Real-life's intruded over the last few months.
So, folks who follow me on Twitter may recall that I was lucky enough to get past the first round on NYC Midnight.
Here's the story.
It's all copyright me, so no re-posting, re-distribution, submissions or anything like that or I'll send the boys round.
Outside the provincial courthouse, winds scattered autumnal leaves and crisp packets.
A lot of crisp packets, Karen Sinclair noted from the boxy office.
On the train, she had been reading again through the paperwork. It was pro bono and so her Chambers regarded this as a blooding experience. They wouldn’t mind a defeat as long as it wasn’t embarrassing.
This case wasn’t what she had hoped for. Her goal was media law. Not magic.
The weekend had been spent, clawing her way through case law. Thank God Deepak was so tolerant.
As she put the white wig on, that ridiculous belch from British legal history, there was a tap at the door. Nudging his way in cautiously, the grave dodging clerk made some disparaging remark to the accused about the youth of his barrister.
And then in walked Mr. Humphreys.
Karen had seen the man’s photo before but the skin still surprised her. He was scalier than she had expected. And the tongue, not fully forked but close enough.
He emitted a sad sigh, as he folded himself into the seat, dwarfed by his tweed suit and that somewhat ludicrous Panama hat. One key part of her job was presentation and, frankly, a reptilian-like man was always going to be a hard sell but this attire…. They simply did not have the time alas to replenish his wardrobe with clothes not sourced from charity shops.
She noted that he stared at the wall, empty space between the bookshelves. Avoiding both looking out the window and having any sort of eye contact with her. How old was he? Late twenties perhaps?
“They tried Oscar Wilde here. I read that on Wikipedia.” That wasn’t the opening gambit she expected from him. Thank God, the voice sounded normal. A slight Westcountry burr and a deeper tone than she had feared.
“That may be the case but.” She paused. No speech about tolerance coming from her could play well here. Especially given the sorrow in those eyes. “The Crown’s alledging that you used magic recklessly on Saturday the 11th of July. There’s a Mrs. Harris”. The client grimaced at the mention of the name. “She claims that you cast a spell that caused both her and her son John to experience frostbite. So let’s talk about that day.”
Reticence.
“You were acting as John’s maths tutor.”
Further silence. Despite the possibility of at least a thousand pound fine and even maybe six months jail time.
“You have to open up. I’ve read your case but this isn’t a world I know. The prosecution have an expert witness from the Institute of Magicks
He stood up. “It is real. Magic is real. Magic did this!” he gesticulated at his face.
Good, she thought. They were finally getting somewhere.
“So, magic is risky. Why would you do it? You must have had a reason.”
“It was just a cloaking spell.”
“To make yourself invisible?”
“No, to make me look.” He stammered. “More human. It’s the kids. This face. It throws them.”
“Does it scare them?”
“And they’re shits. And some of them are shits and they don’t mean to be. They ask where you’re from and you say Bristol Bristol
“The spell. You’ve cast it before?”
“For the last year or so. Since I moved to London
“And there are no, ahem, weird ingredients? I’ve got the list here. It all seems kosher. But are any of these euphemisms for anything that will put off a juror unaccustomed to magic? Angel wings? Fairy thoraxes?”
“No, just conventional flowers and spices.”
There was a knock on the door. Mr. Humphreys’s police escort had arrived. It was time.
Karen stepped into the court room. The same oak panelled walls as everywhere else on the judicial circuit. But here scattered at seemingly random intervals were poles mounted glass cases housing three foot yellow crystals. Those were Cassandra crystals, somewhat larger than she had expected.
Her court briefs indicated that they were installed specifically due to their tendency to change blue if any spells are cast which are level two or greater on the Smeaton scale. It was partly to prevent barristers taking shortcuts by literally enchanting the jury. And also partly to prevent repetition of whatever had happened during Regina v Logan and Carruthers to cause the courtroom and adjacent church to catch alight in Daventry in 1852. That incident also vindicated the judiciary’s decision to move magical trials outside London England Wales
This was even more intimidating than the narcotics trial she had been involved with last year. But back then she was only taking notes and being a general dogsbody. Here she was defending a client’s liberty in an area of the law that had not been hinted at in her four years of courses.
A giant of a man, but not literally a giant, marched the short distance from the prosecution bench. “Oliver Proudfoot” he said, rather curtly and then wished her good luck, mostly for form’s sake. She did the same. He was old enough to have been doing this game long enough that he could have been a Queen’s Counsel however his robes were the standard black. Interesting.
A family of four marched in, the mother indignant and sporting some feather-studded millinery more suited for a day at the races. Her son, the eldest one, was clearly John Harris. His infamously frostbitten right hand was encased in a glove. The Harrises alleged that this may well have curtailed a promising tennis career. There was written testimony to that from the local club coach in amongst the medical paperwork. It cited second degree frostbite, equivalent to standing in the Arctic for two days without proper equipment. But it wasn’t the medical evidence that was going to win this case for her. A point of law? A sympathy vote? As she often did when the odds seemed against her, she reminded herself that in her first year at university she had managed to argue successfully in a debate that the European Union was a properly democratic organisation. She can achieve anything.
The jury shuffled in. She watched them as they took to their seats. The man with multiple piercings might be sympathetic. Her heart sank a little to see a retired military type, judging from his posture and facial hair, and two women entering their winter years. But you never know with old ladies.
Her eyes were fixed on them as the defendant entered the dock. A gasp from the gallery. A young female juror squirmed.
The usher shouted “All rise” in a heavy Scottish accent. As the court duly arose, Judge Jonathan Sekibo entered from a small door and strode to the raised central bench. Karen’s butterflies started in earnest, that exhilarating blend of excitement and fear.
Mr. Proudfoot delivered his opening statement. “This is a most unusual case. It may touch upon magic but this is not a work of fantasy. At its heart is a question of negligence on behalf of the defendant.” He then incorporated some spiel that jurors need to set aside any sympathy for the unusual appearance of Mr. Humphreys but instead focus on the law as written in the statute books. Was the man negligent? At which point, Karen finally found her strategy.
It was now her turn. She started by again instructing the jurors to put aside the defendant’s unusual appearance, for he would want them to ignore it too. He did use magic, as do a surprising number of people according to the Oxford School of Applied Philosophy’s 2003 study that found that one in seven hundred people had practised at least once. (Though, to be honest, she hoped that the prosecution would not notice the survey’s sample size.) The first question to consider, she put to the jury, was whether he had taken proper care in his use of magic. If he had, there was no case to be found. As she sat down, she hoped to God that he had been careful.
The first witness was Mrs. Pamela Harris. As she was the prosecution’s witness, Mr. Proudfoot started. “On the 11th of July, when temperatures were on average 80 degrees Farenheit, you and your son John attended Charing Cross Hospital
“We weren’t just reporting. That frostbite was so damaging that neither of us were able to use our mobile phones. I had trouble getting out our bus passes.” She had an indignant shriek about her, the sort which could play either way with the jury in Karen’s judgement.
“It was a typical warm summer’s day. So where did you develop frostbite?”
“At that thing’s flat! Erm, Mr. Humphrey’s flat.”
“And had you been anywhere else earlier? An ice rink perhaps? Or maybe sat in a walk-in freezer?”
Mrs Harris bristled at this. “We had had breakfast as normal, dropped off my youngest at football as normal and then went to Mr. Humphrey’s.”
“For what purpose?”
“Maths tuition. We are trying to get John a scholarship to Moorhampton, it’s the only way we can afford the fees. Stephen, my husband, had found an apparently good tutor on some website or other. More fool us.”
“Was this your first visit?”
“Stephen and I had met him there a week before. He looked normal then. Young. White. Completely normal. We wouldn’t have agreed to use him if he were a monster.” She was now addressing the jury.
“For clarity, are you saying he looked different then to how he is today?”
“Completely. He also looked normal at the start of the lesson. It was only as we were shivering and complaining of the cold that he went and fiddled with a candle on the table and then we saw him as he is.”
“You saw him change?”
“Yes, in seconds. It really hurt the eyes I can tell you. I hate candles anyway so I had been meaning to ask him to put it out.”
In a spot of theatre, the usher brought in a candle, which she duly recognised as the offending one.
“Had that been burning throughout?” It had. “Your witness.”
Karen had decided to eschew the bigot line of attack. “How are you in cold temperatures?”
“Pardon?”
“Do you cope well in the cold?”
“Look, Miss, we put the heating on. We wear warm clothes. We’re not rich but we’ve got enough. We take precautions.”
“So might it be that the room was unusually cold for us but set to a desired temperature for Mr. Humphrey?”
“Miss, when we entered his study, he made an incantation. I can’t tell you the exact words but I heard him say things that were not English!” Which was all Karen needed. “And don’t say I misheard or it was the pipes gurgling. It was words from his mouth, I know that much.”
Next was Sir Oswald Shah from the Institute of Magicks
“Can candles cast a spell?”
“Only if treated in the appropriate manner. For a clandidus aroximus, one would need to marinate the candle in a herb blend.”
“How long should this take?”
“Studies have found it to be most effective when done overnight.”
“And if it had not marinated enough, could there be side effects?”
“It’s like cooking. If you just throw some curry sauce on the meat in the wok, it won’t work as well but it wouldn’t start tasting of pizza.”
“Perhaps the incantation that Mrs. Harris heard…”
“Maybe but, alas, the woman does not recall the precise wording.”
“But it is possible that magic can affect the temperature of the room so dramatically?”
“Undoubtedly.”
There was an ostentatious wave from Proudfoot as he sat down.
Karen began. “You have seen the defendant’s written statement of the ingredients he used. Could any of those in excess cause such a side-effect?”
“Copious amounts of marjoram could give a blue tint to the atmosphere but otherwise no.”
“So there is no reason to believe that the defendant was neglectful in preparing the candle?”
“Given the list, no”
“Where would one typically buy these items?”
“Garden centres, supermarkets for most of this. Yarchagumba and Silajeet would have to be bought from a specialist.”
“And if a specialist substituted one of these on the quiet?”
Up jumped Proudfoot objecting wildly to pure speculation, as she knew he would. The jury was instructed to ignore the question but the seed was planted.
She had no further questions.
The final witness was the defendant, left hand visibly shaking. Proudfoot smiled. Karen felt it was hard to tell who was more reptilian.
Proudfoot teased out that he had ten year’s magic experience without incident. He then made heavy weather of emphasising that it was a chef’s responsibility to ensure the quality of his ingredients and did the defendant agree. “Yes but my usual supplier was on retreat.”
Proudfoot sat down, shaking his head theatrically.
Karen rose. “You were not born this way, were you?”
“Correct. At university, I volunteered for a magical trial. I saw the paperwork. I knew the risks”
“So why do you practise magic?”
“Purely to look normal.”
“Did you use an incantation?”
“No. I quoted Genesis as I turned the light on fiat lux et lux erat. An atheist’s private joke.”
“How often do you cast this cloaking spell?”
“For every lesson. I didn’t use to in Bristol
“And is tuition your sole source of income?”
“Yes”
“So, this spell is part of ensuring your livelihood, to which you are entitled to under the Human Rights Act. And your new supplier, was he registered?”
“No, none of them are. You have to rely on word of mouth or Google.”
“Your honour, the defence rests.”
And on that the jury retired.
There was an interminable wait, two hours, until the jury returned.
Two hours of pacing corridors and mainlining Starbucks.
The foreman cleared his throat and delivered the verdict.
Guilty.
She slumped to her desk and then looked up at Mr. Humphreys, who shrugged.
It was clearly what he expected, but that made it hurt her even more.
Magic, like life, wasn’t happy endings. Magic was real.
Copyright : Christopher Hawton 2012
