You can read the story so far from the beginning here
Hilary looked up wearily as Paul slipped into the library. “How’s Samgan?”
“Still fragile,” Paul said. He sank into the chair across the library table from her and slid a stack of notebooks to one side. “But Bracken hustled him into the kitchen, wrapped him in blankets and she’s coaxing soup into him.” He smiled. “She’s being an excellent big sister, even if they haven’t met before now.”
“And he’s showing no signs of wanting to turn all the milk in the house sour?” Hilary asked.
Paul shook his head. “He says that he owes us a debt,” he said. “You took on most of the nursing when he was really bad, so he feels that he owes you most of all, but he’s grateful to all of us.” He fought back a grin. “Lord Peregrine thinks that you have a new lodger.”
Hilary groaned and dropped her head into her hands. “But he’s a pooka!”
Paul shrugged. “I know that he won’t be able to pay rent…”
Hilary interrupted him. “That’s not the thing,” she said. “I’m not going to be a millionaire, but I can cover the bills. I’ve got online work, cooking for Lord Peregrine, and perhaps some paying guests in the summer.” She straightened up a little. “And I’m going to be reducing your rent. You’re helping out so much that it feels wrong to take money from you.”
Paul chuckled. “You have no idea,” he said. “The rates for these rooms are ludicrously low. Did you check any of the local listings? Rooms around here are expensive because people come to the Dales to hike and see the sights. I’m already getting an insane deal. Let me and Tom help you out.” He angled the bright reading lamp a little closer to where they were sitting. “We’re willing and able.”
“Lord Peregrine was negotiating the rates,” Hilary said. “I wasn’t planning on taking any lodgers at all. The Committee wanted someone to investigate the magical flows around here and I have a knack for that sort of stuff. I wanted to spend time on that.” She smiled. “Then Bracken turned up, followed by Lord Peregrine who wanted to complain, followed by Tom, which was a shock as I was worried about sharing with a werewolf, and now you’re here and I’m damned grateful.”
“Thanks,” Paul said. He looked around the library and then back to Hilary. “I’m glad I’m here too.” He tapped the nearest stack of books. “I get to play with all these. There’s bound to be some good stuff in here.”
“I don’t know,” Hilary said. “I’ve been skimming through them as I looked for dates, and there’s a lot of trivial stuff.” She grimaced. “Perhaps not trivial, and it may mean more when we go through them properly, but some of them are grimly repetitive.” She sighed. “Mind you, I don’t think that my notebooks are much better.”
“We can try scanning them,” Paul said. “I’ve got a halfway decent scanner upstairs. Then I can write an algorithm to track down some key phrases.”
Hilary leaned back in her chair. “It’s tempting, but I don’t know if that’s the answer,” she said. “You know that when it comes to magic, things are never entirely straightforward.” She thought for a moment. “When we’ve had at least one run through, I think that we should scan them, if only to send a copy to the Committee. You know how keen they are on collecting old notes.”
“It may take some time,” Paul said, looking at the heaps of books.
“It will be worth it, especially if we can enlarge it on a screen once it’s scanned,” Hilary said. “Some of this writing is tiny.” She sighed. “And some of it isn’t more than a series of loops.”
“How far have you got?” Paul asked.
“I’m starting with getting the stuff into date order,” Hilary said. She pushed over a pad of sticky notes. “It’s probably against everything a proper researcher would do, but I’ve been labelling each notebook with the dates that I can find and putting them in order.”
“That’s not a bad system,” Paul said. “Have you found any of Annie’s notebooks?”
Hilary shook her head. “Not yet,” she said. “But I’ll be putting those separately to look at first. She should at least have an idea about what happened to Samgan.”
“I’m not exactly sure about that,” Paul said. “Samgan has been missing a long time, and he only turned up at the end of August or beginning of September. Annie died in March.”
“That’s right,” Hilary said. “It took the Committee a while to find a buyer for the cottage, and I couldn’t move straight in as there was a lot that needed doing.” She smiled faintly. “I swear I spent half the time sleeping in my car. All the chimneys were blocked, Annie’s wards were degrading and unstable and everything needed decorating.” She reached for the next notebook. “Let’s be honest, I haven’t really finished. I don’t want to redo the library. That room is perfect as it is, and so is the kitchen.”
“Isn’t there anything that you would change about the kitchen?” Paul asked.
“It will horrify Bracken, but I’d love an electric cooker,” Hilary said. “Don’t get me wrong, I love that woodburning stove, but I don’t fancy using it when it gets hot in summer.”
Paul thought for a moment. “That makes sense,” he said.
“And Annie had all the plumbing redone,” Hilary said. “Probably when she added the bathroom to the cellar. I don’t need to do much more than update stuff like towels and mats.”
“But there’s still a lot more?” Paul prompted.
“Have you seen the state of the garden?” Hilary asked. “It’s an overgrown mess. I’m not an expert, but I know that some of the herbs we saw drying in the store room downstairs can’t be easily bought. The garden’s probably full of rare and magical herbs and I’m going to have to dig for them under the nettles and brambles.”
“Ouch!” Paul said. He instinctively glanced over at the window, but it was dark out. He could still easily visualise the wreck of the garden.
“There’s a parlour we don’t use and a sewing room!” Hilary said. “I don’t sew. I’ve never sewn. What am I supposed to do with that?”
“It might make a better work room than the cellar,” Paul said. “Or if you get enough lodgers over the summer, people who aren’t aware of what we do, then perhaps it can be a separate lounge for them.”
“It will still need decorating,” Hilary said. “Lord Peregrine wants me to ask Tom to do things, but Tom’s got enough to do with the new stores.”
“The Village Stores,” Paul corrected. “And that should quieten down a little over Christmas.”
“It’s still a lot to ask from a paying guest,” Hilary said. She managed a wan smile and gestured to Paul. “Like it’s a lot to ask you to rescue me from malignant cellars and help me with impossible research projects.”
Paul shook his head. “I can’t wait to get stuck into these notebooks,” he said. “And I’m hoping that you’ll let me scan them so that I can have my own copy of what’s here.” He waved his hand over the pile. “There’s all sorts of wisdom in here. Who knows what we’ll learn.”
“There was a great recipe for hand cream in one of the older notebooks,” Hilary said. “I found it when I was trying to find the dates. It’s basically goose fat and rose water.”
“It’s probably on some influencer’s blog as we speak,” Paul said. “And it’s being marketed as the latest miracle product.”
Hilary chuckled. “You’re almost certainly right,” she said. She worked her neck. “I’m not sure that this is a perfect system, but it’s what I’ve come up with so far.” She shrugged. “I don’t mind if you come up with a better way of doing things, but this is what I’m going with. Each notebook has a sticky note, which is held on with an elastic band as well as any sticky stuff. We all know that notes can get shaken loose.”
“Or lost,” Paul said. “When we, or you, or whoever, gets this properly catalogued and sets up the full system, we can put something more permanent on them.”
Hilary nodded. “That makes sense. I didn’t want to write anything on them, just in case.” She pulled over a large, new notebook with an ornate silver moon inlaid on the black cover. “It was a Christmas gift,” she said, looking a little uncomfortable. “I thought that I may as well get some use out of it.” She opened the notebook. “I’ve saved the first few pages in case we need to do stuff like index it, though I’ve no idea how we’d start.” She turned over a few pages. “This is where the records start. I put a number on the sticky note, together with the date. I put that number in here with the date and a note of anything I’ve picked up as I’ve flicked through and the name of the witch, if I can find it.”
“Are any of them called a Book of Shadows?” Paul asked.
“I wish,” Hilary sighed. “I’ve had them called diaries, journals, recipe books and even a pattern book. Not all of them have names and some of them are hit and miss with dates.”
“They aren’t dated?” Paul asked.
“If I find one more entry marked up as something like the Friday after the brown cow had its calf, I think I’ll lose what’s left of my mind,” Hilary grumbled. “I’ve also been taking notes on this loose leaf pad as well.” She pushed the pad over to Paul. “It makes less sense than the notebooks, but I’m trying to make sense of any patterns that I spot.”
“Do you have anything so far?” Paul asked.
Hilary grimaced. “I haven’t seen anyone complaining about the magical flow in the older notebooks,” she said. “But I haven’t been looking that hard. I’m just looking to put them in some sort of date order right now. But once we start getting nearer our time, there are quite a few issues. I haven’t followed them up, but I’ve highlighted the note when I’ve found a reference.” She tapped the moon notebook.
Paul looked thoughtfully at the notebook in his hand. “I’ll keep an eye out when I’m skimming through,” he said. “If I’m going to build an algorithm, I need to know what it’s looking for and I’m willing to bet real money that they don’t all use the same words for the problem with the magical flow.”
“You’d win your bet,” Hilary said. She took the next book from the stack in front of her. “We have half an hour before Lord Peregrine promised he would be here for dinner. Let’s see how much we can get done.”
