So, this is it. Time to set off. We're actually going to fly to get to Lucille's old house. I've got butterflies in my stomach just thinking about it. Why's the witch taking ages to get ready? I'm waiting in Dad and Lucille's bedroom, sitting on the edge of the bed. The room smells sweet and musty, like Lucille. Today she's wearing a long, black dress with these little glittery stones that sparkle in the sunlight.

Lucille and Dad clasp hands. "Mum will come round, Breccan. Don't worry." They kiss and hug each other very tight. Lucille cups Dad's face in her green hands. "She'll be glad to have you in the family in the end, I just know it."

Dad wants to talk to me. "Sammy, Lucille's in charge for the next three days, while you're both away."

"I know, Dad." I remember that dragon story she told me yesterday. "And I'll protect Lucille if there are any of those dragons that have poison."

Lucille grins at me.

Dad's gone now. Lucille plaits her long, red hair in front of the mirror, humming that weird, haunting tune again, just like she did in the kitchen.

She must be nearly ready. "When do we flyyy?"

She turns and grins in that funny way that makes her shiny green nose crinkle.

"I've been making a new toy for you, Sammy," she holds up a bright pink blob. "It's ready." She hands it to me. The blob is cold and squidgy in my hand. "You can shape it into whatever you like," says Lucille.

"Okay. How about… a worm?" I roll the blob in my fingers so that it becomes long and wormy. It begins to wriggle. Cool. It is just like a worm.

"That is realistic," says Lucille, clapping her green hands together. She flicks her plait over her shoulder and plumps down on the bed.

"Look. See him squirm?" I hold the worm up to her.

Lucille takes the end in her green fingers and squeezes it and pinches it so that it changes shape. It now looks a bit like a toothless snake's mouth, with little pits for eyes. "There. Now it's a friendly worm. No teeth, so it won't bite."

The worm curls around my arm. Lucille takes a broomstick out of the wardrobe, humming all the while. The broom has a weird face carved into the handle. Lucille kisses her own hand and then touches it to the broom's carved face. "Awake, Woody." The broom's face moves in a strange way. I don't like it. I don't like the way its carved mouth moves without making any sound.

Elvis the rat climbs up the leg of the bed and sits by me. So, does this mean the witch's other familiar is here? You know the one I mean…

"Hurroosh!" Sure enough, here's the raven. He alights on the bedpost and turns his head to fix the broom with a beady eye. "What an ugly thing. I would not trust it in the air."

Lucille gives the raven a weird look, narrowing her brown eyes at him. "Woody needs loving the right way. And he flies beautifully."

I stick my tongue out at the raven. "Yeah, and I want to fly. You can't carry us."

The raven turns his head to me. "Hmph. Well personally, I don't like the idea of Mundanes flying."

"Well personally, I say it doesn't matter a hoot if you mind," says Lucille. She grins at me, her eyes shining. "Our first flight together." She clasps her face in her hands and gives a little squeal. "A pity Woody is not strong enough to carry your Dad, too. But you'll keep me company." She touches my cheek with a cold green finger.

Quoth makes a croaky sound. Is he laughing? "This need to have company…" He spits out the word company like it's something weird. "'Tis a weakness that witches share with crows. You never see ravens grouping together, like crows do."

Lucille purses her dark green lips. "Ravens don't like each other's company. I wonder why that would be?"

I didn't know anything about that. I want to ask more. "It's just crows that group together? Not ravens?"

"Yes. And do you know what the collective noun for crows might be? A Murder of crows." He gives a croaky chuckle.

"Why is it a Murder of crows?"

"I have no idea. It's the way your silly language developed," Quoth grumbles. "Must you question every tiny thing?"

"Enough of your nonsense, Quoth," says Lucille briskly. She snaps her fingers. "Come, Grimalkin." A little imp with shaggy blue fur jumps onto her little dressing table and squeaks and chatters. Lucille leans her green face close to the imp. "Guard this house and my beloved while I'm gone." The imp jumps around on the table, chattering and waving its tiny arms. Lucille grins at it.

"Can you hear the imp? It's a real little creep," grates Quoth. "Always fawning and scraping before her."

"I can't understand him," I admit. "You're the only familiar that talks so I can understand." Lucky me, eh?

"The imp actually takes pride in doing a job well, and without being rude to me all the time," says Lucille to the raven in a cold voice. She takes my hand. She feels cold. Her hand almost feels damp, like she's a frog lady or something. "Come, my little love. Now we fly."

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00O00

On the lawn, Lucille kneels by the tiny pond and scoops a toad out of the shallows. "Be seeing you, Paddock," she says softly, and she tenderly kisses the little amphibian's warty skin. The toad is another familiar, but one that doesn't seem to do anything at all.

She puts the toad back in the pond, then straps me to her with a harness. I hold my arms tight around her waist as she gets on the broom and then suddenly, we're flying high into the air.

The wind's rushing in my face and the houses are as small as toy houses below us. Ooh dear. Flying so fast makes my stomach wobbly. You try it sometime and see if it makes you feel wobbly? Lucille gives a piercing cry of delight. She's loving it. "See the world as I see it, Sammy! Isn't this the only way to travel?"

I try to answer, but my voice is carried away by the wind. I can't talk nearly as loudly as she can. I glance down. The cars in the road far below are like multi-coloured beetles. I'm holding my stepmum tightly.

"Those poor people, having to rely on cars," says the witch, casually pointing down. "Higher." Oh wow. We're going a lot higher, past a startled flock of swallows. "Now… full speed ahead, Woody!" The broom shoots forward like an arrow, so fast that I have to screw up my eyes as the wind buffets me in the face. Now we're landing. We're on a grassy plateau, but the grass is a ghostly blue-grey. Lucille unstrapped him and set him on the ground, kneeling on the strange grass so that we're face to face. She smiles at me. "So, how was your first flight?"

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"Cool!" I tell her. "I didn't know it would be windy."

Lucille cups my face in her hands and grins. "Awwww, the wind makes your cheeks so pink." She smooths my hair with her fingers and adjusts my collar. "There." She touches the tip of my nose with one finger. "You're perfect. Ready to meet my mother? She's strict, but you'll do fine."

Strict? Don't like the sound of that. "O- Okay, Lucille."

She takes me by the hand and we make our way up a narrow, winding path. Lucille's clutching her broomstick in her free hand. "Why is the grass here blue, Lucille?" I ask.

She smiles at me. "Magic in the soil, magic in the air." She holds up a hand and a jewel bright bug alights on her finger. Actually no – it was two shining beetles. "You won't see those in the world below, either. Look how the bigger beetle holds the little one. The lady gembug grabs her partner and won't let go."

"Why not?"

"It's either that, or she is alone," says the witch. She holds the beetles up to her face, breathes on them and they both fly away with a high pitched buzzing sound.

"Zooks Hurrah, Zooks Hurroosh!" Quoth's back. He's circling overhead. "Seeking your mother's blessing? I can see it all now… What sort of a picture does this scene paint? The boy with his mop of golden curls, eyes like the summer sky, pink cheeks, and then you-" the raven gives a harsh, croaky laugh - "does he look like a son of yours?"

Lucille sighs. "I wish he were mine." She stuck out her dark green bottom lip. Is she sad about something?

I tug on her arm. "Don't be sad, Lucille. Are you worried because your mum is strict?"

She smiles, but it looks like a bit of a sad smile. "Don't worry, darling. I know she'll like you."

Quoth the raven circles lower over our heads. "Methinks the real onus will be on me. I'm the one who gets things done."

Lucille pulls a face. "Please, just stay out of it."

There's a huge, grey house on the hill. What a place. It really does look like a witchy sort of house.

"My mother loves gardening," says Lucille.

We go round the back of the house. There's a bright green lady with long, brown hair, digging in the flowerbed. The plants are weird. They look like bundles of little rainbow coloured stalks.

The green lady looks up and smiles. She puts down her trowel and then Lucille squeals really loud and throws herself into hugging her. They kiss each other on the cheek.

Lucille grins at me. "Mother, this is my stepson, Sammy."

Her mum gives me a tight lipped smile. The sun shines off her green cheeks. "Hello, Sammy. Please call me Selena. Do come in." She beckons to us to follow her.

We go into a cool, dark parlour. A small black cat follows us in.

"Sit. Make a lap." It's the cat talking! Really talking, like Quoth the raven does.

The cat rubs around Selena's leg. "You know you love me best. Sit. Make a lap."

Selena sits and the cat jumps on her lap. Lucille picks me up and puts me on her knee as she sits on a wooden bench.

"By the Moon, it's wonderful to see you again, daughter dearest." There's definitely something wrong with the way Selena's smiling. Like she doesn't really mean it. "I'm only sorry to have missed out on such a big event in your life." She says that like she's gritting her teeth and is breathing through her nose.

"It was a beautiful wedding," says Lucille, her voice trembling a little. "I'm only sorry you could not give your blessing."

"You'd overturn tradition, just like that?" Snaps Selena, standing up suddenly so that the cat goes jumping onto the floor.

"Idiot! The cat was comfortable," says the cat, but Selena ignores him.

"Don't start that in front of Sammy," says Lucille, gripping my shoulders.

Selena sighs. "You have your job to do daughter. Those deliveries aren't going to fly themselves to their destinations." She beckons. "Come, Sammy. You are welcome here today."

Oh no. I don't want to leave Lucille. I think Selena's a bit scary, the way she shouted. I won't move from my stepmum's knee. Selena comes over and kneels on the tiled floor, so we're face to face. Her eyes are brown like Lucille's, but her nose is a bit longer. Oh gosh. She smells even more than Lucille does. But I can't say that.

She speaks in a surprisingly soft voice, as if she were actually in a good mood. "Don't you want to see a magical garden, my boy? Besides, I have a treat for you. Candy."

Uh oh. I've thought of Hansel and Gretel again. But I can't say that either.

"Yes, t-thank you," I stammer.

Selena smiles. "Good boy."

"He is a good boy," says Lucille, sounding sullen. "He's quite the best boy. I've told you that as well."

Before she goes, Lucille hugs me and kisses me on both cheeks. I put my arms around her and now I don't want to let go. "It'll be alright, darling," she tells me, but I still think she looks worried. "I'll be back very soon."

Selena takes my hand. Ugh! Her hand is so cold, and it feels wet.

On the lawn, Lucille gets back on her broom. She's tied a bag to it this time. She glances back at us. I think she looks anxious, because her brows are coming together. Then she's in the air and flying away…

Selena gives me a plate with a piece of cake and a glass of juice. The cake tastes like vanilla and the juice sort of strange, like vegetables. Then she wants to show me the plants.

She kneels by the flowerbed she was working on when Lucille and I got here, the one with all the colourful bundles of stalks. "These, Sammy, are my tumblebuds." She touches one with a green finger. "This one is ready to stand upright." She tugs one of the bundles and a little blue ball with tiny eyes pops out of the soil. It sits on the flowerbed and I think it's trying to move, because the stalks are twitching.

"I think it needs helping up." I pick up the tumblebud and it stands up.

"You are a thoughtful little fellow," says Selena, stroking her green cheek.

"Am – am I?"

"It's something about yourself you should cultivate."

Why's she looking at me like that? Is her smile a sad smile?

"What do you know of magic, Sammy?"

"Er… nothing." Should I know something about it?

Selena brushes her long brown hair away from her face. "Of course not. You and I, Sammy… we're from two different worlds. Lucille and your father are also from two different worlds."

"Zooks Hurrah! Zooks Hurroosh!" Quoth has turned up again. Great. I don't think.

Selena's scowling. I know how she feels.

Quoth alights on the handle of a spade stuck in the ground. "I hear you on that one, Selena. I make it my business to instruct you – do not give the marriage your blessing."

Selena curls her dark green lip. "I don't need your instruction, raven."

"It's best for the Mistress to be alone," says Quoth. "I consider that to be natural for a raven, so why not for a witch?"

"For the Moon's sake," mutters Selena. "Not that again."

Quoth grumbles and pulls up a worm from the crumbly soil around the flowerbed. Selena shows me the rainbow ponds. There's one pond with rocks around it that has pink water, and another nearby with bright blue water. We're sitting by the pink pond.

Selena points into the water. "Keep still. You may see a water sprite. Ahhh… there's one now."

There's a little, silver face with hair sort of like pond weed peeping out of the water. "Oho there, Mistress. Oho there little boy. And ho there bird of carrion." The sprite has a squeaky little voice.

"Sprites are vermin," says Quoth. "Just like garden gnomes. This garden would be less of a shambles if you'd evict them."

"Do you know how I keep everyone happy?" burbles the sprite, "I fill the world with frogs."

The sprite chucks a tiny black frog at the raven who bats it away with his wing. It vanishes and so does the sprite. I suppose the sprite made the frog with magic.

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00O00

Lucille comes back soon after. I picked a really cool plant for her. Selena said I could. It's like a silver conch shell, but they were growing out of the ground. So weird. Lucille grins and hugs and kisses me, telling me I'm sweet to think of her.

Selena wants us all to sit down so we can talk again. I sit on my stepmum's knee.

"I – I think I was a little hasty," says Selena. She rubs her green cheek with one hand. "I want you to be happy, it's just… that is… "

Lucille has her arms around me. "I knew you'd come around, mother." She says. "Now the thing is, we have to have a plan in place. Basically, I have to be able to bring both my pumpkins here if I have to – if that is what I have to do to keep the three of us together."

Pumpkins?! Oh, wait, that's what she sometimes calls me and Dad. She's talking about me and Dad, obviously. Does she want us all to go on holiday here, or something?

Selena's brows draw together. "There's no need to speak of taking them from their own world just yet. See how events unfold first, daughter. Now shouldn't you show Sammy our world? He can help a tiny bit with deliveries."

"Yes. Sammy, I'll show you the magical world." Lucille sounds really happy. What will her world be like?