Kynance

Two hundred years on this earth, and now I’m standing staring at Betsy Bragg’s humped back, inhaling the aroma of carefully aged cabbages with all the other vaguely magical reprobates that call themselves my neighbours. But one doesn’t get put in Kynance without good reason. I’m a washed-up witch, a spent sorceress. An old fart. Too unpredictable to get a place in a regular retirement facility, too needy to stay in my cosy, crow-infested hovel. Rather be there now, feeding my silver-crested ravens, than shuffling into the rec room at our top speed of 0.1 mph. But there you go; our schedule is decreed by the almighty Linda, entertainment coordinator, and we’re sticking to it.

The tables and chairs are clustered in fours like some low-grade cabaret, draped in an easy-wipe tablecloth in case we spill our battery acid OJ concentrate, or eye of newt tea, whatever you fancy. My right hip pops as I thump down into the minimally padded plastic chair and start rapping my pointed, gloss-black nails on the arm. Joining me are one-time warlock Tresmond, with his flea-ridden feline familiar, Trudy, and Velinda, a reluctantly freed genie with rapidly thinning ginger hair and an intense dislike of open spaces. The former props the ragged black cat on a plump cushion so she can see over the table, the latter pulls up her turtleneck to cover her chin and lower lip.

‘Trudy and I were about to take a bath when we were called for this…thing,’ Tresmond says, sniffing his drink.

‘What’s stopping you? We’d all love it if you took a bath,’ Velinda squeaks, shrinking into her chair like she’s hoping it will sprout four walls and a roof.

‘We can bathe when we’re dead,’ I say, never a fan of running water. ‘I want to see who they’ve lined up for us this week.’

The lights don’t so much dim as change hue, given most of us wouldn’t be able to see in standard entertainment gloom. Of course, I was able to spell away my cataracts over a century ago, unlike some. Chirpy intro music trills out from entirely non-magical speakers, tickling my ear hairs with tinny resonance.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, Familiars and Unfamiliars, please welcome…’ theatrical pause, ‘Danny the Hands!’ Linda barks and bares her beacon-like Turkey teeth in a winning grin. I roll my stiff shoulders back and take a sip of room-temperature juice. A man bounces into the room, dressed head to toe in black velvet, his figure-hugging waistcoat embroidered with silver stars. Fifty greedy sets of eyes devour him.

‘Afternoon folks! Who’s ready for some magic?’

They can’t be serious? A civilian street magician in a room full of fully-fledged, battle-hardened mages? We’re retired, not amnesiacs. Young Danny springs over to the ever verdant Betsy and produces a fat chocolate coin from behind her ear. Instead of placing a curse upon his family line for the next ten generations for being too forward, she actually giggles. Giggles! Is it his dimpled smile, brighter even than Linda’s, or the nonchalant sweep of his jet black hair? Maybe he’s spritzed himself with pheromones. Betsy unwraps the coin and slides it between her rows of false teeth whole. Danny spins around and produces a pack of cards, fans them out and asks Earl the Grey to pick one. Instead of slicing him in half for his stupidity, he plucks a five of spades. I know it’s a five of spades even before Danny throws a dart at the buy and sell noticeboard and lands it right in the middle of a skull-backed card. Earl claps his clawed arthritic hands with glee. This guy must really be magic; he seems to have enchanted everyone.

Our turn, and Danny takes a knee by our table. He smells of leather, musk and desperation. My nose has never failed me, warts and all, but he is definitely handsome, in the old-fashioned way, his waist cinched in instead of pooching out, shoulders broad and straight instead of hunched. One can’t help but notice after so many months in this depressing dive. From nowhere, he produces a top hat, and from the hat he pulls a red-eyed albino bunny, wondering what the hell it did in a previous life to deserve this fate. Danny hands the rabbit to a fawning Velinda while he indulges me in a horrifically obvious wink. What’s that for, some bunny innuendo, or does he like the cut of my jib? I raise a pencilled black brow and wait for his next move, arms folded.

The undeterred Hands continues bounding around the room performing sleight of hand for another painful ten minutes.

‘Are you two smelling what this guy is shovelling?’ I lean forward to whisper to the others. Trudy hisses at my encroachment, and I slop lurid yellow juice onto the table in surprise. Not that I’m afraid of cats, but I always suspected Trudy to be more than met the eye.

‘He’s quite good, for a regular human,’ says Velinda, stroking the snow-white bunny.

‘Yeah, just relax and enjoy the show for once, Dayna,’ Tresmond adds, hoisting Trudy up onto the back of his neck like a splenetic scarf. She purrs deeply and casts daggers at me with sulphur-bright eyes.

Then I see it. He asks for a ring from the softer-than-yellow-snow Frida of Frostheim, and when he re-produces it from her dopey familiar’s inside jacket pocket and slips it back on her finger, it’s a fake. I can smell a fake like flies smell manure. Lustreless metal and dull gemstones – I lived in a hovel out of choice, not because I was poor. Anyhow, I cast about, waiting for one of my noble peers to pipe up and call out the bluff, but no one does, no one notices but fly in the ointment me, who’s always getting chastised for putting a damper on these weekly charades. A few minutes later, chirpy muzak still whining in the background, sticky-fingered Danny performs a trick that ends with a pouf of gold confetti bursting from Amardeep the Magnificent’s turban, and while everyone is distracted, two sets of pearl earrings and a charmed pocket-watch find their way into Danny’s apparently bottomless cloak pockets.

I see how it is now. We aren’t the sharp, jinx-toting arch-nemeses we once were. We’re vulnerable, frail, ripe for the picking. But I’m not. Maybe that’s why I was put here, not because of the series of falls I had that landed me in hospital for three months, but because my magic is still strong enough to sniff out rats. Someone has to stand up for us.

It doesn’t do to move on one’s enemies before one knows the extent of their capabilities. In this case, whether Danny the Enchanter is a highly accomplished pickpocket or a dropout wizard down on his luck. Either way, I can’t let him hotfoot it out of here just because he’s attractive. His cup brimming over with youthful vitality, his movements vigorous, furtive, graceful, his voice luxuriously deep and comforting. I could brew a simple love potion and slip it into his water bottle. In fact, I’ve probably got some in my room. Might be a touch dried out, crusty round the edges, but that never stopped me before!

‘Dayna, sit down!’ Tresmond commands, and from some incredibly well-hidden depths, he employs a tone sonorous enough for me to hasten to obey. I hadn’t even noticed myself standing up. Get a grip, Dayna!

‘I was just going to powder my nose,’ I say.

‘Planning on being a while?’ Velinda sneers, the joke being that I have a copious nose, even though I’ve measured it, and it’s perfectly normal for a witch of my ancient years.

‘Why don’t you come with me? You might be more comfortable squeezed inside the stall with your favourite witch?’ I say, lowering cautiously back into my seat with a smirk.

‘Fuck off.’

Who knew we could be so catty? Ha! I’m fooling no one; we’re like this every week. I smile, and a hopeful Danny returns to our table. He retrieves the rabbit from a crestfallen Velinda, tucks it into his cloak, and apparently transforms it into a dove, which flutters raggedly onto his finger, ecstatic for a gasp of free air at last.

‘Impressive,’ I croon, my own seductive spell-caster’s tone still smooth as silk. ‘Have you thought about becoming our resident magician? Everyone seems most fond of you.’ I twist to face him, energy stinging my palms, the crooks of my fingers, ready to release.

‘Oh, I couldn’t do that. I’m booked up and down the country. Wouldn’t want to deprive them all of the show, would we?’ He draws a pristine smile from ear to ear and I think of those darling old dears, both magical and mundane, who would plunge into those cobalt eyes and swim for shore. Oh, to be blessed with the ignorance of the easily beguiled! You must decide now, Dayna. Is it to be vengeance, or greed? Ensnare him with one of my famous draughts of desire, or teach him a lesson.

‘But what if we paid a premium, doesn’t every professor dream of tenure?’ I move closer to him, bulging my nostrils wide to sniff for real magic concealed in that cape of black.

‘Ma’am, I think you have me confused with somebody else,’ he says, the smile fading momentarily, him backing away at the demonic gleam no doubt brewing in my gaze. Ma’am. No one calls me Ma’am and gets away with it. It’s Dayna the Unclean, Sorceress of Solihull, to you!

‘Enough!’ I bellow, and every eye, clouded, newt or other, snaps to me. I stretch forth a palm and command his cloak to wrap around him in a bind. The heavy velvet clenches. He struggles, sweat beading on his proud brow.

‘Hey lady! This ain’t funny,’ Danny, if that’s his real name, says, his suave accent replaced with an altogether less convivial inflection.

‘Come on, Dayna, we were all just having some fun, for once,’ says Betsy, chocolate still smeared across her gob.

‘Oh? You call this fun?’ I twist my wrist, and Danny flips upside down. One by one, the pilfered trinkets clatter to the floor, along with the disgruntled rabbit, which shakes itself, then hops back over to Velinda. Gasps from the crowd, and I take my own dramatic interval. Vengeance it is, then. I conjure a judgement scroll, unfurl it and read aloud:

‘Danny the Hands, for the crimes of deception, thievery most foul, and performing unsanctioned, unqualified feats of the dark arts before an audience of outrageously accomplished individuals…’ several frowns soften at this. Flattery will get you everywhere. ‘I must sentence you to imprisonment until such time as your familiars declare you fit for release.’

This scroll writes sentences for the inherently magical, but in this case, I think the rabbit and the dove are sweet, dumb beasts. Looks like young Danny’s never getting out of this. I clap, and a blast of brilliant smoke confounds the room. The scroll vanishes, and when the light settles, Danny is frozen, statuesque in the corner of the room like a mannequin astonished to find itself in a clothes store. The tension in the room drains like a storm-clogged sewer – slowly, and with great disappointment.

‘At least he doesn’t detract from the décor,’ Tresmond says, studying the new exhibit through smudged spectacles.

‘Yeah, and we can look at him whenever we want now,’ Velinda adds, surprisingly supportive now she has her fluffy friend back.

‘I see you’ve not lost your twinkle, Dayna,’ Lynda’s voice booms, chastising. ‘Maybe you should take the place of next week’s act and save us all the hassle?’

‘Wouldn’t dream of it. I’m sure we’ll love whoever you’ve booked in.’ I smile, wrinkling my nose at her, then turn to pat the rigid Danny on his velvety shoulder. You know, I’m starting to like this place after all.

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