24 February 2018
8pm, Saturday night
Witch Weekly, London

The wireless studio was still in the basement of Witch Weekly Headquarters, right where Waverly had first found it. It no longer looked or smelled like a storage room anymore, though; it had been returned to its former glory. The furniture had been updated, the walls redone in green and gold paper, and the light fixtures replaced. Album covers and 1970s concert posters were framed and hung. The recording equipment was new and polished and shone.

Unfortuantely, there was no lift yet, and Waverly's one-legged mother would have to figure out the narrow staircase down.

When Iona Ballentyne did make her way down the stairs, her clumsy gait was accompanied by a thud as she still hadn’t learned how to be light on the new wooden leg. Her cane was no help, instead being tossed down ahead of her to clatter unceremoniously to the ground.

“We couldn’t have done this on the farm, love? I had to come here?” It was clear if her issue was the stairs or the fact she’d had to walk through the offices of the gossip rag even if no one was currently working.

"I want to do it live," Waverly said. She hadn't mentioned that before. "I can't broadcast from the farm."

Waverly had set up the studio earlier with two comfortable chairs and a second microphone. In the last few years, she'd become a bit of an audio quality snob, having learned the magical technology better and how to get it sounding perfect over the air waves. But all the fine-tuning in the world wasn't a match for the magic that happened live.

“Live?” The redhead blurted out. Interviewing at all was a stretch for the witch who was dreadful at public speaking, but she would be doing it with her daughter. To go out live was somewhat terrifying, and Iona had wrestled with werewolves. “Let your mother cock up live on air. Revenge for all of the times I embarrassed you, eh?” She relented, having made the effort to come here in the first place, and sat down in the spare chair.

"I don't want it to be some over-produced bullshit. It's not the WWN. It's us," Waverly said with resolve as she began turning some dials. "I'll do an intro and then we'll just talk. If we want a break, we'll just take one."

If her parents ever tuned in to any of her shows, they'd understand how Waverly did wireless. It was indulgent, non-pretentious, and, when she was allowed, on her own terms and timing. Her listeners would stick with her. Waverly wasn't going to beg.

“Okay.” Iona nodded and took a long calming breath. This needed to happen. With the media coverage slowing down about the attack, and the ELF ramping up their own publicity, Iona needed to seek another strategy to speak out.

"It'll be good," Waverly said. Her blood was pumping. Some days she thought of moving on to something else, but every time she found herself in the studio about to run her big mouth, she remembered why she did it. She flicked some switches and turned some knobs. A light outside their door lit up red. ON AIR.

"I'm about to tell you about the time …" Waverly just began, without preamble, into her microphone, "... they tried to kill my mother. On the first of January, three people came to my parents' farm in Wales, burned down the barn they use as a safe house, and when my mum tried to stop them, they tried to kill her. What do you think, mum, grabby opener?"

“Hm, well I wouldn’t presume to know what’s grabby, but it’s definitely true.” replied Iona, keenly aware of her strong Welsh accent as she spoke. “You missed the bit about an amputated leg too. Took the safehouse and the leg, didn’t they?”

Waverly smiled a small smile, when her mother seemed to accept what they were doing, and dove in. She got a keen little thrill at what they were doing, which wasn't necessarily strictly correct. It wasn't journalism, it wasn't press-ready, but it was their life.

"Yeah, no, that's true. You've got a nice new wooden one courtesy of Healer Rob. It's been like two months, though, and you and I haven't really talked about that night," Waverly replied.

“I’ve honestly not felt ready to. It isn’t something you process easily, having your home invaded, your personal sanctuary violated. I thank my lucky stars that you weren’t there.”

Waverly nodded, "I've thought about that. The Aurors told us that the attackers didn't expect for you to be there but they knew it was your house. That they targeted you, personally, because you're a werewolf visible in government."

“They certainly seemed surprised I was there, but there were three of them, as if they expected a fight.” Iona paused, looking away from her daughter. “I’ve not had to fight for my life for a very long time.”

At this point, Waverly knew that many of her listeners would be connecting the dots on who their host's mother was. Rarely, if ever, did Wav self-reference herself by name, or share anything personal beyond her own takes on the matters of the world.

"Were you afraid?" Waverly asked. Both of her mothers had chosen high-danger, high-confrontation careers. "You're a werewolf hunter. You were."

“I was in the Werewolf Capture Unit for over twenty years, yes. But that was a long time ago, I’ve been badly injured since then. This was terrifying. I was outnumbered. Your Omma was at work.”

Waverly shifted in her seat, unworried of the microphone picking up the noises of living in the background. She didn't worry either about adding context to the introduction of a new person into the narrative. In fact, she let it hang there, just for them.

"You have a lot of powerful friends," Waverly observed. "Big deal Ministry-types who have all this influence. There's no way they'd not pull out all the stops to investigate."

“Like your mum, being the Head Auror?” Iona asked. “These people have covered their tracks well. We all know what group my attacks were from but the Ministry won’t accuse without proof. So still this group are pretending to be helping werewolves. Their ‘help’ can go to hell.”

Waverly watched her mother. She'd thought for a moment she'd go for Solomon Carstairs or Balfour Spectre, but she didn't. That was okay. That was real.

Fin