My mother patted his back. ‘We’ll sort it out, don’t you worry.’ She looked my way. ‘All the information you and Gretel sent us while you were at the crime scene has helped. Arthur and Adeline have studied that stone before.’

  I looked over at Arthur and Adeline Albright. They had reams of notes with them, and they were chatting with the Queen of the Sióga by the wood burner. Well, they were chatting. The Queen was having a grand old time throwing Wolfie’s pink ball around the room. I’d dropped him off here before college, and since then it looked like he’d been happily playing with my dad’s dog, Jacques. The Queen had brought along a canine companion, too, a yellow dog called Pinky.

  My dad, Melissa, Christine, and Erik Shannon began to bring the food to the table.

  ‘Hey, Professor.’ I gave my torturer a salute.

  He grunted, and laid a plate of bread on the table, while my dad put down some salad and Christine began to dish out her moussaka.

  I sat down, and Dizzy fluttered from a light fitting and gave me a series of kisses. ‘We’ve all been talking about Tizzy,’ he said in a frightened voice. ‘Arthur and Adeline and Erik say that the stone could actually be something else. Something called the Doorway of Doom. Doom, Wanda. Doom.’

  I gently trailed a finger along his body. ‘It’s okay, Dizzy. We’re not doomed. I mean, unless you consider general mortality to be doom, which, y’know … is kind of crappy if you’re human and don’t even know there’s an option to become a vampire. But–’

  Christine added food to my plate. ‘It’s all right, Wanda,’ she said gently, interrupting my stream of babble. ‘It’s all right to be worried. The truth is, no one knows what this stone can do.’

  ‘Well …’ Erik’s lips pulled back, revealing his teeth as he winced. ‘There is a Mage Monk rumour about a branch of the monks called World Walkers – people who could travel to other versions of this world, using a mystical stone called the Doorway of Doom. It’s supposed to be dull yellow, but to grow as bright as the sun when it’s in action, and it only responds to particular people and … well …’

  Arthur ran a hand through his wavy, reddish-blond hair. ‘Well, what Erik’s trying to say is that, when the stone first turned up at Wentforth’s, Adeline and I went to see it, along with a number of other experts. And it was dull yellow, and it didn’t respond to anyone, which does seem to tally with Erik’s name for the stone. One expert – Brent Pointer – he has an ancient ledger of precious stones and crystals, and he believes it’s something called the Swap Stone, although his ledger doesn’t actually detail what the stone does. And let’s face it, there are plenty of dull stones which light up when their magic is being drawn upon.’

  ‘But it does seem clear that this one has had its magic drawn upon,’ Adeline added. ‘Given the strange atmosphere last night, that awful wind, the fact that the stone has been stolen and a double of Dizzy has turned up.’

  Everyone had food on their plates now, so Christine sat down and began to eat. ‘I was trying to cheer Wanda up,’ she said. ‘Not to worry her even more. We really don’t know what it is, or what it can do. We need to stay calm until we know for sure. I have everyone in the Crime Prevention division looking for Lady as we speak. Well, almost everyone. Paulo and Marina stayed late with me for the last three nights, so I told them to go home and get some rest. We were hoping to harness every ounce of the moon’s power to help us find a trace of Kilian Berry. But last night …’ She hung her head. ‘One of our scrying fires jumped from the bowl and burned off Marina’s eyebrows and Paulo’s moustache. He was even fonder of his moustache than Marina was of her eyebrows.’

  The Queen had already finished off one portion, and was helping herself to another, when she looked at Finn. ‘Did you manage to get your hands on the item we spoke about?’

  Finn nodded. ‘A wizard Aurameter, just like you asked. Katy Kramer owns it, but she popped back from a holiday to let me borrow it. She seemed quite tense to have to part with it, so we’d better treat it well.’

  He pulled the Aurameter from his pocket and laid it on the table. To look at, it wasn’t all that different from a witch’s Aurameter – it looked like a fancy magnifying glass – but I knew that this one was very special. It showed more than just a witch’s aura. It could see many hidden things. Katy once told me that if she looked at a werewolf through it, even if they were in their human form, the Aurameter would show them as their werewolf selves.

  The Queen picked it up. ‘There have been many progresses made with your technology, thanks to some incredibly talented wizards. But nothing comes close to this. Through it, you can see far more colours of magic than you can see through any of your current aura filters. It’s even got something called an Intuition Interface.’

  Gretel smiled. ‘Katy says that it’s helped her discount suspects before – they look like actual red herrings when she looks at them through this. She also says that it’s hit or miss, and that she never knows when it’s actually going to help her discount a suspect. You think it will help us, obviously. But with what?’

  The Queen played with her second serving of salad. ‘Well, I haven’t heard of this Heartstone, or Swap Stone, or Doorway of Doom or whatever it might be called. But I have seen fluctuations lately. And they remind me of something I once saw in the past – or in the future, depending on your perspective.’

  ‘Excuse me?’ I stared at the Queen.

  ‘Well, time travel spells were all the rage – or will be – at one time. But we could see that they were causing problems. Things were changing appearance, suddenly. I banned all knowledge of time travel – or, I will.’ She shrugged. ‘You know what I mean. Now, whatever this is, it is not time travel, I’m sure of that. But it’s causing similar ripple effects. Over the past days I’ve seen many oddities. Wanda, you caught me staring at a banana in your kitchen. I didn’t want to panic you at the time, but the banana disappeared, then reappeared, while I waited for you. And when it turned up again, it was different. Riper, certainly, but … there’s a look things get when they don’t belong. And this new banana did not belong. I’m sure you’ve probably all seen similar signs over the last few days?’

  Melissa nodded, her green eyes round with fear. ‘A couple of days ago, I was convinced my yoga mat disappeared while I was in the middle of the seven deadly headstands. It … it came back again, a split second later.’ She rubbed her forehead. ‘But not before I fell over and really hurt myself. I just assumed I’d imagined it. I was pretty tired at the time.’

  Her familiar, Princess, rubbed herself against Melissa’s chair leg and said, ‘That’s where exercise gets you.’

  My dad squeezed Melissa’s arm for comfort, before adding his own story. ‘A few nights ago, while Bea had popped to the loo, I could have sworn that our purple comforter suddenly went green. But we’d had a couple of glasses of wine, so I put it down to that.’

  ‘Todge messaged me really late last night to tell me his doughnut was behaving oddly,’ Gretel added. ‘But that’s the kind of thing Todge always says, isn’t it? It’s all the jam he eats, I reckon. Giving him sugar highs.’

  ‘He was going on about that when I was in the station last night,’ I said. ‘He seemed to think it didn’t look right. He was afraid to eat it.’ I paused for a sip of water, trying to calm myself down before continuing. ‘And Tizzy. He em … he seemed to sort of … I dunno … shimmer? Just for a second or two.’

  The Queen’s face was tense. ‘Well then, we are up against something huge here, just as I feared we would be. I have my guards joining the search for this Lady – she seems to be the key to understanding what’s happening here. It’s not unheard of – a mystical object responding to one person in particular. It sees something in her, no doubt. Something that aligns with its purpose. Did Professor Moon say anything about her magical abilities?’

  ‘She’s an amazing student, apparently,’ said Gretel.

  ‘She’s certainly enthusiastic about wizardry.’ Melissa rolled her eyes. ‘She was telling Max just the other night about how she’d seen other worlds in her astral travels, worlds where she and he were together.’

  ‘That’s true,’ I agreed. ‘Maybe she’s gone to one of those worlds. Maybe that’s why we can’t find her. And … I dunno … maybe Tizzy came through at the same time. Brent Pointer called it a Swap Stone, didn’t he? Maybe you can’t go through to another world unless something from that world comes through, too.’

  There were nods around the table. ‘That’s actually the strongest theory we’ve got right now, I reckon,’ Finn remarked. ‘Because we should be able to track her, whether she’s got this mystical stone or not.’

  Christine nodded. ‘We really should. We took some of her belongings when we searched her flat for her. They should have made the spells easy, but there’s nothing. It’s as though she doesn’t exist in this world anymore.’

  ‘Good riddance,’ Melissa mumbled.

  I almost agreed with her, but then I thought of Tizzy. If our theory was right, then he was stuck here, in a world he didn’t know. I knew how frightened Dizzy would be, without me. My heart suddenly ached for the little doppel-bat.

  A loud clattering noise interrupted my thoughts, and there he was: Tizzy, coming in through the cat flap.

  7. Square Peg

  We all stared at Dizzy’s doppelganger as he hovered by the back door, his wings moving slowly, his body sagging with exhaustion, looking desperately at us all. Once he’d gotten his breath back, he finally spoke.

  ‘Oh, thank the blessed Lord of Mangoes that I’ve found you here,’ he said. ‘I flew for hours, hoping that at least our coven house would be the same as it’s supposed to be. And it is. So maybe … please tell me last night was just a weird anomaly. Tell me you are my Wanda, and that everything’s all right.’

  I rushed across the room and took the little bat in my arms. ‘I’m Wanda,’ I told him. ‘But Tizzy, I don’t think I’m yours. We think we might have some idea what’s going on, though, so we’ll help you, okay. We might not be your coven, but you’re safe with us.’

  Dizzy glided to my shoulder. ‘Don’t be scared,’ he squeaked.

  ‘How can I not be scared?’ Tizzy squeaked back. ‘I’m … you’ve taken my place. Stolen my witch. You’re my doppelganger. And … and everything is wrong. And I … I … could someone take me for a lie upside down, please? I need to rest, I think. I’m all in a tizzy.’

  ≈

  After Tizzy had rested a while, alongside the coats in the hallway cupboard, Finn passed me the Aurameter. ‘I know what I’m seeing,’ he said. ‘But who knows? Maybe all these years of dealing with mad Machiavellians has finally taken its toll. Maybe you’ll see something way more normal than what I’m seeing.’

  Cautiously, I peeped through the lens at the bat. I couldn’t see him anymore, though; instead, I found myself looking at a square … block, maybe? Whatever it was, it was jutting again and again against a circular hole.

  ‘I have no idea what I’m seeing,’ I admitted.

  The Queen took the Aurameter from me and said, ‘Yes you do. This Aurameter has obviously got an Analogy Interface as well as an Intuition Interface. You are looking at a square peg, Wanda, trying to force itself into a round hole. Or, in other words, you’re looking at something which is in the wrong place. There’s no doubt about it – and we were all thinking it anyway, weren’t we? Tizzy does not belong in our world.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I agreed, my voice filled with resignation. ‘And now that we’re certain, we have to get this poor little guy home.’

  ‘We do.’ The Queen nodded decisively. ‘But first, we need to know more. Did he see Lady as he was taken here? Were they swapped, for some reason? Is he collateral damage, or a sacrifice of sorts, to get Lady what she desired? Or … I don’t know. We have to ask him what he remembers.’

  The bat peeled an eyelid open. ‘I can hear you all,’ he said. ‘If I agree to tell you everything about my life, can you really send me back there? Can you help me get home?’

  ‘We can try,’ I told him. ‘Hey, I don’t suppose you’d like to have some mango while you tell us your tale, would you?’

  His other eyelid shot open, and he stared at me. ‘I thought you’d never ask.’

  ≈

  It was so strange to watch Dizzy and his double eat a plate of sliced mango together. They made exactly the same movements while they ate, even licking the juice off the finger parts of their wings at the same time.

  With a satisfied burp, Tizzy spoke. ‘I don’t know what to tell you, exactly. I’m still finding it hard to believe that I’m in another world. Where should I start?’

  I thought about it for a moment. ‘Well, maybe start with why you thought there was a cat flap in the back of the school.’

  ‘Because there should be one, Wanda,’ he replied simply. ‘That’s how I get in and out, because that’s where you and I live. Well, in a little flat on the top floor. The rest of the building is a school for supernatural kids who aren’t empowered witches.’

  ‘That’s what it is here, too,’ said Finn. ‘Will Berry started it up, along with a few others.’

  The bat began to shiver, and he buried his head in a wing.

  ‘Tizzy, you looked scared of Will last night.’ I was shivering, too – I could hear it in my voice. I was terrified to ask my next question. ‘And now you’re panicking at the mere sound of his name. Why?’

  He remained protected by his wing and, in a tiny voice, said, ‘That’s because in my world, he’s dead. And you … you had to kill him, Wanda.’

  8. Tizzy’s Tale

  We all sat around the kitchen table while – with prompts and encouragement from Dizzy – Tizzy told his tale. And the tale he told was sometimes recognisable, and sometimes completely different, from my life with Dizzy.

  The hugest divergence in my path happened a few years ago, when I went to work for Berrys’ Bottlers.

  ‘So … when I got the job there, I didn’t move to Westerly Crescent at the same time?’ I asked. ‘I mean … your Wanda didn’t? She never answered Max’s ad in the paper?’

  Tizzy shook his head. ‘I don’t know who Max is. But my Wanda has never lived on that side of the park. Her friend Paul lives there. Do you have a friend called Paul?’

  ‘Yeah, and he’s a Wayfarer,’ I confirmed, keeping my voice as even as I possibly could. It was hard to stay calm, though. The thought of a world where I didn’t live with Max, didn’t even know him, was hard to get my head around. ‘Is the police force called that there? The Wayfarers?’

  ‘Yes, it is now, but … there’ve been ups and downs. Oh, wait!’ He smiled at me. ‘I do know a Max. Or my Wanda does, anyway. Not very well. His cousin was almost murdered by Will’s aunt, is that him?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, my voice dull. ‘That’s him.’

  ‘Huh.’ Tizzy shook his head. ‘And you live with him in this world? Are you good friends?’

  ‘We … yes.’ I poured myself some water, feeling slightly sick. ‘We’re more than friends. We’re together.’

  ‘Oh.’ Tizzy’s little face screwed up into a frown. ‘He does have very nice teeth, I suppose.’

  ‘So what happened then, if Wanda didn’t move in with Max after she got the job in Berrys’ Bottlers?’ Melissa asked, urging the conversation forward. ‘Did she get her power then, and move back in with us?’

  ‘Well … eventually,’ said Tizzy. ‘First, my Wanda moved into the Hilltop Hotel for a little while. She made friends with Maureen O’Mara and her rat, Dudley. Dudley spoke to her in the toilet, while Wanda was getting ready for her job interview. She always says she was frightened out of her skin when he started to talk to her – that she’d forgotten most of what she knew of the magical world by then. But she listened, and they became friends. At the same time, Christine had a vision, and she managed to save Maureen from being murdered.’

  ‘Maureen didn’t die in your world?’ My mother wiped a tear from her eye. ‘Oh, that’s lovely. She was such a great woman.’

  ‘No, she wasn’t killed, but some other people were,’ Tizzy told us. ‘And Maureen and Dudley and my Wanda, they all worked together with my Wanda’s coven to solve the case, and they saved this Max person’s cousin from being killed by Will’s aunt and her vampire boyfriend. Will was really upset, because my witch kept working in Berrys’ Bottlers, and even dated him, just so she could spy on him. He fired her when he found out, and then she moved back in with her coven and solved mysteries, and when Harry Berry died, I went there – here – to find my Wanda, the Wayfarer, so that she could help me. And after that, she helped familiar after familiar solve their witches’ murders. But every so often, her path and Will’s would cross.’

  I sat back for a moment, digesting everything I’d just learned. I remembered meeting Dudley for the first time in the toilets at the Hilltop Hotel. I didn’t know he was talking to me, though. Not then. I was convinced the hotel had a rat problem – which was exactly why I decided to move in with Max. Maureen had actually helped me with that – she had a premonition that she would be murdered and, afraid that I could get hurt too if I moved in with her at the hotel, she magicked a copy of the Daily Dubliner my way, and in that paper I’d found Max’s advertisement, looking for a housemate.

  I was happy that Maureen hadn’t died in this other world – that Christine had a vision that could save her in time. In our world, the vision had come too late.

  ‘And did Will help me find my dad?’ I questioned. ‘I mean, the other Wanda’s dad?’

  Tizzy giggled a little. ‘Yes, but not before your mammy got married to someone else. But then when she saw your daddy again, she divorced the poor fella she’d only just married and welcomed your dad back with open arms.’

  ‘Mam got married?’ My eyes were bulging. ‘To someone else?’