The Ice King (The Witch Ways 0.5)(4)

That night Vanessa heard noises and woke from edgy dreams to hear a man’s voice. It sounded as if he was crying and he was certainly frightened. It was answered by her mother’s voice, the harsh one she used when she was dealing with trespassers and poachers. Vanessa opened her door and stepped out into the hallway. There was a cold wind blowing through the cottage and she could tell now that the voices were real and were outside.

She was not yet tall enough to see through the kitchen window so she tiptoed towards the open cottage door.

Outside, towards the track, her mother was talking to a man and a woman. Vanessa couldn’t quite make them out in the dark and the mizzly rain. The man wiped at his face, sobbing and the woman was silent, head down and nodding. After a few moments they moved off, up the track and towards the road.

“What’s happening?” Vanessa asked as her mother stepped inside and closed the door. Her mother was not surprised to see her. She smiled.

“Nothing sweetheart, they were just lost, had taken a wrong turning from the road…” Hettie hugged Vanessa, kissed her hair “Come on, back to bed. School in the morning.”

*

“My dad says he can catch that monster pike.” Wilson Taylor was making little punches at Vanessa’s arm.

“Go away.” she said, trying to sound like her mother’s trespasser voice. Wilson wasn’t hurting her but he was annoying, with his fists and his little reddish face, his crooked teeth biting at his bottom lip.

“Yeah.Yeah.Yeah, my dad says he can go to Pike Lake anytime he wants and kill that pike.”

Vanessa felt a little blue flame of anger spark up inside her.

“He can’t.” she stated “Pike Lake is private property.”

“My dad says that monster pike is older than the castle and fair game.”

Vanessa glared hard, trying not to blink so she could stare down Wilson Taylor. He bobbed about in front of her, his fists still making little soft jabs at her.

“He is not going to kill that pike or any of the fish in my lake.” Vanessa threatened. “It isn’t allowed.”

Punch punch punching pound. “ ‘Tis.”

Vanessa growled and moved her arm out of the target zone. Wilson moved forward.

“ ‘Tis, ‘Tis, ‘Tis.” punch punch PUNCH.

*

Her mother was grinning and not cross at all as they left the headmistress’s office and did not go back to class but instead, walked out through the playground, heading homeward.

“So, how does it feel to punch someone then? Haven’t ever done that myself.” they were walking up through town towards Old Castle Road.

“Crunchy.” Vanessa said after some thought. It had been annoying and frustrating too with Wilson crying and whining and the teacher, Miss Marlow, not listening to her reasons for hand to hand combat.

“Why does everyone want to kill the monster pike?” Vanessa asked.

“Not everyone. Just stupid people.”

After today at school, Vanessa was beginning to see that stupid people seemed to outnumber other kinds of people.

“Oh Good god.” Vanessa grumped and her mother laughed at the serious manner of her cursing.

“Don’t worry about it sweetheart. It’s my job to keep them away. I’m the Gamekeeper. It isn’t a problem.”

“You didn’t keep those men away yesterday. They threw the can in the lake.”

Her mother looked very serious and stopped walking.

“You saw what happened to the can?” her eyebrows were wiggled into question marks. Vanessa thought her mother looked prettiest with her wriggly eyebrows.

“The lake threw it back.” she replied. Her mother nodded.

“Precisely. Don’t worry about the monster pike, he can take care of himself.”

But Vanessa did worry about the pike and about her mother having to confront stupid people who were, as far as Vanessa could assess, cruel bullies. She recalled too often the ugly and dangerous look on Stocky Mike’s face and that her mum had no one to help her in her job as Gamekeeper.

“Are you done? Shall we go?” at the sound of her mother’s voice Vanessa flipped the encyclopaedia closed. It made a satisfying thomp which echoed around the round domed central room of the Castlebury library. Vanessa flapped shut the top of her schoolbag and picked up the library books from the table. She hurried to close up her notebook and catch her pen which was rolling off the table onto the floor.

She had constructed a good plan and she would be able to put it into action on Saturday. She would be useful, helping her mother in her work and she would also, above everything else, be helping save the life of the monster pike from all comers.

She had looked up Pike in the encyclopaedia, a book too heavy to sneak into her schoolbag. She already loved the pike, his mysterious lake existence and now, of course, his Latin name Esox Lucius. The books she had managed to borrow in secret were one on fishing and another on identifying freshwater fish. She needed her reference points so that she could take her measurements and make an accurate biological survey.

She had sort of stolen the books because they were in her bag and not on the counter, with her other choices, being stamped. This was ok for two reasons; one; she needed them for the plan and two; she was going to return them, not keep them, hence she termed it secret borrowing. Not stealing. Not at all.