Helen Speaks

Lucy Skylark Entry 26, 8^th September.

Dear Vera,

We’ve had a few cooler days here in Barkmouth – it feels like summer is passing and autumn is coming. Olive came for Sunday dinner at Dune House, and afterwards, as we sat around digesting Mrs Webfoot’s delicious cooking and feeling contentedly overfull, we both noticed what a beautiful day it was… I think she was the one who suggested we do a ritual, but I’m not even sure now. It seems we were both feeling reflective and talking about what we wanted to do in the coming months, and between us we decided to go out, acknowledge the passing of summer and set some intentions for the autumn.

Olive found a spot out by the cliffs in a kind of clearing, and remarked that she thought it looked like an ideal place – and I don’t think she remembered it was where she had found me, trying to do my own desperate ritual for clarity back in May after it felt like everything had gone wrong.

She seemed quiet and thoughtful, and didn’t tell me why exactly, and yet I feel like there’s a closeness between us now, one I could have never predicted when she came here, putting on an air of confidence and experience that I now realise was mainly for show.

I had a parcel delivered the other day – I assumed it was something from Mum and Dad, until I saw the label and saw the exact style of lettering perfected by Zainab when we both got gel pens and spent a glorious afternoon when we were eight trying to train ourselves into handwriting that was both teacher-approved neat and idiosyncratically distinctive. Hers obviously lasted longer than mine – oh my goodness, Vera, I remember when we tried to make a comic together. I drew and she lettered. We managed an issue and a half. Pippa did sell several copies of that first issue, though, with a few hard selling techniques. We bought ourselves so much pick and mix we felt quite ill afterwards.

I opened it and found a note.

Hi Lucy. It’s been a long, slow summer without you. Me and Pippa have done our best, though! While she was on holiday, I took up crochet. Thought of you down in the uncivilised South and decided that you need something to remember us by. Hope it fits.

Lots of love, Zainab.

It was a crochet jumper in a chunky rainbow yarn. It did fit – it was even a little baggy. I don’t know how she found the time.

After thinking about how grateful I am for my new friends, and especially how close I am with Suniya and Olive, I felt like I wanted to cry. I miss Zainab, and Pippa too. They’ll be going to college. I don’t write to them as often as I should. Sometimes I feel like I’m becoming a different person. But they’ll be becoming different people too. There’s no reason we can’t keep on being friends through it all.

Feeling a bit melancholy, I took a walk out by the cliff paths by myself. The jumper was a warm hug but also a reminder of absent friends. The wind was up and the air felt wet, from sea spray or rain or possibly both.

“Is that you, Lucy Skylark?”

“Luuuucy…”

I looked up and it was Jacob and Hazel! You remember I told you about Jacob – he was a natural history professor at Oakstone, and also a secret witch. And Hazel’s his familiar, a sparrow that he charmed to speak English. The last I saw of them, Jacob had taken a brass compass from the Exchange and he was going away for his own belated Magical Year.

He looked like a new man, Vera. He had a long black coat almost like a robe, with star patterns embroidered on it – like he’s happy that people see him and immediately know he’s a witch. He smiled when he saw me like I never saw him smile when I met him in Oakstone.

I told him it was wonderful to see him and asked what brought him back to Barkmouth.

He gestured to a bag of leaves and sprigs of plants. “Hunting for ingredients. And seeing the old place again.” He smiled broadly again. “Your jumper makes you easy to find. Homemade?”

“Yes – by my old friend Zainab. I was just thinking about home as well.”

“It stays with us,” Jacob said. “Even when we think we’ve grown beyond it – and that can be a blessing.”

A sharp gust of wind caught us then. Hazel wheeled, let out a cry, and then shot under Jacob’s jacket for shelter. “Come – we’re both foolish witches being out in this weather,” he said. “Let’s take the cliff stairs and I’ll buy us a warm drink at the Seafront Café.”

The cliff stairs are wooden planks cut into the hillside, not the steadiest set of steps but safer than trying to edge down the slope. I tripped near the bottom and scraped my knee – Jacob asked if it was all right if he healed it, and asked for my hand – a moment later the skin was fresh and new.

The Seafront Café is basically a cabin on some boards just up from the pebble beach, with the prices written on a slate outside, the owner an old lady with flyaway grey hair, a rough voice but a twinkle in her eye. She made us two extremely strong cups of tea for a price so cheap I didn’t mind that Jacob paid for both of us (I feel he really shouldn’t, since we’re both on magical years).

He told me what he’s been up to – settled into a ramshackle cottage in Lindsbay which is about fifty miles west down the coast, met a few strange figures, learned some different spells, made a few beginner attempts at runes and herbal charms, and had his mother over for tea.

“I say I had her over – she insisted on cooking.”

“How did she feel, about the fact that you’re being open about being a witch?”

“I’m sure she wasn’t thrilled,” he said. “But she seems to accept it. Having had some time to think about it, she’s not quite so angry about me healing her as she was at first.” He smiled. “She said she enjoys having functioning lungs.”

He said he’d heard about the incident at the Green Dragon. He said he and Hazel had worried so much when they heard I’d gone missing.

Hazel chirped that she was planning to fly over and look for me! “But we were late picking up the news – you were found later that day. I didn’t quite understand how – was it some sort of curse?”

“A curse or a wish,” I said. “I turned myself – and a journalist called Derringer Grant – invisible just a week later. Thankfully it hasn’t happened again.”

“Oh, I know Derringer Grant,” Jacob said. “His article about you was very positive, for him.”

“I’m hoping I won him over, but I think that was Olive – she has a kind of gift that I don’t quite understand.”

“Don’t we all,” he said wryly.

Heading back up towards town, as Jacob needed to go to the railway station, we saw a homeless man curled up under an arch. He looked terrible, Vera – he must have had sunburn at least because his skin was red and peeling. He was shivering despite his coat, and drool was coming out of his mouth. He was barely conscious, slumped into a uncomfortable heap.

Jacob gave me an apologetic look and crouched down by him.

The man peeled an eye open. “Spare any change?” he whispered, then coughed.

“I’m hoping to help you another way, if I can,” Jacob said. “I may be able to help you feel better with some magic, if you’re willing to let me try? I just need to hold your hand.”

The man shrugged with visible effort, and said, “Why not,” and gave Jacob his hand.

It wasn’t instant like healing cuts and scrapes. Jacob was there for longer than even when he healed Hazel. The man’s skin started to soften and turn back to a proper colour. He started breathing more easily. But it was taking a long time.

And Jacob started looking tired. I worry about him. A doctor heals with medicine, but Jacob gives his own magic, and magic has to get energy from somewhere. I was scared it was hurting him.

“Jacob,” I asked him, tugging his elbow. “Do you think you should take a break?”

The man still looked woozy. I saw tears in Jacob’s eyes. “He’s very ill,” he told me. “I thought it was just a cold but… if I don’t help him he could die…”

And I had to do something. Talking about Derringer Grant had reminded me of the burst of anger and determination I felt, and how the magic done on me had echoed back.

Jacob had healed me on the cliff stairs.

“Let me help,” I said, and turned to the man, still slumped and groaning slightly. “I’m going to take your other hand.”

For a moment it felt like I was held in a bubble, feeling power run through me and knit together what was broken in the poor man. Draining but also invigorating, like when you’ve been running so long you find a strength you didn’t know you had.

Moments – what could have been seconds or hours later – the man lifted his head and said, “What did you just do?”

The astonishment in his voice was less striking than the fact he had a voice, not just a whispery rasp, and he scrambled to his feet and stared at us both. Then he blinked a few times, tested his legs as if to check if they worked, and then he ran off.

I watched him go, to check if he was all right but also because I was surprised he hadn’t said something else – hadn’t said how happy he was or thanked Jacob.

I turned back to Jacob to see if he was surprised and he was staring at me.

“What?”

“When did you get my power?”

He didn’t look pleased. He looked horrified.

He looked me like he was checking I was all right. Which seemed a bit rich from a man with pale lips and bloodshot eyes.

“Jacob, you saved him but you – you can’t keep doing this. You look…”

“I’ll be fine, I’m used to it – how did you…”

“Sometimes, if a spell’s been done on me, I can do it myself,” I said. “Like an echo. Like when I turned Derringer Grant invisible. Or when I got weather sensing powers after meeting Maksym and seeing his weather power. You needed help – you couldn’t do it alone.”

 “No,” he said, and shook his head despairingly. “But I wouldn’t wish my power on anyone else. It’s too easy to keep giving and wear yourself out.”

I looked at him, looking sad and tired and I was reminded of the old Jacob, when we first met.

He saw my concern and made a weak smile. “We should have called an ambulance – but on the plus side, I think he’ll be wondering why everything including his dandruff has cleared up.”

“He didn’t even thank us.”

“He probably feels like he got hit by a train but in reverse. Got unhit by a train. Can you blame him for not having the words?”

We walked at a tired pace to the station. Hazel flew down – she’d been inspecting some trees – and fussed at Jacob.

“What did Driana say? You need to pace yourself!”

At the station, he went to the kiosk and ordered us both a hot chocolate with cream for considerably more money than the Seafront Café.

“Sugar – and rest. Best thing for you after a dramatic healing.”

The hot chocolate was nothing special but I think he must have been right because it was also the best hot chocolate I’d ever tasted.

Jacob’s train pulled in and he gathered his things.

“Take care of yourself Lucy,” he said. “And thank you – for everything.”

Hazel flitted to my shoulder and I gave her a quick stroke on the head.

I walked home, remembering what Jacob had said in that letter he’d sent me back in June – that we need community. It sounds like his mother is starting to accept his magic even if she doesn’t understand yet.

I went home and wrote Zainab a letter. One for Pippa too. I’m not sure I want to invite Mum and Dad down for a visit! But I should probably call more often.

Give my love to Tibbles. Remember me to Mr Akhtar. And thank you, as always, for being my mentor.

Your friend,

Lucy.

–

Dear Zainab,

Your parcel was a wonderful surprise. I don’t know how you found the time but the jumper is perfect – like a warm hug from a friend!

Tell me everything that’s going on with you. I don’t want to miss it.

I should write more often, because I have so much to tell you – pixies, weather magic and some healing magic that scares me a bit.

I feel like I’m in the right place for me – but I miss you. Being friends long distance isn’t the same, but I still want to be friends. Don’t forget me when you go to college!

Love,

Lucy.