My bike’s brakes squealed; the wind blew away the sound, and browny yellow leaves battered me. The windows of her house watched me as I clamboured off and leaned the bike into the hedge–they were black and hungry and staring, like the eyes of a monster, ready to gobble me up. I pulled the hems of my jumper down over my hands, keeping the bruises well out of sight. A crow cawed, and I jumped. I near turned and ran down the lane, leaving the bike to rust and rot in the hedge, but Paudie had swore blind that she’d be able to help, so I pushed the gate open. It squeaked real loud. The stink of roses near choked me walking up the path; reds, purples, and whites filled both sides, ready and waiting with their thorns to slice me up. 

    I swallowed before I knocked on the door; one, two, three. It sounded pure weak against the heavy wood like my knuckles weren’t strong enough or hard enough. 

    She answered straight away like she’d been lurking behind the door, like she knew I was coming or something. The wind blew again and it felt as if leaves swirled around my belly, and I wanted to vomit them out. I wanted to run again, but some spell stuck me to the spot. 

    “Hello, dear.” Her voice was sweet, high and girly, and it matched her short red hair. She was pretty, for a girl, for a woman, for what she was, with her makeup and everything. Not a bit like I was expecting; no wart on her nose or nothing, no black hat, no crooked teeth. Paudie had said she’d crooked teeth. 

    “Are you the witch?” I asked. 

    She laughed a giggly laugh and tilted her head. 

    “Yes, dear. I am. Triona. A pleasure. And what do we call you?”

    “Andy.”

    “Lovely to meet you, Andy. Have you come to banish me?”

    “No,” I said. “I want— I mean, I would like your help. A spell. Or a potion. Paudie said you helped his mum.”

    She twitched her nose as she smiled. “I don’t know a Paudie, but I don’t work magic on children. You’re magical enough as it is.” She closed the door. 

    “But I need it!”

    “Oh, you only think that. What is it? A love potion? The big ball must be coming soon.”

    “No.” I looked back over my shoulder to make sure only the roses could hear me. “I need you to make me strong. It’s…important.”

    She watched me, looking down, squinting. Her nose seemed to get longer, hookyer, and I thought I saw a wart begin to grow right at the end. I wondered if her all-seeing eyes could trace the faded summer bruise on my cheek. 

    “Is someone bullying you?”

    “No. Yeah. Kinda,” I mumbled. I wanted to look away because she was getting uglier by the second. 

    She clucked. “Well, I can’t make you strong. But I can make you brave. How does that sound?”

    A cat meowled from inside the house, and I knew it had to be a black one. She was the real deal, Paudie had said so.  

    “Okay, thank you.” I held out the coins from my piggy bank and the crumpled fiver I’d borrowed from Dad’s drawer and prayed it wouldn’t cost that. “How much?”

    Her pretty face returned, her nose shrinking back to normal, and there was definitely no wart. 

    “This is on me. I hate bullies, hate them. I was bullied in school. People fear what they don’t understand, and when people are afraid, they do nasty things.”

    “It’s not that,” I said, aching under the weight of her eyes. “How did you make them stop?”

    “No, I didn’t. I just took it. But I wish I had stood up to them. Don’t get me wrong, they eventually got what was coming to them.” She ran a finger slowly across her neck and lolled her tongue out the corner of her mouth. She held that pose, I think, waiting for me to laugh, but when I didn’t, she brushed aside my silence. “Wait right there, I have just the potion.” She disappeared into the belly of the house, and a black cat prowled down the stairs. Paudie was right; the real deal. 

    She returned almost as quickly as she left, swinging a bottle of green water in her hand. 

    “You know, your name means brave. Well, Andrew means brave, but I’m sure the same carries to Andy. Here. Drink this, and you’ll be forever brave.”

    “That’s it? No spell?”

    “No spell needed.” She handed me the little bottle. I tilted it to my mouth, and the breeze stopped. The glass rim was cold on my lip. The roses stank, and the cat hissed, and the witch smiled. The liquid tasted metally and made my tongue fuzz, but I managed the whole bottle, and the fuzz ran all the way to my belly. 

    “What happens now?”

    “You’ll know what to do when the time comes.” She winked. “Now, get home before people start looking for you.”

    “Thank you,” I said, but she closed the door before I finished. I turned and jumped from the step onto the path and ran past the roses. A thorn snagged the sleeve of my jumper, and I worried Dad would notice. 

    “Where’r ye the day?” Dad asked, leaning back in his chair at the top of the table, like a king on his throne. The clock ticked and tocked. Mum was scooping spuds out onto our plates by the counter, her back towards us. A clatter came from outside the window, from the dark of the backyard, and I thought I heard Mum mutter bloody cats. 

    “Just out,” I replied. His look told me that wasn’t enough. “Went for a bike ride.”

    “Where?”

    “Just around. Kinnego, Mullaghyarn, and back.”

    He sucked air through his teeth, and it made him sound like a snake. Mum stopped scooping and seemed to shrink a little. There was another racket beyond the window. The clock kept time. 

    “Any shops out that way?” He drummed his fingers on the tabletop. 

    “No.” A familiar throb pulsed in my neck. He hissed again, and I tried to swallow. 

    Mum spun around with the plates, a smile carved into her face. “You know, there used to be grocers there when I was your age. They worked out of a hay shed. Imagine.”

    The plate rattled a few times on the table in front of Dad before Mum let it go. “Gravy, hun?”

    Dad ignored her, still watching me like the witch had watched me. His words gathered slowly, the way dark clouds do before the crack of lightning and the bellow of thunder. “No shops there now. So why would ye need a fiver?”

    I went cold. 

    “Hun, let’s just eat and—”

    “Yer a thief now, eh?”

    An invisible hand as strong as Dad’s squeezed my throat, and I couldn’t speak, or breathe, or think, and bright flashes exploded everywhere. 

    “Ye know that, do ye?” he said to Mum. “That son of yers is nothing but a lying, conniving thief.”

    Mum was trembling now, and tears spilled over the purpled bruise beneath her left eye and splashed onto the table. 

    “A rat, that’s what ye’ve raised. And no wonder, with a pathetic excuse of a mother like ye.”

    He raised his hand and smacked her across the cheek, the same bruised cheek. Mum only whimpered. She didn’t cry in front of him anymore. She’d learnt that it only made him worse. I’d learnt it too. 

    “Fucking pathetic!”

    A yowl of a cat in the yard rang out against his roar. Fuzz bubbled up in my belly as I watched the white welt on Mum’s cheek rise and turn red, just below the purple bruise, and I could smell the roses of the witch’s garden. The magic was taking hold. 

    “Stop!” I found myself on my feet before I realised what had happened. 

    The chair teetered and fell backwards, clattering across the floor. He paused, lip fish-hooked into a snarl that allowed a heavy laugh to escape, and the fuzz got hotter inside me. A force shoved me towards him, lifting my fists and flailing them against him, and I connected with every bit of him that I could. He was hard and soft, clothed and bare, hairy and smooth. I imagined the crack of his nose, the blood pouring from it just like mine. I imagined him begging me to stop, saying he’d never do it again, but I wouldn’t stop, just like him. 

    But that was all in my imagination, and one swing of his arm sent me into the kitchen cupboards, breaking the door from the hinges. I cowered as a shadow stood over me and waited for another blow to fall, and waited. 

    “Please,” Mum whimpered above me. 

    I peered up to see her sprawling herself across me and Dad on his feet, up in her face. 

    “Get, woman.”

    “Dan….”

    A mewl escaped her as he shoved her backwards into the kitchen counter, and she crumpled on top of me. Dad’s voice thundered about, too loud to hear the words, and Mum sobbed, still keeping her arms wide across me. She didn’t even move to stop the slap he gave her across the face. It knocked her off me onto the floor, and her head cracked on the tile, smearing blood across the creamy surface. 

    She curled at my feet, whining, pleading, being ignored. Her phone slid from her pocket, and the fuzz in my throat returned stronger. 

    “Stupid bitch, I’ll put manners in ye.”

    I slid my hand over the floor to the phone. It was heavy and came to life at my touch. Dad didn’t allow Mum to have a passcode. 

    “Stealing yer Ma’s phone now, are ye? Ye wee rat.”

    I shook so badly that I nearly missed the third and last 9. 

    “Which emergency service do you need?” The operator said. 

    “Hang that up, ye wee shit.”

    “Police,” I said, not recognising my own voice, the fuzz bursting out from my throat. There was a click. I breathed deep and my mind went clear, empty, as though a breeze had blown through and carried all worries away. 

    “Police emergency, what’s your location?”

“Hang up, or I’ll—”

    “Ballymartin,” I said, staring up at his bulging face. “24 New Road.”

    His mouth opened and closed like a fish. His fist squeezed until it was white and shaking. 

    “And what’s happening?”

    He raised a finger and drew it across his neck, but I wasn’t scared no more. I had the potion. I was the potion. 

    “My dad is beating us. He’s smacked my mum, and she’s hit her head off the floor. She bleeding.”

    “Okay, is he still there at the moment? Are you safe?”

    He twitched, went to say something, then spat on me and turned. He was out the front door before I had wiped my face clean. 

    “Hello? Are you still there?”

    “Hi, yes. He’s left now. Can you please send an ambulance for my mum, too?”

    “Of course, pet. Police officers and ambulance are on their way. What’s your name?”

“Andy.”

    “Well, Andy, you’re very brave.”

    I smelt the roses before I reached the house. It didn’t look as scary as before; the windows were just windows, and the sun glinted off them, making them wink as I threw my bike into the hedge. Even the gate said hello to me as I swung it open. 

    The Witch was plucking berries from her garden and straightened when she saw me coming. 

    “Ah, hello. Paudie’s friend, right?”

    I nodded. “Andy.”

    “Andy, that’s right. Andy the Brave,” she said, beaming. “You look…bolder.”

    “I am,” I said. “I just wanted to come and say thank you.”

    “Oh, well, you’re welcome. Did you stand up to your bullies then?”

    I nodded. “Your potion worked. It made me brave.”

    She laughed, and the wind carried the lilt away across the garden. “I’ll let you in on a little secret, Andy. That was just spinach water. It was you that was brave. The real magic happens when you believe in yourself.”

    The words of the emergency responder echoed in my head: Andy, you’re very brave. The fuzz returned to my belly and spread outwards, tingling right out to my fingers and toes and raising goosebumps all over me. The breeze carried it away, too, and it was gone. 

    The witch rubbed my hair and asked me if I wanted a lemonade. I followed her into the house, reeling from the loss of magic, and the cat purred as the door closed behind us. 

    My name is Andy. It means brave.