Author's note: Sorry to disappoint anyone that more wasn't done with Prof. Kirke. One reason is that he figures in the other Narnia prequel I wrote. The other reason is that it would confuse the issues facing Mrs. Macready.
It was not difficult to find the spot where Kirke had buried the rings. It was beside the stump of a chopped down cherry tree in the center of the yard.
"I had enough foresight to put them in a porcelain box," the Professor explained as he cut through the thick turf with a pick. "There's a story about the cherry tree you might find interesting. I'll have to tell you some time." He rolled back a rectangular patch of turf to expose bare dirt. The soil was fragrant and damp. On the second spade thrust Kirke stopped part way through. "I guess children don't bury things very deeply," he said, smiling. He switched to a hand spade and cleared the dirt off the tiny white box. He remembered that Polly had sacrificed the box; she had used it for trinkets once. The porcelain looked unchanged but a small metal clasp had turned to bright orange rust. It crumbled away as he opened the box. There, inside, were two gold rings and two green rings, gleaming as brightly as the day he had placed them in the box.
"Don't touch them," Kirke warned. "They react instantly to contact with skin."
Kirke was surprised at the anxious look on Mrs. Macready's face. "Is there anything wrong?"
"Let's hurry and get inside the house."
Kirke closed the box, put it in his pocket and scrambled for the door. Mrs. Macready closed it behind them. Looking out the window she could see nothing amiss in the yard.
"What are you afraid of, the wolves?"
Before Mrs. Macready could answer, the front doorbell rang. Kirke looked at Mrs. Macready. She stepped swiftly to one side of the front door and held her wand ready. "Go ahead, open it."
Prof. Kirke imagined all manner of strange beings that could be on the other side of the door, and having seen the population of Narnia he could imagine a great deal indeed. He was not prepared for what he saw though. It was a young man in a conservative gray suit.
"Denis!" Mrs. Macready sputtered. "What are you doing here?"
"Well, naturally, I'm following up on my story. What did you think?"
"But your memory was wiped clean. I saw you entering that cab not knowing what decade you were in."
"Oh, that. Well, to put it briefly, I went to my editor's office this morning. He asked me what I had been doing. Of course, my mind went blank. He reminded me of the assignment he had given me. I went back to the Underground station and walked all around until I came to that illusory door. Then I remembered it wasn't real and I stepped through. Going through the passageways I found my camera, believe it or not. When I had the pictures developed it all started coming back to me. I'm still a little fuzzy on the details, though. If I had my notebook I'm sure I could remember the rest but I seem to have lost it. "
Mrs. Macready looked at him with a short flash of suspicion. She thought the memory-cleansing spell had taken better than that. The doubts couldn't be sustained, though; her intuitions could detect no trace of dishonesty. Denis continued. "Finding this place wasn't difficult. I read the newspaper story and came to the neighborhood to interview the residents."
Mrs. Macready was surprised to feel a sense of relief. She had to acknowledge that she felt guilty for wiping out his memory when that could have set him back at his job. She was in his debt for his timely assistance on more than one occasion back in the Underground.
"There's a frightful lot that you still haven't explained. What about all that theoretical mumbo-jumbo that Ludovico was going on about? I daresay half of it went right over my head."
Mrs. Macready sighed. "I promise to give you a lesson in the theory of magic, but I don't think we have time right now."
To the Professor, Denis remarked, "She was explaining to me yesterday how even in the supernatural world there's this massive bureaucracy. How very English!"
"I think I should object to the word 'supernatural'," said Mrs. Macready, drawn into the discussion despite herself. "Witches don't regard magic as supernatural; they regard it as perfectly natural. Laypeople shouldn't categorize everything they don't understand as supernatural. It's all one world. As I say, I'll have to explain it to you some other time."
"Look at the back door!" exclaimed the Professor from the kitchen. An intense light, too bright to be natural, was seeping in through the cracks around the door. Mrs. Macready pulled out her wand and countered the spell. The door was bathed in a purple glow as it was locked in the struggle between the opposing spells. They could see it shake in its frame.
"Duck!" cried Mrs. Macready. Denis scuttled into the bathroom. Prof. Kirke lay flat on the kitchen floor. Mrs. Macready sheltered behind an armchair. With no further warning the door exploded into splinters.
Through the open doorway they could see in the rear yard three men in long maroon robes. Their faces were shadowed by their cowls. They had evidently entered the yard through the gate to the back lane.
"Goodness gracious," Denis exclaimed. "Are we being attacked by members of a religious order?"
"Not quite," answered Mrs. Macready. "They're the Brotherhood of the Enlightened, a secret society of wizards. We've long suspected them of wanting to overthrow the Ministry."
Between the Brothers, wolves came streaming through the yard towards the house. Mrs. Macready was prepared this time and did not point her wand at them as wizards instinctively would. She scanned the room for potential weapons. She flicked open the kitchen utensils drawer. Knives and forks leapt into the air and and organized themselves like a miniature squadron of fighter planes flying in formation. At the same time they were heating up. The kitchen utensils hurtled through the doorway and streamed toward the wolves. They stuck themselves on to the wolves like blood-sucking insects. The fur of the wolves was singed and smoking. The wolves howled and yelped as they twisted and spun in a frenzy trying to shake the missiles off.
The Brothers advanced, wands raised. As far as Denis could tell, all pretence of magical subtlety or cleverness was forgotten. The Brothers and Mrs. Macready blasted away, sending bolts of blinding colored light at one another. There seemed to be small explosions all around Denis, as if he was inside a fireworks display. He covered his ears as bangs and cracks and shrill whistles filled the air. The Professor dove for cover under the kitchen table. An energy bolt hit a chair and it burst into flames. Another was deflected and struck a cupboard door, shattering it and sending down a cascade of dishes to the floor.
One Brother made it to the doorway. Mrs. Macready fired a spell at him but he seemed to block it. Almost at the same time, though, Mrs. Macready waved her left hand and the wand was knocked out of the Brother's hand to clatter on the kitchen floor. The Professor pounced on it. Picking it up, he broke it in two over his thigh. The Brother made an angry gesture with his bare hand and the Professor felt himself being flung off his feet to land with his back against the sofa.
"Professor!" cried Mrs. Macready anxiously.
"Don't worry about me," the Professor replied breathlessly. "Soft landing. Nothing damaged."
Denis emerged from a closet brandishing a cricket bat. He did not hesitate to charge the disarmed wizard and swing the bat at the wizard's head. The wizard ducked and dove for Denis's legs. The two were soon tangled with one another on the floor.
"I didn't know I still had that bat," the Professor remarked to himself.
Mrs. Macready was surprised that Denis was so eager to join the fray.
Another Brother was at the doorway. "We know you have the rings. Hand them over." It was a voice that sounded dimly familiar to Mrs. Macready but she didn't have time to think of that now. She rolled out from behind the armchair and aimed her wand at the garden hose behind him. The hose slithered forward faster than any snake and wrapped itself around the wizard's torso. With his arms pinned at his sides he could not use his wand. She tied a knot in the hose and knocked him out of the way so she could see the third attacker.
The third Brother took in the situation and didn't fancy his chances in a duel against the witch. He levitated his companions out of the house and over the backyard wall, like pulling toy soldiers out of a mock battle and placing them back in the toy chest.
The wolves, though many were suffering from burns, had regrouped on the lawn. Mrs. Macready didn't fancy another round of hostilities. There was also the possibility the Brotherhood would return, bringing reinforcements. She set the lawn on fire, sending the wolves beating a retreat through the open yard door.
"Come along. Out of the house." She rounded up Denis and Prof. Kirke and led them through the front door. "I don't think the wolves will give up. They'll come around the corner. Oh, and Professor, I'm sorry about the state of your house."
Prof. Kirke shrugged, taking it much more placidly than Mrs. Macready would have imagined. "It's only a house."
The witch levitated the two men down the block, out of reach of the wolves. Then she levitated herself to join them. It was less elegant than flying on a broomstick but acceptable for short hops.
"I thought I saw a cab coming this way," Denis reported. "When we were in the air, I mean."
"Wonderful," said Mrs. Macready. Thank goodness for the ever reliable London taxi, she thought.
