The Potioneer (Shadeborn Book 3) (10 page)

December

Idle Hands

By the time the freezing snap of December’s air had permeated the ancient walls of the Theatre Imaginique, Jeronomie Parnell was an indispensable powerhouse in the troupe’s daily life. No-one had realised that the potioneer would wish to actually live in the theatre during her time of employ, but no-one complained when she set up her bed, workbench and numerous piles of books in the attic space of the highest floor. No-one, that is, apart from Dharma Khan.

“What am I supposed to do for rehearsals?” she demanded one night at dinner. “The woman has filled the space with all her cauldrons and dolls and jars, and she keeps locking the door when she’s not in there! I didn’t even know the attic door
had
a lock.”

Novel, who always took breakfast at the time when others ate dinner, chewed a slice of bacon thoughtfully. Dharma was waiting for her answer, and Lily knew that Novel would have no choice but to give it when he’d swallowed his current mouthful. The shade seemed to be making that mouthful last for as long as possible before he was drawn into the siren’s haughty argument.

“And,” Dharma began again, enraged by her own impatience, “the woman has simply wretched manners. She keeps making remarks, as though she thinks I’m lazy! Lazy! Me!”

Lily, who watched the whole tirade from Novel’s left, gave Dharma a sympathetic nod. In truth, she was fairly certain that if Dharma was asked to list her hobbies, they wouldn’t stretch far beyond lounging, gossiping and trying on dresses, but she did think that the siren had a right to do whatever she wanted with her time. Dharma’s furious gaze was still locked on Novel, who had finished his bacon and quickly put a glass of water to his lips rather than use them to speak.

“It’s only temporary,” Lily interjected, reaching out to pat one of Dharma’s sharp-nailed hands gently, “and you can use the whole stage to rehearse if you like, we’ve all promised to keep away and respect your privacy.”

Dharma sniffed indignantly, and finally stopped scrutinizing Novel. She smiled at Lily warmly, sandwiching her hand between her own.

“Wise words, sweetheart. Maybe
you
ought to be managing this place.”

Since his tantrum in the foyer, it was clear that Novel was making a deliberate attempt to curb his temper. At Dharma’s jibe, he lowered his gaze to his plate and continued to eat in silence, until he was only pushing a solitary fried tomato around the rim of the dish. It was into this tense scene that Jeronomie Parnell burst, full of vivacious energy that she first expressed with a loud clap as she entered the kitchen.

“Whew, that was a hard day’s brewing, I tell you,” the potioneer surmised. “I think I’ve got the first batch of something ready for you to try, Miss Lily.”

“Oh great,” Lily answered brightly, “well, thank you. Sit down, please, you must be exhausted.”

The imposing woman waved a hand, which was becoming an ever-familiar gesture.

“No, no, I only came to see if your sweet little Lady Eva wanted me to wash the dishes up again after supper. Gotta keep busy. You know what they say about idle hands.”

Lily didn’t miss the look that Jeronomie gave to Dharma at the last remark. Dharma stood and stormed from the room immediately, her silky black robes billowing at funny angles that made her look like an irate jellyfish. She couldn’t have been more different from the rough and tough woman who was now making her way to the table, and Lily could hardly imagine that women like Jeronomie and Dharma would ever be friends in any situation. Jeronomie didn’t seem disturbed in the least that she’d upset Dharma, and she went about the business of depositing a small vial of pale blue liquid on the table in front of Novel.

“For your inspection, Sir,” she said brusquely. “Administer it to your young lady-friend as you please.”

The potioneer began work at the sink of dirty dishes as she’d promised, but Lily could see the corner of her vision was still trained on the table. Novel picked up the small vial and tipped the liquid to and fro before his eyes, then he took out the little cork stopper, and gave the potion a sniff.

“Tell me again what this potion’s supposed to do,” he asked.

Jeronomie was animated in her reply, and soap suds flew everywhere as she gestured with great gusto.

“My speciality is in magic that produces invisibility,” she explained, “what you have in your hands, is a potion that reduces the visibility of another person when they’re seen through a pane of glass.”

“So if they were on the other side of a window, you wouldn’t see them?” Lily asked.

Jeronomie pointed, and suds flew just centimetres short of Lily’s face.

“Bingo, my dear.”

“And would you be offended if I sampled this batch before a proper dose was given to Lily?” Novel asked.

He looked curious, but tense as ever. Jeronomie heaved a little irate sigh, but she nodded all the same.

“I reckon I wouldn’t expect any less of someone in your position, Monsieur. The House of Novel ain’t famed for being trusting.”

Novel only nodded at that, and he raised the little vial of liquid to his lips. Lily felt a stab at her heart, just in case there was something dangerous in the bottle, but when Novel had drained its contents entirely, he did not convulse or grab at his throat. Instead he licked his lips once, and picked up the empty water glass from the table.

“Go on then,” he said, offering the glass to Lily, “let’s see if it works.”

Lily took the glass and turned it over a few times in her palms. Then, she lifted it like a telescope and put it to one eye, closing the other as she focused on looking straight down through the glass. Where Novel had been sitting, there was only the distorted shape of a strange black shadow. It sort of looked like a person, but Lily wasn’t entirely sure. When she pulled her eye away from the glass, however, she saw that Novel was still sitting before her, and she checked through the scope again to ensure that he turned into shadows the moment he was behind the pane.

“That’s amazing,” she exclaimed.

“Mmm-hmm,” Jeronomie said with a proud nod. “My thinking is, so long as the creature remains on the other side of the glass, he ain’t gonna be able to target you so specifically with his ill luck.”

“We’ll begin treatment at once,” Novel said approvingly. “If you’d be so kind as to bring Lily a regular supply?”

“Can do, Sir,” the potioneer answered.

She turned her back fully then, attention restored to the dishes. Lily was still playing with the glass scope, lifting it to see Novel transform to a black blur, then reappear before her. For the first time in weeks, the haunting words of the djinn beyond the mirror didn’t strike quite so much fear into her heart, and she felt a great deal safer than she had before Jeronomie entered the theatre.

“This potioneer magic’s great,” she said, raising the scope to her eye once more. “Why don’t you use it all the time?”

There was a pause, and it was just long enough for Jeronomie’s neck to stiffen a little.

“I have my reasons,” answered the shade among the shadows.

Family Histories

“She’s amazing, isn’t she?” Jazzy said, in a voice that couldn’t be mistaken for anything but a swoon.

As much as Lily was grateful for Jeronomie – she hadn’t had a near-fatal accident now in almost two weeks – she was starting to feel as though the potioneer was all anyone at the Imaginique talked about. The bold, brash American had become this instant presence in everyone’s lives, ingratiating herself with Eva in the kitchen and providing little salves and treatments to Zita and the Slovak twins, who were regularly seen waiting patiently outside the attic door for her advice.

“She’s like a doctor, but better,” Jazzy continued, “she helps with all sorts of things. She even gave Lawrence this cream that protects his feet when he walks on hot coals.”

“I’m not using it!” Lawrence insisted quickly. “That would be cheating. Poppa’s voodoo is what takes the pain away.”

Jazzy gave him a little knowing look, but said nothing. The three students were back at university, where Lily had caught up on the majority of her classes ready for mock examinations, just before the Christmas break. The trio were seated in the cafeteria, at the very same table where Molly had saved Lily from her choking fit, but now Lily was eating a sausage roll coated in flaky pastry without any fear of danger. She felt as though a sense of normality and peace was finally returning to her life, and if the price for that was having to hear about the wonders of Saint Jeronomie all day, every day, then maybe that was just a price she’d have to pay.

“She’s even helping
me
,” Jazzy revealed with a proud little grin.

Lily quirked a brow.

“Helping you with what exactly?” she asked.

Jazzy leaned closer. She had taken her spectacles off, since looking at Lily through the glass lenses had become difficult due to the invisibility potion, and now her eyes were huge and brown like those of a hopeful puppy. She spoke in a quiet but enthused voice, her gaze gleaming with pride.

“She’s helping me control my Second Sight.”

Lawrence, as usual, was the first to raise the alarm. Even though he and Jazzy had never fully admitted to being an item, he took her hand in his whenever concern burned in his heart. This was one of those times, and Lily watched his tattooed fingers intertwining with Jazzy’s as he spoke gently to her ear.

“You weren’t supposed to tell anyone about that,” he urged, “Monsieur Novel said so. You know how special your blood is to some people out there.”

“But she’s helped so many of you already in a few weeks,” Jazzy explained, “and she said her speciality was invisibility, so I thought she might be able to help me make the people I see disappear.”

“And did she?” Lily asked, her breath caught in her throat.

Jazzy slipped her glasses back on and did a level sweep of the room.

“They’re only shadows,” she said, her voice suddenly peaceful. “I can focus in on them if I want to, but if I don’t, then they just fade into the scenery. It feels wonderful.”

Lily observed her dear friend from across the table, taking her in from her Gok Wan frames right down to the wheelchair, which was becoming increasingly coated in vinyl music stickers. Jeronomie Parnell had walked in and saved Jazzy from one plague in her life, but Lily had caused her the injury that gave her a whole new struggle to worry about. Though Jazzy never seemed to complain about the chair itself, her relief from the potioneer’s aid stung Lily somewhere deep in her heart. She felt like a bad, useless friend, and she found it hard not to blame the potioneer’s presence for stirring those feelings up again.

“Well, better get some notes out and revise my Milton,” Jazzy said, breaking Lily from her reverie of guilt.

Compared to Lily’s meagre single notebook for history, Jazzy had a library’s worth of stuff hanging on the back handles of her chair. Lawrence was tasked with transferring the pile to the table, and he started spreading Jazzy’s books out for her to peruse like the dutiful, lovesick boy that he was. As Jazzy shuffled papers and prepared her pens and highlighters, Lily spotted a crumpled sheet at the bottom of the pile that she thought she recognised.

“Hey, isn’t that mine?”

She pulled the paper by its corner until it was free of the huge textbook atop it, and the image of a young woman with a pale, gaunt face greeted her eyes. She had seen the woman’s face before, and she knew the text that was typed beside it well. It was the assignment that Bradley Binns had given her class in the October half-term, one that she’d written and handed in before her fall, and the fallout thereafter.

“Why do you have this?” Lily asked, handing the paper back to Jazzy. “Don’t tell me your tandem-ing another degree alongside your English Lit?”

“No, of course not,” Jazzy said in her mock-officious moan.

But when she took the paper and looked at it, her expression sank back to seriousness. All of the peace she’d felt was gone, and the familiar sight of Jazzy and her bag of nerves was firmly back in place.

“God, I forgot,” she murmured, her bright eyes roving over the picture. “I took this from your lecturer, but then you were hurt and I must’ve just shoved it in my bag. And then of course Jeronomie’s reduced my visions, so-”

“Jaz, come to the point mate,” Lily coaxed.

Her flustered friend looked up, a blush forming in her pale brown cheeks.

“Who is this girl, do you know?” Jazzy asked.

“Yeah,” Lily answered, “well, sort of. Bradley said she’s an ancestor of his from the Pendle witch trials.”

“Why do you ask?” Lawrence urged, still clutching her hand. “Is it important?”

“I don’t know,” Jazzy replied, “but what I do know, is that this is the same girl I saw in the theatre.”

Lily remembered that night, when she’d found Jazzy helpless and struggling on the stairs. She had claimed that a vision of a girl, quite unlike her usual Second Sight apparitions, had come to lead her upstairs in the darkness. Lily could even remember them discussing the Wednesday Adams vibe of the girl, and how she’d thought that Bradley Binns’s ancestor would be a similar type of woman.

“The same?” Lily repeated. “The exact same girl?”

Jazzy nodded.

“I’m certain, Lily. I took this page from Bradley because she was the girl I saw. Whoever she was back in the days of Pendle, she has something to do with the Imaginique. Why would she be haunting the place otherwise?”

“Haunting?” Lawrence said. “I thought you said you saw memories of people, not ghosts.”

“But this girl was different,” Lily answered, filling in the logic as she pieced together her memories. “She tried to speak to Jazzy directly, and the memories in Second Sight don’t do that, do they?”

Jazzy shook her head, and the three of them sat in thought for a long, silent moment. Lily was the one to break it, ruffling her hair with a sigh.

“Bradley told me she was tried for being a witch, but she escaped her execution,” Lily revealed.

“So if she escaped…” Lawrence began.

“… then maybe she
was
magical,” Jazzy completed.

“I guess that means I need to talk to Bradley about his family history,” Lily mused.

“We have him next Tuesday,” Lawrence said with a nod.

Lily shook her head.

“I have a feeling we’ll see him on Saturday night,” she replied, “Michael’s been giving him regular tickets to the show.”