Potions and Pageants

  Potions & Pageants

  Percy Prince Book 1

  R.K. DREAMING

  Copyright © 2019 by .R.K. Dreaming

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted or distributed in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author. The people, places and situations in this book are products of the author’s imagination and in no way reflect real or true events.

  Potions & Pageants

  By R.K. DREAMING

  Harry Potter meets cozy mystery. Welcome to the witching world of Persephone Prince.

  Meet Percy Prince, the magicless daughter of a witch. Trouble follows wherever she goes. When Percy helps out at her school’s Charity Beauty Pageant, a pageant judge turns up dead.

  Percy is sure the judge’s death is no accident but everyone thinks Percy is crazy. With the race to be crowned Miss Humble High hotting up, succubus mean-girls resort to using banned magic, and potions and pageants become a killer mix.

  Percy and skeptical pageant organizer teen witch Nan Gooding must team up to discover the truth. Is someone at Humble High really willing to kill to win?

  1. Percy & Nan

  “Mr Bramble?” called Persephone Prince, fighting her way through the thorny blackberry bushes at the bottom of her garden to get to the underground house where her friend Mr Bramble lived.

  Halfway through the thick brambles, Percy came to a sudden stop. A particularly spiky blackberry stem had become snarled in her long green hair. Wincing as she attempted to untangle it, Percy let out a few choice curses.

  As she had no magic to speak of and no wand either, nothing happened. Certainly her hair did not magically untangle itself, and neither did the pesky thorns incinerate themselves, which she would have very much preferred. Not that Mr Bramble would like it if she had been able to achieve such a feat. He loved his brambles.

  “Mr Bramble!” called Percy.

  He did not respond.

  Percy had a bad feeling about this. It had been three whole weeks since she had last seen Mr Bramble, the little heg who lived at the bottom of her mother’s garden.

  Come to think of it, she hadn’t seen him since he had worked himself into a right tizzy of upset after Percy had fired Nanny Nora at the start of the month. Nanny Nora was the witch who Percy’s mother had installed to look after Percy some years ago.

  “He’s not there,” said a mournful voice in Percy’s ear.

  Percy gave such a start of shock that the blackberry stem, which she had almost managed to pull free from her hair, promptly became tangled up in it again.

  “Darn it, Jeeves!” said Percy. “What have I told you about sneaking up on me like that?”

  Jeeves, the family poltergeist, was floating beside her, completely at ease among the thorns, and wafting about in an airy-fairy fashion that she was sure was contrived to irritate her.

  “That you don’t like it,” said Jeeves.

  “Then will you stop doing it?” said Percy tartly.

  “Never,” he said. “Your mother would definitely approve of me startling you every once in a while. She told me to keep my eye on you. Both of them, in fact.”

  “Don’t I know it,” muttered Percy, yanking a strand of hair from the thorns with such force that quite a lot of it got wrenched out from her scalp.

  “Ouch! Are you going to give me a hand or are you just going to float there?”

  Jeeves reached out and began to patiently untangle Percy’s hair.

  “What did you want old Bramble for?” he asked.

  Jeeves was always curious about things that he knew perfectly well were none of his business.

  “Never mind,” said Percy. “I’ve changed my mind.”

  There was no point telling Jeeves that she had wanted to ask Mr Bramble whether her mother had written to him recently. It was the end of September and Percy was dreading the idea that her mother might come home for Halloween this year.

  Mr Bramble was always writing letters to her mother, and if anyone knew whether her mother, the famous and fabulous and most excellent witch, Gwendolyn Prince, was going to come home for Halloween in a month’s time, it would be Mr Bramble.

  The idea of her mum being home for Halloween was bound to over-excite Jeeves, who loved a good party. The last thing Percy wanted right now was to listen to Jeeves talking night and day about Gwendolyn and her parties.

  The moment Jeeves had successfully untangled Percy’s hair, Percy fought her way back out of the bushes. She emerged onto the lawn with a face full of scratches.

  “You could have helped me out!” she said, knowing this would annoy Jeeves into leaving her alone.

  She would come and find Mr Bramble later, preferably when Jeeves wasn’t following her.

  Jeeves went into a huff as expected, and Percy was able to leave him behind. She charged back into her house, which some people would call a mansion, and up to her room to change her clothes into something fit for Humble London. She needed a walk, or better yet, a drive. And damn the consequences!

  Percy was the daughter of a witch but, having no magic herself she had learned very early on in life to try her best to do things the Humble way. Humbles being people who had no magic and mostly had no idea at all about the existence of magic.

  What was the point in having a witch nanny to do everything magically for you, Percy thought, when one day you would have to do it all yourself and find yourself useless at it? She might as well learn how not to be useless right now.

  The great big house Percy lived in was slap bang in the middle of London. She shared it with the poltergeist Jeeves, and Mr Bramble, the heg who lived at the bottom of the garden, and sometimes – but not often – with her absentee and frivolous mother.

  Percy herself was a Meek – one of those unfortunate non-magical souls born to parents who had that fabulous and relatively rare thing known as magic.

  At fifteen years old, Percy was long past the age young witches and wizards first showed signs of magic.

  It was a Saturday evening, and Percy had been wandering aimlessly around her house all day. Like most teenagers, Percy had a great many acquaintances. Unlike most teenagers, she had very few friends.

  None, in fact. Unless you counted Jeeves and Mr Bramble.

  This was because Percy had never gone to a normal school, and had received a patchy home education at best from a long succession of witch nannies, who had very little idea of how to educate a Meek child.

  It was Percy’s secret dread that her mother might one day resort to sending her to Humble High, an unusual school in the great city of London that educated children born into the eldritch and witching communities. Humble High was unusual because it also educated Humble children too.

  The Humble half of the student population had no idea that a great many of their classmates were werewolves and succubae and incubae and angelli and finfolk and the like.

  The problem was that Percy had lately begun to feel dissatisfied in life, a feeling that had been growing more ominous inside her these past few months. So on this fateful Saturday, Percy stalked out of her house, intent on making the feeling go away. And she knew exactly how.

  Percy didn’t bother to tell anyone that she was leaving. Her mother, her only parent, was heaven knew where — probably somewhere hot and sunny that had a fabulous beach and beautiful people to look at and tasty drinks to stylishly sip. And Percy had decided she could look after herself now, thank you very much!

  Nanny Nora had been the last in her long succession of nannies. The problem was that Percy had fired her without bothering to tell her mother. This meant that Percy had been good for a whole three weeks, just in case her mother found out. But three and a half weeks was much to
o long to live without blowing off a little steam.

  Percy had crept quietly down the stairs and out to freedom. Even so, Jeeves somehow got wind of the fact she was leaving and flew right through the door to catch her before she had walked down the steps onto the street.

  Sensing someone behind her, Percy turned, half hoping to see Mr Bramble, his little legs pumping as he tried to keep pace.

  He was a small man who only came up to Percy’s elbow, and was in the habit of asking, “Where on the good green earth are you going?” whenever Percy left home in one of her moods, which he was very attuned too.

  Percy hated it when little Mr Bramble was upset with her.

  Her hopes were dashed when she saw Jeeves.

  “Just where do you think you are going?” demanded Jeeves, with none of Mr Bramble’s cheery charm.

  “To the Ice Cream Hut in Leicester Square,” said Percy airily. “Where a horrid girl called Octavia Smythe-Smith is having a charity quiz night. I was looking at a poster for it a few days ago, and can you believe she had the nerve to tell me that I couldn’t come? I’m going to show her that Percy Prince goes wherever she darn well pleases!”

  What she did not mention was that there had been a boy with Octavia Smythe-Smith who had given Percy a sympathetic look. This sympathetic look had outraged Percy even more than the Octavia girl’s snooty attitude had. How dared he look at her that way? She was going to go to this quiz thing tonight to show him that Percy Prince was no one to be pitied!

  Plus there had been something about this particular boy and girl that made Percy fiercely curious about them. They had been different to other people somehow. Percy hated when people were mysteries. She liked to know what was what.

  Because of all the parties that Gwendolyn Prince liked to throw, Percy had met a great many different types of beings from the Eldritch and Witching communities. But she had never met any like these two.

  It was not that they might be Eldritch or magical which had pinged her curiosity radar. It was something else. Something slightly ominous. And there was nothing Percy liked better in life than to stamp out any little niggles of curiosity that invaded her mind.

  She planned on spending the night observing the two, and figuring them out like a puzzle and then tossing the solved puzzle aside.

  “I’ve just put your lunch in the oven,” protested Jeeves. “Lasagna dripping in cheese, just how you like it!”

  “I’ll have it later. I’m going out to do what teenagers do,” she told him. “It’s Saturday. We living have got to live!”

  Thinking that this would likely send him into a huff back into the house, she bounced down the rest of the stairs.

  “Mr Bramble is lost!” declared Jeeves in tones of horror, bringing Percy to a halt.

  She turned to face him. “What do you mean he’s lost?”

  She saw a passerby look at her curiously. Percy looked back until the woman hurried on. Humbles could not see poltergeists and no doubt the woman had thought Percy was batty, talking to herself. Fortunately Percy did not care much for a stranger’s opinion.

  “Why didn’t you tell me that first?” she hissed.

  “Because you never listen!”

  “Isn’t he moping about in his house? He hasn’t been to visit me up at the main house in weeks!”

  “I went to check his house. Floated right in. You know he doesn’t like me to do that, but I’ve been worried. He hasn’t even come to the kitchen for a meal ever since you fired Nanny Nora.”

  Percy’s stomach lurched so hard it felt like it had dropped right through to the ground.

  “Why didn’t you tell me that?” she demanded.

  “Where he eats is his business,” said Jeeves sniffily.

  Percy could tell that Jeeves was more annoyed than he was letting on. Jeeves loved to cook, but lamented it was no fun if there was no one to cook for, since he couldn’t very well eat his food himself.

  “But how do you know he is missing?” she demanded. “He hasn’t… Oh Jeeves! He hasn’t gone walkabout?”

  “A casserole was rotting on his kitchen table!” said Jeeves. “Mr Bramble would never let fresh food rot. It looked like it has been there for weeks!”

  He looked at Percy with an expression of comical dismay, and then swept right through her so that he could swoosh out onto the street to look up and down it as if Mr Bramble might suddenly appear.

  Percy gave a great gasp of shock, feeling like she had been plunged into ice water. She had barely recovered when Jeeves came back, his hands pressed to the sides of his head in a comical expression of horror.

  “He’s not here!” he cried in despairing tones. “He’s gone!”

  “Why would he be hanging about on the street?” said Percy impatiently, thinking rapidly.

  This was terrible news. Mr Bramble was almost always in his garden if he was not visiting the main house where Percy lived. He very rarely went anywhere else. But sometimes he did go to see his friends. He also went on long walks to think. This was not a good thing for Mr Bramble because cities were terrible places for hegs.

  Hegs loved nature and got disorientated in the absence of it.

  Mr Bramble had gone walkabout a few times before and on three occasions he had become lost. Each time he had become so befuddled and panic-stricken by the traffic and the smog and smells and the thousands of people everywhere all looking at him with their suspicious eyes that he had ended up lost and homeless.

  No food, no shelter, all alone out there in the great big world. Percy’s heart clenched at the thought.

  The first two times she had searched for days before finding him. Each time she had eventually found him in Hyde Park, where he had taken refuge amongst the deepest parts of the greenery. The last time she had gone straight to the two places in the park where she had found him before, and been lucky to find him in the second.

  Jeeves was floating back and forth, wailing, “Oh, Mr Bramble. Poor Mr Bramble! What will become of you?”

  “I need to go,” said Percy hurriedly. “I need to find him.”

  He followed her onto the road and when she stopped beside a car and started digging around in her bag for her keys, he looked astonished.

  “You are not going in that horrendous contraption!”

  “Do you want me to find him or not?” she demanded.

  The previous week Percy had used her mother’s credit card to order herself a cheery sky-blue mini car. This was the benefit of having a mother who knew only how to use witching gold. Gwendolyn was in the habit of putting generous amounts of Humble funds into a bank account for Percy’s sole use, and had not yet realized that she had been providing far more money than an average teenager needed.

  Percy had hired a university student who lived in her neighborhood to give her driving lessons up and down the local streets, and was sure she had the hang of it by now.

  “Not in that thing!” said Jeeves. “It will be the death of you!”

  Jeeves had died long before cars had been invented. He disapproved of many modern inventions, and had a particular dislike for cars.

  “Relax, Jeevsy,” said Percy. “I’m an excellent driver.”

  “You are not!” said Jeeves.

  Unfortunately for him, Percy had found the keys and was already getting into the car. She gave him a little wave before driving off.

  An hour later Percy was trampling through all of the densest bushes in Hyde Park and up along the various waterways, yelling, “Mr Bramble!” at the top of her voice.

  Passersby stared at her but Percy did not care. She charged into an overgrown thicket of shrubs next to the Serpentine lake, shouting, “Pease Mr Bramble! I’m sorry I upset you! Please come home!”

  Nettles stung her legs, the tiny barbs working their way into her tights, but Percy gave a great shout of relief.

  Right next to the muddy banks of the lake was a tree, and sitting huddled by its trunk was a little figure.

  He was draped in what looked like old brown
sacks but Percy knew it was Mr Bramble right away because about twenty ducks and a couple of swans were clustered all around him.

  Mr Bramble loved birds and birds loved Mr Bramble.

  “Mr Bramble!” she shrieked, flinging herself through the crowd of waterfowl, ignoring their protesting quacks.

  She dragged him to his feet and hugged him tightly, not caring that he was grimy and bewildered and trying to push her away. She even allowed a couple of tears to slip down her cheeks.

  “Mr Bramble!” she said. “You promised! You promised not to do this again.”

  Mr Bramble’s bottom lip was trembling, and he seemed to not know who she was.

  She sank onto her knees so that her face was level with his and gently told him his name over and over. She reminded him of where he lived, who his friends were, and how he loved to eat Jeeves’s apple pies smothered in piping hot custard.

  “I’ll have him make you one as soon as we get home,” she promised. “And I’ll sit and eat it with you and then we’ll tuck you into bed all cozy and warm. You’ll like that, won’t you?”

  He wasn’t listening to her. He was listening to the ducks, who were quacking their complaints to him.

  “Oh never mind these selfish ducks,” she said. “They’ve got all the park visitors to feed them bread. What about all your old bird friends in our garden? They’ll be wondering where you have got to. They’ll need you before winter comes. You had better come home now before they all fly away in protest.”

  It took him several minutes before his big black eyes widened a little, and he asked hesitantly, “Percy?”

  Percy nearly burst into tears.

  Admonishing him gently to never go walkabout again, but knowing that he would and that she was going to have to figure out how to keep a closer eye on him, she guided him gently down the path towards the nearest gate out of the park.

  When he saw the car his beetle black eyebrows waggled dangerously.