She shrugged. “What about him?”
“Bibbie, he needs to send this sprite back to where it came from! We need him to send the horrible thing home, it’s a menace!”
“And he will send it back, Mel. Once we’ve used it to save the agency,” said Bibbie. “Come on. Monk owes us. What’s three tins of tamper-proof ink? We can buy that ourselves… or at least, we could if we had any money. But this sprite is priceless. This sprite is going to put Witches Inc. on the map, I can feel it in my bones. It’s not going back to Monk until it’s made us the heroines of Ottosland’s internationally celebrated Baking and Pastry Guild.”
Melissande gnawed the edge of her thumb. “I don’t know. I don’t like this, Bibbie. I’ve had enough unnatural creatures to last me a lifetime.”
“Really?” said Reg, staring down her beak. “Well, thank you very much, I’m sure.”
Distracted, she smiled at the bird. “Don’t be silly, Reg. You’re not unnatural, you’re just irritating.”
“And so are you,” snapped Bibbie. “ Honestly, Mel. How can you be so short-sighted? Don’t you see this sprite is a gift?”
A curse, more like it. But either she was going to trust Bibbie, or she wasn’t. “All right. Fine. But if this blows up in our faces-which is hideously likely-then I give you fair warning: I will swear with my hand on my heart that I don’t know you from a hole in the ground.”
Bibbie put the sprite trap back on the desk and leaned over for the phone. “And when my plan works brilliantly- which it will- I am going to take all the credit.” Picking up the receiver she dialled, then waited. “Hello, Monk? It’s me.-Yes, we’ve got your stupid sprite but you can’t have it back until tomorrow.-Because I say so, that’s why.-Because something’s come up.-All right, because if you don’t stop yelling at me the next person I telephone will be Uncle Ralph.-Well, actually, I can. But I won’t. Not unless you-Good. I didn’t think so.-You’re welcome. See you tomorrow night, for dinner.”
Melissande sighed. “Don’t tell me, let me guess. He’s not happy.”
“Who cares?” said Reg. “Bibbie’s right. This is about saving the agency. So, Miss Markham. About this crazy plan of yours…”
“It’s mad,” said Melissande much later, getting ready for bed. “And I’m mad for agreeing to it. Honestly, Reg, if something goes wrong…”
Reg swallowed the last of her supper mouse, burped genteelly, then fluffed out her feathers. “Most likely it won’t. But if it does we’ll deal with it, ducky. Now put a sock in it and turn out the light. I’m not the only one around here who needs her beauty sleep.”
Melissande concentrated on doing up her nightdress buttons. The trick with Reg was to just… not react. No matter what she said, no matter how rude she was, reacting only made things worse.
Besides. It only hurts because she tells the unvarnished truth.
Swathed in sensible pink flannel she padded across to the sprite trap on her lone bookcase, lifted up the blouse covering it, then flicked on the activation switch. Metaphysically revealed, the doleful sprite moped in the corner of the modified birdcage, its blue brightness dimmed.
She frowned. “It doesn’t look very happy, Reg.”
“Well, don’t you go trying to cheer it up,” Reg replied, cosily settled on the bedsit’s sole rickety chair. “No joyful ditties, for example. I’m still emotionally scarred from the last time I heard you sing.”
The last time she sang she’d been three-quarters full of Orpington whiskey, which was totally understandable given the dire prevailing circumstances. She glowered at the bird. “That’s not very nice, Reg.”
“Neither is your singing, ducky.”
Ah-ah-ah! No reacting, remember?
With teeth-gritted forbearance she turned off the sprite-revealer, dropped her blouse back over the cage and retreated to bed. “I still say this is a bad idea,” she said, putting her glasses on the bedside table then turning down the oil lamp’s wick until the bedsit was plunged into darkness.
“Only because you didn’t think of it,” said Reg. “That Markham girl may be scatty but she’s also inventive. And she’s not scared to give things a go.”
Melissande sat upright. “And you’re saying I am?”
Reg fluffed her feathers again, the soft sound loud in the late night silence. “I’m saying it’s easy to let yourself get timid when life’s not behaving itself.”
Stung, she felt her fingers tangle in the blankets. “I am not timid, Reg. I’m cautious.”
Reg sniffed. “If you say so.”
“I do say so! Somebody’s got to be. Between them, Monk and Bibbie are reckless enough to tip the whole world upside down and then shake its pockets so a few more bright ideas can fall out.”
“It’s perfectly understandable,” said Reg, ignoring that. “Being timid. You had your whole life planned, didn’t you? Thanks to that charlatan Rinky Tinky woman, you thought you were a genuine witch-inthe-making. You thought Bibbie’s Madam Olliphant was going to proclaim you a star. But that’s what these Rinky Tinky hussies do, ducky. They tell you what you want to hear so you’ll give them money, and so long as you keep on paying they’ll keep on fertilising your false hopes.”
Slowly, she lowered herself back to the mattress. Do I want to talk about this? Let me think… “ Yes, well, my beauty sleep beckons. Night-night, Reg, I’ll see you in the morning.”
“No need to be ashamed,” said Reg, oblivious. “You were bamboozled by a line of hokum, madam, but that’s not a crime. You’re not the first and you won’t be the last.”
“It seems to be about the only thing I’ve got a talent for,” she muttered. “Getting bamboozled. I’ve been hoodwinked twice now. By Madam Ravatinka… and by Lional.”
“You can’t go blaming yourself for Lional,” said Reg, gruffly. “Nobody can help being related to an insane thaumaturgical criminal. I mean, it’s not as though you weren’t related and fell in love with him, is it? And it’s not as though he was some bugger you met and fell in love with, and married, even though everyone was telling.”
Melissande blinked in the bedsit’s faintly illuminated gloom. “Is that how you ended up an immortal bird?”
“I’m not immortal,” said Reg, with another sniff. “Not exactly. I can get run over, shot, stabbed, starved or beheaded like the next careless clot. But provided I don’t do anything silly, the only way I’ll die is if someone tries to lift the hex my hus-that got put on me.”
“That’s good to know,” she said, after a moment. “But it’s not what I asked.”
“Yes, Melissande,” said Reg, so quietly. “That’s how I ended up an immortal bird.”
There was such a wealth of sadness in Reg’s funny, scratchy little voice that Melissande felt her eyes prickle. “ Anyway,” she said, clearing her throat and blinking hard at the hazy ceiling. “I’m not being timid. I’m simply expressing a perfectly reasonable concern about Bibbie’s plan.”
Another soft rustling sound as Reg fluffed out her feathers yet again. “Then think of another one if you’re so convinced hers is going to go kablooey.”
She felt her face scrunch into another frown. “I can’t.”
“I suppose we could have a word with Mister Clever Clogs,” said Reg idly. “He must know all there is to know about black market thaumaturgy. Maybe-”
“ No, Reg,” she said. “This is none of Monk’s business. This is Witches Inc. business and we’re going to solve the case without his help.”
Reg snorted. “Except for the sprite, you mean.”
“The sprite doesn’t count.”
“If you say so, ducky.”
Well, it didn’t count. It was an accident. A case of serendipity. It wasn’t as if they’d asked Monk to give them an interdimensional sprite.
Besides. He owes me. I’m still not sure I scrubbed off all the sprite shit.
“You know, Reg,” she said, snuggling beneath her blankets, “this whole affair is so hard to believe. And all those stories Bibbie told us… pastry brushes at forty paces and the rest of it. Grown women! They ought to be ashamed of themselves.”
“Ah well,” said Reg, around a yawn. “Everyone needs a hobby. Besides. Do you really want to tell that Wycliffe woman to bugger off back to her cake tins and take her money with her?”