K. Mills - Witches incorporated

Now Monk was looking put out. “What better things?” he muttered. “It’s not like you’re solving the great metaphysical mysteries of our time, are you?”

Which was exactly the wrong thing to say. Melissande, wincing, debated pitching the remains of her dinner roll at him. Bibbie didn’t bother debating, she just went ahead and threw her untouched bread, hard.

“Hey!” said Monk indignantly as the missile whizzed past his head to explode in a shower of crumbs against the peeling-papered wall behind him. “Don’t do that!”

“I’ll do it if I want!” Bibbie retorted. “Every time you say something horrible I’ll throw something at you, I swear. Starting with bread rolls and working my way up to-to elephants! You’re just like Aylesbury, Monk. You’re as bad as Great-uncle Throggie, and if you think I’m going to sit here and-”

“Deary, deary me,” said Reg, sidling closer along the back of her chair. “I suppose this brings back fond family memories, does it?”

Melissande spared her a sharp glance. “No.”

But of course it did. Well. Memories, anyway. Most of them… difficult. Dinner in New Ottosland’s palace with Lional and Rupert, so often a volatile affair. Of course, then it had been Lional doing the throwing and the shouting with Rupert ducking and herself cast in the thankless role of peacemaker. Usually with very little success.

She felt her insides squeeze tight. Lional.

Enough time had gone by now that she could get through two or three whole days at a stretch without once thinking of him. Guilt and regret ambushed her less frequently. But the pain was still there, buried deep and lingering. She thought it might never completely go away. She wasn’t sure if she wanted it to. If the pain went away it might take Lional with it.

And whatever else he was… whatever he became… he was my brother and part of me still loves him. Still wants to love him.

Which was, perhaps, the hardest thing of all to reconcile.

Bibbie and Monk were still spatting, dredging up nursery-tales of cross and double-cross, of who got the biggest scone at tea-time and who was never allowed to stay up late on Fireworks Night and who really put the fizzing incant in Nanny’s sugar bowl which led to everyone getting spanked.

It was all so very silly.

Melissande picked up her nibbled dinner roll, pulled it in half and took aim at her business partner and her business partner’s brother, who was also her young man. At the moment. More or less. Sometimes, it seemed, far less than more. His Research and Development work for Ottosland’s government tended to swallow Monk alive, and hardly ever spat him out again. And even when they did spend time together, a part of his attention was always… somewhere else. Off in the ether. Reg called it the peril of being involved with a genius. For herself, she preferred to call it tactless.

She tossed the bread.

As one, brother and sister turned on her. “Don’t do that!” they chorused, and even though Bibbie was magnificently fair-haired and Monk was dashingly dark, they were in that moment of unified outrage as alike as two peas in a dilapidated pod.

“Why not?” she demanded. “You’re carrying on like five-year-olds, the pair of you, so why should I be left out? What are you fighting over, anyway? Monk’s already got a housekeeper, Bibbie.” She looked at him. “Haven’t you? You must have a housekeeper. I mean, you’ve got a butler. And obviously someone’s cooked dinner.” She waved a hand at the table, littered with their emptied bowls of mock turtle soup. “And I’m pretty sure I didn’t imagine the footman who helped serve the first course. So obviously you’ve got hordes of servants catering to your every whim.”

“And huddling in corners making fun of you,” Reg added. “Don’t forget that. Better than a circus you are, sunshine.”

Monk gave her a dirty look then cleared his throat. “Yes. Well. The servants. The thing is…”

“They don’t belong to Monk,” said Bibbie. “Not this lot, at any rate.”

Melissande frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I mean they aren’t the servants he inherited from Great-uncle Throgmorton. They’re on loan, every last one of them.”

“On loan?” she said blankly. “What are you talking about? Servants aren’t-aren’t library books. You don’t just borrow them.”

“Not usually, no,” said Monk, harassed. “It was an emergency.”

“So where did they come from?”

“Mother,” said Bibbie, and giggled.

“You borrowed your mother’s butler?” she said, incredulous. “And her footman? What about her cook?”

Monk hunched into his dinner jacket. “Yes, the cook too. Actually, the under-cook. I didn’t leave Mother to starve, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“But why? Honestly, Monk, you’re starting to sound like Gerald. What’s going on? What happened to the staff who came with the house?”

Reg hooted. “I’ll tell you what happened, madam. He scared them away, butler to boot boy, with his experiments and his smelly smoke.”

“Is that true, Monk?” Melissande demanded. I don’t believe it, I don’t believe it. Except that she did. This was Monk, after all. “Is that why every one of your great-uncle’s servants gave notice? Are you experimenting again?”

Now Monk was looking distinctly evasive. “Well-”

“You are!” she said, and leaned sideways to poke a finger in his shoulder. “ That’s why you keep dashing out of the room, isn’t it? You’ve got one of your madcap inventions percolating somewhere in this house, haven’t you?”

Monk’s expression shifted from evasive to bolshy. “So what if I have? It’s what I do, Mel. I invent things.”

“Things that get you into a lot of trouble!”

“Things that save lives!” he retorted. “And expand our knowledge of the etheretic plane!”

“Things that aren’t sanctioned by the Department!” she groaned. “Things that get you hauled over the coals, put on probation and rapped over the knuckles till you can’t hold a pen! Monk, you raving idiot, are you out of your mind?”

“Of course he is,” said Reg. “Every last genius I ever met was both oars short of a rowboat. And even then you can’t trust them to paddle. Don’t see why your young man should be an exception.”

Melissande turned to Bibbie. “Did you know about this?”

Bibbie shrugged. “Of course.”

“And you didn’t try to stop him?”

“Stop him?” echoed Bibbie, eyebrows raised. “Why would I stop him? You heard him, Melissande. Inventing is what Monk does.”

Very carefully, Melissande folded her hands and rested them on the dingy white tablecloth. Saint Snodgrass, I beg you, give me strength… “ Monk, as a recent beneficiary of your illegal inventing I suppose I shouldn’t criticise, but honestly. I do wish you’d think first and invent later. The stink from what happened in New Ottosland has barely evaporated. You’ve only just been released from probation. So why would you risk running foul of the Department again so soon after-”

“I’m not risking anything!” said Monk, defensive. His untidy black hair flopped over his eyes. As a rule she found it appealing, but now it annoyed her. He was hiding. “Because I am off probation, and that means I’m free to-”

“Frighten a bunch of servants with your thaumaturgical shenanigans!”

“Mel, I’m telling you, the domestic staff quitting has nothing to do with me!” said Monk. “It’s Great-uncle Throgmorton’s fault. He won’t leave.”

Bibbie sat back, staring. “What do you mean, he won’t leave? He’s dead, Monk. He left weeks ago.”

“Huh,” said Monk. “That’s what you think.”

Melissande exchanged a look with Reg. The wretched bird dropped one eyelid in a rollicking wink, clearly prepared to take her entertainment where she could find it.