Page 6 of Black and White, Twice the Might (Cadenbury Town #8)

W e park up just down from the bookshop, and I help the witch lady out of the car. Sly comes and joins us.

“Take my arm, Dark One,” she says.

Sly does and helps her across the road towards the bookshop. Enoch and Xander stick close to my side.

A bell jingles as we walk in, and two men look up with smiles that quickly turn to concern when they see Sly helping the witch lady.

They both come over to us.

“Are you alright, Molly?” the older man asks.

“Just feeling my age today.”

The young man snorts. “That’s what you get for being like a thousand years old, Molly.”

The witch lady, Molly, cackles out a laugh. “Cheeky pup. But I made some new friends who are helping me. We are just about to have coffee and cake.”

The two men look at us.

“Thanks, Molly means the world to all of us,” the older man says.

Enoch looks at them. “Do you have any books on the history of haunted houses or Halloween?”

The younger man nods. “We do upstairs. Do you want me to get them for you to look at? I’ll even let you look at them in the tearoom.”

“Yes, please, thank you. I promise not to drop crumbs on them, and if I do, I’ll buy them.”

I snort out a laugh. “With what?”

Enoch grins. “Okay, he’ll buy them.”

“I’ll go and get them for you. Molly, go sit down and rest,” the young man tells her.

“Come on then,” Molly says, patting Sly’s arm.

We walk into the tearoom, and Molly leads us to an empty table, and we sit down. Thankfully, this is a table for six, so we all fit.

A middle-aged man walks over to us, looking at Molly. “You alright?”

Molly cackles out a laugh. “Just making new friends.”

The man nods. “What can I get you all?”

After he explains what cakes he has, we all order one and drinks.

Molly looks at us and smiles. “I’ve never come across a light and dark witch pairing before.”

“Neither have we, but it works for us,” Sly replies.

She looks at Xander and Enoch. “You don’t need to fear me,” she tells them gently.

Enoch looks down, but before any of us can say anything, the man comes over with our drinks, then goes back to bring our cakes.

“Thanks,” we all say.

“Welcome,” he replies, smiling at us all and walking away.

She looks at Enoch and Xander again, frowning. “Who hurt you with light magic?”

The boys don’t answer, but Enoch scoots closer to me. I answer for them. “Our father used his magic on them. I didn’t find out until Sly and I made an unexpected visit home to see them.”

“Nasty business,” she says, shaking her head, before looking at Sly. “What justice did you mete out?”

I stare at him, and I notice the boys are as well.

“I covered him in boils, made his hair fall out, cursed him so that everything he touched broke and stripped him of his magic,” Sly replies, matter-of-factly, as if something like that was an everyday occurrence.

“You what?” I exclaim. How did I not know this?

Sly looked at me and shrugged a shoulder. “He hurt our brothers. There was no way I wasn’t going to punish him.”

Enoch jumps up, goes around the table and hugs Sly. He pulled back. “Thank you. One of my biggest fears was that he would find us and hurt us again.”

“I told you I would keep you both safe,” he replies, patting his back.

Enoch gives him a beaming smile and sits back down again.

“What happened to the stripped magic, Dark One?”

“I gave it to Ebby. It belonged to him.”

“Good,” Molly cackles. “What lines are you both from?”

“Goddess, I’m so sorry, we’ve not introduced ourselves. I’m Ebenezer Anderson-Sherwood. This is Enoch and Alexander Anderson. We’re from the Anderson line and Sylvester Anderson-Sherwood, from the Sherwood line. We go by Ebby, Sly, Xander and Enoch.”

“And I’m Molly,” she cackles out.

“Heads up, Molly, Miles is here,” a man calls out, and I see a blur of reddish brown as a fox jumps up onto Molly’s lap.

She strokes his head and bends down, touching her forehead to the fox’s. “I’m okay, Miles,” I hear her say. She straightens up and strokes his head.

“It’s a real-life fox. I’ve never seen one this close before. You’re stunning, Mr Fox,” Enoch says, with a touch of awe in his voice.

“His name is Miles.”

“Do you like lemon cake, Miles?” Enoch asks.

Molly cackles out a laugh. “He does indeed.”

Enoch breaks off a bit of cake and leans over the table, holding the cake out to the fox. Miles gently takes it out of my brother’s hand and eats it, then head-butts his hand. Enoch strokes him. “So soft.”

The young man from the bookshop walks over to us, carrying some books. “Miles loves lemon cake.”

“I’ve just fed him some,” Enoch says, finally sitting back.

“I found you some books. These should help you.” He says, handing them over.

Enoch takes them and smiles. “Thanks, these are for a history project.”

“Nice, and so much more fun than the Romans or Victorians,” the man says.

“Yep,” Enoch replies.

“Enjoy your drinks,” and with that, the man walked back into the bookshop.

“Now, friends, where do you live?” Molly eats some cake and gives a bit to Miles.

“Nowhere at the moment. We’ve been travelling around for a few years,” I say.

Xander leans forward. “But we saw the most perfect house this morning, just on the edge of town. The owner used to make cakes.”

“That will be a good house for you all. You’ll be very happy there,” she tells us.

“I really hope so,” Enoch replies, and I can hear the hope in his voice.

“Now then, friends, I want to give you all something.”

I watch as she goes into her pocket and pulls out four pendants on a black cord. “These are protection pendants. They’ve got the strongest magic I could use. There is one for each of you. Put them on and never take them off.” She hands them out to us.

I take one and can feel the magic in and on it. “Thank you,” I say, putting it on. I can feel her magic sinking into me and merging with my magic. It’s a strange sensation, but it doesn’t hurt.

Enoch puts his on. “This can really stop someone using light magic against us?”

Molly gives him a gentle smile. “Yes, and not just light magic, but it has protection against some dark magic as well.”

“You have to be specific about protecting against dark magic spells,” Sly says.

Molly nods. “I have been. I’m sure you know spells that I don’t.

You can both add your protection to it as well.

Another protection method is the protection rune.

One of you draws it onto your hand and then place your hand on your brother's and use your magic to push the rune into their body, remembering to protect yourself. We’ve found that that works well. ”

“Thank you, we’ll do that later,” I say. This is so nice of her, giving us protection pendants and telling us about the protection rune. Hopefully, it will put my brothers’ fears to rest.

“Wow, I can feel the magic from it,” Xander says, touching the pendant.

“Me too,” Enoch says. He looks at Molly and gives her his signature smile. “Thank you.”

Molly cackles out a laugh. “You’re welcome, cheeky chops.”

We all burst out laughing at that.

We stay chatting until we finish our refreshments.

We offer to drive Molly home, but she insists she is fine and will take herself home later.

Sly goes to pay for the refreshments, and I walk into the bookshop to pay for Enoch’s books.

The older man rings our purchases up and passes the books to Enoch to carry. I pay and thank both men.

“I hope to see you back again soon,” the older man says.

“Hopefully,” Enoch says, as Sly and Xander join us.

“Thanks, bye,” I say, as we all leave the shop.

We arrive back at the B the rest he makes working his real job as a self-employed tax accountant, and on the side, is a content creator.

You’d never know it looking at him, as he doesn’t have that boring accountant look.

“That’s a good thing, right?” Xander asks.

“Very good thing,” Sly says. “But there are other things to consider before we think about putting in an offer. Like, do we want to live in this town and how much of a problem are those other magic users going to be?”

“But the house hugged us, and Molly said we’d be happy there. She’s a magic user, and she didn’t seem so bad,” Xander points out.

“We’ll go to the museum tomorrow and maybe the library and research what we can. Then tomorrow evening we’ll go to the farm and have fun,” Sly says.

Enoch leans forward and picks up a folder from the table and opens it.

It is a welcome folder that has a lot of information in it, including different takeaways that deliver to the B&B.

He flicks through the pages. “We can order pizza from there,” he turns the folder to show me.

It’s a big pizza company, and we can order online.

I order three different large pizzas. I have two growing brothers, after all, some dough balls, potato skins and bottles of drinks. There is a section for messages, so I ask if they can call us when they are outside, so we can come down and collect everything. “Done.”

“I’ll pop down and warn Larry and Janice, because chances are the delivery driver won’t ring,” Sly says, standing up.

“Take Enoch with you. That way, they shouldn’t be upset with us,” Xander suggests.

I laugh at that. “If they didn’t want takeaway food delivered here, they wouldn’t put the details in the folder.”

“But you can come anyway,” Sly says.

Enoch jumps up, and the two of them leave the room.

Xander sighs and looks at me. “I’m sorry I left Enoch’s side. I was watching someone at the shooting gallery.”

“It’s okay, these things happen. I am glad that Sly and I got there as quickly as we did.”

“But still, maybe if I had been with him, those two men wouldn’t have approached him. Who does that?”

“Well, obviously, those two men do. If we run into Cam tomorrow, we can ask him what happened to them.”