The young oak tree 8/8

“Malcolm says you sometimes let people have flying carpets to take away.”

“Yes, that’s right. We hire them out to people from the village who might want quick transport for some reason. Each carpet has a simple spell, which allows the user to ask for a destination. You are allowed one landing, then a return flight to your home, after that the carpet comes straight back here on its own.”

He smiled happily at the thought then continued, “They’re very popular with the sailors from Timber Creek; they can go sight seeing for the day and still get back to their ship well before sailing time. It’s turned out to be quite a good business. Malcolm thought of the idea and looks after all the paper work. He considered using brooms at first, but they’re a bit tricky to fly and carpets are much safer, even though they’re a bit slower.”

At that point Malcolm came back with a big grin on his face. “I thought so,” he said, “two sailors hired one out early yesterday morning. It made its second landing while it was foggy and came back here immediately afterwards, so I guess they might have had a long walk home!”

Jennifer Jane was a bit disappointed. She’d felt sure that the evidence was beginning to point to some one in the Witches’ Home itself and in spite of Abigail’s assurances that it couldn’t possibly be Malcolm, she had begun to wonder. She went back to her parents who were still discussing Mary’s adventure.

“Did your idea come to anything?” asked Abigail.

“Well, yes and no. As soon as I saw the note in my canoe, I realised that only somebody who works here could have put it there, without one of the witches noticing a stranger. Then when mum said she was brought here on a flying carpet, I immediately thought of Robert. He’s the only person in the Home who uses a carpet, everyone else flies brooms, they’re so much faster.”

“Then I remembered who works with Robert these days,” she continued, “so I went to have a word with him. I thought I’d caught him out at first; he certainly seemed very surprised to see me. He explained it all away by telling me that he and Robert hire out carpets to any one who could pay for its use, so that knocked that idea on the head. He did say the two people who had a carpet yesterday were sailors, but that’s not really much help. They could be anywhere by now.”

“Right then,” said Abigail, “whatever else may come of this, I’m going to add your parents to the protective spell list. You’ll both have the same protection as your daughter and if anything goes dangerously wrong in any world you may find yourselves in, you’ll arrive safely in our guardhouse, where we can look after you.”

“It’d certainly be a weight off my mind,” said Dave, “I’m not so worried about myself, but it’s nice to know that the womenfolk will be covered. I think we’ll just have to be extra careful about doing anything out of the ordinary in our everyday lives. At least we’re a little further forward after today. We know now that it’s almost certainly someone inside the Home who’s directing all this. He or she has to have magic powers and bears a large grudge against my daughter.”

“Unfortunately the only person who fits all those requirements is Malcolm,” replied Abigail, “and he’s the only one we’re certain it can’t be. There’s only one way he’d ever get his memory back and that’s through the use of magic. Everybody here knows about him and I can guarantee that no-one in the Home with the level of magic necessary to restore his wizardry, would ever dream of doing such a thing.”

“Please can we all go home now?” asked Jennifer Jane, “I expect Moggy is wondering when on earth his next meal is going to arrive!”