Among Others

encouraged us to read. And Daniel isn’t exactly rich. His sisters are, and they give him money but they keep him on a tight rein. They’re paying for me to go to Arlinghurst so they can get rid of me, I think. I don’t know if they’d let him have enough money to go to Glasgow, because they wouldn’t want him to go. They might let me go.”
    “Where’s your mum?” It was a natural question, but he asked it with an elaborate casualness that seemed rehearsed.
    “She’s in South Wales. She’s—” I hesitated, because I didn’t want to say either that she’s a witch, or that she’s mad, though both of those things are true. There isn’t a word that means both, really, and there should be. “She’s insane.”
    “You told the girls in school she’s a witch,” Wim said, tossing his hair back from his face.
    “How do you know that?”
    “I’ve got a girlfriend who works in the laundry, and she told me.”
    My heart sank at the news he had a girlfriend. He was two years older than I was, he couldn’t possibly be interested in me and I knew that, even if he had come to see me and seemed to be paying a lot of attention to me. I knew at once that his girlfriend must be the girl I’d seen at the end of term wearily bundling uniform shirts into the washing machine. In a way, it was gratifying that he’d asked her about me.
    “Let them hate me as long as they fear me,” I quoted. “It’s what Tiberius—”
    “I’ve read I, Claudius ,” he said. “You told them your mother’s a witch so the girls would be afraid of you?”
    “They’re awful bullies,” I explained. “They all knew each other and I didn’t know anyone, and my voice isn’t like theirs, and it seemed like a good strategy. It’s mostly worked, too, though it is a little lonely.”
    “She’s not a witch then?” He sounded oddly disappointed.
    “Well—actually, she is. A mad witch. An evil witch like in stories.” I didn’t want to talk about her, I didn’t want to tell him what she’s like. It’s hard to describe her anyway.
    He leaned forward and looked into my eyes. His eyes are very blue, as blue as the sky almost. “Can you read minds?”
    “What?” I was startled.
    “You know, like in Dying Inside .” He stayed where he was, just inches from me, looking into my eyes intensely. As far as breathless goes, it’s amazing I didn’t suffocate, even knowing he does have a girlfriend.
    “No! I don’t think anyone can do that,” I said in an odd sort of squeak.
    “I just wondered.” He sounded tentative and uncertain, as if he wished he hadn’t asked. He didn’t move away. “It’s just, the first time I saw you, I felt as if you were seeing right into me. And when I heard you’d said your mother was a witch, I thought—you know, did you ever read so much SF that you start thinking you don’t know quite what’s impossible any more? Where you’re ready to start admitting hypotheses that you know are screwy, but…” he trailed off.
    The first time I saw him, all I can remember is thinking how gorgeous he was. If he thought that was some kind of mystic communication, he was completely wrong. The bell rang for the end of visiting time.
    “She is a witch,” I said quickly, as he started to get up. “And there is magic.”
    He leaned forward over me, urgent. “Show me.”
    “It isn’t like it is in books,” I said, not much above a whisper, though with the clatter of visitors leaving there wasn’t much chance of being overheard.
    “Show me anyway.”
    “There isn’t anything to see. And I’ve sworn not to do it except to prevent harm!” Even as I said it I heard how feeble an excuse it seemed. His face closed down and he straightened up. “I might be able to show you something, though,” I said, desperate to have him believe me. “I don’t know if you’ll be able to see it. You’ll have to wait until I’m out of here.”
    “You’re not having me on?” he asked, suspicion clear in his voice.
    “No! Of course not!”
    “All right,” he said, ungraciously. “Thank you.”
    “Thank you for coming and for bringing the books,” I said.
    I watched him walk out of the ward, and then I’ve spent all the rest of the day eating the astronaut ice-cream (very peculiar stuff) and writing down every word of the conversation, even though writing is so awkward, so I won’t forget.
    I don’t have to do magic. If he’ll come into Poacher’s Wood, I can probably show him a fairy. He