19 (SPOILER ALERT) MISS PLIM IS DISCONTENT—MR. ROTUNDER’S UNFURNISHING—THE WISTERIA SOCIETY ARRIVES—ASSAULT WITH A DEADLY COMPLIMENT—BATTLE STATIONS—MRS. OGDEN HAS AN INTERESTING DAY—BANGERS AND MASH—ASSORTED EXPLOSIONS Miss Plim was the unhappiest creature in the world. Perhaps other people have said so before, but not one with such justice. She was unhappier than even Miss Darlington; that lady only grumbled, Miss Plim grouched. Everyone could tell what she suffered! But no one cared, for those who complain are never pitied. It would be enough to bring Miss Plim to despair, did she not already live there permanently, with a drafty house, a perpetually withered garden, and a holiday home at the edge of melancholia when she felt like a change of view. Charlotte’s behavior had left her so unhappy indeed, she did not even kneel on Mrs. Rotunder’s drawing room carpet to pick out unsightly fluff, as had become her habit since traveling with the pirate. The memory of Charlotte running away from her, hand in hand with a pirate, lurked at the edge of her consciousness, clutching its portfolio of images and chewing on its lower lip, too nervous to venture into Miss Plim’s immediate awareness. The last time it tried, it got beaten back by fury and dissociation. It still had the scars: Charlotte had reverted to a young girl and the pirate’s face was a snarling shadow flashing with teeth. The memory was taking no further risks, and nudged onto the field instead a gaggle of shivery, high-pitched little complaints about Mrs. Rotunder’s weak tea. Miss Plim set her cup back on its saucer with an expressive clink. But no one else in the drawing room noticed. Mrs. Rotunder was busy chastising Mr. Rotunder for taking his arm off in company (it was a wooden arm, fashioned from a leg of a mahogany bedside table, and yes, sadly, Mr. Rotunder did tend to joke about his arm that was a leg). Mrs. Chuke paced with as much agitation as is possible in a heavily bustled dress, fretting about her absent maid, Miss Dearlove. Had the girl been mugged? Murdered? Stolen away to be the bride of a half-mad baron in the Scottish highlands? Or indeed, all three? Miss Plim lost patience. A sigh exploded from her mouth, followed by a tsk tsk that rolled away from it like a burning wheel. But no one noticed that either, for just then Mrs. Rotunder’s butler appeared at the door. “Visitors, madam,” he announced. “Miss Fairweather, Miss Fairweather, Mr. Bassingthwaite; Miss Brown, Miss Brown, Mrs. Eames.” He paused, swallowing nervously. “And Miss Jones.” The pirates trooped in like a sentence full of adjectives, adverbs, and exclamation marks, punctuated finally by the tiny black full stop of Verisimilitude Jones, who was generally called, or more precisely, screamed, “Millie the Monster.” Even Miss Plim felt rather overwhelmed by it all. She stood, forced another quarter inch of height out of her already straining spine, and glared superciliously at the newcomers. But since pirates are composed entirely of superciliousness and sweetened tea, no one paid her any notice. Miss Brown senior stepped forward to greet Mrs. Rotunder. “Gertrude, I love what you’ve done with your hair! It suits you so much better now!” “Anne,” Mrs. Rotunder replied, smiling. “That dress! You always inspire me with your fashion choices—I wish I too didn’t care about what other people thought of me.” Before Miss Brown could counterattack with another brutal compliment, Mr. Frederick Bassingthwaite imposed himself upon the conversation. “Ladies, how magnificent that we are unified here today on this momentous occasion of togetherness, pirate and witch, our hearts singing with the sublime harmonies of true and courageous—” Miss Plim coughed a word. Frederick’s lips began to veer left and come in for a landing. His wife, Miss Fairweather junior, frowned. She was a grim, bespectacled woman who clearly would have made an excellent witch had she not been born on the wrong side of the incantation. “Did you just use witchcraft on my husband?” she demanded. Miss Plim had nothing to hide (other than the silver teaspoon, vintage earrings, and guest soap she had thus far stolen from Mrs. Rotunder). “I did.” Miss Fairweather bowed slightly. “Ladies, we have come to join the campaign against Isabella Armitage,” Miss Brown explained. “She must be prevented from using the amulet in some terrible and dangerous manner before we ourselves have had the opportunity to do so.” “Should be simple enough,” Mrs. Rotunder said with a shrug. “And we must rescue Tom!” Constantinopla Brown added. “Well, I don’t know, dear,” Mrs. Rotunder murmured. “After all, the risks involved, and the difficulties of getting . . .” “We understand there have been some shenanigans involving Captain O’Riley and Miss Pettifer,” Miss Brown continued, regaining control of the conversation. “But we must prioritize our efforts. We do not believe they are in any current danger.” “I agree,” Miss Plim said coolly. “If there is any danger, it will be from my dear niece Charlotte, not to her.” Besides, rebellious girls who run from their wise and loving aunties deserve to be left unrescued on their path straight to hell. “And,” Miss Brown continued, “they might be anywhere, whereas we have information stating Lady Armitage is parked on Anchor Road, a mere half mile hence. We must hurry to ambush her. Gertrude, your new grasshopper cannon from America will provide a valuable addition.” “The Whopper Hopper,” Mrs. Rotunder said proudly. “I shall fire it up at once.” Excitement filled the room. But Miss Plim cleared her throat in a manner resembling fingernails down a chalkboard, and everyone turned to stare at her. “Rushing in is foolish,” she said. “We must plan our assault carefully.” “Sure,” Millie the Monster said, grinning. “Here’s the plan: fly over and shoot ’er up.” She hauled forward the enormous rocket launcher she had strapped on her back. It was almost as big as she was, but she propped it against her hip with ease. Miss Plim eyed the launcher with distaste. She could imagine the mess it would create—someone would be sweeping up dust for weeks afterward. “Perhaps a little more nuance might serve us well,” she suggested. “Nuance?” The pirates looked at each other in confusion. “Nuance?” “I think she said ‘no aunts.’ ” Millie growled, turning her weapon in Miss Plim’s direction. “We can agree with that, can’t we?” Miss Plim raised a smile, which looked as deadly as the rocket launcher. “Ladies,” Mrs. Rotunder said hastily. Having spent the past few days with witches, she understood something now of how their minds worked. (Hence the weak tea, which she had suffered herself just for the enjoyment of seeing their faces as they tried to drink it.) “We are fortunate to have with us Miss Plim, the greatest witch of her generation.” Catching Miss Plim’s sharp glance, she politely amended, “And several generations before that. We also have Mrs. Chuke, authoress of various pamphlets on Correct Etiquette for the Burgled and Importuned.” “Darlings,” Mrs. Chuke murmured bashfully, and would have brought said pamphlets from a pocket of her dress, but Mrs. Rotunder plowed on. “I suggest we make the most of these ladies’ exceptional talents.” “Hm,” Miss Plim responded, lifting her chin with regal acceptance of her due. “Hmmm,” the pirates responded more ponderously, mouths twitching as they tried not to glance at each other. And so it was that the two witches were sent to the front line of Anchor Street, where they were given the vital role of keeping pedestrians at bay while the Wisteria Society did the tedious work of storming Armitage House. “This is a bad idea,” Miss Plim said with a mixture of disapproval and glee as she watched the four pirate battlehouses gather for attack. “You mark my words, Mrs. Chuke. Or rather, my word. Nuance, Mrs. Chuke. Nuance.” “Sure,” Mrs. Chuke agreed (despite not actually knowing what nuance meant) and pulled out a bag of bonbons while she awaited the show. The battlehouses lowered themselves toward the street, magic crackling in the air as butlers chanted the navigational incantation. Their black flags whipped in the sea breeze. Their flowering window boxes suggested the colors of blood and gore—poppies and azaleas being currently in season. Four windows swung open to expose enormous gun barrels and rocket launchers. The elegant, red-doored townhouse set halfway along the street did not respond. Whatever Lady Armitage was doing inside it, she failed to realize she was about to be blown into a thousand pieces. Mrs. Chuke popped a bonbon into her mouth. “I wonder where Charlotte is?” she mused. Miss Plim shrugged. Hard-eyed, her jaw clenched with a brutal silence, she waited impatiently for the explosions, as if they would satisfy the well of emotion plugged up tight within her body.
For Mrs. Ogden, resident of 23 Anchor Road, Tuesdays meant a supper of bangers and mash while reading the latest Women’s Penny Paper, perhaps with a bit of pudding afterward if she’d had a hard day and needed a treat. Mrs. Ogden usually had a hard day. Life in Clacton-on-Sea was difficult indeed. For instance, yesterday she had gone to the store for dandelion wine, but they were all out of stock. And just this morning she’d nearly been knocked down by a pretty strawberry-blonde-haired girl waving a map and saying, “North, I tell you! North!” as she strode ahead of a man, clearly her husband, whose expression was far more irritated than you wanted to see on someone carrying so many weapons. Mrs. Ogden sighed, spooning herself another heap of pudding. It never used to be like this. Back in the days Mr. Ogden was still alive, it used to be a whole lot more boring. He did not condone pudding, for one thing. Bad for the bowels, he’d said. Mr. Ogden had been big on bowels, almost as much as he had been on bathing daily in seawater, which is why it was such a dark and terrible tragedy that he’d accidentally swallowed some unknown sea creature while swimming and died after a week of severe dysentery. “This is for you, Walter,” Mrs. Ogden would say in memorial every time she brought a sticky date pud out of the oven and poured custard over it. Mr. Ogden had not liked sitting at the window looking out either, since it led to hemorrhoids; but in widowhood—to be precise, seventy-five minutes into widowhood—Mrs. Ogden had taken to tucking herself up on the cushioned window seat, bowl of pud or glass of wine in hand, and watching the various doings along Anchor Road. She could rely comfortably on being presented with some dreadful sight: young women and men perambulating together unchaperoned; hatless babies being taken out in cold breezes; Mrs. Witters next door chatting to the milkman even though she was married, the hoyden. But this evening, as she settled down to watch the day fade into twilight, Mrs. Ogden was met with a sight more dreadful than any she had before experienced. She almost choked on pudding as she stared out at it, her lace curtains twitching. Four pirate houses hovered in the street outside. Pirates! In Clacton-on-Sea! Egads, how exciting ghastly! The windows flashed in the lowering sunlight. The chimneys puffed little white clouds that floated away like sheep—er, flying sheep that slowly disintegrated. (In all fairness, living with Mr. Ogden would weaken anyone’s imagination.) The scene might have been quite picturesque were it not for the whopping great guns protruding from some of those windows. Suddenly, Mrs. Ogden’s house shook with an enormous booming sound. The pudding spoon clattered against her teeth; her heart clattered against her ribs. “Well I never!” Mrs. Ogden grumbled as a shiver of dust fell into her pudding. Just what did those pirates think they were doing? Anchor Road was a peaceful place (except when Mrs. Witters giggled loudly at the milkman). People couldn’t come around shooting cannons willy-nilly. Lucky for them Mr. Ogden was no longer alive, or they’d be getting the sharp edge of his— Boom! The house shuddered again. Mrs. Ogden nearly fell off the window seat. More dust was falling, and an unpleasant odor of smoke began to fill the room. Mrs. Ogden got unsteadily to her feet. A moment later, the window exploded as a small rocket howled through it, passing her at such proximity her puffy white hair sizzled, and then embedded itself in the far wall. Three clay ducks that had been flying perpetually toward the ceiling finally achieved their goal, albeit only briefly and in pieces. “Oh I say!” Mrs. Ogden clasped her bosom with astonishment. “Surrender!” The demand roared out, accompanied by copious door-thumping. Mrs. Ogden reached automatically for her rolling pin. “We know you’re in there!” Mrs. Ogden’s eyes narrowed. She recalled Mr. Ogden saying those same words on their honeymoon as she hid in the outhouse, eating leftover wedding cake. She’d been squidgy back then, but marriage and widowhood had fired her spirit (and had a remarkable effect on her feces). Tugging on her cardigan to straighten it, she marched to the front door, yanked it open, and swung out wildly with the rolling pin. “A Brit never surrenders!” Several women in magnificent hats leaped back. They stared at Mrs. Ogden in horror. “You’re not Isabella Armitage,” said one. The ostrich plume in her turban swooped as she surveyed Mrs. Ogden’s brown cardy and woolen skirt. “I most certainly am not,” Mrs. Ogden replied, then noticed the wreckage of timber and roof tiles in her front garden. She looked up at the gaping hole that had been her spare bedroom’s wall. “What have you done to my house?!” “It was an innocent mistake,” the plumed lady said. “Why on earth would a civilian paint their door red?” Mrs. Ogden’s cardigan buttons strained against the swelling of her bosom. “I chose that color for the sake of my poor dead husband!” Mr. Ogden had always despised red. “Oh. Er. Well.” The pirates shuffled awkwardly, rubbing the backs of their necks and casting embarrassed glances at each other. “Terribly sorry. Awful shame. I say, you haven’t happened to see another house around here with a red door? It has white shutters same as your house has—er, had.” “No.” Miss Ogden’s eyes had begun narrowing again. She placed one fist against her hip; the other still gripped the rolling pin with all the determination of a Boudicca, or Queen Elizabeth, or the person who’d dobbed in the milkman for fraternizing with his married customers. “So what are you going to do about compensating me?” The pirates murmured amongst themselves. The plumed one turned back with a dazzling smile. “Would three diamond necklaces suffice?” “No,” said Mrs. Ogden. “Oh.” Further consultation took place. “How about three diamond necklaces and an emerald ring?” “No. I know what I want.” She smiled then, her cheeks rosy and her eyes bright, looking for all the world like someone’s dear old granny. The pirates as a group went suddenly pale, remembering their own grannies and recognizing just how big a mistake they had made. Half an hour later, the pirates and their witch guests departed. Mrs. Ogden stood cheerfully beside the remnants of her picket fence, holding a piece of paper containing scrawled Latin poetry, and deciding which of the houses along Anchor Road she was going to steal. She chuckled. Mr. Ogden would certainly not have approved. Miss Plim, on the other hand, was silent as she sipped tea and watched Mrs. Rotunder navigate south across the town in search of Armitage House. She did not mention nuance, or even smirk once. But Mrs. Rotunder knew, and thus learned the power of witchcraft even without words.
On the shore road below, Daniel Bixby glanced up as the Rotunder house cast its shadow over him. He had escaped the bonds Miss Dearlove had left him in, despite their surprisingly strong knots, and was now leaning against a wall with his hands in his trouser pockets, watching several women poke around Alex’s house on the pier. At first he thought they were pirates, for they appeared to have been involved in some kind of catastrophic haberdashery incident, but after several minutes passed without them drawing guns on each other, he realized they were, in fact, witches. One woman holding a small white dog was applying a tool to the door’s lock with a determination that should soon have entertaining results, considering the booby trap Bixby had installed only last week. “Fine weather we’re having,” someone said. Bixby turned to see a bony, pale-haired man standing next to him. “Hm,” he replied, squinting up through his spectacles at the gray sky, which promised rain. The man sniffed, and Bixby restrained an instinct to pass him a handkerchief. “I’m looking for a girl.” A small silence passed, in which someone with an easier sense of humor would have said, Aren’t we all, but Bixby simply regarded the fellow until he blinked those strange, uncomfortable eyes. “Twenty-one, strawberry blonde hair, name of Charlotte Pettifer. I wonder if you’ve seen her?” “No,” Bixby said. “Are you sure?” “Yes.” He went on gazing with such dispassionate stillness that the man actually took a step back. “Well, now.” The man sniffed again. “I think you may be mistaken.” “I am never mistaken,” Bixby replied. The man scowled. It should have been frightening, but Bixby had worked for years with half-mad pirates, had even spent ten minutes in polite conversation with Miss Darlington, and a mere scowl from what was clearly a policeman did not trouble him. He turned to go— And the man caught his arm. The question of whose humerus bone would have been broken must remain unanswered, for at that moment the witch sprang the door’s booby trap. Boom! The pier shook. The witch fell back with a second, smaller explosion of supportive undergarments. Her white poodle soared into the air, coming down with unexpected force on the head of the pale-eyed policeman. There followed a third and inexplicable explosion of sawdust. Bixby coughed disapprovingly. When he could see again, he realized the dog was beyond saving, and obviously had been so for several years. The witches were in a flutter that proved them all alive. And so with a shrug he stepped over the policeman’s unconscious body and went off in search of some dinner.