The Rally 8/11

At last the weekend arrived that had been put aside for the rally. Jennifer Jane had asked Abigail if Adam and Eve could come along as well. After all it might be the very last time they were allowed to visit the alternate world. Not only that, but Eve was one of the few people who had seen Morwenna and might recognise her. Then it was only polite to ask Adam to accompany her. She asked her dad if they could all have two days out in the lugger, coming home at night-time and returning the next day.

Unfortunately this left a very disgruntled goblin who was on duty guarding the paths so that nobody could follow Jennifer Jane.

“I don’t know why I bother, they’re all going together these days, I think I might just as well go home!”

None of the humans knew about this of course and the Gardener’s were shown the lugger, much to Adam’s delight. Abigail met the party as they arrived at the Witches’ Home.

“I’m sure Adam and Eve will be pleased to know that the council have agreed to let them travel to and from the alternate world, providing they’re accompanied by one of the Bell family. So as you’ve all come together anyway, you’re off to a good start. They won’t be allowed to use magic for some time yet, indeed may be never, but they can at least move around and explore as they wish.”

The Gardeners were delighted and together with Mary, moved through to the castle side of the Home and went out to watch the cottages arriving.

Rather unusually for this type of event, everything went according to plan! Martin was on hand to welcome owners as they arrived and direct them to spaces, which had been marked out on the ground so that each cottage had sufficient room. Esmerelda caused a bit of consternation as her cottage arrived, it had appeared lying across two spaces and all of Martin’s efforts were unable to move it.

Esmerelda, Dulcibella and Ermintrude walked out of their front gate looking rather ashamed of themselves.

“I hope your cottage wins the prize of a free overhaul,” said Martin, as they walked off to have a look round some of the other arrivals. “Although I don’t think they will somehow,” he muttered under his breath as his professional eye spotted several faults in both the building and the garden.

Several wizards were moving among the cottages as they turned up. It hadn’t been forgotten that the original point of the whole exercise was to try and catch Morwenna.

So although they appeared to be marshalling the buildings into their allocated spaces, they had also been given a drawing that was supposed to be a good likeness of the witch they were looking for. Every new arrival was being looked at very carefully, as it was manoeuvred to its correct space.

Dave went to have a good long chat with Martin. There were several questions about the building of cottages that he’d thought of in the last few weeks and now was his best chance of asking them.

This left Jennifer Jane with nothing to do, but she’d noticed how upset her friends from the shop had been, when they had been unable to get themselves into position correctly. She went across to their cottage and walked round to the back garden. Now she knew that the magic was supplied by a circular Ley line, she hoped to be able to find it and see if there was anything she could think of to bring it back to full power.

She had a vague idea that she might be able to correct it in the same way that she’d helped to restore magic to the Witches’ Home, when she’d travelled two hundred years into the future. However, first things first, find the Ley line!

She walked slowly and carefully round the garden and as she expected found a very weak tingle round the outer edge. She made sure nobody was looking then stamped her foot on the line, expecting to disappear underground. To her surprise her foot sank into the earth only about half way up her shin.

She pulled it out again quite easily, then sat on the lawn to have a good think. In a way it was logical. After all, the Ley line was only providing power for one cottage; it didn’t have to be the same size as those required for a whole world. Even so she would have loved to go underground to see if there was a blockage to the flow of magic. It only took a moment to come up with the answer, then she went off to find Abigail.