With our kindest regards and awaiting your reply, Oliver and Selena Bloom.

  Veronica cringed. Jasper was a teacher at the school. In the spellcraft department, no less. She could only imagine how that would go down at school.

  Why?

  She didn’t really know him very well. He was silent and seemed okay, but why her? She wasn’t from a good family. He’d been in Mrs. Everhart’s office when she left. Did he know about this? He had to. Why hadn’t he said anything?

  “Jasper Bloom?” she said, her voice almost a whisper.

  Her father nodded.

  Her mother began, “Look if you don’t want to...” Her voice trailed off.

  Veronica looked from one to the other. It was clear that her parents did want her to.

  Her father said, “I’m sorry, Veronica, it seems to be the only way out with this rent increase…”

  “But why don’t you first talk to the landlord?”

  “We could, but since the old man died and his son has taken over, he’s all about money. He says that if we can’t pay the rent that he wants, he will force us to leave, and we don’t have anywhere else to go.”

  “But can’t you tell them that I am a teacher and I’ll be able to pay a bit more, but not just now?”

  “We’ve already done that. We haven’t paid the full rent for the past eight months.”

  That came as a shock to Veronica. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because we thought we had an arrangement with them. We did, but only with the father. We provided them with vegetables. But the son doesn’t think that is enough.”

  “I guess he is sick of us,” her mother added. “He thinks he can make a lot more money by hiring the house and land out to someone else who can pay what he asks, and he thinks that people in town won’t stand up for us if he tries to kick us out, and he might well be right.”

  A deep sense of dread built up in Veronica‘s mind. “And if I were to get married, is that really going to help you?”

  “We’d have one less person living with us.”

  “But you’ll also not have my salary. And you’ll still need to pay rent.”

  “You would help us anyway, and if your new husband’s family has enough money, we might be able to get a loan from them.”

  Veronica frowned while looking from one to the other. Her father looked disturbed, and her mother looked like she was about to cry.

  She said, “I’m sorry Veronica, we are probably still going to have to move out, but I don’t want to leave you in poverty.”

  Veronica looked at the letter, the curly script, the way the family made their financial and rational arguments in favour of the marriage.

  If they thought Jasper was such a catch, why did they write to her? Her family had no money. He wanted a “wife well-versed in magic”. What was that about? Anyone could learn magic. You just needed to be taught. And what about the intricacies of farming? Seriously?

  She sighed.

  “If you think this helps you, I will talk to him. I don’t really want to, but I’ll talk to him. We’ll see if we can come to an agreement, because no one has the right to drive you from your home. But I wish we could delay this. In a couple of years’ time, I’ll be able to buy you a home, but I won’t let anyone do this to you.”

  Chapter Five

  Veronica spent a restless night in the little nook in the living room where her bed stood. The house had only one bedroom, and she could hear her parents talking to each other through the door. Her mother was crying.

  She wished she had known about their predicament earlier, not because she thought she would have been able to do anything, but because she felt she didn’t like to see her parents suffer in silence, and especially since much of that suffering appeared to be because they wanted to pay for her education. And now she had the education, and she was working, and she couldn’t even help them. It was too soon.

  She didn’t want to get married yet, but maybe being married to a fellow teacher was not too bad. At least they had a chance to understand each other, and perhaps Jasper wasn’t the kind of man who expected his wife to stay at home and host tea parties. The Bloom family owned several shops in town, and even if she couldn’t work at school anymore, at least she might put her skills to better use than domestic duties, at which she was no good, anyway.

  But what was this business with magic and farming?

  If Jasper was the Blooms’ only son, then why marry him off to a random poor girl?

  Was it really because of her magic training?

  The more she thought about it, the angrier she got. How dare they drop this on her? Why was it that rich people held so much power over poor people? Her parents had always done the right thing, and they had always worked very hard. They had never tried to steal anything or charge too much money for their produce. And just now they were trying to work their way out of poverty, this happened. Luck only ever came to the ones who didn’t deserve it.

  And she couldn’t do much about it, since she’d already told her father she’d be prepared to meet with the family, and she had seen him write his reply to them.

  Her parents eventually stopped talking and not much later, her father’s snores drifted through the house. Veronica lay awake for quite a bit longer.

  When she trudged to school the next morning, she still felt very tired and only barely made it to the morning assembly in time.

  The news about the spellbook must have gotten around the entire school. She got a few strange looks from teachers while standing at the back of the glorious hall of the school, and resolved to keep well away from anything controversial, including speculation about who had stolen the spellbook.

  At the assembly, Mrs. Everhart said nothing about it. Not that the book had been located, or that it was missing. Not about anything she’d learned from her interviews yesterday.

  But teachers and students in the hall whispered rumours. Many looked at Veronica over their shoulders.

  After the assembly, in which Mrs. Everhart talked mostly about upcoming exams, Veronica could sneak out of the room quickly because she’d been late and stood next to the door. She hoped she could get away without talking about the spellbook.

  But she had no luck.

  Class 1A arrived. Veronica needed to complete their lesson in writing reports for the school newsletter, so they still needed to write down what had happened. Veronica had hoped that they would write about the history of the book and about spellcraft, but unfortunately, that would have been a lot easier had the book been at its usual place inside the cabinet.

  She told the students to write the report in class. She walked between the tables while the students were busily scribbling in their books.

  All except one.

  “Luna, why is your book closed?”

  “I’ve already finished, Miss.”

  “I’ve only just told you to start five minutes ago.”

  “You said we needed to write this yesterday, so I did it last night.”

  She opened the book and gave it to Veronica.

  Luna had written up her report in a neat hand on a clean page in her book.

  In her opinion, she suggested that the mayor might have taken the book. He was supposed to read from it, and Luna had noticed last year that the mayor was not very good at reading aloud. He made mistakes and stuttered.

  “But why would he take the book?” Veronica asked.

  “To practice reading, so he doesn’t get so nervous.”

  It was an interesting thought, but in that case, there should have been a note in Mrs. Everhart’s book of school property, and also Mrs. Everhart wouldn’t have told Veronica that the room was free to use for her class.

  Veronica closed the book. “Thank you, Luna. You can read your library books if you want.”

  She continued to walk past the tables.

  The twins’ work was a lot more messy.

  Atticus had drawn the tower and someone climbing up the outside on a long ladder. According to him, the plumber had taken the book because he wanted to use a spell so that everyone in town would get him to fix their gutters and drains and he’d make a lot of money.

  Veronica was impressed with his thinking. Those boys might be naughty and uninterested in school work, but they weren’t stupid.

  Quincy sat hunched over his book and held his face so close that Veronica couldn’t see his work, which was possibly the point of him sitting like that. Poor boy. Why were kids horrible to each other like that?

  She was thinking about what to say to Quincy to make him feel better, but at that time, a clear tinkle of a bell rang at the door.

  The students looked up. These bells hung by each door and the message fairies used them.

  Veronica went to the door and opened it.

  A tiny fairy, about the size of her hand, floated in the air, wings buzzing. When Veronica opened the door, she released a piece of paper that fluttered to the ground. Veronica scooped it up from mid-air.

  The message said, Your presence is wanted in the principal’s office.

  Veronica protested. “I’m teaching.”

  Fairies didn’t speak. The tiny creature hung in mid-air. Her wings made an angry buzzing sound.

  Veronica sighed and told her class to continue writing. But while the twins considered their work finished, and a few students already whispered to each other, there was about zero percent chance that finishing work was the only thing they’d do.

  But well, if the principal wanted to talk to her, what else could she do?

  She looked into the staff room to see if there was anyone available to take her class, but there wasn’t, so she made her way to the principal’s office with the knowledge that her class would probably create all kinds of mischief that she would then have to fix, apologise for and potentially punish when she got back.

  In Mrs. Everhart’s office, she found a couple of other people, and one of those was the caretaker Barnaby Green. He was dressed in his normal overalls and greeted everyone as they came in. Veronica was wondering if he had heard what had happened and heard that some people considered him a prime suspect.

  He looked a little like a dwarf, with his round belly and bushy beard. His ears stuck out from the side of his head, and his nose was long and thin so that it almost protruded over the top of his lip. He was one of those people whose face was permanently stuck in a jolly expression.

  Mrs. Everhart came in. “Good morning all.”

  Everyone said good morning to her. Veronica was glad that Jasper Bloom wasn’t there. He was part of the spellcraft department, but he had no involvement with the tower or the spellbook. Hopefully, the interview he’d given yesterday absolved him from further involvement, and would save Veronica from embarrassing moments.

  Mrs. Everhart faced all those in the room. “Ah, I see everyone is here now.”

  She explained to Barnaby what had happened. His expression remained puzzled until she talked about the spellbook and the plumbers that had visited the tower on the afternoon that the book was stolen.

  Then his eyes widened. “Oh, no, no, no. Don’t look at me. These plumbers are friends of mine, and I know I can trust them. They never went inside the building. I made sure of that, because they would make dirty footsteps in the corridor and that would get me into trouble with Mrs. Wild.”

  “Then what about the mysterious chair that Miss Mayflower found in the tower room?”

  “I don’t know anything about that.” He met Veronica’s eyes, and Veronica cringed with the pleading expression in them.

  It was true that Barnaby thought much of the authority with which the housekeeper, Mrs. Wild, ruled the corridors and the carpets therein.

  “I didn’t say that the plumbers had placed the chair there,” Veronica said. “Just that the chair was in the room in an odd position. It might well have been that somebody using the room to consult the books left it there.”

  “Yet, the only person with access to the room that we haven’t yet interviewed is you,” Mrs. Everhart said, while looking at Barnaby.

  “But I have no interest in books. I can barely read, as you will probably all know.”

  “What about your friends?”

  “They can read even less than I can.”

  “But they would know that books are valuable.”

  “They might, but what would they do with a book? They wouldn’t even know where to begin to try to sell it. If I went up to a wizard and told them I had a spellbook for sale, they just laugh in my face.”

  He was probably right.

  The questioning went on for a while, and Barnaby grew increasingly nervous. He was sweating; he was wiping his face. His cheeks were red.

  Mrs. Everhart grew frustrated. Eventually, she said, “You may try to hide it, but we will find out the truth.”

  “Does that mean I lose my job?” Barnaby said.

  In the short silence that followed that question, Veronica got up. Everyone looked at her. “Can I suggest that we don’t take any rash actions? Sure, if one of us has been proven to be a thief, they don’t deserve to have a job at the school, but we should prove that we are honourable, and only take such an action after we can show proof that the person is indeed a thief.”

  She was trembling. Veronica didn’t like speaking up, and didn’t like the attention of all those people in the room, most of them much older than her, and all of them from better families than hers.

  “Do you have any suggestions, Miss Mayflower?” Mrs. Everhart said. Her voice was cold. Clearly, the issue of the missing spellbook made her nervous, what with the mayor needing the book and the school’s reputation to be held up.

  Veronica was still trembling, because if she lost her job, then her parents were well and truly be in trouble.

  “I am willing to try to find out who stole the spellbook. It is most important that it is returned to us foremost, so the mayor can use it. We can then deal with a thief, but it also seems that people are so convinced that there is indeed a single person who has done this deliberately, and that the book has not been merely misplaced, or there has been some kind of misunderstanding. I am willing to spend some time looking for what happened.”

  The teachers all looked at each other. One or two nodded. And then Mrs. Everhart said, “All right. It is your task. You get a week. I will give you everything I have about this matter. That is the maximum amount of time I am willing to get someone to cover your lessons. I give you the authority to call people and compel them to answer your questions.”

  But Veronica had a much better idea. This was a school of magic, after all.

  Chapter Six

  But first, Veronica had to meet with Jasper.

  After her father had replied to their letter, they’d been quick to suggest a meeting, and she wasn’t looking forward to it.

  When she came home from work, her parents were already dressed up in the only set of proper clothes they had, even if her father’s suit was also a little outdated. Her mother wore the dark green velvet dress that made her look a little too dour for the occasion.

  It pained Veronica to see her parents like this.

  They were good, ordinary people. She’d wanted to buy them nice clothes, and her wage would allow her to do that once she’d had the time to save.

  Her mother had laid out Veronica’s best dress, ironed and dabbed with a dash of perfume. She had last worn this on her graduation. It was not by far as fancy as the dresses worn by the other graduates, but it was the best they had. Veronica’s mother had made it from fabric collected from an old garment that a rich lady where she was doing some work, didn’t want any more. It had been too big for Veronica, so her mother had taken off the skirt and sewn bits of lace onto the collar.

  It was quite acceptable, even if it wasn’t the latest fashion.

  But the weather was also much warmer than it had been during her graduation, which was at the end of the year.

  Veronica got dressed, already feeling sweaty and hot. She really didn’t want to do this.

  Now what about her hair? She tied it up into a bun and put her witch’s hat on top. That was her selling point, right? The fact that she’d been to the Academy.

  Now she needed some jewellery. She didn’t have anything fancy, but she did have a charm that protected her from magic. She had won this in the second year at the Academy by being the best student.

  She unclipped the silver chain and put it around her neck.

  Yes, that was acceptable, even if she said so herself.

  They left home not much later and walked along the road to the Bloom house. Several people working in the fields gave the three of them strange looks, the curiosity evident on their faces. There wasn’t any festivity going on, so why was the family all dressed up?

  Jolyon Barber and his younger son sat on stools surrounded by impatient goats wanting to be milked. His older son carried a pitchfork of hay to the feed trough in the next paddock. The goats would be let in once the milking was done.

  Jolyon waved from in between the hairy bodies.

  “I wonder if he’s ordered his machine yet,” Veronica’s father said.

  During a recent visit, Jolyon had expressed his interest in buying one of those newfangled magic milking machines.

  New magic progressed, regardless of what people at the Academy or the school said about it. Magic that powered machines was much more powerful than magic that relied on potions and spells.

  Her father had lamented that he would never have the money to buy a milking machine—which was fine because they didn’t own any goats—but he had no money for a ploughing machine either.

  Magic forged ahead, and even after having sent their daughter to the Academy, they were still at risk of being left behind.

  And so it was that her parents’ ability to stay in this area hinged on much more than just this one meeting that would determine Veronica’s future.

  The Bloom family lived in a well off part of town, where the houses were big, where servants lived out the back, and were the gardens contained flowers and other frippery, such as hedges and roses, and other things that you couldn’t eat or sell.

 

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