On my first morning at home Deborah passes me an envelope that arrived a couple of weeks earlier. It’s addressed to me. I have never received anything through the post before. Notifications are always sent to Gran. I expect some new Council decree, but inside is a thick, white card on which is beautifully scripted writing.

I pass it to Arran.

“Who’s Mary Walker?” he asks.

I shrug.

“It’s her ninetieth birthday. You’re invited to her birthday party.”

“Never heard of her,” I say.

“Do you know her, Gran?” Arran asks.

Gran is frowning but she nods cautiously.

“And?”

“She’s an old witch.”

“Well, I think we worked that out for ourselves,” Arran says.

“She’s . . . I . . . I haven’t seen or heard from her in years.”

“Since?”

“Since I was young. She used to work for the Council but she went a bit . . . odd.”

“Odd?”

“Unusual.”

“She’s mad, you mean.”

“Well . . . she went a bit strange, making accusations left and right. Only dangerous to herself at first, but then it was clear she was mad. Apparently she would dance around in meetings or sing love songs to the Council Leader. She left the Council in disgrace. There wasn’t much sympathy for her.”

“Why would she invite Nathan to her birthday party?”

Gran doesn’t answer. She reads the invitation and then busies herself making more tea.

“You going to go, then?” Arran asks.

Gran holds the teapot, ready to fill it. I say, “She’s a mad old witch. No one else in the family has been invited. I don’t know her, and I’m not supposed to go anywhere without the Council’s permission.” I grin for Arran’s benefit. “So of course I’m going.”

Gran puts the teapot down and doesn’t fill it.

The birthday party is four days away. In those four days I learn nothing more about Mary from Gran, whose only concern when I bring up the subject is that I memorize the directions to Mary’s home that are written on the reverse of the invitation. There is a tiny map with instructions that give times when I should be at certain points. Gran says that I have to follow the map and the timings precisely.

I set off early on the morning of the party, heading for the railway station in town. I catch a train, followed by another train, then a bus, followed by another bus. The journey is slow—in fact I could catch two earlier buses—but the instructions are clear, and I stick to them.

Then I have a long walk. I make my way to the points in the woods that are shown on the map and wait for the allotted times to pass before moving on to the next place. The woods are more forest than woods and the farther I go the quieter it becomes. As I wait for the final leg of the journey I realize that there are no noises in my head, and all around me it is beautifully silent. I almost miss the time to leave as I’m trying to work out what noises aren’t there any more. But I keep to the schedule and eventually come to a ramshackle cottage in a small clearing.

There’s a vegetable patch to the left side of the cottage, a brook to its right, and some hens pecking around in front of it. I skirt around to the right and scoop up some water to drink. It’s sweet and clear. I don’t have to change my stride to step over the clear running water. I make a circuit of the cottage, which is so rundown that it is actually falling down at the back and I can see into a bedroom where a chicken is pecking around. I carry on around to the small, green front door and knock lightly in case the rotten wood gives way.

“It’d be a waste to be indoors on a day like this.”

I turn.

The strong, loud voice doesn’t seem to fit the stooped old witch with a floppy, big-brimmed hat, baggy, holey wool jumper, baggy, holey jeans, and baggy, muddy wellington boots.

“Mary?” I’m not sure; the person in front of me, with a wispy white mustache, could be a man.

“No need to ask who you are.” The voice is definitely female.

“Umm. Happy birthday.” I hold the basket of presents out toward her but she makes no move to take them.

“Presents. For you.”

She still says nothing.

I lower the basket.

She makes a noise that is a cackle or maybe a cough, sending saliva dribbling down her chin, which she wipes away with her sleeve.

“You never met an old witch before?”

“Not many . . . well, not . . .”

My mumbling tails off as she peers closer at me.

She is bent almost double and has to lean back and turn sideways to look up at me. “Maybe you’re not so much like your father as I first thought. You certainly look like him, though.”

“You know him . . . I mean . . . you’ve met him?”

She ignores my question and now takes the basket from me, saying, “For me? Presents?”

It’s as if her hearing isn’t too good, but I think she can hear fine.

She walks to the brook and sits on a patch of thin grass. I sit beside her as she pulls a jam jar out of the basket. “Is it plum?”

“Apple and bramble. From our garden. My gran made it.”

“That old bitch.”

My jaw drops.

“And this?” She holds up a large earthenware tub, sealed with wax and tied with ribbon.

“Umm . . . a potion to soothe aching joints.”

“Huh!” She sets the tub on the grass, saying, “She was always good at potions, though. I take it she still has a strong Gift?”

“Yes.”

“Nice basket too. You can never have too many baskets, I’ve found.” She studies the basket, turning it round. “If you learn nothing else today, at least remember that.”

I nod stupidly and again stumble out my question: “Have you met Marcus?”

She ignores me and pulls out the final present, a rolled-up piece of paper tied with a thin strip of leather, which she slides off and puts into the basket, saying, “And a leather shoelace too. I am doing well, aren’t I? Not had a birthday like this for . . . for oh so long.”

Mary unrolls the paper, a pen drawing that I made of trees and squirrels. She studies it for some time before saying, “I believe your father likes to draw. He has a talent for it, as have you.”

Has he? How does she know this?

“It’s polite to say thank you when someone pays you a compliment.”

I mumble, “Thank you.”

Mary smiles. “Good boy. Now, let’s get tea and some cake . . . ninety candles will be interesting.”

Much later we are sitting on the grass in silence with a picnic of tea and cake. The candles, ninety of them, counted out slowly by Mary, were placed on a small cherry cake by me, although I don’t know how they all fitted on. The candles were lit with a muttered spell at the snap of Mary’s fingers. Her spittle-laden blow wasn’t powerful enough to put out the candles so I smothered the flames in a tea towel. During all that I learned nothing from Mary apart from the ingredients of the cake, where she kept her candles, and how she wished someone would come up with a spell that kept slugs off her vegetable garden.

Now I ask her why she has invited me to her birthday party.

She says, “Well, I didn’t want to spend it on my own, did I?”

“So why didn’t you invite my gran?”

Mary slurps some cold tea from her teacup and lets out a resonating belch.

“I invited you because I wanted to talk to you, and I didn’t invite your gran because I didn’t want to talk to her.” She belches again. “Oh, that cake was good.”

“What do you want to talk about?”

“The Council and your father. Though I don’t know much about your father. But I do know about the Council. I used to work for them.”

“Gran told me.”

Silence.

“What do you know about the Council, Nathan?”

I shrug. “I have to go for assessments and follow their notifications.”

“Tell me about those.”

I stick to the facts.

Mary doesn’t ask any questions while I speak, but she nods and dribbles occasionally.