It didn’t mean that he didn’t have a mean streak or lash out every now and again. But it did mean that he tried his best. He was pleased with how he handled that incident today. He knew his father would have been proud.
Ellis
I PUSH ALL THE WRAPPERS onto my already messy bedroom floor and lay on my bed, stretching my arms and legs out so I look like a starfish.
There’s homework to do, washing to put away that my mum placed on my desk, and I know if I go downstairs my parents will find me something to do – more makeup, or engraving name plates, or transferring ashes into beautiful caskets.
I don’t want to do any of that.
I just want to mope.
Moping is lovely. My mum and dad want me to snap out of it – this slump I’ve been in since Molly’s death – but the truth is, I kind of like it. I like laying around, indulging in my tears, my sadness, my anger that leukaemia finally stole my best friend. I like feeling sorry for myself – nobody else does. All the sympathy I was given initially has waned. Even my friends can’t be bothered with me anymore. I don’t blame them, but I don’t want to snap out of it either.
I’m not ready.
I’m not ready to let her go.
If I let her go, then she’ll be gone.
“Ellis.” My mum, knocking the door.
I sit up, groaning, and take a deep breath, unlocking my door. “Come in.”
I feel sad when I see my mum come into the room. I don’t want to admit it because it’s ridiculously selfish, but my turmoil has definitely taken a toil on my mother. She’s always careful with me now, she doesn’t want to tip me over the edge, she doesn’t want to push me away either. And, of course because I’m seventeen I use it to my advantage. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t. She has a tentative smile on her face. “Hiya lovely.” She sits on the bed, stroking my hand. “How was school?”
“College.”
“Sorry, college?”
I shrug and she leans over, kisses my head. “Ooh, you should wash your hair, sweetie. You’ll feel better if you do.”
Okay, so maybe my standards of personal care have dipped a little, but I don’t need it pointed out.
“And maybe it’s time to-”
I interrupt her with a sigh, tears easily filling my eyes. “Mam, please don’t nag me.”
She pulls me into a hug. “Sorry, lovely. I just thought you might feel better if you looked after yourself a bit, that’s all. I hate seeing you upset.”
Upset? The sad truth of it is that I keep the lowest of my moods from my mum and dad and Isaac. I manage to get up, get dressed, go to college, eat. I go through the motions of work and family life and then when I shut my bedroom door I sob, I howl, and I cry the whole night through.
Molly was more than my best friend; she was an extension of me. And she had all the best bits. She was funnier than me, cleverer than me, nicer than me. The friends who don’t want to know me anymore because I’m so flipping miserable were really Molly’s friends and I was lucky enough to tag along.
I’m not weird just because I live with dead people. But people think I am. And I can’t blame them. There is something creepy and macabre about our household. We are used to it, but even Molly would get weirded out when I talked about embalming or ashes, or doing dead women’s hair with my own hairspray because we’d run out downstairs. Dead people are creepy. They can’t help it and I don’t believe it. I quite like them – I try to make them look their best and I always talk to them, but other people think I’m the weird girl who lives in the funeral home. And without Molly I am the weird – sad – girl who lives in the funeral home.
My mum pushes my hair back off my face, my flat, straight, couldn’t get it to curl if my life depended on it, hair and kisses my forehead again. “Anyway, dad’s asking if you want to go along tonight.”
“To?”
“Chilli in the woods. Have you forgotten?”
I feel bad, but I had. Chilli in the woods is my father’s favourite annual tradition – I think he likes it more than Christmas. It was started by our family friend Sheelagh, and now we do it every year. And every year it grows, as people invite their friends, and then they invite theirs.
Now about seventy of us head to the woods near Caswell beach, eat chilli and sing songs around the camp fire. It’s old fashioned and unsophisticated – we usually end up with soggy bottoms and burnt marshmallows, but I love it. I’ve been doing it since I was five, and even though Molly always came with us, I do want to go.
Someone will bring giant saucepans of chilli and someone else will bring the rice. There’s fresh baguettes, party bags and cup drinks for the children, beer or cider in cans, and without exception every year I leave at midnight feeling better than when I got there.
Maybe it will help me this year.
“How long till we go?”
“An hour.”
“Maybe I’ll wash my hair.”
My mum looks pleased and I pretend not to notice, but she’s right. After it’s washed and dried, I feel better. I feel more like my old self.
I put clean clothes on for the first time in a long time. I actually feel shocked when I open my wardrobe and see colour – I have officially been ‘in mourning’ since Molly died. Only wearing black, grey and navy – all through the summer, as well – all through the heatwave. No wonder nobody wants to talk to me.
I pull out a yellow top, covered in little white flowers and a pair of blue jeans.
Downstairs my parents are packing the car – camping chairs, baguettes, crisps, alcohol, and my dad is clutching his guitar. He’s not very good at it, but he’s so proud that he can play a few tunes. I grin at him. “Mustn’t forget that, dad.”
Isaac gives me a high five. “I knew you’d come to chilli in the woods. Remember last year when Molly’s marshmallow caught fire-”
“Isaac!”
“Mum, it’s fine. I like talking about her.” I turn to my brother. “It was funny, Isey. It’s okay.” He looks gutted and I kiss the top of his head.
“Do you reckon Chris will have the song sheets tonight?”
“Of course.”
Each year the singalong around the camp fire gets more and more intense – guitars – plural – song sheets, and the conductor, Chris, Sheelagh’s husband who sings in a choir. I always sing – I’m not great at it but it makes me happy. Last year Molly joined me for a few songs, we held hands and warbled away; the fire making our eyes water and the camaraderie and happiness amongst the group making us both smile.
This year will be different, but at least the people there don’t think I’m weird and sad. Most of them like me a lot.
We park up and gather our stuff, trudging up the long path to the camp fire. Anyone can use it, but in all the years we’ve been coming, we’ve never clashed with another group.
We hear everyone before we see them – a rush of voices, laughter, kid’s shouting. I know my mum will have prepped them all, that no one will mention Molly, but I’m still nervous. We went everywhere together – I still reach for her or turn to tell her something. I feel like part of me is missing.
“Hey!” The calls start and Isaac shoves his stuff into my arms, and he’s gone. The younger kids run around, climb trees, build dens and find sticks for marshmallows.
The men build up the fire and take charge of keeping it roaring away all evening.
Everyone pitches in and so do I. And I feel the sadness slip away from me, the constant ache in my chest lifts – it really does. It’s like magic. I look around this group of people – all friends or family, and I grin. We range in age from a few weeks old, little Jacob, to over sixty and yet we have more in common than not. The biggest thing being that we think it’s important to gather here, every year, making a tradition out of nothing. Making family out of strangers.
When the music starts, guitars and voices blending to sing feel good songs from Delilah to Country roads, my eyes are streaming with tears. I don’t even try to stop them o
r wipe them away; I’m with people who love me and I can feel their sympathy and love as clearly as I can feel the heat from the fire.
2
FLETCHER JUMPS OUT of bed as soon as his alarm goes off. Being a witch makes his life so easy – he can do so many things by the flick of a hand, or a command in his head – and so he likes to challenge himself.
He dresses in shorts and a t shirt, trainers and a hat. He grabs his water bottle and heads outside. He warms up and then runs. He runs every morning for ten miles, it takes him an hour and he always feels better for it.
Then he runs home to change. He still has three hours before his first college lecture, and less than one day before he becomes the most important witch in the whole of the country. The head of all the supernatural creatures in Britain. He feels the panic build in him and closes his eyes. Shaking his head and refusing to allow it to escalate, he joins his family for breakfast.
His aunt Ember is cooking bacon and eggs. She wears the same thing every day – like a uniform – skin tight black jeans and a black t shirt, ridiculously high heels and blood red lipstick. He grins when she places a plate of food in front of him.
“Coffee?”
He nods, his mouth full of bacon.
“How was your run?”
He nods again, grinning, bacon grease running down his chin. “Good.”
She sits opposite him, her bright white hair glowing. “Looking forward to tonight?”
He looks up at her. He loves his aunt Ember, but she’s the complete opposite of his mother. His mum is warm and kind and gentle. Ember is sharp and calculated and unkind. “Yes.” He doesn’t elaborate; he would never share his doubts, insecurities and uncertainties with her. For one, she’d tease him mercilessly, and he’s not sure she wouldn’t exploit his fears to her own end.
“Good.”
They are interrupted by Thea and Talia. Twins with different years of birth – Talia born on the 31st December, one minute to midnight, and Talia born on the 1st of January one minute after midnight. It’s so rare, it was in the paper.
They are arguing, as they always are, and Fletcher finishes his food quickly. He loves his family, but he cannot stand the drama. They argue about anything and everything. If one likes something, the other won’t – just to be awkward.
“Where are you going, chosen one?”
Fletcher rolls his eyes and turns to face them. They are creepily identical. He still cannot see a single difference between them, and he’s pretty sure that Ember has lost track of which is which as well. Before they could talk and correct her, he’s sure Ember mixed them up more than once. Thea is probably really Talia, and Talia is probably Thea.
He shakes his head. Does it even matter? They are so alike and so beautiful that they are the talk of his college, as they were the talk of their school before that. They love the attention; they’re as vain as their mother, and now they are arguing about what to wear for the ceremony. They haven’t grown out of dressing alike, and they love to fool people by switching places.
“Down to the school.”
“Oh, you’re not still doing that?”
“You don’t have to be a saint.”
“So perfect all the time.”
“So good.”
They grin at the word good and he shakes his head. His father taught him to be good – their mother taught them to be bad. They are not dark witches by any means, but they are also very far from good.
“I like it.”
“Girls leave him alone. He’s like his father, always feeling like he has to atone for his birth right, whereas we recognise how lucky we are to have the powers and gifts we have. You go, Fletcher.” She waves her hand at him, shooing him out.
“It’s not atoning,” he protests. “It’s doing good because we can.”
“Anyone can do good – you’re not thought of any better for it.”
Fletcher shrugs and leaves them squabbling in the kitchen. He thinks she is wrong – he is better thought of because of all the good stuff he does.
He still remembers the day his father sat him down and explained how lucky he was; how magic had given him an unfair advantage. It wasn’t his fault he had an unfair advantage, but he had it all the same. He told him to never forget that just as he didn’t choose to be a witch with powerfully magical parents, nobody got to choose their parents or the life they were born into. It was the luck of the draw – a king or a thief, a saint or a murderer, an honest man or a liar, you had no choice. But you did have a choice as to what you did with your life. Fletcher had been blessed with the easiest and luckiest of lives. Magic makes everything better and he must never forget that others aren’t so lucky.
All through his life, his parents had modelled the behaviour they wanted him to emulate and it was in his blood now, part of who he was. He also liked who he was. It would be easy to be vain and lazy like his cousins and his aunt, using their magic to get everything done, never really trying – but never achieving anything either. It’s not how he wanted to live.
It’s why he pushed himself physically and mentally and why he did so many good things. Just balancing out his life.
He gets to his old school – no matter how much the twins take the mick out of him he’ll never stop helping out here.
The children are waiting for him in the yard, grins covering their little faces despite the early morning. This little band of children get to school a half hour earlier every Monday and Friday to run their morning mile with him. It’s the school he went to, and these kids come from all sorts of families, and he loves being able to give something back.
“Morning, Sir.”
“Fletcher.” No matter how often he tells them, they revert to habit – calling anyone older than they are, Sir or Miss. He laughs. “Ready?”
They all nod – they know the drill by now. They place their bags, coats and anything else under the shelter and then line up in a huddle. They never push, they never shove, and they are always smiling at the start of their mile and at the end of it too.
He jogs slowly at the back of the group, calling out encouragement and cheering them all on. Running a mile isn’t a huge deal, but for some of these kids it’s the highlight of their week. Two days when Fletcher brings his positivity and happiness into their little corner of the world.
They adore him.
At the end of the mile, they all cheer for themselves and for each other. He insists on it. “Remember,” he says to them as they gather up their stuff, “this isn’t about running – it’s about proving we can do anything we put our minds to.”
“Morning Fletcher.”
“Good morning Mrs. Adams.”
The head teacher smiles at him. “You’ve started something here. I’ve finally talked three other teachers in to manning the mornings you can’t come.”
“That’s great.”
“The difference between the kids who come to run and those who don’t is staggering. The ones who run start the school day in a good place – full of energy and fizz, wide awake and raring to go. It’s such a good initiative. Thanks Fletcher.”
He high fives all of the children as they line up and go inside and when he leaves, he feels great. That’s the other thing his father taught him: people assume doing good things for other people is selfless – but in truth it’s actually selfish, because the buzz you get out of it, is like nothing else. He feels on top of the world, ready to run home and grab his stuff for college.
When he gets to the door, he can hear the twins and his aunt still arguing and gossiping, but now his mother has joined them. He goes in, kisses his mother’s cheek. She smells of perfume. “Morning.”
“Morning, love. How was school?”
“Good.”
He goes upstairs before any of them can try to talk him out of doing it and gathers the things he needs.
“Fletch?” His mum’s voice is tinged with concern.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m just nervous about toni
ght I suppose. Making sure you’re okay.”
“I feel sick, mam. I wish I didn’t have to do it.”
“I wish you didn’t have to too. I wish your dad was still here.” She kisses his forehead – having to go on her tiptoes because he’s taller than she is. “He’d be proud of you, though.”
“You think? I worry I’m going to get it wrong, screw it up...”
“You won’t. I won’t let you. I’ll be right by your side – not just tonight – but all through your time as head witch.”
“Thanks mam. I love you.”
“I love you too my wonderful boy. And don’t let them girls – or Ember – talk you out of all the lovely things you do. They make you, you.”
They hug and he is quiet – quietly panicking, but he won’t show his mother how much he’s dreading tonight, how much he wishes he could just be a normal boy.
Ellis
WHEN I WAKE UP MY HAIR smells of bonfire and it gives me a rush of happiness. I remember the words Sheelagh said to me as I climbed in the car: “Isn’t it the best and the worst thing that when someone dies, we have to carry on without them.”
I thought about her words the whole way home, until I was crying. Silently – I didn’t want to ruin our lovely night. Isaac had fallen asleep before we left the carpark, and my mum and dad were quietly chatting as we drove.
She was so right it was frightening. It was the worst thing – I ached every day to see Molly again, to tell her something funny or sad, just to see her, and yet it is the best thing that life goes on. We can’t just stop and that’s when it hits me – that’s exactly what I’ve done. I’ve stopped.
I stopped eleven months ago when Molly died.
I stopped taking care of myself. I stopped running. I stopped washing my hair. I even stopped brushing my teeth – much. I go through the motions, but I’ve stopped caring, I’ve stopped trying. I go through each day on automatic pilot, drifting along, observing and not participating. I have changed so much.
The Accidental Witch Page 2
