Neil Gaiman: M Is For Magic

He took a step toward her, in that tiny room, and she put her cold hand on his forehead. It felt like a wet silk scarf against his skin.

“Now,” she said. “Perhaps I can do a good turn for you.”

And with that, she began to mutter to herself, mumbling words that Bod could not make out. Then she said, clear and loud,

“Be hole, be dust, be dream, be wind,

Be night, be dark, be wish, be mind,

Now slip, now slide, now move unseen,

Above, beneath, betwixt, between.”

Something huge touched him, brushed him from head to feet, and he shivered. His hair prickled, and his skin was all gooseflesh. Something had changed. “What did you do?” he asked.

“Just gived you a helping hand,” she said. “I may be dead, but I’m a dead witch, remember. And we don’t forget.”

“But—”

“Hush up,” she said. “They’re coming back.”

The key rattled in the storeroom lock. “Now then, chummy,” said a voice Bod had not heard clearly before, “I’m sure we’re all going to be great friends,” and with that Tom Hustings pushed open the door. Then he stood in the doorway looking around, looking puzzled. He was a big, big man, with foxy-red hair and a bottle-red nose. “Here. Abanazer? I thought you said he was in here.”

“I did,” said Bolger from behind him.

“Well, I can’t see hide nor hair of him.”

Bolger’s face appeared behind the ruddy man’s and he peered into the room. “Hiding,” he said, staring straight at where Bod was standing. “No use hiding,” he announced loudly. “I can see you there. Come on out.”

The two men walked into the little room, and Bod stood stock-still between them and thought of Mr. Pennyworth’s lessons. He did not react, he did not move. He let the men’s glances slide over him without seeing him.

“You’re going to wish you’d come out when I called,” said Bolger, and he shut the door. “Right,” he said to Tom Hustings. “You block the door, so he can’t get past.” And with that he walked around the room, peering behind things, and bending awkwardly, to look beneath the desk. He walked straight past Bod and opened the cupboard. “Now I see you!” he shouted. “Come out!”

Liza giggled.

“What was that?” asked Tom Hustings, spinning around.

“I didn’t hear nothing,” said Abanazer Bolger.

Liza giggled again. Then she put her lips together and blew, making a noise that began as a whistling and then sounded like a distant wind. The electric lights in the little room flickered and buzzed. Then they went out.

“Bloody fuses,” said Abanazer Bolger. “Come on. This is a waste of time.”

The key clicked in the lock, and Liza and Bod were left alone in the room.

“He’s got away,” said Abanazer Bolger. Bod could hear him now, through the door. “Room like that. There wasn’t anywhere he could have been hiding. We’d’ve seen him if he was.”

“The man Jack won’t like that.”

“Who’s going to tell him?”

A pause.

“Here. Tom Hustings. Where’s the brooch gone?”

“Mm? That? Here. I was keeping it safe.”

“Keeping it safe? In your pocket? Funny place to be keeping it safe, if you ask me. More like you were planning to make off with it—like you was planning to keep my brooch for your own.”

“Your brooch, Abanazer? Your brooch? Our brooch, you mean.”

“Ours, indeed. I don’t remember you being here when I got it from that boy.”

“That boy that you couldn’t even keep safe for the man Jack, you mean? Can you imagine what he’ll do, when he finds you had the boy he was looking for, and you let him go?”

“Probably not the same boy. Lots of boys in the world—what’re the odds it was the one he was looking for? Out the back door as soon as my back was turned, I’ll bet.” And then Abanazer Bolger said, in a high, wheedling voice, “Don’t you worry about the man Jack, Tom Hustings. I’m sure that it was a different boy. My old mind playing tricks. And we’re almost out of sloe gin—how would you fancy a good Scotch? I’ve whiskey in the back room. You just wait here a moment.”

The storeroom door was unlocked, and Abanazer entered, holding a walking stick and a flashlight, looking even more sour of face than before.

“If you’re still in here,” he said in a sour mutter, “don’t even think of making a run for it. I’ve called the police on you, that’s what I’ve done.” A rummage in a drawer produced the half-filled bottle of whiskey, and then a tiny black bottle. Abanazer poured several drops from the little bottle into the larger, then he pocketed the tiny bottle. “My brooch, and mine alone,” he mouthed, and followed it with a barked, “Just coming, Tom!”

He glared around the dark room, staring past Bod, then he left the storeroom, carrying the whiskey in front of him. He locked the door behind him.

“Here you go,” came Abanazer Bolger’s voice through the door. “Give us your glass then, Tom. Nice drop of Scotch, put hairs on your chest. Say when.”

Silence. “Cheap muck. Aren’t you drinking?”

“That sloe gin’s gone to my innards. Give it a minute for my stomach to settle….” Then, “Here—Tom! What have you done with my brooch?”

“ Your brooch is it now? Whoa—I feel a bit queasy…you put something in my drink, you little grub!”

“What if I did? I could read on your face what you was planning, Tom Hustings. Thief.”

And then there was shouting, and several crashes, and loud bangs, as if heavy items of furniture were being overturned…then silence.

Liza said, “Quickly now. Let’s get you out of here.”

“But the door’s locked.” He looked at her. “Is there something you can do to get us out?”

“Me? I don’t have any magics will get you out of a locked room, boy.”

Bod crouched, and peered out through the keyhole. It was blocked; the key sat in the keyhole. Bod thought, then he smiled momentarily, and it lit his face like the flash of a lightbulb. He pulled a crumpled sheet of newspaper from a packing case, flattened it out as best he could, then pushed it underneath the door, leaving only a corner on his side of the doorway.

“What are you playing at?” asked Liza impatiently.

“I need something like a pencil. Only thinner…” he said. “Here we go.” And he took a thin paintbrush from the top of the desk, and pushed the brushless end into the lock, jiggled it, and pushed some more.

There was a muffled clunk as the key was pushed out, as it dropped from the lock onto the newspaper. Bod pulled the paper back under the door, now with the key sitting on it.

Liza laughed, delighted. “That’s wit, young man,” she said. “That’s wisdom.”

Bod put the key in the lock, turned it, and pushed open the storeroom door.

There were two men on the floor in the middle of the crowded antique shop. Furniture had indeed fallen; the place was a chaos of wrecked clocks and chairs, and in the midst of it the bulk of Tom Hustings lay, fallen on the smaller figure of Abanazer Bolger. Neither of them was moving.

“Are they dead?” asked Bod.

“No such luck,” said Liza.

On the floor beside the men was a brooch of glittering silver; a crimson-orange-banded stone, held in place with claws and with snake heads, and the expression on the snake heads was one of triumph and avarice and satisfaction.

Bod dropped the brooch into his pocket, where it sat beside the heavy glass paperweight, the paintbrush, and the little pot of paint.

“Take this too,” said Liza.

Bod looked at the black-edged card with the word Jack handwritten on one side. It disturbed him. There was something familiar about it, something that stirred old memories, something dangerous. “I don’t want it.”