The Pinhoe Egg

“Nearly seven,” Marianne admitted. She looked down into the ruins of Gammer’s big, square, handsome face and wondered if she would look like this when she was this old herself. Everyone said that Gammer had once had thick chestnutty hair, like Marianne had, and Gammer’s eyes were the same wide brown ones that Marianne saw in the mirror when she stared at herself and worried about her looks. The only square thing about Marianne was her unusually broad forehead. This was always a great relief to Marianne.

“Good,” said Gammer. “Well, here’s my plans for you both. Can’t have the pair of you doing nothing for seven weeks. Joe first, you’re the eldest. We’ve got you a job, a live-in job. You’re going to go and be boot boy to the Big Man in You-Know-Where.”

Joe stared at her, horrified. “In Chrestomanci Castle, you mean?”

“Be quiet,” his grandmother said sharply. “You don’t say that name here. Do you want to have them notice us? They’re only ten miles away in Helm St Mary.”

“But,” said Joe, “I’d got plans of my own for these holidays.”

“Too bad,” said Gammer. “Idle plans, stupid plans. You know you’re a disappointment to us all, Joseph Pinhoe, so here’s your chance to be useful for once. You can go and be our inside eyes and ears in That Castle, and send me word back by Joss Callow if they show the slightest signs of knowing us Pinhoes exist – or Farleighs or Cleeves for that matter.”

“Of course they know we exist,” Joe said scornfully. “They can’t think there’s no one living in Ulverscote or —”

Gammer stopped him with a skinny pointing finger. “Joe Pinhoe, you know what I mean. They don’t know and can’t know that we’re all of us witches. They’d step in and make rules and laws for us as soon as they knew and stop us from working at our craft. For two hundred years now – ever since they put a Big Man in That Castle – we’ve stopped them finding out about us and I intend for us to go on stopping them. And you are going to help me do that, Joe.”

“No, I’m not,” Joe said. “What’s wrong with Joss Callow? He’s there.”

“But he’s an outside man,” Gammer said. “We want you inside. That’s where all the secrets are.”

“I’m not —” Joe began.

“Yes, you are!” Gammer snapped. “Joss has you all fixed up and recommended to that harpy Bessemer that they call Housekeeper there, and go there you will, until you start school again.” She snatched up her stick and pointed it at Joe’s chest. “I so order it,” she said.

Marianne felt the jolt of magic and heard Joe gasp at whatever the stick did to him. He looked from his chest to the end of the stick, dazed and sulky. “You’d no call to do that,” he said.

“It won’t kill you,” Gammer said. “Now, Marianne, I want you with me from breakfast to supper every day. I want help in the house and errands run, but we’ll give out that you’re my apprentice. I don’t want people thinking I need looking after.”

Marianne, seeing her holidays being swallowed up and taken away, just like Joe’s, cast around for something – anything! – that might let her off. “I promised Mum to help with the herbs,” she said. “There’s been a bumper crop —”

“Then Cecily can just do her own stewing and distilling alone, like she always does,” Gammer said. “I want you here, Marianne. Or do I have to point my stick at you?”

“Oh, no. Don’t —” Marianne began.

She was interrupted by the crunch of wheels and hoofbeats on the drive outside. Without waiting for Gammer’s sharp command to “See who’s there!” Marianne and Joe raced to the window. Nutcase jumped off Gammer’s knee and beat them to it. He took one look through the grimy glass and fled, with his tail all bushed out. Marianne looked out to see a smart wickerwork pony carriage with a well-groomed piebald pony in its shafts just drawing up by the front steps. Its driver was Gaffer Farleigh, whom Marianne had always disliked, in his best tweed suit and cloth cap, and looking grim even for him. Behind him in the wicker carriage seat sat Gammer Norah Farleigh. Gammer Norah had long thin eyes and a short thin mouth, which made her look grim at the best of times. Today she looked even grimmer.

“Who is it?” Gammer demanded urgently.

“Gaffer Farleigh. In his best,” Joe said. “And Gammer Norah. State visit, Gammer. She’s got that horrible hat on, with the poppies.”

“And they all look horribly angry,” Marianne added. She watched a Farleigh cousin jump out of the carriage and go to the pony’s head. He was in a suit too. She watched Gaffer Farleigh hand the whip and the reins to the cousin and climb stiffly down, where he stood smoothing his peppery whiskers and waiting for Gammer Norah, who was making the carriage dip and creak as she stood up and got down too. Gammer Norah was a large lady. Poor pony, Marianne thought, even with a light carriage like that.

“Go and let them in. Show them in here and then wait in the hall,” Gammer commanded. “I want some Pinhoes on call while I speak to them.” Marianne thought Gammer was quite as much surprised by this visit as they were.

She and Joe scurried out past the stuffed animals, Joe with his sulkiest, most head-down, mulish look. The cracked old doorbell jangled and Gaffer Farleigh pushed the front door open as they reached it.

“Come all the way from Helm St Mary,” he said, glowering at them, “and I find two children who can’t even be bothered to come to the door. She in, your Gammer? Or pretending she’s out?”

“She’s in the front room,” Marianne said politely. “Shall I show —?”

But Gaffer Farleigh pushed rudely past and tramped towards the front room, followed by Gammer Norah who practically shoved Joe against the nearest stuffed animal case getting her bulk indoors. She was followed by her acid-faced daughter Dorothea, who said to Marianne, “Show some manners, child. They’ll need a cup of tea and biscuits at once. Hurry it up.”

“Well, I like that!” Joe said, and made a face at Dorothea’s back as Dorothea shut the front room door with a slam. “Let’s just go home.”

Raised voices were already coming from behind the slammed door. “No, stay,” Marianne said. “I want to know what they’re so angry about.”

“Me too,” Joe admitted. He grinned at Marianne and quietly directed a small, sly spell at the front room door, with the result that the door shortly came open an inch or so. Gaffer Farleigh’s voice boomed through the gap. “Don’t deny it, woman! You let it out!”

“I did not!” Gammer more or less screamed, and was then drowned out by the voices of Norah and Dorothea, both yelling.

Marianne went to the kitchen to put the kettle on, leaving Joe to listen. Nutcase was there, sitting in the middle of the enormous old table, staring ardently at a tin of cat food someone had left there. Marianne sighed. Gammer always said Nutcase had only two braincells, both of them devoted to food, but it did rather look as if Gammer had forgotten to feed him again. She opened the tin for him and put the food in his dish. Nutcase was so ecstatically grateful that Marianne wondered how long it was since Gammer had remembered that cats need to eat. There were no biscuits in any of the cupboards. Marianne began to wonder if Gammer had forgotten to feed herself too.

As the kettle was still only singing, Marianne went into the hall again. The screaming in the front room had died down. Dorothea’s voice said, “And I nearly walked into it. I was lucky not to be hurt.”

“Pity it didn’t eat you,” Gammer said.

This caused more screaming and made Joe giggle. He was standing over the glass case that held the twisted, snarling ferret, looking at it much as Nutcase had looked at the tin of cat food. “Have you found out what it’s about yet?” Marianne whispered.

Joe shrugged. “Not really. They say Gammer did something and she says she didn’t.”

At this moment the noise in the front room died down enough for them to hear Gaffer Farleigh saying, “… our sacred trust, Pinhoes and Farleighs both, not to speak of Cleeves. And you, Edith Pinhoe, have failed in that trust.”

“Nonsense,” came Gammer’s voice. “You’re a pompous fool, Jed Farleigh.”

“And the very fact that you deny it,” Gaffer Farleigh continued, “shows that you have lost all sense of duty, all sense of truth and untruth, in your work and in your life.”

“I never heard anything so absurd,” Gammer began.

Norah’s voice cut across Gammer’s. “Yes, you have, Edith. That’s what we’re here to say. You’ve lost it. You’re past it. You make mistakes.”

“We think you should retire,” Dorothea joined in priggishly.

“Before you do any more harm,” Gaffer Farleigh said.

He sounded as if he was going to say more, but whatever this was it was lost in the immense scream Gammer gave. “What nonsense, what cheek, what an insult!” she screamed. “Get out of here, all of you! Get out of my house, this instant!” She backed this up with such a huge gust of magic that Joe and Marianne reeled where they stood, even though it was not aimed at them. The Farleighs must have got it right in their faces. They came staggering backwards out of the front room and across the hall. At the front door, they managed to turn themselves around. Gaffer Farleigh, more furiously angry than either Joe or Marianne had ever seen him, shook his fist and roared out, “I tell you you’ve lost it, Edith!” Marianne could have sworn that, mixed in with Gammer’s gust of magic, was the sharp stab of a spell from Gaffer Farleigh too.

Before she could be sure, all three Farleighs bolted for their carriage, jumped into it and drove off, helter-skelter, as if Chrestomanci himself was after them.

In the front room, Gammer was still screaming. Marianne rushed in to find her rocking back and forth in her chair and screaming, screaming. Her hair was coming down and dribble was running off her chin. “Joe! Help me stop her!” Marianne shouted.

Joe came close to Gammer and bawled at her, “I’m not going to Chrestomanci Castle! Whatever you say!” He said afterwards that it was the only thing he could think of that Gammer might attend to.

It certainly stopped Gammer screaming. She stared at Joe, all wild and shaky and panting. “Filberts of halibuts is twisted out of all porringers,” she said.

“Gammer!” Marianne implored her. “Talk sense!”

“Henbane,” said Gammer. “Beauticians’ holiday. Makes a crumbfest.”

Marianne turned to Joe. “Run and get Mum,” she said. “Quickly. I think her mind’s gone.”