Helen Speaks

Another entry in my series using Sky Latshaw’s RPG, The Magical Year of the Teenage Witch.
Introduction: https://helenspeaks.wordpress.com/2025/04/06/lucy-skylarks-magical-year/

From: Lucy Skylark

Dune House

Barkmouth

Dear Vera,

You’d better keep your eye out for Supernatural News this week. I wish I could tell you what sort of article to expect, but I’ll tell you what happened from my point of view!

Olive has been staying over at Dune House, with her maid Hatty bringing things over, because there are still reporters hanging around near Crag Cottage. I don’t know why they don’t come here – except that I think Mrs Webfoot must have intimidated them somehow.

Firenze has come over (you remember about how he can make portals? That would have been useful getting away from The Green Dragon!) and bringing Pompom with him, so Olive is happily esconced in a spare room with the two of them. I’d swear I heard her talking to someone else, but she hushed when I came to knock on her door and asked if she’d like to go and get some lunch, and when I came in, she was on her own – Firenze wasn’t even there. Mysterious.

We took a picnic up to the pretty path on the cliffs, which is far out of town, and I asked her about how she’d been able to see Callum and me with the mirror – and she started to answer only for us both to notice a blond man crouched behind a bush.

I dreaded to think what he might be up to, but when he saw that we’d noticed him he straightened up briskly and walked away as if he’d just been out for a walk.

Later on, we went down to the pebble beach, and he appeared again.

I’d had enough of this by now.

“Who are you?” I demanded. “And why are you following us?”

Olive looked him up and down. “Oh, I know you,” she said. “Derringer Grant. You’re a journalist, aren’t you? Supernatural News?”

They’re not quite as bad as the so-called newspaper I hate, but I was still furious. “We’ve said all we want to say to the press.”

Derringer Grant looked unapologetic. “The public deserves the real story, Lucy. What did the Weybridges do to you – and to Callum? And how did they get you to stay silent?”

“It was nothing to do with the Weybridges,” I said angrily. “It was a neighbour with a magical object that he didn’t understand.”

“Lucy, come on,” Olive said. She turned to him. “She’s right. We’ve said all we need to. Good day.”

She wheeled me away and we went back into town, and looked around the market. Olive seemed energised by the experience – she told me she felt like a fool for not going back to Crag Cottage sooner and she felt ridiculous hiding out from sleazy reporters. But I was furious. Grant knew nothing about it and he’d assumed we’d all lied. I hoped Callum wasn’t having to deal with this.

And then he… he caught me. Literally. He grabbed me by the wrist as I went to look at a stall of plants, just as Olive was on the other side eyeing up pretty tapestries.

“Lucy—”

“Get off me, you… you…”

I didn’t mean to do magic on him. Honestly, it really is a tricky thing that I seem to gain certain powers in moments of anger, which is really the worst time to be trying new magic. And I wouldn’t have wanted this power anyway.

Because Derringer Grant started turning invisible. And realising what it meant, I suddenly grabbed his arm – and it started happening to me too.

“What – what’s happening?” he sputtered.

The stallholders who’d heard me shout blinked, and looked confused. Olive looked around for me – “Lucy?”

Oh no – but maybe it wasn’t the same spell. I tried reaching for a pen and paper – the words vanished as I wrote them.

Derringer Grant – now visible to me again, if not to anyone else – stared at me in horror. “What’s happened? What have you done to me?”

And suddenly I wasn’t angry with him or at all scared of him. In fact, I laughed. It just seemed so ridiculous that after everything that had happened at The Green Dragon, I was suddenly going through this again.

“It must be an after-effect,” I told him. “The curse that was put on Callum, that I caught from him – I think we’ve both got it now.”

He scoffed at that, went to try and attract various people’s attention, didn’t get it, took his phone and attempted to make calls and send messages, and found he was frustrated at every turn.

“Right, you’d better fix this,” he told me.

And of course I told him I couldn’t – “But Olive should be able to. She’s got a spell and she figured it out last time.”

And she would recognise my powers – just like she did at The Green Dragon. I turned to the plants on the stall, just as Olive was calling my name, and tried to make them grow.

And they did grow, suddenly sprouting up everywhere, and the stallholder squealed in alarm but Olive somehow didn’t notice. So I tried to make it rain – right on her head (I didn’t think it was the time to be subtle), but even as others pointed at her in amazement, she just found a newspaper to use as a makeshift umbrella and carried on searching for me.

“She’s not the most observant,” Derringer said, with a bit of a sneer that made me feel offended on Olive’s behalf.

“No, I don’t think it’s that – Callum said that the Weybridges noticed if he made noise while upstairs but he couldn’t scare them off while in the same room… I’m trying to use magic to communicate, and that’s what the spell stops!”

I felt rather good about this realisation, Vera, in the midst of everything! Even if it meant that getting Olive to notice us was going to be very difficult.

The next hour or so was very tiring. Derringer Grant kept trying to attract people’s attention and failing, and then yelling at me to take the spell off, and I tried, but nothing seemed to work. My brain was getting foggy with all the fuss so I tried to leave him for a bit to go for a walk to clear my head, but he didn’t like that.

“Oh no you don’t – don’t think you’re leaving me like this!”

“I’m not. I just wish you’d shut up. Yelling and shouting isn’t solving anything and I need to think.”

“Is this…” Something about his tone made me stop and look at him. “Is this some kind of plot to get rid of me?”

He sounded less like he was angry, and more like he was pretending to be angry. To cover up the fact that he was starting to realise what this could mean for him… And it terrified him.

“Of course not,” I said. “I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy. I’m so sorry, Mr Grant. I know Olive will help us when she realises we’re here but she’s going to have to figure it out.”

“You seem very calm given the state we’re in.”

“It was the state I was in last week,” I said. “It felt so horrible and hopeless then but I made it out.”

He raised an eyebrow. “And that’s your story still…”

“It’s the truth. And if I can’t convince you of that after showing you the spell, then I’ve got no hope.”

He grunted. We walked. He tapped at his phone, tried to greet passers-by, even yelled in the face of a very sweet looking baby, who noticed nothing.

And here’s a funny thing, Vera. He hadn’t been polite and I don’t like his newspaper. I felt like he deserved to have some kind of payback for how he was accosting me and Olive. But I started to feel sorry for him. I remembered how frightened I’d been, how awful it had been seeing Teddy fade and Olive lose hope, and even though I didn’t feel nearly as scared this time, I saw that he had been really shaken.

I tapped his shoulder – he turned quickly, then looked disappointed to see it was me again. He was past shouting now – instead he crumpled a bit, like plant that’s not been watered in too long.

“I promise it won’t be forever,” I told him. “We can go back to Dune House – hopefully Olive will too and she’ll figure it out. And when you’re back to normal, well… Imagine the article you can write about it.” I shuddered slightly. “Although please warn me when you do, so I can warn my parents. They worried so much about the last one…”

His face actually softened a bit at that. He shrugged. “I know it seems like a bit of a sordid business at times. Sometimes I wonder if I even still enjoy it myself. It used to feel exciting, you know, tracking down weird phenomena and rogue warlocks, but after a while you realise there’s nothing really noble in it, writing some searing exposé that makes all the parties involved look bad.” He sighed. “You’re young and idealistic now, Lucy, but sooner or later you’ll find yourself doing what you have to do to put food on the table.”

“And there’s nothing else you can do?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. This feels like the only thing I’m good at.”

We got back to Dune House, but no one was about. I made him a cup of tea and we sat in the sitting room. I went up to check on Teddy, but even when I opened the case, I didn’t see him. That worried me.

And of course Olive had said she was going to go back to her cottage. Surely she’d return when someone noticed I was missing. I thought of Callum again. He’d seemed so alone in the world – everyone assuming that he was fine by himself, no one thinking to raise the alarm when he didn’t come home. I hope he’s all right, Vera.

When I came back to the sitting room, Derringer Grant was trying again to use his phone, but it didn’t seem to be working.

“This is a journalist’s hell,” he told me. “Please – there must be something you can do. It’s been a good joke, sure, but let me go.”

I sat in the armchair, feeling a bit guilty now. “I’m afraid I don’t know how.”

“This isn’t you and Waters, playing a trick on me?” He meant Olive!

Imagine, Vera. That would be such a horrible trick!

“No, I’m afraid not. But I know she’ll find us and the best thing we can do is to stay here.”

“Right.” He put the television on. The national news was politics, some celebrity scandal – then the local news was about council flood defences and then a story about a school that had had a fire. Nothing about disappearing journalists, or even weird localised rainstorms in Barkmouth! They’re probably used to that by now.

Derringer Grant’s phone kept beeping. That seemed stressful. He read the messages, scraped a hand through his hair, tried to reply, failed, scraped another hand through his hair. His hair was starting to look terrible.

“Derringer’s an unusual name,” I said. “It sounds like… maybe a type of power tool.”

He made a dry chuckle. “It’s a type of pistol. It’s a pen name – I was a teenager when I picked it.” He huffed. “You see the foolish decisions teenagers make.”

This annoyed me, actually. “And what about grown men, who decide to follow teenagers around in order to show the world the truth?”

He bristled back. “And what about the so-called adults who let those teenagers go out into the world alone, and practise magic? Magic that can do things like this?”

“We’re not alone. We have Mrs Webfoot, and our mentors. And we have to learn somehow. I know teenagers who’ve gone joyriding, or smoked, or got drunk…”

“And we have laws against those things,” he said.

“But you can’t make a law that stops people being who they are,” I said. “I’m a witch and I have magic. Yes that can be dangerous, but that means I need to learn how to use it well. If we hadn’t been there, Callum would still be stuck, or worse if the mob had had their way or if the Weybridges had listened to The Magical Reporter and burned their lovely pub to the ground. Teenagers learning about magic isn’t the problem – it’s a lack of education that’s the problem.”

I didn’t quite realise I felt this strongly, Vera! The papers talk about the idea that it can be dangerous to let young people explore their magic, but no one ever says how dangerous it is to hide magic from us, to keep things secret and treat people as bad and wrong if they want to know more. I thought of Jacob trying to do his best in secret. I remember that Mrs Webfoot said her niece “grew out” of her magical powers.

I had a sudden realisation then, Vera – Mrs Webfoot wasn’t talking about Olive. She’s Olive’s great aunt – I think Olive’s mother must have had magic! And given how furious Olive’s family were when The Magical Reporter gave away who she was, I’ll bet she didn’t just grow out of her powers.

Derringer Grant was quiet after that – I thought he was just sulking. But later on, Olive and Mrs Webfoot came in, talking worriedly about me, and then Olive decided to test the house with that magic mirror of hers.

“Ah, Lucy, here you are,” she said. “Thank goodness I’ve found you.”

She said the words to the spell but it didn’t work. I nearly panicked then – and Derringer Grant looked alarmed too, seeing me panic – but she just sighed and said, “Oh, and Derringer Grant, I see you’re here too,” in a reluctant tone, and said the spell again – at which point we both became visible again.

“You’re really making a habit of this, Lucy Skylark,” she said. “What happened?”

“I don’t know – must be an after-effect of what happened at the pub.”

She gave Grant a disdainful look. “If you’re going to write some filthy article about us, you can mention that I saved you.”

“Oh very good, Waters,” he snapped back.

But then he turned to me and his expression was almost humble. “It’s been an experience,” he said. “Not pleasant, of course, but interesting. I’d been finding life a bit… dull, to be honest.”

Then he reached out his hand for me to shake! “When can I expect your article?” I said, trying to sound confident and nonchalant even though I’m sure my nerves showed!

“Soon,” he said, with a smile that was warmer than I expected. “And then, I think I might try something new.”

“It’s about time you wrote that detective novel,” Olive said.

He jumped at that. “How did you…”

She shrugged, and smiled. “I’m a very talented witch. And you should. It’d give you a lot of happiness.”

“Oh.” His face softened. “Well – I need to go now.”

And off he went!

I asked Olive what she meant, and she told me how her mirror works – it shows her the person’s fondest dream for themselves! Derringer Grant had been at a book launch selling copies of Cursed: A D.I. Hex story. D.I. Hex, Vera! That made me chuckle – but it made me happy too.

I asked Olive what she saw of me when she looked in her mirror – and she said a sweet old lady tending flowers in a cottage. At first I thought I was a little embarrassed that she’d seen that – but it is a very nice dream. I hope it comes true.

In the meantime, Olive’s teaching me her disillusionment spell!

Be well Vera.

Your friend,

Lucy.

Next entry: https://helenspeaks.com/2025/07/01/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-teenage-witch/

Question: What’s your dream job? Why?

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