You can read the story so far from the beginning here
“I’d love to stay and help,” Tom lied. “But I have to get down to the new stores. I’ve got a lot of deliveries coming today.” He sat down at the table with his triple portion of instant oats and a large mug of coffee.
Hilary wasn’t fooled. “And unloading twenty trays of cat food is a lot easier than going through all the books in the library,” she said. She slid the stack of sandwiches into a bag and slotted into his lunchbox.
“I wish it was something as straightforward as cat food,” Tom said. “It’s all the paster and paint we’ll need to cover up the mess the electricians are making.”
“I’ll tell them that you said that,” Hilary said, sliding in a couple of tomato and bacon muffins.
“I’ve already told them that myself,” Tom said. “They’re a good lot, and there won’t be too much damage, but you know what it’s like.”
Hilary had no idea of what a building site was like, but she nodded and added an apple and a banana. “Is there much left to do?” she asked.
Tom added a generous helping of honey to his instant oats. “The electricians have pretty much finished,” he said. “After that it’s tidying up before we start to set up.” He took a mouthful of oats. “Ow! Hot!”
“You have no patience,” Hilary said, rinsing out the flask with hot water from the kettle. “You’re not running late, are you?” She tipped the water into the sink.
Bracken wandered into the kitchen. “Good morning,” she said. “All the main rooms are dusted and swept except for the library, and I’ve cleaned the bathrooms and mopped the porch.” She stretched lazily. “May I have breakfast?”
Hilary gestured to the table. “It’s all ready for you. I put it out when I heard you put away the duster.” The microwave beeped and Hilary pulled out the jug of homemade soup. “I’m looking forward to going through the books,” she said. “I’ve no idea what we’ll find there.”
“Aren’t they your books?” Tom asked.
Hilary shook her head. “My personal books are in the bookcase in my bedroom,” she said. “Just as my personal diaries are stacked in my office.” She poured the soup into the warmed flask. “The books in the library belong to the cottage.”
“Doesn’t the cottage belong to you?” Tom asked and risked another mouthful of oats.
“Yes and no,” Hilary said, slipping the flask and the lunchbox next to Tom and pulling out a bowl. “I sort of own it but under conditions.”
Tom thought as he devoured his breakfast. “Like covenants?” he asked. He caught Bracken’s confused gaze. “Legal conditions that restricts what can happen to a house.”
“Sort of,” Hilary said. “It’s something like…” She tried to frame her thoughts as she poured a generous portion of cereal into her bowl. “Only a witch can own this house,” she said. “And I have a duty of care. I could throw out every stick of furniture but it came with the house and when I die, the house will be sold on to another witch and it would be…” Hilary poured milk over the cereal as she struggled for the right words. “It would be bad manners to leave the house with nothing. I can change things around and make alterations. Annie had the place rewired, for example and I think it was her predecessor that installed indoor plumbing, but I couldn’t demolish it or sell it to someone who wasn’t a witch.” She took a seat as Tom scraped up the last of the instant oats.
“What would happen if you tried?” Bracken asked.
“I’m not exactly sure,” Hilary said, sitting next to Bracken. “I suppose the Committee would get involved.”
Bracken looked up from her toast. “I has heard of the Committee of the Witches,” she said. “But I has never heard of what they do.”
“They do as little as possible,” Hilary said tartly. “Do you want a bacon muffin? There’s plenty left over and it looks like we’re going to have a long day.”
Tom drained his mug and put it and his bowl in the sink. “I’d better get down there,” he said. “I’m trying to work out where to put all the shelving and every time I think I’ve got the perfect layout, I spot a problem. I want to use the time before the electricians get there.” He grabbed his lunch. “Good luck with the books,” he called on the way out of the kitchen.
“Thanks,” Hilary replied. “I think we’ll need it.”
*****
Hilary stood at the end of the library and looked at the rows of books. “There’s hundreds of them,” she said.
Bracken touched a tentative finger against the nearest polished bookcase. “There may be thousands,” she said. “Some of the books are very small and some are stacked two deep.”
Hilary nodded. “And there’s all the bookcases in the rest of the house,” she said. “There’s a bookcase in the parlour, but I think that’s just fiction.”
Bracken shuffled a little in embarrassment. “I has already read those, Mistress Hilary,” she said. She avoided meeting Hilary’s eyes. “They are not witch’s notebooks.” She thought for a moment. “At least, they are nothing to do with real witches and Mr Tom would never behave like that.”
Hilary decided that it wasn’t worth asking questions. “Let’s start at the window,” she said. “We can organise the books as we go along.” She smiled at Bracken. “But I think we need to keep a place separate for where we put the books we want to read next.”
Bracken pulled out a well-read book. “And we can read them privately,” she said.
Hilary looked at the cover. A man without a shirt was looking fierce while holding a sword while an extremely underweight woman who was almost wearing a dress was draped at his feet. “Yes, I think we should absolutely read them in private,” she said.
It was surprisingly hard work. A small, slim volume of poetry wasn’t hard to dust off, quickly check for enclosed papers or notes in the margins and place to one side, but there were some weighty reference books and encyclopaedias which took a lot longer to check. Hilary sagged, sitting cross legged on the floor as she finally emptied the lower shelf of one of the bookcases. “I’m already exhausted.” She checked the clock on the mantelpiece. “We’ve been working for a couple of hours already. Perhaps we should take a break.”
Bracken dropped down next to her. “We have done a quarter of the work,” she sighed. “And a brownie’s way is not to take a break. At least, not on a straightforward job like this.”
“It’s not exactly a straightforward job,” Hilary said. “I’m worried that I’m going to miss something. There should be hundreds of notebooks around somewhere. I’ve nearly filled one already since I moved here, and Annie was here for decades. And there should be records of witches before her.”
“Annie was a very angry lady,” Bracken said primly. “She was angry all the time. She could have done anything to notebooks that annoyed her.”
“That’s not a comforting thought,” Hilary said. “Why don’t we take a break, for my sake,” she added hurriedly. “We can have a drink and a snack and I can come back here with more energy.”
“That is a reasonable idea,” Bracken said, pushing herself onto her feet.
Hilary rolled her neck and then paused. “Did you put that there?” she asked, pointing at a hefty wedge that was firmly stuck under the bookcase.”
Bracken looked embarrassed. “I is sorry, Mistress Hilary, but I did not. I just polished it.” She wrung her hands. “I is aware of the situation that I’m and the agreements, but I haven’t had time to dust behind the bookcases, no matter what.” She hung her head. “Though if I had worked more in the mornings…”
“Stop that!” Hilary said. “I think that you work harder than you need to for the wages already. And you’re studying how to cook. Besides, nobody bothers to dust behind bookcases.”
Bracken pulled herself up to her full height. “Brownies dust and polish everything.” she said.
Hilary frowned and then tapped the wedge. “But why put it here?” She looked around. “None of the other bookcases have wedges.”
Bracken shrugged. “The house is old and old houses are usually uneven,” she said. “The wedge may stop the bookcase from falling forward.”
Hilary rolled to her knees and crawled forward, tapping at the back of the bookcase. “It sounds hollow,” she said. “I wonder if there’s an old fireplace behind here.” She frowned. “I’d like to get it checked if there is. The chimneys were badly neglected when I moved in. They were all clogged with old soot and birds’ nests. The last thing I need is something trapped behind here.” She wiggled the wedge. “I can get the wedge out without any trouble,” she said. “But can you hold the bookcase up, please, just in case the wedge is stopping it from wobbling.”
“I would have to clean a fireplace, even if there’s a bookcase in front of it,” Bracken said. She braced herself against the bookcase. “I is ready.”
The wedge pulled out easily and Hilary stood and put the wedge on the table. She whirled around as she heard a creak behind her, but the bookcase wasn’t falling. Instead the entire bookcase had pivoted on a well-oiled hinge and then opened out. The gap behind it was almost completely dark, framed by a cobwebbed doorframe and oozing chill air. The light from the library managed to illuminate a small square of grey tiles and the hint of a stair but nothing more. “It’s a secret door,” Hilary said. She swallowed. “I wonder if the notebooks that we’re looking for are down there.”
Bracken wrinkled her nose. “It feels dry enough, but it smells of too much dust. I’ll fetch a duster and the vacuum cleaner.”
“And a flashlight,” Hilary said.
“Perhaps you should have a cup of tea and some biscuits first,” Bracken said, looking concerned. “We don’t need flashlights.” She reached into the dark and flicked a light switch. A strong LED light hung in at the top of a flight of stone stairs. “You must be tired if you didn’t see that.”
“Does every house in this village have a secret cellar?” Hilary said, looking at Bracken. “First there’s one at the new stores, and now this.”
“They is not the same,” Bracken said soberly. “I think Annie knew about this and went up and down.” She looked thoughtfully at Hilary. “But you have been here for a few months and Samgan hasn’t had a place to stay for a while. It would have been an undisturbed bolt hole.”
Hilary shook her head. “There are wards all over the house and I’ve been renewing them every full moon…” She paused. “I’ve been warding the places that I know about,” she said slowly.
“I will go and put the kettle on the stove and fetch some of the chocolate shortbread,” she said. “Then I will call Lord Peregrine. I think that he will be very interested.”
“No,” Hilary said. “There may be stuff down there that’s private to witches.”
Bracken looked serious. “There may be witch stuff and there may be more than witch stuff,” she said. “If there is only witch stuff at the bottom of the stairs, then we is lucky.”
