Free Abby the Witch by Odette C. Bell Page A

tiny amount of time you'd trapped,
the rest of time is roaring on behind you. And you miss
out. You lose 'perspective' Ms Crowthy had said, proud she'd found
a use for such a large word.
    Things can
happen fast, slow, and all together immediately, and you wouldn't
know, because as far as you're concerned it took exactly 3 minutes
and 15 seconds for farmer Peaches' house to crumble to the ground.
You lose the quality of time when you quantify it, and in baking
your pie for exactly 45 minutes you might forget the rest of the
universe has gone through far more time, far more explosions and
crashes and bangs than you could possibly fit in your nightly diary
entry. You forget that time runs differently for every single
person, and yet, it is the one thing that binds us all
together.
    So, Ms Crowthy
had concluded, don't be forgetting that time is the most powerful
stuff in the universe and don't you go messing with it.
    Abby swallowed
hard and looked down at her hands. Why couldn't she shake the
feeling that she had broken that one golden rule? Why couldn't Abby
convince herself, sitting in this unfamiliar bed, in this
unfamiliar room, that everything was fine, that whatever was wrong
could be fixed with a long hot bath and a good lie down?
    But most of
all, why couldn't Abby figure out what the time was? She was a
witch, for crying out loud, why couldn't she figure out whether it
was quarter-past-one in the afternoon on Tuesday the 1 st of April in the Year of the Rose or something else entirely.
    ~~~
    'But,'
Pembrake looked at the calm, empty, bay and felt a shudder run
across his shoulder blades, 'where could she be?'
    Alfred just
shook his head, biting down softly on his pipe with a comforting
smile. 'It'll be alright, son. Be sure, if a ship had sunk here
last night – we'd have known about it. We'd have all been out of
our houses running into that surf looking for survivors, you be
sure of that. But just look at the bay, look at them rocks
– nothing sank last night.'
    Cold, aching
weight stretched through his limbs, threatening to pull his body
right through the wet sand like a meteor plunging from the
heavens. Where was his ship?
    Alfred had
lent him clothes and, although the old man's shift stretched
tightly over Pembrake's body, he was glad at least that they were
dry. They were rough though, and Pembrake found himself itching at
his collar distractedly.
    How could a
ship just disappear? Where was the crew, where was the Captain?
    He caught the
old man looking at him with a wary side-glance, and Pembrake tried
for a thin-lipped smile. 'I don't understand.' he conceded,
gesturing to the barren beach.
    'You did, ah,'
the old man paused to scratch his long grey beard, 'get knocked
out, son. Mind can do funny things-'
    'I'm the
Commander of the Royal Blue,' Pembrake said coldly, 'and
I know she sank here last night.'
    'Alright, but
you can sees for yourself, she ain't here now, what more do you
want?'
    I want my ship
back, Pembrake thought viciously as he walked his eyes along the
small strip of sand that separated the cliff from the Knife Rocks.
He knew this section of beach, he used to walk along here with his
mother when he was a boy, he knew that funny-shaped rock that
looked like a lion's head, and the other perfectly level one where
he'd once had a picnic with Miss Patridge - he knew this beach and
yet he didn't know it. It should have had some sign of
the Royal Blue.
    'Well …'
Alfred put a gnarled hand on Pembrake's shoulder, ‘we best be
getting back, son. That girl of yours is probably awake by
now.'
    Pembrake just
nodded. “That girl of his”, even though he had only seen her twice
in his whole life, was the only one he could think of that would
have some answers for him. She was the girl he'd seen outside his
mother's house and then again outside the pub where she'd told him
her name – Abby. She was the only reason he hadn't marched down
into town and demanded why the citizens and Guards of