“What did you do to your wrist?” Josh asked, pointing to the mark on Callie’s arm.
“Dunno. Nothing,” she said, quickly pulling the sleeve of her sweatshirt down to cover it and forcing herself to be calm so that the tingling in her fingers would go.
Josh grabbed the can out of her hand, shook it and tore back the ring-pull so that it squirted in her face.
Callie shrieked. “Right, you… you… This is war.” And she chased him back into the waves.
***
“Let me drop off the wetsuits and I’ll walk up with you,” said Callie. “I’ve got to go over to The Smithy.”
Callie disappeared into her house without asking Josh in, so he leaned against the wall and tried to pull his fingers through his salt-stiff hair. He wondered why she was so neurotic about her parents. They seemed okay: not especially embarrassing, no more so than his own mother.
The sound of the front door slamming cut across his thoughts and Callie reappeared beside him.
***
There were three cars parked outside The Smithy when they reached it.
“They must have visitors,” said Josh.
“It’s just Rose’s friends,” said Callie.
Another few steps and he could see over the gate and into the garden, where Rose, Bessie and another two elderly ladies sat in deckchairs sunning themselves like cats around a table laden with tea and cakes. Luath sprawled on the grass nearby looking like a melted dog.
“Pour me another cuppa, would you, Bessie?” one of them said.
Josh realised he must have been out in the sun for too long because he thought, for a fraction of a second, that Bessie had waved a finger and the teapot had floated up into the air on its own. He blinked hard and when he opened his eyes again, Bessie was holding the pot quite normally and waving to him and Callie.
“They’re expecting you?”
“Yes. They’re… sort of… tutoring me.”
Josh blew out a breath. “During the holidays? That’s a bit heavy. What are they tutoring you in?”
There was a very long pause.
“Local… historical stuff.” Callie opened the gate. “Look, I’ve got to go. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“Okay. Bye.” Josh took one last long look at the group in the garden then turned towards East Neuk Cottages. Local history? Josh had no idea what was going on, but he was sure it wasn’t that.
“You should have brought him in to meet Isobel and Barbara, dear,” said Bessie. “He seemed a nice boy when I met him at the castle.”
“He was in a rush,” Callie said firmly.
The mention of the castle made her wonder if she should tell Rose about what had happened in the tunnel. She imagined how it was going to sound here in the sun, in the familiar surroundings of The Smithy, and decided against it. She’d just come across like an over-imaginative idiot.
“It’s a shame he didn’t come in,” said Barbara. “Isobel and I won’t get another chance to see him. We’re both off on holiday tomorrow.”
“Your mother was here yesterday,” said Rose gloomily. “She says I’m ruining your life.”
“No you’re not,” said Callie indignantly. “You’re trying to help. But you know how I feel: I just want to be me; I don’t want all this witch stuff. It’s just going to get in the way.”
“But the ‘witch stuff’ is you. It’s part of you, Callie,” said Isobel. “It’s not going to go away.”
“And it’s not a bad thing,” added Barbara. “Once you know what you’re doing, it doesn’t have to get in the way of anything; it can be really useful.”
They’d been over this again and again, but no one seemed to have made any progress convincing Callie. On the other hand, Julia hadn’t persuaded her to abandon the training either…
“Let’s get started,” said Bessie.
“Yes,” said Rose. “Barbara, you go into the bathroom.” As Barbara went, Rose filled the washing-up bowl with water. “Just you come over to the sink, Callie.”
This was one of the things Callie was getting the hang of. She waited for the water surface to grow completely still, then breathed on it, saying the words of the spell in her head. The water turned hazy white, then cleared to show Barbara’s face.
“Hello, Callie. Well done.”
“Hello, Barbara. Can you hear me?”
“Loud and clear, dear.”
“You’ve got this nicely, Callie.” Rose was smiling now.
“You’re right. This isn’t hard once you get the hang of it. I suppose it’s a bit like Skype, really. But I can’t see the point of it. Why would you muck about with bowls of water when there’s phones and texts and emails and stuff?”
Bessie harrumphed. “You don’t think all that’s been around for ever, do you? Anyway, just consider what happens to the lights and the radio sometimes when you’re practising. Strong magic can scramble all this electrical gubbins. There’ll come a time when you’ll be grateful for this old-fashioned stuff. And this,” she gesticulated at the bowl, “is what witches do.”
Callie wasn’t convinced. “When can I learn a spell that might actually be useful for something? Teach me how to stop the magic breaking out when I don’t want it to. Show me how to stop my fingers tingling then something crazy happening that I didn’t mean to do. If I’m stuck with witchcraft, I want to be in charge of it.”
“That’s all part of taking control of your power fully,” said Rose. “It’ll come. Surely you’ve noticed that it’s getting better?”
“I suppose so. But it still gets away from me sometimes.”
Rose gave her a sympathetic smile. “Cast the net.” She handed Callie two candles.
“And you can’t say this isn’t useful,” said Bessie, still intent on defending traditional witchcraft. “It’s a spell of protection. No dark magic can cross the net.”
“We think it’s time you tried this on something alive,” Isobel said.
“No!” Callie exclaimed instantly. “What if I get it wrong?”
“No harm done.”
“No harm? Remember what happened to Bessie’s teapot? I don’t want to lop someone’s arm off,” she continued, panic-stricken.
“No, no. Not one of us,” Isobel said.
“Luath?”
“Certainly not! I thought we’d try with something in the garden first and see if that’s still in one piece when you finish with it.”
“A plant? I thought you said something alive?”
“For goodness sake, girl. Plants are alive. You do biology, don’t you?”
They trooped into the back garden, where they wouldn’t be seen from the road. Rose pointed to an apple tree.
“That should do.”
“George won’t be pleased if I knock that down by accident,” said Callie doubtfully.
“Well, he’ll just have to deal with it if you do. But you won’t. I wouldn’t be suggesting this if I didn’t think you were ready.”
“All right.” Callie chose her spot and set the candles down next to a rose bush covered in white blooms. Rose, Bessie, Isobel and Barbara moved to stand (safely) behind her.
Callie took a few seconds to collect her thoughts, then set fire to the wicks with a word. She spun the flames into filaments, drawing them out, twisting them into the net of light, weaving in the protective spells so that nothing could get through the net to harm what was inside.
It was ready. She took a slow breath and moved her hands to cast the net.
It floated up from her fingers, a mesh of sparkling threads. Up and over the apple tree it went, then settled around it like a veil and dissolved into shimmering mist, then into nothing.
“Oh, well done,” said Barbara.
“Beautiful, dear. Couldn’t have done better myself,” added Isobel.
Callie looked at the tree. Not a leaf or a twig had moved. George’s tree was safe. She really had done it! She was fizzing with pleasure at her achievement.
“I might even let you back into my
kitchen in the future,” said Bessie dryly. “You’ve got the basics now. We’ll be able to move on to interesting stuff soon.”
“I thought we were nearly finished.” Callie was dismayed.
“Heavens, no,” said Rose. “We’ve barely begun.”
The white roses next to Callie shrivelled, turned brown, and fell off.
***
Callie trudged home. She’d been so elated when she’d managed to cast the net over the tree. She’d really thought that she’d done it, passed some sort of test, and she wouldn’t have to keep thinking about being a witch any more. But now she had to start all over again, or at least that was what it felt like.
Home again, she went straight upstairs for a shower. When she went into her bedroom afterwards, she found Julia sitting on the bed.
“Why are you in my room?” she said, rubbing her hair dry with a towel.
“How long are you going to keep this nonsense up?”
“What nonsense?” Callie asked, choosing not to understand.
“You should be spending more time with Josh and your other friends, not that coven of old women.”
“Coven? Surely that’s what you call witches, Mother?”
“Don’t get smart. I don’t want you going round there again, do you understand?”
“You’re trying to forbid me to visit my grandparents?” Callie’s voice rose.
“Yes. Only until you get this ridiculous delusion out of your head.”
“Delusion? You think this is a delusion?” Callie yelled. There was a noise like a gunshot.
Julia and Callie turned to the window. One of the panes had cracked from top to bottom.
“What have you done?” Julia hissed.
“I can’t have done anything,” Callie spat back. “It’s a delusion, remember?”
There was a shout from downstairs. “Is everything all right up there?”
“Yes, David,” Julia called, getting up. “I mean it,” she said to Callie on her way out. “Keep away from The Smithy.”
Callie didn’t even bother to answer.
***
Callie couldn’t sleep. Chutney Mary was off hunting somewhere, and she missed the cat’s comforting purr. She was upset, too, about what had happened earlier. Her window was temporarily held together with tape, and her dad had chosen to accept her claim that the pane had just cracked without anyone doing anything to cause it, but she shouldn’t have let things get out of control like that. After all that Rose had said…
She punched her pillow into a comfortable position, closed her eyes.
She slept, trapped in a dream of cold and dark and stone; whispers and muttered curses, the harsh noise of hammers and picks on rock, the smell of sweat and fear. She’d been down here in the dark for ever, in the cold, surrounded by fear.
As she slept, she scratched at the mark on her wrist.
A pool of darkness seeped from the gap in the boards by Callie’s bed and oozed out across the floor, slow as oil, so black it seemed to suck the last of the dim light from the room. She muttered something and tossed in her sleep, trying to break free of the dream, of the noise of hammers and pickaxes.
The floor was covered now, the bed afloat on an oily pool of something blacker than mere darkness.
Callie woke with a gasp, tangled in the bedclothes. She was blind, nothing but the black dark around her.
Out of the silence came a sound. The sound of hammer on stone. Callie froze, breath held tight.
Crack!
And again, Crack!
And again.
Impossible. It was the noise from her dream. She must still have been asleep.
The noise was all around her now. All around. Inside the walls of her room, under the floor, in the roof.
She wasn’t asleep.
Callie screamed. She scrabbled for the switch of her bedside lamp.
Light.
The noise stopped.
“Callie, what is it?” The door flew open and her parents hurried into the room, switching on the main light. No one noticed the last fingers of darkness slipping down between the boards again.
“Did you hear it? Did you hear it? What’s happening?” Callie gibbered.
“Hear what, love?” Julia asked, putting an arm round her shaking daughter. “We heard you scream, that’s all.”
“You’ve had a bad dream, that’s all, Callie. You’re okay now,” said David.
“No! I mean, I was dreaming, but then I woke up and it was dark, but really, really dark, and then the noise from my dream started up again. You must have heard it – hammering in the walls.”
Julia and David listened to Callie’s half-hysterical monologue, and tried to reassure her.
“You only thought you woke up. You were still asleep. The noise in the walls was part of the dream too,” Julia told her.
“No – I was awake. I’m sure of it.”
“Callie, you couldn’t have been. If there had been hammering, we’d have heard it. It’s just your imagination working overtime.”
They must be right. She must have still been asleep.
Chutney Mary chose that moment to saunter in, jump onto the bed, and present Callie with a dead mouse.
“Lovely,” observed Julia.
The cat purred proudly and head-butted Callie, and as though a switch had been flicked, everything seemed normal again.
“I’m okay now,” Callie said. “Sorry I woke you.” She picked the mouse up by its tail and dropped it out of the window.
“Sure?”
Callie nodded. “I’ll read for a bit before I go back to sleep, but I’m fine now, honestly. It was just a really vivid dream.”
“Goodnight then.”
“Goodnight.”
6. GREY DAY
Callie woke to the sound of shouting. For a few seconds she thought she was dreaming again, then she made out her parents’ voices, arguing about something.
They did argue, sometimes, but she’d never heard them shouting like that. She couldn’t make out the words. Could they be arguing about her? Had her dad found out what she was?
She didn’t want to go downstairs into the middle of it. Just as she was wondering whether she ought to, she heard the front door slam and there was silence. One of them had left for work.
Callie pulled the curtains open, but she wasn’t quite quick enough to see who had gone.
It was a chilly grey morning: east coast weather. The haar had drifted in overnight, but she’d been expecting that, and she knew it wouldn’t be gone until the afternoon. The weather seldom surprised her now; there seemed to be some special new witch-sense she’d acquired that gave her a pretty good idea of what was coming in the next day or so. One useful thing, anyway.
Josh was going to Falkland Palace with his mum, so Callie was at a loose end. She would usually have thought about scrounging lunch at The Smithy, but maybe, after the argument yesterday, she’d give that a miss for today.
She kicked off the covers. The cat had long since squirmed out of the window, a busy day of cat business ahead of her. Callie got up and took a couple of steps, then stopped and looked at the floor. The boards were covered with a thin layer of gritty grey dust. She looked more carefully, and saw that it seemed to cover the entire floor.
At once she was transported back to that awful dream. She’d been digging… Had she somehow made part of the dream real?
She pulled the curtains open and switched on the light. The floor was covered with a substance closer to grit than to dust. Something else caught Callie’s attention. On the wall opposite the window was a stain. She walked across the crunchy floor to look at it more closely, touched it and found that the wall was damp. The stain extended from waist height down to the floor, a hand span wide.
What was happening? She’d thought she was getting a grip on this treacherous power, but she’d been wrong, and here was the proof.
She had to get rid of this before her mother saw it.
In the kitchen, Julia wa
s loading the dishwasher.
“I’ll do that,” said Callie as she came in.
“Thanks, love.” Julia straightened up, pushing her hair behind her ears.
“What were you and Dad arguing about?” Callie asked, not quite meeting her mother’s eyes.
Julia sighed. “You know, I’m not really sure. It just blew up out of nothing. I don’t understand – you know we’re not usually like that. Don’t worry; it’ll all be forgotten by tonight.”
A few minutes later she was gone. Callie turned on the television and ate a banana, watching some programme without taking in anything about it. She gave up and switched it off, took a dustpan and brush upstairs and swept up the grit, then opened her window wide.
On most days this summer, that would have let in enough warmth to dry up the damp patch, but the air was dank and chilly, although it was ten in the morning.
“Hairdryer,” she muttered to herself.
Half an hour later, the mark was almost gone. Callie looked round her room and decided it looked like usual. She sat down on the bed with a thump. What if her mother had been right all along about being a witch? What if she was making life more difficult for herself by learning how to use her power? Maybe, in spite of what Rose and her friends said, things would go back to normal and it would fade away if she just ignored it.
After all, she didn’t really know why the old women wanted her to start using her power. It might be for their benefit, not hers. Maybe they wanted to recruit her to their coven because she was young and powerful and their abilities were fading with age.
They were using her. That was it. They wanted her fresh power for themselves. Why hadn’t she seen it sooner? She must be more careful about trusting people. There weren’t many you could completely trust.
Maybe there were none.
She glanced at her alarm clock and saw to her astonishment that it was almost noon. That couldn’t be right, surely? She’d sat down here a few minutes ago and it had only been half past ten. She realised she’d been rubbing at the mark on her wrist again and stopped, abruptly.
When Callie checked her phone it really was almost noon. She couldn’t believe she’d been sitting there for an hour and a half: it had only felt like a few minutes.
Dark Spell Page 5
