K. Mills - Witches incorporated

According to Department records, the property was known as Establishment 743-865-928/Entwhistle.

Gathered in smoky mess hall corners, inhaling a quick cig-or a pipe, if they were particular-Sir Alec’s senior janitors, his most hard-bitten secret agents, called it “the haunted house.” Rolling their eyes when they said it. Sort of joking. But mostly not. Never elaborating; why should they? Nobody had warned them. Nobody gave them a heads-up the day before they faced final assessment. They’d sunk or swum, no half-measures. And no help. What do you reckon, Dunwoody? You reckon you deserve any different, just because someone’s told you you’re the bee’s thaumaturgical knees? Sink or swim, mate. That’s how it works. That’s how the pretenders get shuffled out of the pack. If you’re as good as they say you are, well… you’ll be laughing, won’t you?

Shrouded in a damp early morning mist, deep in the wilds of rural Ottosland, Gerald wasn’t feeling particularly amused. Cold? Yes. Apprehensive? Certainly. Beginning to wonder if he’d made a mistake? Without question. But really not in the mood for a giggle.

I wish Reg was here. Or Monk. Melissande, even. At this point I’d probably throw my arms around Rupert, butterflies and all.

But he squashed the thought a heartbeat after it formed. The first rule he’d made for himself upon entering janitorial training was No pining. Yes, he missed his friends but he’d see them again sooner or later. He’d already seen Monk once. A work-related visit, to be sure, no social niceties allowed, but still. It proved he wasn’t languishing in permanent exile.

He just wished the situation with his parents was equally straightforward. Returned at long last from gallivanting around the world, they couldn’t understand why he kept putting off a visit and was so vague about his new employment and why he’d given up on his last position as a royal court wizard. So prestigious, that had been. What had gone wrong this time? And when are we going to see you, son?

“ Sorry,” he kept saying in his letters. He’d phoned them once, but couldn’t bear to do that again. His mother’s tearful voice was enough to break him. “ I’ll tell you all about New Ottosland soon, I promise. Just a bit busy now. You know how it is.”

Except they didn’t know, and they never could. He’d have to lie to them. And once he did that-once he crossed that line-he could never cross back, which meant something precious would be irreparably broken. Too much in his life, in himself, had changed of late. While his parents’ backs were turned he’d become some dark, unfathomable stranger… and he knew he couldn’t trust himself not to let them see it. It was still too soon.

They’d have to be lied to eventually, of course. He knew that. He did. Just… not yet.

Abruptly aware of stinging eyes and ragged breathing, Gerald shook his head sharply. Enough, Dunnywood. There was no point working himself into a state over what couldn’t be helped. For better or worse he’d chosen this new life. This… penance. That meant living with the consequences.

Time to focus on the job at hand.

Which right here, right now, was surviving till supper. Because one of Sir Alec’s senior janitors, a pale, bruised-looking chap by the name of Dalby-well, this week, anyway-had confided over a mug of stewed tea that the Department property’s name-tag designation had a habit of changing. Whenever, rumour whispered, the house claimed a new victim. Today it was tagged Entwhistle. Tomorrow it might be… well, it might be known as Dunwoody. You never know, eh?

Gerald tucked his cold-nipped fingers into his armpits and bounced on his toes to keep his sluggish blood moving. That’s right. You never know. Life is full of surprises. And some of them, it turned out, were more palatable than others.

But he wasn’t going to think about that, either. What was the point? He’d done what he’d done and he was who he’d become. Regret and remorse could change none of it. If the last tumultuous, exhausting and unexpected six months of his life had taught him nothing else, they’d taught him that one biting, bitter lesson.

Instead, he peered through the impassable, imposing wrought-iron gates before him, up the long straight driveway to the house, trying to make out more than a few haphazard chimney pots and a vague hint of higgledy-piggledy gables. No luck. But whether that was because he was blind in one eye or because the autumnal mist was just too thick or because the house was protected by some kind of deflection incant, he couldn’t tell.

Towering oak trees on either side of the gates dripped moisture like a leaking tap, plink plink plink on his hatless head and coated shoulders. The water trickled nastily between skin and shirt-collar, all the way down his spine to the waistband of his trousers. Beneath his feet, the gravel was muddy and rutted. Fading into the distance the muffled clip-clop of hooves and the creak of wooden wheels as the cart that had deposited him here returned to the railway station.

Otherwise, the surrounding countryside was quiet. Too quiet. Not a cock-crow, not a bleating lamb. No dog barked. No milch cow lowed. He could hear his heart thudding sullenly against his ribs. That was nerves. Because here he was in far-flung, bucolic Finkley Meadows, and all his hopes, dreams and fears were come down to this.

Testing time.

Tucked beneath his overcoat, in the pocket of his jacket, was a single folded sheet of paper, decorated with precise spiky writing in plain black ink. Time to pay the piper, Mister Dunwoody. Finkley Meadows. The 8th, at dawn. Someone will meet you on the platform. Sir Alec. A one-way railway token had accompanied the missive.

He remembered thinking: So is the Department merely being fiscally responsible, or should I take the hint and give up while I still can?

But of course he’d accepted the invitation. The challenge. Reg would never forgive him if he tucked his tail between his legs and ran.

So all right. I’m here. I’m ready to be tested.

Except the property’s daunting front gates were hexed shut, and he couldn’t pin down the incant. Slippery and insubstantial, like melting soap at the bottom of the bathtub, it teased the edges of his awareness. Taunted his newfound, newly-honed expertise. He tried till he sweated but he couldn’t lay a finger on it. The gates remained stubbornly, unbelievably closed.

“ Damn!”

Blowing out a short, frustrated breath he glared at them, and then at the stone wall they were hinged onto. Intimidatingly tall, patchworked with moss and choking ivy, he had no hope of climbing over it. Of course, he could fly over the bloody thing if he dared risk a levitation incant on himself. But levitation incants, like the speed-em-up hex, like any kind of thaumaturgy which altered the properties of living tissue, were strictly off limits. If he tried one, and something went wrong, being caught breaking the law would be the least of his worries. Being buried in something no bigger than an egg cup was a far more likely outcome.

So. Scratch that bright idea.

Did whoever was in the house even know he’d arrived? He hadn’t a clue. Nor did there seem to be any way of communicating with the distant, fog-shrouded establishment. No crystal ball, not even a boring, ordinary telephone. Of course, he could always shout…

Honestly, this was ridiculous.

He blew out another breath. Then, surrendering to temper, he wrapped his fingers around the gates’ wrought-iron bars and shook. “Come on! Let me in! I’m catching pewmonia out here!”

Nothing. The gates’ locking incant buzzed fuzzily through his gloves. Fuzzily…