Witch Week Page 6

  Nan sighed and put the encyclopedia back. When the bell rang, she went slowly to the classroom to do the work that had been set during the day. It was called devvy at Larwood House; no one knew why. Everyone else was there when Nan arrived. The room was full of the slap of exercise books around Brian Wentworth’s head and Brian squealing. But the noise stopped as Nan came in, showing that Mr. Crossley had come in behind her.

  “Charles Morgan,” said Mr. Crossley. “Mr. Wentworth wants to see you.”

  Charles dragged his mind with a jolt from imaginary flames whirling around him. He got up and trudged off, like a boy in a dream, along corridors and through swinging doors to the part of the school where teachers who lived in the school had their private rooms. He had only been to Mr. Wentworth’s room once before. He had to tear his mind away from thoughts of burning and look at the names on the doors. He supposed Mr. Wentworth wanted him because of his beastly shoes. Blast and magic Dan Smith! He knocked on the door.

  “Come in!” said Mr. Wentworth.

  He was sitting in an armchair smoking a pipe. The room was full of strong smoke. Charles was surprised to see how shabby Mr. Wentworth’s room was. The armchair was worn out. There were holes in the soles of Mr. Wentworth’s slippers, and holes in the hearthrug the slippers rested on. But the gas fire was churring away comfortably and the room was beautifully warm compared with the rest of school.

  “Ah, Charles.” Mr. Wentworth laid his pipe in an ashtray that looked like Brian’s first attempt at pottery. “Charles, I was told this afternoon that you might be a witch.”

  5

  CHARLES HAD THOUGHT, in the locker room, that he had been as frightened as a person could possibly be. Now he discovered this was not so. Mr. Wentworth’s words seemed to hit him heavy separate blows. Under the blows, Charles felt as if he were dissolving and falling away somewhere far, far below. He thought at first he was falling somewhere so sickeningly deep that the whole of his mind had become one long horrible scream. Then he felt he was rising up as he screamed. The shabby room was blurred and swaying, but Charles could have sworn he was now looking down on it from somewhere near the ceiling. He seemed to be hanging there, screaming, looking down on the top of his own head, and the slightly bald top of Mr. Wentworth’s head, and the smoke writhing from the pipe in the ashtray. And that terrified him too. He must have divided into two parts. Mr. Wentworth was bound to notice.

  To his surprise, the part of himself left standing on the worn carpet answered Mr. Wentworth quite normally. He heard his own voice, with just the right amount of amazement and innocence, saying, “Who, me? I’m not a witch, sir.”

  “I didn’t say you were, Charles,” Mr. Wentworth replied. “I just said someone said you were. From the account I was given, you had a public row with Nan Pilgrim, in the course of which you spoke of worms and dead mice, and a number of other unpleasant things.”

  The part of Charles left standing on the carpet answered indignantly, “Well I did. But I was only saying some of the things she said at lunch. You were there, sir. Didn’t you hear her, sir?” Meanwhile, the part of Charles hovering near the ceiling was thanking whatever lucky stars looked after witches that Mr. Wentworth had chanced to sit opposite Nan Pilgrim at high table.

  “I did,” said Mr. Wentworth. “I recognized your reference at once. But my informant thought you were reciting a spell.”

  “But I wasn’t, sir,” protested the part of Charles on the carpet.

  “But you sounded as if you were,” Mr. Wentworth said. “You can’t be too careful, Charles, in these troubled times. It sounds as if I’d better explain the position to you.”

  He picked up his pipe to help him in the explanation. In the way of pipes, it had gone out by then. Mr. Wentworth struck matches and puffed, and struck more matches and puffed. Smoke does not seem to mean fire where pipes are concerned. Mr. Wentworth used ten matches before the pipe was alight. As Charles watched, it dawned on him that Mr. Wentworth did not think he was a witch. Nor did Mr. Wentworth seem to have noticed the odd way he had split into two. Perhaps the part of him hovering near the ceiling was imaginary, and simply due to panic. As Charles thought this, he found the part of him near the ceiling slowly descending into the part of him standing normally on the carpet. By the time Mr. Wentworth risked putting his pipe out again by pressing the matchbox down on it, Charles found himself in one piece. He was still fizzing all over with terror, it is true, but he was feeling nothing like so peculiar.

  “Now, Charles,” said Mr. Wentworth. “You know witchcraft has always been illegal. But I think it’s true to say that the laws against it have never been as strict as they are now. You’ve heard of the Witches’ Uprising of course, in 1789, under the Archwitch Dulcinea Wilkes?”

  Charles nodded. Everyone knew about Dulcinea. It was like being asked if you knew about Guy Fawkes.

  “Now that,” said Mr. Wentworth, “was a respectable sort of uprising in its way. The witches were protesting against being persecuted and burned. Dulcinea said, reasonably enough, that they couldn’t help being born the way they were, and they didn’t want to be killed for something they couldn’t help. She kept promising that witches would use their powers only for good, if people would stop burning them. Dulcinea wasn’t at all the awful creature everyone says, you know. She was young and pretty and clever—but she had a terribly hot temper. When people wouldn’t agree not to burn witches, she lost her temper and worked a number of huge and violent spells. That was a mistake. It made people absolutely terrified of witchcraft, and when the uprising was put down, there were an awful lot of bonfires and some really strict laws. But you’ll know all that.”

  Charles nodded again. Apart from the fact that he had been taught that Dulcinea was an evil old hag, and a stupid one, this was what everyone knew.

  “But,” said Mr. Wentworth, pointing his pipe at Charles, “what you may not know is that there was another, much more unpleasant uprising, just before you were born. Surprised? Yes, I thought you were. It was hushed up rather. The witches leading it were all unpleasant people, and their aim was to take over the country. The main conspirators were all civil servants and army generals, and the leader was a cabinet minister. You can imagine how scared and shocked everyone was at that.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Charles. He had almost stopped being frightened by now. He found himself trying to imagine the prime minister as a witch. It was an interesting idea.

  Mr. Wentworth put his pipe in his mouth and puffed out smoke expressively. “The minister was burned in Trafalgar Square,” he said. “And Parliament passed the Witchcraft Emergency Act in an effort to stamp out witches for good. That act, Charles, is still in force today. It gives the inquisitors enormous powers. They can arrest someone on the mere suspicion of witchcraft—even if they’re only your age, Charles.”

  “My age?” Charles said hoarsely.

  “Yes. Witches keep on being born,” said Mr. Wentworth. “And it was discovered that the minister’s family had known he was a witch since he was eleven years old. A lot of research has been done since on witches. There are a hundred different kinds of witch-detectors. But most of the research has been towards discovering when witches first come into their powers, and it seems that most witches start at around your age, Charles. So, these days, the inquisitors keep a special eye on all schools. And a school like this one, where at least half the pupils are witch-orphans anyway, is going to attract their notice at once. Understand?”

  “No, sir,” said Charles. “Why are you telling me?”

  “Someone thought you recited a spell,” Mr. Wentworth said. “Think, boy! If I hadn’t happened to know what you were really saying, you’d be under arrest by now. So now you’ll have to be extra specially careful. Now do you see?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Charles. He was almost frightened again.

  “Then off you go, back to devvy,” said Mr. Wentworth. Charles turned around and trudged over the threadbare carpet to the door. “And Charles,” called Mr.
Wentworth. Charles turned around. “Take a black mark to remind you to be careful,” said Mr. Wentworth.

  Charles opened the door. Two black marks in one evening! If you got three black marks in a week, you went to Miss Cadwallader and were in real trouble. Two black marks! Both for things which were not his fault! Charles turned around while he was closing the door and directed the full force of his nastiest double-barreled glare at Mr. Wentworth. He was seething.

  He trudged up the corridor to the swinging door, still seething. The swinging door swung as he reached it, and, to his surprise, Miss Hodge came through it. Miss Hodge did not live in school. As Estelle had speedily found out and told everyone, she lived with her old father in town. She was not usually here in the evenings at all.

  “Charles!” said Miss Hodge. “How convenient! Have you been seeing Mr. Wentworth?”

  It did not occur to Charles to wonder how Miss Hodge knew that. In his experience, teachers always knew far too much anyway. “Yes,” he said.

  “Then you can tell me which his room is,” said Miss Hodge.

  Charles pointed out the room and applied his shoulder to the swinging door. He had just forced his way out into the corridor beyond, when it swung again and again let Miss Hodge through.

  “Charles, are you sure Mr. Wentworth was there? He didn’t answer when I knocked.”

  “He was sitting by his fire,” Charles said.

  “Then perhaps I knocked at the wrong door,” Miss Hodge said. “Can you come and show me? Would you mind very much?”

  Yes, I would mind, Charles thought. He sighed and went back through the swinging door with Miss Hodge. Miss Hodge seemed pleased to have his company, which surprised him a little.

  Miss Hodge was thinking how fortunate it was she had met Charles. Since the afternoon, she had been thinking carefully. And she saw that her next and most certain move towards marrying Mr. Wentworth was to go to him and impulsively take back her accusation against Charles. It was unpleasant to think of anyone being burned, even if Charles did have the most evil glare of any boy she knew. She would look so generous. And here she was, actually with Charles, to prove she bore him no malice.

  Charles looked at Mr. Wentworth’s name on the door and wondered how Miss Hodge could have gotten the wrong room.

  “Oh,” said Miss Hodge. “It was the right door. That’s his name.”

  She knocked, and knocked again, with golden visions of her romance with Mr. Wentworth growing as, together, they tried to protect Charles from the clutches of the inquisitors. But there was no answer from the room. She turned to Charles in perplexity.

  “Maybe he’s gone to sleep,” Charles said. “It was warm in there.”

  “Suppose we open the door and take a peep?” Miss Hodge said, fluttering a little.

  “You do it,” said Charles.

  “No, you,” said Miss Hodge. “I’ll take all responsibility.”

  Charles sighed, and opened Mr. Wentworth’s door for the second time that evening. A gust of cold, smoky air blew in their faces. The room was dark, except for a faint glow from the cooling gas fire. Even that vanished when Miss Hodge imperiously switched on the light and stood fanning the smoke away from her.

  “Dear, dear,” she said, looking around. “That man needs a woman’s hand here. Are you sure he was here, Charles?”

  “Just this minute,” Charles said doggedly, but horror was beginning to descend on him. It was almost as if Mr. Wentworth had never been. He walked over to the bald patch of carpet in front of the fire and felt the fire. It was quite hot. Mr. Wentworth’s pipe was lying in the pottery ash-tray still, and that was warm too, but cooling in the icy air from the open window. Perhaps, Charles thought hopefully, Mr. Wentworth had just felt tired and gone to bed. There was a door in the opposite wall, beyond the blowing curtains of the window, which was probably the door to his bedroom.

  But Miss Hodge boldly walked over and opened that door. It was a cupboard, stuffed with schoolbooks. “He didn’t go this way,” she said. “Has he a bedroom along the corridor, do you know?”

  “He must have,” said Charles. But he knew Mr. Wentworth had not gone down the corridor. He could not have come out of this room without Charles seeing him as he went to the swinging door, or Miss Hodge seeing him as she pushed past Charles the other way. There was only one other possibility. Charles had looked daggers at Mr. Wentworth. He had given him his very nastiest glare. And that glare had caused Mr. Wentworth to disappear, just as Dan’s running shoes had disappeared. It was what they called the Evil Eye.

  “I don’t think there’s any point in waiting,” Miss Hodge said discontentedly. “Oh well. I can speak to him tomorrow.”

  Charles was only too glad to go. He was only too glad to accompany Miss Hodge down to the door where she had left her bicycle. He talked to her most politely all the way. It kept his mind off what he had done. And he thought that if he talked hard enough and made himself truly charming, Miss Hodge might not realize that Charles had been the last person to set eyes on Mr. Wentworth.

  They talked of poems, football, bicycles, the caretaker’s dog, and Mr. Hodge’s garden. The result was that Miss Hodge mounted her bicycle and rode off, thinking that Charles Morgan was a very nice child once you got to know him. It made it all the better that she intended to withdraw her accusation against him. A teacher, she told herself, should always try to get to know her pupils.

  Charles puffed out a big sigh of relief and trudged off again, weighted with new guilt. By the time he reached the classroom, nearly all the others had finished their work and were trooping off to choir practice. Charles had the room to himself, apart from Nan Pilgrim, who also seemed to be behindhand. They did not speak to one another, of course, but it was doubtful that either did much work. Nan was thinking miserably that if only she was a witch like Dulcinea Wilkes, she would not mind what anyone said. Charles was thinking about Mr. Wentworth.

  First the birds in music, now Mr. Wentworth. Being invisible to the senior didn’t count, because no one knew about that. What terrified Charles was that he would seem to keep using witchcraft by accident, where it showed. If only he could stop himself doing that, then he still might have a chance. Miss Hodge might give him an alibi over Mr. Wentworth, if he went on being nice to her. But how did you stop yourself working magic?

  “This has been an awful day,” Nan said, as she packed up to leave. “I’m so glad it’s nearly over.”

  Charles stared at her, wondering how she knew. Then he packed up and left too. He was very much afraid that today was not over for him yet, by a long way. He had heard the inquisitors usually came for you in the night. So they would come for him, as soon as someone discovered Mr. Wentworth was missing. Charles thought about Mr. Wentworth all the time he was washing. He had rather liked Mr. Wentworth on the whole. He felt very bad about him. Perhaps the way to stop himself doing it again, to Mr. Crossley or someone, was to think hard about how it felt to be burned. It would hurt.

  It hurts to be burned, he repeated to himself as he undressed. It hurts to be burned. He was shivering as he climbed into bed, and not only from the cold air in the long Spartan dormitory.

  Brian Wentworth was being beaten up again a few beds along from him. Brian was crouching on his bed with his arms over his head, while Simon Silverson and his friends hit him with their pillows. They were laughing, but they meant it too. “Show off!” they were saying. “Bootlicker! Show off!”

  Up till then, Charles had always been almost glad he was in this dormitory, and not in the one next door like Nirupam, where Dan Smith ruled with his friends from 6C and 6D. Now he wondered whether to sneak off and sleep in the lower school boys’ playroom. Brian’s yells—for Brian could never be hit quietly—kept cutting through Charles’s miserable meditations and reminding him what he had done to Brian’s father. It grew so bothersome that Charles nearly got out of bed and joined in hitting Brian too, just to relieve his feelings. But by this time he had gathered the reason for the pillows. Mr. Brubec
k had asked Brian to sing a solo at the school concert, and Brian had unwisely agreed. Everyone else knew that it was Simon’s right to sing solo.

  This meant that hitting Brian would be sucking up to Simon. That Charles would not do. He went back to his desperate wonderings. There was no way of keeping Mr. Wentworth’s disappearance secret that he could see. But there was quite a chance that no one would realize Charles had done it. So, if only he could think of some surefire way of stopping himself working magic by accident—that was it! Sure fire. It hurts to be burned.

  Charles got out of bed. He unhooked his glasses from his bedrail, hooked them on his ears, and thumped across to the flurry of pillows.

  “Can I borrow the emergency candle for five minutes?” he said loudly to Simon.

  Simon of course was dormitory monitor. He paused in belaboring Brian and became official. “The candle’s only for emergencies. What do you want it for?”

  “You’ll see if you give it to me,” said Charles.

  Simon hesitated, torn between curiosity and his usual desire never to give anyone anything. “You’ll have to tell me what you want it for first. I can’t let you have it for no reason.”

  “I’m not going to tell you,” said Charles. “Just give it to me.”

  Simon considered. Long experience of Charles Morgan had shown him that when Charles said he was not going to tell, nothing would make him tell, not pillows or even wild horses. His curiosity, as Charles had hoped, was thoroughly aroused. “If I give it to you,” he said righteously, “I shall be breaking the rules. You owe me compensation for risking getting into trouble, you know.”

  This was only to be expected. “What do you want?” said Charles.

  Simon smiled graciously, wondering how great Charles’s need was. “Your pocket money every week for the rest of term,” he said. “How about that?”

  “Too much,” said Charles.