Dark Spell

by Gill Arbuthnott

  She needed to get out of the house.

  Callie dressed quickly and shut the front door behind her with a sense of relief. Right; she wanted a change of scene. She didn’t want to have to think about witchcraft or secrets or grumpy parents. There was no point going to the beach on such a grey day, so she set off to catch the bus to St Andrews. By the time it arrived she’d decided to go and see the new Pixar film at the cinema. Perfect – she’d revert to being a kid for the afternoon and go back to a time before life got so stupidly complicated.

  As she sat on the bus, the mark on her wrist itched. She rubbed at it, still puzzled as to what it was. Looking at it, she thought it seemed bigger than she remembered, and peered more closely, but she was no nearer to working out why it wouldn’t come off or what it could be. Maybe Rose would know.

  Callie felt a pang as she recalled the crazy things she’d been imagining about Rose and the rest of the coven that morning. She knew they were trying to look after her – what on earth had she been thinking? She was ashamed of herself.

  ***

  Of course, the cinema was crammed with damp families escaping the haar, popcorn crunching underfoot like biodegradable gravel, but the film was bright and funny and Callie was in a good mood when she got off the bus in Pitmillie. She felt that her mind was her own again.

  She had wondered briefly whether to tell Rose about what had been happening, but decided not to. Surely she ought to be able to deal with it herself? After all, this was her power and her problem. She wanted to solve it without everyone watching her.

  No one was in when she got home, not even the cat. Callie checked her room and found, to her relief, that everything looked all right. In an effort to stay busy she examined the contents of the fridge, looking for clues to what supper was meant to be, and started to cook. It would be worth it just to see the look of astonishment on her mother’s face, she thought, as she chopped onions. And whatever had been intended, supper was definitely curry now.

  When everything was bubbling away and the kitchen was full of the scents of spices, Callie went for a shower. The sun had broken through at last, and the upstairs of the house was flooded with light. She sensed the weather would be back to warm and sunny tomorrow.

  She took her phone into the bathroom so she could listen to music and sang along happily in the shower until the moment when the water suddenly ran freezing cold. She leapt back with a scream.

  “Stupid shower! Behave!” She turned the temperature control down then back up and stuck her hand cautiously into the water. Back to normal.

  When it happened for a second and then a third time, she gave up. The thermostat must have gone or something.

  She got dressed, went to check on the curry, and found the kitchen filled with steam and the hot tap full on.

  Callie turned off the tap and stared at it. She must have turned it on without realising. At least it explained where all the hot water had disappeared to.

  She knew it wasn’t quite enough of an explanation, but she was determined not to think about it too much.

  “Who are you and what have you done with my daughter?”

  Callie gave a gasp and spun round to find her mother looking at the bubbling pots in astonishment.

  “Don’t do that! You gave me a fright.”

  “It’s amazing. You look like Callie, you sound like Callie – but you can cook.”

  “Oh, ha ha. Very funny. If that’s the thanks I get for trying to be helpful…”

  “It’s just the shock. I am grateful, honestly. You should do it more often.” Julia paused. “You should do it more often, you know. You’re in before Dad or me quite a lot, but it’s always me who has to cook.”

  “Schoolwork? Remember? I’m meant to study.”

  “You usually seem to be studying Facebook or iTunes when I get in.”

  Callie opened her mouth to protest, but Julia held up her hands with a grimace.

  “Sorry. Sorry. I don’t know why I reacted like that. Can we start again? Thanks for cooking. It smells really good.”

  “No problem,” Callie replied a bit stiffly.

  “When will it be ready?”

  “About twenty minutes,” said Callie, distracted by a new text on her phone.

  “Perfect.”

  “I’m going over to the cottages to hang out with Josh this evening,” she said once she’d read it.

  “Okay.”

  ***

  Josh and Callie floated on their backs in the tiny octagonal swimming pool at East Neuk Cottages, trying to move as little as possible but still stay afloat.

  “How was Falkland?”

  “Meh… I suppose it’s quite nice as palaces go. I liked the tennis court; you know, it’s one of those crazy old ones where you have to hit the ball off the roof or something…”

  “Royal Tennis?”

  “Yeah… that’s it. And Mum was raving about the gardens. I suppose they were quite pretty.”

  “Mmnn… George likes them too.”

  “That reminds me – how did your history tutorial go?”

  “My what?” Callie lifted her head clear of the water, wondering what on earth Josh meant.

  “Yesterday. With Rose and her friends.”

  Callie let her feet sink to the floor of the pool and pushed herself upright.

  “Oh, that,” she said, suddenly remembering the lie she had told him. “Fine.” She swam over to the side and looked out of the window and across the field to The Smithy. Should I tell him about what’s been happening at home? It’s so tempting… But he’ll think I’m more than weird if I tell him. That’ll probably be the end of our friendship, and I need a friend right now.

  “So what did you learn?”

  “Just… bits and pieces. Nothing really interesting.”

  There is something, Josh thought, that Callie isn’t telling me. She’s distracted, preoccupied. What’s going on between her and Rose’s friends?

  He was sure it was something more interesting than local history. Maybe she’d be more talkative out of the water.

  “Do you fancy some chocolate cake?” he asked.

  ***

  Callie hadn’t realised they would have to make the chocolate cake themselves before they could eat it.

  “I didn’t know you could bake,” she said as she licked cake mixture off a finger.

  Josh raised his eyebrows. “What, you think guys can’t bake? That’s a bit sexist.”

  “No, of course… well, I suppose I did mean that, sort of.”

  Josh shook his head in mock disgust. “For that, you have to wash-up. Honestly, you country people, you’re practically prehistoric.”

  Three games of pool, one DVD and half a chocolate cake later, Callie set off for home, having arranged to spend the next day at the beach with Josh and successfully defeated his attempts to find out more about the “tutorials”.

  It still wasn’t properly dark when she got home, although it was nearly eleven o’clock.

  “Hello, Callie,” said her dad. “Good time?”

  “Yeah. I beat Josh at pool.” She yawned. “I’m going up to bed. Still tired after last night.”

  “Let’s hope there are no nightmares tonight, then,” said Julia.

  “Hope not. Goodnight.”

  Callie pushed her bedroom door open cautiously, unsure what to expect. It all looked normal. Chutney Mary had already come in through the window and was curled up snoozing at the foot of the bed.

  Maybe whatever had happened last night had been a one-off, a sort of waking nightmare.

  ***

  Callie was woken from a deep sleep by the sound of the cat hissing. Half asleep, it took her a few seconds to realise what the noise was.

  “What is it, puss?” she muttered groggily.

  Chutney Mary was perched at the end of the bed, staring fixedly at a point under Callie’s desk. Every muscle in her body was taut and the fur on her tail stuck out like a bottle brush.

  Callie was suddenly very
wide awake, adrenalin surging in her blood. What is the cat staring at?

  There was some moonlight coming in through the half-open curtains, so the room wasn’t particularly dark, but under the desk was a pool of total blackness.

  Very slowly, Callie reached out to turn on her bedside light. It gave out a wan glow, quite unlike its usual self, that barely reached the end of the bed. The pool of darkness beneath the desk remained utterly unilluminated, and the cat continued to hiss.

  Fighting down fear, Callie sat up properly and moved slowly forward until she was kneeling beside the cat. From here, the darkness looked solid, three dimensional, squatting malevolently on the floor. If Callie looked straight at it, it seemed to blur and waver, as though she was seeing it through a heat haze.

  Tap.

  Tap. Tap.

  The hair stood up on Callie’s neck.

  Crack!

  The sound of hammer on stone, coming from under the floor, from under the bed where she knelt.

  Too frightened to move, she tried desperately to remember one of the spells of protection that Rose had been teaching her, but all the words had fled.

  The noise was all around now, coming from the floor, the walls, the ceiling… Why could no one else hear it?

  Beside her the cat gave a tremulous yowl and rose to her feet, stiff-legged. Callie followed her gaze and saw to her horror a figure uncoiling itself from the blackness under the desk, arms reaching up…

  7. CONFESSION

  A dark figure reared up into the room as Callie shrank back in terror.

  “What on earth are you doing to the cat?”

  The door opened, the main light went on and, inexplicably, her father spoke into silence. Where the figure had been there was only the floor and the desk and the wall.

  “Callie? What are you doing? It’s two in the morning.”

  “I’m… What? I’m…”

  “Did you have another nightmare?”

  “No… I… I don’t know.”

  Chutney Mary was sitting on the bed licking her paws as though nothing had happened. Callie tried to collect what was left of her mind.

  “What did you do to the cat?” her father asked again.

  “Nothing. She woke me up hissing. What woke you?”

  “The noise the cat was making, of course. Why? Did you hear things again?”

  “No. No,” said Callie firmly. “Just the cat.”

  “Put her out and shut the window so she can’t get back in.”

  “No. I’m sure she’ll be quiet now.”

  “She’d better be, or I’ll put her out myself. Goodnight.”

  David shut the door.

  For a few minutes, Callie stared at the perfectly ordinary, unthreatening space under the desk, then she glanced at the cat, who was already asleep again.

  “Unbelievable,” she muttered, and tiptoed over to the desk to check it properly.

  There was no sign that anything out of the ordinary had just happened, but this time Callie had no doubts that it had.

  She marshalled her thoughts and whispered the words of a spell of protection under her breath, then checked every inch of the room before getting back into bed. She couldn’t stop looking at the desk, but with the main light and the bedside lamp on there wasn’t even a scrap of shadow underneath it.

  All the same, Callie kept an eye on it. She didn’t understand how the cat could go straight back to sleep, but it must be a good sign, surely? Chutney Mary seemed to have some sort of radar for whatever was happening, and it clearly wasn’t picking anything up just now. Callie was somewhat reassured by that, but not nearly enough to even consider going back to sleep. She settled down to wait for morning.

  ***

  The cat was tramping back and forward across her chest to wake her. To wake her. That meant she must have fallen asleep. How could she have slept? And yet, looking back now, the frightening events of the night were hazy in her memory. She couldn’t have been dreaming. She couldn’t have. Could she?

  Perhaps she should tell Rose, but there was something she needed to try first. She didn’t know why she hadn’t thought of it sooner.

  Callie fumbled for her alarm clock. Eight thirty. The house was silent: both her parents would already have left for work.

  She decided not to bother with a shower. After all, she’d be in and out of the sea later, and she had more important things to do. She got dressed then went downstairs and rummaged through cupboards until she found a couple of candles.

  Would she still be able to do this now that it mattered?

  Callie took the candles out into the back garden, put them on a flat stone and set light to them with a thought.

  She took a couple of deep breaths, then began to draw the flames upward to weave the net of lights that she hoped would protect the house. Of course, she had never tried to cast a net over anything this big… She hoped her parents weren’t going to come home to a house that was missing one wall.

  She had never concentrated so hard on anything in her life. She wove filament after shimmering filament together, felt, rather than saw the net grow larger.

  Ready.

  Callie cast the net of lights and watched it settle over the house, leaving all the walls intact. She gave a jump of triumph as she watched it flicker and disappear.

  She’d done it. The house was protected. Nothing malevolent would be able to get past the net.

  Perhaps she would have a shower after all. There was plenty of time. Josh wouldn’t be round before ten.

  After she’d showered and collected together the stuff she’d want on the beach she still had plenty of time, so she raided the fridge and made a huge picnic for them to take. She had just finished when the bell rang.

  “You were right about the weather again,” Josh said.

  Callie looked smug. “What can I say? It’s a gift. Do you want Dad’s wetsuit again?”

  “Yeah, please.”

  Callie fetched it and they packed the picnic.

  “Back in a minute – I left my sunnies upstairs,” she called to Josh, running up to get them.

  Callie opened her bedroom door and let out a scream.

  The room was littered with fragments of rock, some as big as a clenched fist. Water oozed through one wall and trickled into a grey-brown pool on the floor.

  She heard footsteps running up the stairs behind her.

  “Callie – what’s wrong?” Josh looked over her shoulder into her devastated bedroom. “Jeez, Callie, what happened? It looks as though a bomb went off.”

  Callie had a hand over her mouth to keep herself from screaming again.

  “Callie,” Josh went on. “Should we call your parents? George and Rose?”

  “No!” she said sharply. “Mum and Dad mustn’t find out.” She looked absolutely terrified.

  “Why not? Your parents have to be told what’s happened.” He looked at the room again. “What has happened? I don’t understand.”

  “It’s my fault,” Callie whispered almost inaudibly.

  “Your fault? How can it be your fault?” Josh took a step into the room.

  “No, Josh, don’t go in! It might be dangerous.” Callie slid down the wall into a heap in the doorway, put her face in her hands, and began to sob. “Please come out.”

  Josh picked his way over the rubble-strewn floor, crouched down and put an arm round Callie’s shoulders.

  “Callie, what is it? What’s going on? How can this be your fault? You’re not making sense.”

  “It is my fault. And I thought I’d protected the house, but I can’t stop it getting in, because it’s already here. It’s me.”

  Josh had absolutely no idea what Callie meant.

  “Come on, Callie. Get up. Let’s go downstairs and get some stuff to clean this up. Whatever’s happened here, it’s not because of you.”

  She grabbed his wrist so tightly it hurt, and looked him in the eye.

  “You’re wrong. This is all because of me.” She swallowed and blur
ted it out. “I’m a witch.”

  Half of him wanted to burst out laughing, but Callie was looking at him so fiercely that he didn’t dare.

  “What do you mean?” he asked lamely, playing for time.

  “What do you think I mean?” she yelled at him. “I’m a witch. Somehow I’m making these things happen and I don’t know how to stop them.”

  “A witch? Don’t be daft, Callie. There’s no such thing – not nowadays, anyway.”

  “Really? You don’t think so?” Callie got to her feet, angry now instead of frightened, marched into her wrecked room and pulled a crumpled sheet of paper out of the waste bin.

  “Watch,” she said, and the paper burst into flames in the palm of her hand.

  “What? How did you do that?” Mesmerised, Josh watched the blazing paper. “Callie, stop. You’ll hurt yourself.”

  She closed her hand on the flames then opened her fingers to a trickle of grey ash and held up her hand, unburned, for him to see.

  “I did it,” she said slowly, “with witchcraft. I’m a witch. I’m a freak. I’m dangerous.”

  Josh took her hand in his and looked at it more closely, trying to make sense of what he had just seen.

  He raised his head and looked at her white face.

  “You’re not a freak. You’re not dangerous. You say you’re a witch. Okay, maybe you are a witch – I don’t pretend to understand that bit – but you’re still Callie. You’re Callie, and you’re my friend. Tell me properly what’s going on, so I can try to help.”

  She sagged into his arms with relief.

  “You don’t think I’m mad? You don’t hate me? You’re still my friend, even though I did this?”

  Josh could feel her shaking in his arms. He had no idea what to do. He’d just have to make it up as he went along. He hugged her tighter.

  “Why would I hate you?” he said over her bent head. “Of course I’m still your friend. And of course I don’t think you’re mad. I know you are. I’ve known that since the day I met you, so why should it make any difference now?”

  “Oh, Josh, you don’t know what a relief it is to have told you.” She gave him an enormous hug, then stepped back, wiping her nose on her sleeve.