Morgan Charmley Read online

  For Ben

  Contents

  Cover

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Copyright Page

  This is it. The moment I have been waiting for my entire life.

  As I kneel before her, the Great Sorceress stands and lifts her arms, the long black sleeves of her cloak billowing in the wind. The crackling fire behind me is the only sound breaking through the eerie silence of the forest at night and, as the Great Sorceress takes a step towards me, the circle of witches surrounding us lift their faces to watch her expectantly.

  “Morgan Charmley.”

  My hands are shaking and my heart thuds loudly against my chest as she intones my name. There’s no going back now. I lift my eyes to meet hers.

  “Morgan Charmley,” she repeats, “the council has made a decision. And I declare that …”

  She hesitates. The other witches glance at one another in confusion. My breath catches in my throat. Why is she stopping?

  No. This can’t be happening. It can’t be over. Not like this.

  “I declare that …”

  She pauses again. The silence is unbearable.

  “Oh darling,” she sighs, her voice instantly changing to a softer tone, “you’ve got a smudge on your face! Must be ash from the fire, come here.”

  She licks her thumb and reaches forward to rub my cheek.

  “Mum!” I hiss, batting her hand away as the other witches start giggling. “Get off! What are you doing?”

  “There, it’s all gone now.” She smiles with satisfaction. “Right, now, where was I?”

  “You were about to do the declaration,” Dora prompts cheerily. “And don’t let it drag on, Aggie, my back is aching from sitting on the ground.”

  “Yeah,” Sephy pipes up. “My bum has gone numb.”

  “We could just use our magic to get nice comfortable chairs. We are witches after all.” Dora smiles. “Something like this, perhaps.”

  She clicks her fingers and is suddenly reclining on a sofa.

  “That’s better,” she says. “Do carry on, Aggie.”

  “Dora, that’s not allowed.” Mum laughs. “We have to go by tradition. And tradition has it that we sit in a circle on the ground for the results of the Young Witch Exam. You know the rules.”

  Mum clicks her fingers and the sofa disappears, leaving Dora sitting cross-legged on the ground again.

  “I would like to have a word with the witches who decided on that tradition,” Dora huffs, stubbornly crossing her arms and accidentally hitting herself in the face with her excessively large sleeve. “And I wouldn’t mind asking them why we have to wear these traditional cloaks when judging the exams, too! Completely impractical.”

  “Ask away,” Sephy says with a grin, gesturing to the witch next to her. “Mother here was one of them.”

  Her mother lifts her head in confusion. “What? What was that?”

  “I was just saying to Dora that you helped decide on the tradition of sitting on the ground, didn’t you, Mother?” Sephy shouts. “You remember? About two hundred years ago?”

  “Is this stupid thing over yet?” Sephy’s elderly mother replies, ignoring her. “I think it’s about to rain.”

  Sephy sighs. “You always say that, Mother.”

  “Well, it always does.” Her mother sniffs indignantly.

  “Ah yes,” a younger witch says from the other side of the circle. “I think I just felt a drop of rain on my nose.”

  The two witches either side of her murmur in agreement.

  “HELLO!” I yell, waving my arms around and causing everyone to turn and look at me as though they’d forgotten I was there. “We were in the middle of something? Is there ANY chance we can take this a little bit seriously?”

  “Sorry, Morgan,” Mum says, shooting Dora and Sephy a stern look. “You’re right. This is a very important moment. Now, I was just about to make the declaration, wasn’t I.”

  She clears her throat loudly and puts on her serious voice again.

  “Morgan Charmley, the council has made a decision. I declare that—”

  “WAIT!” Sephy gasps, making us all jump. She holds her hands up dramatically, closes her eyes and inhales deeply.

  “What, Sephy?” Mum asks, looking baffled as we all stare at Sephy in anticipation. “What’s wrong?”

  She eventually opens her eyes. “Yep. It is definitely raining.”

  I bury my head in my hands with a groan, as the witches begin to grumble about the English weather. Umbrellas appear out of thin air, shielding everyone in the circle. Mum clicks her fingers at the fire and winks at me. “Those flames are now waterproof.”

  “Great,” I mutter under my breath. “Any chance you can throw me into them?”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t recommend that, Morgan,” Dora chips in. The umbrella over her head is in the shape of a bright-pink, glittery flamingo. “It takes ages to get the soot out of your hair.”

  The witches around me launch into various discussions about the weather and haircare tips, while I sit back on my feet and sigh heavily. I start thinking the worst. Maybe they’re putting off giving me my results on purpose. Maybe I failed and they don’t want to tell me the bad news.

  Again.

  You’d think they’d be well-practised at it considering this is my eighth time taking the Young Witch Exam, or YWE. I was five years old when I first had a crack at it and it went fairly badly. And by fairly, I mean colossally. Dora instructed me to make a turnip float in the air for three seconds and lower it gently again.

  It was a standard YWE task. I’d practised it loads of times at home. I tried to focus on the turnip and not be so nervous. I tried to swallow the lump in my throat and ignore how dry my mouth was. I tried to stop my hand from shaking as I clicked my fingers and …

  … I turned Dora into a turnip. It was deeply traumatizing for the both of us.

  She was very nice about it and Mum reversed the spell straight away, so it wasn’t like she was a turnip for very long or anything. Dora kept going on about how it showed that I had great powers, being able to turn a person into a turnip at the age of five, but I soon proved her wrong. The following year I failed again, and then the year after that, and the year after that, and so on.

  I have no idea if I’ve passed this time round. I didn’t turn anyone into a turnip during today’s exam, which is promising, but when Dora stepped forward and instructed me to produce “a basket of pears wearing mini top hats” I hesitated, giving her a strange look, and I know they deduct points for hesitation.

  But what kind of exam question is that?! When in my life am I ever going to need to suddenly have a basket of pears with top hats? I noticed Mum rolling her eyes at Dora’s request, but she didn’t make her change the task.

  Dora looked pleased with the pears I produced, so hopefully my hesitation hasn’t affected my result too much. She picked one up from the wicker bas
ket I was suddenly holding to examine it and burst out laughing, holding it up to the rest of the circle and going, “Look at this pear! It has a top hat on! A pear with a top hat! HA!”

  She also asked me to make a large branch on the ground float through the air and move around a bit before landing gently, which I did perfectly, but I am slightly worried that I took too long on the third task – fix a broken shower that appeared in front of me out of thin air. I managed to fix it, but not before two of the witches got drenched by the out-of-control showerhead that was flying all over the place. They both gave Dora, who was trying not to laugh, very sour looks as they clicked their fingers and were magicked dry again.

  I just really, really, REALLY hope I did well enough to finally pass.

  The YWE is the most important exam you can take as a witch, because it means that you are good enough at spells and controlling your magical powers to be permitted to go to school. It means that you’re trusted not to expose the secret that witches still exist and always have. And one of the best things about passing the YWE is that you’re allowed to take broomstick-flying lessons.

  I’ve never passed it, so I’ve never been allowed to go to school or learn how to fly. Instead, I’ve been home-schooled all my life. Not that it’s been too bad or anything. Dora, my mum’s best friend and our next-door neighbour, is my tutor and she is a lot of fun to be around, being completely bonkers.

  But still, I’ve had to sit at home with my books all day every day, knowing that other witches my age get to go to school and make friends.

  Dora’s great but the other day she referred to her phone as her “portable communicator machine”. And she finds pieces of fruit wearing top hats hilarious. It would be really nice to hang out with people my age for a change.

  I guess I haven’t exactly helped my case over the years – there have been a couple of completely innocent magical mishaps. Mum has never forgiven me for the time I turned that stupid boy into a toad, even though he deserved it. A few years ago, I was in the park with Mum and Dora, trying out my new bike. As I put on my helmet, this boy went past on his skateboard and yelled out, “HA HA, PEA-HEAD!”

  Look, I stick to my story: I angrily clenched my hands and just HAPPENED to click my fingers accidentally.

  Next thing I knew, there was a toad riding a skateboard.

  I thought it was pretty funny and had anyone been around to film a toad riding a skateboard, I’m certain it would have been a YouTube sensation, but Mum went ballistic about the whole incident. She turned him back to his stupid self but she couldn’t erase his memory, because only potions can do that. And witches don’t do potions. Warlocks do.

  Witches hate warlocks and the feeling is mutual.

  Mum was really angry about having to go to the Chief Warlock and ask him for help to sort out my mess. There’s nothing more humiliating for a witch than having to ask a warlock for help. I was grounded FOR EVER and lectured for weeks.

  “You can’t go around turning people into toads!” Mum kept saying.

  “I will if they call me a pea-head!” I argued.

  “That’s not how being a witch works!” Mum said, exasperated. “You can’t do that sort of thing in the real world.”

  “If I can’t turn a boy into a toad when he calls me a pea-head, then WHAT is the point of being a witch?” I yelled back.

  She didn’t have an answer for that one, and even though NOW, a few years on, I can understand why I shouldn’t have lost my temper and turned him into a toad, I also stand by the fact that he deserved it and was a much nicer toad than boy.

  But, whatever.

  The point is that I am turning thirteen in a few days and I am a VERY mature and VERY capable witch, ready to go to normal school and make normal friends without giving the game away that I have magical powers. I should have passed the exam YEARS ago, but I kept mucking up. It’s like I couldn’t handle the pressure or something, and even though I KNEW that I was able to pass the exam, I just kept failing it.

  Which, by the way, isn’t exactly great when you’re the daughter of the Great Sorceress. It kind of makes failing the exam ten billion times worse.

  “Don’t be silly, Morgan,” Mum said last year after I’d failed again. “That has nothing to do with anything.”

  “Mum,” I sighed, “you’re the Great Sorceress. You are so good at magic that you were nominated by all the witches in Britain to be in charge of the Witch Council and make all the important witch decisions.”

  “The youngest ever candidate to be voted in as the Great Sorceress,” Mum said with a dreamy look on her face, before checking herself at my frown. “Not that that’s important. It’s only a silly title.”

  “Still. Everyone expects me to be brilliant, like you were. Instead, I’m a complete disaster.”

  “No, you’re not,” she said sternly. “You are brilliant. You just don’t believe you are. And during the exam, in front of the scrutinizing eyes of everyone on the Witch Council, you panic under pressure and make mistakes, just like plenty of other brilliant witches have done before you. Next year, you’ll pass with flying colours.”

  So, here I am. Waiting to hear the results of the exam that has been hanging over my head for as long as I can remember.

  And everyone is too busy talking about the rain.

  “I remember the great storm of eighteen fifty-nine,” Sephy’s mother says in a gloomy voice. “You should have seen those winds. Nothing like it.”

  “Oh yes, I remember.” Another elderly witch across the circle nods. “Almost blew my chimney right off.”

  “MUM!” I cry loudly above the noise. “Did I fail? Please, just put me out of my misery. It’s OK, I can take it.”

  The circle falls silent. Mum takes a deep breath.

  “No, Morgan Charmley,” she says gently, a smile creeping across her lips. “You did it. You passed.”

  The forest erupts with loud cheers and cries of congratulations from the Witch Council as I hop up and down on the spot screaming, “YES! FINALLY!”

  “Well done, Morgan,” Mum laughs, stepping forward and putting her hands on my shoulders so I face her straight on. She looks me in the eye. “You did very well. I’m proud of you.”

  “Congratulations, Morgan,” Dora says, standing up with a loud creak and enveloping me in a huge hug.

  As I pull away, I look up to see enormous tears rolling down Dora’s face.

  “Dora! Why are you crying?” I say. “This is the BEST NEWS EVER! You can go back to having a life! You don’t have to tutor me any more!”

  Dora’s expression crumples and she bursts into loud, heaving sobs. I look to Mum, baffled, but she just smiles warmly and puts an arm around her best friend’s shoulders.

  “It would appear that your tutor has grown rather fond of her pupil.”

  “Nonsense,” Dora says sternly, blowing her nose with a blue polka-dot handkerchief. “I’m thrilled about this situation. I’ll have plenty of free time on my hands to take up some interesting hobbies and you … well, you … will go off … to school … all grown-up…”

  Unable to continue, Dora flings her arms out and pulls me towards her again, holding me so tight that I find it tricky to breathe.

  “I’ll still see you all the time, Dora, you live next door,” I point out, my voice muffled in her shoulder. “And it’s probably a good thing for me to finally make some new friends and do things on my own.”

  “You’re never on your own,” a dry, bored voice says from my feet. “Due to a dismal stroke of luck, we’re stuck to each other for ever more.”

  Merlin. I’d almost forgotten he was there.

  Despite the magic side of things, there is one huge disadvantage of being a witch: you have to have a “familiar”.

  That’s what gave us witches away a lot back in the sixteenth century, when everyone lost their heads and began to hunt us down. Every witch has a familiar, a spirit guide, and back then any mysterious woman with a black cat was a suspect.

  I
wish I could have a nice, fluffy, normal pet cat instead of a familiar. Sadly, like most aspects of my life, my familiar is a DISASTER. Yeah, don’t be fooled by the idea of an adorable sidekick guiding you through life, together through everything, an unconditional bond. Merlin spends the majority of his time pointing out my flaws and making jokes about them. Like the other day, when he asked me if I’d noticed the fact I have quite hairy hands for a girl.

  I hadn’t noticed that before. Now it’s all I can think about.

  Merlin, like all witch familiars, is a shape-shifter. They can’t become human, but they can become pretty much anything else. And they’re with you for ever. Which means that Merlin will never leave my side. For my whole life.

  It’s all very depressing.

  For this year’s YWE, he decided to take the form of a wasp so he could annoy all the witches by buzzing around their ears, until Mum gave him a VERY stern look and he quickly transformed himself into a rat and settled down by the fire.

  My mum can be very intimidating when she wants to be, being the Great Sorceress and everything.

  “Merlin,” I sigh, “I know that you’re happy for me, whatever you say. Now that I’ve passed my exam, life will be a bit more interesting, don’t you think?”

  “Life is overrated,” he says with a yawn, receiving a glare from Mum’s familiar, Helena, who is standing next to Mum in the form of a Bengal cat.

  “You could show Morgan a little more support,” Helena hisses at him. “She’s worked hard for this goal and as her familiar you should be pleased that she’s achieved such—”

  “Blah blah blah,” Merlin interrupts rudely. “Is this thing over yet?”

  “Honestly!” Helena says, her fur bristling. “I don’t know how you put up with him, Morgan!”

  “It’s a daily struggle,” I admit.

  “And to think,” Merlin says, ignoring us, “I could be in Bora Bora right now with that nice witch, Lydia Cooper. She was really something.”

  I roll my eyes at Mum. Merlin likes to constantly remind me that he was considered for the role of familiar for Lydia Cooper, a young witch who lives in Bora Bora. Sadly (in his opinion), he was assigned to me instead and doomed to a life of misery.