Neutral Magic

Disclaimer: I do not own the Worst Witch or Weirdsister College series or any characters associated with them. No money is being made from this story.

Chapter 12: Witches Who Lunch

Cas Crowfeather took a spoonful of her caramel tart and popped it into her mouth, chewing slowly and closing her eyes in bliss.

"Oh this is just fantastic!"

"It is!" Mildred agreed, taking a sip from her glass of sweet white wine.

She and Cas were sitting at a table in the famous French restaurant La Gavroche, where they were having lunch together. Mildred had actually been going through a rather difficult time over the last few days; her developing relationship with Charlie Blossom had thrown her into mental and emotional turmoil, but she couldn't deny this lunch had been an amazing experience. They had started with a delicious cheese soufflé, and then moved on to a main course of lamb cutlets with courgettes and garlic sauce. Now they were lingering over a dessert of caramel tart with cherries and blackcurrant sorbet. All the food had been wonderful and the wines that had accompanied them equally impressive. Mildred felt a little nervous about the bill she would be paying however; she reckoned this meal was going to set her back over three hundred pounds.

"So anyway," Cas continued after taking a sip from her own glass. "I gather from Enid that things are going well between you and Charlie."

Mildred scoped up her remaining tart and sorbet on her spoon and quickly consumed it and then took another mouthful of wine. Despite all the problems occupying her mind she couldn't help letting out a sigh of pleasure before she finally answered her friend.

"Cas, I think I might be going mad!"

Cas looked rather alarmed. "Millie, what's wrong?"

"Everything!" Mildred replied quietly. "I never meant things to get out of hand like this. That dinner on Sunday was just meant to be a chance for us to talk and resolve things between us but somehow we ended up shagging like rabbits. And the same thing happened on Tuesday night, and last night. I just can't keep my hands off him, Cas!"

The Canadian witch grinned. "Sounds like you're in love!"

"Love?" Mildred almost snarled the word. "I thought I was in love before but it never felt like this, not even that first time with Charlie. He's changed somehow."

"How has he changed?"

Mildred shrugged. "He's a lot more confident and assertive than he used to be."

"Well that's only natural," Cas said after taking a sip of her wine. "Look how much you've changed from that shy girl in pigtails I met seven years ago."

"Please don't remind me of those wretched pigtails!" Mildred grimaced and touched her now short hair. "But I didn't mean that sort of confidence, I meant…"

Her voice trailed off and she blushed.

"You mean confidence in bed?" Cas asked and Mildred nodded.

"Millie?" The Canadian witch gave her a worried look. "He hasn't tried to hurt you, has he?"

"No." Mildred quickly reassured her friend. "It's just I can tell he's uncomfortable when I take the initiative in bed. I can sense he'd prefer to be the one calling the shots all the time."

"Well there's nothing surprising about that," Cas retorted with a frown. "All guys are like that to some extent."

"He wasn't before," Mildred replied. "Like I said Cas, he's changed and I'm not sure I'm comfortable with the change."

"Well you're not obliged to see him again if you don't want to."

Mildred grimaced. "I'm not sure I really have that choice, actually. I can't stop thinking about him, and I feel like I'm almost constantly aroused."

"That doesn't sound right," Cas said with a frown.

Mildred shrugged and finished the rest of her wine.

"Perhaps this is some sort of punishment!"

"Punishment?" Cas queried as she finished her own wine. "Punishment for what?"

"For sleeping around," Mildred replied with another shrug.

"Oh come on Millie, you can't believe that!" The Canadian witch exclaimed indignantly. "If people were subject to some sort of divine retribution for that, just about everyone under thirty would be in the firing line!"

Mildred signalled to the waiter and ordered another glass of Sauternes for each of them. It was only when the glasses had arrived and they were sipping the sweet white wine that she replied.

"But it wasn't as simple as that Cas. I wasn't just shagging those guys for my own pleasure; it was about revenge as well. I wanted to punish men in general. However you look it that's pretty twisted."

"But you've stopped doing that," Cas insisted.

"Maybe too late," Mildred said gloomily. "And maybe it's only when you try to change and be a better person you get punished."

Cas Crowfeather stared at her friend in shock for several seconds before she replied.

"That's a horribly bleak view of life, Millie!"

Mildred shrugged and took another sip of wine.

"Life generally is pretty bleak and unfair, Cas. I mean look at Miss Hardbroom. She didn't deserve to suffer that curse. Then there's my parents. They used to be so happy together but now they seem to hate each other. The papers for the divorce are being filed tomorrow."

"I'm sorry, Millie," Cas said sympathetically. "It must be really tough for you."

Mildred nodded. "I just can't help thinking any god must be pretty capricious, if not actually vindictive, considering the state the world's in."

"Well I don't know about that. My uncle was a medicine man and he firmly believed in the Great Spirit, or Gitche Manitou as he called him. And he always seemed to think he was a pretty benevolent sort of guy."

"I suppose there's no way we'll ever know for sure, at least not in this life," Mildred said with a sigh. Then she shook her head slightly. "This isn't getting us anywhere. I need to pull myself together and focus on helping Miss Hardbroom this evening. I can't afford to be distracted."

Cas reached out and squeezed her friend's hand reassuringly. "It will be fine, Millie!"

Mildred took another sip of her wine before answering.

I hope so! But even if the spell I've devised works that's still not the end of it. Whoever is responsible for casting this curse might try something else. We need to find out who's responsible and deal with them."

"You're right," Cas agreed with a nod. "I guess we've been so focused on curing Miss Hardbroom it's been easy to overlook that's just half the job. But we've still got no clues about who's really behind this."

Mildred shrugged. "All we know is it's someone who can control negative as well as positive magic. There can't be too many witches or wizards who…"

He voice suddenly trailed off and the two witches stared at each other in horror.

"The Whisperer!" Cas said quietly.

"Guy de Malfeasance!" Mildred stared at her friend then suddenly slapped the table angrily. "Damn it, I should have realised it was him immediately!"

"Don't blame yourself," Cas advised. "I should have realised too. But why now? It's been seven years since he tried to take over Weirdsister. Why wait so long and why target Miss Hardbroom?"

Picking up her wine glass, Mildred quickly drained it.

"Because he's been biding his time!" She placed her empty glass back on the table, her hand shaking. "Cas, I think he's after my research."

"You think that's why he cursed Miss Hardbroom, because he knew she'd go to you?"

Mildred nodded. "He inhabits the Seared Whisper, a realm of negative magic accessed through the walls of Weirdsister, or anywhere magic is often used, including Cackles."

"So that's how her got at Miss Hardbroom?"

"Exactly." Mildred gave the Canadian witch a grim look. "And there's worse, Cas. Over the last few months I've often felt I'm being watched in my lab. I thought it was my imagination as I couldn't detect anyone but it must have been him. And then this Monday I found my research journal lying on my desk. I assumed I just forgot to put it away, but he must have been reading it."

Cas Crowfeather quickly finished her own wine.

"Just how much could he learn from your journal, Millie?"

He could learn a lot!" Mildred admitted. "But not everything. I was so paranoid about the consequences if this knowledge became widely available that I kept some things entirely in my head, including the spell we'll be using in the ritual tonight."

"So you think it's the spell he's after?" Cas asked.

"I think that one of the things he's after," Mildred replied quietly. "But I suspect he wants more than that, he wants control over the neutral magic we'll create tonight. Some of my theoretical results suggest even a small amount of neutral magic could be used to cast spells free of the Foster effect!"

Now Cas looked really worried.

"But if he could do that he'd be just about all powerful!"

Mildred nodded grimly.

"So what do we do?" The Canadian girl asked anxiously. "Should we cancel the ritual this evening?"

"We can't," Mildred said firmly. "Constance Hardbroom won't survive if we delay. We go ahead but set a trap for de Malfeasance."

"What sort of trap?" Cas asked dubiously. "Remember he can use negative magic to absorb any spell you cast at him."

"A time trap!" Mildred smiled grimly. "A spell of temporal suspension will work on the space he's occupying rather than the Whisperer himself. Even negative magic can't stop that."

"I hope you're right," Cas muttered. She was still looking worried. "But that sort of spell is difficult to cast and we'll be occupied with Miss Hardbroom. De malfeasance could appear at any moment and he's pretty quick on the draw from what we saw last time."

"Don't worry, I'm not planning on actually duelling him," Mildred reassured her. "I'm going to use a focal talisman to cast the spell. I'll set it to work once someone unexpected appears."

Now the Canadian witch looked rather surprised. A focal talisman was an advanced magical technique that stored a spell in latent form in a material object. Once activated it would automatically cast the spell when a specific set of conditions was fulfilled.

"That's really advanced magic, especially with a spell like that. I doubt I could pull it off," Cas admitted. "You sure you're up for it Millie?"

"Yeah, I can do it," Mildred assured her confidently. Now that she knew what she was dealing with and had a definite plan, Mildred had recovered some of her assurance. "The only problem is where to do it. In principle he could be observing us anywhere where magic has been performed. That rules out my lab or flat."

"How about my place?" Cas suggested. "I seldom to any magic there, and never in my room."

Mildred nodded. "That should be okay then. I guess I'd better pay and then we can get going."

Mildred beckoned the waiter and settled her bill, which to her dismay turned out to be nearly four hundred pounds. She used a credit card, remembering she had already used her debit card less than two hours ago to pay for some rare magical items she needed from a craft store in Germany. Mildred was always a little worried that one day someone at her bank would ask awkward questions about how she was able to move around the world so quickly.

The two witches left the restaurant and after walking a short distance got on a bus to take them the rest of the way to Cas's apartment. It was on the second floor of a house that had been converted into two flats. Cas lived in a fairly small flat that just had three rooms; a combined sitting room and kitchenette, a bedroom and a bathroom.

Cas led the way into her bedroom, which was small but very tidy with green painted walls and a white carpet and red curtains covering the windows. Apart from the bed with its green pillows and sheets the only furniture was a dressing table, a chest of drawers and a small bedside table with a lamp.

"Well here we are," Cas said. "I never do any magic in this room so it should be safe enough."

Mildred nodded, looking quickly around the room. She needed a physical object to make the focal talisman, preferably something small and easily concealed. Her attention was quickly focused on her friend's dressing table, which apart from the usual array of cosmetics and other beauty products also had several small wooden discs with carvings resting on it. Mildred picked one up and studied it curiously. It seemed to be made of mahogany or some wood very like it, about six centimetres across and carved onto one side was the profile of an old man in a feathered Native American headdress.

"What are these?" She asked.

"Oh my mother makes them," Cas explained. "Carving using Native American techniques is her hobby and she keeps sending me samples of her work. I suppose she thinks it will remind me of home."

"Do you mind if I use this to make the talisman?" Mildred asked hesitantly.

"Of course not," the Canadian witch replied with a shrug. "I have dozens of them."

Holding the disc in both hands, Mildred concentrated for several seconds before beginning to chant;

Enchantus occultus
Temporis differrus
Adventus cubiculum
Concatanatum!

For a moment the disc glowed with an intense blue light.

"There, that should do it," Mildred said after the glow had faded. She slipped the wooden disc into her jacket pocket. "I'll activate it just before we start the ritual, then anyone who interrupts will be caught in a temporal stasis."

"Let's hope it works," Cas muttered nervously.

"It will!" Mildred assured her confidently. "Well I'd better get back to my lab and start getting ready for tonight. Do you want a lift?"

"Yeah that would be great!" Cas replied. "It will save me a train fare to Cambridge anyway."

Chuckling, Mildred reached out and touched her friend's arm and the two witches vanished in a flash of light.