She shrugged. ‘I always thought I’d be the One Who Sings, but you are. I could spend my days hating you for that, or I could help you instead.’ She met my eyes. ‘I have a duty to this enclave, Ned. I feel it in my soul. And if helping you out in your business is the only way I can fulfil that duty, then so be it.’

  ‘Oh.’ I did my best to subdue my suspicion. Maybe she was just being nice. ‘Well, thank you.’

  She returned to unpacking, laying the jars of zombie ash on the shelf. ‘I almost don’t want to ask, but is this really zombie ash?’

  I knelt on the floor beside her. ‘It’s made of crushed snapdragon seed pods – a particular kind that only grows in one place – and a few other things, too. It’s quite magical, in the right hands. I do have a jar of what’s supposedly real, crushed zombie bone but … I don’t know if that’s true or not. And even if it were, it wouldn’t be for sale.’

  Fiona gave me a dry smile. ‘Anyone would think you were here to prevent necromancy instead of carry it out.’

  She was probably right about that, but I wasn’t going to tell her so. I sometimes felt like my whole purpose at this shop was to stop overzealous idiots from messing with life and death. I did my best not to sell anything that could be dangerous in the wrong hands, but I didn’t always get it right. Sometimes I got it very wrong; people were harder to read than I wished they were.

  ‘Anyway, I’m going to work on carving some Jack O’Lanterns if that’s all right with you,’ I told her, standing up and walking away.

  ‘Cool with me. It’s quieter in here than usual, isn’t it?’

  ‘It’s the time of year,’ I called back to her as I got to work. ‘No one’s looking for me to help them communicate with their dead when they can do it for themselves on Halloween. Although the days after Halloween are incredibly busy. I get a lot of people whose loved ones haven’t visited them, and they want my help to find out why.’

  We chatted back and forth, and the time flew by. With two turnips and two pumpkins fully carved, I used Solas spells to light them up, and brought them out to the doorway. I was just positioning them when I felt that same prickling sensation as the morning before.

  There he was, that same man from yesterday, standing by the canal and staring at me from beneath the hood of his cloak. I shivered and walked back inside. As I did, he moved away from the canalside and crossed the road towards me.

  I was deciding whether to use a freezing spell, or to simply slam the door in his face, when he took his hood down. With a groan, I said, ‘Oh great. It’s Professor Prat.’

  ≈

  The man’s name wasn’t actually Professor Prat, but it ought to have been. He was Neil Sweeney, the Professor of Necromancy at Wentforth’s, the wizarding college in the Eile Street enclave. I disliked him with a passion, and he seemed to feel the same about me. So why was he standing there two mornings in a row, staring at me?

  ‘Professor,’ I said curtly as he entered the shop. ‘What can I get you?’

  He brushed a dead leaf from his brown hair, and gave me a sneer. ‘Always a friendly greeting with you, isn’t there, Miss Marvin? Although I can’t say I blame you for your unpleasant attitude. If I had to live in this enclave, I’d be in a foul mood too. You know, I was looking into your canal just a moment ago, and I swear it’s getting murkier.’

  ‘Oh really?’ I pasted on a smile. ‘You should be careful, you know. The canal kraken have been known to get snappy whenever someone from out of the enclave gets too close.’

  He paled a little. ‘I don’t believe in canal kraken.’

  ‘Oh, they’re very real,’ I assured him. ‘They like me, though. So, if anyone were say … lurking around, being a bit of a creep, then the kraken might just get protective.’

  ‘What are you insinuating?’ His brown eyes turned slit-like.

  ‘You were across the road yesterday morning, staring at my shop.’

  ‘I was not!’

  ‘You were so,’ said Cleo, trotting out from behind the bookshelf.

  ‘Ah.’ He straightened up his cloak. ‘Well, yes, I thought you might be open on a Sunday – you know, like most shops are. But I saw that you were closed, so I left. Anyway, I don’t have time for all this chatter. I’ve come to buy thirteen Infernal Candles. And be quick about it, will you? Some of us have real necromancy to do.’

  I let that comment slide, and began to pack the black candles into bags. As I did so, yet another professor entered the store. This one was Quentin Ryan, the Professor of Necromancy at Crooked College, the witches’ college in the Warren Lane enclave.

  As far as I was concerned, neither college should be teaching the subject. They insisted that the reason they did teach it and study it was so that they would be fully prepared in case someone else’s attempts at raising the dead went awry. I could hardly accuse them of playing with fire, though – not when I was doing the same myself.

  Fiona peered around the bookshelf. ‘Good morning, Professor Ryan,’ she said with a smile.

  Was it my imagination, or was there a hint of flirtation to that smile? I supposed I couldn’t blame her. Professor Ryan was quite the opposite to Professor Sweeney. He was tall, strong, blond, and always friendly.

  ‘Morning, Fiona – I didn’t know you worked here.’

  She laughed shyly. ‘Oh, I’ve just started.’

  ‘Well, Ned couldn’t ask for a better helper,’ Professor Ryan told her as he walked to the counter. ‘I’ll have thirteen jars of zombie ash, Ned. No rush. Finish what you’re doing first.’

  I glanced at Fiona. ‘Do we have enough? How many came in today’s delivery?’ It was supposed to be thirty, but I’d only seen Fiona unpacking one small box.

  ‘Fifteen,’ she supplied. ‘The delivery man – Vinny, he said his name was – he said they’re making more this morning, and there should be some ready by noon. Well, they’d be at the factory by noon, if you wanted to collect them yourself. If you want delivery you have to wait until tomorrow, because they’re experiencing staff shortages. I could believe it – he looked knackered, the poor fella.’

  I didn’t like to admit it, but she was good at the job. ‘Ah. Well, we have enough for Professor Ryan, at least. Can you help me pack up thirteen jars, Fiona?’

  Professor Sweeney bristled. ‘Well, I want thirteen jars of zombie ash, too.’

  ‘Oh?’ I passed his bagged-up candles towards him. ‘You didn’t say so a moment ago. I can give you two jars, but that’s it.’

  ‘Why would you give me only two? I was here before Quentin!’

  ‘Well, yes, but he asked for the zombie ash first,’ I explained. ‘And since we have fifteen jars, it’s only fair to give thirteen of them to him.’

  He huffed. ‘Fair? Fair? There’s nothing fair about it. Witches will stick together as usual, treating us wizards like trash.’

  I steeled my jaw. ‘It’s nothing like that, and you know it.’ I had immense respect and admiration for wizards. Unlike a witch, a wizard’s power was not innate. They had to work for it, and hard, learning how to channel power from magical objects and other places, so that they could use that magic in their craft. Hamish was a wizard, and we’d become friends when I’d studied Channelling myself, at the college where Professor Sweeney taught.

  Professor Ryan held up a hand. ‘He can have mine,’ he offered. ‘I’m happy to come back again whenever you get some more in, if it’ll make things easier.’

  ‘Oh no.’ Fiona shook her head. ‘No, we wouldn’t expect you to do that. You asked first, so it’s only right we sell them to you.’

  He smiled generously. ‘Oh, don’t worry about me, Fiona. I absolutely insist that you give them to Professor Sweeney.’ He smirked at the other professor. ‘He wastes so much more of the substance than I do, after all, on his many crazed – but thankfully failed – attempts to raise the dead.’

  I thought for sure that after a comment like that, pride would prevent Professor Prat – I mean Sweeney – from accepting the offer. But he happily grabbed thirteen jars of zombie ash, threw down some coins, and rushed out of the shop. He even looked triumphant as he left, which seemed bizarre.

  As the other professor followed behind, he paused at the door. ‘I know there’s a saying in retail circles about the customer always being right,’ he said. ‘But I think we can all agree that Professor Sweeney is never right, and is always rude.’ He clenched his jaw. ‘Luckily I rarely have to deal with him, while you must see him on a regular basis. You have my sympathies, Miss Marvin.’

  He bowed with a flourish, and left the shop.

  11. The Foul Factory

  Like many of Ireland’s supernatural enclaves, Samhain Street did not match its name, because there was far more than one street in the enclave I called home. There had been just one, originally – the street where my shop was situated, facing the canal, with a lane called Strange Lane running behind. Then, over the centuries, the area grew to encompass more streets, more lanes, and even rambling parks and greens and forests. But while the enclave saw many changes, its name remained the same.

  At noon, I journeyed into a part of the enclave known as Hopeless Hollow, to visit my supplier. Cleo came along with me, saying it was for the exercise. But we both knew she didn’t like to exercise. She was coming with me for one reason only: moral support. I hated the Foul Factory, and always had done. But Professor Ryan had been so kind, and I wanted to get his zombie ash to him as quickly as I could.

  Very little grew in Hopeless Hollow. You could give it the best start – nutritious compost, lots of sun and water – even if it started off looking as though this time, the flowers might just last longer than a day, it was rarely a success. That was why it was the best place to produce ‘zombie ash’. The growers would force the local variety of snapdragons to flower quickly, and the flowers would immediately die, leaving behind skull-shaped seed pods which were used in various concoctions.

  Cleo stayed close to my heels, looking warily around. ‘We haven’t gone inside the Foul Factory for a long time. Is it just me, or does Hopeless Hollow feel even more hopeless than usual today?’

  I said, ‘I dunno,’ although I secretly thought she was right. ‘But at least Dolly’s Café is nearby. We can pick up some chocolate cake when we’re finished.’

  ‘I thought we were going for lunch.’

  ‘We can do that, too.’ I bent down to pat her head. ‘Anything for my kitty.’

  ‘Stop trying to be positive.’ Cleo jumped up into my arms, shaking. ‘It doesn’t work in a place like this. You remember the story, right? The one we learned when we were little, about why Hopeless Hollow is called what it is?’

  Of course I remembered. When Samhain Street’s prison colony expanded, it needed a burial ground, and this was where it was built. The enclave’s first cemetery was called the Unhallowed Ground, and it had a horrible past. Because although the prison colony held the worst evils of supernatural society, it also held a lot of humans. During the War of the Enclaves (one of them – there had been a few), witches decided that any human who worked with their enemies ought to be punished. The humans were worked to death, and buried here. But even in death, the worst of the witches wouldn’t let them go. They performed spells to separate the humans from their souls, so that they could never pass on.

  The hopelessness of a limbo-like afterlife could be felt in the air, even now.

  ‘There’s a counter-tale, though,’ I reminded my cat. ‘About Dolly the Elder, an ancestor of the Dolly who runs the café today. She freed the imprisoned humans and sent them back to the human world, or to the safety of the faerie realms. Then, she battled against the witches who were running the prison, fought them to the death, and had the colony closed for good.’

  ‘Even if that story is true, she only freed the living humans. The dead ones are still separated from their souls.’

  ‘But that part of the story is debateable. No one has ever been able to prove that a spell like that existed. As for the Unhallowed Ground, it’s just a normal cemetery these days. Everyone from the enclave gets buried here. Dad and Mam are here. We will be too, some day.’

  ‘Let’s hope that day is very far from now,’ said Cleo. ‘And let’s not forget what appears in the middle of this place every Halloween.’

  I looked into the enormous cemetery. Halfway between where the enclave’s supernaturals were buried, and where the humans had been interred, there was an enormous mound. Every Halloween, that mound became a mansion, called the Unhallowed Hall. There was a dance there, for the ghosts who didn’t want to mingle with the rest of the world. It was also rumoured that the lost souls joined in with the ball, for one night of revelry before they returned to whatever limbo they inhabited. I hoped that the last part was just a rumour.

  ‘And there’s the Foul Factory now,’ Cleo continued. ‘Is it just me, or do creepy words like foul and infernal feature far too frequently in our lives?’

  ‘It’s not just you.’

  ≈

  The Foul Factory was on the opposite side of the cemetery to Dolly’s Café. To look at the factory from the outside, you wouldn’t think it was a business. If there weren’t a fence separating it from the cemetery, you would almost think it belonged inside the Unhallowed Ground. There were no markings on the building, and just like the Unhallowed Hall, it looked much like a faery mound. As far as I knew, though, the factory remained as a mound even at Halloween.

  The entrance was hidden behind a hawthorn tree with bright red berries, one of the only signs of growth in Hopeless Hollow; and the only signs of life inside the factory were the chimneys, spewing out a strange-smelling smoke.

  You needed to know the latest password to move the tree aside, and the delivery guy had given it to Fiona this morning. I whispered ‘Neverdead’ and the hawthorn slid out of my way, revealing the dark wooden door beyond. Without even needing to touch the knocker, the door creaked open, and Cleo and I walked inside.

  ≈

  The smell of tallow, herbs, spices, and earth invaded my senses as I walked in. The place was full of workers, all issuing strange spells as they stood above bubbling cauldrons and sunken pits, or at long stone benches, crushing and chopping plants and seeds. There were plenty of people working, and they all looked exhausted. Maybe they were working overtime to make up for the staff shortage Vinny had told Fiona about.

  I spotted the owner, Alison Fouler, straight away. She was seated on a chair which seemed to be hewn straight from a massive tree trunk. The back of the chair stretched high, and there were all sorts of powerful symbols carved into the wood.

  Alison was a strawberry blonde with light green eyes. She wore a long green dress and her feet were bare. She looked about twenty, but I knew she was really in her forties. Some people said her youthful appearance was because she had faery ancestry, others said it was due to glamour spells and potions.

  ‘Alison.’ I smiled at her. ‘How are you?’

  She returned my smile as she stood to greet me. ‘Well, well, well … even though I told Vinny to give you the password, I was sure you’d never use it. I take it it’s the rest of the zombie ash you’re after.’ She patted a small box. ‘I have it here.’ She winced a little. ‘And I know you’re wondering why he said we’re short of workers when we’re obviously not. I em …I asked him to lie for me. Sorry, Ned.’

  ‘Oh. I mean, I can see there are a lot of people here, but I thought maybe you were short-staffed because everyone looks kind of tired. Anyway, is everything okay? Are you having trouble growing enough snapdragon again?’

  As Alison hung her head and sighed, a strange atmosphere suddenly invaded the Foul Factory. Even though no one was directly staring at Alison, Cleo or me, I had the distinct sensation that they were looking out of the corners of their eyes, and that they were listening just a little too carefully, too.

  ‘The snapdragon? No, we’ve been allowed to harvest the local variety from the Unhallowed Ground for a while now, so we’ve no shortages,’ Alison said, sounding miserable. ‘It grows like crazy there. Well … it grows and dies off in the space of a couple of days like everything in this part of the enclave, which happens to suit us perfectly. No, there was no shortage of supplies. It’s just that I personally make the zombie ash, and I didn’t manage to get your full order ready in time for this morning’s delivery.’ She sat back down onto her wooden chair. ‘Man trouble, I’m afraid. I’m not sure I’ll be able to concentrate on anything until I’ve gotten to the bottom of it.’

  ‘Oh. Sorry to hear that.’ I didn’t mention that I was having man trouble myself. Alison clearly wanted to talk, so I was going to let her – even if the strange attention of her workers was making me feel incredibly uncomfortable.

  ‘I mean, it’s just casual at this stage, I know that,’ she went on. ‘But I thought he might at least call me if he was planning on disappearing for this long.’

  ‘Disappearing?’

  ‘Well, he’s not been around for nearly a week. I didn’t want to act all desperate or anything, so I left him to it. But … I’ve been getting worried. I was actually going to call into your place this afternoon, to talk to your friend Katy.’

  ‘Katy’s away,’ said Cleo. ‘At a … yoga retreat.’

  I smiled at my cat. She knew better than to tell Alison that Katy was currently training her fellow hunters. It wouldn’t matter that Katy only tracked down criminal supernaturals; she’d be chased out of Samhain Street, nevertheless. I’d thought the worst of hunters myself, for a long time. It wasn’t until I met Katy that I learned they weren’t all bad.

  ‘You think he’s cheating or something?’ I asked. A lot of Katy’s work involved getting proof of cheating spouses or partners. She didn’t like it any more than I liked certain aspects of my life, but it paid the bills in between her more interesting work.

  ‘No. Well … I hope not. I finally gave in and called around there last night and went in – he gave me a key. But he wasn’t there, and his house looked like it had been turned over. I think he might have been robbed. Maybe even kidnapped.’