Abby the Witch Read online

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Abby the Witch

  Copyright © 2009 Odette C. Bell

  Smashwords Edition

  Abby the Witch

  Odette C. Bell

  Chapter 1

  The clouds rolled above, grey and magnificent, like the dirty bow of a great ship sailing overhead. The huge shadows they cast ran across the port and shaded the solid beams of wood to a dark brown. Ships gently swayed in the circling waters of the dock, the lap of the water against their hulls like a wet knock at the door.

  The slap of boots against the sodden wooden beams mixed with shouts and the growing whistle of the wind. Men with broad shoulders and stiff necks sprinted between the docked ships, tying down ropes and tightening knots.

  'Get up there!'

  'You! Get over to the Pembrake!'

  'Where's the Dock Master?'

  'Quick now!'

  The inhabitants of Bridgestock were calling it the storm of the century, seeing in those tumbling clouds such a foreboding menace that windows were being taped shut and doors propped closed. The deep rich colour of the clouds was not the only cause for worry; along the headland, rattling through the streets and up the hill of the city, rushed a chaotic wind. It shook signs violently, brought branches crashing from trees, and sent buckets, plant pots, and anything not tied down tumbling through the streets.

  With ferocity like that, this storm had to be bad.

  From across the street, adjacent to the port, shoppers stopped to stare at the frantic work of the wharfies. Old ladies, their baskets laden with bread and fruit, arched their necks towards the swaying ships, casting their wizened eyes towards the sprinting clouds. Two old men hastily packed away their card table and, with shakes of their heads, hurried indoors. A greengrocer recruited a passing friend to help him pack away his glistening vegetables, offering a free pumpkin for a quick hand.

  Windows and doors were being closed and lights were flickering on. The greengrocer handed over the pumpkin and took a moment to stare at the sky. He whistled and, tucking his cap further over his head, retreated inside.

  Though the city of Bridgestock no longer accepted witches, its inhabitants could not help but be reminded of an old witch proverb. Storms change things; and the bigger the storm, the more it changes – whatever you don't hold on to, you will lose to the wind and rain. Of course, the Bridgestockians took this to mean that their windows would be broken and their frontages dented from hail. But the proverb had a much deeper meaning. A storm could certainly break a window, but it could also break a destiny, especially one that was not properly tied down.

  It was only midday in the city of Bridgestock, but the town was already growing dark.

  Abigail Gail, Abby for short, bucked the trend. As people ducked their heads against the wind and hurried up the avenues leading away from the port, she walked towards it. In a billowing patchwork skirt and a thick black top, she dodged the people by walking half in the gutter, a broomstick held in one hand and a basket of cloths, soaps, and sponges in the other. Beside her, up on the pavement, trotted a little black cat. The cat had a clearly imperious look glinting in its golden eyes.

  'You don't have to look at me like that, Charlie,' Abby said under her breath, not turning around. 'A job is a job.'

  The cat flicked its tail twice.

  'Do you want to eat tonight, or what?' Abby ducked to the side as a large man rushed past offering her an odd look which she ignored.

  Charlie kept trotting forward but turned his head towards her and twitched his whiskers.

  She laughed lightly. 'Well at least we can eat tonight,' she replied softly, 'which is a relief.'

  Abby was a slim girl, some would say painfully thin and on that she would agree. It was not a fashion choice, but a result of her even slimmer money purse. Her eyes were grey, her hair a crinkly sandy-blond mess. Her body was always swamped under the clothes that she wore. She never bothered to take them in, hoping that some day she might be able to fill them out again.

  She had a young face, though it was always set with a melancholic frown that added years on. She would aim for a severe, perhaps strict grimace, but she could never make her eyes glare right – so she'd end up with a nervous, somewhat sad look. But that was the same with anything Abby did – she would try for something and end up getting something else entirely. She would want something, but always receive the opposite. It was almost as if lady luck was scowling so hard at Abby, that she would be doomed to misfortune for the rest of her life. It was inexorable almost, inescapable definitely – for Abby's destiny simply was not a fortunate one.

  Abby and Charlie walked past a grand old building set into the wall and dodged past the people milling around the doorway watching the ships sway under the swathe of grey cloud gathering overhead.

  'Excuse me,' Abby tried to duck around a group of men that had chosen that moment to pour out of the two swinging doors. They were all dressed in Royal Navy uniforms and were thin-lipped with worry.

  'Sorry, love,' a large man apologised as he bumped into her, almost knocking her backwards.

  'Oh,' Abby somehow righted herself and tried to dodge around him, but soon found herself in a sea of men all pouring out of the doors. She ground to a halt, Charlie tucking in behind her legs to prevent himself being trampled.

  'Coming off the headland – did you hear the guy in the bar? Said he'd never even heard of wind like that before. '

  'Flattened several fishing ships out in the deeps this morning, and it's only getting worse.'

  'God, look at those clouds!'

  'You hear what the old sea dog was saying in there? Said a storm like this changes destinies, what you reckon he meant by that?'

  'I reckon he meant he wanted another beer.'

  Abby had no choice but to listen. She was stuck right in the middle of what felt like an entire ship full of sailors. Their worried, wavering words were bouncing around like the roiling clouds above.

  'Okay, okay,' a deeper, more officious tone blared from somewhere near the doors, 'save your doomsday talk,' the owner of the voice seemed to be pushing forward.

  He must be an ogre, Abby thought, or a troll to make headway through this throng of huge men so easily. For her it was like being packed into a tin full of burly, stripy-uniform clad sardines. It didn't help that Abby stood a full two heads shorter than most of the men, though they did provide an excellent windbreak.

  The sailors obviously couldn't see her or thought she was some kind of peculiar patchwork growth on the sidewalk. She could feel Charlie start to fret behind her and half wanted to grab her broomstick and just rise up above the throng like a feather caught in an updraft.

  That would not be popular though.

  Someone pushed through the men in front of her and came to a sudden stop, just as Abby had her face to the sky, shooting a longing look at the mob-free air above her.

  'Do I know you?'

  Abby snapped her gaze down and blinked. Suddenly everyone had turned to look at her. If she had been invisible before, she was now a giant black dot on pure white paper.

  'Abby,' she squeaked a little too quickly.

  The man in front of her, dressed in a crisp white uniform looked sideways for a moment. She guessed he was from the South Islands with his darkly tanned skin and muscular build. He had green eyes though, so somewhere in there he must have been Westland or Northland heritage. She deduced he was the one in charge, what with the three brass bands neatly shining on his collar and the way he had passed through the tightly packed crowd with ease. And she also guessed, with a tiny little gulp, that 'Abby' wasn't the answer he was looking for.

  For a mom
ent the skin on the back of Abby's neck prickled the way it always did before she expected something. It was a witchly sense she could always count on, for Abby's neck always seemed to know what would happen next. Whoever this man was, her neck appeared to be telling her, he was important.

  'Excuse me?' he cocked his head to the side, his pale green eyes thin slits of bewilderment.

  'I'm stuck,' Abby pointed to herself for some reason. 'I… can't get past…' she tried to look anywhere but at the man in front of her. Her mind was racing through the set of possibilities as to why this man, who she had never met before, could possibly be making her neck itch so exquisitely.

  'Oh,' the confusion lifted from his face, replaced with a kind, broad smile. 'Please excuse us, Abby.' He stepped back and turned around to address the men surrounding them. 'Alright, get off the pavement, guys; you're blocking it up.'

  His words were like a magic icebreaker, tearing the throng of sailors asunder. Abby turned to walk away and finally made full eye contact with the man, he was looking at her with narrowed, but friendly eyes, almost as if he had seen her somewhere before. But he quickly looked away and the tingle on Abby's neck passed, as if it had never been at all.

  She hurried forward. It was like coming out into the light after being stuck in the deepest of caves. Men parted before her like curtains furling back from a window.

  A touch of embarrassment warmed her cheeks as she walked through the last dregs of the crowd.

  'Sorry, Abby,' several sailors called as she passed.

  'Sorry, ma'am.'

  'Yeah, sorry about that.'

  'Why are you carrying a broom?' One of the last sailors said to her. 'Anyone would think you were a witch.'

  It was always the same. Always the same. A stab of panic arced across her chest and she snapped her shoulders in, as if making herself a smaller target. She gripped onto her broom until her fingers threatened to shatter the wood into a thousand splinters. 'I'm a window cleaner,' she muttered without looking back.

  'Pearson,' she heard the man in charge snap. 'You're out of line.'

  'I'm just saying what we're all thinking, sir. The Colonel tells us to be alert.'

  'Well the Colonel isn't your Commander – I am.'

  'But he'll be King soon.'

  'And I'll still be your Commander,' the man said one final time.

  Within moments she had left the group behind, though she did turn one last time to catch a glance of the man who was apparently a commander and almost definitely the cause of her still rather prickling neck. He did meet her eyes, and his glance was no longer friendly. Whether he thought her to be a witch or not, it was plain that even the idea of it disgusted him. Which was the standard reaction of any Bridgestockian.

  Still, for some reason, Abby felt disappointed at this reaction. She couldn't tell why, but now her neck was tingling like a thousand ants were dancing across the skin. Something was wrong about this situation….

  She glanced down at Charlie when they were far enough away: his tail was still a shock of erect fur. 'That was close,' he said through gritted teeth. 'Home. Now.'

  Abby breathed into a smile. It was always that way, but, no, it hadn't really been close. There were no pitchforks for one, no burning torches. No one had tried to tie her up and thrown her off a cliff or lock her in a cave with a monster. They hadn't threatened to go and call the Palace authorities and have her dragged before the Queen. They hadn't even tried to break her broom.

  That had not been close. But yes… it had been unnerving. Because witches in Bridgestock were banned and its citizens brought it upon themselves to enforce that ban and shun all that even looked remotely witch like.

  Such was Abby's life.

  Abby had moved to this city with the kind of innocence only a newly proclaimed witch can embody. She'd barely been 18. Sure, she'd heard the stories, heard the rumours that, in some parts, witches had become unpopular, something to do with an assassination that had led to a royal decree. But Abby hadn't really believed the stories. No one could really hate witches, because they were just so darn useful! In her own village, high amongst the mountains of the Eastland, witches had been revered. Baskets of bread, fruit, and honey had been left at her door the day she'd lifted her first curse, not a burning bottle of alcohol.

  Witches cured, healed, blessed, and protected. What wasn't to like? How could a witch have anything to do with an assassination? Who would even believe that?

  Abby did not remember fondly her decision, or lack thereof, to come to Bridgestock. It had been on her first day as a fully fledged witch, when she had still been keen about being given her 'area', her territory to set up and become the resident witch of. She'd thought she'd get somewhere nice and close, somewhere local, perhaps within an easy broom’s flight of her parents.

  But, no, the Crone had had something special for her.

  Once a witch was given her territory, she was supposed to be bound to it for life. It would become her lifeblood, her reason for living. It was a witch’s duty to care for her hemlock, town, vale, or city, to ensure its history would be great and yet good. But unfortunately, as she was going to find out, her area would have a festering wound in its side, something horrible that had changed its history and usurped its people, turning them bigoted, aggressive isolationists – and that ever-fresh wound was the Witch Ban. And, if it was a witch's duty to ensure that her city remained on a path of good, then how in the pleck was she supposed to change the Witch Ban? How in the world could she care for a town that shunned her very existence?

  Abby had not known then how very impossible her task would be

  If Abby had had a choice in the matter, or knowledge of the Ban and its effects, she would never have come. But Abby was too young and naive to know of the Ban, and incapable of picking her own territory anyway. A witch’s territory was decided for her by the senior witch of the coven – the Crone.

  In Abby's case it was Ms Crowthy. Ms Crowthy had pulled her aside at the clan meeting and peered at her for a good minute through the moonlight.

  'Something special for you, Miss Gail. Yes, I think you need something different, something difficult.'

  Abby had stared back, stared right into the railroading gaze of the Crone. A stupid thing to do, really; you don't meet the eyes of a fully-fledged crone without the protection of a half-metre of frosted glass. She'd had a headache for at least a week afterwards.

  'You got a problem, young Abby: your destiny ain't in these hills, and it ain't an easy one. I consulted the waters this morning when I was drawing up the assignments… I saw something interesting about you, very interesting. There was a storm in my tea cup, child, and I'd say there's a storm in your future too. One of them big ones. I saw my tea leaves beating around in that cup all wild and loose, and I said to myself this has something to do with young Abby. You're all loose, child, you need to be tied down to something concrete, something hard. Your destined even, I think.'

  Abby had just nodded. A skilled witch didn't need to look at the way the tea leaves settled in the bottom of an empty cup to read the future. If she knew her trade, and the Crone was the best witch in all the mountains, then she could just look at the way the leaves floated to pique her second sight. It was in the way they moved. You can't predict the movement of time by staring at a stationary object, at least not effectively. The gushing waters of a stream, the whipping clouds above, the way a scarf floats to the ground – these were far more effective. After all, telling the future isn't so much about what happens, but how it will happen.

  So Abby had sucked in her lips and directed her frightened eyes just over the Crone's shoulder. Whatever she was going to be told would have to happen.

  'You are going away, Miss Gail.'

  'Away?' Abby had shot a hesitant look at the other young witches still milling about the fire and chatting. 'Where?' Away sounded like it would be at least a day's broom flight, she'd thought.

  'Bridgestock City, on the north coast of the Westlands.'
>
  'Ha?' That had been the best thing Abby could think of at the time. She had a vague idea of geography. There was her mountain village, then the several villages around her, then a couple more that were really far away. Westlands, she'd heard from the baker's daughter, was at least as far as the ends of the Earth, if not further.

  'I'll give you a map, child, to help you find it.'

  Gosh, it sounded like it would be at least two day’s solid flying, Abby had thought through a large gulp.

  'Now I'd only fly at night, and keep yourself high so as to avoid unwanted attention from rambling villagers.'

  Three day’s flight then?

  'You take that Charlie with you; you'll need a good head up around your shoulders, even if it isn't your own.'

  Four days?

  'Now as soon as you get down from the Mountains, I suggest you book yourself a ticket on the train, dear. It's quite a penny, but you'll be too tired to fly all that way. I've left the money at your mother's – don't go spending it on herbs and lucky charms, you hear?'

  Abby had nodded dumbly, her brain giving up on measuring her impending journey in broom-flight days.

  'Now when you get to Bridgestock you'll have to make your own way setting up your business and all. The last witch there… well…ain't there no longer. And they haven't had one in those parts for a good long year. Don't let that put you off. Persist, child, they'll need you soon enough. You'll have something very important to do in that city, something big. You'll be stopping something, I shouldn't wonder, and fixing something, and making somethings never be entirely. And that should be a lot of hard work.'

  Abby had listened in a daze as the Crone had filled her in on various other details of what to do in Bridgestock. Abby's brain had closed down for the most of it, and even now, with the benefit of actually living in Bridgestock, she still couldn't remember half the advice. Most of it had been along the lines of stay away from boys: boys in taverns, boys on the ports, boys on the streets, and, above all, boys in competition for your affection. There's nothing worse than a love triangle – love's never meant to be geometric.