The Midnight Moon [ONC 2024]

Chapter 4: The Witch's Cottage

It was the middle of the day. It was time for the midday meal. So, naturally, The Green was bustling with people. Recalling the amount of attention the witch's cottage had received that morning, I knew we were going to have to wait for the crowd to thin, if we were going to be able to investigate the cottage without interruption.

Tomasina offered to fetch some food for lunch from the hot food stall on the corner of Draper's Row and Green Way. I gave her some coins to cover the cost.

Whilst she was gone, I asked the cat and the crow an important question. 'I know you might think this constitutes some kind of betrayal to Mistaria, but do you know of any magic that could get us into the cottage?'

'You want us to break our witch's wards?' Jack cawed. Loudly.

'We will be doing it to try and help her, Jack, not harm her,' I said patiently.

'There might be a way,' Bella said slowly. 'But...it might not work. It's the only possible way I know.'

I nodded. 'Well, it's worth having a try, isn't it?'

We ate lunch in my office. There were crumbs all over the place, which I was unhappy about, but it would have been rude to complain about the mess a cat and crow were making in an attempt to eat people food. That was another thing I learned that day. Form shifters ate whatever their dominant form ate, not the food of the form they were in at any given time.

It was mid-afternoon when the traffic was light enough for us not to garner too much attention in our quest to determine what had happened to Mistaria Heath. We left my place of work, and I locked the front door behind us.

We walked at a moderate pace, Tomasina and I. Jack flew directly to the cottage, whilst Bella ran across The Green. We followed the path around the perimeter of the grassy triangle, doing what we could to avoid attention. We didn't want to look like we were making an urgent beeline for Mistaria's residence, and we thought walking in the company of a cat and bird was just asking for trouble.

When we reached the far side of The Green, I opened the garden gate and Tomasina stepped through. I followed her up the path and around the house to the back door where Jack and Bella were waiting for us.

'Does anything look unusual or out of place out here?' I asked before peering through the little window Jack said he used to let Mistaria know they had returned.

I could see little. A table with bowls and a chopping board on it. Bunches of herbs waiting to be hung from the ceiling. An empty chair half under half out from the table. At the edge of my vision I thought I could just make out a range. I stepped to the side and tried the door. I was not surprised that it wouldn't budge.

'Anything?' I prompted, when I turned my attention back to the others.

They shook their heads.

'I'm going to peer through the front windows. All of you stay here.'

I followed the path back to the front of the house. Here there were two windows and they were both larger than the one that gave light to the kitchen.

In one I saw what looked to be a little sewing room, I guessed, when I spotted some fabric and a sewing box on a table next to an armchair which was positioned to one side of the fire. But this assumption changed when I saw a half-height bookcase, each of the three shelves full of books. This also changed my assessment of Mistaria Heath, as I realised just how judgemental I was towards witches. First, I had assumed Tomasina couldn't read and write, then I was surprised to learn that Mistaria was clearly an avid reader. But there was no evidence that the room was in disarray.

I walked to the second window. This room was obviously a parlour. A table was set for a meal, with plates, cutlery and cups laid out. Could it have been for the meal she was to have had the night before when her familiars returned? Again, there was nothing to suggest that something untoward had happened. If there had been a struggle, I would have expected to have seen broken china or knock over chairs. I also failed to see anything resembling the prone or injured figure of the witch.

I walked back to the others, mulling over the lack of evidence, which I duly shared. I then tried to scour the garden to see if there was any clue as to what had happened the night before, but there was nothing to see. If there had been, it was long gone, after the trample of many feet had obliterated it that morning as the crowd had tried to determine why the witch hadn't opened up her cottage for the day.

I looked up at the first floor of the house. A tiny window, the same size as the one in the kitchen was peeking out from under the skirt of thatch. A stout apple tree which grew close to the house offered a vantage point for a look. I took off my coat and handed it to Tomasina, and then climbed up. The room was virtually in darkness, this window being the only source of light. I squinted and I felt, rather than saw, that there was nothing to see, so climbed back down.

'We tried to break the wards on the cottage,' Tomasina said as she returned my coat. 'It didn't work.'

I nodded slowly. 'I don't think it matters. I don't think we will learn anything inside anyway.' I sighed. I had a few ideas of how to proceed, so we weren't beaten yet, and, rather strangely, this bizarre case with no clues had piqued my interest.

Suddenly, I turned to Bella and Jack. 'You're magical creatures. Surely you have a heightened sense of smell. Can you detect anything here which shouldn't be?'

'I'm a cat not a bloodhound, you silly man.'

Jack just turned his head to one side and sighed. I got the impression he was really disappointed with me for asking that question.

'All right. Time for another cup of tea, and a reassessment of the situation, I think. Come on.' Without waiting to see if they would follow, I headed back to the agency, all the time wondering how a witch could have vanished and not a hint of an indication of what happened to her be left behind.

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Chapter word count: 1100

Story word count: 4959