Amanda Cadabra and The Hidden Depths by Holly Bell (good book recommendations TXT) 📗

‘Allow me,’ he offered gallantly. ‘I’m sure we’re sufficiently well-acquainted now for me show myself out and take the china with me.’

‘That’s very kind of you. I’ve just got so much —’

‘I understand,’ he interrupted, his hazel eyes regarding her kindly. ‘Really. I do.’

Amanda was at a loss for words. What she was hiding was acting as a wall between them.

Perhaps, I shouldn’t be letting it, she thought. But I can’t help it if I’m not ready.

She smiled. ‘Thank you,’ was all she could manage. Trelawney opened the door of the workshop. A draft came in with the faintest hint of spring riding on it.

‘See you next Saturday, Miss Cadabra. Our optimistic teacher is going to try the Argentine Tango out on us! I heard that from your ubiquitous postlady.’

She chuckled, ‘Ah, Joan. Of course you did.’

‘We must try not to let Vanessa down.’

‘See you then.’

Trelawney made his way down the path, a Wedgwood cup and saucer in each hand. He turned to grin at her, lifted the handle of the backdoor with an elbow, then disappeared into the house.

Amanda let out a sigh of relief. She was at once sorry and glad to see him go. Tempest, a large, thick-furred, feline collection of storm greys with citrine yellow eyes, came out from beneath the chaise longue. Amanda’s familiar settled himself on the inspector-warmed seat and stared at her ironically.

‘There’s no need to look at me like that,’ she said, crossing the floor to the base units against the opposite side of the workshop. She turned on the hob under the glue pot. ‘It’s one thing to let him hear and, all right, see me do a couple of spells to save his life and quite another …’

Amanda realised, for the first time, that what she did in the workshop was intensely personal. It was private.

She reached up and selected a Japanese saw from the tool board on the wall. Perran appeared, in what had once been his domain and classroom for his eager granddaughter.

‘Packed him off with a flea in his ear, did you, bian?’ he teased her affectionately, using the Cornish word for baby.

‘Oh Grandpa! Of course not.’ Amanda was assailed by a momentary feeling of remorse. ‘I do hope he didn’t feel that I did.’

Perran gave an enigmatic smile and, nodding towards the horizontal bar between two legs of the injured card table, asked,

‘Are you going to replace that stretcher?’

‘Yes, it’s about to give way anyway and yes, I know Mrs Bindish said she didn’t want anything else done except the leg. But I simply cannot bear to see this beautiful table go to rack and ruin, for want of a little T.L.C.’

‘You won’t charge her the extra.’

‘Of course not, Grandpa. You taught me better than that,’ she added with a gleam.

Amanda eyed her collection of battens, thrust into a hopelessly cracked, giant, antique urn abandoned by its owner. She judiciously selected a length of reclaimed mahogany.

‘I thought Trelawney retired most graciously,’ declared Granny, appearing and reviving the subject of greater interest. Her granddaughter looked up in surprise and amusement.

‘Granny dear, can it be … are you actually praising the inspector?’

‘Credit where credit is due. Young Trelawney, if nothing else, has grown up to be a gentleman.’

Amanda, strangely pleased to hear him given such an accolade, laid the saw on the bench while she clamped the batten into the vice. She made a guide cut in the wood.

‘Ahiewske,’ she uttered cheerfully. All by itself, the saw began a gentle to-and-fro motion. ‘Mecsge ynentel.’ The brush began gently circling in the pot of heat-softened glue. The broken-off leg was on the other side of the workshop. She called it over, ‘Aerevel. Cumdez obma.’ It rose and made its way to Amanda. With each spell her tell became more marked. The tiny brown islands in the sea of her blue eyes grew and coalesced. Her close work lenses helped conceal it but it was something Trelawney had yet to observe. Amanda chose from the chisels on the bench and reflected.

She could, perhaps, have been able to share with the inspector … what went on in the workshop. But it ... it would have been like … undressing. She blushed at the thought and instantly banished it from her mind. They were, at best, colleagues of sorts. ‘I really must get on,’ Amanda said in business-like accents.

‘Yes, you must,’ agreed Granny. ‘That’s why we’re here. You need to continue your training.’

‘Now?’

‘No, but we need to formulate a programme.’

‘Is this about levitating?’ asked Amanda.

‘It’s about you and your … familiar,’ replied Granny with faint distaste. The object of her disdain leaped up elegantly onto an étagère and one-upped her expression of scorn by pointedly ignoring her.

‘I can see through his eyes just fine.’

Tempest turned his profile into a ray of sunshine so that the humans could better appreciate his perfection, and just how lucky Amanda was to have this unique bond with him.

‘Not “just fine”, dear,’ Granny corrected.

‘What your granny means, bian,’ intervened Grandpa, ‘is that you can only see through his eyes if you’re in the bath meditating and then say the spell. What if you can’t get to a bath? Or meditate. What if it was an emergency?’

‘I thought the emergencies were all over,’ Amanda protested.

‘Just in case, then. Besides don’t you want to keep improving your witchcraft?’

Amanda’s face brightened at that.

‘Yes, Grandpa.’

Tempest, loath as he was to agree with anything Senara thought, did concede , if only to himself, that he’d be wondering when his human would graduate from Grade 1.

‘We’ll arrange it then, after the ball.’

‘Good. Well, I really must get on now,’ said Amanda. ‘I’m intending to start back at The Grange tomorrow.’

‘Oh yes … The Grange. Of course,’ agreed Perran.

Senara folded her arms and remarked, ‘Now that should be interesting.’

Amanda nodded, looking up at them with a wry smile ‘Yes … the visitors.’

Chapter 3

Dennis and The Vision

Amanda had hoped for more time: time to settle back into The Grange, and gather