Precisely! And besides, he added as a clincher, the Old Smithy is on the junction of two important ley lines; that was what was so cunningly obscured from my vision by the malevolence of Another. There may even be a third I am working on it.
I expect the conjunction of the ley lines was a major selling point the estate agents managed to miss, I said, ignoring the second mention of a mysterious and malevolent opponent, which was probably just a figment of his imagination.
He gave me a severe look over the top of his half-moon glasses. Its unique position imbues it with magical energy, my dear Chloe, and since the museum area is large, my coven may meet there with no diminution of power. Rheumatism has affected one or two of them, he added more prosaically, and they have suggested we move to an indoor venue.
Yes, I can see that the museum would be ideal, provided you put up good, thick curtains, I agreed absently, still turning over the whole idea of the move in my mind. What about Jake, though? He has to be able to get to sixth form college and he isnt going to want to move away from his friends, is he?
Though now I came to think of it, a fresh start in a new village might be a good idea for my horribly lively brother. Hes outgrown his childish pranks, but will still forever be that imp of Satan to those inhabitants of Merchester whove been his victims.
Jake may borrow my car and drive himself to school until he has taken his final examinations, and then of course he will be off to university, Grumps said. He likes the old Saab for some reason. In the holidays, he can help me in the museum and I will pay him.
Grumps seemed to have it all thought out.
I looked down again at the leaflet. A cottage of my own with a garden, separated from my grandfather by the width of a museum, and with room for my Chocolate Wishes business, sounded like bliss
So, have you actually seen the property and made an offer for it, Grumps?
Yes, of course and the people who want to buy this house have also been to view it, though you were out at the time. I thought I would wait until everything was signed and sealed before I told you.
I certainly didnt see this coming!
If you will read Angel cards instead of the TarotAngel cards pah!
They seem to work for me, Grumps.
Not, apparently, very well: Zillah saw the changes coming and she has already decided on her rooms in the new house.
If Zillah knew and approved, then really, there was no more to be said: it looked like the Lyons were on the move.
A thought struck me. When Mum finally decides to stop playing dead and comes back, how will she find us?
Like a bad penny, he said bleakly.
Chapter Two Satans Child
On the way back to the flat, with a lot to think about and a chapter of Satans Child and three letters to type up, I found Zillah still in the kitchen stirring something savoury-smelling in a large pot. The cat, Tabitha, was draped around her neck like a black fur wrap, her tail practically in the stew.
Hygiene was possibly not Zillahs strong point but neither she nor Grumps (nor even Tabitha) ever seemed to suffer ill effects. Nor did Jake and I, come to that, because although I did some of our own cooking in the flat, we shared quite a lot of meals. We must all have been immune.
Zillah, if you have time, maybe you had better read my cards, I suggested. Grumps just told me that were on the move.
Zillah silently turned down the heat and put a lid on the pot, then fetched her Tarot pack and handed the cards to me to shuffle. Under my fingers they felt cool, snakily smooth and almost alive.
You could read them yourself, she grumbled as I gave them back, but she began to lay them out in a familiar pattern on the table. The cat, bored, disentwined herself and stalked off, holding up a tail like a bottlebrush that has seen better days.
You know Ive given up reading them, especially for myself, because there never seemed to be good news. I simply dont think I could bear it if I saw yet another dark stranger scheduled to enter my life bringing change, because it never turns out well, I added gloomily.
It would have been really useful if the cards had ever given me some helpful hints about whether the changes would be good or bad too, especially regarding my ex-fiancé, David.
Its all in the reading and how you interpret it, Chloe, you know that, Zillah said. You dont have to make a self-fulfilling prophecy.
While I puzzled over that one, she looked at the cards that showed what was currently going on in my life.
Hmmno surprises there, or in what will happen if you continue on your current course. She turned over more cards and pondered.
But my course is about to be changed, isnt it? Not only are we moving, but Jake will be off to university later this year.
Id had the maternal role for my half-brother thrust upon me and Id done my best, torn between love and resentment, but although I adore Jake, I couldnt say I wasnt relishing the idea of being my own woman again.
That my own childhood had been a happy and secure one was entirely due to Granny but, though kindly and affectionate, Zillah seemed to have been born without a maternal gene and could not take her place. That hadnt stopped Mum from thinking Zillah could quite easily assume Grannys role as mother substitute when she was off with her latest lover, though but then, she didnt have the maternal gene either.
At least Zillah loved us in her own unique way, even if, like Grumps, she didnt find children terribly interesting until they were capable of holding a conversation.
It doesnt say anything about Mum turning up again, does it? I asked, following this train of thought. Only it would be just like her to walk back in, now there arent any responsibilities for her to shoulder, what with Grumps having paid her bills and Jake an adult.
My mother had spent less and less time at the flat until she had finally vanished altogether from a Caribbean cruise six years previously and was currently presumed by everyone except the family to be dead. We presumed her to be fornicating in sunnier climes, even if this time her absence had been inordinately prolonged. Her disappearance had coincided with David jilting me, too: cause and effect.
Zillah ignored me, turning over the cards showing what was happening with my relationships, which was not a lot apart from a platonic and fraternal one with my old friend Felix Hemmings, the bookseller of Sticklepond.
Through the thin spiral of smoke from her latest cigarette I automatically began to read the meanings upside down, and groaned. Oh, no, please dont tell me another man really is coming into my life? I cant bear it!
Maybe more than one person, she said, frowning. Perhaps theres unfinished business with someone you knew before?
No way! Now Ive realised Im stuck in some endless Groundhog Day cycle of love and rejection, Im not even going to look at another man.
No way! Now Ive realised Im stuck in some endless Groundhog Day cycle of love and rejection, Im not even going to look at another man.
You cant call two failed relationships an endless cycle, Chloe.
Two? Have you forgotten Cal, or Simon or I stopped, unable to remember the faces, let alone the names, of some of my more fleeting boyfriends.
I did not mention men, but in any case they were obviously unmemorable. And can we help ourselves if love strikes? She thoughtfully fingered the card depicting a tower struck by lightning.
We can if it strikes twice, I snapped. But even if Id been tempted to take any boyfriend seriously after David jilted me, they werent prepared to take on Jake too. Hes the ultimate love deterrent.
I shuddered, recalling some of the hideous pranks my inventive half-brother had got up to over the years in order to get rid of my boyfriends. I was sure Grumps had had a hand in some of the more fiendish tricks.
He was, but hes now an adult, and once hes at university hell have other things to think about.
So he willand it seems like only five minutes since I went off to university, too, I said with a sad sigh, for that had been my one, abortive bid for independence, the year after Jake was born. It had been all too easy for Mum to absent herself for longer and longer periods, leaving me literally holding the baby, but Id thought if she didnt have me to fall back on, then she would be forced to stay at home and behave like other mothers.
How wrong I was! I got back at the end of the first term to find she had dumped the baby in Zillahs unwilling hands, leaving me a scribbled note with no idea of when she would return. Jake was touchingly happy to see me, making me guilty that I had been so engrossed in my love affair with Raffy that I had hardly thought of him for weeks. Grumps and Zillah were also happy to have me back, in their way, but I was the one who could have done with a mothers tender care just then, rather than have to take on the role myself.
But surprisingly, in the end, Zillah proved to be a tower of strength when I most needed one
I looked at the spread of cards again and asked hopefully, Can the future be altered, Zillah?
People can change, and then the future also changes. Or perhaps the true future remains fixed, the other is merely a warning to put us on the right path to our fate. Her gnarled hand reached out and flipped over the final cards. Your future has interesting possibilities.
What, you mean interesting in the Chinese curse sort of way?
Well, what are the angels telling you? she asked acerbically.
That change is coming, but it will all turn out right in the end.
Whatever right means, Chloe. She swept the cards together, tapped them briskly three times and wrapped them up in a piece of dark silk.
Back in the flat I felt unsettled, which was hardly surprising when a positive Pandoras Box of painful recollections kept escaping from where I thought Id had them safely locked away. Memories not only of my first love, Raffy, which even after so many years evoked feelings of loss and betrayal far too painful to dwell on again, but also of my ex-fiancé, David.
We met in Merchesters one upmarket wine bar and he had seemed so different from any of my other, short-lived boyfriends. He was several years older, for a start, solid and dependable. Maybe I was looking for a father figure, having never had one? He was a partner in a firm of architects, so more than comfortably off, and even Jakes attempts to get rid of him (culminating in the plague of glowing green mice in Davids flat I have no idea how he worked that one) just made him go all quiet and forbearing. He said Jake would grow out of it which he had, only not until Davids presence in our lives was history.
And Jake had been the sticking point in the end. It was odd how I had remained completely blind to the fact that David was so jealous of my close relationship with my half-brother until that last day, only a couple of weeks before our wedding. Id also assumed he understood that whenever my mother was away, Jake would stay with us after we were married, for the first few years at least. But as Zillah often says, men dont understand anything unless it is spelled out for them in very plain language.
Jake could live with your grandfather and his housekeeper, David had suggested when Jake was twelve and my mother had performed her latest vanishing trick.
I let the housekeeper bit go, since although Zillah certainly wasnt that, her role in our lives defied definition. Hardly, David! Social Services arent going to take kindly to a twelve-year-old living with a warlock, are they?
Now, Chloe, dont exaggerate, when you know thats just a nom de plume he adopts for his books. He may be a little eccentric, but the whole persona He smiled indulgently, his teeth very white against his tanned, handsome face. Its a publicity thing, isnt it?
No, its how he is. I keep telling you.
Youll be saying your mother is a witch next, Chloe, and has simply flown off on her broomstick.
Oh, no, she never showed any inclinations that way and although Jake is interested in witchcraft, luckily its only from a historical point of view. Its just a pity Granny isnt still around to help me bring him up, but he isnt a bad boy really, just lively.
David shuddered.
What? You like him, you said so!
Yes, of course I do, but that doesnt mean I want to live with him. And theres no reason why you should have to sacrifice your entire life to bringing up your half-brother, is there? Fostering might be the making of him.
Fostering? I cant believe you would even suggest that! I stared at him with new eyes. Anyway, its going to be only for a few weeks at most, until Mum comes back. The longest shes ever been away is three months.
Davids expression softened and he came and put his arms around me. Darling, you have to accept that she isnt coming back this time shes dead. I know its hard, but look at the facts.
The facts, as Mums friend Mags had reported them, were that Mum had simply vanished into thin air one night from the cruise ship taking them between Caribbean islands (a holiday won by Mags, who was ace at making up advertising slogans).
Mags was lying and she isnt dead, I explained. Shes probably somewhere in Jamaica with a man, and when she gets tired of that, shell come back again. She has a very low boredom threshold.
Look, darling, she was seen on the ship the evening after it left Jamaica, wasnt she?
Someone wearing one of her more flamboyant dresses and with dark hair was seen, but I suspect it was Mags.
But your mothers friend is blonde and why on earth should she go to so much trouble anyway?
A wig? My mother often wore one when her hair looked ratty. And they were in the habit of covering up for each other.
Come on, Chloe! Look, its been several weeks now, and I think, however hard it is, youll have to accept that she had too much to drink which you know was one of her failings and went over the side in the small hours without anyone noticing. This time she isnt going to reappear as if nothing has happened. Which brings us back to what to do about Jake.