Page 44 of Rewitched

She turned down a street lined with tall trees. The fiery leaves were a painting of autumn. A confetti of buttery biscuit browns, almond and amber, chestnut and chocolate. The colours canopied, hanging overhead against an evening sky of blended purples and blues.

This was how the coming nights were going to be. She already felt drained after being on her feet for hours at Lunar, but evenings of carbs and falling asleep on the sofa were off the cards for a while. For twenty-eight moons, specifically.

The leaves crunching underfoot reminded Belle of walking in the woods with her mum when she was little. A deep dip between two particular trees would fill with fallen leaves every year, and they’d called it the cornflake bowl. They’d meticulously choose the most perfect shades of orange and brown in every variety to take home for Bonnie’s flora collection and would later toss them into the swirling potions of luck and guidance that were constantly brewing atop the stove.

Shaking off the memory, Belle was grateful to spot a black-and-white weathered sign for Quill Lane in block letters. Artorius lived at Number 8.

Behind the trees were regal Georgian houses stacked tall in orange brick and bay windows. Immaculate gardens sat outside every one, the last of the summer roses still clinging on. Carefully carved pumpkins of all shapes and sizes, done by perfectionist parents after their children got bored of scooping the guts out, sat plumply on porches.

She stopped. Ten Quill Lane was now on her left. It wasn’t even a house; it was a mansion. Six Quill Lane was a little farther along in her eyeline, another beauty with spotlessly plush hedging—so pristine that Belle reckoned it must have been cut with a spirit level balanced on top.

Number 8 Quill Lane stood alone.

It felt like the other houses had taken a swift step away from it, sensing something strange. The grubby penny at the bottom of the street’s shiny piggy bank, the house almost seemed to be lurching back from the road, desperate to retreat into the shadows. It must have been beautiful once but had been long neglected and left to its own devices. The place looked like a faded, forgotten memory, a shadow of its former self. Although still a tall house like the rest, Day’s home stood rickety and unsure, with a dingy round window in the pointed eaves hinting at an attic room perched precariously on top. Yellowed lace curtains hung across the panes inside, moss sprouting in every crevice of the frames.

“Of course. It’s the one that’s filled with the spirits of the damned,” Belle muttered to herself.

She took a few cautious steps towards the house. Amber tree sap was dashed across the pathway, and matching rust coated the gate in dark orange icing. Parched brittle brown stems had grown up from the ground and snaked their way towards the door, a carpet of weeds between the cracks of the broken driveway slabs.

Apprehensive, doubting her decision to go ahead with the mentorship, she thought of her mum again. Belle had called Bonnie to fill her in on what had unfolded, recounting the entire day’s events (minus the voice in the tunnels), and had wanted to turn inside out with guilt. Not that Bonnie had tried to make Belle feel bad. She had done everything she could to reassure her daughter that she wasn’t upset about her obvious lack of magic prowess and that everything would still be okay in the end (otherwise it wasn’t the end), but Belle had felt too miserable to take much cheer from the pep talk.

“Come on. Get a grip.”

Steeling herself, Belle gingerly reached for the gate. The metal gave a shrill wail, impossibly loud against the peaceful evening street, and Belle cringed, scraping rust against rust as it clanged shut behind her. The photo that Bronwyn had showed her of Day before his trial was imprinted in her mind. The haunted expression on his face, the soulless look behind his eyes. Now she was about to meet the man. A wriggle of fear hooked her under the ribs, anchoring her to the spot.

She forced herself down the driveway. Faced with a navy blue door, paint peeling in shards like a shedding skin, Belle reached for the heavy brass knocker and banged thrice. She hoped that nobody was home.

A second dim light came on through the door panes of frosted glass. A scuffling of chain and handle. A heaving creak of old hinges. And then…

“Oh, my dear. Welcome!”

15

Quill Lane

“HI…I’M LOOKING for Mr. Day?”

“Why yes, that would be me.”

Belle’s mind went blank with shock. The hand that wrapped itself around the edge of the front door was pale and bony, with thin, mottled skin stretched across the tendons like crepe paper.

Artorius, several inches shorter than Belle, was wearing a beige jacket at least two sizes too big for his frail frame. Grey slacks and a striped button-up shirt fitted with about as much success as the coat, as though the man inside of them had significantly shrunk. There was a pair of tartan slippers on his feet, bobbly and well worn. The thick glasses sitting on his nose magnified his brown eyes into a smiley, puppylike stare. Tufts of ashy grey hair stuck out at all angles above ears that were still unusually large. Perhaps the most unexpected part of his appearance was the pastel pink woolly hat perched on top of his head.

Surely not.

“Oh!” she spluttered, then managed to compose herself. “Right. Hi there. Hi. Well, I’m…here to be your student, I think.”

“Of course, Belladonna! Yes, hello, hello. I’ve been expecting you, been most excited about our meeting. It’s a great pleasure to host you. I hope you weren’t too chilly out there.”

The old man opened his front door with what seemed to be great effort. He peered expectantly and warmly at his new student.

“Do come in, Belladonna. There’s a cup of tea waiting with your name on it.”

Belle stepped into the house, still utterly baffled. “Please, call me Belle.”

“Right you are.”

It would seem that Bronwyn had missed the small, crucial detail of when Artorius’s story had actually taken place. Bronwyn had told it as though it were freshly painful, but judging by the man in front of her, Belle estimated it must have been around six decades and a couple of generations earlier than she’d thought to be the case.