A Strange Case of Magic Inheritance
Written for the Archives of Excellence November Challenge "Different Strokes"
With thanks to Clodia and Finlay for beta reading.
"Oh, Mother!"
The girl rolled her eyes in the manner of adolescents everywhere in the multiverse 1). Piles of folded linen came dangerously close to toppling from the chairs around her, while dresses, blouses and coats on hangers colonised every available hook, knob and rail in the room. Two huge trunks yawned open, one on the bed and the other on the floor beside it.
"Nobody in the whole school wears woollen bloomers. All the other girls have petticoats."
"And if all the other girls jumped off Lancre Bridge, would you jump, too?" asked her mother.
"They wouldn't jump off Lancre Bridge," said the girl, in a voice as if she was explaining something to a very young child, or possibly an intelligent cheese, "because nobody wants to come out to this godsforsaken dump."
The queen of the country thus insulted placed half a dozen pairs of bloomers in the trunk on the bed regardless.
"It gets very draughty down in the plains, Elda," she said without much conviction. "I don't want you to catch cold."
"Oh, Mother, you are such a wet hen!"
Queen Magrat's shoulders sagged and she patted her frizzy hair with a helpless gesture.
"You're being insolent, Elda," she said.
"Then Aunt Esme is insolent, too," retorted the girl, "because she said it first."
"Trust her," muttered Magrat.
"And she's right," continued her daughter and removed the bloomers from the trunk. "I'm not going to be the only girl in the school who has a middle name like Note Spelling and wears bloomers."
"I think you'll find that on the subject of underwear, your godmother will side with me," said Magrat and put the bloomers back in the trunk.
"You can't make me wear them!" said Young Esmerelda.
Magrat sighed. Granny Weatherwax, she thought, would be able to make some cunning throw-away remark that would worm its way into Young Esmerelda's mind and cause the girl to think that wearing bloomers was her very own idea. After the Granny Weatherwax treatment, the girl would probably snap at her mother for suggesting such a silly thing as petticoats. But headology had never been Magrat's strong suit.
"Probably not," she said. "You might as well take them out."
"You mean you just let me win?" said Young Esmerelda. "You really are a wet hen!"
"Yes, my dear, and you are a wet hen's daughter. Let's leave all this till later. We shall be late for dinner and you know how your father frets."
Oh, well, thought Magrat when she returned to her bedroom after dinner to fix her hair before the evening's entertainment. 4) If I was to be found raking through my daughter's personal possessions, it would be an Unpardonable Breach of Trust, but I suppose if she is doing it to me it shows spontaneity and a keen interest in me as a person and I should accept it with a demeanour of cheerful tolerance. Young Esmerelda seemed to share her mother's assessment of the situation; at least she smiled broadly and with unabashed glee took a necklace with a pentagram pendant out of the trinket box she had unearthed from the very bottom of Magrat's chest.
"Oh, Mum, can I have some of these to take to school with me?"
Magrat sat down on the edge of the bed beside her daughter and gently placed her hand on the girl's arm.
"But, darling," she said, "I'm sure none of the other girls wear occult jewellery."
"I know," replied Young Esmerelda, oblivious to the contradiction, and put on the necklace, "it would be ever so cool if I had some. And you don't need it anymore, because you're no longer a witch."
Magrat said nothing. It was true that she had exchanged the pointy black hat for the crown of Lancre 5) many years ago, but matters of magical talents were never as clear-cut as that. Witchcraft, however carefully stowed away, had a habit of resurfacing, and even a less than spectacular witch like Magrat had to deal with a considerable residue of occult power. On the other hand her daughter, she was certain, did not have a grain of magic in her, which was probably just as well.
"Oh, Mum, please!"
"But you always said you were afraid of magic."
"Yes, but these things aren't really magic, are they? Aunt Esme said they're just the kind of frippery that you'd use."
"Well," said Magrat, "I'm not sure that your father would approve."
"He will, if you say it's okay! Mum, don't be mean, let me have it!"
Magrat hesitated. A vague plan was forming in her mind and surprised her with its unexpected and entirely unmagratish cunning. She almost giggled, but managed to gain control of her features just in time.
"All right then, darling," she said with a truly maternal mixture of tenderness and resignation. "You can pick three pieces."
"Really, Mum? Oh, you're wicked!"
Eagerly, Young Esmerelda began to rummage in the trinket box with her right hand, while the left clutched the pentagram pendant to her chest. There was a lot to choose from, so it took some time, but eventually she settled for a copper bangle embossed with frogs, bats and spiders and a silver ring in the shape of a snake. She slipped one over her wrist, the other on her finger and turned to the mirror with a triumphant smile.
"How delightful, darling," said Magrat sweetly. "Very pretty indeed."
~oOoOo~
"There was a toad in my wash bowl this morning," said the princess during breakfast. She didn't appear to be particularly upset about this incident, but seemed to mention it as a mere curiosity.
"That's very inappropriate," said King Verence with grave mien. "I'll question the chamber maids and find out who played this trick on you."
Queen Magrat shook her head.
"Consider, my dear," she said and impaled a slice of fried tomato on her fork, "that we've had this problem with rising damp for some time now. And there's that leak in the roof in the west wing. I'm sure a toad might have come into the castle all by itself. In any case, I'm certain the Creature Charm Bangle has nothing to do with it."
Princess Esmerelda fingered the bangle on her wrist with a thoughtful expression.
During the afternoon, Magrat and Esmerelda walked the gardens and took refreshments in a ramshackle bower overlooking the ornamental pond. Once the maid had placed the tray on the wicker table, the queen dismissed her and she bustled away.
"Pour the rosehip tea, will you, Elda," said Magrat and took a cinnamon wafer from the plate. The girl complied and filled the cups while Magrat nibbled her biscuit. Bees buzzed. Birds sang.
"Mum, these biscuits taste funny," said Young Esmerelda a little later. She picked a crumb off her lip and inspected it critically.
"What do you mean, funny?"
Esmerelda pursed her lips and examined the aftertaste.
"A bit like rotten fish," she said.
Magrat took another biscuit and bit off a piece, which she chewed with slow and deliberate movements.
"Now you mention it, yes, they do a bit," she said. "I'm surprised you noticed it. It must be coincidence. It's a tiny, tiny trace, which can really only be detected by someone with magically enhanced perception, and we know that you have none of that. Surely you haven't suddenly developed it. Why, next you'll be seeing auras!"
Magrat laughed in the embarrassing, profoundly humourless way of which only mothers are capable. Young Esmerelda didn't laugh. She looked down at the ring on her left hand.
"Mum," she said after a while, "there's a greenish shimmer around your head."
The teacup and saucer rattled in Magrat's hand.
"It can't be!" she whispered, and then, in a louder voice, "That must be just the way the light is falling. Nothing to worry about. Let's go back inside and finish your packing, darling. Oh, look at the butterfly on that rosebush! Isn't that the one you're missing from your collection?"
When the princess ran up to the rose border, Magrat swiftly removed the piece of coloured glass from a low branch of the tree next to the bower.
The evening meal passed without further incident and King Verence took the opportunity to impress on his daughter the need for sensible and decorous behaviour in a young lady of royal descent and her duty as a role model to the other girls at school. Magrat felt her eyelids drooping and was suddenly startled when her fork dropped out of her hand and landed on her plate with a clang.
"I'm so tired," said Princess Esmerelda as soon as the pudding dishes were cleared away. It was an uncharacteristic thing for a fifteen-year-old to say, but her father had allowed her a glass of wine with her dinner and it had turned out to be rather stronger than expected.
"You'd better go to bed, darling," said Magrat. "You have an early start tomorrow. I'll send up your maid with a little put-me-down 6). All herbal, of course. It's good for you. Don't let any strange dreams trouble you. Only witches dream of strange tentacled creatures with multiple eyes. Good night."
She ushered Esmerelda out before the girl could ask any questions.
~oOoOo~
The sun rose over Lancre Castle. It had no choice. King Verence had risen at dawn for his constitutional and some early morning reigning. In the royal bedchamber, the queen rolled over and considered ringing for her maid. Quite unexpectedly, the door opened, but in came not her relatively faithful servant, but a rather bleary-eyed princess.
"Oh, good morning, darling," said Magrat and sat up in bed. "Did you sleep well?" Esmerelda shook her head and perched on the edge of the mattress.
"Mum," she said and put down the necklace, ring and bangle on the bedside table. "I think I don't want these after all. None of the other girls at school have occult jewellery, and I don't want them to think I'm a freak."
"Oh, but darling," said Magrat, "they suit you so well. I think the necklace really complements your complexion. And it's such a pretty bangle. I don't mind you having them at all!"
"I don't want them, Mum."
"Well, if you're sure…"
"Yes, I'm sure," said Esmerelda. She twisted her fingers together. "Mum? Do you think… are these really magical? I mean, do they work?"
Magrat patted her hair. "Don't ask me," she said, "I'm just a wet hen."
"Oh, mother!"
Magrat hid her smile behind the flaccid curtains of her hair as she put the jewellery back into its box. Witchcraft, she thought. You just can't trust it.
1) With the exception, that is, of the young people of the Hgoorani on the planet Asvestro, who roll their noses. 2)
2) On ball bearings. 3)
3) Don't ask.
4) Which consisted of Shaun Ogg performing a medley of popular Ramtop tunes on his trumpet.
5) Neither of which she had ever been very comfortable with and neither of which had gotten her much respect.
6) The opposite of a pick-me-up.