The Age of Not Believing
Title: The Age of Not Believing
Author: eric_idle_rules
Pairing: Derek/Stiles friendship, sorta Melissa/Peter
Rating: PG
Warning(s): Nazis, mentions of the London Blitz
Wordcount: 8545
Summary: Derek and Stiles are evacuated from London once the Blitz began and Melissa McCall is required, by law, to take the children into her home. When the kids learn she's magic, they go on a whirlwind adventure and make many sexual innuendos about knobs.
A/N: Based off the movie Bedknobs & Broomsticks
The sound of a high pitched alarm and explosions are all Derek can hear when he shuts his eyes at night. He hasn’t slept well since that first night the Nazis dropped bombs over his city. He doesn’t know where his family is, if they’re even alive. He’s the only member of his family on the train out of London, though, none of his siblings anywhere to be found. He’s not totally alone. There are a lot of other children on the train, an order to evacuate all the children from the city after the Blitz started.
Derek sits on the seat, arms wrapped around his legs, head in his lap. It’s such a funny feeling, because he wants to be alone, but at the same time, he wants to be surrounded by something comforting. He came from a large family, and was always around others who were there for him when he needed them… and now they’re no longer there and he’s never needed them as much as he does now.
He’s not the only one who’s alone, potentially orphaned. A lot of the children on this train are. Some are lucky enough to have their siblings with them.
There’s a little boy sitting next to him, probably no more than seven years old. He looks just as scared as Derek does, as all the kids do, because none of them know what’s going to happen to them. He’s wiggly, though, can’t sit still. And even though Derek’s sitting there, giving off a “leave me alone” feel, the kid doesn’t go anywhere, despite the fact that there are other seats in their train car.
He doesn’t say anything to the kid, but he looks down at him every once in a while. He’s pretty sure the kid is getting closer to him each time he glances down. The kid’s eyes are always on the floor of the train car, or looking at his hands were he’s twiddling his thumbs and wiggling his fingers around, as if looking for some way to stay moving even while confined to the small space of the train car.
The next time that Derek checks up on the kid, the kid looks back. He’s all big eyes and a pouty mouth, obviously scared.
They stare at each other for a while, neither knows how long, but then the kid finally says, “Hi.”
“Hi,” Derek replies.
“I’m Stiles.”
“Derek.”
As soon as introductions are made, Stiles scoots even closer. Derek doesn’t say anything. And he definitely doesn’t smile, not even a little bit, not even when his arm wraps around Stiles’ shoulder in a somewhat protective, comforting gesture. He’s scared and he’s got no family, but neither does this kid. Maybe it’s ok if they’re scared and alone together.
When the kids are all unloaded, they’re brought to a museum where a woman assigns kids to whatever family she can. She keeps families together and tries to not overwhelm any one household with a mass of children.
She had gone down the list, now at Hale, Derek, and was planning on sending just him with Mrs. McCall. However, when she called Derek’s name, she sees a young boy literally clinging onto Derek. “And you are?” she asks the younger boy.
“Stiles.”
She looks through her list and the closest name she sees to Stiles is Stilinski, followed by a name she’s sure she can’t pronounce. So she simply asks, “Stilinski?” When he nods, she goes back to her list and does some rearranging. “You two will go with Mrs. McCall. She should be in soon.”
More children are picked up and brought to their new homes while Derek and Stiles are still waiting.
Finally, Mrs. McCall shows up on her scooter, her only intention being to pick up a package she’s expecting. She goes home with far more than she ever expected. She’s informed that, by royal order, she has to take the children. It’s with some reluctance she seats them in the sidecar with her package, then drives home.
As she prepares dinner for what is now three, she thinks about how she wanted kids at one point in her life. Up until her husband died, anyway. She was left a young widow, only thirty years old when her husband passed two years ago, and while many were sure she would remarry, she decided to turn her focus to a new life goal. One that doesn’t involve a new husband or children.
She feeds the two boys, though they don’t each a whole lot of the food she has, Derek saying he enjoys toad-in-the-hole or bangers and mash, and she can’t quite understand what’s not to like about cabbage buds and elm bark.
Once they’re all finished eating, she leads them upstairs, to what was once her late father’s bedroom. “Derek, you’ll sleep on the bed. Stiles, you’ll sleep on the couch over there,” she tells them. She also tells them to wash up properly before going to bed.
After waiting a few minutes while the boys wash up and settle into sleep, she races to her back room. She doesn’t realize, though, that Derek is hatching an escape plan. “All we have to do is sneak out the window and we’ll be free. Then we work our way back to London.”
“I don’t even know what way London is from here,” Stiles says, pouting, while Derek continues to plot. He may not have anyone left in London, but what if he does? What if Stiles does? Going back to the city would be better than staying here, with someone who doesn’t even want them.
Mrs. McCall, meanwhile, opens her new package. It’s the one she’s been waiting for since she dedicated herself to her new goal, since she enrolled in Peter Browne’s School of Witchcraft. Her very own broom.
She reads the letter with the flying spell accompanying the package, knowing that this will truly help her in her war efforts. With all the grace she possesses, she sits on the broom side saddle and reads the spell aloud. The broom begins to twitch uncontrollably, sending her to the floor and itself into the wall. She hmphs at it before going to fetch it, this time straddling the broom so she can gain better control.
When she repeats the words of the spell, she manages take off and flies through the open window and into the crisp night air. It’s the most exhilarating feeling she’s ever experienced. She’s actually flying.
This is when the two boys, beginning their escape back to London, spot her in the sky. “Bloody hell,” Derek mutters. Stiles stares, awestruck. He wants to fly like that. Mrs. McCall must be a witch, must be magic. Stiles never even knew that was something he wanted, but now he wants to be magic, too.
They both watch her fly on her broomstick for about a minute, until she makes a crash landing in a shrub.
Derek leads Stiles back inside, because now that she’s out there, he doesn’t think they can make their escape. However, he thinks that maybe catching Mrs. McCall up to her witchy ways could be beneficial to them.
~~~
Breakfast is setting up to be much like dinner the night before. Until Derek asks, “You sleep well last night?”
When Mrs. McCall realizes he’s speaking to her, she answers, “Yes, thank you. Did you two sleep well?”
“Well enough,” he answers. And… it’s true. After he’d gotten over the shock of seeing someone flying and they had settled in for the night, Derek really did sleep well. For the first time in a long time. Even with Stiles’ wiggling around and mumbling in his sleep. Although maybe, just maybe, that other presence in the room helped him get to sleep. “Just too bad we didn’t get to go on a late night ride to really tire us out.”
Mrs. McCall has to quickly school her expression. “What do you mean by that?”
“I mean, it was such a nice night for flying last night.”
She has to set down the bowl of rose hips before she actually drops it on the floor. And then she sits down hard into one of the chairs around the table. “You saw that?”
“We did,” Derek tells her. “I wonder how much it’s worth to you to get us to keep our mouths shut,” he then says.
Mrs. McCall raises her eyebrow. “What exactly are you suggesting?”
“Just that us knowing comes with a price,” Derek says.
She sighs. “So, what is it you’re asking?”
“Not much, really. Some decent food on the table, maybe. What I’d give for fish ‘n chips right now.” He hasn’t had fried food in ages and he can feel the grease on his hands just thinking about it. He is suddenly very hungry. He has to stop thinking of food so he can continue with his list of demands.
Stiles is looking confusedly up at Derek as he goes through his list. He doesn’t want to put Mrs. McCall out. He likes her a whole lot. “But, Derek, I don’t think she’s a bad witch,” he finally pipes up.
“Of course I’m not, Stiles,” she tells them. “What I’m doing is for the greater good, for the war effort.”
“What could you possibly be doing for the war effort?” Derek asks.
“Well, she can fly,” Stiles says.
Mrs. McCall smiles at that. “I’m still working on that one, but yes, I can. However, that’s just a small step in what I one day hope to be able to do. I’ve got one more lesson before I become a level one witch, and from there, things are limitless.”
“There are levels?” Stiles asks, now fascinated. Normally he can’t sit still, but when he manages to find something that he can fixate on, that’s it. Of course, with fascination comes questions. “What can you do now? Besides fly? If there’s only one more lesson ‘til you’re a… a level one witch,” he says slowly so he doesn’t get tongue tied, “then what other lessons did you have?”
Derek takes this moment to cut in. “She’s probably not even a real witch. The broom must have some sort of… powering method,” he insists.
With a nod, Mrs. McCall stands. “Follow me, boys.”
She leads them both to a locked door at the backside of her house. They hadn’t even known that room existed. She lit her lamp to allow the boys to see. Derek looks around and was found it to be rather strange, all the jars and bottles filled with various things. Stiles, however, is fascinated. The first thing he does is head over to the shelf packed with jars and bottles filled with various things. He points to a jar and tries to read it, but can’t make out all the scribbly cursive. “Oi, what’s this say?” he asks.
Derek walks to him. “Why can’t you read it yourself?”
“I’m only six,” Stiles answers.
“It says ‘pickled dragon liver.’” He then looks over to Mrs. McCall. “Pickled dragon liver?”
“Indeed it is.”
“There are really dragons?!” Stiles exclaims.
“I am a witch,” she responds.
Stiles is actually stunned speechless.
“I don’t think she really is,” Derek says.
Now Stiles looks to Derek with a frown. “But we saw her!”
“I can prove it,” she tells him. “You said you wanted something from me so you’ll keep quiet. What if I give you a spell?”
Stiles is back to beaming again. He will happily take a spell.
“What kind of spell?” Derek asks.
“A traveling spell. One that will take you anywhere you want to go.”
Feeling a glimmer of hope that maybe he can go back home, Derek tamps that idea down right away before getting his hopes up too much. What good will a spell do? It’s probably a fake. But, what if it isn’t? “Fine. We’ll take the spell.”
“Perfect.” She heads to her work table where she keeps every correspondence she’s had with Professor Browne. The desk is littered with papers with the magic words written upon them. “Here it is. Do either of you have anything that you can turn?” she asks. At their blank looks she adds, “Such as a ring or bracelet?”
“Maybe,” Stiles answers. “I always like to keep some things on me.” He begins pulling random objects he’s found out of his pocket. There are a couple rocks, a bottle cap, a string and then… “I’ve got this.”
“Where on earth did you get this?” Mrs. McCall asks.
Stiles rolls the bedknob in his hand. “I took it off Derek’s bed. It twisted right off!”
“That will work perfectly. Alright, hold out the bedknob and I’ll cast the spell on it,” she says. Once she finds her spell, she says the words and the knob begins to glow in Stiles’ palm. “There. That’s it. All you have to do is tell it where you want to go, tap the knob three times and turn it one quarter turn to the left.”
Stiles is incredibly excited at the prospect.
“Here, let me see it,” Derek says.
“Actually,” Mrs. McCall begins, “only Stiles will be able to work it. It’s his, after all.”
Now Stiles is actually looking smug. And still terribly excited. He can’t wait to try it.
~~~
Once dinner is finished and the boys are sent to their room, Derek asks, “When did you take that off my bed?”
Stiles sits on the corner of the bed, turning so one leg is up and he’s turned to face Derek, then shrugs. It’s so tempting to try it right now, but he knows that he shouldn’t. Mrs. McCall trusted him with it. He does set it down on the bed, though, right between them. “Last night before I went to bed. You were still washing up,” he answers.
“Why’d you take it?”
Stiles shrugs again, picking at the comforter. “Dunno.”
“It’s not even from your bed,” Derek says.
“Yeah, I know,” Stiles replies.
“You’re really scared, aren’t you?” Derek asks, now moving so he’s sitting next to Stiles, their arms touching. Stiles starts nodding and Derek wraps his arm around the smaller boy. “I am, too,” he admits.
“I want my dad,” Stiles whispers.
Derek begins rubbing his hand up and down Stiles’ arm, comforting him. He can identify with Stiles far more than the kid knows. What he wouldn’t give to have his family back. That’s why part of him wants to escape from here and runaway back to London, because what if? What if one of his brothers or sisters or parents is there and still alive and looking for him? He won’t ever know if he stays here, even if he is far safer here than back in London. “What happened to your dad?” Derek asks quietly.
“He’s a soldier,” he says, wiping at his eyes.
“And what about your mum?”
Stiles shakes his head side to side and wipes more furiously at his eyes. Derek knows then that Stiles’ mum passed away and Stiles doesn’t want to talk about it. “It’s ok, Stiles, it’s ok.” He pauses for a moment, then says, “You can sleep here if you ever need to.”
Sniffling and wiping his nose on his sleeve Stiles turns his head and gives Derek a little smile. “Really?” When Derek nods, he replies, “Thank you.” He really doesn’t like being alone. Still looking up at Derek, he asks, “Where’s your family?”
“They… one night, a bomb was dropped right next to our house.”
Suddenly, Stiles turns his body completely and wraps Derek in the biggest hug he’s ever received from such a little kid.
~~~
After lunch two days later, Mrs. McCall tells the boys that they’re going out into town to do some shopping (feeding two young, growing boys burns through her food supply far faster than she anticipated) and so she can pick up her mail. It’s mostly the mail she cares about.
Her last lesson. The lesson she’s been waiting for since signing up for the course what feels like so long ago now.
Only, when she goes to get her mail, she doesn’t get at all what she had expected. She opens the letter in the post office and reads, I regret to inform you that, due to the war, Peter Browne’s School of Witchcraft is forced to close down. Professor Peter Browne.
The postmistress tries to engage her in conversation. She has noticed the amount of letters sent from this Professor Browne, after all. However, Mrs. McCall is having none of it. She leaves, and the two boys follow, piling into her sidecar.
It’s not until they’re back to her house that Derek asks, “What’s wrong?”
She opens the letter again and tells them. “I won’t be getting my final lesson.”
“Why not?!” Stiles asks.
She gives him a sad smile. “Due to the war, the school is closed.”
“What? It can’t just close,” Stiles insists. “How are you supposed to learn?”
“I don’t know,” she says with a shake of her head. Until an idea hits her and she wonders how she hadn’t thought of it sooner. “But you might be able to help.”
“Really? How?” he asks, now bouncing on the balls of his feet. People don’t ever ask him for help, because what can a six year old kid do?
“I need your bedknob.”
Stiles looks confused. “What’s this got to do with my knob?” he asks.
“I need it so I can travel to London and find Professor Browne,” she explains.
Taking the bedknob out of his pocket, Stiles clutches it close to him. “You told me only I could work the spell,” he says. “So… if you go, I go.”
She nods, unable to argue with him, because she did tell him that. He would be the only one to work the spell, and she doesn’t have time to find another item to enchant. Plus, a bed would be a rather convenient way to travel. They head upstairs and Derek leans against the far wall away from the bed.
Mrs. McCall settles on the bed and Stiles is down at the end, ready to twist the knob back on and send them to London. Stiles looks over to Derek and cocks his head. “Aren’t you coming, Derek? You wanted to go back to London,” he says.
“Well, that’s not the way to do it,” he replies, still not totally sure if he believes in this whole magic mumbo-jumbo. “Magic isn’t real, Stiles.”
“Of course it is, Derek,” Mrs. McCall says, giving him a little smile as she ties a scarf around her hair so it doesn’t fly everywhere during their trip. “You’ve got to believe.”
Derek continues to lean against the wall, wondering to himself just what he has left to believe in anymore. How can something so farfetched as magic be something he can believe in?
“Please, Derek?” Stiles asks him, giving Derek the saddest face he’s ever seen on the kid.
“Fine, but when it doesn’t work don’t blame me if I say I told you so.” With that, he sits down on the bed, feet planted on the floor.
Stiles’ expression turns on a dime and he’s now all smiles. Derek knew he was faking it. “What do I do again?” Stiles asks.
Mrs. McCall thinks back to the spell and tries to recall how to work the spell. “You screw the knob back on, tap it three times and give it a twist one quarter turn to the left.”
Stiles does just that and… the bed doesn’t move.
“See, I told you so,” Derek says, standing up. “I knew it wouldn’t work. Magic is not real.”
“Ah, I know what it is! We forgot to tell the bed where to take us,” Mrs. McCall says. “Derek, you may want to sit back down.”
“I think I’ll figure out my own way to get back to London,” he tells them.
Stiles doesn’t want to go without Derek, but he still wants to use his spell. So while he’s reluctant, he decides he’s going to try again. “Where are we going?”
“I want you to say, ‘Bed, take us to Professor Peter Browne, London.’”
Stiles closes his eyes and concentrates. He believes. This will work. It has to work. “Bed, take us to Professor Peter Browne, London.” He then taps the bedknob and gives it a quarter turn. And then the entire bed begins to glow. It shakes and rattles and then, before it vanishes, Derek hops back on. Maybe there is something to be said about this magic thing.
The next thing they know, they’ve landed in London. Derek takes a deep breath and it smells like he remembered. Dirty, sooty, slightly sour and just like home. But now that he’s here, he has to wonder what he’d have done if he had managed to run away with Stiles and they managed to get back here. Where would he have gone? Who would he have lived with? He’s safe now with Mrs. McCall, and Stiles is such a huge comfort to have with him. “Well, now what?” he asks. They’re here, but there’s no sign of this Peter Browne fellow. “I don’t see him any-”
“There!” Stiles shouts when he sees a man walking by with a suitcase, the name Browne emblazoned on the front.
They follow him, getting strange looks as they push the bed through the streets, but they have to keep up with him. When they do spot him again, he’s pitching bogus magic tricks and illusions to the crowd, trying to show them that they can astound just like him. However, even from a distance, Derek and Stiles can see all the strings and wires holding things together.
“That’s the professor?” Derek asks, disbelieving. There’s something about the guy that does seem somewhat familiar to him, though. Was he one of his neighbors? He must have seen him around the city at some point. Or maybe he’d seen him doing one of his horrid street magic performances. “This guy’s rotten.”
“I don’t think he’s really magic, not like Mrs. McCall,” Sties says.
After the entire bed travel thing, Derek really can’t deny that maybe there is such a thing as magic.
Mrs. McCall walks around from behind the headboard to get a closer look at the crowd dissipating before her professor. She approaches him, though, and he looks thrilled at the prospect of an actual customer. “Ah, good day, young lady,” he greets.
However, before he can go into his spiel about products that beautify, she says, “I’m Mrs. McCall, one of your students, and I want to know why you’ve shut your school down.”
He starts packing up his box of tricks, which folds up neatly into the suitcase the boys had seen him carrying earlier, and says, “I believe that was explained in the letter I sent out, was it not?”
“But you don’t understand,” she says, moving in front of him so he can’t simply walk off without a better explanation. “I was waiting for one more spell, the reason I signed up for your correspondence classes.”
He tries to side step her, saying, “I’m sorry, but I can’t do-”
“Oh no you don’t,” Derek says, stepping in his way. “We traveled all the way here and you’re not getting away without giving her that spell.”
“Why do you want the spell anyway?” he then asks. “It’s just a whole jumble of words, some bogus hocus pocus.”
“I’ll have you know that it was your bogus hocus pocus traveling spell that brought us all the way here,” she informs him.
Peter actually looks stunned. “You’re joking, right?”
“I never joke,” Mrs. McCall says.
“She’s right!” Stiles pipes up. “She put a spell on my knob and we used it to travel here.”
“She did what with your what?” Peter asks.
“As I said before, I used your travel spell.”
“That’s not possible. I just found these spells in some old book! They’re just some old words!”
“I can assure you, they’re not simply words. Can you show me this book?” Mrs. McCall asks. “I can prove to you that they’re not just words on a piece of paper.”
“Well… I don’t have the book with me, but I suppose I can show you. It’s at my house,” he tells them.
“Perfect. We can take the bed,” she says, walking towards the bed. “Aren’t you coming?” she turns around and asks him when she sees that he’s still standing around.
“I… yes,” he agrees, dumbfounded, and begins following her and her two children.
Once they all get back to the bed, Mrs. McCall sits down on the bed, Derek and Stiles kneeling at the end, all three looking to Peter. “Aren’t you going to take a seat?”
“I don’t know if this is good form to join a lady on her bed… in public.”
“Well, we’re not going to get to your house without it, so I suggest taking a seat.” He does so with some reluctance. He’s never met a woman quite like her before, that’s for certain. “Now, your address?”
“You’re really serious about this, aren’t you?”
She simply raises an eyebrow at him.
“Ok, fine.” He tells he the address, but then she tells him to repeat it to Stiles, because he’ll be the one doing the spell. He’s close to up and leaving, because while he’s certainly seen some interesting people in his life, has conned a handful of people himself, he can’t believe he’s letting this woman and two kids take him for a ride like this. But he tells the little kid his address, watching as the kid tells the bed where to go, taps then twists the knob. When the bed begins to shake he turns his body and grasps onto the headboard because what the hell is happening?
The next thing he knows, they’re all at his house. On the bed. “Bloody hell,” he mutters as he steps off the bed. “At least we won’t have to worry about neighbors spotting us.” He leads the group to the front door, past an undetonated explosive in the front yard. It becomes a talking point.
“What is that?” Mrs. McCall asks.
“I suppose I should explain. This isn’t exactly my house,” he tells her. “It was simply empty one day and I decided to watch over it.”
Mrs. McCall shakes her head and walks to the door.
Derek really doesn’t want to look at the bomb anymore, so he’s quick to follow Mrs. McCall, and Stiles is quick to follow Derek.
“Where’s this book?” she asks as soon as she’s let inside the house.
“We’ll get to the book as soon as we have some lunch. I don’t know about you, but I can’t work on an empty stomach.”
The kids nod in agreement. Mrs. McCall really just wants to get going in her search because there’s no time to waste. There’s been talk of a Nazi invasion for so long now and she doesn’t want to be unprepared when it happens. However, she is a guest in… in someone’s home, anyway, and she’ll need Peter’s help when it comes to searching.
The dinner is delicious and while it’s quite the change of pace for Mrs. McCall, both Stiles and Derek are salivating over the food on their plates. They haven’t seen fried food since going to live with her.
“Please, can we find this book now?” Mrs. McCall asks once their plates are cleared and their bellies full.
“Of course, of course. Come along.”
They all follow, Stiles dragging Derek into a nursery along the way because he sees a toy train set that he really wants to play with. They wouldn’t have been helpful looking for some book, anyway.
It’s only a few minutes later that Stiles is done with the train set and has moved onto a cluster of stuffed bears. That doesn’t last long, either. The next thing he spots is a cloth book called, “The Isle of Naboombu,” which he insists upon reading aloud to Derek. So, naturally, Derek is a good sport and sits down in a chair a little too small for him while Stiles begins to read.
Mrs. McCall is next door in the library and is having no luck with her book. And Peter is absolutely no help at all. Now that he’s seen her perform magic, with his spells no less, he wants them to go onto bigger and better things. He’d no longer have to do pretend illusions, not now that he’s got someone who can do actual magic.
“You and I could travel the world, you know,” he tells her as she’s searching high and low for this book of spells.
Once she realizes Peter’s speaking, she quickly turns her head and says, “Hmm?”
“You can do magic! I have quite a way with words, if I do say so myself. Just imagine us together! We could stun and mystify everywhere we go!” he says. “What’s your name?” he then asks.
“Mrs. McCall,” she tells him.
“Your first name is missus?”
“Melissa,” she tells him, though she’s still searching through the large library of books.
“Melissa. Peter and Melissa’s traveling magic show would take the world by storm! Think about it. Think of the places we could go and the things we could do!”
She stands up, now rather annoyed. “Mr. Browne, I enrolled in your correspondence school for this final spell. Do you not understand its importance? I need this book so I can see it for myself. Look, if you help me to find this book, I’ll consider it, ok?”
“You will?” He becomes rather giddy at the thought of being able to travel with Melissa. Oh, she is a beautiful woman, however, she did introduce herself as Mrs. McCall. “And your husband and children would come along?” he asks in an attempt to be subtle.
“My husband passed two years ago,” she informs him.
“My sympathies,” he says.
“And those two are not mine.”
“They’re not?” He is actually quite shocked about that one. “Why do you have children with you, then?”
“They were evacuated from London and sent to stay in the country with me.”
“So you brought them back to London?” Peter asks. He doesn’t get a reply.
“Please, Mr. Browne, could you please help me locate this book?” When Peter continues to go on about how they could make such a great show, travel the world, instead of helping to find the book, she gives him a warning that her patience is running thin. And when he still talks about their show, she turns him into a little Scottish terrier. “Now, show me the book.”
Even as a dog, trotting on over to the book of spells, he has to admit that this woman is good. Really good. She follows him to the book, smiling when she sees him sitting on it. “Thanks you.” Picking it up, she reads it, “The Spells of Deaton,” and runs her fingers down the leather cover.
He feels the spell wearing off and changes back. “I had no idea you could do that.”
“Perhaps you should have tried your own spells out first, then,” she says, flipping through the pages of the book. She nears the end of the book, finding the spell she’s been waiting for on the second to last page. “This is it. Substitutiary Locomotion.” She reads the page, then flips it over to the final page of the book. And it’s not there. There’s no back to the book. “Where’s the rest of it?” she demands.
“That, Melissa, is the real reason I had to shut down my correspondence class. The book has been ripped in half, and I don’t have the other piece.”
She slumps into a chair. “All this time… I’ve spent all this time looking for this spell and now… where could it even be? It could be anywhere.”
Peter finds that he really doesn’t enjoy seeing Melissa looking so down and defeated, when before she was so determined. “If it’s going to be anywhere, it will be on Portobello Road.”
“Where?”
“Street where the riches of ages are stowed,” he tells her. “Anything and everything a chap can unload is sold off the barrows in Portobello Road. Come on, we’ll take that bed of yours.”
“Boys, come along,” she says as she’s ushered out of the house and to the bed, which had been left in front of the house.
The two boys leave the play room, Stiles rolling up the book and shoving it into his pocket without anyone noticing. They all sit on the bed, Mrs. McCall readjusting the scarf around her head. “Professor, if you could tell him where to take us?”
“I want us to go to Portobello Road.”
“Bed, take us to Portobello Road,” Stiles says, giving the customary taps and quarter turn. The bed glows and is soon off, coming to a stop at the street. It’s loaded with stands of all kinds. There’s clothing, paintings, rare artifacts. Peter had been right in that one could find anything and everything here. However, there’s only one thing Mrs. McCall is looking for. It needs to be here. She needs that final spell. She takes off, digging through piles upon piles of books.
Peter, Stiles and Derek are of absolutely no help. Stiles is interested in anything shiny while Derek is highly intrigued by the swords and pistols. Peter is quite interested in watching Mrs. McCall. He picks up a book here and there, reads the title and places it back on the stacks. She’s holding up the half of the book she has, trying to compare, but nothing matches.
The time flies by, Stiles and Derek making the most of it by trying on hats and clothes and having a sword fight, that may have gotten them spoken to, but it was worth it.
However, it’s not enough time for Mrs. McCall. She doesn’t find her book before the stalls begin to pack up and move off for the night. “No! No, you can’t leave!” she says, even as she drops the book down to the cart that’s getting pushed away. She sags against a lamp post, sighing. “I guess that’s it. It wasn’t here.” Holding up the book, she looks at the final page.
“I hear you’re looking for something,” comes a voice from out of nowhere. All their heads whip around to a woman dressed in black.
“Who are you?” Mrs. McCall asks.
“I’m Kali.” She moves her hands just enough to show the glint of a blade, and that gets their attention. “Let me take you to my boss.”
She leads them down an alley, giving them rather confused looks about the bed, which Peter claims was a purchase they just made. She doesn’t believe them, but can’t otherwise understand why else they’d be wheeling around a bed.
“I’ve got them,” she says when they’re all in the building down the stairs off the alley, cringing when the bed slams into the wall.
“Good.” He stands up from behind his desk, leaning over. “My name is Deucalion.” He grabs his part of the book and stares back at Mrs. McCall. “I heard you were looking for this.”
Her eyes go wide when she sees it. It’s right there in front of her. All this waiting and searching has paid off. “May I?” she asks.
He walks around his desk and stands next to Mrs. McCall excitement on their faces as the two halves are brought together. Now that the book is back together, they’re about to get their answers. “The substitutiary locomotion spell is used to bring life to inanimate objects,” Mrs. McCall reads aloud the very end of the page she has, before continuing onto the next, to the page she’s never seen before. “The spell is found upon the Star of Deaton, leader of the Island of Naboombu.”
Her heart drops.
Stiles’ head whips up, and looks to Derek. They both know that name.
Deucalion scans the pages repeatedly, looking for the spell. Why isn’t the spell in the book? “All this time,” he says, over and over. “All this time searching and it’s not here. I thought for sure it would be in your half.”
“And I was certain it was in yours… I guess now we’ll never know,” she says, defeated.
“You know, not only have I been searching for this book for years, I’ve scoured every map known to man searching for the Island. It doesn’t exist. There’s legends, but there are legends of Atlantis, too.”
“What do they say?” Mrs. McCall asks.
“That there is one man upon the island, Deaton. The rest of the inhabitants are wolves. Werewolves,” he amends. “He’s not the leader, but he helps and heals the wolves when they are unable to heal themselves. But, as I said, this island does not exist.”
Stiles looks back over to Derek, ready to say something, say that the island does exist, because they read a book all about it. Derek puts a finger over his mouth, shaking his head side to side, silently telling Stiles to be quiet. “I think we should go home,” Derek suggests.
Mrs. McCall doesn’t know what to do. She’ll know just as much as she does about the spell at home, she supposes. So, she sighs and nods. “Thank you for your time,” she says to Deucalion.
“You’re leaving? So soon?” he asks as Kali goes to lock the door.
She sits down on the bed with the other three, the book on her lap. “It won’t do me any good being here. None of us have the spell. None of us will ever have it. Stiles, if you would take us home?”
Very quickly, Stiles says, “Bed, take us home.” Once he twists the knob and the bed shimmers, it gives them a short amount of time to actually see the look of shock on Deucalion’s face before they disappear.
The second they land back in the bedroom they started their journey from, Stiles says, “I know the spell!”
“What?” Mrs. McCall asks. She looks confused when Derek nods in agreement. He’s seen the spell, knows exactly what Stiles is talking about.
“I know it! I know the spell, I really do,” he insists, pulling out the folded up book. He flips to the page where it shows the star. “See, right here. Treguna Mekoides Trecorum Satis Dee.” He points to each word as he slowly sounds it out, showing it off to Mrs. McCall.
Her jaw is practically to the floor. “I’ll be damned,” she mutters. “May I see it?” Stiles hands her the book and she runs her fingers over the cloth. “Treguna Mekoides Trecorum Satis Dee,” she repeats. Now looking up from the book, she looks to Peter. “Should we try it?”
“No time like the present,” he says.
They leave the bedroom and head downstairs, where Mrs. McCall grabs a pair of her shoes and leaves them in the middle of the floor. In her head, she’s repeating the words of the spell over and over, so she doesn’t forget them. “Is everyone ready?” she asks.
“Go on, Melissa,” Peter encourages.
She takes a deep breath and recites the words, “Treguna Mekoides Trecorum Satis Dee.”
“Nothing happened!” Stiles shouts, and Derek flicks him on the head. “Hey!”
“Melissa, if I may make a suggestion?” He strides over to her, looking down at the shoes, then up at her. “Try saying it with a little… rhythm. The way you’re saying it now is so flat.”
“That’s how I always recite my spells!”
“When I wrote my spells, I added the flair into them. This one I didn’t have before. You need to add it yourself. Do it with a flair, Melissa.” He then steps back, leaving Melissa to it.
This time she takes a couple breaths. When she says the words of the spell, ““Treguna Mekoides Trecorum Satis Dee,” she does add rhythm to it, makes the words flow into something more of a song than a traditional spell.
The heel of the left shoe gives a little tap. The right follows. Melissa’s eyes go wide and she turns to Peter, saying, “It worked!” before looking back to the shoes, which are now doing something of a jig on the floor.
The shoes aren’t the only thing affected by the spell, though. Soon, a pair of Derek’s pants, one of Stiles’ shirts and Mrs. McCall’s nightgown enter the room on their own. “Oh my god,” Derek says.
Stiles is utterly fascinated. He’s actually watching Derek’s pants walk around the room, and Derek isn’t wearing them. He’s never letting go of the book now, not when this spell is in it. And he wants to learn that spell. He wants to make things move around, and Mrs. McCall said she wanted to use it for the war effort, so if he learns it, he can help people, too.
Things soon start to get a little out of control. Stiles’ shirt and Derek’s pants began wrestling one another, Mrs. McCall’s night gown is flashing Peter and the shoes are spinning around and around on their heels.
“I don’t know how to control it,” Mrs. McCall says to Peter. “Would you stop that!” she says as she walks over to him and holds down the hem of her nightgown, glaring at Peter for actually looking.
“Focus on the items and the connection you have with them from the spell,” Peter tells her, placing his hand on her shoulder. He thinks that’s how it works, anyway.
She shuts her eyes, not bothering to bat away Peter’s hand, and tries to focus on the energy she used for the spell. Then lets that spell break. All the floating clothing drops to the floor in heaps. Peter grins.
~~~
At breakfast the next morning, which Peter insists upon cooking, he makes a rather startling confession. “There’s something you all should know about me,” he says as he serves up a fried egg on toast to Derek.
Mrs. McCall looks at him with narrowed eyes. She let him stay on her couch that night, for which he was eternally grateful, since he had nowhere else to go. “What would that be?”
He takes a seat with his own plate and cuts into his eggs and toast. “My name isn’t actually Peter Browne.”
“I beg your pardon?” She’s seen the bag he carries around with the name Browne right on it.
He finished chewing his bite of breakfast before answering, “I found that bag in a pile of trash on the side of the road one day. I thought it would make for a good enough alias for my correspondence class.”
“What is your name then?” she asks.
“Peter Hale.”
“What?” Derek asks, head whipping over. “What did you say your name was?”
“Peter Hale,” he repeats.
“I’m… my name is Derek Hale,” he says.
“You’re Derek?” Peter asks. “I haven’t seen you since you were crawling around in diapers.”
Stiles giggles at the thought of Derek actually in diapers.
“So you’re the Uncle Peter that left and through the years never kept in contact with any of your family?” Derek raises an eyebrow at him. “You know I’m probably the only Hale left now, right? You’ve been in London all this time, haven’t you? Surely you’ve heard about all the bombings and the deaths. Like you sister.”
“Derek, I… I didn’t know.” He left when Derek was still very young, went off to travel the world. When he returned to London, he found that abandoned house and kept to himself... and the dirty streets of the inner city. He didn’t even know if the rest of his family was still there.
“Well, now you do.”
Peter doesn’t know what to do. It’s not often that he’s so stunned that he has no plan of action. But learning that Derek is his nephew, his only remaining family, is not something he ever expected. So, he ends up standing up from the table, urging Derek up, as well, and pulls him into a tight embrace.
~~~
It’s the following night when several small boats pull up onto the shores of the small town where the boys are staying. Mrs. McCall’s house is the first house they come up upon as they head up the shore.
They’re around the dinner table, the four of them, when strange noises come from outside. “Boys, follow me,” Mrs. McCall says. “Now.”
Stiles is confused, because they haven’t finished dinner yet. “But-”
Derek grabs a pork chop and hands it to Stiles before taking his other hand and leading him along behind Mrs. McCall.
They’re led into the back room, where Mrs. McCall keeps her spells and magical ingredients. That’s when the front door is knocked in. Stiles freezes up and clings onto Derek and the pork chop. “We’ve got to get out of here,” she whispers.
“And go where?” Peter asks.
“We’ll figure that out as we go.” She quickly grabs her spell book and leads them out the window, the same one she flew out of for the first time just a week ago.
They manage to get out of the house, but she doesn’t want to take the chance of them all being seen. She looks up the spell she used once to turn Peter into a little dog and uses it again. She now has three little dogs sitting around her. “Follow me.” They head out onto the street, the boys and Peter trotting along behind her. She doesn’t see anyone, which is a relief. When they reach they museum, where she originally met the boys, this is where she stops. “In here.”
The spell wears off after a few minutes and soon they’re all turned back. “That was fun!” Stiles says. “I want to learn that one,” he mutters quietly to himself, filing it away for later.
“We’ve got to get my house back,” she says, looking around at them and the museum. It’s the how she’s most concerned about.
“Use what’s around you,” Peter replies.
She points to one of the many suits of armor that surround them. “This is hundreds of years old!”
“It worked back then, right?”
“A metal suit of armor can’t protect against machine guns,” she points out.
He counters, “Who, exactly, would need to be protected, if there’s no one wearing the armor?”
It’s like a light going off in Melissa’s head. “Peter, you are a genius.” She kisses his cheek and both Derek and Stiles make a face. She looks around them again and takes a deep breath. There are a lot of things she’s going to have to control. She’s performed the spell only the one time and this is on a much larger scale. But tonight she’s got to protect her town, her country and her makeshift family. It’s a night of great importance. Shutting her eyes, she focuses her energy and says, “Treguna Mekoides Trecorum Satis Dee.” She feels the lifeless suits of armor become animated. “Wish me luck,” she says, before rummaging through the janitor closet to find a broom.
Stiles, Derek and Peter watch the battle from a distance in complete awe. Peter can’t decide if he wants to look up to Melissa, flying over the battlefield or the battle itself. Stiles’ jaw has been on the ground for several minutes now as he sees the Nazis shooting at the armor, only to watch the armor empty out their helmets and continue to advance in their charge.
It’s not a long battle, the Nazis realizing that there’s no way they can win a fight against armor, with no man inside. Armor that keeps coming towards them despite round after round being shot into them. There’s no stopping them.
So, they turn their tails and leave. But not before shooting down the witch flying above the sky. They curse at her, shoot at her, and when a bullet strikes the end of the broom, she falls from the sky, and all the armor slowly droops to the ground. They did their damage, though. They drove away the impending attack.
As the Germans return to their boats and leave the shore, the three boys run to find Melissa, hoping that she’s ok. When they find her tangled in some bushes, they all let out a collective breath. “You’re ok,” Peter says, relieved.
She brushes herself off after accepting Peter’s hand pulling her up and out of the bushes. “Thank you. They left, right?”
“Yes, they left. But are you sure you’re ok?”
“Yes, I’m fine,” she tells him, but allows him to wrap his arm around her. Stiles and Derek also get closer to her, Stiles wrapping his arms around her legs and Derek putting a hand on her shoulder. “Let’s go inside,” she says to them.
Peter does a quick search of the house for anything they could have left behind, because they don’t need a forgotten, unseen bomb to go off during the night. When he doesn’t find anything, he informs the others and sits on the couch, exhausted.
Melissa is busy getting the boys ready for bed. It’s late and there’s been a lot of excitement that day, but they’re all drained. However, as she gets Stiles his pajamas, he asks, “Mrs. McCall? Could you teach me?”
“Teach you what?”
“Magic,” he answers. “I know I’ve got my knob, but I want to learn more. I want to turn people into puppies and make things move and I want to help people, like you.”
“You want to learn magic? You know not everyone can, right?” she asks gently, not wanting to crush his hopes.
He turns to Derek repeats the words he heard of the spell she used to turn them into dogs earlier. When Derek is sitting on front of them, wagging his tail, Stiles turns back to Melissa with a grin. “I think I can learn.”
“I’ll be damned,” she mutters to herself. “I would be happy to show you. And I think Peter will help, too.”
“My dad will be so proud of me!” Stiles says.
“Yes, he will,” she tells him. She has no idea what’s happened with Stiles’ dad, if he’s dead or injured or still alive and fighting on the front lines, but she hopes that he’s ok, that he’ll come back for Stiles. She gives them both a warm smile and says, “Goodnight, boys,” before leaving the room.
Once she’s gone, Stiles crawls onto the bed with a freshly turned back to human Derek and puts the knob back on. He doesn’t tell it to go anywhere, so it stays put, but he looks to Derek and asks, “Do you think the island of Naboombu really exists?”
Derek shrugs. “To be honest, I don’t know anymore. I never thought witches existed, but I guess I was wrong about that.”
Stiles gets under the covers and lies down on the pillow. “I think we should find out one day.”
Author: eric_idle_rules
Pairing: Derek/Stiles friendship, sorta Melissa/Peter
Rating: PG
Warning(s): Nazis, mentions of the London Blitz
Wordcount: 8545
Summary: Derek and Stiles are evacuated from London once the Blitz began and Melissa McCall is required, by law, to take the children into her home. When the kids learn she's magic, they go on a whirlwind adventure and make many sexual innuendos about knobs.
A/N: Based off the movie Bedknobs & Broomsticks
The sound of a high pitched alarm and explosions are all Derek can hear when he shuts his eyes at night. He hasn’t slept well since that first night the Nazis dropped bombs over his city. He doesn’t know where his family is, if they’re even alive. He’s the only member of his family on the train out of London, though, none of his siblings anywhere to be found. He’s not totally alone. There are a lot of other children on the train, an order to evacuate all the children from the city after the Blitz started.
Derek sits on the seat, arms wrapped around his legs, head in his lap. It’s such a funny feeling, because he wants to be alone, but at the same time, he wants to be surrounded by something comforting. He came from a large family, and was always around others who were there for him when he needed them… and now they’re no longer there and he’s never needed them as much as he does now.
He’s not the only one who’s alone, potentially orphaned. A lot of the children on this train are. Some are lucky enough to have their siblings with them.
There’s a little boy sitting next to him, probably no more than seven years old. He looks just as scared as Derek does, as all the kids do, because none of them know what’s going to happen to them. He’s wiggly, though, can’t sit still. And even though Derek’s sitting there, giving off a “leave me alone” feel, the kid doesn’t go anywhere, despite the fact that there are other seats in their train car.
He doesn’t say anything to the kid, but he looks down at him every once in a while. He’s pretty sure the kid is getting closer to him each time he glances down. The kid’s eyes are always on the floor of the train car, or looking at his hands were he’s twiddling his thumbs and wiggling his fingers around, as if looking for some way to stay moving even while confined to the small space of the train car.
The next time that Derek checks up on the kid, the kid looks back. He’s all big eyes and a pouty mouth, obviously scared.
They stare at each other for a while, neither knows how long, but then the kid finally says, “Hi.”
“Hi,” Derek replies.
“I’m Stiles.”
“Derek.”
As soon as introductions are made, Stiles scoots even closer. Derek doesn’t say anything. And he definitely doesn’t smile, not even a little bit, not even when his arm wraps around Stiles’ shoulder in a somewhat protective, comforting gesture. He’s scared and he’s got no family, but neither does this kid. Maybe it’s ok if they’re scared and alone together.
When the kids are all unloaded, they’re brought to a museum where a woman assigns kids to whatever family she can. She keeps families together and tries to not overwhelm any one household with a mass of children.
She had gone down the list, now at Hale, Derek, and was planning on sending just him with Mrs. McCall. However, when she called Derek’s name, she sees a young boy literally clinging onto Derek. “And you are?” she asks the younger boy.
“Stiles.”
She looks through her list and the closest name she sees to Stiles is Stilinski, followed by a name she’s sure she can’t pronounce. So she simply asks, “Stilinski?” When he nods, she goes back to her list and does some rearranging. “You two will go with Mrs. McCall. She should be in soon.”
More children are picked up and brought to their new homes while Derek and Stiles are still waiting.
Finally, Mrs. McCall shows up on her scooter, her only intention being to pick up a package she’s expecting. She goes home with far more than she ever expected. She’s informed that, by royal order, she has to take the children. It’s with some reluctance she seats them in the sidecar with her package, then drives home.
As she prepares dinner for what is now three, she thinks about how she wanted kids at one point in her life. Up until her husband died, anyway. She was left a young widow, only thirty years old when her husband passed two years ago, and while many were sure she would remarry, she decided to turn her focus to a new life goal. One that doesn’t involve a new husband or children.
She feeds the two boys, though they don’t each a whole lot of the food she has, Derek saying he enjoys toad-in-the-hole or bangers and mash, and she can’t quite understand what’s not to like about cabbage buds and elm bark.
Once they’re all finished eating, she leads them upstairs, to what was once her late father’s bedroom. “Derek, you’ll sleep on the bed. Stiles, you’ll sleep on the couch over there,” she tells them. She also tells them to wash up properly before going to bed.
After waiting a few minutes while the boys wash up and settle into sleep, she races to her back room. She doesn’t realize, though, that Derek is hatching an escape plan. “All we have to do is sneak out the window and we’ll be free. Then we work our way back to London.”
“I don’t even know what way London is from here,” Stiles says, pouting, while Derek continues to plot. He may not have anyone left in London, but what if he does? What if Stiles does? Going back to the city would be better than staying here, with someone who doesn’t even want them.
Mrs. McCall, meanwhile, opens her new package. It’s the one she’s been waiting for since she dedicated herself to her new goal, since she enrolled in Peter Browne’s School of Witchcraft. Her very own broom.
She reads the letter with the flying spell accompanying the package, knowing that this will truly help her in her war efforts. With all the grace she possesses, she sits on the broom side saddle and reads the spell aloud. The broom begins to twitch uncontrollably, sending her to the floor and itself into the wall. She hmphs at it before going to fetch it, this time straddling the broom so she can gain better control.
When she repeats the words of the spell, she manages take off and flies through the open window and into the crisp night air. It’s the most exhilarating feeling she’s ever experienced. She’s actually flying.
This is when the two boys, beginning their escape back to London, spot her in the sky. “Bloody hell,” Derek mutters. Stiles stares, awestruck. He wants to fly like that. Mrs. McCall must be a witch, must be magic. Stiles never even knew that was something he wanted, but now he wants to be magic, too.
They both watch her fly on her broomstick for about a minute, until she makes a crash landing in a shrub.
Derek leads Stiles back inside, because now that she’s out there, he doesn’t think they can make their escape. However, he thinks that maybe catching Mrs. McCall up to her witchy ways could be beneficial to them.
~~~
Breakfast is setting up to be much like dinner the night before. Until Derek asks, “You sleep well last night?”
When Mrs. McCall realizes he’s speaking to her, she answers, “Yes, thank you. Did you two sleep well?”
“Well enough,” he answers. And… it’s true. After he’d gotten over the shock of seeing someone flying and they had settled in for the night, Derek really did sleep well. For the first time in a long time. Even with Stiles’ wiggling around and mumbling in his sleep. Although maybe, just maybe, that other presence in the room helped him get to sleep. “Just too bad we didn’t get to go on a late night ride to really tire us out.”
Mrs. McCall has to quickly school her expression. “What do you mean by that?”
“I mean, it was such a nice night for flying last night.”
She has to set down the bowl of rose hips before she actually drops it on the floor. And then she sits down hard into one of the chairs around the table. “You saw that?”
“We did,” Derek tells her. “I wonder how much it’s worth to you to get us to keep our mouths shut,” he then says.
Mrs. McCall raises her eyebrow. “What exactly are you suggesting?”
“Just that us knowing comes with a price,” Derek says.
She sighs. “So, what is it you’re asking?”
“Not much, really. Some decent food on the table, maybe. What I’d give for fish ‘n chips right now.” He hasn’t had fried food in ages and he can feel the grease on his hands just thinking about it. He is suddenly very hungry. He has to stop thinking of food so he can continue with his list of demands.
Stiles is looking confusedly up at Derek as he goes through his list. He doesn’t want to put Mrs. McCall out. He likes her a whole lot. “But, Derek, I don’t think she’s a bad witch,” he finally pipes up.
“Of course I’m not, Stiles,” she tells them. “What I’m doing is for the greater good, for the war effort.”
“What could you possibly be doing for the war effort?” Derek asks.
“Well, she can fly,” Stiles says.
Mrs. McCall smiles at that. “I’m still working on that one, but yes, I can. However, that’s just a small step in what I one day hope to be able to do. I’ve got one more lesson before I become a level one witch, and from there, things are limitless.”
“There are levels?” Stiles asks, now fascinated. Normally he can’t sit still, but when he manages to find something that he can fixate on, that’s it. Of course, with fascination comes questions. “What can you do now? Besides fly? If there’s only one more lesson ‘til you’re a… a level one witch,” he says slowly so he doesn’t get tongue tied, “then what other lessons did you have?”
Derek takes this moment to cut in. “She’s probably not even a real witch. The broom must have some sort of… powering method,” he insists.
With a nod, Mrs. McCall stands. “Follow me, boys.”
She leads them both to a locked door at the backside of her house. They hadn’t even known that room existed. She lit her lamp to allow the boys to see. Derek looks around and was found it to be rather strange, all the jars and bottles filled with various things. Stiles, however, is fascinated. The first thing he does is head over to the shelf packed with jars and bottles filled with various things. He points to a jar and tries to read it, but can’t make out all the scribbly cursive. “Oi, what’s this say?” he asks.
Derek walks to him. “Why can’t you read it yourself?”
“I’m only six,” Stiles answers.
“It says ‘pickled dragon liver.’” He then looks over to Mrs. McCall. “Pickled dragon liver?”
“Indeed it is.”
“There are really dragons?!” Stiles exclaims.
“I am a witch,” she responds.
Stiles is actually stunned speechless.
“I don’t think she really is,” Derek says.
Now Stiles looks to Derek with a frown. “But we saw her!”
“I can prove it,” she tells him. “You said you wanted something from me so you’ll keep quiet. What if I give you a spell?”
Stiles is back to beaming again. He will happily take a spell.
“What kind of spell?” Derek asks.
“A traveling spell. One that will take you anywhere you want to go.”
Feeling a glimmer of hope that maybe he can go back home, Derek tamps that idea down right away before getting his hopes up too much. What good will a spell do? It’s probably a fake. But, what if it isn’t? “Fine. We’ll take the spell.”
“Perfect.” She heads to her work table where she keeps every correspondence she’s had with Professor Browne. The desk is littered with papers with the magic words written upon them. “Here it is. Do either of you have anything that you can turn?” she asks. At their blank looks she adds, “Such as a ring or bracelet?”
“Maybe,” Stiles answers. “I always like to keep some things on me.” He begins pulling random objects he’s found out of his pocket. There are a couple rocks, a bottle cap, a string and then… “I’ve got this.”
“Where on earth did you get this?” Mrs. McCall asks.
Stiles rolls the bedknob in his hand. “I took it off Derek’s bed. It twisted right off!”
“That will work perfectly. Alright, hold out the bedknob and I’ll cast the spell on it,” she says. Once she finds her spell, she says the words and the knob begins to glow in Stiles’ palm. “There. That’s it. All you have to do is tell it where you want to go, tap the knob three times and turn it one quarter turn to the left.”
Stiles is incredibly excited at the prospect.
“Here, let me see it,” Derek says.
“Actually,” Mrs. McCall begins, “only Stiles will be able to work it. It’s his, after all.”
Now Stiles is actually looking smug. And still terribly excited. He can’t wait to try it.
~~~
Once dinner is finished and the boys are sent to their room, Derek asks, “When did you take that off my bed?”
Stiles sits on the corner of the bed, turning so one leg is up and he’s turned to face Derek, then shrugs. It’s so tempting to try it right now, but he knows that he shouldn’t. Mrs. McCall trusted him with it. He does set it down on the bed, though, right between them. “Last night before I went to bed. You were still washing up,” he answers.
“Why’d you take it?”
Stiles shrugs again, picking at the comforter. “Dunno.”
“It’s not even from your bed,” Derek says.
“Yeah, I know,” Stiles replies.
“You’re really scared, aren’t you?” Derek asks, now moving so he’s sitting next to Stiles, their arms touching. Stiles starts nodding and Derek wraps his arm around the smaller boy. “I am, too,” he admits.
“I want my dad,” Stiles whispers.
Derek begins rubbing his hand up and down Stiles’ arm, comforting him. He can identify with Stiles far more than the kid knows. What he wouldn’t give to have his family back. That’s why part of him wants to escape from here and runaway back to London, because what if? What if one of his brothers or sisters or parents is there and still alive and looking for him? He won’t ever know if he stays here, even if he is far safer here than back in London. “What happened to your dad?” Derek asks quietly.
“He’s a soldier,” he says, wiping at his eyes.
“And what about your mum?”
Stiles shakes his head side to side and wipes more furiously at his eyes. Derek knows then that Stiles’ mum passed away and Stiles doesn’t want to talk about it. “It’s ok, Stiles, it’s ok.” He pauses for a moment, then says, “You can sleep here if you ever need to.”
Sniffling and wiping his nose on his sleeve Stiles turns his head and gives Derek a little smile. “Really?” When Derek nods, he replies, “Thank you.” He really doesn’t like being alone. Still looking up at Derek, he asks, “Where’s your family?”
“They… one night, a bomb was dropped right next to our house.”
Suddenly, Stiles turns his body completely and wraps Derek in the biggest hug he’s ever received from such a little kid.
~~~
After lunch two days later, Mrs. McCall tells the boys that they’re going out into town to do some shopping (feeding two young, growing boys burns through her food supply far faster than she anticipated) and so she can pick up her mail. It’s mostly the mail she cares about.
Her last lesson. The lesson she’s been waiting for since signing up for the course what feels like so long ago now.
Only, when she goes to get her mail, she doesn’t get at all what she had expected. She opens the letter in the post office and reads, I regret to inform you that, due to the war, Peter Browne’s School of Witchcraft is forced to close down. Professor Peter Browne.
The postmistress tries to engage her in conversation. She has noticed the amount of letters sent from this Professor Browne, after all. However, Mrs. McCall is having none of it. She leaves, and the two boys follow, piling into her sidecar.
It’s not until they’re back to her house that Derek asks, “What’s wrong?”
She opens the letter again and tells them. “I won’t be getting my final lesson.”
“Why not?!” Stiles asks.
She gives him a sad smile. “Due to the war, the school is closed.”
“What? It can’t just close,” Stiles insists. “How are you supposed to learn?”
“I don’t know,” she says with a shake of her head. Until an idea hits her and she wonders how she hadn’t thought of it sooner. “But you might be able to help.”
“Really? How?” he asks, now bouncing on the balls of his feet. People don’t ever ask him for help, because what can a six year old kid do?
“I need your bedknob.”
Stiles looks confused. “What’s this got to do with my knob?” he asks.
“I need it so I can travel to London and find Professor Browne,” she explains.
Taking the bedknob out of his pocket, Stiles clutches it close to him. “You told me only I could work the spell,” he says. “So… if you go, I go.”
She nods, unable to argue with him, because she did tell him that. He would be the only one to work the spell, and she doesn’t have time to find another item to enchant. Plus, a bed would be a rather convenient way to travel. They head upstairs and Derek leans against the far wall away from the bed.
Mrs. McCall settles on the bed and Stiles is down at the end, ready to twist the knob back on and send them to London. Stiles looks over to Derek and cocks his head. “Aren’t you coming, Derek? You wanted to go back to London,” he says.
“Well, that’s not the way to do it,” he replies, still not totally sure if he believes in this whole magic mumbo-jumbo. “Magic isn’t real, Stiles.”
“Of course it is, Derek,” Mrs. McCall says, giving him a little smile as she ties a scarf around her hair so it doesn’t fly everywhere during their trip. “You’ve got to believe.”
Derek continues to lean against the wall, wondering to himself just what he has left to believe in anymore. How can something so farfetched as magic be something he can believe in?
“Please, Derek?” Stiles asks him, giving Derek the saddest face he’s ever seen on the kid.
“Fine, but when it doesn’t work don’t blame me if I say I told you so.” With that, he sits down on the bed, feet planted on the floor.
Stiles’ expression turns on a dime and he’s now all smiles. Derek knew he was faking it. “What do I do again?” Stiles asks.
Mrs. McCall thinks back to the spell and tries to recall how to work the spell. “You screw the knob back on, tap it three times and give it a twist one quarter turn to the left.”
Stiles does just that and… the bed doesn’t move.
“See, I told you so,” Derek says, standing up. “I knew it wouldn’t work. Magic is not real.”
“Ah, I know what it is! We forgot to tell the bed where to take us,” Mrs. McCall says. “Derek, you may want to sit back down.”
“I think I’ll figure out my own way to get back to London,” he tells them.
Stiles doesn’t want to go without Derek, but he still wants to use his spell. So while he’s reluctant, he decides he’s going to try again. “Where are we going?”
“I want you to say, ‘Bed, take us to Professor Peter Browne, London.’”
Stiles closes his eyes and concentrates. He believes. This will work. It has to work. “Bed, take us to Professor Peter Browne, London.” He then taps the bedknob and gives it a quarter turn. And then the entire bed begins to glow. It shakes and rattles and then, before it vanishes, Derek hops back on. Maybe there is something to be said about this magic thing.
The next thing they know, they’ve landed in London. Derek takes a deep breath and it smells like he remembered. Dirty, sooty, slightly sour and just like home. But now that he’s here, he has to wonder what he’d have done if he had managed to run away with Stiles and they managed to get back here. Where would he have gone? Who would he have lived with? He’s safe now with Mrs. McCall, and Stiles is such a huge comfort to have with him. “Well, now what?” he asks. They’re here, but there’s no sign of this Peter Browne fellow. “I don’t see him any-”
“There!” Stiles shouts when he sees a man walking by with a suitcase, the name Browne emblazoned on the front.
They follow him, getting strange looks as they push the bed through the streets, but they have to keep up with him. When they do spot him again, he’s pitching bogus magic tricks and illusions to the crowd, trying to show them that they can astound just like him. However, even from a distance, Derek and Stiles can see all the strings and wires holding things together.
“That’s the professor?” Derek asks, disbelieving. There’s something about the guy that does seem somewhat familiar to him, though. Was he one of his neighbors? He must have seen him around the city at some point. Or maybe he’d seen him doing one of his horrid street magic performances. “This guy’s rotten.”
“I don’t think he’s really magic, not like Mrs. McCall,” Sties says.
After the entire bed travel thing, Derek really can’t deny that maybe there is such a thing as magic.
Mrs. McCall walks around from behind the headboard to get a closer look at the crowd dissipating before her professor. She approaches him, though, and he looks thrilled at the prospect of an actual customer. “Ah, good day, young lady,” he greets.
However, before he can go into his spiel about products that beautify, she says, “I’m Mrs. McCall, one of your students, and I want to know why you’ve shut your school down.”
He starts packing up his box of tricks, which folds up neatly into the suitcase the boys had seen him carrying earlier, and says, “I believe that was explained in the letter I sent out, was it not?”
“But you don’t understand,” she says, moving in front of him so he can’t simply walk off without a better explanation. “I was waiting for one more spell, the reason I signed up for your correspondence classes.”
He tries to side step her, saying, “I’m sorry, but I can’t do-”
“Oh no you don’t,” Derek says, stepping in his way. “We traveled all the way here and you’re not getting away without giving her that spell.”
“Why do you want the spell anyway?” he then asks. “It’s just a whole jumble of words, some bogus hocus pocus.”
“I’ll have you know that it was your bogus hocus pocus traveling spell that brought us all the way here,” she informs him.
Peter actually looks stunned. “You’re joking, right?”
“I never joke,” Mrs. McCall says.
“She’s right!” Stiles pipes up. “She put a spell on my knob and we used it to travel here.”
“She did what with your what?” Peter asks.
“As I said before, I used your travel spell.”
“That’s not possible. I just found these spells in some old book! They’re just some old words!”
“I can assure you, they’re not simply words. Can you show me this book?” Mrs. McCall asks. “I can prove to you that they’re not just words on a piece of paper.”
“Well… I don’t have the book with me, but I suppose I can show you. It’s at my house,” he tells them.
“Perfect. We can take the bed,” she says, walking towards the bed. “Aren’t you coming?” she turns around and asks him when she sees that he’s still standing around.
“I… yes,” he agrees, dumbfounded, and begins following her and her two children.
Once they all get back to the bed, Mrs. McCall sits down on the bed, Derek and Stiles kneeling at the end, all three looking to Peter. “Aren’t you going to take a seat?”
“I don’t know if this is good form to join a lady on her bed… in public.”
“Well, we’re not going to get to your house without it, so I suggest taking a seat.” He does so with some reluctance. He’s never met a woman quite like her before, that’s for certain. “Now, your address?”
“You’re really serious about this, aren’t you?”
She simply raises an eyebrow at him.
“Ok, fine.” He tells he the address, but then she tells him to repeat it to Stiles, because he’ll be the one doing the spell. He’s close to up and leaving, because while he’s certainly seen some interesting people in his life, has conned a handful of people himself, he can’t believe he’s letting this woman and two kids take him for a ride like this. But he tells the little kid his address, watching as the kid tells the bed where to go, taps then twists the knob. When the bed begins to shake he turns his body and grasps onto the headboard because what the hell is happening?
The next thing he knows, they’re all at his house. On the bed. “Bloody hell,” he mutters as he steps off the bed. “At least we won’t have to worry about neighbors spotting us.” He leads the group to the front door, past an undetonated explosive in the front yard. It becomes a talking point.
“What is that?” Mrs. McCall asks.
“I suppose I should explain. This isn’t exactly my house,” he tells her. “It was simply empty one day and I decided to watch over it.”
Mrs. McCall shakes her head and walks to the door.
Derek really doesn’t want to look at the bomb anymore, so he’s quick to follow Mrs. McCall, and Stiles is quick to follow Derek.
“Where’s this book?” she asks as soon as she’s let inside the house.
“We’ll get to the book as soon as we have some lunch. I don’t know about you, but I can’t work on an empty stomach.”
The kids nod in agreement. Mrs. McCall really just wants to get going in her search because there’s no time to waste. There’s been talk of a Nazi invasion for so long now and she doesn’t want to be unprepared when it happens. However, she is a guest in… in someone’s home, anyway, and she’ll need Peter’s help when it comes to searching.
The dinner is delicious and while it’s quite the change of pace for Mrs. McCall, both Stiles and Derek are salivating over the food on their plates. They haven’t seen fried food since going to live with her.
“Please, can we find this book now?” Mrs. McCall asks once their plates are cleared and their bellies full.
“Of course, of course. Come along.”
They all follow, Stiles dragging Derek into a nursery along the way because he sees a toy train set that he really wants to play with. They wouldn’t have been helpful looking for some book, anyway.
It’s only a few minutes later that Stiles is done with the train set and has moved onto a cluster of stuffed bears. That doesn’t last long, either. The next thing he spots is a cloth book called, “The Isle of Naboombu,” which he insists upon reading aloud to Derek. So, naturally, Derek is a good sport and sits down in a chair a little too small for him while Stiles begins to read.
Mrs. McCall is next door in the library and is having no luck with her book. And Peter is absolutely no help at all. Now that he’s seen her perform magic, with his spells no less, he wants them to go onto bigger and better things. He’d no longer have to do pretend illusions, not now that he’s got someone who can do actual magic.
“You and I could travel the world, you know,” he tells her as she’s searching high and low for this book of spells.
Once she realizes Peter’s speaking, she quickly turns her head and says, “Hmm?”
“You can do magic! I have quite a way with words, if I do say so myself. Just imagine us together! We could stun and mystify everywhere we go!” he says. “What’s your name?” he then asks.
“Mrs. McCall,” she tells him.
“Your first name is missus?”
“Melissa,” she tells him, though she’s still searching through the large library of books.
“Melissa. Peter and Melissa’s traveling magic show would take the world by storm! Think about it. Think of the places we could go and the things we could do!”
She stands up, now rather annoyed. “Mr. Browne, I enrolled in your correspondence school for this final spell. Do you not understand its importance? I need this book so I can see it for myself. Look, if you help me to find this book, I’ll consider it, ok?”
“You will?” He becomes rather giddy at the thought of being able to travel with Melissa. Oh, she is a beautiful woman, however, she did introduce herself as Mrs. McCall. “And your husband and children would come along?” he asks in an attempt to be subtle.
“My husband passed two years ago,” she informs him.
“My sympathies,” he says.
“And those two are not mine.”
“They’re not?” He is actually quite shocked about that one. “Why do you have children with you, then?”
“They were evacuated from London and sent to stay in the country with me.”
“So you brought them back to London?” Peter asks. He doesn’t get a reply.
“Please, Mr. Browne, could you please help me locate this book?” When Peter continues to go on about how they could make such a great show, travel the world, instead of helping to find the book, she gives him a warning that her patience is running thin. And when he still talks about their show, she turns him into a little Scottish terrier. “Now, show me the book.”
Even as a dog, trotting on over to the book of spells, he has to admit that this woman is good. Really good. She follows him to the book, smiling when she sees him sitting on it. “Thanks you.” Picking it up, she reads it, “The Spells of Deaton,” and runs her fingers down the leather cover.
He feels the spell wearing off and changes back. “I had no idea you could do that.”
“Perhaps you should have tried your own spells out first, then,” she says, flipping through the pages of the book. She nears the end of the book, finding the spell she’s been waiting for on the second to last page. “This is it. Substitutiary Locomotion.” She reads the page, then flips it over to the final page of the book. And it’s not there. There’s no back to the book. “Where’s the rest of it?” she demands.
“That, Melissa, is the real reason I had to shut down my correspondence class. The book has been ripped in half, and I don’t have the other piece.”
She slumps into a chair. “All this time… I’ve spent all this time looking for this spell and now… where could it even be? It could be anywhere.”
Peter finds that he really doesn’t enjoy seeing Melissa looking so down and defeated, when before she was so determined. “If it’s going to be anywhere, it will be on Portobello Road.”
“Where?”
“Street where the riches of ages are stowed,” he tells her. “Anything and everything a chap can unload is sold off the barrows in Portobello Road. Come on, we’ll take that bed of yours.”
“Boys, come along,” she says as she’s ushered out of the house and to the bed, which had been left in front of the house.
The two boys leave the play room, Stiles rolling up the book and shoving it into his pocket without anyone noticing. They all sit on the bed, Mrs. McCall readjusting the scarf around her head. “Professor, if you could tell him where to take us?”
“I want us to go to Portobello Road.”
“Bed, take us to Portobello Road,” Stiles says, giving the customary taps and quarter turn. The bed glows and is soon off, coming to a stop at the street. It’s loaded with stands of all kinds. There’s clothing, paintings, rare artifacts. Peter had been right in that one could find anything and everything here. However, there’s only one thing Mrs. McCall is looking for. It needs to be here. She needs that final spell. She takes off, digging through piles upon piles of books.
Peter, Stiles and Derek are of absolutely no help. Stiles is interested in anything shiny while Derek is highly intrigued by the swords and pistols. Peter is quite interested in watching Mrs. McCall. He picks up a book here and there, reads the title and places it back on the stacks. She’s holding up the half of the book she has, trying to compare, but nothing matches.
The time flies by, Stiles and Derek making the most of it by trying on hats and clothes and having a sword fight, that may have gotten them spoken to, but it was worth it.
However, it’s not enough time for Mrs. McCall. She doesn’t find her book before the stalls begin to pack up and move off for the night. “No! No, you can’t leave!” she says, even as she drops the book down to the cart that’s getting pushed away. She sags against a lamp post, sighing. “I guess that’s it. It wasn’t here.” Holding up the book, she looks at the final page.
“I hear you’re looking for something,” comes a voice from out of nowhere. All their heads whip around to a woman dressed in black.
“Who are you?” Mrs. McCall asks.
“I’m Kali.” She moves her hands just enough to show the glint of a blade, and that gets their attention. “Let me take you to my boss.”
She leads them down an alley, giving them rather confused looks about the bed, which Peter claims was a purchase they just made. She doesn’t believe them, but can’t otherwise understand why else they’d be wheeling around a bed.
“I’ve got them,” she says when they’re all in the building down the stairs off the alley, cringing when the bed slams into the wall.
“Good.” He stands up from behind his desk, leaning over. “My name is Deucalion.” He grabs his part of the book and stares back at Mrs. McCall. “I heard you were looking for this.”
Her eyes go wide when she sees it. It’s right there in front of her. All this waiting and searching has paid off. “May I?” she asks.
He walks around his desk and stands next to Mrs. McCall excitement on their faces as the two halves are brought together. Now that the book is back together, they’re about to get their answers. “The substitutiary locomotion spell is used to bring life to inanimate objects,” Mrs. McCall reads aloud the very end of the page she has, before continuing onto the next, to the page she’s never seen before. “The spell is found upon the Star of Deaton, leader of the Island of Naboombu.”
Her heart drops.
Stiles’ head whips up, and looks to Derek. They both know that name.
Deucalion scans the pages repeatedly, looking for the spell. Why isn’t the spell in the book? “All this time,” he says, over and over. “All this time searching and it’s not here. I thought for sure it would be in your half.”
“And I was certain it was in yours… I guess now we’ll never know,” she says, defeated.
“You know, not only have I been searching for this book for years, I’ve scoured every map known to man searching for the Island. It doesn’t exist. There’s legends, but there are legends of Atlantis, too.”
“What do they say?” Mrs. McCall asks.
“That there is one man upon the island, Deaton. The rest of the inhabitants are wolves. Werewolves,” he amends. “He’s not the leader, but he helps and heals the wolves when they are unable to heal themselves. But, as I said, this island does not exist.”
Stiles looks back over to Derek, ready to say something, say that the island does exist, because they read a book all about it. Derek puts a finger over his mouth, shaking his head side to side, silently telling Stiles to be quiet. “I think we should go home,” Derek suggests.
Mrs. McCall doesn’t know what to do. She’ll know just as much as she does about the spell at home, she supposes. So, she sighs and nods. “Thank you for your time,” she says to Deucalion.
“You’re leaving? So soon?” he asks as Kali goes to lock the door.
She sits down on the bed with the other three, the book on her lap. “It won’t do me any good being here. None of us have the spell. None of us will ever have it. Stiles, if you would take us home?”
Very quickly, Stiles says, “Bed, take us home.” Once he twists the knob and the bed shimmers, it gives them a short amount of time to actually see the look of shock on Deucalion’s face before they disappear.
The second they land back in the bedroom they started their journey from, Stiles says, “I know the spell!”
“What?” Mrs. McCall asks. She looks confused when Derek nods in agreement. He’s seen the spell, knows exactly what Stiles is talking about.
“I know it! I know the spell, I really do,” he insists, pulling out the folded up book. He flips to the page where it shows the star. “See, right here. Treguna Mekoides Trecorum Satis Dee.” He points to each word as he slowly sounds it out, showing it off to Mrs. McCall.
Her jaw is practically to the floor. “I’ll be damned,” she mutters. “May I see it?” Stiles hands her the book and she runs her fingers over the cloth. “Treguna Mekoides Trecorum Satis Dee,” she repeats. Now looking up from the book, she looks to Peter. “Should we try it?”
“No time like the present,” he says.
They leave the bedroom and head downstairs, where Mrs. McCall grabs a pair of her shoes and leaves them in the middle of the floor. In her head, she’s repeating the words of the spell over and over, so she doesn’t forget them. “Is everyone ready?” she asks.
“Go on, Melissa,” Peter encourages.
She takes a deep breath and recites the words, “Treguna Mekoides Trecorum Satis Dee.”
“Nothing happened!” Stiles shouts, and Derek flicks him on the head. “Hey!”
“Melissa, if I may make a suggestion?” He strides over to her, looking down at the shoes, then up at her. “Try saying it with a little… rhythm. The way you’re saying it now is so flat.”
“That’s how I always recite my spells!”
“When I wrote my spells, I added the flair into them. This one I didn’t have before. You need to add it yourself. Do it with a flair, Melissa.” He then steps back, leaving Melissa to it.
This time she takes a couple breaths. When she says the words of the spell, ““Treguna Mekoides Trecorum Satis Dee,” she does add rhythm to it, makes the words flow into something more of a song than a traditional spell.
The heel of the left shoe gives a little tap. The right follows. Melissa’s eyes go wide and she turns to Peter, saying, “It worked!” before looking back to the shoes, which are now doing something of a jig on the floor.
The shoes aren’t the only thing affected by the spell, though. Soon, a pair of Derek’s pants, one of Stiles’ shirts and Mrs. McCall’s nightgown enter the room on their own. “Oh my god,” Derek says.
Stiles is utterly fascinated. He’s actually watching Derek’s pants walk around the room, and Derek isn’t wearing them. He’s never letting go of the book now, not when this spell is in it. And he wants to learn that spell. He wants to make things move around, and Mrs. McCall said she wanted to use it for the war effort, so if he learns it, he can help people, too.
Things soon start to get a little out of control. Stiles’ shirt and Derek’s pants began wrestling one another, Mrs. McCall’s night gown is flashing Peter and the shoes are spinning around and around on their heels.
“I don’t know how to control it,” Mrs. McCall says to Peter. “Would you stop that!” she says as she walks over to him and holds down the hem of her nightgown, glaring at Peter for actually looking.
“Focus on the items and the connection you have with them from the spell,” Peter tells her, placing his hand on her shoulder. He thinks that’s how it works, anyway.
She shuts her eyes, not bothering to bat away Peter’s hand, and tries to focus on the energy she used for the spell. Then lets that spell break. All the floating clothing drops to the floor in heaps. Peter grins.
~~~
At breakfast the next morning, which Peter insists upon cooking, he makes a rather startling confession. “There’s something you all should know about me,” he says as he serves up a fried egg on toast to Derek.
Mrs. McCall looks at him with narrowed eyes. She let him stay on her couch that night, for which he was eternally grateful, since he had nowhere else to go. “What would that be?”
He takes a seat with his own plate and cuts into his eggs and toast. “My name isn’t actually Peter Browne.”
“I beg your pardon?” She’s seen the bag he carries around with the name Browne right on it.
He finished chewing his bite of breakfast before answering, “I found that bag in a pile of trash on the side of the road one day. I thought it would make for a good enough alias for my correspondence class.”
“What is your name then?” she asks.
“Peter Hale.”
“What?” Derek asks, head whipping over. “What did you say your name was?”
“Peter Hale,” he repeats.
“I’m… my name is Derek Hale,” he says.
“You’re Derek?” Peter asks. “I haven’t seen you since you were crawling around in diapers.”
Stiles giggles at the thought of Derek actually in diapers.
“So you’re the Uncle Peter that left and through the years never kept in contact with any of your family?” Derek raises an eyebrow at him. “You know I’m probably the only Hale left now, right? You’ve been in London all this time, haven’t you? Surely you’ve heard about all the bombings and the deaths. Like you sister.”
“Derek, I… I didn’t know.” He left when Derek was still very young, went off to travel the world. When he returned to London, he found that abandoned house and kept to himself... and the dirty streets of the inner city. He didn’t even know if the rest of his family was still there.
“Well, now you do.”
Peter doesn’t know what to do. It’s not often that he’s so stunned that he has no plan of action. But learning that Derek is his nephew, his only remaining family, is not something he ever expected. So, he ends up standing up from the table, urging Derek up, as well, and pulls him into a tight embrace.
~~~
It’s the following night when several small boats pull up onto the shores of the small town where the boys are staying. Mrs. McCall’s house is the first house they come up upon as they head up the shore.
They’re around the dinner table, the four of them, when strange noises come from outside. “Boys, follow me,” Mrs. McCall says. “Now.”
Stiles is confused, because they haven’t finished dinner yet. “But-”
Derek grabs a pork chop and hands it to Stiles before taking his other hand and leading him along behind Mrs. McCall.
They’re led into the back room, where Mrs. McCall keeps her spells and magical ingredients. That’s when the front door is knocked in. Stiles freezes up and clings onto Derek and the pork chop. “We’ve got to get out of here,” she whispers.
“And go where?” Peter asks.
“We’ll figure that out as we go.” She quickly grabs her spell book and leads them out the window, the same one she flew out of for the first time just a week ago.
They manage to get out of the house, but she doesn’t want to take the chance of them all being seen. She looks up the spell she used once to turn Peter into a little dog and uses it again. She now has three little dogs sitting around her. “Follow me.” They head out onto the street, the boys and Peter trotting along behind her. She doesn’t see anyone, which is a relief. When they reach they museum, where she originally met the boys, this is where she stops. “In here.”
The spell wears off after a few minutes and soon they’re all turned back. “That was fun!” Stiles says. “I want to learn that one,” he mutters quietly to himself, filing it away for later.
“We’ve got to get my house back,” she says, looking around at them and the museum. It’s the how she’s most concerned about.
“Use what’s around you,” Peter replies.
She points to one of the many suits of armor that surround them. “This is hundreds of years old!”
“It worked back then, right?”
“A metal suit of armor can’t protect against machine guns,” she points out.
He counters, “Who, exactly, would need to be protected, if there’s no one wearing the armor?”
It’s like a light going off in Melissa’s head. “Peter, you are a genius.” She kisses his cheek and both Derek and Stiles make a face. She looks around them again and takes a deep breath. There are a lot of things she’s going to have to control. She’s performed the spell only the one time and this is on a much larger scale. But tonight she’s got to protect her town, her country and her makeshift family. It’s a night of great importance. Shutting her eyes, she focuses her energy and says, “Treguna Mekoides Trecorum Satis Dee.” She feels the lifeless suits of armor become animated. “Wish me luck,” she says, before rummaging through the janitor closet to find a broom.
Stiles, Derek and Peter watch the battle from a distance in complete awe. Peter can’t decide if he wants to look up to Melissa, flying over the battlefield or the battle itself. Stiles’ jaw has been on the ground for several minutes now as he sees the Nazis shooting at the armor, only to watch the armor empty out their helmets and continue to advance in their charge.
It’s not a long battle, the Nazis realizing that there’s no way they can win a fight against armor, with no man inside. Armor that keeps coming towards them despite round after round being shot into them. There’s no stopping them.
So, they turn their tails and leave. But not before shooting down the witch flying above the sky. They curse at her, shoot at her, and when a bullet strikes the end of the broom, she falls from the sky, and all the armor slowly droops to the ground. They did their damage, though. They drove away the impending attack.
As the Germans return to their boats and leave the shore, the three boys run to find Melissa, hoping that she’s ok. When they find her tangled in some bushes, they all let out a collective breath. “You’re ok,” Peter says, relieved.
She brushes herself off after accepting Peter’s hand pulling her up and out of the bushes. “Thank you. They left, right?”
“Yes, they left. But are you sure you’re ok?”
“Yes, I’m fine,” she tells him, but allows him to wrap his arm around her. Stiles and Derek also get closer to her, Stiles wrapping his arms around her legs and Derek putting a hand on her shoulder. “Let’s go inside,” she says to them.
Peter does a quick search of the house for anything they could have left behind, because they don’t need a forgotten, unseen bomb to go off during the night. When he doesn’t find anything, he informs the others and sits on the couch, exhausted.
Melissa is busy getting the boys ready for bed. It’s late and there’s been a lot of excitement that day, but they’re all drained. However, as she gets Stiles his pajamas, he asks, “Mrs. McCall? Could you teach me?”
“Teach you what?”
“Magic,” he answers. “I know I’ve got my knob, but I want to learn more. I want to turn people into puppies and make things move and I want to help people, like you.”
“You want to learn magic? You know not everyone can, right?” she asks gently, not wanting to crush his hopes.
He turns to Derek repeats the words he heard of the spell she used to turn them into dogs earlier. When Derek is sitting on front of them, wagging his tail, Stiles turns back to Melissa with a grin. “I think I can learn.”
“I’ll be damned,” she mutters to herself. “I would be happy to show you. And I think Peter will help, too.”
“My dad will be so proud of me!” Stiles says.
“Yes, he will,” she tells him. She has no idea what’s happened with Stiles’ dad, if he’s dead or injured or still alive and fighting on the front lines, but she hopes that he’s ok, that he’ll come back for Stiles. She gives them both a warm smile and says, “Goodnight, boys,” before leaving the room.
Once she’s gone, Stiles crawls onto the bed with a freshly turned back to human Derek and puts the knob back on. He doesn’t tell it to go anywhere, so it stays put, but he looks to Derek and asks, “Do you think the island of Naboombu really exists?”
Derek shrugs. “To be honest, I don’t know anymore. I never thought witches existed, but I guess I was wrong about that.”
Stiles gets under the covers and lies down on the pillow. “I think we should find out one day.”