Bagsy Beetlehorn and the Inferno Conscription (The Bagsy Chronicles 3)

A Supposed Kidnapping

'You sleep in a coffin?' Bagsy asked incredulously. Mezrielda had led Bagsy to her room. It was large, old and in dis-repair, like all the other rooms in the house. Massive, dark-wood furniture stood stiffly at the edges. The wardrobe looked ready to swallow the both of them whole and the chest of draws seemed like a fanged mouth waiting to snap them up. The coffin in the middle of the room, however, was by far the oddest item. 'Do you sleep in that?' Bagsy repeated. Mezrielda looked away. 'I won't laugh if you do,' she added.

'Yes... I sleep in that.'

Bagsy snickered.

'You said you wouldn't laugh!' Mezrielda protested, glaring at her.

'I'm sorry it's just... you sleep in a coffin,' she emphasised. 'How are the fangs coming along? Do they grow in now, or are they like wisdom teeth? Or do you take one of those muggle pencil sharpeners and-'

'That's not funny, Bagsy,' Mezrielda grumbled, but Bagsy could see the smirk she was holding back.

'Do I have to sleep in a coffin?' Bagsy asked tensely, suddenly apprehensive.

Mezrielda did smirk, then, and whipped her wand into her hand. With an elegant flick and a long, complicated incantation, she turned a vanity in the corner of the room into a small, comfy looking bed. There was even a pillow with a black and white badger embroidered upon it.

Bagsy couldn't help gaping. 'How are you so good at magic?' she asked. It felt long overdue.

Mezrielda shrugged. 'Because I have to be.'

Bagsy didn't understand what Mezrielda meant but, instead of asking about it, she decided to unpack the few things she'd brought and let Bill onto the bed to snuggle up and sleep.

Life at Vespite Manor was very different from life at home, and though Bagsy ended up being there only two weeks, she wished she could have stayed longer.

On the first day Mezrielda wasn't free – Dantura and Palid were tutoring their daughter intensively. Mezrielda hated it, and Bagsy disliked walking the big house alone, feeling like she'd never left One Aesher Common. The library entertained her for a while, but the books were so old that many of them were in languages she could only hope to understand, and most of it was forbidden. The Glints had said they were age inappropriate. Unlike Mezrielda, Bagsy was not going to disobey the commands of Dantura and Palid. They'd been kind enough to let her stay – if they didn't want her looking at certain books, then she wouldn't.

Spot had taken to clinging to the walls outside the windows of the rooms Bagsy paced through, his menacing eyes following her every movement.

That first night Bagsy heard strange noises in the distance, mingling with the tapping of the barren tree branches clacking against the windows and walls of the manor. She soon realised what the noises at night were when she tried to fetch herself breakfast the next morning only to find a freshly dead rabbit hidden in a cupboard. Two small, red pinpricks were in the side of its neck. It was jarring – Bagsy had never seen a dead animal up close before, let alone eaten one, so seeing it waiting like any other item of food, like it hadn't once been a living being, was very strange and upsetting indeed. It was not something she was used to.

On her second day at Vespite Manor Palid offered for Bagsy to join Mezrielda's lessons and she eagerly accepted.

Dantura was tutoring that day and took Mezrielda and Bagsy down the cliffside to the sea shore and they spent all day practising spells. Bagsy, who couldn't cast any on her own, spent the time practising one spell over and over. Dantura had recommended the leg-lock counter spell after Mezrielda had said it was the one most likely to come in handy at Hogwarts. Bagsy had added that it was the spell she was closest to actually casting, given she'd partially blocked a leg-lock jinx last year.