Septimus Heap, Book Six_ Darke - Angie Sage [48]
The Witch Mother turned her attention to Jenna. “Well, well,” she said with a ghastly grimace. “We have our Princess.” She looked Jenna up and down as though she were buying a horse and trying to get it cheap. “It will do, I suppose.”
“I still don’t see why we need one,” came a querulous voice from the shadows. It belonged to a young witch with a large towel wrapped around her head.
“Dorinda, I have already told you why,” said the Witch Mother. “I’d have thought with those ears your memory might have improved.”
Dorinda gave a loud wail. “It’s not my fault. I didn’t want elephant ears. And I don’t see why we want a Princess either. She’ll just spoil things. I know she will.”
“Shut up, Dorinda,” snapped Linda. “Or else.”
Dorinda shrank back into the shadows—it was Linda who had Bestowed the elephant ears upon her.
“As I told you before, Dorinda—the possession of a Princess gives a coven the right to rule all other covens,” said the Witch Mother. She turned to Marissa and patted her arm. “You made the right choice to come to us, dearie.” Marissa looked smug.
As if they had already lost interest in their new acquisition, the witches switched their attention from Jenna to the remains of their meal and carried on talking and arguing as though she was not there.
Jenna watched them suck the rest of the mouse bones clean and then pick out the biggest earwigs and pop them into their mouths. The only thing that gave her any satisfaction was the expression on Marissa’s face as she tried to force down an earwig. Marissa’s old coven, the Wendron Witches, ate normal, forest-gathered food. Jenna had once had dinner there and had actually enjoyed it. That was, she remembered, the night they had tried to kidnap her.
Once supper was over, the Witch Mother called out in a rasping voice, “Nursie! Nursie! Clear the plates. Nursie!”
A rotund figure, whom Jenna recognized but could not place, bustled into the room carrying a bucket over the crook of her arm like a handbag. She stacked up the plates, scraping the revolting leftovers into the bucket, and staggered out, balancing the plates precariously. A few minutes later she returned with the same bucket, but this time it contained a concoction of foul-smelling Witches’ Brew, which she ladled into cups for the witches. Nursie glanced at Jenna briefly, showing no interest in her, but as she left the room once again, Jenna remembered where she had seen her before. Nursie was the landlady of The Doll House—a guesthouse next door to the coven’s residence in the Port, where Jenna had once had the misfortune to spend a night.
The witches slurped their Witches’ Brew and continued to ignore Jenna. The Witch Mother tipped her head back and noisily drained her cup, then she patted her stomach and regarded Jenna with a satisfied sigh. Mouse and maggot casserole followed by a slug of Witches’ Brew always improved her temper—the coven’s new acquisition wasn’t so bad, all things considered.
“Welcome, Princess,” the Witch Mother said, pulling at a piece of mouse ear stuck in a gap between her teeth. “You are one of us now.”
“I am not,” retorted Jenna silently, causing the rest of the coven to fall about laughing.
“As near as makes no difference, dearie,” said the Witch Mother who, after many years of goldfish spells, was a wiz at lip-reading. “By midnight tonight you will be one of us, like it or not.”
Jenna shook her head violently.
The Witch Mother rubbed her hands together and perused Jenna once more. “Yes. You’ll do nicely.” She gave Jenna her best smile—formed by parting her lips and showing two rows of blackened teeth. “Very nicely.”
Jenna was not sure how to take this. She wasn’t sure that being considered good witch material was exactly a compliment.
Linda looked irritated. “You’re such a toady, Witch Mother. She’ll be a rotten witch. We wouldn’t even look at her if she wasn’t a Princess.”
The Witch Mother glared at Linda and turned to Marissa, who was rapidly