Helen Speaks

Olive Framley Entry 19 26^th August

Dear Talia,

Nothing seems to help. I am considering returning home. At least then Daddy won’t have to worry about me besmirching the family name any

Dear Olive,

I’ll have to finish the bathroom later – I’ve received an urgent call.

Maksym called with a note – I’ve put it with this one.

Do remember to eat something.

-Hatty.

Dear Olive,

I told Tato that you were teaching me some magic. I miss you. And my shoes. But mostly you. Please can we be friends again?

Maksym

To: Mrs Ermingarde Webfoot

Dune House

Barkmouth

From: Talia Renton

14 Sweetfield Beck

Halley

Treville

Dear Ermingarde,

I wanted to thank you for your hospitality last week as I visited Barkmouth. I was sorry not to meet your lodger, Lucy, as I have heard much about her and her powers of weather control and plant growth from Olive, but I trust the situation with her lodgings will be resolved soon.

As we didn’t have an opportunity for further conversation, I wished to tell you about myself and how I came to be Olive’s mentor.

I have been the resident witch at Halley for too many years for a lady to decently admit. My daughter thinks I am well-preserved in my fifties. Would that I were actually so young!

The Framley-Waters family called upon me frequently during Olive’s childhood, for various problems both magical and non-magical. Their little girl – as Olive was then – was a confident youngster with a love for making potions. Many children do this, of course, but Olive’s potions seemed to glow with a hue all their own. It wasn’t a surprise to me when she came to tell me that she had started seeing the future in flashes. I agreed to mentor her through her magical year.

I found Barkmouth for Olive through an old scrying practice I’ve developed using a map and the shedding pattern of my ever-moulting terrier, Pippo. I find that natural methods are the best for these things. Pippo is a wise little dog and I am unsurprised that this method located not just a house for Olive in the form of Crag Cottage, but that it was located in the vicinity of a relative, namely yourself. I genuinely didn’t know that you were her aunt when I sent her to Barkmouth.

So little did I know, in fact, that I sent someone else to watch over Olive – namely, Harriet, my daughter. She’d been sounding rather unhappy with her work lately – some hideous office job – and Olive’s father was willing to pay a substantial sum for weekly reports.

It was Hatty’s doing that I visited last week. I’m sorry to say that she had never particularly liked Olive, which seems inevitable when her chief role in the house was to tidy and clean. And yet she called on me when Olive had all but given up. I hope she knows I am proud of her.

I had intended to keep my relationship to Hatty a secret but I fear my inability to keep up with the latest fashion trends marks out my eccentricity. Apparently Olive’s apprentice, a young boy named Maksym, observed Hatty and I together at the local coffee shop while out with his father.

Olive hasn’t been speaking to her young apprentice lately. It seems the boy has a powerful weather magic but he struggles to control it under stressful conditions. The two of them have been putting on magic displays for local children’s parties, but Olive did not realise the stress this might put Maksym under and he had a dramatic outburst resulting in a thunderstorm.

However, a few minutes after seeing Hatty with me, he left with assistance from Olive’s familiar, and told her he’d seen his maid with a witch – which understandably piqued her attention. I had intended to come and see her at Crag Cottage that afternoon, but instead the two of them arrived back at Coastal Coffee just as we were finishing an excellent slice of lemon drizzle cake.

Perhaps it would have been judicious to have chosen a different location for this meeting, as I understand Olive is well-known to the patrons and staff of Coastal Coffee. Maksym’s father was certainly surprised that his son seemed to have gone for a visit to the facilities and then reappeared at the entrance. Olive’s astonishment at seeing her housemaid and her mentor in apparent cahoots was evident to everyone.

Poor Olive. You were right to be concerned. She is usually a very confident young lady, but confidence is often grasped by those who have pushed back self-doubt rather than truly conquered it. On sight of me with Hatty, she was astonished, and then embarrassed.

It was Hatty who remained calm, thank goodness.

“She’s my mum, Olive,” she said. “I called her – you need her.”

She took her leave as Olive collected herself. The boy, Maksym, attempted to ask me a number of questions about being a witch, to the consternation of his father who tried to pull him away.

I told him his son was a very pleasant young man and that I would be pleased to know him in time, but encouraged the boy to leave.

Olive was mute for a seemingly interminable amount of time. Sensing the eyes of the other coffee shop patrons, I asked her to step out with me.

“So Hatty’s your daughter?” she said at last.

“She is.”

“Is she a witch?”

“Not at all. Quite opposed to it, in fact. I believe she intends to be a writer.”

“And she called you down because – am I in trouble? Has Daddy decided to call me home?”

“No, indeed. Your mother spoke up for you.”

I know you have spoken to Ophelia although Olive did not say how recently. I felt that Olive hinted that you knew she was close by even if I did not know you were there. You will understand, though, Olive’s surprise at my answer. Olive’s mother does not tend to speak up for even herself. She lives in a quiescent, peace-keeping bubble – at least she did until recently.

“And what did Hatty say?”

“You sound worried rather than curious, Olive. Do you have something to confess?”

“Well, I’ve been treating her just like a housemaid. I don’t imagine she likes me very much.”

“Then you should learn to be more polite to housemaids.”

Another solemn silence followed. I waited.

“About Maksym, Talia,” she said at last. “I wanted to help him. But I also think I just wanted to feel important. I don’t think I should apprentice him anymore. He could have been hurt, or hurt others. I still have his shoes…”

“A boy needs his shoes, Olive. Why not disenchant them and give them back?”

She groaned and closed her eyes. I asked her again.

“The disillusionment spell requires honesty,” she said.

“In that case, you had better be honest.”

“But if I tell his father what happened – that I encouraged him to take off the bands that absorb his magic, that I’ve been getting him to perform, that I keep a cat for him – he’ll never let me see Maksym again. He might never let Maksym do magic again.”

“That, it seems, is a risk you must take.”

“But I can’t…”

“At the moment you have a confused young apprentice who doesn’t realise why his beloved mentor will not talk to him. Do you think he is the picture of happiness and health at home, with all this confusion?”

She reddened. “No.”

“But of course, you are at least doing well without him – thriving without the distraction of an apprentice?”

She huffed in offence. “Of course not.”

“Then you have two choices. Carry on as you are in misery, or speak up and risk the consequences.”

She looked up then and realised we had walked to Dune House. “I believe this is your Aunt Ermingarde’s house?” I said. “I will wait here and you can go and speak to Maksym and his father.”

It was kind of you to serve us supper. I know that Olive was very quiet after she returned but she assures me that all is well enough.

Before I left, I spoke to Hatty again, who said that she and Olive had talked. It seems that Olive is embarrassed to have a housemaid who is the daughter of her mentor and she wished to repair the relationship – despite not knowing that it needed repair a few short hours earlier. They have come up with a new arrangement where Hatty will pass on her household skills. Olive realises that as an independent witch, she may not be able to afford household help. Hatty says she will help Olive learn how to do her own menial chores.

“And how do you feel about this?” I asked her.

“I think I might actually be able to do her some good,” she said. “Especially because I don’t want to do this forever.”

There is a condition, though. Olive’s father must never know. He is sure that his daughter too addicted to comfort to take wing as a witch. He blusters at her stumbles, but secretly he revels because he sees them as evidence that she will not last.

But this? This would make him shake in his boots.

It seems presumptuous of me to thank you for all you have done for Olive – your ties to her are closer than mine – but I thank you all the same.

Yours in magic,

Talia Renton.