Star polishing 10/11

Jennifer Jane followed the two witches as they folded their deckchairs and carried their bags up the beach towards the cottage. Esme opened the front gate and let her through first. The closer she got, the prettier the cottage looked.

The roses round the door not only looked nice but had a lovely scent as well. Dulce came past her and opened the front door, then they all trooped inside and the witches put down their bags and chairs. Esme lead the way into the front room and sat at the table. She twiddled her fingers and the table spread itself with the most delicious looking tea.

“Gosh that was clever, I thought magic didn’t work in this world.”

“It’s only the cottage that’s magic, it brings everything it needs where ever we take it. Help yourself to anything you want to eat, while I tell you the story.”

“The cottage is very old,” Esmerelda continued, “it’s been passed down generations of witches and finally came to me. I can remember coming here as a child with my old granny and she could remember her granny and so on. In a way it’s rather like a small version of the Witches’ Home, except that it can move around.”

“The front garden always leads to the world where the cottage happens to be,” she continued, “while a gate in the back garden leads to a different world altogether. It changes wherever we go and some of the alternatives aren’t very nice. When we’re near the Witches’ Home, the back garden leads to a world that has no people at all. However, it does get a bit boring after a while, which is why we work all day and have peace and quiet at night time. Every now and again we have a holiday from both places and that’s why we’re here now.”

“Would you be able to take me home instead of my having to stop Jonah again?”

“Sorry love, the poor old building’s getting on a bit. We have to wait while it recharges itself after a move. That’s why we have a months holiday at a time, it takes that long before the magic builds up to the point where we can move again.”

After tea was over, Esme and Dulce settled down for forty winks. Jennifer Jane wandered through the cottage admiring the decorations and furniture and eventually went out into the back garden. It didn’t seem to be very different to the front. Flower borders edged a nicely cut and trimmed lawn, with a path winding along one side through a floral tunnel.

There was what she assumed to be a magic haze on either side, similar to the one surrounding the Witches’ Home; otherwise everything seemed perfectly ordinary. She passed out of the tunnel, through a small orchard and came at last to the end of the garden.

A high brick wall strongly reinforced with massive buttresses barred her way, it was nearly hidden behind a thick covering of ivy. She was just about to turn round and go back to the cottage, when she spotted the shape of door nearly hidden by the ivy. She pulled some of it away and found that she’d uncovered an iron studded oak door. It looked very solid and was barred at both the top and bottom by two very solid oak beams resting in heavy iron brackets.

A strongly made slide covered what she assumed was a peephole, similar to the one in Arthur’s castle. Surely it wouldn’t do any harm if she had a quick look through, after all, that was what the peephole was for. She opened the slide with a bit of an effort and screamed. A huge red eye was looking straight at her. It certainly didn’t look like any of the animals or people that she’d ever met before. Just seeing it look at her made shivers run up and down her back and she shut the slide again as quickly as she could.

A tremendous thump shook the wall, making the dust and rubbish of years fly off in clouds. Another huge thump and a roar from the other side of the wall, then everything became quiet again.

“I told you some of the things we find outside the back garden weren’t very pleasant,” said Esmerelda with a grin.

Jennifer Jane squeaked again, not as loudly this time, but she hadn’t heard Esme coming up behind her and she’d made her jump.

“Whatever was it?”

“Dunno, but whatever it is I don’t want to find out. I suppose that’s why the wall was made so thick. If we want to go out the back way we can, but we can check first to make sure there’s nothing too nasty out there.”

Half an hour later, Jennifer Jane felt a lot better. She was tucked up nice and warm in the spare bedroom and had just finished a mug of cocoa. Half an hour after that she was sound asleep.