Watford Tales

The Magickal Registry

Baz

We get to the British Museum an hour before closing and duck inside between the Greek columns to the weird glassed in courtyard that feels like a tube station. Maybe a nice tube station. The reading room, an old round building in the center of the courtyard is locked up, but Bunce finds a door in back where there aren't that many people about and I unlock it using Entre Nous. The door opens with a satisfying click and we slip in.

Inside it's dark and dusty. The dim light from late afternoon is coming in the big windows in the dome high above us, but it's fading fast. This room was locked off from the public a year or two ago, but it feels like it's been abandoned for much longer.

It's a famous place, this room, and old. Many important scholars have studied here and I feel their presence, ghostlike as I look about. The huge space is filled with bookshelves in a circle, ascending up in tiers to where the large windows fill the domed ceiling above us. I exchange a look with Bunce and I know she feels the way I do. Hungry, for the books. But we're not here for that.

She goes over to the central desk. She takes a slip of paper out of her pocket and picks up the handset of an ancient looking, black rotary phone that's sitting there. The clicking and whirring of the dial is loud in the quiet room. I can hear the ringing, faint and tinny, on the other end of the phone, and then a click and a high dry female voice. I can't make out the words.

"Yes," Bunce says, hoarsely into the phone. "Penelope Bunce." A pause while the voice on the other end speaks. "Doing research for a school project." Another pause. "Watford." Pause. "My father, Martin Bunce." Another high pitched murmur and Penny hangs off as a panel slides open in a space between the bookshelves.

"Come along," she says with a satisfied smirk and leads us through the doorway.

There's a narrow iron stairway that spirals up and creaks and shifts a bit under our weight. We keep climbing. The steps get progressively narrower and closer together, but that's all right because we are shrinking too. At last we get to a room high above the glass ceiling of the courtyard, a room that seems, improbably, situated at the top of the dome itself. I don't quite know how I know it, but I suspect that the three of us have shrunk down to the size of large rats.

My suspicions are confirmed when I enter the room. It's dusty and old, lit by flickering gas lamps and lined with ancient looking tomes and ledgers. The only concession to any kind of modern technology is the large old black telephone sitting on the desk. No computer screens here. Sitting behind the tall wooden counter is a large grey rat wearing a flowery smock. She has wire rimmed spectacles on her long nose and a pencil stuck behind her ear.

"Welcome to the Magickal Registry," she says in a high reedy voice that isn't welcoming at all. "State your names and business."

So we do, and she writes it all down in a big ledger book using a scratchy fountain pen. Her handwriting is old fashioned copper plate script. Nobody writes like that anymore, except mages. Handwriting is a big deal at Watford because it's important in certain kinds of magic. All the younger students have to take penmanship the first three years of school. The writing master, Professor Quill, is famous for his liberal use of his ruler on students' knuckles. Simon and Bunce and I all suffered through it together. Simon used to get his knuckles rapped all the time. I used to love it.

The rat looks at us beadily when Bunce feeds her the lame line about the school project, but she has a letter from her dad which causes the rat to smile at us, showing her yellow teeth. "A fine man, your father," she says to Penny and shuffles off into the shadows and returns with what we need. Large, dusty tomes. Marriages 1995, Marriages 1996, Marriages 1997, Births 1996, Births 1997, Births 1998. She hands over the books and we take them to a long table, as far from the piercing eyes of the rat as we can get, and start sifting through.

"We're looking for David Weir," Penny whispers. "That's the Mage's real name. And Lucy Salisbury. My Mum doesn't think they ever got married, but still, we should look."

I catch a whiff of sulfur off Simon. He's glowering, hunkered down in his wooden straight backed chair. I reach under the table and squeeze his thigh in what I hope is an encouraging manner, then crack open one of the heavy dusty books.

*******

Simon

I fucking hate this.

I really fucking hate this.

I don't see why this matters. At all. And right now I just don't want to know. If he really is my father. That is the last thing that seems important.

How to defeat him, yes. How to fight the Humdrum, yes. How to prevail against the bloody vampires that nearly got us last night, most certainly. I feel for my sword. It's there, reassuringly. I sense its presence, waiting to be called. What I want to do right now is fight. Again. It felt good as fuck to kill those vampires last night. Like I was finally doing something. Even though realistically that whole episode probably did more harm than good.

I'm a fighter. It's what I'm good at. It's what I'm here for. It's what I know how to do. It's just that right now, I don't have any idea how to fight my biggest enemies.

And I don't like that creepy rat and the way she's staring at us.

This whole place feels like a trap.

I really don't like the thought of having to fight my enemies when I'm only 10 inches tall.

So I sit in my chair and glower. I know I'm stinking up the place with my magic but right now, I don't even care.

When Penny takes a sharp intake of breath and stares up at me with wide eyes I know instantly what she's found. Me. My birth record. And I know at once it's true. What we've suspected all along. The Mage really is my father. David Fucking Weir.

Penny shoves the book across the table to me and Baz and we stare at it. The handwriting is that fancy copperplate I never could get good at. The ink is purple and the writing seems to shimmer and move in the weird flickering light of the gas sconce behind us.

The entry is only two lines. The names. David Weir. Lucy Salisbury. Simon Snow Weir. Me. My parents. A family that never was. A family I never got to have. I can't help it. My throat is tight and my eyes are hot. I feel Baz's arm go around my shoulders and I'm grateful for it.

He puts a long elegant finger on the date beside the names. June 21, 1997. "Your birthday," he whispers.

There's a loud ping behind us. We all startle and turn around. The rat has just hit one of those metal bells that people keep on counters to get the attention of the clerk in a store. "Closing time," she says in her high reedy voice.

Penny already has her mobile out. She snaps a picture of the page before the ratty librarian or whatever she is can say anything. The rat gives us a nasty look but is silent. We return the books to the counter and she sees us out. The bang of the door shutting behind us echoes in the stone stairwell. Thank Merlin and Morgana we slowly regain our normal size as we descend the creaking spiral staircase.

I am seriously glad to be shut of the Magickal Registry