She lowered her voice, keeping the conversation on our end of the table. ‘I was pregnant with Gretel at the time, and the dream was the most vivid I’d had before, or since. There were two young women. One had her dark hair in braids, and she galloped on a horse with a cat tucked in in front of her.’

  She looked pointedly in my direction. ‘The other had brown hair, worn loose, and she rode a broom with a bat flying beside her. They were Wanda, and Gretel, but not the Wayfarers of old.’ She shrugged. ‘I was absolutely and utterly convinced that they were a Wanda and Gretel to come. Two new Wayfarers, riding together from place to place, setting the world to rights. I was even more convinced that the girl with braids would be my daughter.’

  She held her hands out. ‘As I started to wake up, there was a voice in my mind. Not my voice, and not the voice of anyone I ever met. The voice told me, “You will give birth to a true Wayfarer. You must call her Gretel, and call her brother Hansel.”’

  Gretel, her face flushed, said, ‘You’re codding us, aren’t you?’

  ‘I am not codding you,’ said Sinead. ‘I remember this dream as well as if I had it only last night.’ She gave Gretel a guilty smile. ‘I didn’t have any intention of having a second child, so of course I named you Gretel. Then when I found myself pregnant with your brother a year later, I baulked at the thought of giving him such an unfortunate name, no matter what had happened in my dream. What boy would be happy to grow up, knowing that his namesake had been a greedy boy who needed to be saved by his sister? So I compromised by calling him Hans. But it seems that destiny found a way to make that Tall Tale play out, anyway, only in a rather upside down form. My baby wound up feeding the Hag all these years, and none of us knew it.’ She grasped her daughter’s hand. ‘I named you because of that dream, and for most of your childhood, I felt positive that one day it would come true.’

  ‘Until the Test,’ Gretel said in a quiet voice, sounding like her old, under-confident self again.

  Sinead nodded sadly. ‘I convinced myself that you fell apart under the pressure, and that you lost your confidence after that day. I’ve been waiting, ever since then, for you to flourish. I always knew you would be amazing someday, you know.’

  Gretel blushed. ‘I’m not amazing. I’m not the clumsiest girl in the world anymore, and that’s enough for me.’

  Finn, who had been busy eating throughout most of Sinead’s story, said, ‘Y’know, it always struck me as funny that Wanda and Gretel shared a birthday. Maybe your dream will come true, after all.’

  ‘What?’ I stared at my boss. ‘Gretel and me don’t share a birthday. I think I’d know by now if one of my best friends–’ I broke off, moving my gaze to Gretel. ‘Wait a sec – you’ve never told me when your birthday is.’

  Gretel’s blush deepened, and she cleared her throat. ‘I didn’t want any fuss. Birthdays aren’t really a big deal for me.’

  Sinead looked at her daughter. ‘You never did want any fuss, did you? Even after you lost so much of your magic and skill. We should have known there was something more involved. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to us to look into it.’

  I took a sip of my drink (because clearly, what we all needed was even more wine), then said, ‘Maybe Niamh gave you all A Good Dose of Suggestion on the day of the Test, and on the days following. It seems to have been her modus operandi, after all. And it’d explain why you didn’t delve much deeper. Plus, it’s been quite a few centuries since your elders used the Marrow and Bone spell. It just wouldn’t have occurred to you that someone would do something so monstrous again, considering you’d all learned the lessons of the past.’

  ‘Wanda’s right,’ said Gretel. ‘It can be really hard for those of us who aren’t psychos to even begin to imagine the lengths that people like Niamh will go to. I heard someone say once that it’s much easier to lie to a person than it is to get them to see that they’ve been lied to. Niamh knew that. She bargained on it. But … can we stop talking about her now? Because I feel like she’s already taken way more from me than she ought to. I’m not going to let her ruin this party, too.’

  With those wise words of Gretel’s, the subject of Niamh was dropped, and we moved on to talking of happier things. As the night went on, and we drank and danced, I found myself watching Gretel in wonder. She was so graceful tonight, spinning and moving in perfect time with the music, her eyes sparkling with the reflection of the lights.

  She had always been this graceful, though, underneath. How many people might be that way, I wondered – going about their days with no idea of how amazing they could be, if only they could find a way to sever themselves from the monsters of their past?

  Eventually, when we’d all been dancing for at least an hour, Gretel suddenly grabbed Melissa and me by the hands and said, ‘Come with me.’

  ≈

  In the barn, Teena was no longer so tiny. She was nowhere near full-sized, but she was at least three hands taller than when I’d seen her last.

  Gretel nuzzled the little horse’s head. ‘See? Isn’t she amazing?’

  ‘Wow, you’ll be riding her soon,’ said Melissa with a grin.

  ‘Could be.’ Gretel’s cheeks were flushed once more. ‘Y’know, if she wants.’

  Teena let out a whinny which sounded very much in the affirmative.

  The three of us stayed in the barn for a while, settling the horses for the night, topping up their water and enjoying their warmth and their scent. As amazing as it was to ride a broom, there was something to be said about horses, and not just that wonderful smell they had. There was a calmness, a quietness to the animals that made me want to curl up in one of their stalls and go to sleep.

  Then again, my sleepiness could have been caused by the many glasses of wine I’d enjoyed at the party.

  Melissa and Gretel were growing sleepy, too, and we were just about to head back outside to get some air, when we heard a high-pitched squeak, or perhaps a chirp.

  ‘Do you think you have mice in here?’ Melissa wondered.

  Gretel shook her head. ‘The coven cats make sure there are none in here. Anyway, that didn’t sound like a mouse to me. I don’t know what it was, but it definitely wasn’t a mouse.’ She pointed to the back entrance. ‘I think it’s coming from outside.’

  We rushed out in the direction of the unusual noise. There was a large pond a few feet away from the barn, fed by a waterfall and shaded by a small grove of trees. Like so many parts of the Wood coven’s grounds, there was something magical about it. Sitting on a rock at the side of that pretty pond, chewing on a piece of jerky, was a large grey otter.

  Looking up at us, the otter said, ‘Oh, good evening, ladies. I’ve been waiting here until the party ends. Never been one to gate-crash, you know. But now that you’re here, one of you wouldn’t happen to be a Miss Gretel Wood, by any chance?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s me,’ Gretel replied warily.

  The otter let out another of those funny sounds of his, sitting up and gazing at Gretel. ‘Oh, thank the stars I’ve found you, Miss Gretel. I’m Otto, and I’ve come here to ask for your help. It’s about my witch, you see. He’s been murdered.’

  Gretel frowned. ‘Oh, I … I’m so sorry to hear about your witch, but I think you’ve got it wrong, Otto. I’m a Wayfarer – as in, I work for the police force known as the Wayfarers. But I’m not the Wayfarer.’ She grasped my elbow, nudging me forward. ‘It’s Wanda you want. She’s the Wayfarer.’

  Otto had finished his jerky, and he shook his head, letting out another odd little squeak and following it with an apologetic smile. ‘Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. I was hoping to avoid any awkward moments, Miss Wanda, but you see … the word is, there’s a second Wayfarer in town now, and her name is Gretel Wood. It’s not that you wouldn’t be gratefully appreciated – you’re very helpful, by all accounts. It’s just that … it’s rather a complicated case, you see, and so I thought it over and came to the conclusion that, if I have to choose which Wayfarer to use, it ought to be the one who’s freshest out of the box and brimming with enthusiasm. If you see what I mean.’

  He clasped his small front paws together. ‘No offence intended, Miss Wanda.’

  Somewhere during Otto’s short speech, Gretel had put her hand in mine, and now I could feel her palm grow sweaty, and her body begin to shake. But I could see, when she turned to look at me, that her nerves were happy ones. Gretel might not have known it, but she had been waiting her whole life for this moment. In fact, she’d been born to it.

  I wasn’t the Wayfarer anymore – or certainly, I wasn’t the one and only. For the first time in the history of our magic, there would be two of us at the same time. Two of us to help each other. Two of us to share the load.

  Short of Max returning, this was the most brilliant news I could ever receive.

  ‘Otto’s right,’ I said to Gretel. ‘This one is all yours.’ I hugged her close and whispered in her ear, saying, ‘And I just know you’ll do an amazing job.’

  24. A Few Months Later

  Life carried on, as life tends to do.

  After that night at the pond behind her barn, Gretel solved Otto’s case with relative ease (you know, after being involved in the requisite life-or-death situation and listening to a villainous monologue or two). She truly missed that otter when she laid him to rest. Like my experience with Dudley, I knew that Otto would always have a fond place in her heart.

  From then on Gretel and I shared tasks, splitting our time between the new Riddler’s Cove station and Major Crimes, and tag-teaming on cases involving familiars.

  It was heady, having someone to share the danger with, someone who knew what it was to wield that sort of power. And boy, did she wield it well. It was a joy to watch her in action and, despite the fact that we almost died at least once a week, work was more fun than ever.

  But always, in the back of my mind, I was worried for Max and what he was going through in that other world.

  Meanwhile, in this world, not-my-Max continued to narrowly escape death, with the help of the Queen and her guards.

  I watched over him, too, but I kept even more of a distance than the others. Still, I was on hand to rescue him from a falling piano one day and, on another occasion, I pushed him out of the way of a careening buggy with a bag-full of sharp knives inside (some people leave their weapons in the strangest of places).

  As for Will and I, well … we were Will and I. We often bumped into each other. We sometimes stayed long enough for a drink and a chat. It was never easy, and yet I longed for the next short meeting nonetheless.

  Feelings carried on, as feelings tend to do.

  But then a night in February came, and I knew: a strange sort of change was heading my way, a change that felt so familiar as to barely be a change at all.

  The wind was howling that night, as I tossed and turned in my bed at Wayfarers’ Rest, falling in and out of nightmares I’d had before – a déjà vu of dreams involving Max being ripped away from me, and the sensation of my heart being split in two.

  I sat up, sweating, while Dizzy laid fluttering kisses all over my face.

  ‘I had a bad dream, Wanda. Did you have a bad dream too?’

  I nodded, unspeaking.

  ‘You cried out Max’s name,’ Dizzy continued. ‘It … it feels like it felt then.’

  ‘Then?’ I said, my voice flat. But I knew what he meant. He meant that tonight felt like another February night, one year ago.

  There were some differences of course – the first being that we were in another house, a house without Wolfie, and the second being that Max couldn’t be taken from us, because he was already gone.

  We sat there for a while, Dizzy huddled in my arms, while branches and debris hit the windowpanes. Whenever there was a storm, my mother would usually wake too, heading down to the kitchen to make warm milk or cocoa. Tonight, though, all I could hear from the other rooms was the sound of snoring.

  Another sound came, then – a sharper sound, at the windowpane. Still clutching Dizzy, I ran over to my window, looking down.

  The Queen was standing in the garden in a thin white dress, her hair blowing in the wind as she threw pebbles at my window. Seeing me, she stopped throwing and waved her hand in a come-hither motion.

  As I dressed up warm and rushed outside with Dizzy, I began to feel another familiar feeling – the air was crackling with electricity, alive with a particular kind of magic.

  ‘Wanda, I don’t know how to ask you this,’ Dizzy said, his sharp little teeth chattering. ‘But do you happen to feel a bit … you know … Halloweeny?’

  I gulped, trailing a finger over his wings. ‘Yeah, yeah, I do.’

  When we reached the Queen, she gave us an unsteady smile. ‘I’m sorry for the short notice, Wanda, but you and I – and Dizzy, it seems – are about to go on a little jaunt.’

  ‘A jaunt?’ I looked around. ‘In the middle of a storm? In that case, shouldn’t you be wearing a different outfit?’

  ‘Probably,’ she conceded. ‘But then, I didn’t expect to be doing this tonight.’

  ‘Doing what?’ Dizzy squeaked.

  The Queen gave us a shaky smile. ‘Tonight, my loves, we are bringing Max home.’

  I felt my lashes flutter as I stared at her. Tonight. She had really said tonight. ‘But … but it’s not supposed to happen now,’ I said, recalling Pru Montague’s prophecy.

  The Queen reached out, touching my shoulder. ‘I’ll explain when we get there. We have a lot to do, and none of it is going to be easy.’

  Dizzy snuggled into my neck, using my hair as a blanket. ‘All right then, Your Majesty. Let’s get going. I always did fancy taking a journey into the unknown.’

  ≈

  You’ve reached the end of Testing Times. I hope you enjoyed this read. If so, join my mailing list to keep up with the very latest releases: http://www.subscribepage.com/z4n0f4

  Or visit: https://aaalbright.com and sign up there.

  Unhappening Ever After, the next book in Wanda’s tale, will be released in the spring of 2022.

  Books by A.A. Albright

  All of my books are set in the same magical world, with the same magical rules and supernaturals occurring throughout. Each series itself is self-contained, and you don’t need to read any one series to understand another. But my characters do reserve the right to pop in on one another from time to time to make a little cameo or two.

  Books in the Wayfair Witches Series:

  Book One: Bottling It

  Book Two: Bricking It

  Book Three: A Trick for a Treat

  Book Four: Winging It

  Book Five: Wrapping Up

  Book Six: Loved Up

  Book Seven: Rocking Out

  Book Eight: Acting Up

  Legally Red: A standalone featuring Melissa, with the action occurring between books eight and nine of the main series

  Book Nine: Swotting Up

  Book Ten: Forget Me Knot

  Book Eleven: All Hallowed Out

  Holiday Heist: A standalone featuring Melissa, with the action occurring between books eleven and twelve of the main series

  Book Twelve: Doing Time

  Book Thirteen: All Tricked Out

  Book Fourteen: Faking It

  Book Fifteen: Testing Times

  Wayfair Witches Side Stories:

  (These books can be read as standalones, but if you’d like to read them in order with the main series, see the list above for their placement in the series timeline)

  Legally Red

  Holiday Heist

  Books in the Riddler's Edge Series:

  Book One: A Little Bit Witchy

  Book Two: Witchy See, Witchy Do

  Book Three: Lucky Witches

  Book Four: Shiver Me Witches

  Book Five: So Very Unfae

  Book Six: Old-School Witch

  Book Seven: A Little Bit Vampy

  Slippery Slope: A standalone featuring Pru, with the action occurring between books seven and eight of the main series

  Book Eight: A Little Bit Chilly

  Book Nine: A Little Bit Spacey

  Book Ten: Totally Married

  Riddler’s Edge Standalones:

  Slippery Slope: A standalone featuring Pru, which can be read on its own – if you’d like to read in order with the main series, the action occurs between books seven and eight

  Books in the Katy Kramer Series:

  Book One: The Case of the Wayward Witch

  Book Two: The Case of the Haunted House

  Book Three: The Case of the Listening Library

  Book Four: The Case of the Strange Society

  Book Five: The Case of the Treacherous Train

  Book Six: The Case of the Christmas Carol

  Books in the Infernal Artefacts Trilogy

  Book One: Dead Like Ned

  Book Two: A Grave Situation (coming in 2022)

  Book Three: Dancing With the Dead (coming in 2022)

  Boxed Sets:

  Riddler's Edge Books 1-3

  Wayfair Witches Books 1-3

 

 

  A. A. Albright, Testing Times

 

 

  Thank you for reading books on GrayCity.Net
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