Rosen is part of a team of Material Practitioners (that’s a ‘witch' without the religious bit), engaged in house restoration, protection, and charmwork—or, more accurately - hexwork and brickwork. She’s uncovered a disturbing pattern of ground ripples across the South West that resembles an earthquake - except nothing this powerful has been reported.
Read (for free) from the beginning here.
Did you know that the UK gets around 300 earthquakes a year? I didn’t! Earthquakes happen in Japan or the USA. Not stuffed-sack UK.
Most are too mild for us even to notice. And very few surpass six on the Richter Scale, which is when you get property damage.
“Are you sure?” I asked again, for the fourth time. What Em proposed strayed into conspiracy theory.
Em shrugged. “Show me something else that fits this pattern. Something strong enough to break 168 homes in the past year without alerting the Geological Survey people.”
Mike frowned. “Misfired spell?”
“Nope. I keep telling you: it’s too big.”
Mike leaned over to top up her wine glass. “You say that, but you were the one who turned the Goddess Well into a Smurf cauldron a few years back.”
Em bristled, ready to retort. I hastily held up my hand before they threw any more half-referenced insults. “Smurf cauldron?”
Mike refilled his glass. “Small, blue cartoon creatures. I think they were based on forest imps.”
“No …I know what they are. I don’t understand why anyone would create a Smurf spell.”
Em groaned and dropped her head in her hands. “A mistake. I went along as a guest to a ritual in the Goddess Gardens at Glastonbury and cast a new moon blessing on their well.”
I gave her the side—eye. “An open blessing? You told me never to do that.”
“Yeah. This is one of the reasons why.”
I leaned back in my chair, enjoying Em’s discomfort. “Did you get Smurfs popping out?”
“Worse,” Em moaned. “Everyone who touched or drank the waters for the next month turned blue. It was the second calendar moon in the month, so when I asked for its attributes…”
“…you Smurfed everyone!” I finished laughing.
Em waved a hand, taking my humour in her stride. “It took ages for the spell to wear off, but it does help my theory.” She pointed at Mike. “The covens can’t do it alone, but enough belief, correctly harnessed, would shift the earth.”
“Faith can move mountains,” Mike murmured.
“Or dragons,” I said tongue-in-cheek. We were on the second bottle of wine, and everyone was being too serious.
“Way above our pay grade,” Em said with a genteel burp.
“And they don’t exist,” Mike added, getting up to wash the dishes from our evening meal.
“A lot of things didn’t exist a decade ago,” Em retorted. She gripped the empty wine bottle in both hands and muttered an incantation. The glass crumpled like paper.
*
Sion Hill was a stately corner home in Bath, built in the 1800s when on-street parking meant somewhere to hitch your horse. Mike had the modern equivalent with his road hog, and I waited for him to adjust it between two parked cars. Mike nodded towards the house. “You’re about to get the best view in the city on that rooftop,” he said conversationally.
I stared up at the grey slate roof. “Not many attic windows up there.”
“Well, it is a Grade Listed building,” Mike chirped. “With some nice frescos. So don’t damage it.”
“I read Latika’s briefing notes,” I grumbled. “What about the ghost?”
Mike pulled his workbag from the bike’s pannier. It had an eclectic mix of DIY and witch tools, and the two frequently crossed over. Why bother with a wand when you can get the same effect with a screwdriver? It drove the more traditional magicians mad, which is part of why Mike did it.
“I’ve got chalk, herbs and a weft-web from Em,” he said, striding towards the front door. “Nothing that will leave permanent marks.” He rapped briskly on the door.
After a moment’s silence, we heard the heels click on a stone floor. A whippet-thin woman in office attire opened the door. “Sue from Moreton’s Estate Agents,” she said, shaking Mike’s hand. “We spoke on the phone, Mr Williams.”
Mike smiled genially, and in the next few minutes, there was a blizzard of paperwork, credentials, and identity checks in the hall’s foyer.
“Sorry about this,” said Sue, sounding the opposite of apologetic. “But we can’t take risks.”
“We understand,” Mike said with a flirtatious twist. “Rosen is our binding expert; she needs access to the windows frames and attic. Meanwhile, I need you to guide me to the ghost’s last location.”
“Drawing room,” Sue said. She pointed up the curved staircase. “Rosen, keep going up until you reach the second bedroom on the second floor. There’s a hatch with a pull-down ladder there. I’ll come and find you after I’ve helped Mr Willilams.”
Mike smiled at her, causing her cheeks to flush. “Call me Mike,” he purred, layering on the charm. I quietly shook my head at him from behind Sue’s back. It wasn’t fair to lead the poor woman on. Mike knew full well Em would eat him, her (and me!) alive if he ever cheated.
“I’ll seal the windows first, then do the attic,” I said, biting my tongue.
“Good luck,” Mike replied before sweeping the befuddled agent down the hall.
*
The house was exquisitely laid out, but the attic was just as dusty as every other place. I stuck on my kneepads and head torch and shuffled along, weaving strands of magic across the ceiling. You can’t ‘fix’ a roof magically from the inside – you need a professional roofer to nail the tiles on - but you can strengthen and insulate it. By the time I had finished, three hours later, the eaves were two degrees warmer and nothing except a bomb would shift it again.
I shuffled around awkwardly and froze.
A wizened old man with over-large eyes sat opposite me over the hatch. He wore an open-necked shirt and trousers, but the details were blurred, as though the artist had got bored. He looked as solid as me, but the eyes were the giveaway.
“Mike!” I shrieked.
The man started to crawl forward at inhuman speed.
“Mike!” I screamed again, this time with more feeling. My bag was in the bedroom below, and I had nothing to combat the ghost.
Before it reached me, I flung myself backwards, crabbing away at high speed. I had one hand pushed into my jeans pocket, looking for anything I might have missed or forgotten. At this point, I would’ve even taken one of Latika’s crystals.
The ghost reached my feet, its jaw unhinged like a B-movie effect.
My hands closed over my keyring, and with a sob, I thrust them into its face. Cold needled my knuckles, and my fingers grew numb. The spectre screamed.
Trembling, I raised the keys and tokens like a makeshift shield. After one more moment, the ghost collapsed, and I heard the thump of feet running up the stairs from below. I wiped my eyes and took a shuddering breath just before Mike’s head appeared in the hatch.
“Rosen! You, OK?!”
“Ghost,” I said, shivering. “At-tt-tempted t-takeover.”
“Shit. Wait there.”
There was another thump, and then Mike was next to me with a blanket and a wreath of fresh rosemary. The first went around my shoulders and the second on my head. I looked ridiculous, but I didn’t care. I held my hand to the light and flexed the white fingers until my blood flowed back into the limb.
“A genuine attempt,” Mike said, shocked.
“It’s an old one,” I replied. “It’s done this before.”
Mike nodded, his eyes darting around the attic. “My wards flushed it out, but your magic sealed it in. It probably thought body-snatching was its best bet. How did you hold it off?”
I fumbled for my keyring and shook it in his face. “Thank goodness for tat, eh?” I said, trying not to dissolve into hysterics. “Mum got me that small iron cross from Ireland last year as a joke, and John gave me that silver initial for a birthday one year.”
“Lucky. From now on, you carry proper protection into any haunted property, right?”
I nodded, still cold. “Got it. Where’s the estate agent?”
“She had to pop out. I’m not worried about Sue – ghosts rarely target normies for takeovers. There’s not enough power to feed off.”
Shivering, I crawled to the trapdoor. “I was an inch away from being a ghost battery, Mike. We need John and Em here for this one.”
Mike stayed silent, which meant he agreed with me and, more unnervingly still, tried to help me down the steps. I slapped him away, but he still hovered protectively as we reached the ground floor.
“I’ll grab my kit,” Mike said. “Keep the wreath on.”
“Yes, Dad!” I mocked in an attempt at normalcy.
I heard the clatter and slide of high heels from behind me. It was Sue coming out of the kitchen.
“All done?” she asked brightly.
“Not quite,” I said, clutching my blanket like a shawl. Sue had let a breeze in. “We will need to come back. The ghost was stronger than expected.”
Sue nodded, unconcerned. “Will it be soon?”
“Definitely,” I agreed, snapping off the word. The chintzy voice was getting on my nerves.
Mike stepped back with a comforting hand on my shoulder. “It won’t cost you anything extra, but we must return with our colleagues to exorcise your spirit. The normal techniques won’t work on it.”
“Exorcism seems a little extreme, Mr Williams,” Sue said, her smile turning fixed.
Mike carefully slid around my body until his bulk was in front of mine, “It’s necessary in this case, pet”, he said, studying her with quiet intensity.
Sue’s face contorted, and for the second time in an hour, I heard the ghost scream again as its energy pulse rushed towards us. Mike’s arm whipped up, and I saw the soft edge of blue wool in his fist before the sound stopped. Mike grunted, moving with a boxer’s speed and grace in a tight square as he tucked the weft-web around the struggling spirit.
I moved around him, careful not to touch the web, and led the shaken estate agent back into the kitchen. The fact she was still walking was a good sign.
“What was that?” she blurted out.
I pulled off my blanket and draped it over her shoulders. “You were possessed,” I explained.
We heard Mike swear a fluent litany of curses from the hallway as he forced the spirit into a large mason jar. Sue jumped.
“It’s OK,” I soothed. “We’ve caught it now.”
How?” she asked, still shaken. I nodded towards Mike, who had just entered the room with the sealed jar.
“A crochet net of spells with small silver bells,” he said, placing the jar on the table. It didn’t look like anything from the outside – just a tangle of blue wool shoved into the jar. “My wife was being fanciful when she made it at the weekend.”
Sue’s face fell slightly. “I didn’t know you had a wife.”
Mike gave her an awkward smile. “That’s how I know you were possessed. You didn’t flirt back. Reading body language is a basic precaution in my line of work.”
“Oh.”
I gave silent thanks that we wouldn’t have to return after all.
Ooh! That was scary!
Good and scary!