FELICITY STOCKWELL AND THE WIDOW’S SON
BY G. M. KEARNEY
Text copyright 2003 by G. M. Kearney This work is based on J. K. Rowling’s Harry Pottter and the Philosophers’ Stone and other related works by J. K. Rowling. No claim of ownership of those works is made or implied by the author.
Published by G. M. Kearny at Smashwords
Author’s Introduction
In J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter novels it is suggested that the magical world which, she creates, exists in other areas of the world besides the United Kingdom.
Here then is the story of Felicity Stockwell, a normal American girl with a family secret. It is a story of the magical world of J. K. Rowling invention as found in America. Within this story the reader will find references to the world of Harry Potter but in a uniquely American context expressing the American experience, history, culture and values.
Greg Kearney July 2003
Chapter One Felicity Stockwell’s Birthday Morning
Felicity looked out the window at the steeple of the First Congregational Church across the street from her house. It was early June, and, as is the case in Rhode
Island this time of year, fog had crept in from the bay and now lay like a thick woolly blanket over the roofs of Providence. The steeple of the old church disappeared into fog.
“Great,” thought Felicity, “the first day of summer vacation and my thirteenth birthday and it’s wet and foggy.”
Felicity had been in a somewhat sour mood anyway upon learning that her mother and father had planned to leave for Cape Cod on Saturday. She would have to celebrate her birthday at her grandparents’ “cottage ” on the Cape, away from her friends. To make matters worse, there was nothing to do there.
Felicity pulled on her clothes, in the process disturbing the slumber of her cat, Marx, who was making himself quite comfortable on her jeans, which had been dumped on the floor last night.
Marx looked up at her and blinked his eyes before walking from the room.
Felicity took one more look out the window as she brushed her hair. “Well, at least the fog is lifting; perhaps it won’t be such a bad day after all,” she thought.
Felicity put down the brush and took a quick look at herself in the mirror. She was a slight girl, with dark red hair that fell to her shoulders. In her school’s uniform she showed the beginnings of a figure, but dressed as she was today, in jeans and a University of Rhode Island sweatshirt, no one could see that. Satisfied with her appearance, she went down the stairs to breakfast.
“Good morning,” her mother’s voice greeted her as she came into the kitchen. The Stockwell home was an old brownstone in the centre of the city.
The kitchen was small, with a table at one end looking out at the equally small backyard. Felicity remembered that as a small girl, she longed for a home outside the city with a big lawn. But this house was close to her father’s work and there was a park nearby. As Felicity had grown older, she had come to appreciate living in the city.
“There are some waffles for you on the table,” her mother said, without turning from the ageing waffle iron that always burned the first two waffle attempts . “And I set out the real maple syrup because it’s your birthday. There are some cards on the table for you, too.”
Her mother turned from the waffle iron. Anne Stockwell was a handsome woman of 40 with dark red hair the same colour as her daughter’s. She was the music teacher at Felicity’s school, St. Andrew’s.
“Oh, and Roger Williams came by this morning and brought you this,” she said, handing Felicity a small box and a card in a light-blue envelope.
“What?” thought Felicity,“Why in the world would Roger Williams be giving me a gift?”
Her mother saw the puzzlement in her daughter’s eyes. Smiling, and with a slight teasing in her voice, she replied,“You know, he has always had a crush on you.”
Felicity felt her face get warm. Being faired-skinned like her mother, she blushed easily.
Felicity had known Roger for what seemed like forever. Roger was a year older than Felicity and had attended St. Andrew’s with her until last year, when he had gone to Salem Academy in the mountains of Maine. Salem Academy was her father’s old boarding school, and, since Felicity was an only child, it was expected that she would be attending there, as well, in the fall.
She looked down at the box and the envelope with Roger’s precise handwriting on it. The kids at school would sometimes tease Felicity about Roger but, if the truth be told, she really didn’t mind. Roger had been a good friend to her for as long as she could remember and having him at Salem comforted her about going to a strange school so far from home.
Roger was sometimes strange himself. He had a talent for being able to disappear, seemingly at will. One minute he would be with you and the next he was nowhere to be seen. And there was that time in the fifth grade when Mary and Alison were teasing Felicity about her red hair, bringing her almost to tears. Roger had told her to pay no attention to those “Muggles.” He said it as if she should have known what he meant, which she didn’t.
Felicity had asked Roger “What’s a Muggle?” At this question Roger seemed to become agitated. He had told her it was nothing, nothing at all. Just an old term his parents used. Felicity had not been satisfied with this answer. She had attempted to look up Muggle in the dictionary but it had not found it.
Since that time she had, on occasion, wondered about the word.
She turned the card over and opened it. Inside was a card with a cat, Felicity’s favourite animal, “Purring” a birthday greeting. Beneath this were the words: “Happy Birthday, Felicity, I’ll see you at school this fall. Roger.”
“What’s in the box?” Her mother asked.
“Oh, the box!” Said Felicity, remembering the box before her.
She opened the box from Roger. Inside, wrapped in paper, was a ball, about the size of a baseball but harder. It was a golden colour with stitching around it. Felicity couldn’t tell what it was made of for sure… In the same clear handwriting Roger had printed: “To Felicity, you will understand what this is later.”
“What a curious gift,” thought Felicity to herself. “Roger is certainly living up to his odd reputation.”
Felicity turned the ball over in her hands. It had clearly been used quite a bit. Two rather noticeable holes were in either side.
“It must be something from his school,” said her mother, who had come over next to her and was examining the ball. “His mother said that he is on a team at school, you know.”
“Yes, that must be it,” said Felicity, still studying the ball in her hands.
“Well, you had better eat your breakfast. I have an errand for you to do for me this morning and there are some other cards on the table.”
Felicity sat down at the table and looked over the handful of cards that were before her. One from her school principal, which she, and every other student at St. Andrew’s, received, without fail, every year on their birthdays. One from her Sunday school teacher at the church across the street and one from Aunt Joan.
Aunt Joan was her father’s sister who had never married and lived in the old family home outside of Amherst. The place was a crazy collection of antiques and family mementoes dating back to before the Stockwell family came to America in the 1600s, at least that what Aunt Joan always told her. In addition to the endless collection of bric-a-brac that she kept, Aunt Joan also kept an owl as a pet.
The small bird would sit in its cage, eyes closed, looking for all the world as if it were stuffed. Once, when Felicity had been visiting, she had poked at it with a short stick she had found among her aunt’s belongings. The owl had only opened its eyes for a moment before returning to its customary state.
If anything, Aunt Joan was even stranger than Roger.
“You had better finish your breakfast; your father is expecting you.” Her mother’s voice broke Felicity’s day-dreaming.
“Expecting me?” Felicity asked as she chewed on the now cold waffle which was sticky with the sweet syrup. “Expecting me where?”
“At work,” replied her mother.
“But…” Felicity realised that she had never been to where her father worked. Martin Stockwell was a banker for some international banking firm downtown. To Felicity the work sounded dull and she had never had any interest in it.
“I’ve never been to Father’s work,” she continued. “I don’t even know where it is.”
“Don’t worry,” her mother answered, “he said he would meet you at the bus station downtown. Here’s his lunch. If you hurry, you can catch the bus in front of the church.” Felicity finished what was left of her waffle and took her father’s lunch.
When she opened the front door at 23 Waybosset St., she could see that the sun had come out and the fog was all but gone. She crossed the street to the bus stop in front of the great old church with its iron fence.
“How very strange,” she thought to herself while standing at the bus stop. “I don’t recall Father ever forgetting his lunch, or, for that matter, anything else.”
Martin Stockwell was a man of precise habits. Each morning he would wake early, well before the rest of the family. His work required it, as most of the bank’s transactions were done with a group of banks in Europe. The time difference meant he had to be at work well before most of the other bankers in Providence.
He would always walk or bicycle downtown. While the Stockwells owned a car, he seldom drove except on longer trips. Each afternoon he would return precisely at 4 p.m. He would walk into the kitchen, kiss his wife, kiss Felicity on the cheek, and go upstairs to change out of his conservative banker’s clothing into a tweed sports coat and tie. Martin Stockwell always wore a tie. Felicity giggled as the thought of her father wearing a tie to bed crossed her mind.
The bus rumbled to a stop in front of her and let out a long hiss as the doors swung open.
Chapter Two Felicity Learns the Family Secret
The bus pulled away from the curb as Felicity found a seat. She held the bag with her father’s lunch on her lap and watched the streets of Providence drift by in the late morning sun.
The bus passed St. Andrew’s School, with its ageing brick and fenced-in playground, standing next to St. Andrew’s Church. Long rows of houses, each with a stoop leading out to the sidewalk, were occasionally broken by a small corner store selling milk, beer, and lottery tickets.
The bus stopped here and there to take on or let off passengers, generally young people or older women carrying bags for shopping.
It turned the corner and headed down the hill to the centre of town and the city’s waterfront; down Washington Street to Kennedy Plaza, where all the bus routes came together. The bus eased to a stop and Felicity stepped out onto the platform. She could see her father standing off to the side and reading a newspaper.
Felicity walked over to him. As she did, he folded the paper and tucked it under his arm. Just for a moment, Felicity thought she saw the picture on the front page of the paper move, as if it were a movie. She blinked and looked again at the page. The picture seemed normal enough now. “I must have been mistaken.” She thought to herself.
“Hello, pumpkin, ” he said to her with a smile. “Pumpkin ” was her father’s pet name for her. It came from her hair colour. While Felicity didn’t mind it so much at home, here in the middle of the city it made her feel funny.
“Oh, I’m sorry to call you that here,” her father said, seeing her unease.
“It’s all right, Daddy. Here is your lunch. This is the first time I can remember that you have ever forgotten it.”
Martin Stockwell look down at his daughter and sighed. It seemed to him that it was only a moment ago that she had been a baby, and now look at her.
“My, how you have grown this year. Felicity’s father said to her.
Felicity smiled awkwardly at her father. She had grown, but she still thought of herself as a girl. Having men, even her own father, notice that girlhood was leaving her behind made her feel conspicuous.
“To tell you the truth,” he confessed, “I didn’t forget it at all. I just needed some reason to have you come down here for a birthday surprise.”
“A surprise?” blurted Felicity. Martin Stockwell was not a man of surprises. On each of Felicity’s previous birthdays, he had acted the same. He had come home one hour early, had changed his clothes and, at supper, had presented Felicity with a gift. It had always been a book of some kind, usually a fantasy book.
“What sort of surprise?” she asked.
“Oh, it’s a very big surprise,” he said, smiling in a way that Felicity could not recall having seen before.
They began walking down the street toward the banks that made up the centre of the city. As they walked, her father asked her who had sent her cards. She told him about Aunt Joan’s card and of Roger’s unusual gift.
Just then, they came to the front of a large office building. By now it was well into the noon hour and the street was filling up with people. Martin Stockwell reached into his suit-coat pocket and removed a stick about 12 inches long, which he proceeded to shake in the air twice.
What happened next was indeed a surprise; the first of many that Felicity would have that day. In an instant all of the people and traffic around them suddenly froze in place, leaving Felicity and her father the only ones who could move.
Felicity’s eyes grew wide with amazement; but before she could take in the sight, her father took her hand and stepped through the glass window in front of them.
She gave a little shriek as she and her father passed through the window. On the other side, they found themselves standing on a stone sidewalk of a part of town Felicity had never been in before.
She turned around to see the people, who only moments ago had been frozen in place, returned to their normal activity; apparently unaware of the events that had just occurred.
Felicity, however, was completely aware of what had just happened. She stared at her father as if he were a total stranger. She stared at the strange street with its stone sidewalks. She stared back at the window with its view of the normal world. She tried to think of something useful to say, but no words seemed to come to her. The street they stood on looked very old, even for Providence, which is filled with old streets. Down the centre of it was a set of streetcar tracks. Above them was a web of wires needed by the streetcars.
As she watched, a trolley moved down the street. From time to time a voice called out, saying, “Step aside, please ” or “Coming through.” Felicity realised after a moment that these warnings were not coming from the conductor but from the trolley itself. For on the front was a large jolly looking face, which issued the warning in a good-natured way to the pedestrians in the street.
“Martin. Martin Stockwell, is that you?” The voice came from behind them. Felicity and her father turned to see a short man approaching them. He wore a tweed suit coat that fit him badly and a pair of wool knickers. Over all of this was a billowing, if somewhat decrepit-looking, cape, which flowed out behind him like a river.
“Grimsby Goldstine,” Felicity’s father said, extending his hand. “What brings you to Providence?”
“Oh, the usual,” the little man said. “Some of the boys down here have been using magic on the Muggles again without permission, we can’t have that, you know.”
Felicity perked up at the word “Muggles.” This was the first time, outside of the schoolyard three years ago, that she had heard the term. She pulled at her father’s arm, fully intending to ask just what a Muggle was, but before she could open her mouth, Mr. Goldstine interrupted.
“And who is this?” he asked, with the kind of air that suggested he knew the answer already.
“This is my daughter, Felicity,” her father replied.
“Oh, yes, why of course it is. And what a pretty thing she is, too.”
Felicity could feel her face growing warm from the compliment.
“And from the looks of it I would say this is her first visit to the magical world.” Grimsby smiled and went on. “Well, nothing to worry about, my dear, it’s as normal as can be. I suppose that you will be going to Salem Academy next school year, won’t you?”
Felicity, who had yet to get her voice back, managed a nod in agreement.
“Excellent! ” exclaimed the little man. “My granddaughter Sarah will be starting at Salem next year, as well. You never can tell, you might just be roommates. Well, Martin, I had better be going. It was nice seeing you again.” He then reached over and took Felicity’s hand and gave it a soft kiss. Felicity giggled, more out of embarrassment than anything else. “And nice meeting you, my dear,” he said, before turning to walk into the crowd.
Words finally came back to Felicity.
“Father, what on earth…” her voice trailed off as her father looked at her.
“Felicity, I know you must have a thousand questions right now and I will try to answer as many as I can. But could we talk in my office and not out here in the street?”
Felicity nodded and took her father’s hand.
They walked for a bit down the odd little street, which housed bookshops, apothecaries and clothing stores, offering a strange array of articles such as capes and hats. At the end of the block they came to a grey granite three-story building. Above the door inscribed in the stone were the words: “Gringotts Bank North America.”
“This, pumpkin, is where I work,” her father said as he held the massive bronze door to the lobby open for her.
Felicity looked about. It seemed like a normal bank. Just the sort of place she had imagined, except for the owls.
Lined up on a bar above the old teller cages were about 20 owls of different sizes. Attached to the talon of each was a small satchel made of leather. From time to time, one of the tellers, who all appeared to be in their mid-twenties with serious looks upon their faces, would gesture and one of the owls would flutter down from its perch to his side. The teller would then insert a paper or a small number of coins into the satchel. The owl would then take flight, flying high to the top of the room and exiting through a small window in the ceiling.
“This way,” her father indicated with his arm to a great stone staircase at the back of the foyer. The stairs went up for a flight before requiring the climber to choose another set to the right or left. Felicity followed her father up the right-hand staircase to a balcony overlooking the foyer below.
They walked the length of the balcony, Felicity running her hand along the brass railing. From the looks of its brightness, quite a number of people had done the same.
They reached the corner office; the oak door held a brass plate, which read, “Martin Stockwell, North American Manager.”
Her father opened the door to a bright office with bookcases running from floor to ceiling. There was a large roll-top desk at one side of the room and a leather couch and chairs at the other. It could have been any office, except, again, for the owl. This one had perched itself on a brass rod held in place by a pole and resembled a lamp without the shade.
Felicity could stand it no longer. “Father,” she stammered, “how is all this poss…”
“Possible?” her father asked, completing her sentence. “It is all quite real, I assure you of that, Pumpkin,” he said with a smile. “Have a seat and I’ll explain.”
Felicity perched herself on the edge of one of the leather chairs. Her father sat comfortably on the sofa.
“Would you like a drink of water?” he asked, gesturing to the glass pitcher of water on the low table between them.
“Yes, please,” Felicity replied.She really was quite thirsty after all the events she had just been through.
Her father moved his hand ever so slightly and the pitcher rose into the air before tipping itself and pouring two glasses of water. The pitcher returned to its location and one of the glasses then floated over to Felicity, who grasped it gently as it floated in front of her.
“How do you do…” Felicity was still stammering, trying to take in the amazing things? Feats? Acts? Not events. she was seeing her father perform. Martin Stockwell had always seemed to be a perfectly normal sort or person
“It’s really quite simple, Pumpkin. In fact, with a bit of practice, you can do it, as well.
“You see, there are really only two types of people in the world: Normal people like you meet every day; and magical people —– wizards and witches and the like.”
Felicity just blinked at her father. She drank her water and looked at him for a moment. “But you don’t look like a wizard,” she said. “You look like, like a banker.”
Martin Stockwell laughed. “Yes, I do look like a banker don’t I?” he replied, looking down at his conservative three- piece black suit with the gold chain that held his Grandfather Stockwell’s pocket watch in the vest pocket.
“You see,” he continued, “there are magical people everywhere, there always have been. More in some places like England and fewer in others like here in America.”
“But I’m not magical,” said Felicity.
“Oh, but I assure you, you are, my dear. You just didn’t know you were. But others did. Take that Williams boy, for example; he has known you were for many years now.”
“Is Roger…”
“A wizard?” said her father. “Not yet, I fear, he needs training for that. But, yes, he is magical, just as you are.”
“Does all this have something to do with why he called Mary and Alice ‘Muggles,’ when they were teasing me at school?” Felicity asked. “And that man in the street talked about Muggles, too.”
Martin Stockwell sighed. “Muggles is an old word for non magical people. It’s not really polite to use it. It is sort of an insult. Do you understand?”
“Uh-huh,” Felicity nodded.
“And don’t ever use that word around your mother,” her father warned. “She really hates being called that.”
“So Mother isn’t a witch or anything?” Felicity was now getting used to the idea of witches and wizards, as strange as it was.
“No, your mother is not magical, at least not in the way you are thinking of; but she knows all about the magical world. In Europe it’s rare for magical and non-magical people to marry, but here it is really quite common.”
“But why didn’t you ever tell me about this?” Felicity’s face grew red with the question, a sure sign of her rising indignation.
“Felicity,” her father’s voice took on a serious tone, “not everyone is as accepting of magical people as your mother. Do you remember in your history class when they talked about the Salem witch trials?”
Felicity remembered quite well the stories of the young girls her age accused of witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts, so long ago. She had even seen a play about it last summer with her parents.
“But, Daddy, that was hundreds of years ago.”
“True,” her father continued.“ But those events left an impression on the magical people here in America. After that we began to wait until our children were old enough to learn how to use these powers before we told them of their existence. Salem was our darkest hour.
“Pumpkin, there are still people who fear us; who burn books they do not understand or like; who fear a religion, or a belief or a power they find strange. It is for your own protection that your mother and I kept this from you until you were ready to leave home for school. Do you understand?”
“I think so,” said Felicity, looking at the glass in her hand. She was sort of ashamed that she had become angry with her father.
“Good, then,” he said. “We should be going now. Your mother will be waiting for us, most likely with a cake, I suspect. And on our way out, you can pick out your own book as a gift at the bookshop on the corner. I bet there is something there you would find interesting.”
Felicity stood up, still holding the glass.
“Felicity,” her father said, “why don’t you give it a try?”
“What?” she asked.
“The glass,” he said, pointing at the tumbler she held in her hand. “Have it land here next to the others.”
“I don’t know how,” protested Felicity.
“It’s quite simple, just let go and tell it in your mind where you would like to land.”
Felicity thought for a long while and then let go of the glass while telling it to go to the table with the others. She watched in wide-eyed wonder as the glass floated across the table and landed, a bit hard, next to the others.
“Did I do that! ” She gasped to her proud father.
“You certainly did, Pumpkin,” he replied, with a wide grin. “You most certainly did.”
Chapter Three A Trip to the Cape
“A great deal has happened to me lately” thought Felicity as she sat in the back seat of the car on her way to her grandparents’ cottage on Cape Cod.
Indeed it had. Finding out that her father, who seemed perfectly normal, was, in fact, a powerful wizard able to perform magical acts at will would have been quite enough for Felicity, but to discover that she shared the same powers seemed overwhelming to her.
“But, really, I’m still just a school girl,” she tried to convince herself without much luck. She went back to reading the book that lay across her lap.
Felicity had persuaded her father to let her buy two books at the Tides End Bookshop. One was titled Beginning Spells and Charms and was written by some school teacher in England whose name Felicity had now forgotten, as she had not read much of it. She expected to have a good deal of such reading to do at Salem Academy, anyway.
The other book, the one she now held, was, by far, more interesting to her. It was Wizarding in America, A History by Emmet Weatherwax.
The book itself was old but had been rebound, making it look new. In its pages Felicity had read of the great wizarding family of America, including the Stockwells, whose connection to Gringotts Bank dated back centuries. As it turned out, Aunt Joan’s tales of the Stockwells being an old family were true.
Felicity also read how many of the magical peoples of early America had escaped from Massachusetts and fled; either north to what was then the uninhabited woods of Maine, where they had founded the small town of Salem and established the first school of wizardry and witchcraft in America, Salem Academy; or south to Rhode Island, where more liberal attitudes prevailed and where Providence would become the centre of the wizarding in America.
Felicity had thought how much more interesting her sixth-grade class in Rhode Island history would have been if Mrs. Thomas had only known about this book.
Felicity was in the habit of jumping around in books and, as this was such a thick title, she had picked out the parts which sounded interesting to her, such as “The Stockwells in America.” She had now turned her attention to the chapter on the Salem witch trials.
“The Salem witch trials mark one of the darkest points in the history of our people,” the chapter began.
“It is believed by some that the troubles began when agents of the first Lord Voldemort or perhaps the lord, himself, cast spells on the young women of the community to gain control over them…”
Voldemort. The name sent a shiver through her. For the first time, it occurred to Felicity that perhaps not all wizards were as benign as her father and Mr. Goldstine.
“Father?” she asked.
“Yes?” Her father answered, as they turned onto Route 3 headed for the bridge that would take them over the Cape Cod Canal and onto the cottage.
“Are all wizards good, like you and Mr. Goldstine?” she asked.
“Do you mean do wizards sometimes do bad things like normal people?”
“No, not like that, really; are there bad wizards?”
“Yes, sadly there are. Just like there are bad Mugg…”
“Martin! ” Anne Stockwell’s voice had the sharp ring of a schoolteacher correcting an errant boy.
“Just like there are bad people in the regular world,” he continued, “there are bad wizards as well. They use their powers for gain or to control others.”
“You mean like Lord Voldemort?” Felicity asked.
At the sound of that name, Martin Stockwell became visibly shaken. The car swerved wildly and horns sounded from behind them. “Voldemort,” he uttered, half under his breath.
“Martin? Are you all right?” Anne Stockwell looked white with fright and concern.
Felicity sat back in the car seat. Whoever or whatever Voldemort was, the mere mention of his name had produced an effect on her father the likes of which she had never seen. She clutched the book to her chest as the car slowed and pulled off to the side of the road.
When the car stopped, her father turned to Felicity. For the first time in her thirteen years, she saw real fear in her father’s dark green eyes.
“Where did you hear of Voldemort?” he asked, in a voice that meant that he expected a clear and immediate answer.
Felicity shrunk back further into the seat. “In this book,” she said timidly.
Martin Stockwell reached back and took the book from Felicity. He looked at the page.
“Martin! ” Anne was now breathing again following the wild ride.
“Voldemort,” Martin Stockwell whispered. “How old is this book?” he said, flipping the pages to the front and examining the title page closely.
He looked out the front window for a long time. Finally he spoke. “It was all a mistake,” he said slowly. “Some of these books had a mistake in them, that all. You needn’t worry about it.” He turned again and looked at her. “Why don’t you read your spells book? It’s far more useful and it will give you a head start in school next fall.”
Felicity realised that while her father’s words sounded like a suggestion, the tone in his voice made it clear that he expected her to comply.
“Uh, okay,” she said.
“Martin Stockwell, who…” Anne Stockwell was usually fully able to go head-to-head with her husband on any issue but, this time, he looked at her in a way that stopped her cold. She had never seen such a look on her husband’s face and hoped never to see it again.
Felicity sat back as the car eased out into traffic once again. She tried to amuse herself with moving items about with the simple spells her father had shown her, but they didn’t seem to work well. No one spoke for a very long time. It was as if a dark cloud had enveloped the Stockwell family.
Their mood brightened a bit as they drove on, and by the time they stopped to eat lunch at a small seafood restaurant in Orleans, the whole matter seemed to have been forgotten.
Felicity considered asking for her book back but then thought the better of it.
Her father turned off Route 6 and onto the local streets at East Orleans. Felicity opened the car window and could smell the sea air now. The sky was a hazy blue and seagulls pitched and dived in the wind. They drove down Beach Street until they came Standish Road and then to Oliver’s Way. At the end of Olivers Way, her father turned onto the sandy road that led to her grandparents’ cottage.
Grampa Stockwell’s cottage was a large rambling place, which faced out onto a shallow bay. It was covered with grey shingles that had never been painted. The porch looked out over the water and, above that, was a balcony; off the airy bedroom that Felicity had begged her grandfather to let her sleep in whenever she visited.Felicity was the elder Stockwells’ only grandchild and the couple indulged her in nearly every request, including this one.
Down by the water, her grandfather kept a small wooden rowboat tied to a short dock on the sandy shore.
The car came to a stop in front of the kitchen door to the cottage.
Emma Stockwell opened the screen door. She was a short, pleasant-looking woman of 70, with short grey hair. She wore a dark blue dress and a white apron with a flower print; and looked like all the other polite, well-educated, socially active women who lived in the suburbs north of Boston and summered on the Cape.
Felicity got out of the car and let Marx out of his plastic car carrier. He stretched and then ran under the cottage. Felicity knew she would not see him for several days, as Marx hated car trips and would always sulk about under the kitchen porch for a day or two before emerging.
Felicity gave her grandmother a hug. “Hi, Grandma,” she said. It seemed odd to Felicity to think of her as a witch.
“Hello, Felicity,” she replied. “I hear you had quite a birthday.”
“I sure did! ” Felicity said. She had grown to like the idea of being special.
“Well, there are some brownies in the kitchen for you,” her grandmother nodded in the direction of the door.
“Thanks,” said Felicity. As she headed for the door, she paused thinking she would get her things from the car first. As she did, she noticed her father handing her grandmother the book which had been the cause of such a commotion in the car.
“Put this someplace safe,” Martin Stockwell said to his mother in a low voice.
The cottage, with its cream-coloured interior with many windows, was bright in the afternoon sun. The blue curtains fluttered in the breeze. The furnishings were an odd assortment, none of which really matched. Felicity sat down at the table where her grandmother had placed the plate of brownies and quart of milk and a glass.
She took a brownie and started to eat it. Then she glanced at the paper carton on the table. A smile came over her face as she concentrated on the carton of milk. With a slight wave of her hand, the carton lifted off the table and started to tip. The only problem was the glass was not under it. Felicity grabbed the glass, but, by that time, it was too late. The milk was being poured onto the table and was beginning to run onto the floor.
“Felicity! ” It was her mother’s voice. “Look at the mess you’ve made! ”