Isla pulled her arm free. “Morning, Ms Joy!” she called, her breath fogging the wintery air.
“Morning, Ms Joy,” Maggie forced herself to echo with notably less enthusiasm.
The teacher nodded joylessly in response.
As they neared the mosaic-tiled annex, Isla’s voice returned to normal volume. “Ms Joy,” she began emphatically, “school’s not cancelled today, is it?” Her eyes widened and her head tilted to one side, causing a few feathery snowflakes to slip from her woollen hat. “I have so much to do, it’s not even funny.”
Joyless peered through her narrow glasses. “School will resume as usual,” she asserted.
Isla sighed in relief and touched her fingertips to her heart. “Thanks, Ms Joy,” she breathed.
Maggie frowned at her.
“Inside now, please,” Joyless snipped, peering over their heads into the parking lot. “Wait in your classroom. As more students and staff arrive, I shall be sending them straight in.”
Obediently, the girls slipped past Ms Joy and paced through the domed annex, trailing slushy footprints behind them. They pushed through the double doors into the school, where the mosaic-tiled ceiling continued above the banks of lockers that lined the walls.
As it was, they were the first to arrive at Homeroom. They traipsed into the empty classroom and Isla flipped the light switch, colouring the room with a warm glow. They took their usual seats in the back row and Isla immediately withdrew her homework assignment from her shoulder bag. She flattened it out on the desk and sat up straight in her seat, eagerly awaiting the arrival of their teacher, Mr Fitzpatrick.
Maggie glanced up at the clock on the wall. Technically, school should have started by now. She frowned.
Nearly a whole minute passed before either of the girls spoke.
“Well,” Maggie said at last. “Looks like no one’s coming. I think I’m going to take off . . .” She moved to stand up.
Isla gawped at her and clung onto her arm. “What? No! You can’t just leave.”
“Isla,” Maggie groaned, slumping back down into her seat. “We’ve been here an entire minute. Clearly, no one else is coming in today. I mean, I bet people just have more important things to do,” she added, thumbing towards herself.
Isla grabbed Maggie’s sleeve. “Don’t leave me here,” she pleaded. “I’m not a loner like you. I need company.”
“I’m not a loner!” Maggie exclaimed. “I’m sociable.”
Isla offered a doe-eyed smile. “Of course you are. You’re totally sociable. Sometimes.”
Maggie sighed. “Fine. I’ll wait five more minutes,” she conceded. “But if no one shows up by then, I’m outta here.” She withdrew her phone from her coat pocket and began to mindlessly scroll.
“Are you texting Joel?” Isla asked, trying to peer across the space between their desks.
Maggie looked up from her phone. “No. I’m just trying to pass the next four and a half minutes as painlessly as possible.”
“What’s going on with you guys now, anyway?” Isla pressed. “Are you together or not? You’re so secretive these days.”
Maggie squirmed in her seat. “Me and Joel? We’re just friends.” She felt herself begin to blush. “And maybe a little bit more,” she added under her breath.
Isla grinned. “Right,” she drawled.
Actually, Maggie couldn’t define what she and Joel were, exactly. Sure, a couple of months ago he’d risked his life to save her from a dark spell. Of course, at the time, they hadn’t realised that the so-called dark spell was in fact a protection spell cast by Joel himself. Or that the person whose life he had saved had been Isla, who was under the enchantment of the New Guy, Kaden. Who just so happened to be Joel’s half-brother from a Tomlins-family baby-mama-drama extraordinaire.
But Isla didn’t know any of this. All Isla knew was that Maggie and Joel were . . .
“Just friends,” Isla echoed with a wicked smile. “I’m sure.”
Maggie frowned. “I said and maybe a little bit more, didn’t I?”
Isla wiggled her dark eyebrows. “You sure looked like maybe a little bit more at Casey’s New Year’s party,” she teased.
Maggie rolled her eyes.
Isla sighed, her tone shifting. “It feels like ages since I’ve been maybe a little bit more with someone,” she said wistfully. “Ever since . . .”
Maggie winced. Oh, no. This was the part she always dreaded.
“Kaden,” Isla finished. “I don’t understand why he hasn’t called me. Things were going so well between us.”
“Hmm,” Maggie said, mustering the vaguest noise possible.
“He hasn’t even called to check if I’m okay after being so sick . . .”
Yeah, because he’s the one who made you so sick, Maggie mused silently.
“He probably lost your number,” she offered instead.
Isla pursed her lips. “Then why didn’t he text someone to ask for it?”
“Maybe he lost his phone,” Maggie ad-libbed.
“And he couldn’t find anyone on social media, either?” Isla raised a sceptical eyebrow.
“Well, he was only in town for a few months. He probably forgot everyone’s names,” Maggie supplied with a ropey smile.
“If he forgot my name, then he obviously didn’t care about me in the first place.”
“Exactly!” Maggie cheered.
Isla’s expression turned pained.
“I mean, he’s obviously not worth worrying about,” Maggie backtracked. “Or thinking about. Or even talking about, really,” she added. “Ever.”
Isla sighed again and Maggie pretended to turn her attention back to her phone. This subject was getting increasingly tricky to tackle.
Talk about absence making the heart grow fonder, she thought ruefully.
When would Isla stop bringing up Kaden? After everything the Tomlinses had done to protect Maggie, she owed it to them to keep quiet about the night Kaden disappeared—even if that meant keeping the entire messy story from her best friend. Besides, the truth was that none of them actually knew what had happened to Kaden, or to his family. But people were talking.
Naturally, the disappearance of an entire family unit was getting pinned on the town’s notorious witches: the Tomlinses. And it certainly didn’t help that Mr Tomlins had mysteriously vanished, too—and just around the time when the police had started to ask questions. So the only thing Maggie could do was pretend that she was as clueless as everyone else. If only Isla would quit obsessing over Kaden, she’d be home free.
All of a sudden the classroom door swung open. Charlie Wells was standing in the doorway, his tall, wide frame completely covered in snow.
“Ladies! All alone I see,” he said with a suggestive wink. “Well, have no fear, C-Dog is here!” He brushed the snow from his buzz-cut and puffed out his chest. “What’s going on, senoritas?”
Maggie and Isla swapped a quick glance.
“Lessons aren’t cancelled,” Isla replied.
“But,” Maggie cut in, raising an index finger, “no one’s here to teach them.” She paused, then added, “Or learn them.”
“We’re here,” Isla pointed out with a bright smile.
“Only for another ninety seconds,” Maggie muttered under her breath.
Charlie lumbered across the room to the desk in front of them. He climbed cumbersomely into the seat backwards and rested his oversized forearms on the seatback. “Did you chicas see the game last night? Seahawks versus Buzzards . . .” He let out a low whistle. “Oh, man. Tell me you saw the Buzzards score? Right on the buzzer! I mean, please tell me you saw that?” He pressed his thick hands together pleadingly.
Maggie and Isla frowned at each other again.
“Buzzards?” ventured Maggie uncertainly. “On the buzzer?”
“Buzzards?” Isla echoed. “Like the bird?”
Charlie nodded his head enthusiastically. “Versus Seahawks, ladies!”
“Seahawks?” said Isla
, tilting her head. “Like the bird?”
Charlie nodded again. “Versus Buzzards,” he added hopefully.
The girls stared blankly at him.
Charlie dropped his head to his forearms. “Ladies, please,” he implored. “You’ve got to watch the local games. Sunday night soccer. It’s important.”
There was a brief pause before Isla spoke. “Charlie,” she began sunnily, “did you ever hear from Kaden?”
Charlie suddenly turned rigid. “What? Why? I mean, no!” He looked awkwardly to Maggie, who in turn stared down at her desk.
Charlie was the only other non-Tomlins who had been present that night Kaden had disappeared. Fortunately, Charlie’s loyalty lay with Joel. “No way. Nada.”
“I thought we were never going to speak about this again,” Maggie quickly cut in. “Ever.”
Isla pouted and returned her attention to her paper. As soon as Isla’s eyes were down, Maggie and Charlie swapped an uncomfortable glance.
“Awk-ward,” Charlie mouthed.
Maggie nodded. She glanced to the clock again, watching intently as the second hand approached the five-minute mark.
“And . . . time!” she announced gleefully. She stood up just as the classroom door opened and Mr Fitzpatrick strode in with his purple scarf wrapped all the way up to his red nose.
Isla grinned and gave Maggie the thumbs-up sign.
Maggie groaned and slumped back down into her chair.
“JOEL?” EVAN CALLED from somewhere inside the mansion.
Joel looked up from the book he’d been reading. “Kitchen,” he yelled through a mouthful of toast.
Evan appeared in the kitchen’s arched entryway. He peered past the mismatched cupboards and wood-burning stove to the window. After a quick glance through the glass at the wild and snow-capped forest beyond, he took a seat opposite Joel at the large oak breakfast table. At the other end of the table sat Pippin. The four-year-old was in his highchair, shovelling sloppy spoonfuls of cereal into his mouth while his wide violet gaze followed the snowflakes beyond the window.
“Ainsley’s refusing to get up,” Evan reported tiredly. “He’s going to be late for school. We all will.”
“Is he still on the floor?” Joel asked before taking another bite of toast.
“No, he’s upgraded to your bed now. Don’t try to move him, though,” Evan cautioned, displaying a pink semi-circle of teeth marks on the back of his hand. “He’s bitten me twice this morning.”
Joel rolled his eyes.
“What are you reading?” Evan asked, reaching across the table and taking a sip of Joel’s coffee.
“Dad’s journal.” Joel angled the well-worn pages of the leather-bound notebook for Evan’s inspection.
Evan’s eyes clouded. “You took Dad’s journal?” He pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes. “But those are Dad’s spells.”
“So?” said Joel with a shrug. “He’s not here. And you need to learn.”
“Is this about what we said last night?” Evan asked, leaning back in his seat. “I want to improve, sure, but practising with Dad’s spells . . . I don’t know. I’m just not at that level yet. None of us are,” he added pointedly.
Joel shrugged again. “It’ll be fine.”
Evan threaded his fingers together on the table top. “Where did you find it, anyway?”
Joel raised an eyebrow at his brother. “Where do you think?”
Evan looked down at his hands.
No one had dared venture into Maximus’s room since he’d left a few months ago. Joel had finally stepped inside earlier that morning, however, crossing the threshold that had repelled him for so long. Past the rush of scents attached to his dad’s clothes and possessions was an energy alive with dull colours—an energy that Joel had recognised to be his father’s.
Joel had winced, unsure if what he was feeling was sadness, or guilt, or anger. Maybe it was a muddled combination of the three. He’d listened to the hive of energy and traced it to the journal, tucked away behind a hanging picture frame. The moment he’d held the little leather book in his hands, he’d known that this was owed to him. And not just to him, but to Evan and Ainsley and Pippin, too.
If Maximus had been around, he would never have allowed the boys to leaf through his private spells. “You’re not ready,” he would have said to them. All their lives he’d held so much back from his sons. Held them back, Joel mused now. But they were witches, too, just like their father. The power contained in that book was their birth right; they just needed to tap into it.
“We’ve got to learn,” Joel said now, steeling himself. “We all want to get better, right? I mean, we have to get better. It’s . . . it’s knowing,” he found himself saying, echoing Pippin’s words from earlier that morning.
“It’s knowing,” Pippin repeated from the other end of the table.
Evan reached out again and lifted a slice of Joel’s toast. He took a bite, then set it back down on the plate. “Since when do you want to improve your witchcraft?” he asked, chewing thoughtfully.
“I don’t know,” Joel replied, twining his fingers around his coffee mug. “Probably since it occurred to me that I have all this power at my fingertips and I’m not even using it.”
Evan dusted off the crumbs from his hands and lowered his voice. “Has this got anything to do with The Fallows?”
Joel cut his gaze to the other end of the table. Pippin’s focus was still glued to the snowflakes falling outside.
“Yeah,” he admitted quietly. “But that’s a good thing. Them showing up gave me a much-needed kick in the ass. If they do come after us, if anyone comes after us, we’ve got to be ready. We’ve reached nowhere near our potential—not according to this, anyway.” Joel pressed his index finger to the open pages of Maximus’s journal. “He has spells in here that I’ve never even dreamed of—”
“Because you’re not ready for them,” Evan interrupted. “It takes years—decades, even—to get to Dad’s level.”
“Screw Dad’s level,” Joel scoffed. “I want to surpass him. Don’t you?” He gestured wildly to Evan now. “I mean, you’re a Chosen One. The potential you have is limitless. Potentially.”
A hacking cough came from somewhere behind them. All three boys turned to the arched entrance in unison to find a husky older woman dressed in a faded peach housecoat clomping into the kitchen. She stopped in her tracks when she noticed the occupied breakfast table. A lit cigarette hung from her mouth, leaking a stream of smoke from its smouldering end.
She stared at them.
They stared at her.
“Uh . . .” She looked between them awkwardly. “Shouldn’t you boys be in school or something?” she asked in a gruff, raspy voice.
“Um, yeah,” Joel replied slowly. He hesitated for a second before adding, “Who are you?”
“I’m Opal, your . . . cousin.” She grinned to reveal several yellowed teeth.
“Not another relative,” Joel groaned. “Where are you people coming from?”
She twitched nervously. “I’m dear Maximus’s third cousin. A direct descendent of Great Uncle John.”
“Oh, god, another third cousin?” Joel said under his breath. “That’s just what we need.”
The newcomer let out a guttural stream of coughs, spraying ash from her cigarette onto the floor.
“Are you, um, going to be okay?” Evan asked tentatively.
She waved his concern away with a rough bejewelled hand. “You must be Maximus’s kids,” she wheezed. “Let me guess—oldest son and middle son,” she pronounced, pointing her cigarette at Evan and then Joel. Her gaze skipped to the end of the table and landed on Pippin. “And this must be the youngest.”
Evan and Joel made a show of waving away the smoke that was billowing in front of their faces. “This is a no smoking zone, Cuz,” Joel told her, thumbing towards Pippin in the high chair. “I don’t want The Youngest breathing in your toxic fumes.”
She hastily stubbed the cigarette out on her
tongue and tucked its slightly crooked remains into the top pocket of her housecoat.
Joel and Evan cringed.
“Actually, I meant, y’know, that you should leave or something,” amended Joel. “Not singe off your taste buds.”
She dismissed his words with a shrug of her heavy shoulder. “Ah, it’s no trouble.”
Evan scratched his head. “Sorry, but who did you say you were again?”
“I’m Opal, Maximus’s fourth cousin.”
Joel raised an incredulous eyebrow. “You were his third cousin a second ago.”
“Third or fourth,” she replied dismissively, darting a thin tongue across her parched lips. “You stop counting after second. No offence,” she added to Pippin.
The boys swapped another look.
Joel sighed. “It’s semi-nice to meet you, Alleged Third-or-Fourth Cousin Opal. But would you mind giving us some privacy? We’re kind of in the middle of something.”
She seemed as relieved as they were that the conversation had to end.
“Privacy,” she said with a knowing nod. “Understood.” She broke into another bout of coughing. “Don’t mind me,” she hollered as she turned back the way she’d come. “You won’t even know I’m here! Quiet as a mouse, me.” With that, she plodded cumbersomely back into the hallway, hacking with each step.
As one relative left, another arrived—this time, though, a legitimate Tomlins.
“He’s up,” Joel muttered. “Finally.”
Ainsley padded into the kitchen, blonde curls drooping into his eyes. “Mmph,” he managed, sinking down into a seat at the breakfast table. He reached blearily for Joel’s coffee cup.
“Did you meet our new alleged third-or-fourth cousin, Opal?” Evan asked wryly, nodding towards the archway separating the kitchen from the hallway.
Ainsley gave a huge yawn. “Mmph,” he answered vaguely. Then his sleepy lavender eyes landed on the journal, which was laid out on the table beside Joel’s half-eaten toast. “What’s that?” he asked, sounding slightly more alert.
“Dad’s book,” said Joel, taking another bite of toast.
Ainsley peered at his brother. “You took it?”
“Yeah, I took it.”
Blackheath Resurrection (The Blackheath Witches Book 2) Page 2
