Carry On

I think about what might happen if I died in Mummers House—after all the times I’ve spilled my blood to let our room recognize me.

This is one reason Pe

I’m quoting her again. I’ve been having conversations with her in my head all day. Sometimes Baz joins the imaginary conversation, too—usually to tell me I’m a twat … though he never uses that word, even in my head. Too vulgar.

I’m rattling around the Weeping Tower that way, talking to myself and poking my nose in corners when something out the window catches my eye. I see a line of goats moving through the snow across the drawbridge. A figure that must be Ebb trails behind them.

Ebb. Ebb …

Ebb’s been at Watford since she was 11—and she’s at least 30 or 40 now. She must have been here when Headmistress Pitch died. Ebb never left.

The goats are back in their barn by the time I get out there. I knock at the door—I don’t want to give Ebb a shock; she lives out here with the goats.

I know that’s strange, but honestly, it’s hard to imagine Ebb living around other people. Other staff members. She can do as she likes in the barn. The goats don’t mind.

“Hiya, Ebb!” I say, knocking some more. “It’s me, Simon.”

The door opens and one of the goats peeks its muzzle out before Ebb herself appears. “Simon!” she says, holding the door wide and waving me in. “What’re you doing here? I thought everybody had gone home.”

“I just came by to say Happy Christmas,” I say, following her into the barn. It’s warmer inside, but not by much. No wonder Ebb’s dressed like she is—her ratty Watford jumper layered over another jumper, with a long striped school scarf and a mess of a knit hat. “Snakes alive, Ebb, it’s cold as a witch’s wit in here.”

“It’s not so bad,” she says. “Come on, I’ll build up the fire.”

We walk through the goats to the back of the barn, which serves as Ebb’s sitting room. She’s got a little table and a rug back here—and a TV set, the only one at Watford, as far as I know. Everything’s set up around a potbelly stove that isn’t co

That’s the best part of visiting Ebb—she doesn’t care at all about wasting magic. Half the things that come out of her mouth are spells, but I’ve never seen her magic-thin or exhausted.

The stove is magicked, I’m sure. And she probably uses magic to watch football matches.

“Why doesn’t she put in a magickal shower?” Agatha asked, the last time she visited Ebb with me—which must have been years ago. I don’t know where Ebb washes up. Maybe she just Clean as a whistles every morning.

(I had the same idea when I was 13, but Pe

Ebb feeds some branches into the stove and pokes at the fire. “Well, Happy Christmas yourself,” she says. “You caught me just in time. Going home tomorrow.”

“To see your family?” I ask.

Ebb’s from East London. She nods.

“Do you need someone to watch over the goats?”

“Nah, I’ll let them wander the grounds. What about you? Off to Agatha’s?”

“No,” I say. “I thought I’d stay here. My last year and all, trying to soak up as much Watford as I can.”

“You can always come back, Simon—I did. You want some coffee? ’Fraid all I’ve got out here is coffee. No, wait, I’ve got some Rich Tea biscuits. Let’s eat ’em before they go soft.”

I turn over a bucket and sit close to the fire. Ebb fusses at the cupboards she’s nailed to the back of the barn. She’s got shelves hanging there, too, crammed with dusty ceramic animals.

When I was a second year, I gave Ebb a little breakable goat for Christmas; I’d found it over the summer at a car boot sale. She fussed over it so much that I brought her bric-a-brac every Christmas for a few years. Goats and sheep and donkeys.

I’m feeling shamefully empty-handed when Ebb hands me a chipped mug of coffee and a stack of biscuits.

“I’m not sure what I’d do around here,” I say. “I don’t think Watford needs two goatherds.” One of the smaller goats has wandered over and is nuzzling at my knee. I hold out a biscuit in my palm, and it takes it.

Ebb smiles and settles into her easy chair. “We’d find something for you. It’s not like there was an opening when Mistress Pitch brought me on.”

“Baz’s mum,” I say, scratching the goat’s ears. Getting Ebb to talk about all this might be easier than I thought.

“The same,” she says. “Now, there was a powerful magician.”

“Did you know her well?”

Ebb takes a bite of biscuit. “Well, she taught Magic Words when I was in school,” she says, puffing crumbs out onto her dirty scarf. “And she was the headmistress. So I guess I knew her that way. We certainly didn’t move in the same circles, you understand—but after my brother Nicky passed, my family didn’t move in any circles at all.”

Ebb’s brother died when she was in school. She talks about him a lot, even though it gets her all worked up and morose every time. This is one reason Pe

The goats seem fine to me. A few are poking around Ebb’s chair, and the little beggar has settled down at my feet.

“I was afraid to leave Watford,” Ebb goes on, “and Mistress Pitch told me I didn’t have to. Looking back, she was probably worried I’d get up to my own brand of trouble. I always had more power than sense. I was a powder keg—Nicky and I both were. Mistress Pitch did a service to magic when she took me in and told me not to worry about what was next. Power doesn’t have to be a burden, she said. If it’s too heavy ’round your neck, keep it somewhere else. In a drawer. Under your bed. ‘Let it go, Ebeneza,’ she said. ‘You were born with it, but it doesn’t have to be your destiny.’ Which is never what my da told me … I wonder if Mistress Pitch would have been so forgiving if I was one of her own.”

I’m giggling and trying not to spit out wet biscuit.

“What?” she says. “This is supposed to be an inspirational story.”

“Your name is Ebeneza?”

“It’s a perfectly good name! Very traditional.” She laughs, too, and shoves an entire biscuit into her mouth, washing it down with coffee.

“She sounds good,” I say. “Baz’s mum.”

“Well, yeah. I mean, she was fierce as a lion. And darker than most people were comfortable with—all the Pitches are—and she fought the reforms with her own teeth and nails. But she loved Watford. She loved magic.”

“Ebb … how did your brother die?” I’ve never asked her that before. I’ve never wanted to upset Ebb any more than she already was.

She immediately shifts forward in her chair and looks away from me. “Well, that’s not something we talk about. I’m not to talk about him at all—they buried his name when we couldn’t bury his body, even struck him from the Book—but he was my twin brother. Doesn’t feel right to pretend he never was.”

“I didn’t know he was your twin.”

“Yeah. Partner in crime.”

“You must miss him.”

“I do miss him.” She sniffs. “I haven’t talked to him since the day he crossed over—no matter what people say.”

“Of course not,” I say. “He’s dead.”

“I know what they say.”

“Honestly, Ebb. I’ve never heard anyone talk about your brother but you.”

She stares at me for a second, her back stiff; then she seems to remember herself and turns to the fire, slouching again. “Sorry, Simon. I just … I think people thought I was going to go with him. That I wouldn’t be able to live without him. Nicky wanted me to go.”

“He wanted you to kill yourself, too?”

“He wanted me to go with him to…” She looks around, anxiously, and her voice drops to a whisper. “To the vampires. Nicky said he’d be waiting for me—that he’d always be waiting for me.”