I was repotting young Ben’s wellfern – he’s growing like nobody’s business just now, so naturally the plant assigned to monitoring his health is putting out new shoots, and roots, all but cracking its pot in response. I had it happily re-planted in a wide wooden tub on the windowsill of my still room, and was encouraging it to focus on consolidation rather than throwing out haphazard offshoots, when Sir Scatterscurry skittered onto the terrace outside.

He saw me and waved his sword, rather like a frantic swimmer flailing for the lifeguard. “My Lady, trouble at the farm!”

Well none of the Holmeshallow family were sick or injured. Every one of their wellferns were flourishing. I dusted off my hands and opened the door. “What sort of trouble?”

“‘Tis the milk goblin, My Lady. They’ve fled inside the old butter churn and won’t come out. Swears a jabberwocky is stalking the grounds, that they heard its terrible cries for near-on an hour ere they faded.”

I sighed and made a quick phone call. “Was Sarah practising her violin just now?”

“Oh yes, and enjoying it for a change. She saw some video of an orchestra playing dance anthems and was having a wonderful time experimenting.”

Sarah’s mother is tone deaf.

I let her know about the plight of her milk goblin and left her to it. Milk goblins are home-bodies, and ruled by their stomachs, and nothing would soothe the guardian of the Homeshallow dairy better than farm family bread, fresh from the oven, with home-churned butter and honey from the resident bees.

Before ringing off, Sarah’s mother mentioned, a little too casually that, practice complete, Sarah had headed off to meet her friends at the village fair. There had been words emphatically not said in reference to those friends. It was high time I took a look at them myself.

I sent Sir Scatterscurry off with a wedge of ripe silton for a reward, and made my way to the village green.

They were easy enough to spot, lounging on a bench by the pond, in clothes I’m sure they thought were the height of fashionable rebellion, but underlined just how young they were. There were four of them, including Sarah, who sat with two whispering to each other on one side and one, with her arm clamped through Sarah’s, on the other.

I recognised one of the whisperers, the daughter of Jane and Bob Highsmith, from The Gatehouse. Jane is some hot-shot banker in London, I believe, while her husband is very involved in the new local microbrewery. Rumour had been that the girl – Rachel? Rebecca? – anyway, she’d been brought home from boarding school and enrolled in the local one in a rather unseemly rush at the start of term. The other two were new.

I would need to get closer to read a little of their natures.

No, I don’t do auras. I’m a witch, not a medium, and yes, they do exist as well. Very rare though. I’ve only met a couple and I, apparently, have quite an impressive aura, large, radiant, and silver, shot through with rainbows. I have a portrait one of them painted for me somewhere.

Anyway, I have an aura, but I don’t see them, but you can pick up an awful lot, in a very short time if you know how to observe properly.

I walked past, sparing Sarah a brief, businesslike nod. Nothing condescending, or over-friendly, just recognition. Which, of course, had all three of them hissing questions at her as they darted glances my way.

“Who’s that?”

“She’s our neighbour, you know, the one with the house on the edge of the woods.”

The Highsmith girl’s smile turned nasty. “I hear she’s a witch.”

Sarah looked at her blankly. “Yes.”

Clearly an unexpected rejoinder. The girl had been in the city for too long.

“Witches aren’t real.”

The clinger piped up. “Papa says they’re real, and that we have a terrifically strong one in the area that he’s hoping to be properly introduced to, as it’s terribly rude to simply appear on their doorstep.” She paused, then added, “Unless you’re in trouble, of course.”

Interesting. This one had the cut-glass accent of the aristocracy. Was this the child of our new lord of the castle? I’d heard there’d been a changing of the guard, but old Lord Mason had spent most of his declining years in Barbados, so his passing hadn’t made as much of a stir as you might think.

The fourth member of the group finally spoke, a strange accent, I settled on English trying to sound American. “OMG that’s so quaint. Can we, like, get her to grant us wishes?”

Sarah tittered nervously. “Not that I’ve ever known of. She’s a witch, not a fairy godmother.”

I am, of course, her godmother, but we’ll keep that quiet for now.

The would-be American girl rolled her eyes. I’d found the leader of the pack, and a vicious one at that if I’m any judge. “What use is she then?”

The other three were silent, darting glances at each other, disagreeing, but not daring to say so.

I left them to it and made my way to Myra Jenkins’ soap and candle stall by that stage and was looking over her wares. I’m well enough stocked for candles of my own making, but Myra’s soaps are a delight. She raised a brow at me and tipped her head, just a fraction, in the direction of the girls. I let her see a hint of the amusement I was suppressing and bought a couple of bars of her mint and jasmine soap.

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