Bella Donna, page 1
Ruth Symes thinks the next best thing to being magical is writing stories about magic. She lives in Bedfordshire, and when she isn’t writing she can be found by the river walking her dogs, Traffy and Bella (who are often in the river).
Find out more at www.ruthsymes.com
Marion Lindsay has always loved stories and pictures, so it made perfect sense when she decided to become a children’s book illustrator and won the Egmont Best New Talent Award. She lives and works in Cambridge, and in her spare time she paints glass and makes jewelry.
Find out more at www.marionlindsay.co.uk
Text copyright © 2016 by Ruth Symes
Illustrations copyright © 2016 by Marion Lindsay
Originally published in the UK in 2011 by Piccadilly Press Ltd., an imprint of The Templar Company Plc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.
Cover design by Simon Davis
Cover illustration credit Marion Lindsay
Print ISBN: 978-1-63450-155-2
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-63450-611-3
Printed in the United States of America
Chapter 1
Some people might think that being a witch is easy-peasy, but that’s where they’d be wrong. And I should know—I am a witch. Well, strictly speaking, I’m a witchling, which is a young, trainee witch.
Being a witchling can get very confusing. Before school and after school, every weekend, and school vacations, I spend my time in the magic world of Coven Road, but the rest of the time I have to go to school in the ordinary world.
I’ve only lived on Coven Road for a few months. I used to live at Templeton Children’s Home—I was left on the doorstep there when I was a baby. I dreamed that one day I’d be adopted by someone who didn’t mind that I wanted to be a witch—it was all that I’ve ever wanted to be. Then one day Lilith came to the children’s home. I just knew she was special and I had to be adopted by her. Matron Harrigan, who is in charge of the children’s home, said I could have a trial adoption to see how we got along, and that’s when Lilith whisked me off to Coven Road.
I’d never have guessed, not for one second, when I was living at Templeton Children’s Home that somewhere like Coven Road was so close. I say “road” but it’s more of a crescent-shaped cul-de-sac with a garden in the center.
When it’s being its magical self, none of the houses on Coven Road look the same. One house looks like a miniature Taj Mahal; another is balanced in a tree. Lilith and I live in a thatched cottage with roses that continually change color around the door. Zorelda, the Grand Sorceress, lives in a magnificent Ice Palace where we all go for parties and ceremonies. And there are unicorns in the garden at the center.
Coven Road is the most amazing place. Everyone who lives there is a witch—and it turned out that I didn’t just want to be a witch, I actually was one too! Lilith had realized this as soon as she met me.
It’s very important that all this remains a closely guarded secret from the outside world, so a spell is cast every month to protect Coven Road from harm. The spell makes sure Coven Road will look normal when non-witches come and visit and means that non-witch passersby can’t even see the entrance to it.
Everyone who lives on Coven Road has to make three promises. We have to promise never to use magic in the ordinary world. We have to promise never to bring anyone who isn’t a witch to Coven Road without permission. And we have to promise that we will never, ever tell anyone outside Coven Road the truth about Coven Road—and that is sooooo hard! I live in the most exciting, magical place in the world and I can’t even tell anyone at school about it. Apart from Sam, of course.
Sam is the closest I’ve got to a brother. He used to live at Templeton Children’s Home like me, but then he was adopted by Tracey and Trevor, the owners of our local Woodland Wildlife Center. Luckily they’re just as crazy about wildlife and mini-beasts as Sam is because he could never have gone to live with someone who wasn’t an animal lover. It would have been just too hard for him.
Recently there was an accident and Sam discovered Coven Road. It was awful, but it all got figured out, and now Sam knows about me being a witchling and about the magic on Coven Road. He’s promised not to tell anyone, and I know he will keep it a secret, and not just because Zorelda said something bad would happen if he didn’t. Although knowing Sam, he’d probably really like it if she turned him into a toad or something!
I like animals as well. We have five cats at our house on Coven Road. Four of them live mainly on the bookshelves in the living room and don’t like going outside. They’re all Siamese cats and their names are Mystica, Bazeeta, Brimalkin, and Amelka. They do a lot of staring at people and don’t like being petted very much. Then there’s Pegatha who loves being petted and likes just about everyone, apart from Lilith’s niece Verity and the neighbor’s dog, Waggy. Pegatha sleeps on my bed at night, and I think she is the best cat in the whole world.
My other friend at school is Angela. She’s crazy about the color pink and I know she would love to see the new pink unicorn foal that’s been born on Coven Road, but I can’t bring her here to show it to her.
I sit next to Angela in class, and she’s always trying to get me to wear pink like her. I, however, prefer to wear black.
“Some day you’ll realize pink is your color,” Angela keeps telling me.
I don’t think I will. Whoever heard of a pink witch? Not that I can say that to her, of course.
One of the best things about being a witchling is learning how to cast spells. I wish regular schoolwork was as easy, but it isn’t. I seem to have a mental block when it comes to math—especially algebra. One day I drew a giant X over my test paper because I couldn’t understand it, and it made my teacher, Mrs. Pearce, really angry.
“Well,” said Mrs. Pearce, when she saw what I’d done, “you’ll have to try harder than that, won’t you, Bella Donna?”
I wasn’t sure if I should nod my head, because I agreed I would have to try harder, or shake my head because I had been trying very hard indeed.
“You can retake the test tomorrow during lunch,” Mrs. Pearce said.
If only I was able to do magic at school, everything would be so much easier. There must be a spell I could learn for making a test fill in its own correct answers.
“You okay, Bella Donna?” Lilith asked me when I got home.
Lilith is the most fantastic mom ever, at least as far as I’m concerned. She’s always got time for me and is interested in what I do and she’s fantastic at spells and makes the most delicious food ever.
We recently had a talk about how I could tell her anything, even things I thought she might not want to hear. I do try, but when you haven’t been used to having anyone to tell, it can be hard. I try to be the best daughter I can and make her proud of me and not give her too much to worry about.
“Fine,” I said. But I wasn’t really fine. Not fine at all. I was worrying about the next day and the test I was going to have to retake. I’d have told Lilith if I’d thought she’d be able to help, but I didn’t really see how she could—other than making Mrs. Pearce disappear, of course. I didn’t think Lilith would agree to do that. No witch would ever use magic outside Coven Road unless it was for a really, really good reason—a life-and-death sort of reason. Even I had to admit my algebra test wasn’t a life-and-death situation.
I expect there was a spell to make Mrs. Pearce vanish. There’s a spell for just about everything. I’m a very new witchling and I didn’t know a spell that did that, even if I was allowed to use it—which I knew I wasn’t. It didn’t stop me thinking about it, though. I didn’t need Mrs. Pearce to vanish for long—a few days, or a week, or maybe two weeks at the most. Just long enough for her to have forgotten about the test. Even if I did make her vanish I wouldn’t make her invisible so she’d be wandering around all scared and ghostlike. She only had to disappear from school, so I could send her off for a little vacation somewhere.
I went into my room and opened my math book. I knew I should be studying it, but instead I tried to imagine the sort of vacation Mrs. Pearce might like. A vacation on the beach? I tried to imagine Mrs. Pearce surfing through the waves, but it didn’t feel quite right. Maybe she’d like to visit the pyramids or go on a safari and meet baby elephants. But what if she didn’t forget about the test and still expected me to do it when she came back?
In fact, I didn’t even need to make her vanish, just forgetful, and I knew there was a spell for that.
“What’s your face all scrunched up for?” Verity said, coming into my room.
Verity is Lilith’s niece. She’s a few years older than me and the only other witchling on Coven Road. She’s always coming o
Verity’s been banned from doing any magic because she cast a spell when she wasn’t supposed to. That was when I first came to live on Coven Road and she used magic to try to get me into a whole heap of serious trouble. Now I know that she did it because she was jealous of me, but I’m not very sure how I feel about her.
“I was just thinking,” I said.
“Thinking about what?”
“If I could do a spell to make someone forget something.”
Verity was curious. “Make who forget what?”
I almost told her but Verity isn’t very trustworthy, and I didn’t want her to tell Lilith.
“Oh nothing. Doesn’t matter.”
We went downstairs and switched on the TV to the Broomstick channel. It was time for our favorite program.
Pegatha came into the room and hissed at Verity. Verity doesn’t like Pegatha, and Pegatha doesn’t like her, but I like Pegatha very much.
The words WITCHLING SPELL-CASTING CONTEST flashed up on the TV with lots of gold stars that whizzed around the screen and then bounced out of the set completely! Pegatha raced around the room chasing after them but she couldn’t catch any.
One of the presenters, Haggerty, came onto the screen. She was very round and dressed in black.
“Could you be this year’s Spell-Casting Champion?” she said. “Well, could you?”
The other presenter, Fizzwart, pushed Haggerty out of the way. Fizzwart was very thin and dressed in green. “Are you a witchling looking for excitement and adventure?” she said. “Are you?”
Both Haggerty and Fizzwart were dressed as pretend witches in pointy hats and cloaks. Real witches are usually much more attractive and have much better clothes. They stood side by side and spoke together. “Then enter the Witchling spell-casting contest!” they said, and they pointed their fingers at me.
The thing with Broomstick TV that’s different from any other TV channel is that you can talk to the TV, and it can talk back to you, and it can see you too.
“Come on, Bella Donna,” said Haggerty.
“You know you want to,” said Fizzwart.
And they were right—in a way I did want to. I wanted to make Lilith proud of me. I wanted to see her smiling face when I won the spell-casting contest.
“I meant to enter that this year,” Verity said.
“But you’re not allowed to use magic, are you, Verity?” said Haggerty, and she laughed her trademark cackle that she put on for the show.
“Naughty, naughty, naughty!” shrieked Fizzwart.
Just because Verity couldn’t enter the contest didn’t mean I couldn’t enter it. Lilith would be so proud of me if I won it—she probably wouldn’t even care if I wasn’t good at algebra!
“Do they have it every year?” I asked Verity.
“Yes,” she said. “It’s only for witchlings between the ages of ten and thirteen. I’ll be fourteen on Halloween, so this would have been my last chance to enter.” She looked sad.
“I expect you have to know lots of spells,” I said. I hadn’t been a witchling for long enough to know many spells.
Verity shook her head. “That’s not how it works. It’s not about how many spells you can cast—otherwise the oldest witchlings would always win. It’s about how well you cast a spell.”
I didn’t know many spells but so far the ones that I did know had worked extremely well.
“Are you really thinking of entering it?” Verity asked.
Sometimes it’s hard to know when Verity is joking and when she’s being serious.
“I mean, you haven’t been learning for very long …”
That was true. I probably wouldn’t stand a chance.
“… but you do seem to have some natural talent.”
I could hardly believe my ears. It was the nicest thing Verity had ever said to me.
I’m not good at most of my subjects at school, and I’m not good at sports, and when I sing my voice goes all wobbly. Spell-casting is the only thing I’ve ever been any good at. But I wasn’t sure. Maybe I wouldn’t stand a chance. Maybe I wouldn’t even get through the first round.
“Perhaps,” I said.
A muslin pouch flew out of the TV screen and landed, plonk, in my lap.
“Here, see if you can cast this spell,” Haggerty said. “If you can, you’ll be in to win.”
“But no cheating, Bella Donna,” said Fizzwart. “It has to be all your own work.”
I stared down at the pouch.
“So?” said Verity. “Are you going to enter?”
“I don’t know,” I said. I had the pouch of ingredients but that didn’t mean I had to use it.
Verity let out a big sigh.
Verity and I didn’t talk any more about the spell-casting contest or the forgetting spell, but that night I put the muslin pouch under my pillow and I had a dream that I won the spell-casting contest. I was given a gold cup and there was a magical witches’ party to celebrate, and Lilith was very, very proud of me and Mrs. Pearce went far, far away to somewhere called the End of the Earth and lived in an igloo with a friendly moose for company.
Chapter 2
I didn’t want to go to school the next day. I told Lilith I had a sore throat, but she just gave me some hot water with honey and lemon to drink and said she was sure I’d feel better soon. You might think witches use magic all the time and could easily magic away a sore throat, but we never use magic for everyday things like that. Plus, I’m not sure Lilith really believed I had a sore throat anyway.
I walked to school as slowly as I could, but I still got there before the bell rang. Everyone else at school seemed very happy, but then, they would—they didn’t have to stay in and redo a test at lunchtime.
I sat next to Angela, as usual, and looked at the front of the room. Mrs. Pearce’s desk was empty. Something wasn’t right. Mrs. Pearce was usually—no, always—there when we came in, but not today. Could Mrs. Pearce be late? But she was never late. Could Mrs. Pearce be sick? Mrs. Pearce was never sick.
I had a worried knot in my stomach. Had I somehow magicked her away? I’d so not wanted to take the test. I hadn’t put a spell on her on purpose, but what if I’d put one on her by mistake? What if I’d done it when I was asleep and dreaming she was far, far away?
An important lesson for all witchlings to learn is how to control your power, because sometimes you can really want something to happen and then find out it has happened, without you even casting a spell, which can cause all sorts of problems. Once, before I went to live with Lilith and learned about my powers, before I even knew I was a witch, I’d wished someone would get a warty nose, and they did!
But I hadn’t cast a spell without knowing I’d cast one for a long time. I thought I’d outgrown that stage. I really, really didn’t want to have magicked Mrs. Pearce away by mistake—that was the sign of a very inexperienced witchling. Certainly not one that would win the Witchling spell-casting contest.
Our class got louder and louder as everyone began to realize Mrs. Pearce wasn’t there. Some people even started flying paper planes and hardly anyone was sitting at their desk when the principal came in.
Behind her was a beautiful lady with long red hair—so long it went all the way down to her waist.
Everyone scrambled to sit back in their proper places.
“Now, children,” the principal said. “Unfortunately, Mrs. Pearce can’t be here today so you’re going to have Miss Rowan as your teacher instead.”
Sam put his hand up. “What’s the matter with Mrs. Pearce?” he said.
The principal didn’t seem to hear him. “So I’m sure you’ll all make her feel very welcome and be on your best behavior,” she continued.
“What’s wrong with Mrs. Pearce?” Sam asked again. “Is she sick? Did she have an accident? Has she won the lottery?”
The principal made an angry face at Sam. “Stop being such a nosy boy,” she said. “I told you, she’s not here.” The principal stomped out of the classroom.
