I hold tighter this time, and work away at his skin with my pin, and then I have the end of it out.
“It hurts.”
“Really? It’s nearly done.”
“It really hurts.”
“Let me get it, I’ll kiss it better.”
“Promise?”
I look up at him then and my stomach flips. No boy has ever looked at me like it before. I know he wants to kiss me; he actually looks like he wants to devour me, and I suddenly can’t look at him. It feels like I can’t breathe but he’s leaning closer to me, and I think the whole world might just stop spinning. His lips look so soft. He takes a breath, and then he kisses me.
My eyes close with bliss and desire and he’s still kissing me. And I kiss him back.
I’ve never kissed like this, but I kind of know what to do. Lips touch, tongues move and my whole body is tingling, and his arms are around me and the drawing pin falls from my hand and I put my arms around him. I can feel the muscles in his back under my hands, the heat from his body and I think I could probably die right now and still have a smile on my face.
We pull apart needing to breathe and I try to wipe my mouth without looking like I’m wiping his kiss away. He holds his finger up. “Splinter.”
Really? Couldn’t have thought of a more romantic thing to say after our first proper kiss. Okay.
I take his hand and control myself – I want him to kiss me again and again and again, but I bite my lip and pull at the splinter. It comes out easily and I hold it up for him to see. Then I kiss his finger.
Then I look at him and there’s that look on his face again and we kiss.
There’s a cough and we break apart. He grins and takes my hand, but I cannot look at him or his mother and I know my face is bright, beetroot red, so I just look at the table.
Sexy.
“Sorry to interrupt.” Her tone is teasing, and I keep my head down. Fletcher squeezes my hand and I squeeze back but refuse to look up.
I need a minute. I cannot look at his mum because she’ll be able to see exactly what I’m thinking. It’ll be written all over my face – and she won’t like me thinking such things about her son.
“We’ve got the council coming here tomorrow. We think they sounded surprised by it all, but we don’t really know. Even if they knew about this it wouldn’t serve them well to admit it. I think we’ll have the meeting and then see what happens. We will have back up – in case it turns nasty. Ember is telling the girls, and I guess I’ll, um, leave you to it.”
How embarrassing.
I look up at Fletcher and he’s laughing. “We were only kissing.”
“I suppose she’s used to seeing you kiss all the girls?” I hate that I feel jealous – the image of him and Sally snogging is imprinted on my memory.
“No.” He touches my cheek. “Only two.”
“Me and?”
“Sally.”
“I know. I saw your little snogathon on the beach.”
He looks shocked and then frowns. “Sally’s memory.”
“Yeah – I think she enjoyed showing me that one.”
“It was literally a few days last summer. I haven’t seen her since. You’re not cross, are you?”
I shake my head. How can I be cross? Even if he’d kissed a hundred girls, it wouldn’t matter to me. Just because I haven’t kissed anyone else, doesn’t mean he should have been waiting for me his whole life.
Then I get the weirdest feeling. I was meant to meet Fletcher, I was meant to become the accidental witch, and I was meant to kiss him. Like it’s all mapped out, and I had no choice.
Destiny.
I feel a shiver and look at him. He’s so bloody good-looking. Why is he interested in me?
He touches my face, tracing his finger along my cut. It doesn’t hurt, but it’s one more thing to make me look less pretty and polished than all the girl witches he knows. He kisses me again. Just a kiss on my lips and then he sits back. “I wanted to do that in your house. When I brought the chocolate bar back to you.”
“You did not!”
“I did. You looked so sad, so vulnerable...”
“So pathetic?”
He shakes his head. “No. Just sad. I know what it’s like. After my dad died, it took me so long to get out of that head space, to remember him without falling apart. Though-” He takes a big, shuddering breath, “that might change now I know he was murdered.”
“I’m so sorry about that. I wish you hadn’t found out because of my vision.”
“I’m glad I did. I’m glad I know. But I know next time I look at him-”
“What do you mean – look at him?” My heart is suddenly racing.
“I can see him – there’s a magic way. Oh, do you want to see Molly?”
My eyes fill with tears and I’m nodding and crying like an idiot. “Can I? Can I really?”
He nods. “You can but you have to know that it doesn’t change anything. She’ll still be dead. You can’t speak to her or join her or stay with her. She won’t even know you’re there.”
“Where is she? In heaven or something?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know. Just somewhere. I used to look at my dad ten, twenty, thirty times a day, until my mum found me. She was so angry.”
“Why?”
“Because you never want to leave them. But then you lose your life here. It’s like another plane, it’s completely separate and all you can do is look, but it’s addictive. I used to have imaginary conversations with him and pretend he could really hear me. I’d answer for him. It wasn’t healthy. My mum could see that. Now we only look at him together – birthdays, Christmas, that kind of thing.”
I wipe my eyes and nod. “I would love to see Molly. Please.”
18
FLETCHER KISSES ELLIS lightly on the forehead. “Let’s go to my room. It’s quieter and we won’t be disturbed.”
He takes her hand and leads her upstairs. “This is weird. It might make things worse.”
She shakes her head. “Please, let me see her. Just once. I promise.”
He nods and sits on the bed, patting for her to sit beside him. He closes his eyes and then puts his fingers and thumbs together, both hands, to make a rectangle. He pulls his hands apart and the empty space is filled with colour, like a small screen.
Ellis puts her hands through the gap. “Weird,” she whispers and Fletcher nods, trying to keep his concentration.
He mutters something, then moves his hands away; the screen stays there – just a rectangle of colour floating in the air above his bed.
“Ellis, you need to call her. Say her name.”
She shakes her head, filling up. “I can’t.”
“You love her, so she’ll show up for you. she won’t show up for me.”
He takes her hand and presses his lips to her skin, giving her time, being patient. Her voice is so quiet he barely hears it. “Molly.”
The screen remains blank, and Ellis leans closer, talks louder. “Molly. It’s me.”
The tension in the room builds, the energy bubbles. Ellis can’t see anything, but she can hear rustling, and whispers, see flashes of light, not on the screen, but in the room – all around them. “What’s happening?”
“It’s just the spirit world, colliding with ours. It’ll calm down now. Call her again.”
Ellis does and then the screen fills with colour. Blue sky, green grass. Molly.
Ellis cries out and touches the screen; her hand goes straight through.
“Molly.”
Her best friend, Molly, is there. Not alive, but not dead either, really. Is it heaven? Another dimension? A dream? Does it even matter.
Molly is walking, smiling, alone. Ellis leans in and Fletcher watches her. He loves that he has given her this gift. And it is a gift. He knows it, because he’s felt it. Being able to see his dad again was the number one thing that got him through his grief and now it might help Ellis.
He watches her cry, laugh, reach out want
ing to touch her friend, whisper to her, yearn for her to be alive again, and it moves him.
He wants to make her happy, and he wants to be near her and yet he barely knows her, didn’t really know who she was last week. He shrugs and reaches for her hand.
Ten minutes pass and then Fletcher breaks the spell. “Ellis, it’s time.”
She doesn’t argue, just turns to him, tears flowing down her face, but smiling. She sinks into his arms and he holds her, letting her cry, and process what she’s just seen.
She sits up. “Thank you. I will never forget that you did that for me. I loved it. I loved seeing her.”
“And it’s enough?”
She nods. “It’s enough.”
They hug again and a knock at the door has them springing apart. Elodie walks in without waiting for an invite. Fletcher laughs. “Mum!”
“What?” She tries to sound innocent but fails. “I just wanted to tell you that supper is ready.”
“Mum. I let Ellis see her best friend Molly. Who passed away.”
Elodie nods. “That was kind of you, Fletcher, but did you explain-”
“Yes, mum. It’s just a one time thing.”
“Please don’t be cross with Fletcher. I really needed it and I won’t need to do it again; but I did need to do it.”
Elodie pats her shoulder. “Okay, I won’t be cross with him. Let’s go.”
They join everyone in the kitchen and Fletcher knows instantly that the twins know that his mum walked in and caught him kissing Ellis. They are bubbling with energy, desperate to tease him, but knowing they can’t do it in front of Ellis, or the adults. He smiles at them and takes his seat.
“What a busy weekend we’ve had,” Elodie says and they all laugh, because that is the understatement of the century. “Oh, you know what I mean!”
They eat and talk and laugh and chat, and the tension gradually dissipates. The horror seems like a long time ago, a long way away.
And yet, none of them says what they all already know; this is just the beginning. The beginning of the drama, the trauma, the battles and the war, the fight to live and the fight to survive.
THE END
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