‘We aren’t a minute too soon!’ said John. ‘Come on!’
The shop door was open as though to welcome early customers. Mrs Cantrip was sitting beside the counter she had arranged, slowly printing something on a piece of cardboard.
‘Good morning! What can I do for you?’ she said, barely looking up from her work.
‘You can give me back my Queen!’ said Carbonel.
At the sound of his voice, her pen dug deep into the cardboard in a spatter of ink. Carbonel leapt on to the counter. The black cat and the old woman stared at each other through narrowed eyes.
‘So you’re back, are you? Why should I give you back your Queen?’ said Mrs Cantrip harshly.
‘Because your day is over and your power is done!’
The old woman looked around at the ring of accusing faces. Merbeck, Tudge and Woppit had joined Carbonel on the counter. Even the kittens stared with angry eyes from the safety of Rosemary’s shoulder.
‘You’re all against me!’ she said at last. ‘Just when I’ve turned honest shopkeeper!’
‘Honest!’ said John indignantly. ‘What about those toadstools? Have you ever tried them with bacon?’
‘I shouldn’t be so silly,’ said Mrs Cantrip scornfully. ‘I can’t help what my customers do, can I? Well, can I?’
‘And the “Special Appointment to Her Majesty the Queen”,’ said Rosemary. ‘That couldn’t be true!’
‘I never said which queen, did I?’ snapped the old woman. ‘There’s a queen bee I know comes to my garden regular.’
‘But you can’t go on like this!’ said Rosemary. ‘Think of all the trouble and anxiety you’ve caused us. And then there’s Queen Blandamour and poor Miss Dibdin. Why, you’re crying! I believe you’re sorry!’
Two hard, round tears fell from Mrs Cantrip’s dimmed eyes, and steered an uneven course down her wrinkled cheeks.
‘Sorry?’ said Mrs Cantrip. ‘Ah, I’m sorry right enough, but not because I made a bit of bother, not me. As promising a bit of mischief as ever I had a hand in. I’m sorry because I didn’t enjoy it. And when a witch doesn’t enjoy her wickedness any more, it means she’s finished, done for!’
‘But surely you could enjoy doing something else if you only tried?’ asked John.
‘Only if I could do the final magic, and I won’t ever be able to do that.’
‘But why not?’
‘Because I can’t do it by myself. To make it work. not one, but two people must give up the thing they value most for my sake.’
‘But what will the final magic do to you?’ asked Rosemary.
‘It will turn me into what I might have been if I’d not taken up with the ways of darkness.’
‘And if you make this final magic,’ said Carbonel, ‘what of my Queen, my Blandamour and this… this potted person here?’ He waved toward Miss Dibdin, who was anxiously peering over the edge of the green glass jar which stood on the counter.
‘The spell that changed me would undo all that is left of my magic. They’d become their own size sure enough. But what’s the good of talking? Who’d give a bent farthing for me, let alone their dearest possession?’
‘I would!’ said Rosemary.
‘And so would I!’ said John stoutly.
‘Think well what you’re saying,’ said Mrs Cantrip.
‘I’d give up my new cricket bat!’ said John.
‘I’d give my sewing box. It’s inlaid with mother of pearl, and it belonged to my great-grandmother,’ said Rosemary.
‘Think well, think well!’ said Mrs Cantrip again. For a moment her eyes looked large and appealing as they might have done when she was a girl. The slyness seemed to have been wiped from her face as though with a sponge, leaving nothing behind but a deep anxiety. ‘It must be the most precious thing you have, or it’s no good!’
‘Oh, John,’ said Rosemary. ‘Do you remember what we said in the wood yesterday – that being able to hear Carbonel and the animals talk was the most exciting thing that had happened to us, and that we couldn’t bear it to be taken away?’
John pressed his lips tightly together. He was very pale, but he nodded.
‘Oh, Carbonel!’ said Rosemary. ‘Must it be that?’
‘If that is your most precious possession, and if you want to save Mrs Cantrip and undo her magic, it must.’
Very slowly John drew from his pocket the bottle of red mixture.
‘Come into the garden,’ said Mrs Cantrip, and led the way.
The garden was much the same as the last time Rosemary had seen it, on the day when she had escaped in the flying chair. The curious weeds were still neatly staked, and the beehive stood in the corner.
Mrs Cantrip moved the garden seat from the little square of grass. Then, in the middle of the grass, she spread the scarlet headscarf with the black squiggles. She looked around.
‘Seven! I must have seven living things of a kind.’
‘We are seven cats!’ said Carbonel, and then Merbeck, Tudge and Woppit, the two kittens and Blandamour, made a ring around the red scarf, nose to tail.
‘Can you do it without a book?’ asked John.
Mrs Cantrip nodded.
‘Every witch carries the final magic in her head. Give me the bottle.’
Very slowly John handed her the red mixture and watched her take her place in the centre of the red-silk, cat-ringed square.
‘Good-bye, Tudge, Woppit and Blandamour,’ said Rosemary, her eyes hot with tears.
‘Good-bye Tudge, Woppit and Blandamour,’ said John.
‘Not good-bye,’ said Carbonel, and his voice was so faint that the two children had to bend down to hear him. ‘You may not hear us talk again,’ he said, ‘but you will always hear us purr. Your fame will stretch far and wide, and cats of Fallowhithe will sing songs about you to their children and their children’s children. Whenever any of them purr beneath your stroking fingers, it will be a purr of gratitude, an echo of what my Queen and I will feel always in our hearts. Do not look so sad. Listen, and perhaps we can ease your…’
The last word was so faint that they could not hear it. They were standing side by side, and in her misery Rosemary clutched John’s hand. Mrs Cantrip was standing very stiff and straight. She took the cork from the bottle and poured the red mixture which would have made it possible for them to hear again, not only cats talking, but the birds in the trees, the little scuttling wood creatures, the tiny things that crawl and fly and burrow. She poured it in a ring around the seven cats. They saw her lips move silently as, with her eyes closed, she said the final magic.
Then the purring began. Carbonel began first, loud and clear, not on two pulsing notes as he usually did, but in many notes that made a solemn tune. Then Merbeck joined in, and the two sounds merged and then parted like the instruments of an orchestra. And like the instruments of an orchestra the purrs of Tudge and Woppit joined in, weaving around each other, up and down, now loud, now soft, with Calidor and Pergamond supplying their light treble, making the sweetest music they had ever heard.
John and Rosemary listened, delighted, for how long they did not know, but gradually the sorrow seemed to lift from their hearts, and although their eyes filled with tears, they were not hot tears of unhappiness. Through them the outline of Mrs Cantrip seemed to swell and waver.
‘Lend me a hankie,’ said John unsteadily. ‘I’ve lost mine.’
They took it in turns to wipe their eyes and noses, and when they looked up again they thought at first that Mrs Cantrip had gone. In her place was a tall, upright old lady. Over her neat cotton dress, she wore a gardening apron, and a pair of leather gardening gloves were on her hands. She looked down at John and Rosemary with eyes that twinkled kindly over her rather large nose.
‘You know,’ she said as though they were in the middle of a conversation, ‘animals can always tell when you like them. That’s why so many pussies come to see me.’
She bent down and stroked a magnificent white cat with blue eyes which was sitting at her feet.