Half Bad Read online

  “Notification of the Resolution of the Council of White Witches in England, Scotland, and Wales.

  “In order to ensure the safety and security of all White Witches, the Council will continue its policy of Capture and Retribution for all Black Witches and Black Whets.

  “In order to ensure the safety and security of all White Witches an annual Assessment of witches and whets of mixed White Witch and Black Witch parentage (W 0.5/B 0.5) will be made. The Assessment will contribute to the designation of the witch/whet as White (W) or Black/Non-White (B).”

  I don’t ask Arran whether he thinks I’ll be a W or a B. I know he’ll try to be nice.

  * * *

  It’s my eighth birthday. I have to go to London to be assessed.

  The Council building has lots of cold corridors of gray stone. Gran and I wait on a wooden bench in one of them. I am shivering by the time a young man in a lab coat appears and points me to a small room to the left of our bench. Gran isn’t allowed to come.

  In the room is a woman. She’s also in a lab coat. She calls the young man Tom and he calls her Miss Lloyd. They call me Half Code.

  They tell me to strip. “Take your clothes off, Half Code.”

  And I do it.

  “Stand on the scales.”

  And I do that.

  “Stand by the wall. We have to measure you.” They do that. Then they take photographs of me.

  “Turn to the side.”

  “Further.”

  “And face the wall.”

  And they leave me there staring at the brush strokes in the cream-colored shiny paint on the wall while they talk and put things away.

  Then they tell me to put my clothes on, and I do that.

  And they take me through the door and point at the bench in the corridor. And I sit back down and don’t look at Gran’s face.

  The door opposite the bench is paneled dark oak and is eventually opened by a man. He’s huge, a guard. He points at me and then at the room behind him. When Gran starts to get up he says, “Not you.”

  The assessment room is long and high, with bare stone walls and arched windows above head height along each side. The ceiling is arched too. The furniture is wooden. A huge oak table reaches across almost the full width of the room, keeping the three Council members to their far side. They sit on large, carved wooden chairs like ancient royalty.

  The woman in the center is old, thin, gray-haired, and gray-skinned, as if all the blood has been drained out of her. The woman to the right is middle-aged and plump and has deep black skin and her hair pulled tight off her face. The man to the left is a bit younger and slim and has thick, white-blond hair. They are all wearing white robes made of roughly woven material, which has a strange sheen when the sunlight catches it.

  There is a guard standing to my left, and the one who opened the door is behind me.

  The woman in the middle says, “I am the Council Leader. We are going to ask you some simple questions.”

  But she doesn’t ask them; the other woman asks the questions.

  The other woman is slow and methodical. She has a list, which she works down. Some of the questions are easy—“What is your name?”—and some more difficult—“Do you know the herbs that draw out poison from a wound?”

  I think about each question, and each one I decide not to answer. I am methodical too.

  After the woman stops her questions the Council Leader has a go herself. She asks different questions, questions about my father, like, “Has your father ever tried to contact you?” and “Do you know where your father is?” She even tries, “Do you consider your father to be a great witch?” and “Do you love your father?”

  I know the answers to her questions, but I don’t tell her what they are.

  After that they put their heads together and mutter for a bit. The blond-haired man tells the guard to bring Gran in. The Council Leader beckons her forward, as if she is reeling Gran in with her thin, pasty hand.

  Gran stands beside me. We haven’t eaten or drunk anything since early that morning, so perhaps that is why she looks so drained. She looks as old as the Council Leader now.

  The Council Leader tells her, “We’ve made our assessment.”

  The woman has been writing on a piece of parchment and now she pushes it across the table, saying, “Please sign to confirm that you agree with it.”

  Gran moves to the table, picks up the piece of paper, and comes back to stand by my side. She reads the assessment out for me to hear. I like that about Gran.

  “Subject:

  Nathan Byrn

  Birth Code:

  W 0.5/B 0.5

  Sex:

  Male

  Age at Assessment:

  8 years

  Gift (if over Age 17):

  Not applicable

  General Intelligence:

  Not ascertained

  Special Abilities:

  Not ascertained

  Healing Ability:

  Not ascertained

  Languages:

  Not ascertained

  Special Comments:

  The Subject was uncooperative

  Designation Code:

  Not ascertained”

  I am grinning for the first time that day.

  Gran walks back to the table, picks up the fountain pen of the female Councilor, and signs the form with a flourish.

  The Council Leader speaks again. “As you are the boy’s guardian, Mrs. Ashworth, it is your responsibility to ensure he cooperates in the assessment.”

  Gran looks up.

  “Come back tomorrow, and we will repeat the assessment.”

  I could go all year down the Not ascertained route, but the next day Gran says that I should answer some questions, though never the ones about my father. So I answer some questions.

  They amend the form to show my General Intelligence as Low, and Languages as English. Special Comments says Uncooperative and Does not appear to be able to read. My Designated Code is still Not ascertained, though. Gran is pleased.

  Jessica’s Giving

  It’s Jessica’s seventeenth birthday. Mid-morning and Jessica is even more full of herself than normal. She can’t keep still. Can’t wait to get her three gifts and become a true adult witch. Gran is going to perform the Giving ceremony at midday, so in the meantime we have to put up with Jessica pacing around the kitchen and picking things up and putting them down.

  She picks up a knife, wanders about with it, and then stops beside me, saying, “I wonder what will happen on Nathan’s birthday.”

  She feels the point of the blade. “If he has to go to an assessment he might not be able to have a Giving.”

  She’s winding me up. I just have to ignore her. I will get three gifts. Every witch gets three gifts.

  Gran says, “Nathan will receive three gifts on his birthday. That is the way it is for all witches. And that is the way it will be for Nathan.”

  “I mean, it’s bad enough for a White whet if something goes wrong and they don’t get three gifts.”

  “Nothing will go wrong, Jessica.” Gran turns to look at her, saying, “I’ll give Nathan three gifts, just as I’ll give them to you and Deborah and Arran.”

  Arran comes to sit by me. He puts his hand on my arm and says quietly just to me, “I can’t wait for your Giving. You come to mine and I’ll come to yours.”

  “Kieran told me about a whet in York who didn’t g
et three gifts,” says Jessica. “He married a fain in the end and now works in a bank.”

  “What’s this boy called?” Deborah asks.

  “It doesn’t matter. He’s not a witch now and never will be.”

  “Well, I’ve never heard of such a boy,” Gran says.

  “It’s true. Kieran told me,” Jessica says. “Kieran said that it’s different for Black Witches, though. They don’t just lose their abilities. If Blacks don’t get three gifts they die.”

  Jessica puts the point of the knife into the table in front of me and holds it there, balanced on its tip, by her index finger. “They don’t die straightaway. They get sick, maybe last a year or two if they’re lucky, but they can’t heal and they just get weaker and sicker and sicker and weaker and then”—she lets the knife fall—“one less Black Witch.”

  I should close my eyes.

  Arran gently wraps his fingers around the handle of the knife and moves it away, asking, “Do they really die, Gran?”

  “I don’t know any Black Witches, Arran, so I can’t say. But Nathan is half White and he will get three gifts on his birthday. And Jessica, you can stop this talk of Black Witches.”

  Jessica leans close to Arran and mutters, “It would be interesting to see what happens, though. I’d guess that he’d die like a Black Witch.”

  And I have to get out of there. I go upstairs. I don’t break anything, just kick the wall a few times.

  * * *

  Surprisingly, Jessica hasn’t chosen to have a big ceremonial Giving but a small and private one. Unsurprisingly, she has chosen to go so small and so private that although Deborah and Arran are invited, I am not. I heard Gran trying to persuade Jessica to invite me a few nights earlier, but it didn’t work, and I don’t want to go anyway. I have no friends to play with, so I’m left alone at home while Gran, Jessica, Deborah, and a glum Arran trudge to the woods.

  Normally I’d be in the woods, but I can’t leave the house because I don’t want to be punished with one of Gran’s potions. I don’t want to go through twenty-four hours leaking yellow pus from boils the size of gobstoppers for the sake of Jessica.

  I sit at the kitchen table and draw. My picture is of Gran performing the ceremony, giving Jessica three gifts. The gifts have just been passed to Jessica but she is dropping them, a sign of seriously bad luck. The blood from Gran’s hand, the blood of her ancestors that Jessica must drink, drips bright red on to the forest floor, undrunk. And Jessica remains in the picture, horrified, unable to access her Gift, her one special magical power.

  I like the picture.

  All too soon the ceremonial group are back home, and it is clear that Jessica has not dropped a thing. She walks in the back door, saying, “Now that I’m no longer a whet, I need to find out what my Gift is.”

  She stares at the picture and then at me. “I’ll have to practice on something.”

  And all I can do is sit there and hope that she never finds her Gift. And I hope that if she does find it, it’s something ordinary like potion-making, Gran’s Gift. Or that she has a weak Gift like most men. But I know there is no point hoping for that. I know she will have a strong Gift like most women, and she will find it and hone it and practice it. And use it on me.

  * * *

  I am lying on the lawn in the back garden watching ants building a nest in the grass. The ants look big. I can see the details of their bodies, how their legs move and march and climb.

  Arran comes to sit by me. He asks me how I am and how school is going, the sort of stuff Arran is interested in. I tell him about the ants, where they are going and what they are doing.

  Out of the blue he says, “Are you proud that Marcus is your father, Nathan?”

  The ants carry on with their work, but I no longer care.

  “Nathan?”

  I turn to Arran, and he meets my gaze with that open and honest look of his.

  “He’s such a powerful witch, the most powerful of all. You must be proud of that?”

  Arran has never asked me about my father before.

  Never.

  And even though I trust him above anyone, trust him completely, I’m afraid to answer. Gran has drummed into me that I must never talk about Marcus.

  Never.

  I must never answer questions about him.

  Any answer can be twisted or misinterpreted by the Council. Any indication that a White Witch sympathizes with any Black Witch is seen as treacherous. All Black Witches are tracked down by Hunters under the direction of the Council. If they are captured alive they suffer Retribution. Any White Witch who aids a Black is executed. I have to prove to everyone, at all times, that I am a White Witch, my loyalties are to Whites and my thoughts are pure White.

  Gran has told me that if anyone asks me how I feel about Marcus I must say I hate him. If I can’t say that, then the only safe answer is no answer.

  But this is Arran.

  I want to be honest with him.

  “Do you admire him?” Arran presses.

  I know Arran better than anyone, and we talk about most things, but we have never talked about Marcus. We have never even talked about Arran’s father. My father killed his father. What can you say about that?

  And yet . . . I want to confide in someone, and Arran is the best and only person I can trust with my feelings. And he is looking at me in that way he has, all kindness and concern.

  But what if I say to him, “Yes, I admire the man who killed your father,” or “Yes, I’m proud that Marcus is my dad. He is the most powerful Black Witch and his blood runs in my veins.” What will happen?

  Still he presses me, “Do you? Do you admire Marcus?”

  His eyes are so pale and so sincere, pleading with me to share my feelings.

  I have to look down. The ants are still busy, evacuees carrying huge loads to a new home.

  I answer Arran as quietly as I can.

  “What did you say?” he asks.

  I still keep my head down. But I say it a little louder.

  “I hate him.”

  At that moment a pair of bare feet appears by the ant’s nest. Arran’s feet.

  Arran is standing in front of me and he is sitting beside me. Two Arrans. The one sitting down scowls and then transforms before my eyes back into Jessica, looking cramped inside Arran’s T-shirt and shorts.

  Jessica leans across and hisses at me, “You knew. You knew all along it was me, didn’t you?”

  Arran and I watch her stomp off.

  He asks, “How could you tell it wasn’t me?”

  “I couldn’t.”

  Not by looking at her anyway. Her Gift is impressive.

  * * *

  After that first attempt at using her Gift to trick me, Jessica doesn’t give up. Her disguises are flawless, and her determination and persistence equal to them. But her problem is a fundamental one that she is incapable of understanding: Arran would never try to get me to talk about my father.

  Still, Jessica keeps trying. And whenever I get suspicious that Arran is really Jessica I reach out to touch him, to stroke the back of his hand or take hold of his arm. If it’s Arran, he smiles and grabs my hand in both of his. If it’s Jessica she flinches. She never manages to control that.

  * * *

  One evening Deborah comes into our bedroom, sits on Arran’s bed, and reads her book. It’s just the sort of thing Deborah does; she crosses her legs like Deborah does, has her head to one side like Deborah does, but still I’m suspicious. She listens to Arran and me talk for a minute or two. She seems to be reading the book; she turns a page.

  Arran goes to brush his teeth.

  I sit next to Deborah, not too close. But I can smell her hair isn’t right.

  I lean toward her, saying, “Let me tell you a secret.”

  She smiles at me.

  I sa
y, “Your smell is so revolting, Jessica. I’m going to be sick if you don’t leave. . . .”

  She spits in my face and walks out before Arran comes back in.

  I do have a secret, though. A secret so dark, so hopeless, so absurd that I can never share it with anyone. It is a secret story that I tell myself when I’m in bed at night. My father is not evil at all; he is powerful and strong. And he cares about me . . . he loves me. And he wants to bring me up as his true son, to teach me about witchcraft, to show me the world. But he is constantly persecuted by White Witches who give him no opportunity to explain. They hound him and hunt him but he only attacks them when he has no alternative, when they threaten him. It’s too dangerous for him to risk having me with him. He wants me to be safe, and so I have to be brought up away from him. But he is waiting for the right time to come for me and take me away with him. On my seventeenth birthday he wants to give me three gifts and give me his blood, the blood of our ancestors. And I lie in bed and imagine that one night he will come for me and we will fly away through the night together.

  A Long Way off

  Seventeen

  We are in the woods near Gran’s house. The air is still and damp; the autumn leaves lie thick on the soft, muddy ground. The sky is flat and gray like an old sheet laid out to dry over the black branches of the trees. Jessica is holding a small dagger, her hands flat in front of her. The blade is sharp and bright. Jessica is smirking and trying to catch my eye.

  Deborah stands slightly hunched, but she is smiling and calm, her empty cupped hands held out in front of her. In Gran’s hands are a brooch that had been her grandmother’s, my mother’s engagement ring, and a cufflink that belonged to Deborah’s father. Gran slowly lowers her hands over Deborah’s. Their hands touch. Gran carefully passes the gifts to Deborah, saying, “Deborah, I give you three things so that you can receive one Gift.” Then Gran takes the knife and cuts the palm of her own hand into the fleshy pad below her left thumb. Blood runs down her wrist; a few drops fall to the ground. She holds her hand out and Deborah bends forward, puts her mouth round the cut, her lips tight on Gran’s skin. Gran leans toward her and whispers the secret words in Deborah’s ear, and Deborah’s throat moves as she swallows the blood. I strain to hear the spell, but the words are like the sound of wind rustling leaves.