious, short-haired assistant to Minister De León.
No one spilled champagne on her. No one giggled at her with pity, and she relished it – until, of course, she climbed up the stairs from the Raven’s Attic, through the imperceptible portal and out onto the ground-storey landing of the tea shop, where she was simply her awkward, magic-less self.
Where she had tried to sit with Lio at breakfast and finally, for the first time, have a true conversation with him, only for it to go so terribly wrong. Dot grimaced at the memory.
What had begun as a gentle attraction to Lio was now blooming into a humiliating infatuation.
She shouldn’t like him: he was taciturn and irritable and Theodora really seemed to hate him.
Yet, there was something to him that struck a strange chord in her.
He was kind to the old ladies of the tea shop who flirted shamelessly with him.
He was fascinatingly thorough in how he washed the dishes and made tea for the customers and stacked the orders.
He moved beautifully, with a kind of elegance that was so rare in the men she had previously known, most of them factory workers or fishermen or her family.
Yet, she had made a promise to herself not to truly like him until she’d had at least one good conversation with him, and how had that turned out?
Dot groaned, the recollection so embarrassing it took a physical toll. She placed the box of packet spells upon the landing and rested for a moment on the tea shop floor.
‘Might you appreciate some assistance, Miss Dorothy?’
Belchamber was beside her. She made to take the box herself, but the little spirit scooped it up with his arms. Dot sighed. ‘Thank you,’ she said, and after a moment, they trotted slowly down the stairs to the basement workshop where she found Theodora and, unfortunately, Rupert.
All of the embarrassment from a few mornings ago flooded back. The boy’s success in magic. Her humiliating vacation of the table. Why did Rupert, of all people, have to see her shame?
‘I have some things I need from the market,’ said Theodora, holding up a list. ‘And the two of you—’ she glanced between Dot and Rupert ‘—are going to retrieve them for me.’
That afternoon, Theodora, Dot and Rupert stepped out of the portal and onto the busy thoroughfare for which the Market District was known.
‘I’ll walk you in,’ said the witch. ‘But once we’re there, I have some business and you’ll have to go on without me.’
‘We’ll manage,’ said Dot, and Rupert nodded.
But when Theodora stepped in front of them to avoid a gaggle of school children, Rupert shot Dot a look of utter despondence.
‘Excuse me!’ came a voice.
The three of them turned to see a greying police officer chasing after them. Before the officer even had time to explain that she had seen the portal, that it was her job to validate their right to use magic, that she meant no offence, Theodora produced three official licences of magic.
‘Ah,’ said the officer. She checked each for the King’s seal and then nodded. ‘Very good. On your way, then.’
‘What was my name this time?’ whispered Rupert, as they made their way through the crowd.
‘Elmer Allan James.’
‘And me?’ asked Dot.
‘Gladys Merrilies,’ said Theodora. ‘Really, I should be selling licences instead of packet spells. How many other people have access to the King’s seal? Imagine the money.’
‘How much money does a single person need?’ asked Dot jovially. ‘Surely between your work for the King and all the packet spell sales, you couldn’t possibly require more.’
Rupert rolled his eyes at her. Theodora smiled tightly, and Dot, confused by what small offence she had caused this time, fell silent, her chattiness extinguished once again by the sense that she had never in her life said a single thing right.
They trotted across the pavement and down a street of cream-coloured buildings that had lanterns strung between them like drying clothes.
At last, they came to a red brick building with square turrets and a sign above the door that read: Alliaster Central Market.
They entered and found themselves in a throng of spirits and shoppers – babbling, chatting, juggling produce and shouting over one another.
They passed a large spirit with a mottled face selling mushrooms. They passed a butcher who had climbed up on a step stool and was spruiking his smallgoods by yelling into a loudhailer.
Dot stumbled into a throng of Ghistian grandmothers and Theodora took her arm and tugged her out of the way.
‘Mind your feet,’ said Theodora. ‘Now, I’m off to find Casimir. We’ll meet back by the entrance in about an hour.’
‘Casimir?’ asked Dot.
‘A friend,’ said the witch.
Rupert snorted.
‘Mind your business, you,’ said Theodora, ruffling his hair.
‘Will do,’ said Rupert. He took the shopping list from her. Theodora disappeared into the crowd, her dark hair bobbling along until it was lost to the ocean of shoppers.
‘Shall we get the fish first?’ asked Dot.
‘And have it go off?’ asked Rupert, appalled. ‘You should always buy the fish and chicken last.’
‘Not in Seafarthing,’ said Dot. ‘The vegetables you buy depend on the fish.’
‘Well, we’re not in your little village now, are we?’
Rupert took off toward the mushroom seller and she had little choice but to follow.
They worked mostly in silence, the boy of not yet seventeen taking her to the cheesemonger, the flour miller, the egg purveyor, the greengrocer and the spice seller.
She paid for each item from Theodora’s borrowed purse and soon the small, black trolley Rupert wheeled behind himself was full of wrapped parcels.
Once or twice, Rupert had tried to begin conversation in an almost conciliatory way, as if he felt bad, but Dot ignored him.
‘Just the fishmonger’s left,’ said Rupert at last. She simply shrugged and followed on until they made their way to Oscarde’s Fine Imported Fish.
‘Good to see you, Master Armstrong!’
The grocer was a tall man with a wide belly. He glanced warmly at Dot and then back to Rupert. ‘What can I assist you with today?’
The name of whatever gutted marine creature Rupert was about to request was lost to the market air. The boy was staring into the crowd, his face drained of colour. He turned to Dot and hissed, ‘We need to leave.’
‘We can’t,’ said Dot. ‘We have to finish the list.’
‘Please—’
‘No,’ said Dot, ‘whatever it is, I’m sure you’re fine.’
And as she spat this, she heard the sharp edge of Willard’s voice escape her lips. Her hand flew to her mouth. She was about to apologise when a nasty shout cut through the throng of shoppers and market stall workers and startled them both.
‘Oi!’
A fierce Leithian woman, with red hair and freckles, in a cheap wool hat and a thin shawl was fighting through the crowd to get to Rupert.
Her face was drawn and furious and when she at last pushed through into the empty space before the fishmonger’s, she reached across and smacked Rupert with her purse.
‘Mum,’ said the boy.
‘Where in hell’s name have you been?’ hissed Mrs Armstrong at her son. The fishmonger busied himself with a bowl of anchovies. ‘It’s been two weeks since you’ve been home!’
‘Please don’t.’
‘Don’t?’ Mrs Armstrong glared at Dot. ‘Who’s this slut? How are you paying for her?’
‘Please,’ whispered Rupert. ‘Not here.’
‘Not here?’ scoffed Mrs Armstrong, and then she began in earnest. The woman, who could not have been yet forty, yelled at her son until she was red in the face.
While passersby stared or stifled laughs, Mrs Armstrong berated Rupert for his selfishness, his greed, his messy room and dirty socks and absolute abandonment of her.
She shrieked about his little brother, Finn, who had no one to teach him arithmetic, and his father, who had been skimping on his liver medicine to save the silvers and about herself, too, having to sew and darn until her fingers blistered, all to keep a roof over their heads because her good-for-nothing son was off gadding.
All the while, Dot, heart racing, was utterly unable to move.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Rupert over and over, ‘I didn’t mean to, I just—’
Mrs Armstrong slapped him hard across the face.
Dot’s paralysis broke.
In a rush of understanding, Dot saw everything she had hitherto missed.
The bruises. The nights he’d turned up at the tea shop late and slept on the sofa.
His desperation to learn magic. Dot watched the boy hunch his shoulders, drawing his body smaller and smaller, like a whirlpool collapsing into nothing – exactly like she did.
‘You’re a piece of work,’ spat Mrs Armstrong. ‘Look at me. What a waste you turned out to be. What, are you too good for us? Left us at last because you’re embarrassed?’
Rupert’s mother reached out to slap him again, but Dot stepped forward and swept the boy behind her. ‘You’ve no right to treat him that way.’
‘Don’t bother,’ whispered Rupert.
The defeat in his voice broke her a little more.
‘I’ve no right?’ Mrs Armstrong laughed. Off she went, mocking Dot, flinging insults at Rupert.
Cold fury bubbled in Dot’s belly. It lanced down her arms and hands, pulsing in her fingertips.
The markets around her fell away until all there was in the world was her anger.
Somewhere, faraway, she saw from the corner of her eye Theodora running for them. Rupert tugged at her arm.
‘What has he possibly done to justify this?’ cried Dot.
The stalls around them spun. Blots of darkness appeared in her vision.
Dot went on, louder. ‘Of course Rupert doesn’t want to go home, if this is how you treat him!
’ Waves of cold shot through her veins. ‘At least he’s nothing like you.
A grown woman, bellowing like a baby. You, Mrs Armstrong, should be embarrassed, you nasty woman. ’
Rupert’s mother lunged for Dot.
And just as the woman grabbed at Dot’s blouse, Dot’s magic exploded. Ice shot from her afflicted hand, blasting Mrs Armstrong away and into the crowd. The floor froze and the surrounding fish and produce were, at once, encased in ice.
‘Dorothy!’ shouted Theodora, at last flying to her side.
Dot began to scream. Her left hand burned with cold. She clutched it to her belly, doubling over. Theodora seized her and Rupert and tugged them into a portal. They fell through the whirling darkness and landed in the tea shop’s courtyard, their produce spraying all over the pavers.
‘Belchamber!’ shouted Theodora up at the house. ‘Bring all of Dorothy’s tonic!’
‘What’s happening?’ gasped Rupert.
Theodora seized Dot’s arm. ‘Her affliction is growing.’