“What’re you girls doing?” Penny’s mum comes into the kitchen, carrying her laptop, like she can’t put it down long enough to make herself a cup of tea. Her hair is pulled up in a messy dark bun, and she’s wearing the same cardigan and joggers she was wearing when I got here yesterday. My mother wouldn’t leave her bedroom looking like that.
Professor Bunce teaches History of the Middle Ages at a Normal university, and she’s a magickal historian. She’s published a whole shelf full of mage books, but she doesn’t make any money doing it. There aren’t enough magicians to support magickal arts and sciences as careers. My father does well as a magickal physician because he’s one of a few with the right training, and everyone needs a doctor. Penny’s dad used to teach linguistics at a local university, but now he works full-time for the Coven, researching the Humdrum. He even has his own staff of investigators who work in the lab with him upstairs. I’ve been here almost two days, and I haven’t seen him yet.
“He only comes out for tea and sandwiches,” Penny said when I asked her about it. She has a few younger siblings, too; I recognize them from Watford. There’s one camped out in the living room right now, watching three months’ worth ofEastenders—and at least one more upstairs attached to the Internet. They’re all frightfully independent. I don’t even think they have mealtimes. They just wander in and out of the kitchen for bowls of cereal and cheese toasties.
“We’re making gingerbread,” Penny says in answer to her mother. “For Simon.”
“Let it rest, Penelope,” her mum says, setting her laptop on the island and checking out our biscuits. “You’ll see Simon in a week or two—I’m sure he’ll still recognize you. Oh, Agatha, honestly, do the gingerbread girlshaveto be wearing pink?”
“I like pink,” I say.
“It’s good to see you girls spending time together,” she says. “It’s good to have a life that passes the Bechdel test.”
“Because our house is just teeming withyourwomen friends,” Penny mutters.
“I don’t have friends,” her mum says. “I have colleagues. And children.” She picks up one of my pink gingerbread girls and takes a bite.
“Well, I’m not avoiding other girls,” Penny says. “I’m avoiding otherpeople.”
“And I have plenty of girlfriends,” I say. “I wish I could go to school with them.” Not for the first time today, I think that I’m wasting a day with my real friends, my Normal friends, just to make nice with Penelope.
“Well, you’ll get to be with them next year, at uni,” her mum says to me. “What are you going to study, Agatha?”
I shrug. I don’t know yet. I shouldn’t have to know—I’m only 19. I’m notdestinedfor anything. And my parents don’t treat me like I have to rise to greatness. If Penny doesn’t cure cancer and find the fairies, I think her mum will be vaguely disappointed.
Professor Bunce frowns. “Hmm. I’m sure you’ll sort it out.” The kettle clicks, and she pours her tea. “You girls want a fresh cup?” Penny holds hers out, and her mum takes mine, too. “I had girlfriends when I was your age; I had a best friend, Lucy…” She laughs, like she’s remembering something. “We were thick as thieves.”
“Are you still friends?” I ask.
She sets our mugs down and looks up at me, like she’s only been half paying attention to our conversation until now. “I would be,” she said, “if she turned up. She left for America a few years after school. We didn’t really see each other after Watford, anyway.”
“Why not?” Penny asks.
“I didn’t like her boyfriend,” her mum says.
“Why?” Penny says. God, Penny’s parents must have heard that question a hundred thousand times by now.
“I thought he was too controlling.”
“Is that why she left for America?”
“I think she left when they broke up.” Professor Bunce looks like she’s deciding what to say next. “Actually… Lucy was dating the Mage.”
“The Mage had agirlfriend?” Penny asks.
“Well, we didn’t call him the Mage then,” her mum says. “We called him Davy.”
“The Mage had agirlfriend,” Penny says again, goggling. “And aname.Mum, I didn’t know you went to school with the Mage!”
Professor Bunce takes a gulp of tea and shrugs.
“What was he like?” Penny asks.
“The same as he is now,” her mum says. “But younger.”
“Was he handsome?” I ask.
She makes a face. “I don’t know—do you think he’s handsome now?”
