Octagon Magic Read online

  Octagon Magic

  A Magic Book

  Andre Norton

  For my mother, whose beloved stories of a late Victorian childhood made those years very real for me.

  And for Viola, Ernestine, and Becky, who made suggestions.

  Elegy for Sabina 1968

  Now, sweet witch cat

  Free from flesh,

  May you hunt

  Happily

  in the fields of Heaven.

  Composed by Grace Warren for Sabina.

  Contents

  WITCH’S HOUSE

  THE BAD WEEK AND OLD MISS ASHEMEADE

  RIDE A WHITE HORSE

  PHINEAS AND PHEBE

  A COLLAR FOR SABINA

  OCTAGON HOUSE KEEPS CHRISTMAS

  CHOLE AND NACKIE

  STORM CLOUDS

  CHARLES

  ONE GOLDEN NEEDLE

  Witch's House

  “Canuck Canuck walks like a duck!”

  Lorrie Mallard walked a little faster, staring straight ahead. She was determined not to run, but she could not shut out those hateful words. Two blocks yet to go, with Jimmy Purvis and Stan Wormiski and Rob Lockner all close behind.

  “Canuck—”

  There was a prickle in her nose, but she was not going to cry—she was not! And neither was she going to run so they could chase her all the way to the apartment house. Boys— mean, hateful boys! Staring and laughing and whispering about you in class, trying to pull your hair or trip you up or grab your book bag in the halls, trailing you home singing that mean, hateful song. Two blocks more ...

  Unless she took the short cut by the witch's house.

  Lorrie turned her head, just enough to sight the beginning of the alley, the one where the tangle of overgrown brush hung in a big choked mass over the rusty iron of the old fence. It looked just like the jungle pictures in the social studies book, if the jungle had lost all its leaves in a storm.

  Social studies! Lorrie frowned. Back home in Canada at Miss Logan's School they did not have social studies, any more than they had boys. They had history and she had done well in history. But now it seemed she had learned the wrong kind of history. She did not belong. If only Grandmother had not had to go off to England where her old friend could care for her after her operation.

  “Canuck—”

  Lorrie turned into the alley. You could see the top of the witch's house above all the trees and bushes. Was it just a big old garden filled up with trees and plants growing wild, Lorrie wondered. There was a gate opening onto the alley, but it had a chain across it as rusty as the iron fence. No one had opened that for a long, long time, she guessed. Of course, a witch wouldn't need a gate anyway. She could just fly over on her broom.

  “Canuck—”

  Lorrie gripped her book bag tighter. Her small pointed chin rose a fraction of an inch, her lips set stubbornly. A possible witch behind a locked gate was not nearly so bad as Jimmy, Stan, and Rob. Now she deliberately slowed down.

  The boys and the girls were afraid, or said they were, of the witch's house. Lorrie had heard them daring one another to climb the fence, to rap at the front door. Not that anyone, even Jimmy Purvis, had ever done it.

  On her right, on the opposite side of the alley, was a red-brick building with the glass all broken out of the windows, and boards nailed across them. It had once been a stable where horses and carriages were kept. Then came the end of the parking lot for the apartment house where Lorrie lived, all cold and bare with only a couple of cars in it at this time of the afternoon.

  Wind swept up the alley. Leaves spun and rustled along with it. Most of the trees and bushes behind the fence were bare. Still one could not see in very far, the branches and trunks were so thick.

  Lorrie did not really believe that a witch lived there, or that there was a ghost groaning inside either, even though Kathy Lockner swore it was so. Aunt Margaret had said it was just an old, old house unlike any built today. Octagon House they called it because it had really eight sides. And there was an old lady living there who could not walk very well, so she never came out.

  Swinging her book bag to the other hand, Lorrie went up to the chained gate. The house was queer, what she could see of it. Now, greatly daring, she squeezed her arm between the bars of the gate, leaving streaks of rust on her windbreaker, and pushed aside two branches to clear the view. Yes, it was very different. She could see steps and a door, and an angled wall with very tall, pointed windows. Lorrie made up her mind.

  She would take part of that dare, even though they had never made it to her. She was going to walk all around the witch house, see all of it that she could. Setting down her bag, she tried to brush off some of the rust marks. This was the end of the alley and she turned north on Ash Street, in stead of south, walking slowly along the front of the house.

  Here the brush-and-tree jungle was not as high or as thick as by the alley. There was an opening and Lorrie halted with a little gasp of surprise. The last time she had come this way she had been hurrying to keep up with Aunt Margaret, who always seemed to be a step or two ahead. That had been just after she had come to Ashton when there had still been leaves on all the branches, so she had not seen the deer, as big as a real one, but black and green—not brown—as if moss grew on him.

  Lorrie pushed closer to the fence. The deer stood on a big stone block, and there was a brick wall, all the bricks laid crooked with green moss between them. Then came the house. It had tall windows—the ones she could see had shutters across them—and a door. Leaves had drifted high all over, as if no one ever swept them up to be burned.

  Lorrie bit down on her lower lip. ... Burning leaves in big heaps, the smoke that smelled so good. Once, they had put three big potatoes right in the middle of the fire. Those be came all black on the outside, but you broke them open and ate them with a little salt. And the squirrels had come up and asked for bits.

  She had been only a little girl then. Why, that must have been five—six years ago. But she could remember it, though now she did not want to. Not when she lived here where there were no leaves to burn, nothing—where they called her a stupid, silly Canuck—though she did not walk like a duck!

  Lorrie set her bag on the ground between her two feet so she could hold the bars of the front gate. There was no chain, but of course it was locked. All those leaves ...

  There was a big oak tree in the yard at Miss Logan's. You hunted for acorns and tried to find the biggest one. She never had, but Anne, her best friend did last year, a whopper— almost as big as Lorrie's thumb. Miss Logan's—Anne— Lorrie fought the nose-prickling sensation again.

  Everything had gone wrong for her here in Ashton. Maybe if she had arrived when school started and not come late when everyone had already made friends and she was alone—No, she was different anyway, she was a stupid Canuck, wasn't she?

  Her troubles had started the day of the big test last month. There had been a substitute teacher—Mrs. Raymond had had the flu. And she had been so cross when Lorrie had not understood the questions. Could Lorrie help it if she came from Canada where they had taught different things? She had always had high grades in Miss Logan's School and Grandmother Mallard had been proud of her. She had never asked to come to Ashton and live with Aunt Margaret Ger-son, who was away working all day, when Grandmother had had to go for her operation. All the things they taught at Miss Logan's seemed wrong here. When she had answered the first time in class, said, “Yes, Mrs. Raymond,” and curtsied, they had all laughed, every one of them. All those hateful boys bobbing up and down in the yard afterward and yelling, “Yes, ma'am, no, ma'am.” There had been no boys at Miss Logan's—hateful things!

  And she could not talk about the same things that Kathy and the rest of the girls did. Now Mrs. Raym
ond mentioned putting her back a grade, saying she was too slow in catching up. Put back—just because they had different lessons here.

  Then Jimmy Purvis made up that song, and they all sang at her on the way home. She did not like to go home when Aunt Margaret was gone, and Mrs. Lockner kept saying she must come over to their apartment and not stay alone.

  Lorrie blinked hard several times. The deer had looked watery and wavery, but now he was sturdy and strong again. She wished she could see him closer. There was a big leaf caught on the prong of one of his antlers and it flapped up and down like a little flag. Lorrie smiled. There was something funny about that. The deer was so big and proud, and kind of stern, but that leaf flip-flapped as if making fun of him.

  In spite of the shuttered windows, all the dark trees and bushes and the big piles of leaves, Lorrie liked this house. It was not a scary place at all.

  Or were there two kinds of witches? The mean, scary kind was one, and then there were those like the Princess’ grand mother in The Princess and Curdie. A fairy godmother had magic powers. Only she made good things, instead of bad, happen. She could use a fairy godmother now, one to trans form Jimmy Purvis into a real duck.

  Lorrie grinned as she picked up her book bag. Old Jimmy Purvis with yellow feathers all over him and big flat feet— that was the first thing she would ask for if a fairy god mother, or a good witch, said she could have some wishes. She had better get home now. She could say she had home work to do so Mrs. Lockner would leave her alone in Aunt Margaret's apartment.

  On impulse Lorrie lifted her hand in salute to the deer. The wind gave an extra tug at that moment and tore the leaf flag from his antler, soaring it over the gate to Lorrie's feet. She pounced upon it, torn as it was, and tucked it into the pocket of her windbreaker. Why, she did not know.

  Then she turned south toward the apartment. She had just reached the mouth of the alley when she heard a thin cry. Something in that sound halted her.

  “It went in there! Poke it, Stan, poke it out here and I'll catch it!”

  Jimmy Purvis knelt by a bush growing near the old stable. Stan Wormiski, his lieutenant and faithful follower, thrust a long branch into a tangle of weeds, while Rob Lockner stood by. Stan and Jimmy were excited, but Rob looked a little unhappy.

  “Go on, Stan, poke!” Jimmy ordered. “Get it out. I'll grab it!”

  Again that thin, unhappy cry. Lorrie found herself running, not away from the gang this time, but toward them. Just before she reached the boys, a small black shadow burst from the weeds, dodged past Jimmy, and sprang at her.

  Needle-pointed claws cut through her tights, then grabbed her skirt, and her windbreaker, as a frenzied kitten swarmed up Lorrie as if she were a tree. She threw her arm protectingly around it and faced the boys.

  “Well, look who's here. Old dummy Canuck. That's a witch cat, Canuck, give it to me. Give it here, now!” Jimmy came at her, grinning.

  “No!” Lorrie swung her book bag as a defensive barrier. Against her chest, under her other hand, the kitten was a shivering mass of fur, still crying with tiny shrieks of fear.

  “Give it here, Canuck.” Jimmy was still grinning, but Lorrie was frightened. He did not look in the least as if he meant this for fun, not the kind of fun she recognized.

  She turned and ran, away from that look in Jimmy's eyes. She could not gain the apartment before they caught up with her, of that she was sure. And if she did, with Aunt Margaret gone, who would take her side?

  Maybe—maybe she could get over the fence, hide in the bushes. She used to climb a lot—in that yard of bonfires and happy times. There was the front gate, and the fancy curves in it ought to make good holds. Lorrie threw her book bag up and over, pushed the now feebly struggling kitten into the front of her windbreaker, and began to climb with a speed born of desperation.

  Why the boys had not already caught up with her, she did not know. Maybe Jimmy Purvis would not dare follow her in here. But she wasted no time in looking around to see. Lorrie topped the gate, swung over and down, landing in an awkward tumble on the crazy pattern of the brick walk.

  The kitten fought furiously for freedom, leaped to the path, and scuttled on among the leaves, heading around the house rather than to the front door. That, to Lorrie, looked as if it were never opened. Afraid that in its fright it might dash back to the alley again, she scrambled up to follow.

  She saw the bright red of Jimmy's windbreaker, the soiled gray of Stan's. They were coming along the outside of the fence on Ash Street, but not very fast. Suppose they followed her in here?

  Lorrie's retreat was as fast as the kitten's as she followed in its wake. It was several moments before she realized that, for all the piles of leaves through which she rustled, this was relatively clear ground. There was a walk of the crisscross brick going around the side of the house, and it was bordered by beds where stood stalks crowned by the withered heads of frost-killed flowers. The heavy growth of bushes and trees was only along the fence, screening this inner part.

  She glanced at the house as she rounded one of its angles. The windows here were not covered by shutters, but the shades were drawn so she could not see in.

  “Merroww—” That was the kitten. Lorrie hurried on.

  Rounding another angle, she came to a place where the bordering flower beds of the walk widened out into squares. These were bare, as if whatever had grown there had been carefully harvested. More of the tall thin windows, bus these were neither shuttered nor shaded. She saw the white of a curtain and an edge of dark red drape at one. If the front of the house had been closed, it was not so here.

  Lorrie stopped running, and walked slowly and almost warily along the path. Leaves were here, too, blowing and gathering in heaps. In the center of the cleared beds was an empty pool. Centering that was a crouching thing, a dragon, Lorrie thought. It held its head high at a rather uncomfort able angle, with a small black pipe just showing in its wide open mouth, as if it had once spit water—instead of the fire storybook dragons blew as their knightly enemies—into the basin at its clawed feet.

  “Merrow!” The kitten's voice pulled her on, around an other angle. Here was the door she had seen from the chained gate. On one of the steps beneath it crouched the kitten, its mouth open to emit another small but piercing wail.

  Lorrie stiffened at a creaking louder than the kitten's cry. She stopped short, to watch the door. It was opening, and as soon as a big enough crack showed, the kitten whisked through. But the door continued to open and Lorrie discovered she could not have run, not even if she had wanted to, for her feet seemed as firmly fixed as if she had stepped into a roadway surfaced with sticky tar.

  It was dark inside the house. Though on this late fall after noon lights had already appeared in the windows elsewhere on the street, none showed here. But the woman who stood in the doorway was perfectly visible to Lorrie.

  She was small, hardly much taller than Lorrie herself, and her shoulders were rounded, making her bend forward. Her face had a large, broad nose and a chin that pushed up and forward in an effort to meet it. Above her dark brown cheeks and forehead, her black-and-gray hair crisply curled together, what showed of it, for she wore a cap with a frilled edge that made a stiff frame all around her head. Her dress was of a deep, dark red, and the skirt was very long and full under a large white apron that had a starched ruffle on the lower hem. With her hand on the latch of the door, the woman stood on the top step looking down at Lorrie. Then she smiled, and the droop of her nose, the sharp upturn of her chin, were forgotten.

  “Hullo, little missy.” Her voice was very soft and low. “Now, you, Sabina, where's you bin, an’ what's you bin doin'—gittin’ all frazed up this heah way?”

  From beneath the edge of her skirt popped the kitten's black head. Its round blue eyes surveyed the woman for a long instant and then turned to stare unblinkingly at Lorrie.

  “Some boys,” began Lorrie hurriedly, “they—”

  The head in the frilled cap was already noddin
g. “They was up to tricks, aye, tricks. But you saw Sabina came to no harm, didn't you, little missy? I'll tell Mis’ Charlotta, she'll be mighty pleased. You come in. Have a ginger cookie?”

  Lorrie shook her head. “No, thank you. It's late. Mrs. Lockner—she'll tell Aunt Margaret I was late getting home. That would worry her.”

  “Come again then.” The capped head bobbed, the smile grew even wider. “Now, how did you get in, little missy?”

  “I climbed the gate, the front one,” Lorrie admitted.

  “An’ did all that to your nice clothes. My, my.” A brown finger pointed.

  Lorrie looked down at herself. There were streaks of rust on the sleeves and the front of her windbreaker, more on her skirt and tights. She tried to brush off the worst of the stains.

  “Come along. Hallie'll let you out, all right an’ proper.”

  Down the steps she came, slowly and stiffly, as Lorrie waited. Then Lorrie followed that wide skirt as it brushed up leaves around the corners of the house, back to the front where the iron deer held his head high and proud. Hallie put her old, wrinkled hands on the gate, touched the top bar, and gave it a quick jerk. There was a small, protesting squeak and it moved inward, not all the way, for it stuck on the un even bricks of the walk, but enough to let Lorrie through.

  “Thank you.” The manners that Miss Logan's classes had so carefully drilled came to Lorrie. She ducked a small curtsy. “Thank you very much.”

  To her surprise Hallie's hand went to each side of the billowing skirt at which the wind was tugging, and the old woman made a stately, dipping acknowledgment that was far more graceful than any such gesture Lorrie had ever seen.

  “You is welcome, little mis’, entirely welcome.”

  Curiosity broke through good manners. “Are you—are you the—?”

  Hallie's smile grew wider. “The ol’ witch?” Her soft voice made that name sound worse.

  Lorrie blushed. Not that she had ever been one of those who ran past Octagon House calling that name out, daring someone to go in and bang on the old witch's front door.