5.2 The Shetland Witch, or, Atropos Wants Her Shears Back
In which Maggie pushes Avril too far.
Hazel was feeling restless. She got up from the table. ‘I want to look again at that black stone. I’m really worried about it. She arrived when we uncovered it and it released its energy into the air. We need to give it a proper look. What if she gets out tonight and goes there before we’ve worked out how they’re connected?’
‘Look, I’m going home,’ Avril began, looking uneasy. ‘I’ve had enough. I’m glad you’ve got Hazel here now, so I’m stepping down. I’m na doing this anymore.’
Maggie looked at Avril.
‘Scared?’ Her voice was mocking, but Avril did not rise to the bait.
‘Yes. Terrified.’
‘What will running away do for your terror?’ Maggie asked.
‘I can put my head in the sand and not have to deal with it,’ Avril said, ‘I don’t care. I’ve got two people’s work to do in the office, and buses full of tourists to stop being stupid in the bird reserve for the whole season. I don’t have time to be a witch as well.’ Her voice was trembling. ‘I can’t do this anymore.’
‘So you keep telling us, each time you do this. And I have to say, faced with what we have here, right now, that just sounds ridiculous,’ Maggie said with sharpness in her voice.
‘I have a job!’ Avril was trying to keep her voice down. Ishabel got up to close the kitchen door. ‘I have colleagues who see everything I’m doing. I have a line manager, and she has a line manager, and there is a Board and there are volunteers and advisers breathing down my neck, always wanting to see what I’m doing and can they help. I have a To Do list of admin as long as your arm because we are publicly funded. I can’t make time in amongst all their demands to do the witch jobs that need doing.’
‘But the web …’ Ishabel began.
Avril laughed like a pencil snapping. ‘The web I can do! I can mess about with my feathers on my desk and the rest of the office will just think I’m doing a survey or something. That bit is easy, which is bizarre because web mending is some of the hardest magic I’ve tried. But I can’t just skive off from the office when you need me on a cliff or in a cave. Not anymore. It’s too much. And now I have to catch the last ferries, and I hate driving over that hill in the dark.’
Ishabel reached out and touched Avril’s arm. Avril immediately burst into tears and hunted for a handkerchief.
‘You need a break, hinny. And we do have Hazel now. You do what you need to do for yourself.’
Maggie rolled her eyes.
‘OK,’ Avril sniffed. ‘Look, I’m really sorry –‘
‘It’s OK,’ Maggie said, smiling, ‘I’m sorry I was a bit abrupt. You’ve got a heavy workload, I know that. You go home and concentrate on that. We’ll be fine. We’ll manage the visitor. Off you go now.’
Avril looked a bit alarmed at the reminder of the visitor, but if anything, Hazel thought, this made her even more eager to leave.
‘OK, bye. See you later,’ Avril said, and shuffled around the table. She went into the hall to find her coat, still sniffing. Ishabel went with her to see her out.
Maggie put a finger to her lips and waited. When the front door closed, she released a big outbreath.
‘Whew. I wondered how that would end.’
‘You could have been a bit nicer,’ Ishabel said, coming back into the kitchen.
‘I know,’ Maggie said, without regret. ‘I’m a bully. But she needed to be pushed into leaving. I can’t stand it when she faffs about wringing her hands.’
‘But will she come back?’ Hazel asked, looking from one to the other. ‘Or is that her gone for good?’
‘Oh, yes, she’ll be back,’ Maggie said, ‘She does this about once a year, sometimes twice if she’s really busy. And it is true that she is overworked. If they’d only give her a proper assistant, not endless volunteers she has to keep retraining. But when she feels stable again, she’ll be back. That’s just how it is. She’s the most public-facing one of us, the one who runs most risk of being seen if she does anything unusual, and she is, unfortunately, the nerviest of us all. Not a great combination, but there we are. We don’t choose to be witches.’
‘Though we can choose not to be,’ Ishabel said.
There was a pause.
‘You were too hard on her mother, Maggie. You should be more understanding with Avril.’
Maggie didn’t say anything.
‘What happened with Avril’s mum?’ Hazel looked from one woman to the other.
‘Grizel, the musical witch I told you about once, is Avril’s mother,’ Ishabel said. ‘Grizel Simbister, the one who sang psalms to mend the web. Her religious guilt drove her away from us long before Avril was born, so Avril was brought up in the kirk, an only bairn, doted on by an earnest Christian father and a mother racked with worry about her religion and about her witchcraft past. It has not been easy for Avril to break away from that, or to practice her innate powers. It’s also been very hard for Grizel to accept that Avril is what she once was. And that Maggie, if you like, has won.’
‘I know,’ Maggie said, irritably. ‘I have to be more patient. But I’m not. I’ll drop off some chocolate for her on Monday: she’ll like that. But we are all we’ve got. She needs to toughen up a peerie bit more and –‘
‘She does not. We will all be patient with each other. I’m sure she will be back. Though we never know when,’ Ishabel added. ‘So we don’t take her for granted. Or you, Hazel. You need to know this.’
‘Right. OK,’ Hazel said, feeling flustered. ‘Er, I still want to have a look at the stone. Do you want to come?’ She hoped that they did.
Episode 5.3 will follow.
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