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While she was gone, I watched the people around me, eyeing a couple of young women sitting opposite who were deep in conversation, their heads close together.
Not so long ago, I’d have been able to poke about in their minds and find out what they were saying ‒ or at least get an idea. Now, even though I stared at them, I couldn’t catch so much as a whisper. Things really were pretty dire.
When Nessa came back, we went through the staff schedule for the next few weeks, making sure every therapist had a treatment room, that every yoga class was booked into the studio, and that anyone who was on holiday had cover. Then Nessa paused.
‘I’m thinking of going away myself,’ she said. ‘In August.’
I took a mouthful of coffee, hoping she wouldn’t see how much the thought of being without her terrified me.
‘Great,’ I said. ‘Where are you going to go?’
‘Just to France,’ she said. She looked at me from under her blunt black fringe. ‘Will you be okay?’
‘Oh I’ll be fine,’ I said blithely.
Nessa played with the handle of her coffee cup.
‘Harry,’ she said. ‘I know we’ve not known each other that long. But I knew all about you long before I met you – with the website and then the spa – and now I like to think of you as a friend.’
She looked at me in a questioning way and I gave her a weak smile.
‘I think of you the same way,’ I said, lamely.
‘It’s just I can’t help thinking you’re not your normal self,’ Nessa went on. ‘That you’re in some sort of trouble.’
The temptation to just unload all my problems on to her was huge. But I knew if I suddenly announced I was a witch who couldn’t do witchcraft, the problems I had now would be nothing compared to what came after. The witchy world wasn’t hierarchical or structured but, even so, I had a reputation as one of the best. Who knew what could happen to my businesses if word got out. My plans to expand the spa into a new site in Edinburgh and maybe further afield would be derailed, that was for sure.
‘No trouble,’ I said. ‘I’ve just been really busy, with the kids and then these new plans ‒ I didn’t expect to find a new site so fast. But it’s all underhand. I mean, in hand.’ I smiled at her again, a bit manically ‘Under control.’
When I’d recruited Nessa it was with the intention that she could cover my adoption leave, and then move across to manage the Morningside salon when it opened. Now I wasn’t sure how that would work, given that I needed her so much at my side. But I’d cross that bridge when I came to it.
‘So you’ll be fine to take on all the counselling when I’m away in the summer?’ Nessa said, looking at me searchingly.
‘Absolutely.’ I lied. ‘No problem whatsoever.’
As we walked back to the spa, my mind was racing. I had a little over four months to sort out my magic. Otherwise, as soon as Nessa went away and I took over, my clients would realise what was happening. And then I’d be well and truly stuffed.
Back at my desk I logged into InHarmony again, and was relieved to see I had lots of replies to my message.
Until I read them, of course.
‘Can you tell us how powerful you were before this loss of magic?’ asked one user called WonderWitch. ‘It’s likely you’re remembering things with rose-coloured specs and actually you weren’t that strong to begin with.’
‘Oh yeah?’ I said out loud, bristling at the implication. ‘Strong enough to make life tricky for you, love.’
There were quite a few messages along those lines. I was surprised people took the time to reply to a message in such an unhelpful way, but perhaps it made them feel better about themselves, I thought.
Other people told me it was hormones and a normal side effect of giving birth. They’d obviously ignored the bit where I told them my children were adopted.
A bit further down there was a message from someone called MildredHubble. I grinned at the reference to the Worst Witch books, which were my favourites growing up, too.
‘Sorry to make this about me,’ Mildred began. ‘But a similar thing happened to my former best friend when her brother was going through a rough time ‒ I think it was triggered by the stress and I also think she was suffering from depression. For various reasons I didn’t help her as I should have. I saw her recently and she cut me dead ‒ not surprisingly. I feel awful about it, and I think helping you would be a good way to make amends.’
The relief I felt at knowing I wasn’t the only witch this had happened to was almost overwhelming. I felt tears well up in my eyes just because I wasn’t on my own any more.
‘Mildred,’ I typed. ‘Thanks so much for telling me about your friend and offering to help. I’m so desperate to get this sorted out but I don’t want to tell of my closest witch friends or family ‒ there’s too much at stake.’
I reduced the screen and started working on the staff rota Nessa and I had just put together, until a small ping told me I had a reply.
Mildred had messaged me privately on the website.
‘My friend had been through a lot of stress,’ she wrote. ‘We did a bit of research and discovered it’s not uncommon for witches to lose their powers like that.’
But I wanted to know the end of the story.
‘Did she get them back?’ I typed. ‘What did she do to get better?’
A reply pinged back straight away.
‘She did get them back,’ Mildred wrote. ‘It wasn’t easy but the first thing she did was to go…’
The message stopped.
I stared at the screen.
‘Where?’ I typed. ‘Where did she go?’
Nothing happened.
‘Mildred?’ I wrote.
Nothing.
I clicked on her name on her last message. Offline it said. Oh great. The first bit of hope I’d got, and it had disappeared almost as fast as it had arrived.
Grumpy, I slammed my laptop shut. It looked like I was on my own.
Chapter 6 (#ulink_1ee4398d-2126-5f66-add5-653e41b9c1e3)
From: Jasmine55
To: MildredHubble
Dear Mildred,
I’m sorry to message you, but I was really interested in what you were saying yesterday about how your friend managed to get better. I’m not sure what happened but I couldn’t see the end of your message.
Anyway, I’m not sure if you’re still checking in on the website, but I’m finding it helpful to write all this stuff down, even if you’re not reading it, so I thought I’d carry on.
It’s a chicken and egg situation, I think. I’ve lost my powers and I don’t know if I’m feeling so lost, and unhappy because they’ve disappeared or if I’ve lost them as a result of how hopeless I feel. Does that make sense? The worst thing is that I feel so guilty for feeling bad. What do I have to feel down about? I’ve got a great partner, gorgeous kids, a lovely house, no money worries. People have it a lot harder than I do. So why can’t I cope?
Don’t feel you have to reply, Mildred. In fact, delete this message if you like. I’ll never know, after all.
But if you are reading, I’d love to know more about your friend and what she did to get her powers back. It’s silly, really, because I’ve got a brilliant support network – my mum, friends, my partner – but it’s hard to tell them how I’m feeling right now. I’m quite a perfectionist, I’ve always been really driven, and admitting I’m not feeling that way is really hard. I think that’s why I’m finding it easier to write it all down, and tell you instead. Please drop me a line if you can – and if I haven’t scared you off by being so needy.
Jasmine x
From: MildredHubble
To: Jasmine55
Dear Jasmine,
I’m sorry I’ve taken a while to reply. Things are sometimes tricky at home.
Anyway, I know all about perfection, believe me. I’m a real control freak and so’s my husband. He’s properly type-A, as the Americans say. We should probably lighten up a bit, but that’s the way we are, I suppose, and we’re not going to change now.
Anyway, I’m so pleased you feel you can talk to me and I hope that if I can help you it will go some way to making amends for how I let my friend down. If I’m honest, I feel like I’ve let a lot of my friends down over the years. Family life gets in the way, you know? It’s hard to keep in touch with everyone when you’ve got little ones to look after – I’m sure you know how that feels.
Maybe online friends are the way to go? After all, we do everything else online now, don’t we? I do the weekly shop on the Internet, I read books on my kindle, I watch films online – it’s all digital. So it makes sense to have digital friends, too. Maybe we can be each other’s online friend? I’d like that. It’s easier to be honest, I think, when you’re not face-to-face.
And I’d really like you to be honest with me, Jasmine. It sounds to me like you’re having a rough old time of it, and I want to help.
I have to go now – my husband’s on his way home and I need to tidy up before he arrives. Perfectionist, remember? I’m going to have a think about what’s happened to you – maybe have a look in some books – and I’ll get back to you. Can you tell me a bit about what sort of witch you were before?
Love, Mildred x
From: Jasmine55
To: MildredHubble
Just knowing you’re on my side has made me feel better already. Does that sound mad? Knowing you understand what I’m going through and what’s happening to me means I feel better able to deal with it all.
So you asked what kind of witch I was before. Where to start? Witchcraft is everything to me. It’s my life. I’ve always been a very powerful witch and because my family, most of them at least, share my skills, I’ve had amazing support my whole life. Until things went wrong, I used witchcraft every day, in every part of my life. I use it for all the boring stuff like cleaning, finding a parking space, sorting out the laundry – you know. I’ve tried to use it for cooking but it doesn’t always work – decorating cakes is about the only thing that works in my experience. Trying to bake the cakes themselves using spells is always a disaster. At least that’s what my mum claims – she’s a brilliant cook and she never uses witchcraft to bake. My business is based around witchcraft. I use it at work every single day – at least, I did. And though my partner isn’t a witch, most of my friends are. So what kind of a witch am I? One who has witchcraft oozing through her veins. What about you?
Love, Jasmine. X
From: MildredHubble
To: Jasmine55
Dear Jasmine,
Oh, I wish I was like you. With witchcraft in the very essence of your being. But I’m not like that at all. I’m a perfectly capable witch. Competent. Practical. I don’t work any more – I’m a stay-at-home mum now – but when I did I used witchcraft most days. Only for things like filing, though. It was never the main part of my job, and it’s still not a big part of my life, not really.
I was a PA back then. I like to think I was a good one. In fact, I must have been doing something right, because I married the boss! I met my husband when I started working for him, and he soon swept me off my feet. My husband is a witch too. A very good one, in fact. He sounds a bit like you – using it every day and in every way. Though I’m not sure he’d have married me if I’d not been a witch. He’s quite keen on making sure our powers aren’t diluted and that they’re passed on to future generations. He doesn’t really mix with people who aren’t witches at all. In some ways it’s a relief that both my parents have passed away – they weren’t witches and it would have made things quite tricky for me. He was the only witch in his family, and his parents couldn’t cope at all. His dad really favoured his younger brother, even though it was my husband who was the talented one. It’s left him with a few issues about keeping to ourselves – he thinks it’s easier that way.
Anyway, Jasmine, enough of me wittering on. Please keep in touch. I feel like we’re friends already.
Mildred x
***
The rest of the week was pretty normal. Louise and I actually spent a couple of evenings together catching up on Breaking Bad and eating dinner at the same time for once. It was really nice and I felt less gloomy about things, largely because I felt like I’d found an ally in Mildred. It was strange to feel connected to someone I didn’t know from Adam, but I was pleased to have someone to listen to my problems.
I didn’t see much of the twins on my work days but Lou said Fiona hadn’t done anything else witchy as far as she could see. I wondered what would happen at the baby group on Friday. I had Esme’s yummy mummy gathering to get through first. I was dreading it.
On Wednesday afternoon, Lou was called into work. She dropped the twins to me at the spa and all the staff and clients cooed over them.
Finlay was taking a few steps on his own now and he was thrilled when everyone applauded as he toddled to me unaided. Fiona looked at him suspiciously, then pulled herself up on my leg and took two steps herself before plonking down on to her nappy-padded bottom.
I scooped her up and kissed her smiley face.
‘Clever girl,’ I said. ‘Clever, clever girl.’
Finlay clapped his hands and I watched as sparks flew between his palms like an electric current.
Nessa had seen it too. She gasped.
‘Is he…’ she began.
Still cuddling Fiona, I knelt down beside my son and stroked his cheek.
‘I think he is,’ I said. ‘You clever pair.’ Finn gazed at me for a second, then he crawled off to investigate Ness’s shoes.
‘Both of them,’ I said to Nessa quietly.
‘And so early,’ she said. ‘That’ll be fun.’
‘It’s going to be a nightmare,’ I said, cheerfully. I was thrilled the kids were both showing signs of witchcraft even if I was powerless myself right now.
For now, though, I had more than just my lack of talent to worry about.
Lou came home from work about 10 p.m., looking excited and worried at the same time.
‘What’s the matter?’ I said straightaway, clocking her flushed cheeks.
She sat down next to me.
‘I’ve been offered a secondment,’ she said, shrugging off her leather jacket. ‘To be part of a major investigation. It’s quite a big deal.’
‘That’s brilliant,’ I said, squeezing her arm. ‘So what’s the problem?’
Louise bit her lip.
‘It’s really, really full on,’ she said. ‘It’s going undercover, investigating one of the biggest businesses in the country. It’s a massive honour that they’ve picked me to be part of the team but, Harry it’s going to mean a lot of late nights, long days and working at weekends.’
I made a face.
