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It was all very stressful.
When Leo sauntered into the kitchen on Saturday morning Merry was sitting at the table, a chemistry revision book propped up against the apple juice carton and the trinket box in front of her, next to a ruler.
‘Thought you had some athletics event?’
‘Cancelled.’ Merry waved a hand towards the window, indicating the rain that was gradually transforming the flower beds into mud soup.
‘So what are you doing?’
‘I’m trying to catch it growing,’ she replied, still staring at the box. ‘But it only seems to happen when I’m not watching.’
‘Growing? Merry, it’s a box. You must be imagining it.’
Merry rolled her eyes at him.
‘If you say so.’
‘Well, I wish you’d put it away. It’s really starting to creep me out. Do you want some toast?’
‘Yes, please. And I’ve tried putting it away.’ She sighed and straightened up, shoving the box away from her. ‘The damn thing is following me around.’
‘Once again—’ Leo opened his hands wide, ‘—it’s a box. Not possible.’
‘Really? I put it up in the attic last night, back in the blanket box. This morning, when I woke up, it was on my dressing table. Yesterday I locked it in the garage before I went to school. But when I got home last night, I found it in my underwear drawer.’
‘Oh.’
‘Yeah. Oh.’
Leo plonked himself down on the chair next to Merry and poured himself a coffee. He opened the lid of the box and poked a finger at the contents.
‘Is it me, or is that – hair extension – longer?’
‘Exactly. See?’ Merry snapped the lid shut and turned towards her brother. ‘And don’t ask, ’cos I don’t know. I thought you had to work this weekend?’
‘I called in and told them I had a family emergency. I’ll lose two days’ pay, but …’ He shrugged. ‘I just don’t think you should be in the house on your own at the moment.’
‘Oh. Thanks. I’m sorry about the money.’ Merry closed the chemistry book; she wasn’t taking any of it in, anyway.
‘It’s OK.’ Leo was fiddling with a ten-pence piece one of them had left on the table, spinning it round and round between his thumb and forefinger. ‘The witchcraft – you are being careful, aren’t you, Merry? I mean, you’re not actually summoning psychotic blond boys from the nether world?’ He didn’t look at her, just kept spinning the coin.
‘Of course not, Leo. Honestly, I haven’t done any magic recently.’ Not intentionally, at any rate. ‘I kind of decided to take a break. It’s dangerous, especially if you’re not properly trained. Gran and the rest of the coven can do some pretty impressive things, from what I’ve heard, but you know I had to pick up stuff for myself.’
Yeah, picked stuff up and ran with it. It might have been OK, if you’d stuck to the spell books, hadn’t started experimenting …
Merry tried to remember what magic Leo might have seen her using.
‘What do you think I can do, apart from giving cold sores to unfaithful boyfriends? You knew about that, right?’
‘I did. Though I thought you were only supposed to use the craft to help people. Didn’t Gran make a big thing a few years back about—’
‘Yeah, well,’ Merry interrupted, ‘there’s no need for Gran to know about the cold sores. Besides, since I’m not officially a witch, I haven’t actually had to sign up to the whole good behaviour thing. But you mustn’t tell Mum I used to, well, dabble. She’d go psycho. Probably lock me up in a tower for the rest of my life. So … promise?’
‘Promise.’ He smiled at her and squeezed her hand.
Merry smiled too. She and Leo were a team. Over the years they’d learnt to look out for one another, especially as their mother spent more and more time away at work, and became more and more distant. Things might have been different once, before their father left, but Merry had only been four when he took off. As far back as she could remember it had been her brother who watched her back and took care of her, despite his occasional grumbling. She knew Leo would love her no matter what she did. No matter what she’d done.
He will, won’t he?
Course he will.
Course.
She dropped her gaze as she squeezed his hand back.
Leo tapped the trinket box with one finger.
‘So … ready for our visit to Grandma’s house?’
‘Oh yeah. Got my red riding hood and everything. Let’s hope we don’t meet a wolf on the way.’
Leo laughed.
‘A wolf messing with Gran? I’d like to see one try.’
Gran used to live in the house in which Leo and Merry lived now. She had been born there, grew up there, and stayed there on her own after Bronwen (her only child) moved out and after Grandpa died. But when Merry was born, Gran decided her daughter and son-in-law needed the space more than she did. She sold (or possibly gave – Merry wasn’t quite clear) the old house to the young family, and moved nearer to the town centre. The house Gran lived in now was deeply ordinary: a 1930s semi-detached house pretty much identical to a million other 1930s semi-detached houses across the country. Mock Tudor, bay-windowed, laurel-hedged suburban.
Merry stared up at the house.
‘Do you remember when we used to love coming here? All those weekends we stayed over? The stories she used to tell us, and the games we played?’
Leo nodded.
‘I remember: it was magical. I mean, literally magical. Like all those times we’d sit around the fire with hot chocolate and marshmallows, and she’d make the flames take on the shapes of the characters in the story she was telling us?’
‘Or the time she made it snow for us in the garden in July, so we could build snowmen? But none of the neighbours could see it. We must’ve looked off our heads, prancing around in her back garden, wearing winter coats in the middle of summer.’ Merry smiled. ‘That was a great day.’
‘Yeah, it was.’ Leo sighed. ‘Not so much fun after Mum found out what was going on, and she and Gran had that argument though, was it.’
That argument. It really deserved capital letters: That Argument. In the whole of Leo and Merry’s childhood, Mum had never practised the craft in front of them. She wouldn’t even talk about it; she got cross once just because Merry wanted to dress as a witch for a fancy dress party. Halloween was a no-go area. So when, on Merry’s twelfth birthday, Gran had asked if she wanted to be tested, to see if she was a witch, Merry had hesitated. But only for about two minutes. Sure, Mum would disapprove – if she found out – but to have the chance to learn some of the stuff she’d seen Gran doing … there wasn’t really any question about it.
Merry knew she would remember the night of the test her whole life. Since she couldn’t yet cast any spells, her ability had to be evaluated by seeing how well she could resist spells cast by other witches. Taken to a hidden spot up on the downs, blindfolded and left in the darkness, she had only heard the voices of the witches who were testing her. They didn’t speak to her directly, and half the time they were using a language she didn’t understand; it had taken every ounce of her courage not to tear off the blindfold and run, especially once the spells began to hurt. She emerged from the experience with a broken arm and what looked like sunburn all down one side of her body. But apparently that was an excellent result: most of those tested didn’t get off half as lightly. So Merry was delighted, even though she was stepping into the unknown, even though she knew nothing would ever be the same –
Too delighted: she forgot the secrecy Gran insisted on, and let something slip to her mother. Mum wasn’t just disapproving. She went ballistic. The sleepovers at Gran’s were banned, the proposed magical training was banned, and Merry was forced to promise that she would never, ever do magic. Gran was forced to promise that she wouldn’t teach her anything, at the risk of all contact being severed. Even then, Mum started to limit the amount of time they spent with Gran. She said she wanted them to be normal children – which was totally hypocritical, since Merry was certain that Mum still did some spells herself – but four years on, Merry could sort of see her point. Messing about with a little bit of magic – casting spells so boys would like you, or so you’d get picked for the netball team – it was all well and good when it was just fun, when you were just using it to make life a little bit easier. But it could go bad so quickly. And bad, where magic was concerned, was really bad …
‘Hey, Merry?’ Leo was waving his hand in front of her face. ‘Shall we?’
‘Oh – sure. Let’s get it over with.’
They got out of the car and walked up to the front door. As they stepped on to the porch, Merry glanced up, and raised her eyebrows: three horseshoes nailed up now, instead of just one. They had three at home too, though she had never thought to ask Mum why. Leo raised his hand to ring the doorbell, but the door swung open of its own accord. He shot Merry a look of exasperation as they trudged forwards into the hallway. The door slammed shut behind them.
They found Gran in the kitchen. She was smartly dressed as always: grey tailored trousers and a pale blue cashmere sweater, silver drop earrings, her grey hair cut into a fashionable, spiky bob. Not a wart in sight.
‘Come here, the pair of you. Give me a kiss.’
Merry dropped a kiss on Gran’s cheek and stepped back, but Gran took hold of her shoulders.
‘I can’t believe I haven’t seen you since Christmas. Let me look at you …’ She scanned Merry’s face for a few seconds before pulling her into a tight hug. ‘Well, you’ll be fine. I’m certain of it.’
‘What do you mean, Gran? Why wouldn’t I be fine?’
Gran released Merry and shooed her towards the kitchen table.
‘Sit down. We’ve got a lot to talk about.’
Once the kettle had boiled, Gran put three mugs and a teapot on the table. Merry poured out some tea and took a sip. It had the same strange taste she remembered; slightly bitter and grassy, though Gran had always sworn it was just regular PG Tips. True or not, somehow the tea was comforting.
‘So. You found the trinket box?’
‘Yes.’ Merry glanced at Leo. ‘It woke us up on Monday night. When I touched it I had a sort of … vision. A boy, on a throne. I’ve been having nightmares about him. And then on Tuesday night—’
‘He broke into the house, Gran,’ Leo interrupted. ‘He was in Merry’s bedroom. And the box is growing. What’s going on?’
For a moment Gran covered her eyes with one blue-veined hand. Sometimes, Merry reflected, it was easy to forget how old her grandmother actually was.
‘I didn’t know this was going to happen, Leo. It was all so long ago, I had hoped …’ She picked up her mug, staring into its depths as though she was trying to read the future. ‘I begged your mother to talk to Merry about it. But, over the last couple of years, I almost convinced myself that Bronwen was right: the evil would never awaken, and Merry would never need to be involved.’ She sighed. ‘I was wrong.’
Merry’s breath caught in her throat.
‘What – what evil? Mum knows? What does she know?’
‘And what about the box?’ Leo added. ‘How do we get rid of it? It’s following Merry around.’
‘Do you have it here?’ Gran asked.
Leo nodded and pulled the trinket box out of his bag. Gran touched it gently, running her fingers over the patterned lid in the same way Merry had done the night they found it.
‘Fifteen centuries have been and gone since this box was created. Just like the key you used to open it.’ There was a low whistle from Leo. ‘It’s made of willow wood and set with flint, for protection.’
‘Protection from that boy, Gran? Or from something else?’ Merry wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer. There was something in Gran’s blue eyes that made the skin between her shoulder blades tingle. Someone walking over my grave.
‘The box itself does not offer protection. It is merely the canary in the mine.’
Merry and Leo stared at each other blankly. Gran groaned.
‘This is what comes of a modern education. It’s like a – an air raid signal, or the countdown to a bomb going off.’
‘You mean it’s a warning?’
‘Yes!’
‘Well, you could have just said so,’ muttered Leo. ‘What’s it supposed to be warning us about?’
‘It is warning us that time is running out.’
Geez. Merry knew there was a time and a place for being cryptic and mysterious, probably, but this was definitely not it.
‘Please, Gran, can you just, like, lay it out for us?’
Gran raised an eyebrow.
‘Very well.’ She sat up straighter in her chair. ‘There is a powerful wizard, a master of dark magic, sleeping under the Black Lake. His servant – that boy – is already awake: he is responsible for the recent attacks. If the wizard himself awakes and escapes the lake, he will create an army of such servants: humans, possessed and controlled by dark magic drawn by him from the shadow realm. An army whose purpose is to destroy all love in the world.’
Merry swallowed.
‘Controlled by dark magic from the shadow realm? What does that even mean?’
‘The … things of the shadow realm are, as I understand it, more like … evil forces, powerless in themselves, until they are given a human body. Then they will obey the one who gives them human form, the one who gives them the chance to live out their desire to hurt, to destroy. No one will be safe. Your life, Merry …’ Gran faltered. ‘Your life is linked to an oath made by one of our ancestors. As a witch, you have already come of age, and you are currently the last of your bloodline. You will have to stop the wizard’s servant. And … destroy the wizard.’ She plucked a tissue from a nearby box and blew her nose. ‘I’m so sorry, my darling. I know this must be terribly frightening, but we’re all going to try to help you.’
Oaths – wizards – dark magic – Merry shook her head, trying to clear away the haze from her brain, the shreds of sleep. Because surely this was a dream? Surely her grandmother wasn’t actually sitting there and telling her that she had somehow ended up being responsible for – for what? Stopping the attacks in Tillingham? Fighting a wizard? Killing him?
‘But Gran, this is impossible. I’m not a witch, not a proper one. You know I’m untrained.’ Another thought occurred. ‘I can’t afford to mess up my exams this year either. I haven’t got time for this. I just—’
Leo stood, pulling Merry up with him.
‘I’m sorry, Gran, but this is crazy. If this situation needs to be dealt with by a witch, then you can sort it out. Or one of your friends. We’re leaving.’
‘Will the two of you please sit down. Right now.’ Gran didn’t shout. She didn’t raise her voice at all. But for some reason, both of them felt compelled to obey. Merry peeked at Leo’s face – he was just as surprised as she was.
‘I don’t blame you for being angry, Leo, but anger isn’t going to help your sister.’ Gran paused for a moment, staring at the two of them. ‘I think this would be easier if I told you a story. You’ve heard it before, though you probably won’t remember. It’s about the King of Hearts.’
Merry did remember, vaguely. It was a scary story: dark and sad. It had given her nightmares. She remembered Mum yelling at Gran about it. One of the many, many minor explosions in her mother’s relationship with her grandmother even before they had That Argument.
‘I remember a little bit – it was horrible. Wasn’t there something about a wizard, and a prince? Or was it a princess? And—’
‘And jars. Jars with hearts inside them,’ Leo interjected. ‘I remember it too. Mum got cross with you.’
‘Your mother is always cross about something. The point is, it’s not a made-up fairy story. It’s part of our family history. The most important part. The boy in your room …’ She paused to take a sip of tea. ‘The boy is the prince. His name is Jack. In many ways, he is the victim of the story. He is also the monster.’ Gran frowned. ‘Stupid of me. I knew something was happening when the attacks started – you know we like to make sure Tillingham stays mostly free of violence. But I just didn’t make the connection. You see, in the story, Jack didn’t merely attack people. He killed them. He cut out their hearts.’
‘Blimey.’
‘Quite. Leo, be a dear and turn on all the lights. There’s no sun today, and some things are better not talked about in the dark.’
Leo did as he was told and sat back down.
‘Right. Are you sitting comfortably?’
‘Not really,’ Merry murmured, but Gran ignored her.
