Arran tries the trick too. Only he doesn’t do it. He’s like the other man in the movie. He drops the match.
After he goes back home I do the trick again. It’s easy.
Me and Arran creep into Gran’s bedroom. It smells strangely medicinal. Under the window there’s an oak casket where Gran keeps the notifications from the Council. We sit on the carpet. Arran opens the casket lid and takes out the second notification. It’s written on thick, yellow parchment and has gray writing swirling across the page. Arran reads it to me; he’s slow and quiet as always.
“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.”