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‘Dan? You’ve got to be kidding me. He’s got a serious girlfriend. He’s completely loved up. Besides, Simon just wouldn’t understand. I don’t know how he and the others would react if I told them. I think – I’m not sure they’d think I was me any more.’
He’d had such a dejected look on his face. Merry had hugged him and told him she loved him and supported him, over and over. She had also (in her head) threatened to curse anyone who gave him a hard time, once he’d got up the nerve to actually tell them.
Leo’s battered black Peugeot pulled up to the curb now. Merry could see his blue eyes widen in disbelief, then narrow – he shook his head at her. She was probably going to pay for this later. But before she could say anything Ruby had surged ahead and jumped into the front seat. Leo said hello to her pleasantly enough. Then he turned back towards Merry, and glared.
It was going to be a long ride home.
It was Merry’s turn to make dinner. Yesterday, Leo had made them sausages and mash, so Merry, who was generally speaking a better (though unenthusiastic) cook, decided to go for something marginally healthier and try a vegetable stir fry recipe she’d torn out of a magazine. She was pretty pleased with it, but Leo spent most of the meal picking out the broccoli and complaining about Ruby, Merry’s friends in general, and the fact that he was having to ‘babysit’ her. It was true that Ruby had been unbearable in the car: giggling at everything Leo said, brushing her hand against his leg at every opportunity. Merry didn’t blame him for being annoyed. Plus, she knew he was tired in the evenings; he was working long hours on a local farm, saving money for when he started studying medicine in September. But still, she finally had enough.
‘For God’s sake, Leo, she was only in the car for half-an-hour. And it’s not like I expect you to stay in with me every evening. You’re out just as much as I am. Why are you being so obnoxious?’
And that was it. They ended up having a massive row, basically about nothing. Leo spent the rest of the evening in his room, not even coming down for the latest episode of their favourite sci-fi show.
Now Merry was sitting in the bath, watching the ends of her fingers shrivel up, headphones on and music cranked up to drown out the thunderstorm raging outside. Usually she liked to sing along to her favourite songs – loudly – but tonight she just wasn’t in the mood.
Geez, what a day. She’d had an uncontrollable magical outburst at school, hallucinated about some strange girl and managed to have a fight with her brother. And it was only Tuesday.
The trinket box was preying on her mind too. She’d called Gran’s house again and left a message, but so far Gran hadn’t phoned back.
The bath water was cold. Merry pulled the plug and got out; there was no reason to put off going to bed any longer.
Time to man up, Merry. Woman up.
As she passed Leo’s bedroom she paused for a moment, tempted to knock and say goodnight, but she couldn’t hear any signs of life – no point in waking him if he’d already gone to bed. She crossed the landing to her own room. But at the door, she hesitated.
She couldn’t make herself go in.
Something was wrong.
As her hand lingered on the door handle, she felt something. Some kind of energy, similar to the energy that had surged from the trinket box and knocked her out the previous night. But this time, it was far, far stronger.
She drew her hand back.
Magic.
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Merry panicked. Forgetting her current no-magic policy, she tried to think of a spell she could use against whomever – whatever – was on the other side of the door. She tried to think of any spell at all, but her mind was too full of images: images from when she had first touched the trinket box, images from her nightmares. Almost without any conscious decision, she turned the door handle and stepped into the room.
The boy from her nightmares was standing on the other side of the door. He yanked Merry towards him, pushing the door shut as he spun her round, putting one hand over her mouth and his other arm around her body, pinning her arms to her sides and crushing her against his chest. She kicked backwards with her heels, beat her fists against his legs, but his grip only got tighter.
This was no dream.
‘I would not willingly hurt you, maid, but you must be still.’
Merry ignored him and slammed the back of her head against his face.
The boy grunted, but his grip didn’t falter. ‘I’ve a blade in my hand. Unless you wish me to use it, be still!’ Something sharp pressed against the side of Merry’s ribcage. She stopped struggling. ‘Now, I am going to take my hand from your mouth. You will not scream.’
Merry tried to remember how it had felt when she’d smashed the mirror earlier that day. If she could summon even a fraction of that power, force him away from her –
The pressure from the knife-point increased. But she couldn’t feel the faintest flicker of magic. The repelling charm she was saying in her head might as well have been a nursery rhyme.
‘Agreed?’
Merry nodded. The boy lowered his hand, placing it instead around her throat.
‘What is this place?’
‘Tillingham,’ Merry whispered. ‘We’re just outside Tillingham.’ She felt the boy shake his head. He didn’t seem pleased by her answer.
‘Where is Gwydion?’
‘I don’t know anyone called Gwydion.’
The boy’s hand tightened slightly.
‘Then why do I know your face? Why am I drawn to this … this dwelling?’ There was anger in his voice, but underneath the anger Merry could hear panic. The boy was terrified of something.
‘Please, let me go. I don’t know what you want. I can’t help you.’
‘You’re lying. You must help me.’ The boy turned Merry around so he could see her face. ‘I know you. I remember little else, but I know you!’
The bedroom door burst open and the light came on. Merry tried to duck as Leo took a swing at the boy with his cricket bat. He wasn’t quick enough. The boy shoved Merry towards her brother and leapt for the window. He paused and looked back at her, crouched on the sill for a moment, before jumping out into the darkness.
Leo ran to the window and leant out. The next moment he was on his knees next to Merry, his arms around her.
‘It’s OK, Merry. He’s gone. God, I thought – I thought—’ He took a deep breath. ‘Who the hell was that? Was it someone from school? Did he hurt you?’
‘No, he didn’t.’ Merry clutched her stomach as a ripple of nausea shot through her. ‘He didn’t hurt me, not really. It was him, but it can’t have been. He’s not real. At least, I didn’t think he was.’
‘You’re not making any sense. I think you’re in shock.’
‘It was that man – boy – the one I’ve been having nightmares about.’ She shivered. ‘But you saw him too, didn’t you? I’m not – I’m not imagining it?’
Leo shook his head.
‘Of course I saw him.’ He dragged the duvet off the bed and wrapped it round Merry’s shoulders. ‘I just tried to bash his head in, didn’t I? God, this is crazy. Maybe he just looked a bit like the guy in your nightmares?’
‘No. His clothes were exactly the same. Every last, weird, detail, right down to the stupid brooch thing he had on.’ She groaned, pressing shaking fingers to her temples, remembering how the boy had asked for her help, how certain he’d been that he knew her. None of it made any sense. And why hadn’t she been able to cast a spell? Sure it was a long time – at least seven months – since she’d deliberately tried to use her power, but even so …
She swallowed; her throat was parched.
‘How did you know he was in here?’
‘The cats. The pair of them were on the landing, staring at your room and hissing, with their tails all fluffed up.’
Merry closed her eyes and leant against her brother’s chest.
‘I’m not sure I can cope with much more of this.’
‘Let’s call the police.’
Merry sat up again.
‘No. Let’s not.’
‘But maybe you’re psychic. Witches are automatically psychic, right? Which means he was the one who’s been attacking people. It certainly looked like he was trying to kill you.’
‘He wasn’t trying to kill me. And I’m not psychic.’ She winced and rubbed her side where the knife had dug in.
‘But—’
‘Please, Leo? The police won’t be any use.’
‘Why on earth not?’
‘Because I’ve never seen the guy before, but somehow I’ve been dreaming about him. If I tell the police that, they’ll just think I’m mad. Or worse.’ She yawned, suddenly feeling utterly drained. ‘I think … I think he must be linked to that trinket box. Gran will know what to do.’
Leo groaned and ran a hand through his hair.
‘Well, if that’s true, you have to get hold of Gran tomorrow. This is all getting too dangerous.’ Merry could hear the anxiety in Leo’s voice. ‘And if he comes back, I am calling the police.’
‘I don’t think he will.’
‘Since you’ve just told me you can’t see into the future, you don’t know that. Come on.’ He gathered up her duvet and pillow. ‘You’d better sleep in my room until Mum gets back on Sunday.’
Leo insisted Merry went to school the next day; he said she would be safer there, and he told her to stay at school and study until he could come by and pick her up at six. When they got home he went straight upstairs and nailed her bedroom window shut. Merry, unconvinced that nails would help, went through her mother’s address book and found an old mobile number for Gran; the call went straight to voicemail, but she left another message.
Early the next morning, in the dim greyness just before dawn, Merry heard singing outside Leo’s window. Chanting, really; voices rising and falling along different harmonic lines that somehow combined into a single, sombre melody. She couldn’t make out the words. Pushing the curtain aside and peering through the glass, she saw a group of women standing with their arms raised. Some of them seemed to be holding things: bunches of twigs, stones, a metal bowl on a chain with smoke coming out of it. As Merry watched, one of the women knelt, pulled out a knife and started carving a shape in the lawn underneath the window.
‘Oh, my – Leo!’ She shook him awake.
‘Huh? What?’
‘There’re people downstairs in the garden – I think they might be witches. They’re singing. And one of them’s messing up Mum’s lawn.’
By the time they had got downstairs and unlocked the back door, the women had moved away from Leo’s window and were vandalising the grass at the front of the house. Leo ran towards them, waving his arms.
‘Stop! What the hell are you doing?’
The woman with the knife straightened up. Merry knew her: she lived in the old manor house a little further down the lane.
‘Mrs Knox?
‘A bad business this, Merry. Very bad. We came as soon as we got your grandmother’s message.’ She followed Merry’s gaze to the large carving knife in her hand. ‘Protective runes. If we’d known the counter-curse was going to break down …’ Mrs Knox shook her head, sighed. ‘Didn’t think it would happen in my lifetime. If it happened at all.’ There were murmurs of agreement from the other women. As Merry looked at their faces she found more of them that she recognised. One of the checkout ladies from the local Waitrose; the woman who owned the bookshop on the high street; a girl whose name she couldn’t remember, who was in the year above her at school and sometimes worked in Zara on Saturdays.
‘Are you, um, Gran’s coven?’
‘Some of it, yes.’
Well. This is weird.
Leo stepped forwards.
‘I don’t know what exactly Gran has asked you to do, but you cannot go around messing up people’s lawns and – and singing at them. Our mum’s going to go insane—’
‘No need to worry. The runes will have faded by the time she gets back.’
‘That’s not the point. You’re still trespassing.’ He blushed and tugged at the hem of his T-shirt; Merry saw the Zara girl staring at him, grinning. ‘What’s a counter-curse? And what does any of this have to do with us?’
‘Ah. Think your grandmother had better deal with that. She’s presenting at a conference in Whitby this week, but she’ll be back Saturday morning. You’re to visit her at one o’clock.’
‘But—’
‘No more questions.’ Mrs Knox nodded to the other women. ‘We’ve one more side to do, then we’ll be out of your way. I’d have some breakfast and get dressed, if I were you, young man. You shouldn’t be standing around in your underwear in this kind of weather.’ After gazing at Merry one last time – such a strange look, it made Merry shiver and pull her coat tighter – she turned away and started shepherding the rest of the coven round to the far side of the house. The conversation was clearly over.
For the next couple of days Merry avoided her brother as much as possible. She knew Leo wanted to talk about what had happened, about the boy in her room and the sudden arrival of the coven, but she didn’t. Instead, she spent Thursday evening in her room, trying to catch up on homework, and on Friday she persuaded Ruby to go with her to the gym at the local community centre. Ruby was happy enough for the first forty-five minutes (a drop-in yoga class) but was less keen when Merry suggested working out with some of the weights and exercise machines.
‘Can’t we go and get some dinner now? I’m knackered. We don’t all have your stamina.’
‘Just a bit longer, please? I’ve got a javelin competition on Saturday.’ A partial truth: Merry’s life seemed to be full of those at the moment. But the whole truth was far too complicated. ‘Sit and have a rest while I use the punchbag.’
Ruby groaned, but she sat on the floor and got out her phone while Merry searched for the least rank pair of gloves. She liked feeling that her body was strong, that it would do pretty much whatever she asked of it; she’d started doing more sport a few years back, encouraged by Gran, and kept it up even after she began to see less of her grandmother. Plus, the boxing was therapeutic. Taking out her frustration on the bag, she almost forgot she wasn’t alone until Ruby interrupted.
‘Merry? Is something up? You’re being even more weird than normal.’
Merry stopped and looked at her friend.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, I get that you like to be busy. But at the moment – you never seem to stop. It’s either sport, parties or late-night studying. All the time. And you’re still not getting everything done. It’s like you’re …’ Ruby’s face scrunched up. ‘I dunno. I’m just worried about you.’
Merry pulled off the boxing gloves and started examining a cut on her knuckle.
Ruby knew, almost. So maybe Merry should actually talk to her. Tell her that she’d come to the gym this evening because she was hiding from her own brother, and because she was trying to forget that someone had threatened her with a knife three nights ago. That when she was exercising, or out with mates, or completely exhausted, she didn’t have to think about what she’d done last year, or about what she’d given up. That she had once been a witch, and now she wasn’t.
Tell her how hard it was to want something that she knew she shouldn’t want.
She might understand, if I explained.
What, like you tried to explain to Alex? And how did that work out for you?
The mixture of disbelief and fear on Alex’s face still haunted her. It was too much of a risk.
‘I’m fine, Ruby. Just, you know, stuff. School, mostly. I’m not sure I can be bothered to resit chemistry. I know I’m going to fail again, and I’ve got so much else to do …’
‘Then just drop it. You need to stop trying to please everybody, Merry.’ Ruby grinned. ‘Who wants to be good the whole time anyway, eh?’
