Maud and the Tea of Dume: Magic, Tea and Witches, #1

Also by J.E. Marriott

The Amy Grey Novels

Witch Bottle

Witch Tree

The Chameleon Sagas

Chameleon

Castrum Lucis

Stand Alone

The Witchlets of Witches Brew

Maud

and the

Tea of Dume

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Book 1 of

Magic, Tea & Witches

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J.E. Marriott

Wyrdwood

Canada

THIS BOOK IS PUBLISHED BY WYRDWOOD,

OTTAWA, ON, CANADA

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Text copyright © 2015, 2022 J.E. Marriott

Cover art copyright © 2015 Mae Greyfrost

All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America

www.jemarriott.com

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Issued in print and electronic formats.

ISBN 978-1-988332-03-1 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-988332-04-8 (ebook)

First trade paperback edition October 2015

Second trade paperback edition March 2022

Dedication

To all my friends and family who have reminded me that story telling is lodged deep in my soul.

Special thanks to April Courson, who helped me see through the built up layers of my life at a very difficult time and, once again, find my soul underneath.

This new world is for all of you.

Thank you.

Prologue

Hereby is a short but necessary history of this world and those that spend their lives within it, for your consideration and edification.

The History of the ancient Magical Lands.

The Magical Folk, who made their journey to the new lands in the east, nearly two hundred years ago, where originally from Ech-or, or, as it is known in the common tongue, the Magical Lands, which are located far, far to the south-west in a greener, much warmer place. In the Magical Lands, all manner of magical races live side by side, sometimes in harmony but mostly not. For it has been known for many a year, the Giant Owls and the Mouse King were eternal enemies, and the Owls almost drove the Mouse Kingdom to extinction due to their over-eating of its citizens. In the end, the Mouse King realised the only way to save his race was to take them deep underground, where no Owl could ever reach them. He took his family, and the tattered remains of his race, out into the wilderness and deep, dark underground where they built city upon city with interlocking tunnels, and, over time, they successfully replenished their ranks.

The Land Spirits of Ech-or were shy of the Magical People who dwelt on their land, that is, until their Empress fell in love with a human and thus changed everything. Some say much of the magic of the human folks has come from the Land Spirits, whom the humans called ‘Fairy’ or ‘Fey’. As far back as anyone can remember, or it is documented, humans have been close allies and friends with the Fey and since that time, the humans from Ech-or have had natural Magic in their bloodlines. It is pretty safe to imagine that these things are connected in some way and not a coincidence at all.

There are many other Magical races living in the vast lands of Ech-or, such as the Magical Moon Spiders, a race with immense magical abilities who get their power from the light of the Moon, but who are so rare that they are even suspected to be extinct in many parts of the land.

Another, even more elusive race who also live in the old lands, was once known as the Earth Dwellers. These are a race of small folks, no bigger than half the height of a human. They are one of the few races that prefer to have no contact with other races, as they think of them as unclean and monstrous to behold. They are known for maintaining their natural habitat in the deep woods and mountainous caves and they see this as their duty to their Gods, and fervently dislike all who do not follow the same beliefs. Humans have rarely seen them, and, on the rare times they have been spotted they were nicknamed Gnomes, because they were always seen wearing woodland coloured pointy hats. Not much is actually known about this race, except for their writings, of which very few examples have been discovered by the humans and the Fey alike. The Earth Dwellers have remained elusive and mysterious to all of the races of Ech-or.

The Magical Wars and the First Order of Witches and Wizards.

When many of the Magical folk from Ech-or migrated to the new lands, where some of the events are hereby documented, they found several humans living there already, but these humans had no friendships with other magical creatures and they had developed no magic of their own. At first, these people were wary of the Magical Folk but eventually an accord was made and everyone pledged to live together in peace. The Magical Folk themselves are ruled by the First Order of Witches and Wizards, and their leader, at the time of settlement, was the Grand Sage, Regerd Harrington. He was the 309th Magical Person to take the lifelong title since the creation of the First Order over three thousand years ago, in that faraway time before the Magical folks moved to the new lands.

The First Order is made up of thirteen members: six Witches and six Wizards, led by the Grand Sage, who is voted in by the other members and can be a Witch or a Wizard. The leader is chosen from the two deputies to the Grand Sage, either the Senior Witch or the Senior Wizard. All these Witches and Wizards are selected, as interns, from the Second Order of whom there are twenty-six members (thirteen members of each gender) who, in turn, were selected from the Third Order. The Third Order has hundreds of members, all of whom are studying Magic at the University of Magical Studies. It is considered a great honour to be chosen for the Second Order and even more so for the First Order.

Several years went by as the Magical and non-magical people lived in harmony together, until a faction of the Magical Folk, who called themselves the Umbra Magicae, split away and wanted to rule over the non-magical folk, thinking themselves superior to all others. The rest of the Magical Folk, and the non-magicals, rose up against them and the land became full of the atrocities of war. Magic was heavily used to attack and defend each side’s position and much of the beautiful towns and cities were destroyed in the terrible battles and, sadly, thousands of lives were lost. It is unknown exactly how many members there were of the Umbra Magicae (also known as the UM) originally as they were skilled at blending in with other Magical Folk and attacking the First Order’s infrastructure from both the inside, using undercover operatives, as well as the outside.

The Magical War, as it became known, raged on for eight years until, at last, the leader of the UM, Vayne, was captured, put on trial, and sentenced to death for war crimes. Many of Vayne’s followers were also captured and sentenced to life in prison in the now infamous Middenhill Prison. Here Vayne’s death sentence was carried out before the Grand Sage and several Law Makers as witnesses. It is believed that those members of the UM that weren’t captured, fled from the land and lived the rest of their lives in obscurity and none of them were ever heard of again. The First Order rebuilt their own ranks with a lot more consideration, ensuring that the mistakes of the past, namely the infiltration of traitors in the ranks, were not repeated.

Gradually, the peaceful society of Magicals and non-magicals was reborn and towns and cities were rebuilt; some even better than before, and the land prospered greatly. The entire infrastructure of their society was raised anew, and even though the capital city of Berry had been entirely destroyed, it was made to rise from its ashes. When completed, it was renamed New Berry, to signify the new beginning for all its residents. It took many years to rebuild the beautiful cities, and a few places, even to this day, show the scars of the War. Some are still completely destroyed, although, oddly, not deserted.

In the one hundred years since the Magical War, there has been no sign of the Umbra Magicae, nor any of its members, since its destruction. Their sheer existence, and deeds, moved from gossip to historical fact and they now safely reside in the world as legends, often used to scare misbehaving children. The folks of the new land have moved on with their lives, most not giving the dark users of magic and all their criminal activities, a second thought.

Hence peace has reigned over all the land since that long ago time.

Once Upon a Time

Once upon a time in a land far, far away there was a place where Witches and Wizards lived happily beside the non-magical folk... wait, that is not how this story actually starts, no, not at all. This tale begins with a dark and deadly deed....

Chapter One:  Death & Law Makers

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The woman's piercing, high-pitched scream came from number 19, and it was for the second time that morning that such a noise had come from such an innocent-looking house.

The old, rust-coloured brick townhouse stood majestically in a row of identical houses. Each had a short flight of steps up to the door and each with a small garden surrounded by wrought iron railings next to those spotless steps, under the glorious bay window. The street was usually a quiet one, the gardens neatly tended, the outside of the houses clean, well-maintained and newly painted. Even the pathways in front were litter-free and looked well-tended, with small flower gardens and trees growing between the houses, and the road that saw very little traffic.

This house, though, was obviously not as peaceful as the rest in the street. The green painted door had the number 19 in brass, sitting boldly on the wooden door frame, and it stood wide open. Several people stood outside, staring, pointing at it, busy gossiping loudly about the goings on inside. There was also much coming and going of official looking people who were all rushing in and out, looking very harassed.

Inside, the assembled crowd of Witches and Wizards stared down at the body of their deceased comrade. A hush had filled the room upon their arrival at the house and now no one wanted to disturb it. You had to be careful around members of the First Order of Witches and Wizards: they were a very powerful and rather strange group of magical practitioners who enjoyed a privileged, pompous existence.

The room was a simple but stylish study, full of neat rows of books, a mahogany desk with the usual writing implements, and a large, sturdy, brown leather chair. By the side of the desk stood a large, potted Peace Rose which continued to give out its lovely smell. It was meant to magically ease the minds of whatever troubles ailed them. Unfortunately it was doing nothing of the sort for all the people gathered at the murder scene.

Opposite, by the book shelves, stood an old globe and a telescope, and in front of the empty fireplace was a high-backed, wine-coloured leather chair with a small table on which a half-full decanter of what looked like whiskey rested, and a single, unused glass. The clock, which resided upon the wooden mantel piece, was chiming a bell and saying, in a rather loud tone, 'You have visitors, you have visitors' every time someone walked into the room. There were a lot of people doing just that, making the clock speak endlessly in a most annoying tone.

One of the members of the First Order, a portly man with a ruddy complexion, looked over at the spelled clock and raised a finger in its direction. He muttered something, and the clock stopped chiming, to sit quietly once again. The Wizard did not even look around the room at the people gathered, and returned to speak in a low, and completely indistinguishable tone from a distance, to his fellow members of the Order. They whispered to each other like leaves rustling in a gentle autumn breeze.

What are they all doing in here? Oh, my, and the place is so untidy too, the alarmed and somewhat distraught housekeeper said to the Law Maker, who had just arrived on the scene. The housekeeper's plump, round face looked across the room and showed even more concern than it had  a few moments earlier, when she'd had to explain how she had come to work this morning as usual for Dr. Peverall, but found him stone, cold dead and locked inside his own study. Hence why she had felt the need to scream and had done so again to demonstrate her original reaction to the Law Maker.

Permela Unwin looked down at the small, lavender-smelling woman who had only just stopped screaming and curled her lip in disgust. She hated how everyone bowed and scraped before the members of the First Order.

They are here because they demanded to be, now stay out of the way: you have done your part, she hissed, and stepped in front of the frightened woman obstructing her view of the crime scene.

The First Order stood around the body, looking down at it and still whispering to each other. They huddled around it like a wake of buzzards excited by a new piece of carrion.

Permela could stand it no longer.

If you will permit me to finish my work, ladies and gentlemen, she said as she strode forth and broke their circle connection. They stopped mumbling and stared at her indignantly. She didn't care. Her job was to collect the facts of the death and to report on them, and ensure that the body reached the Dead Head at the city morgue.

The group of the First Order of Witches and Wizards finally shuffled away from the corpse of their dear friend and watched as the Law Maker made copious notes of the room, the position of the body and the instrument of his death. This, by the several burnt pieces of parchment that lay on the ground and on his desk, appeared to be a 'Firebolt' spell, spread out alongside a broken, used cup and saucer, which lay on the ground near him. What their friend was doing with such a rare and unusual spell was completely beyond them. They looked at each other with concern and then at one of their members, Miss Herbertina Falstrop. She was an old Witch of remarkable power, but also the gentlest of souls you could ever wish to meet. It was she whom the members often referred to when dealing directly with the public, as she had a knack of bridging the divide between the magical and non-magical folks.

The round, jolly-looking woman stepped forward from the group to stand next to Permela and cleared her throat, looking directly at the Law Maker expecting her complete attention.

Permela stopped writing and looked over at the plump woman. Yes? Do you have something to add to my report, Miss Falstrop?

Well, no, but I... Herbertina started, and paused to form her words more carefully before continuing.

Yes? Permela said and raised a sharp, pointy eyebrow.

Well, correct us if we are wrong, but that burnt area on Dr. Peverall's chest looks like a Firebolt wound, does it not? She said looking from the body laying on the dark green carpet on the floor to the tall, slim Law Maker and back again, her face showing a frown of confusion.

Yes, it is consistent with such a weapon, Permela said.

Well, how could that be so? Wasn't the door to the study locked? His housekeeper said she unlocked it when she arrived this morning... and, if that was truly the case, how could a Firebolt have killed him? she said while shaking her head and frowning, not understanding what could have happened.

I presume you are referring to the safety clause on all Firebolt Magic that restricts the Firebolt from going anywhere near the speaker of the spell?

Exactly! So how could he have killed himself with it?

He could not, of course.

"And the broken cup and saucer? They could suggest he was surprised and you don't kill yourself as a