Freezing Witches 1. Gloom

By W. F. Gadd

'Freezing Witches' is a magical tale of white witches, wizards and dark mystical powers controlled by evil death-dealing beings, so-named The Witches of Ice. Cordelia, Mer (her sister), Meryl, Delia, Persimmon and Maxim (an apprentice Wizard), become entangled in a life or death battle of survival over these evil frozen creatures. the outcome is shocking. It is suitable for readers from 8 to 800 years

• Language: English
• Publisher: W. F. Gadd
• Release date: Feb 25, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005196530

W. F. Gadd

Will Gadd was born and raised in the village of Cobham, in the county of Surrey, England.He later migrated to Australia where he currently lives. Will worked for many years in advertising as a copywriter and then expanded into concept design for both print and electronic media.He now runs his own fiction based writing group ('World Writers'), which can be found on the Meetup website. Alongside this, he's currently working on expanding the magical world featured in Freezing Witches.Thanks for reading.

Book preview

By William F Gadd

Copyright © William F. Gadd MMXXII

Illustrations Copyright © W. Gadd & Maxine Gadd. MMXXII

Editor: Emily Siggs.

Author’s Email: [e-mail]

Editor’s Website: https://artsfront.com/member/emily-siggs:63945-!tab=profile

ISBN-13: 978-1-005-19653-0

1 3 5 4 2

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this e-book.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or used from real-life situations. Proprietary products referenced to in this book have been used without permission. This work is previously published on various platforms as either Cordelia & Mer and the Witches of Ice, or as The Horrible Witches of Ice".

Preface

The seed for this peculiar story began countless blue moons ago. It is a magical tale of white witches, wizards and dark mystical powers controlled by evil death-dealing beings, so-named The Witches of Ice. It is suitable for readers from 8 to 800 years.

William F. Gadd, February 2022.

Dedicated to Sarah

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One. Peculiar

Chapter Two. Inconsequential Spells

Chapter Three. Nightshade Ball

Chapter Four. Witch School

Chapter Five. Market Daze

Chapter Six. Holiday Haunts

Chapter Seven. Wedding Belles

Chapter Eight. Underground Spells

Chapter Nine. All Hallows Eve

Chapter Ten. Unfair Funfair

Chapter Eleven. Forest of Gloom

Prologue

Once, once the

Holly tree dead

Twice, twice the

Briar claw sharp

Thrice, thrice the

Nightshade blood

First, first the

Awakening eye

Last, last the

Changeling froze

Death, death the

Friend inside.

Many hundreds of years ago, eight good, trusting and dearest friends invoked a most terrible spell.

They all lived together as a coven of witches in a stone dwelling deep in a forest, far away from prying eyes and minds. It was only there that they could practice the mysteries of witchcraft, safely hidden from a wisely mistrusting world.

Once in a while, though, these eight witches would venture out to nearby villages to sell herbs and welcome advice. Yet, those innocent dealings soon turned darker, offering not only cures for the ailing, but curses for their enemies too, which is what the coven always intended.

With powerful spell after spell, potion after potion, they became well known across the cold, miserable land.

Most of their magic worked, but there were certain times when it didn’t; and those times were shocking to say the least. Some who had requested a particular charm or a sip from a vile bubbling brew, would, without warning, endure unimaginable pain as their faces, arms, legs and torso blistered, shrivelled and buckled unto a twisted mess.

Their victims’ screams were horrendous, leaving the witches no other option but to flee from their crimes.

Eventually, the coven’s reign of misfortune became known everywhere; and instead of being welcomed, they were hunted down.

Upon brooms charmed and obedient, they frequently had to swoop and swerve back to their hidden retreat: miles upon twisted miles away from their baying bloodthirsty pursuers.

In only a few weeks, every village it seemed had built fire-stacks, drenched in pig fat with a stake at the heart waiting to burn each of them alive. The stacks were stuffed and ready with driest kindling covered with cowhide to fend off the rain.

In no time there wasn’t a village, market or fair they’d dare show their presence. So, they took to disguising themselves. This worked for some while, yet their magic became even more deadly and foul. Consequently, honest folk were forced to shun anyone not known to them. This caused much distress and unfair punishment to many a traveler, tinker, or wise-woman.

‘Sheep brained fools, the lot of them!’ scalded one of the eight witches during a particularly cold wet day of endless confinement.

‘It surely rains in my heart as well,’ she moaned, peering out of their one tiny window, and onto the dark soggy forest.

‘Heart’s blood!’ screamed another, ‘How this selfishly steals our freedom!’

‘We must implore something from hell,’ spoke a witch named Lavender, though very far from smelling as sweet.

‘Yes, my dears,’ she continued, ‘let us set a table of blood and skulls and lizard tongue potion so that we may curse unto curse ‘til the moon doth rise!’

The room filled with cackles and laughter as the eight went about their task.

Their chants began. The table moved and shook, candles came ablaze, thunder roared without. Then, something black and ghostly appeared above them. It circled the room.

‘What have we this day unleashed?’ worriedly asked Delphine.

The black swirling mist took form and made itself an arm with a hand, old and nails like claws. From these it offered a glowing rolled parchment and Lavender stood fearfully to snatch the scroll. The blackness disappeared and the eight gathered around to read the ancient words scratched into its ethereal skin.

They placed the open scroll before them on the table between man-skulls, worm piles and blood bowls; as well as wreaths of fresh cut nightshade, henbane, willow and putrid garlic. In one voice they chanted and chanted the strange words upon the glowing parchment.

Hours passed by and through weariness, their voices croaked and ceased. The candles finally spluttered and forsook their light. The moon, she had now risen high.

‘It works not!’ snapped Lavender, holding and waving her hands, seeing that she possessed no additional powers of hand or mind.

‘I neither,’ agreed another, placing an empty jug over her head to try see through it. She tripped and fell instead, breaking the jug, and nearly her head.

‘I have it; we need a girl!’ reasoned Primrose.

‘One who is young of years, yessss!’ cried the witch Hawthorne.

‘But, many would be better!’ added Lavender.

‘Yessss, my lovelies,’ sighed the witch Everlost, ‘let us then visit on the morrow, where such do gather, and we’ll take and wither their souls under a Yew tree, so that we should bring them hither to this place and better strengthen our hex.’

So on the following morning, the eight flew by broom to the village Oak-Over-Rye, and lurked by the village Maypole, where young folk do usually mischief and frolic.

The witches’ evil eyes and minds were soon rewarded and they gathered unto themselves by spell and charm all the young ones that suited their need. In a trance, the girls followed the vile witches home.

Back at their loathsome cottage their eight victims, one for each of them, had their souls wrested from them, leaving them to be at the mercy of the floating entity the witches had invoked to complete their spell.

Whereupon the dark swirling mist returned, gathering these innocent souls and using them to transform the eight vile creatures into something far, far worse.

As the deathly magic performed by the dark swirling spirit took hold, the witches bodies became frozen, each cracking and snapping until they were half their former size; and as dried as a lightening-struck carcass. The new forms of these eight foul witches then floated out of the cottage and up above the scurrying clouds.

They had become dormant, and would remain so until their chrysalis-like forms had been fully transformed. Unknown to them before they had commenced this wicked spell, their transformation would be slow and awful.

It would take many a year, many a decade, and many a century in fact, before complete. But, such endurance would thus grant each with extraordinary magical powers, well beyond those possessed by earthly witches and wizards.

Thus, the centuries duly passed, and only a few years ago, floating high above the dark clouds, their chrysalis skins finally split and ruptured to spew the eight transformed creatures; awake and death-hungry, upon an unfamiliar world of witches, warlocks and wizards.

The eight so renamed themselves as: Zylphoriah, Nithenamie, Kirku, Pheobeth, Estoriah, Myrithian, Zyliesiah and Horrolin.

Frozen they still were, yet animated; frozen to their very cores, though well able to see, move, and practice the most darkest forms of magic.

Now they had become reformed, they wanted what they felt was rightfully theirs. Enduring such a dire change of body and soul would have to be paid for, and the only ones qualified to repay them were those who practiced magic here on Earth, either innocent or powerful.

It had been two years since the frozen witches began their reign. In that time, they were fully industrious with their evil labour. They had built themselves palaces of ice to dwell in that floated well above the clouds we see.

Aside from this, they laboured incessantly upon the willpowers of several great witches and wizards to convert them to a new kind of witchcraft, but understandably, not one of them would choose to follow. So their powers of persuasion took on a more deadly earnest.

The terror and death left in this frozen wake was increasing day-by-day, hour by painful hour. And only one wizard refused to bow: Melchior Fizz.

He simply called them: The Witches of Ice.

The Main Characters.

Chapter One: Peculiar.

Summer had begun peculiar, and by the end of it, things weren’t much better. Take what happened down the road at a certain little shop in the old village of Lower Wyshing.

Mrs. Huggitt’s Last-Chance Shoppe of Magical Curiosities is a grand but somewhat tumbledown store. And, if you ever cared to visit, you’d certainly agree. Not grand in the sense of stunning architecture, clever lighting or the flow of majestic music proudly announcing how wonderful the place is. No, certainly not that kind of grand, but something much grander –it is a shop of wonderful and mysterious magic.

To the casual visitor, it is dusty, poorly lit, cluttered, and viewed from the road, precariously leaning over to one side. Yet, it is exactly this ramshackled appearance that attracts the eyes and minds of many a witch and wizard in the land.

Magical people fly to, or mysteriously appear, in her store, just to gawp or possibly buy anything from the most breathtaking collection of magical items in the world. Mrs. Huggitt is understandably proud of her grand little shop that leans to one side, and which doesn’t appear grand at all to most of the ordinary folk who wander past, or even enter.

But on one particular day, just after she’d finished an afternoon tea with her good friend and best customer, Mrs. Valerie Pitheringae, the shop seemed to suddenly lose its grandness. And, to make matters worse, Hilda Huggitt was immediately overcome with a strong feeling of anxiety.

She’d not felt this way before, and to her, even the wonderful pile of magical odds and sods, reaching well up to her marvellously cobwebbed ceiling, seemed especially dark and foreboding on that fateful afternoon.

Hilda was determined, though, not to let her feelings be known to Valerie, and, in a trembling sort of voice, responded to Valerie who was now holding up an item of great interest to her.

‘Ah, yes,’ said Hilda, straining to be positive, ‘that one is only £5.20, it’s on special; does the price suit you, dear?’

But, before Valerie had even agreed the cost, Hilda snatched it from her and began nervously wrapping the strange object.

Valerie noticed her fidgety attempt. ‘Everything all right Hilda dear? You seem upset.’

Hilda made no reply, continuing with her clumsy attempt at covering the object with fancy paper, and copious lengths of coloured ribbon, tied in an array of misshapen bows.

The magical item she had shakily wrapped was none other than an original Charmers’ Chest, and yes, it still had its small golden key, essential for it to turn on the charm.

No matter the foulest mood that the owner of this fine piece of magic machinery would be in, one twist of its filigree-rich key, and they would turn into one of the most charming persons you’d ever want to meet.

This inspired piece of mystical invention would certainly help Valerie, who wasn’t known for her diplomacy, especially in the genteel circles she mixed in. In fact, the chest was an absolute snip at the price. But this brilliant Charmers’ Chest with its amazingly low price, and how it would make Valerie actually appear charming, wasn’t important at all to Hilda for the moment.

Suddenly, she snapped.

‘Valerie!’ she gasped, ‘I must talk to you!’

‘But I thought you were!’ answered Valerie.

‘No, really talk to you,’ replied Hilda.

Her friend frowned at this, staring at Hilda with concern.

‘Go on,’ said Valerie as calmly as she could, ‘what’s on your mind?’

Hilda leaned over the counter, and in a secretive undertone, she asked, ‘Did you feel something just then, like the whole place becoming instantly depressing, as if there was no point to anything?'

‘And, have you wondered why just lately we’ve had difficulty unlocking any of those odd Witch-Whispers we chatted about –I mean not one of us could fathom them out!’ This time, her voice was as grave as the expression upon her face.

Valerie well knew the importance of a ‘Witch-Whisper’; the mysterious way of whispering a jumbled-up secret magical message, which becomes immediately recogniseable by the person they were destined for. They are whispered along witch-by-witch and warlock-by-warlock, until reaching the right person.

Yet, even though the witch-whispers correctly arrived at their nearby coven, not one of them could be translated, even by the correct recipient: that was very peculiar.

Hilda continued speaking very lowly, convinced someone unseen was overhearing every word.

‘I’m certain there’s something very sinister going on,’ she strained.

Valerie looked dumbstruck, but she wasn’t; and nodded thoughtfully in agreement. ‘Well, now that you come to mention it, I suppose I have.’

Her acknowledgement was met with a swift ghostly rush of cold air and distantly sighing voice. The disturbing sound sent a shiver down both their spines. It emanated from a tall dusty ebony-framed wishing mirror behind her.

The huge mirror, resting on the floor against a locked wardrobe, and with a faded sale-price ticket of just sixty-seven pounds, shook a little as if disturbed by a tremor.

The Wishing Mirror.

Both of them moved back, suspiciously looking around from side to side. The presence they felt was a lot stronger now, so both kept their voices low.

The hardly lit store, cluttered as usual with witchy curiosities, was empty of people, except for these two of course.

Hilda darted forward once again, eyes squinting and whispering; ‘Olivia couldn’t unlock any of her witch-whispers either. You know Olivia, dear! Olivia Jute, the lady we go weaving with Thursday nights! Come on, you must know her!’ she said accusingly, almost as if Valerie didn’t know whom they went spell weaving with on Thursdays, which naturally, she did.

Valerie looked stunned by Hilda’s outburst.

‘Oh sorry, forgive me for that rare bit of anger, dear,’ she offered. ‘I think I’m being badly affected by this disturbance in the ether.’

But Valerie, a tall overly particular type with fastidiously tidy clothing and sharp mind, who was also quite an experienced witch by all accounts, wasn’t really listening.

Instead, she now peered clear through Hilda’s pallid grey eyes, right through her brain and out the other side onto the tall wishing mirror behind. It was reflecting, through the leadlight dimple-glass window of Hilda’s shop, a sky unexpectedly thunderous and dark.

Vacantly, Valerie forgot her purchase, turned and walked, though to her it felt more like she’d floated, toward the shop door. She opened it, tripping the little customer bell which was occupied by a ghost named Cuthbert, and drifted out almost in a daze.

Hilda Huggitt looked on in surprise but wrote a docket for the woman’s peculiar purchase anyway, quite sure of her return.

‘I’ve added a few special charms with it too,’ she called as if providing Valerie with a temptation beyond refusal.

Outside, and standing gormlessly in the street, and lucky not to be run over by any passing cars, Valerie Pitheringae stared up at this now foreboding sky.

It was yet another indication, as Hilda Huggitt had reminded her, that things had been getting rather nasty lately in the world of witchcraft. Not only for these two, but most witches in fact, including her good friends the Merryspells.

Yes, something was definitely and seriously wrong. Spells were reversing, charms no longer charming, and innocent incantations leaving people in a terrible condition.

All across the country there were broken keepsakes, broken promises, broken bones and even broken spirits.

Yet, whilst Valerie in her long brown coat, garish silk scarf and pointless wobbly hat peered into this thunderous scene, a puff of light blue mist drifted in below the dark clouds above. Nothing particularly unusual about that in itself; until, that is, it took on the shape of her late Great Aunt Agatha, who’d passed away only days ago.

The apparition of her Great Aunt appeared angry, waving a cloud-like walking stick at her. Valerie stared up at her ghostly Great Aunt, almost in disbelief. Bravely, she spoke to her, not from fear you understand, but dread of getting an ear-bashing argument from this late and previously very intolerant relative; and that’s putting it nicely.

‘What’s that, Agatha? I can’t hear you, love; your voice is still on the other side. You’re very much in spirit dear… I’m happy, err, sad to say.’ Valerie bit her lip over this slip of the tongue.

Mrs. Pitheringae’s head was cranked so far back, her wobbly hat slid off, only to be saved from flying away into the stormy wind by her late Great Aunt still wielding that cloudy walking stick in a war-waging manner. With puckered lips Agatha blew the rescued hat back down to her.

‘Thank you, Aggy!’ yelled Valerie, knowing full well how much her passed relative disliked being called by this nickname.

Surprised though amused by the visitation, Valerie could only suppose Aggy’s angry appearance was because she’d placed far too few flowers on her grave during the recent funeral.

Mrs. Pitheringae muttered, ‘Flowers indeed! Serves the old goat right for being such a mean, cantankerous so and so.’

Ponderously, she watched the apparition of her Great Aunt gradually disappear from sight then walked back to Hilda Huggitt’s little shop of mystical peculiarities.

If that wasn’t enough, on the following night, past witching hour, young Cynthia Grosselearne, also a witch as well as a star pupil at a nearby college, distantly related to Mrs. Pitheringae, became convinced she’d spotted something moving about inside her tall bookcase in the corner of her bedroom.

The glass doors were open, which was odd as she usually kept them locked due to the disturbing contents of her many books on extreme magic.

Inside she could see a glow; and the more she looked, the more this glowing moved. It was as if the thing couldn’t settle. She knew it wasn’t her cat familiar playing in the bookcase though, because Duddles was outside the house, sitting on the window ledge, clawing and hissing at whatever weird materialisation had just taken place inside her room.

‘Odd, that,’ she breathed fearfully whilst staring at the bookcase from her bed. Cynthia dared not move; and anxiously gripped her drawn up eiderdown firmly between clenched teeth.

A few days later, something else peculiar happened. Henry Leaflove –apprentice warlock to old Florian Phumbleppot, a very experienced wizard indeed– as well as being a part time daredevil, awoke early one morning in a start. He’d just had a powerful dream that demanded immediate action, somewhere in a wood nearby.

He raced down the rickety back staircase of the rickety but hugely popular establishment, The Charming Crust Bakery; and once outside, Henry recited the few special words he recalled from the dream to his newly made and spell-woven broom. Then, he jumped on and soared above the dawn dark deserted streets of his village Whizz-on-the-Floss.

He arrived at goodness knows where deep in a blur and deep in woodland. Henry was utterly confused by his inexplicable venture, and stood stupidly in his pyjamas. OK, so they were his favourite pyjamas, black with a pattern of silver broomsticks and funny warlock hats, but totally embarrassing for him all the same –even in the middle of nowhere.

The apprentice warlock blinked a few times and looked about. Then, he noticed it; a tall strange-looking building with a pointed roof that rose up along with the tall trees.

It was the Merryspell cottage. This was very odd, as he’d never been to the Merryspells before.

But he did remember vaguely meeting them in this dream. And another thing that stuck in his mind; he needed to tell them about being handed a book made of ice: all very peculiar.

Yet, he couldn’t deliver his message; the place was absolutely deserted.

Through dirty and broken windows Henry cast his eyes around a dark neglected interior. He could barely perceive anything. Only some old threadbare furniture laced with grimy cobwebs, and what appeared to be dusty cauldrons hanging over a long dead fire in the hearth.

‘What am I doing at a derelict old house in the middle of nowhere?’ He questioned, ‘There’s something very freaky going on here!’

But the house wasn’t derelict. No, indeed not, not at all. You see the Merryspell Cottage had been enchanted to appear this way to deter unwelcome visitors. If the truth were known, the Merryspells had merely gone out for the day. Though, if he were more experienced at his craft, he’d have seen beyond this convincing enchantment.

Inside, the floors were actually polished, covered with a scattering of exotic rugs. The furniture was clean and well-loved, the hearth roaring with a welcoming fire.

The lad simply couldn’t see it, and dispiritedly flew back to his dingy flat above the Charming Crust Bakery, still mystified as to the purpose of his visit.

That night, when the Merryspells returned home, Mrs. Merryspell’s youngest daughter, Cordelia, sneaked down to her mother’s library of deep magic to find a gut wrenchingly good book on spells. Though, in truth, she was about to acquire a great deal more. As she recited a charm to overcome her mother’s unnecessarily punitive spell-lock; a magical lock to prevent nosy visitors just like her; Cordelia witnessed with astonishment a strange translucent book suddenly appear before her eyes.

Cautiously, she reached out and took hold of the glowing book. It was freezing cold, which made her hands tingle at the touch, yet she didn’t let go.

Cordelia just couldn’t resist opening this weird see-through oddity. Turning each of the ice-like pages carefully, as though they might snap with the lightest touch, she began reading the fragile book then and there. Cordelia quickly learnt that white witchcraft, and all of witchdom in fact, was on the verge of becoming embroiled in a terrible and utterly magic-shattering event, something that would change magic forever.

The book went on to reveal that the Witches of Ice, ruthless beings hell-bent on complete control of witchcraft, will soon rule witchcraft entirely. Not a single spell or witch, white or dark, would survive unless they gave their undying allegiance to the Ice Witches. If any refused, only death awaited them for opposing their evil intent.

Melchior Fizz, a formidable and incredibly inquisitive wizard, wrote this tell-tell book, and entitled it Out-Witching The Witches of Ice. The book was a wealth of uncovered truths and warnings about this future event.

By use of deep magic the wizard had caused it to materialise in countless bookcases of witches and wizards across the land, including Mrs. Merryspell’s, to alert everyone on the coming danger.

Someone’s bound to read it, someone’s bound to take notice, or so he thought.

So, carefully, Cordelia carried her newfound treasure up to her bedroom, hiding as best she could its intense green glow. The light was certainly bright enough to awaken anyone it may land upon.

As she read page after page, the more she read, the more she became intrigued; and the more she was inveigled by something very nasty. Worse still, the simple act of reading this alarming and somewhat treacherous book put her, her sister, and all their friends’ lives in peril as well.

Chapter 2: Inconsequential Spells

Despite the winter sun doing everything in its power to warm things up, the Merryspell cottage remained bitterly cold.

In a certain room of this old and peculiar cottage, things were even more chilling; dark magic was stirring.

Cordelia and her older sister Mer, who both happened to be young witches, were being severely punished. Their mother had grounded them indefinitely for something that wasn't really their fault.

So miserably, it has to be said, the two were sat in their study forced to read a particularly nasty book on how to be more obedient.

And, what they’d done to deserve this awful punishment had only helped the canker of evil that was already working against them. Their mother’s unfair retribution was in fact, because of the girls’, and particularly Cordelia’s, outrageous misuse of magic.

Against wise caution from her sister, she had encouraged them both to attempt a very powerful protection spell.

It somehow reversed, causing severe damage to everything around their cottage. Worse still, its unpredicted explosion of fire and ice had resulted in the loss of several priceless family relics of witchcraft that simply disappeared into a cloud of ice-blue smoke, including, it must be admitted, a relic that would have gone a long way in saving them both from the predicted catastrophe.

Their mother was hopping mad. And Cordelia’s explanation that the wizard Melchior Fizz had strongly advised using the spell against "the coming danger of The Ice Witches", in his mysterious book Out-Witching The Witches of Ice didn’t help.

Mrs. Merryspell had scoffed at her plea, despite being shown the ice-like curiosity. Instead, she harshly confiscated the strange book, barking, ‘You’ve gone too far this time, and your nonsense stops right here!’

So, for punishment on this freezing winter’s day, the witches were each condemned to reading from a particularly heavy looking volume on discipline.

Even as they studied, the evil in the cottage was already taking hold of their destiny, eating away at their freedom second-by-second, charm-by-charm.

After several hours of tiresome reading, their yawns occasionally broke the peace of utter quietness. This yawning though soon evaporated into thin air returning the room to excruciating silence and hard study. Except for yawns, the creaking of their chairs, and the sporadic turn of a page or so, neither made hardly a noise. They wouldn’t dare.

The afternoon sun had lazily, incredibly lazily, moved the shadow of cobweb curtains and other items across their study at an agonisingly slow speed. The two had watched this subdued drama happen without even a murmur, which was quite an achievement.

For Cordelia the approaching turmoil for witchcraft was simply a thread of thought, like so many other threads tangled throughout her mind.

Melchior’s previously confiscated book Out-Witching The Witches of Ice was proving to be quite a headache to take in. So, in a way, this punishment, although undeserved in her mind, was a welcome break from reading such a direful work.

Mercifully, their stringent mother was out visiting Mrs. Pitheringae; and had left Meldrick, a strange ghoul, half-ghost half-real, to keep watch over them. But, inexplicably, and rather fortunately to Cordelia, he’d gone missing.

‘Psst…Mer, can’t we cast a small spell or something…cheer the place up a bit?’

Cordelia’s impatient whisper echoed around the room and across the long table, now deep in shadow. Her warm breath formed a tiny cloud of vapour, which she arranged into the shape of a puppy seeking attention.

‘Nobody would ever find out!’ she added.

‘No!’ snapped Mer sharply. ‘I told you before, spells are strictly forbidden, so keep quiet or we’ll be in even more trouble. And, stop using magic on your breath too.’

‘But Meldrick has gone!’ returned Cordelia more enthusiastically.

‘I don’t care,’ answered Mer, ‘he’ll probably be back any second.’

With that, she returned to reading the book chosen by her mother.

The work they were forced to study was thoroughly recommended for all wayward witches; Prunella Primm’s The Young Witch’s Guide to Becoming Sensible.

It’s a truly dreadful book. Even looking at it would be enough to scare any poor child witless. Thrusting out from its front cover is a realistic cast of Prunella’s grim face, showing every disconcerting detail. Upon her accurately portrayed and outrageously protruding nose, loosely rests a pair of jewel incrusted gold-rimmed spectacles.

And woe betides anyone, either daring or foolish, who tries removing them, perhaps, for example, to attempt selling the glasses for a small fortune at a nearby pawnshop. It’s a trap, with a real shock in store for those that try.

This despicable work by Prunella is painful in the extreme. Simply a casual glance at the chapter titles would be daunting for anyone no matter how tough they pretend to be.

Chapter One: Knuckling Down to Hard Work

Chapter Two: Obedience is Your Master

Chapter Three: Accepting Punishment Gladly (Smiling Through the Pain)

Chapter Four: Talking Out of Turn (And What You Can Be Turned Into For Doing So)

Chapter Five: The Pleasure of Studying for Hours

Chapter Six: Tedious & Tidy (Two of Your Best Friends)

Chapter Seven: