Chapter Text
“This was a bad idea. Maybe I shouldn’t have come.”
Cat tried not to sigh, and looked up from his book. Janet was sitting on the edge of her seat across from him, staring nervously out of the train window. They had just entered the edge of Wolvercote, and the lone houses that had dotted the fields were coalescing into respectable town streets.
“It’ll be fine,” Cat reassured Janet, not for the first time today. “She knows you aren’t Gwendolyn, and she still asked to see you too.”
Janet turned to look at him. “But why? I don’t even know her, what does she want with me?” Cat thought about that, trying to remember exactly what Mrs. Sharp had said in her rambling letters. “I’m not sure, but I think she’s just trying to be nice,” he told Janet. “You’re sort of my sister now.” He didn’t say that he thought Mrs. Sharp was looking forward to meeting a nicer version of Gwendolyn. Janet didn’t like being compared to ‘that awful girl’, but Mrs. Sharp had not gotten on with Gwendolyn and Cat hoped that meeting Janet would help soothe that wound.
Wolvercote station was in the middle of town, and they carried their bags themselves, exiting the station building onto one of the town’s bigger streets. Janet was still nervous, twisting the lace from her dress while she looked around. Cat glanced around too, and was surprised by how small and shabby everything looked. He hadn’t remembered how the paint peeled off some of the houses, or how there were cobblestones missing in the road. Had the people always looked so tired? Or was he so used to the grandeur and sleek modernity of the castle that his own home town now looked dusty and faded in comparison?
He was turning to ask Janet what she thought when a small, wispy figure came towards them from across the road. Cat couldn’t help smiling as Mrs. Sharp approached them, the beads jangling on her black dress.
“There’s my cat then!” she said, and pulled him into a loose hug. “And, well,” she started nervously, turning to Janet “Gwen- Janet! It is nice to meet you.” She moved uncertainly towards Janet, as if unsure if she should hug her too, and then clasped her hand instead. Janet, looking incredibly awkward, shook Mrs. Sharp’s hand and said “Well, we have met once already Mrs. Sharp. But it’s still good to see you again.”
Mrs. Sharp looked back at Cat, confused. “When you came to the castle that one time,” he said, slightly embarrassed himself now. Mrs. Sharp turned back to Janet, understanding dawning on her face. “Yes, and I’m sorry we lied to you, Mrs. Sharp,” Janet said earnestly, “we still hadn’t told anyone I wasn’t… you know.” “Oh, not to worry my dear,” Mrs. Sharp said, sounding fond despite the unsure wobble in her voice. “Best to forget all about that time, right? Cat tells me all is well now for you two, which is what’s important!”
Cat smiled at her again. He had realised, back in his first few months in the castle, that Mrs. Sharp was not a very reliable person. But he had found that once he’d gotten over his disappointment and didn’t try to look to her as someone who could help or be in charge, he was still very fond of Mrs. Sharp. So he’d continued writing letters to her, and she had replied, once in a while, with her own slightly confusing and rambling stories. He’d actually gotten excited when she’d invited them to visit this summer, and had hoped Janet would also appreciate the trip.
What he hadn’t thought about, he realised, was that he’d be going back to Wolvercote, and to the neighbourhood he’d grown up in. As they handed some of their smaller bags to Mrs. Sharp and turned to walk towards Coven Street, Cat found that he was nervous. He hadn’t thought about Coven Street, not really, not since that terrible afternoon in Chrestomanci’s garden. Life in the castle had been so busy, full of lessons and games and adventure. What had happened to all those people? he wondered, as Mrs. Sharp chatted happily to him about what she would cook for them and how she’d arranged their old bedrooms. He remembered Chrestomanci using dragon blood to strip their magic, but he didn’t know anything more. He didn’t even really remember who had been there, except for the Nostrum brothers, of course. Did all of those people stay in Coven Street? What did they do once they lost their magic?
He was so deep in thought that he barely noticed as the houses around them got dirtier and more run-down. But then he stopped suddenly, shocked, at the entrance to Coven Street. The familiar street looked empty and haunted, the houses dilapidated and the pavement dirty. For a moment he thought that he had misidentified it, that they still hadn’t reached the right street. But no, there was the old red fortune teller’s sign hanging half broken over an empty doorway. And further on the apple tree Cat had loved to climb had gone wild, breaking the brick wall and filling the untended garden with rotten apples. What had happened here?
Mrs. Sharp and Janet had stopped next to him, and Mrs. Sharp obviously noticed his shock. “Well, you see, love,” she said. “Things aren’t quite what they used to be over here. But don’t you worry, our old house is as nice as ever, and…” She seemed nervous, and unsure what to say. “Well, lets get on and have dinner, don’t you agree, Gwe- Janet love?” Cat was still frozen, staring at the street. But Mrs. Sharp seemed so agitated that Janet took his arm and pulled him forward, elbowing him in the side as she did so. “Yes, great idea Mrs. Sharp. I’m famished,” she said in an overly bright voice, giving Cat a meaningful look.
Cat managed to give Mrs. Sharp a smile, and walked forward with them. But he kept looking around, thinking of what the street used to be like. In his memories it was so full of life, all the store fronts bright and colourful, people standing on the side walk talking and the smell of cooking food drifting out of kitchens. The air had always been heavy with the feel of magic, all those simple spells, fortunes and magical objects. That was all gone now. It was empty, quiet. It hadn’t been long enough for any serious damage - most of the it was just disrepair, broken signs, cracked windows, overgrown bushes. But it was obvious no-one had lived here in quite a few years, and it was that lack of people that struck Cat most. This wasn’t the quiet of the castle, of peaceful, safe magic spells. This quiet was oppressive and menacing, and Cat found himself gripping Janet’s arm tightly and nervously glancing behind them as they walked down the street.
He felt an absurd wave of relief when they reached their old house. It looked the same as it always had, three stories of grey-brown bricks, the blue accents around the windows still brightly painted. Even Mrs. Sharp’s old ‘Certified Witch’ sign was still in her parlour window. He’d spent a large part of his life in this house, even if it hadn’t always been in the same apartment. It felt strange, coming back here without Gwendolyn. While Mrs. Sharp fumbled with her keys at the door, he turned to look at Janet, who was gazing at the intact house with obvious relief. “We used to live on the top floors with our parents,” he told her, looking back at the house. “And when they died, Mrs. Sharp took us in.” She already knew this, of course, but he felt that the oppressive quiet would crush him if he didn’t say anything. Janet’s only reply was to take her arm out of his and wrap it round his shoulders, pulling him closer. He relaxed into her side for a moment, and as Mrs. Sharp managed to open the door and turned back to them, smiling, he decided he was very glad indeed that it was Janet here with him and not Gwendolyn.
Dinner was beef stew, with Mrs. Sharp’s gingerbread men wriggling pathetically on the side table waiting to be eaten for dessert. Cat had forgotten how bad Mrs. Sharp’s cooking was, but even the tough beef and overcooked vegetables felt nostalgic, sitting at the old dining table with her and Janet. Mrs. Sharp seemed overjoyed to have them there, and kept them busy during dinner with her own chatter and with questions about life in the Castle. They talked about their lessons with Mr. Saunders, Janet’s new bicycle and Cat’s outings on Syracuse. But Cat couldn’t help noticing that Mrs. Sharp didn’t ask anything about his magic lessons, and whenever one of them mentioned Chrestomanci she shifted nervously and changed the topic. Mrs. Sharp had felt oppressed in the Castle, Cat remembered, but this nervousness seemed more than just dislike.
As the dinner progressed, Cat felt an uncomfortable feeling tightening his gut. The menacing emptiness of the street was still there, only slightly damped by the welcoming warmth of Mrs. Sharp’s apartment. It pressed on him, and once he and Janet had had one Gingerbread man each and politely declined any more, he gathered his strength and turned to face Mrs. Sharp.
“Mrs. Sharp,” he asked tentatively. “What happened to Coven Street?” Janet looked up at the question, interested.
Mrs. Sharp’s thin face paled, and she pulled nervously on the beads hanging from her dress. “Well, Cat, love, you see, the thing is -” she paused, apparently uncertain what to say. Glancing nervously at Janet, she continued. “Well, after that horrible plan of Mr. Nostrum’s, well – and you know Cat how glad I am that he didn’t succeed, you remember I warned you – well, a lot of people couldn’t quite do the same sort of work any more, and the neighbourhood got a bit empty, that’s all.”
Janet was confused. “But if it was just some people having to change jobs and maybe move away, why didn’t other people move into the empty houses?”
Mrs. Sharp glanced back and forth between Janet and Cat, still nervous. “Well, my dear, this used to be a magical neighbourhood, you see. Cat knows – every house used to be a fortune teller or a necromancer or something, and what a nuisance it was to do anything in all that mess, I tell you – but, well, it may have been a bit more than a few people who, umm, had to have a change of career. And I have to tell you, some of them did not take to it happily, the shouts and fights there were in the first few months after they lost their ma – I mean started looking for new jobs. And, well, you can imagine, my dear, that it’s perhaps not the easiest thing to find a new job when you were a witch who was umm, you know…” she drifted off, her gaze now darting around the room as if looking for something else to talk about.
But Janet’s face was still scrunched into a frown, and she wasn’t one to drop a topic when she was confused. “But I still don’t understand,” she said “why does that mean that the houses got abandoned?”
Cat couldn’t look at Mrs. Sharp, the unease coiled tight in his gut. He stared at the table, and answered Janet quietly. “Would you want to move to a neighbourhood full of unemployed and disgraced magicians with bad tempers?”
It was more than that, he knew. The neighbourhood had always been receptive to the mood of its community. Looking back at his childhood, he was sure a lot of the joy he remembered had come from the neighbourhood itself, the buildings and gardens so full of magic that they radiated back the feelings of their owners. He could imagine it now, all those people, stripped of magic, disgraced, unemployed. Did they go hungry? Did they have to sell things, to move elsewhere, to leave behind their homes with hearts full of hate and fury? No wonder no-one wanted to move here. He could feel it himself without even trying – outside the serene bubble of Mrs. Sharp’s warm flat, the street radiated despair.
He forced himself to look up at Mrs. Sharp, who stared back at him anxiously. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Sharp,” he said, “that I didn’t think of the neighbourhood. And don’t worry, we won’t tell Chrestomanci anything. I won’t let any harm come to you.” He said this final part with as much conviction as he could muster, reaching out and taking Mrs. Sharp’s hand.
That seemed to calm Mrs. Sharp a bit, and she gave Cat a small, fond smile. “Ah Cat, you always did say you’d take care of me, didn’t you?” she said quietly, as if to herself. Janet also spoke up then. “You needn’t worry about me either, Mrs. Sharp,” she said, determined. “I’m not – not like Gwendolyn, you know.” Mrs. Sharp turned to Janet and gave her another small smile. She gave Cat’s hand a pat, and sat back, looking more sad now than nervous.
“Ah, my dears. It hasn’t been easy, you know. I was lucky, I had some money – the money I made selling that cat that used to be your violin, Cat – and well, I still have my magic. And Mr. Nostrum was a bad, bad man, and he got what he deserved for what he planned.” She looked at Cat while saying that, her gaze more intense than usual. “But it was hard on the neighbourhood, everyone losing their magic like that. Especially the kids – Cat, you remember the Jones kids, from across the street? You used to play with Marcus, I think? - well I suppose the adults had it coming, but I did wonder – anyway -”
“What do you mean, the kids?” Janet said, looking horrified. Mrs. Sharp looked nervous again “Well, I mean, Janet dear, some people took their kids with them that day – some of us did try to tell them it was a bad idea, you know, but they thought it would be fun – and well, I wasn’t part of it myself, I stayed right out of it Cat, the moment I knew what the plan was, how horrid – but I do think most people didn’t quite know the plan, you know, I’m sure Miss Smith – you remember her Cat, the necromancer? - and the Robinsons – well I do think most people would not have wanted…” she drifted off then, gesturing vaguely in the direction of Cat, and then looking away, embarrassed.
The tight feeling in Cat’s gut had solidified into a dark, heavy lump of guilt. He didn’t remember seeing any kids, that day in the garden, but it had all been so overwhelming, and in truth he’d been tied down on a block of stone most of the time. He glanced at Janet, who looked as guilty as he felt.
“Mrs. Sharp,” Cat asked carefully. “How many people from the neighbourhood went with the Nostrums that day? And how many do you think knew what the full plan was?”
“Well, love,” Mrs. Sharp started awkwardly. “I might be wrong, but it seemed to me that most of them didn’t know much. I only learnt about it myself because Mr. Nostrum thought I already knew, he thought – well, that your, ahem, sister had already told me.” Cat nodded at her to keep talking, trying to be encouraging. “I don’t mean to say – it was bad, all of it, but I do think there was mostly just talk of getting some control over our work, you know, showing, ahem, him, we were worth something. But no killing. No, no, we weren’t that sort of people.” She seemed uncertain as she answered, as if trying to reassure herself as much as them.
Cat, with the lump of guilt heavy in his gut, thought it might be time to change the subject. But Janet was as persistent as ever, and leaned forward with another question. “But I remember, in the garden, William Nostrum was talking about conquering other worlds, about being wicked without Chrestomanci stopping them. And the crowd kept cheering, when they caught and handcuffed Chrestomanci.”
Mrs. Sharp winched at the name, and looked appalled at the suggestion. “Well I don’t know about cheering, my dear,” she said, “although I could imagine seeing you-know-who handcuffed – anyway, I’m quite sure no-one except William Nostrum would have wanted to conquer other worlds. They had quite enough to do as it was, trying to live their lives.”
Janet didn’t look convinced, but Cat thought he understood. He thought he knew a bit more, now that he was older, about how you could lead a crown of people astray. And he remembered the witches from the neighbourhood, how much everyone had always grumbled about government regulation, not being able to get the right ingredients, not being able to afford better opportunities. From the Castle, magic seemed so easy. To him, it was easy. But when you were a second-rate witch like Mrs. Sharp, you relied on trade for your income, on small opportunities and making connections. When the government added new import taxes, tightened the regulations on magical products or raised the bar on witch accreditations, you lost work. And as bright and happy as Coven Street had been, he also remembered Marcus’ threadbare clothes, Mr Larkins’ thin old horse, Mrs. Sharp’s constant worry about the future. It would be pretty easy to convince these people to come show Chrestomanci their strength, test the enchanter by tying him up with silver. And once there, what could they see clearly from the crowd? Might they have objected if that long silver knife had done the job it had been intended to do? Cat stopped himself from huffing in frustration. He needed to think some more.
They all went to bed then, awkwardly silent after the intense exchange, only talking about practicalities like bedsheets and toiletry. Cat lay awake for hours in his old, hard bed, staring at the ceiling and wondering if it had been right, after all, to ruin all those lives.
The next two days passed calmly enough. No-one brought up the state of the neighbourhood – Mrs. Sharp was obviously distressed by the topic, and Cat and Janet had a lot to think about. Instead they went for walks in the fields around town, drank hot chocolate in the cafe in front of the town hall, and played card games in the evenings. Mrs. Sharp was obviously overjoyed to have them, and Cat enjoyed the visit in the way you always enjoy making someone you care about happy. Janet and Mrs. Sharp also warmed towards each other, in no small part due to Janet’s interest in Mrs. Sharp’s life. She asked questions about Wolvercote and London, and what being a working witch was like. It occurred to Cat that Janet hadn’t really been anywhere in 12A except the castle and the surrounding villages. Mr. Saunder’s lessons focused more on world history than on life in mid-sized English towns, so it was no wonder she was interested in Mrs. Sharp’s life. It was another thing to add to the long list of things he hadn’t thought about. He might have wondered if this obliviousness meant he was turning out to be an evil enchanter, but it seemed no-one else in the castle had thought of any of these things either. That made it scarier, somehow.
Janet had been giving Cat surreptitious looks all weekend, obviously wanting to talk to him privately. But Mrs. Sharp’s apartment was small and the days were full, so it wasn’t until Monday, when they were sitting on the train on their way back to the Castle, that she broached the subject. Cat had been leaning out of the window, waving to Mrs. Sharp’s rapidly disappearing form. The moment he sat down, Janet turned to him and gave him an intense look. “Cat,” she said, “I still don’t understand what happened in Coven Street. How can a few unhappy magicians cause everyone to leave?”
Cat explained how magical neighbourhoods reflected the emotions of their community. “And it sounded like most of the people lost their magic, not just a few,” he said, his throat right with guilt. “I see,” Janet nodded, frowning. “I wasn’t in that garden for very long, but I’m guessing we’re talking about the big crowd of people that came out of the gate? They were all gone by the time I got pulled back. Did they all attack you? And what did the Castle staff do to them, send them to prison?”
That, thought Cat, was exactly what he hadn’t wanted to think about. “Well, you remember how they cheered,” he said, “and they all did go look for Fiddle in the garden, and then when I freed Chrestomanci they all tried to stop him summoning anyone else. I don’t know if all of them actually knew that the plan was to kill me…” the next bit was the hard part. “It was hard to tell what was happening at the end, with all the magic going on, but at some point Chrestomanci threw some dragon blood into the mess, and told me that all of them had now lost their magic powers. And… he said there would be some complaints in parliament because of that, but that he could deal with that easily.”
Janet stared at him, unbelieving. “He just took all of their powers? From the whole crowd? Without a trial?” Cat nodded, feeling sick to his stomach. “He just took their powers and sent them all back. I don’t know if someone from the castle ever checked up on them, or if they took their names down or anything.” Given the state of Coven Street, he rather thought not.
“But I thought Chrestomanci was a government employee!” exclaimed Janet, “can he just do that?” Cat knew that politics were very different in Janet’s world, and remembered how outraged she’d been at what he’d thought was England’s pretty reliable system of governance. She’d gone around for months telling anyone who would listen that it was a disgrace that women couldn’t vote. This, he thought, was ten times worse. “As far as I know, Chrestomanci is paid by the government, and he has to report to them sometimes, but he can pretty much do what he thinks is right. There was a big thing in Benjamin Allworthy’s time where the prime minister tried to get him to be accountable to parliament, but Allworthy was just too powerful, and then the Bristol riots happened and they needed his help. I know Chrestomanci gets criticised sometimes these days, but it didn’t sound like the government cares what he does as long as the country is safe.”
It had made sense when he’d learnt it, he thought, Chrestomanci being able to do what he wanted. The related worlds were complex and vast, and the misuse of magic happened in so many different ways. Sometimes you had to act fast, and Chrestomanci’s goals were undeniably good. But now Cat couldn’t help thinking of the power that Chrestomanci had, and what he used it for. Only last week Chrestomanci had told him about a time he’d had to fuse one world into another, removing a whole set of people from existence. Had everyone in that world agreed to fuse? He tried to think of other times he’d seen Chrestomanci hand out justice.
“It was the same last summer,” Cat realised. “Miss Rosalie had a list of misuses of magic, but then they just took the Farleighs’ magic on the spot. A whole village’s magic.” Cat wondered if he was going to be sick, and Janet stared at him, not looking any better than he felt. How hadn’t he thought of that before? He’d had the excuse of being shocked in the garden, and had not even known he was an enchanter back then. But he’d been deeply involved with the whole witch war last summer, and he liked Joss Callow. Most of the Fahrleighs had been awful, of course. He didn’t regret turning their Gaffer into a tree, and Gammer Norah had boasted about sending smallpox to the Pinhoes. But had every single one of the Fahrleighs agreed with their Gaffer and Gammer? He knew from Marianne how difficult it was to object to a Gammer. And thinking of Marianne – some of the Pinhoes had been just as bad as the Fahrleighs, but their magic hadn’t been removed, because Chrestomanci had wanted to study them instead. Was it fair, to divide up justice according to family of birth? Cat groaned quietly, and passed his hand over his face. It was giving him a headache, trying to decide what would have been the right thing to do.
On the other side of the cabin, Janet was fuming. “Really! And I suppose it was the same thing, and they didn’t try to find out how involved everyone was, and just took away their whole magic.” She sounded miserable, underneath the anger. “Every time I think I’ve gotten used to this world, I find out something new that makes me angry. This is why you need a criminal justice system! Policemen can’t just shoot everyone they find at a crime scene. Have you barbaric enchanters never heard of ‘innocent until proven guilty’?”
She was right, of course, thought Cat. It eased his headache a bit, realising that. The whole point was that he, or Chrestomanci, shouldn’t be the only one deciding what was right. “I’ve never thought about it that way,” he told Janet guiltily, “but you’re right, all the Coven Street witches, all the Fahrleighs, they should have had a fair trial.” Not to speak of the hundreds of others he knew Chrestomanci had punished. Millions, if you counted the world he’d merged.
“I don’t know what we can do about it,” he admitted. “I won’t be Chrestomanci for a good few decades yet.”
“Oh, don’t get me started on the fact that they groom a child into a government post!” Janet exclaimed. Seeing the look on Cat’s face, she relented. “Ok, ok,” she said, “we can leave that for another time. But Cat, don’t you think they’d listen to us, if we talked to Millie, or Mr. Saunders?Especially if we told them what your old neighbourhood is like now.”
Can considered this. He couldn’t imagine good, kind Millie being okay with what had happened in Coven Street. But then Millie had been there, both in the garden, and in the inn yard, and had helped remove the witches’ magic both times. He wasn’t sure what she’d say if they suggested Chrestomanci should have less power. “I think they would at least try to fix what happened in Coven Street,” he said carefully. “I’m not sure if we can get them to do more. They’ve been working at the Castle all their lives.”
Janet nodded. She looked sad now, her anger gone. “But we agree that we talk about this with everyone, and try to get things to change?” she asked him. When he didn’t say anything, she continued, gentler. “Cat, I know you don’t like conflict, or arguing with people. But this is important. Innocent people will keep losing their magic if we don’t do anything.”
Cat clenched his jaw and nodded, looking Janet in the eye. He knew he would never get the image of the abandoned Coven Street out of his mind. He felt miserable, guilty and ashamed, but he knew that the best thing to do with those feelings was to use them, and be better next time. As the train passed by golden fields and soft green hills, he stared out of the window, thinking. If he hadn’t seen something this bad and this big, what else was he missing?