You ease the office door open and step inside as quietly as possible. You hope your boss won’t notice how late you are, but the door slams shut behind you.
Klaus Solstaag is leaning back in his chair, resting his large, hairy feet on the desk. The breeze from three fans ruffles his fine white hair. It’s chillier inside the room than on the street but, as Klaus always reminds you, yetis like the cold.
He grunts at you from behind a newspaper. “What time d’you call this?”
You explain that after setting off in plenty of time, you ran into a few problems on your journey across town. First, you were stuck waiting for a particularly long ghost train to rumble past. Then you had to find a different route because a couple of burly Unusual Police Force officers had sealed off a road following a suspected gas leak around Haventry City Hall. And finally, you were caught in a bottleneck of witches and wizards lining up to buy newt eyes and lizard tongues from a pop-up market stall.
“Don’t worry about it. This is the busiest I’ve ever seen the Shady Side,” says Klaus. “It’s all because of this.”
He holds up this morning’s edition of the
News of the Unusual.
MAGICON IS ON!
Haventry is preparing to welcome witches, wizards, warlocks, mages and magicians from all over the world as it plays host to the world’s biggest real magic convention, Magicon.
Find out what’s going on with our free pull-out event guide.
There was a time when you would have been checking the date to see if it was April Fools’ Day but, since becoming a detective’s sidekick on the Shady Side of Haventry, you’ve grown accustomed to a world full of weird and wonderful people and things. You glance out of the window where a water sprite is hovering with a bucket of water and a sponge, cleaning the window.
Klaus continues to read. “For the first time in over a hundred years, Haventry will be the center of all things magical as the world of wizardry descends upon it. There are events all over town, while the main guest panels, workshops and discussions take place in the Haventry Exhibition Center.” Klaus looks up from the paper and chuckles. “That’s on your side of town, but all your lot will assume it’s ordinary people dressed up as witches and wizards.”
It always amazes you how most of Haventry’s human population remain blissfully unaware of its more unusual Shady Side inhabitants. You’ve been working here for so long, this world of monsters and mythical creatures feels normal to you.
Klaus turns his attention back to the newspaper. “The biggest event of all will be the opening ceremony at ten p.m. tonight in Shady Side Stadium.”
You glance up at the clock on the wall. It’s midday. Ten hours to go.
“Night Mayor Franklefink is appearing at the ceremony personally, and UPF officers are on high alert as the city is flooded by not just good wizards and witches but also the League of Evil, sworn devotees of Enid the Evil Enchantress, who are dedicated to seizing control of the w—”
POP!The noise makes you jump. All three fans stop whizzing around. Klaus looks at you. “That’s weird,” he says. “I bought these fans from Nigel’s Elftronics Emporium. They run on magic so a power cut shouldn’t affect them.”
“Excuse me, would you mind giving me a hand?” says a voice.
It takes you a moment to realize it’s coming from outside. Klaus jumps up and opens the window. The water sprite is clinging on to the windowsill, his legs and spindly wings flailing. With Klaus’s help he climbs up and drops into the room. He’s covered in soapy water. You stick your head out of the window to see that his bucket and sponge are now lying on the pavement.
“What happened?” asks Klaus.
“My wings have stopped working. It must have been a bad batch of fairy dust.” The sprite flaps his wings as hard as he can but he remains on the floor.
He’s not the only one to have suddenly lost his ability to fly. There is a large pile of moaning witches lying in the middle of the road. One is hanging from a telephone wire, with her broomstick in one hand and her stripey legs below. A truck has swerved to avoid the witches and crashed into a bookshop. The owner of the shop is waggling his wand frantically at the broken window, crying, “Toadstools and lizards, clouds and grass! A whish and whoosh and I’ll repair this glass.”
Nothing happens.
“Come on.” Klaus spins around and grabs his hat and coat.
You follow him out of the office and down into the street. As soon as you step out the door, a young goblin slips on the soapy water from the sprite’s bucket and goes flying. You dive out of the way.
The dangling witch lets go of the wire and drops onto a passing caravan. Her robes cover the windscreen, and the caravan crashes into a lamppost. A jet of steam shoots from the caravan’s engine, then the witches Burnella and Bridget Milkbird stagger out, coughing and spluttering.
A wizard runs past screaming, “The end is nigh. All is lost. My wiz is a was!”
“His wiz never was much of a wiz, even when it was a wiz,” says Burnella.
“Er, what?” asks Klaus. “What’s going on?”
“The magic has vanished,” replies Burnella.
“Really?” says Bridget. She waves her wand at you and yells, “Azaka-bam, azaka-burm, make this human a wiggly worm!”
You cower in fear, then open your eyes and look down, terrified of what you might see. To your relief, all your limbs remain intact. You are not a worm. You are still you.
“Oh no. The magic really has gone,” wails Bridget. She looks at her sister. “But how are we going to make the po—”
Burnella nudges her sister and interrupts. “Potatoes. Yes, you’re right. We’re supposed to be catering for Magicon this weekend and we magic folk do like our spuds. We won’t cope with all the orders without magic.”
A scruffy witch with twigs in her hair runs straight into you.
“Oh, fudgenuts and pumpkin juice, the magic’s gone! What are we to do?”
There are signs of chaos all around. The witches who just fell from the sky pick themselves up and try to take off again, leaping up from the pavement, only to find themselves collapsed in the gutter. The wizard with the smashed window keeps shouting the same spell over and over. These people don’t know what to do without magic.
As the panic escalates, a car passes, driving slowly along the road, with a voice blaring out from speakers on top.
“Shady Side citizens . . . please remain calm. There is a temporary glitch with the abraca-router but rest assured, we have our best people working on it and the magic will be up and running again soon.”
The car stops to avoid running over the confused gaggle of witches, and in the passenger seat you spot the monster-making scientist Night Mayor Franklefink holding a microphone to his mouth, making the announcement.
“Typical politician, just saying what people want to hear rather than the truth,” says Burnella.
“The abraca-router
can’t glitch. The only way this could happen is if the magic has been stolen!”
“How can you steal magic?” asks Klaus.
“It’s not so hard for an experienced magic-wielder,” replies Burnella.
“I blame Grand Master Dimbleby for this,” snaps Bridget. “As Head of the Magic Circle, the magic of this town is his responsibility. No one would have dared steal it if Enid was in charge.”
“Ha, you have such a witch-crush on Enid the Evil Enchantress,” says Burnella, with a dismissive wave of her hand.
“I do not,” says Bridget.
Burnella bends down and speaks quietly in your ear, “She’s got a poster of Enid in her bedroom. She talks to it sometimes.”
“What are you muttering about?” demands Bridget. “There’ll be no muttering once Enid has struck the first blow in the ultimate war of evil against good.”
“Ultimate war indeed.” Burnella shakes her head and smirks. “My sister is all talk. Every Magicon, the League of Evil has a vote on whether they should rise up and destroy the world and, every time, they vote against it because, well, to be honest, it’s a bit of a pain, isn’t it?”
“This time will be different,” says Bridget.
“Why?” asks her sister.
“Never you mind, but you’ll see. I’m so excited Enid is here, I could burst. Look at her!” Bridget whips out a large book—
The League of Evil Annual. On the front cover is a picture of a witch with long black hair that falls across her face like a shadow. Underneath is written: THE WITCH IS BACK! Something about the picture sends a chill down your spine.
“Evil Enid,” says Klaus. “Is she the one who created that plague of bloodsucking rodents?”
Bridget nods enthusiastically. “VampiRats! Yes, some of her greatest work.”
“A power-hungry witch who relishes chaos and evil,” says Klaus. “Yes, it does sound like the case of the missing magic might be closed before it was even opened.”
“I don’t think Enid took the magic,” says Burnella. “Remember, evil witches and wizards need magic as much as good ones.”
She pauses and you hear Franklefink repeating his message.
“. . . please remain calm. There is a temporary glitch . . .”
“Just listen to him, spinning lies and making himself the center of attention as usual,” says Burnella.
You’ve encountered Franklefink in the past. He was a slippery enough character before he became a politician. Now that he runs this town, there’s no knowing what secrets he might hold.
Klaus turns to you. “I think you should be writing this—” He sees that you already have your notepad open. You understand that even though no one has hired you, the town needs your help, which means you have a case to solve. In bold letters at the top of the page you write,
The Missing Magic. Underneath, you write
Enid and
Franklefink although it’s too early to say if either of them are suspects.
“So where would we find this precious leader of yours?” asks Klaus.
“Yeah, good luck with that,” says Bridget. “Enid can transform into any shape she wants. She was doing her giant spider at today’s evil coffee morning, but she scuttled off straight after that. Who knows what form she’s taken now.”
“You’re right. If she has all this missing magic at her disposal, she’s going to be hard to track down,” says Klaus.
You continue making notes. It makes sense that your prime suspect would be a self-proclaimed evil witch bent on an ultimate war but, as Klaus has told you many times, the obvious answer is rarely the right one. It’s what you love about your job. You’re considering possibilities when a huge, gray-skinned head in a chef’s hat appears from the caravan. It belongs to Bootsy, the witches’ monster.
“Cooker no cook,” he says.
“Of course the cooker’s not working. It runs on magic. So does pretty much everything around here,” says Burnella. “I told you we should have gone electric this time instead of relying on Nigel’s Elftronics.”
Klaus turns to you. “It might be worth interviewing Nigel Rigmarole about this,” he says. “After all, magical energy is his business.”
You write down
Nigel Rigmarole and
Elftronics.
“What about the scene of the crime?” says Klaus.
“That would be the abraca-router in the Magic Circle’s headquarters,” says Burnella.
“Er, I wouldn’t go down there,” says Bridget. “With the magic gone there’s nothing to stop Bet—”
“Shh!” whispers Burnella.
“What?” asks Klaus.
“Nothing,” say both witches.
“Or maybe I should just keep an eye on you two,” says Klaus. “Because I’m getting the impression there’s something you haven’t told us.”
You have the same feeling.
“Watch us all you like, but we’re not going anywhere,” says Bridget. “Not until we get a mechanic for Susan.”
The caravan shudders.
“Susan hates a trip to the mechanics because they always scrape the rust off her bottom,” says Burnella.
“It’s her own fault for turning herself into a caravan in the first place,” adds Bridget.
“Not to mention turning my dog into a car,” says Klaus. “Talking of which, where is Watson?”
He sticks his fingers in his mouth and whistles. You hear the barking rev of an engine as Watson appears round a corner. He pauses to cock his rear wheel and send a squirt of oil up the side of the witches’ caravan. You slide into the passenger seat, while Klaus grabs the steering wheel. Just ahead, you spot Franklefink’s car heading out of sight.
“. . . rest assured, we have our best people working on it and the magic will be up and running again soon,” says the voice through the speaker.
“So where should we start?” asks Klaus. “Shall we see if we can check out this abraca-router first?”
Copyright © 2026 by Gareth P. Jones; illustrated by Louise Forshaw. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
