A Witch in Love

by Ruth Warburton

  I turned to see what had changed their mood. It was Seth.

  ‘What sent them scurrying off so fast?’ Seth asked as he slid in beside me. I shrugged, but in reality I knew. What made it worse, from their perspective, was that I was spilling not just my own secrets, but theirs too. Seth had seen too much, knew too much to be safe.

  ‘Em’s just tired,’ I lied. Then my heart wrung as I saw how shattered he looked, the shadows under his dark eyes, his T-shirt drenched with sweat from working the bar all night. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Knackered.’ He ran a hand through his hair, twisting the curls into a tousled, sweaty mess. ‘Completely knackered. I spent all day trying to get this sodding Chemistry homework done and then all night working here. And then that stupid bloody girl! Sticking her tongue in my ear …’ He shuddered. ‘And how the hell did she get her hair set on fire?’

  I put my head in my hands, unable even to begin to answer that. Seth saw my face and began to shake his head.

  ‘No, no, you were nowhere near her! Anna, don’t do this to yourself. You’ve got to stop thinking that everything bad that happens in a fifty-mile radius is to do with you.’

  ‘She was flirting with you,’ I said in a voice that sounded cold and hard even to my own ears.

  ‘Anna, this is not you.’ He took my face in his hands. ‘You are a good person. I know you are.’

  ‘What about those men in the alley?’ I asked. ‘What about you, six months ago? I don’t remember you being so convinced of my goodness when I enchanted you. You said you hated me and never wanted to see me again.’

  ‘I was wrong. And those men, you saved me from being stabbed, Anna. Would you be a better person if you’d stood by and let them gut me?’

  ‘Maybe, I don’t know.’ I felt full of wretchedness, not sure how such a lovely night had turned so sour.

  ‘Come on.’ Seth stroked my hair, running his hands along the nape of my neck where the fine hairs tickled, curling his fingers around the tender skin behind my ear. ‘Come on, sweetheart. It’s Christmas Eve. Don’t let’s spoil it. Look.’ He reached under the table. ‘I’ve got your present.’

  It was small and heavy in my palm, wrapped in gold paper.

  ‘I’ve got yours,’ I said, trying to smile. I reached for the bag. It was unguessable – I knew that. A square, anonymous box that might have been anything.

  Seth rattled the parcel and looked intrigued.

  ‘Is it fragile?’

  ‘Not very. Don’t hit it with a mallet.’ I shook his parcel to me. It made no sound at all. ‘Give me a clue.’

  ‘Nope.’ He grinned infuriatingly, happy to see me preoccupied with something other than magic. ‘You’ll have to wait until tomorrow like a good girl.’ Then he stifled a huge yawn. ‘Sorry, sorry. I’m whacked.’

  ‘You need to get some sleep. I should go.’

  ‘Don’t go; come upstairs with me.’ I hesitated and he pressed the point with a wickedly enticing smile. ‘Go on; Mum’s in the bar … There’s enough din down here to cover any sounds from upstairs …’

  ‘What about your grandad?’ I hedged. ‘I thought he was staying for Christmas?’

  ‘He was asleep in front of the telly when I last checked, out like a light.’

  I shook my head. If Bran was upstairs there was no way I was risking a confrontation.

  ‘Sorry, Seth, I don’t think your grandad would be very pleased to see me.’

  ‘But he won’t see you! We’ll creep past him. Please?’ He was kissing my hands, one finger at a time. ‘I could give you an early Christmas present?’

  Desire coiled in the pit of my stomach like an unassuaged hunger, but I shook my head again, this time resolutely.

  ‘No. Look, Seth, I make snow fall when we kiss. Don’t you think that,’ I looked around and lowered my voice, ‘that doing anything more, particularly with your grandad in the house, would be a very, very bad idea?’

  ‘You’re worried the earth will move?’ His smile was wicked, but I wasn’t laughing.

  ‘If you want to put it that way, yes.’

  ‘Most girls worry that it won’t,’ he teased, but the laughter went out of his face when he saw my expression. ‘Oh, Anna, Anna love. I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to be an arse. I was only joking.’

  He leant forward and kissed me gently, then wrapped me in his arms. I put my head on his chest, listening to the slow thud of his heart, and the hubbub of the bar seemed to drift away.

  ‘Look, you don’t want to,’ he said softly, ‘and that’s fine. That’s completely, totally, utterly fine.’

  I didn’t say anything. How could I tell him that it wasn’t because I didn’t want to go upstairs with him, but because I did, so desperately, and that refusing him again and again made my heart crack a little more each time.

  Just then the bell rang for last orders at the bar and Seth kissed the top of my head.

  ‘Come on,’ he said into the darkness of my hair. ‘You’re tired, let’s get you home. I’ll drive you.’

  ‘I’ve got my bike.’ I sat up awkwardly, trying to smile. ‘It won’t fit in your car. Don’t worry. I’m totally fine; I’d rather ride.’

  ‘Sure?’ He looked at me closely. I tried for a more convincing smile and nodded firmly.

  ‘Quite sure. The ride will clear my head.’

  ‘OK. Give me a kiss.’

  ‘Not …’ I looked around the bar and he sighed.

  ‘Outside then? Where it’s quiet?’

  ‘OK.’

  We walked outside and he stood, arms wrapped around himself for warmth, and watched while I unchained my bike and clipped on the lights. Then he held out his arms.

  ‘Come here.’

  I don’t know how long we stood there, entwined in the frosty night air, my bike lights twinkling in the darkness beside us. I only felt his heart beating next to mine, his damp curls, his unshaven cheek harsh against my skin, and the heat of his lips against my throat.

  When we broke apart we were both dizzy and gasping for breath, and it took a moment for me to focus – white swirling motes were drifting in the night air. Then suddenly I realized.

  ‘Oh!’ Panic rose inside me. I’d ruined this perfect moment, like so many others. ‘Damn, damn, damn!’

  ‘Anna …’ Seth held me, and his face was alight with laughter and happiness. ‘Didn’t you see the forecast? It’s really snowing; it’s nothing to do with you. Anna, it’s going to be a white Christmas.’

  I cycled down the lane though the falling snow, my headlamp illuminating the flakes that swept past me in little eddies and flurries. My lips were still warm from Seth’s kiss and my breath came in white gusts. The moon had a halo of ice around it and the landscape was heartbreakingly beautiful; Winter at its most lovely.

  A single window was alight in one of the council houses dotted along the lane, the curtains open, making a golden river across the frosted grass. A figure was seated in the opening; a girl, her pale hair shining in the lamplight’s glow. Her chin was resting on one hand and her face was turned towards the pub at the top of the lane. There was such soft wistfulness in her expression that I hardly recognized her, but when I did, the realization made me swerve and almost skid in the falling snow. The girl in the window was Caroline, Seth’s ex-girlfriend, but I had never seen such naked yearning in her face before. I felt like a trespasser.

  I put my foot to the pedal, ready to cycle away unnoticed, but my tyres slipped in the snow with a soft slushing sound and her gaze turned to me.

  She frowned. She didn’t recognize me, muffled up in the darkness. Part of me still wanted to hurry away, but now she’d seen me it felt cowardly, as if I’d been caught spying or something, as if I was ashamed. So I took off my helmet, shook out my hair, and raised a hand. I don’t know what I expected – not for her to fall into my arms, that was for sure, but it was Christmas after all.

  Whatever I expected, it wasn’t what happened. She leapt up, so suddenly that I heard the crash as her chair f
ell to the floor, and her face twisted. For a moment she stared at me, her eyes burning through the darkness. Then she tore the curtain across with a sound like ripping fabric.

  I bit my lip as I put my helmet back on, trying to get my numb fingers to buckle the clip. Who was I kidding? I’d stolen her boyfriend, flooded her home, screwed up her life in pretty much every way you could imagine. She owed me nothing – certainly not forgiveness.

  But before I could get the helmet fastened, a stream of light split the darkness and I turned to see Caroline standing barefoot in the snow, her hair a flaming halo against the bright doorway.

  ‘Get out,’ she said.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ I tried again to do up the clasp, but my cold fingers refused to cooperate. ‘I’m going, honestly.’

  ‘I said, get out. Isn’t it enough that I have to put up with you draped all over Seth at school? Do I have to watch you simpering and grinning in my own front garden too?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said again. I let the helmet clasps drop and put my foot to the pedal. ‘I really am.’

  ‘Sorry!’ She gave a laugh, coming closer in the falling snow. She should have been shivering in her thin nightdress, her feet bare to the frosted path, but she didn’t even seem to notice the cold. ‘Sorry? You think you can ruin my life and then make it all go away with “sorry”?’

  ‘I never meant to hurt you. Caroline, if you knew how bad I feel—’

  ‘You feel bad?’ She was inches from me now, looking like an avenging angel in her white gown, her hair like an aura of fire. ‘How d’you think I feel?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said again. But I could hear the hopelessness in my own voice, the knowledge that I could never, never make this right.

  ‘Shut up!’ she spat.

  And then she pushed me.

  I staggered, but with the bike between my legs I couldn’t right myself and I fell, heavily, the bike-frame crashing against my shin, ripping through jeans and skin. Caroline stood and watched me a for a moment as I struggled in the snow, and I felt hot blood start to seep through my jeans.

  ‘If you think it’s over, it’s not,’ she said. ‘It’ll never be over, not until you and Seth are finished.’

  Then she turned towards the house. The door slammed behind her and I was left alone, in the dark and falling snow.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  I lay silently until she’d gone and then, when the house was quiet and I was pretty sure she wasn’t coming back out, I wriggled painfully out from beneath the heavy bike and pulled up my jeans to examine my shin. There was a long bloody scrape down the front and a rip in my jeans. The cut looked ugly, but nothing I couldn’t sort with some warm water and TCP.

  But when I tried to haul myself upright, my crushed foot wouldn’t bear my weight. Pain screeched up and down my leg, sending electric shocks of agony prickling right up to my thigh, and I collapsed back to the snowy grass, hot tears spurting from my eyes with the shock. I waited, biting the inside of my cheek to stop myself from crying, and the pain resolved itself into a dull throbbing ache in my ankle.

  There was no way I was going to be able to cycle home. I’d have to – what? Ring Dad? He’d finished his port and was just starting on the Laphroaig when I left; there was no way he’d be fit to drive. I looked up the lane towards the pub. It was a quarter of a mile away, too far to limp, and the windows were dark.

  I shifted awkwardly, trying to reach the mobile in my jeans pocket without setting off the pain in my ankle again, and then I tried Seth’s phone. It went straight to voicemail; he’d probably forgotten to charge it again. As I hung up I saw I had only one bar of battery left. Great.

  Next I tried the pub phone, but they’d already flicked it over to the answerphone and all I got was Elaine’s voice giving me their opening hours and telling me how to make a dinner reservation.

  I left a message, but without much hope anyone would check it before tomorrow morning, and then I hung up and rang the flat landline.

  It rang for several minutes. Was Seth in the shower? Still in the bar downstairs? The cold began to strike through my jeans as I listened to the insouciant, chirruping ring. My phone beeped, nagging me about the battery, and I was beginning to despair when there was a click and the receiver was picked up.

  ‘Who’s this?’ The voice was gruff and slurred with sleep. For a minute I was confused, then my stomach did a flip.

  Bran.

  ‘Hello,’ I said. ‘Hello, Bran, it’s … it’s me, Anna.’

  No answer, just an ominous silence from the other end of the phone, overlaid with the faintest click and crackle of an old man’s laboured breathing.

  ‘C-could I speak to Seth, please? I’m sorry to call so late, but it’s an emergency. I’ve hurt myself, fallen off my bike.’

  Another wait.

  ‘Hello?’ I said, beginning to feel something close to desperation. ‘Bran, please, I’m really … I can’t walk. Is Seth there, Bran?’

  ‘No,’ the voice said harshly. ‘There in’t nobody here by that name. I know your kind, with your damn tricks, a plaguing respectable people at this time a’night. Leave us be, damn you.’

  There was a deafening clap, as if the receiver had been slammed down, and the line went dead.

  For a second I just sat and gaped at my mobile. Had I somehow dialled the wrong number? But, no, impossible – there it was on my last-number-dialled list: Seth home.

  I stabbed at the redial button, my fingers shaking with fury. God damn him, I would make Bran Fisher go and fetch Seth.

  All I got for my trouble was the engaged signal. He’d taken the phone off the hook.

  Damn Bran Fisher! Damn him for a bigoted old despot, with a soul eaten away by hate. For a second I felt like throwing my phone into the road and then stamping on it.

  But I didn’t. Instead I took a deep, shaking breath, trying to push down the rage, and scrolled down to Emmaline’s number and pressed dial. It didn’t even have time to ring. The screen flashed once and then the battery died.

  This time, I didn’t do anything. I just sat in the snow and, as the red-hot blaze of fury subsided, a feeling of anxiety bordering on panic began to steal over me. What was I going to do? What could I do? I couldn’t just sit here all night waiting to freeze, could I?

  At last I gritted my teeth and, with a horrible scrambling rush, I pulled myself upright using the bike as support. Then I stood, shaking with cold and pain, for a long sweating minute. Could I somehow hobble back up the road to the pub, using the bike as a crutch?

  But as I took my first tentative step, the front wheel swung wide in the clogging snow, slithering off the pavement and into the road, and the bike fell again. I stumbled and fell with it, landing on my bad ankle with a pain so sharp it ripped a yelping scream from my throat. Then I just lay, half on the pavement and half in the slush-filled gutter, trying to choke back tears of agony.

  Icy water was seeping slowly through my jeans and I shivered, a convulsive movement that made my wrenched ankle scream in protest. But as the pain in my ankle subsided, I realized I was cold. Very, very cold. And I had absolutely no way of warming myself up.

  I didn’t hear the car at first, but the dazzle of the lights made me turn. For a moment I was transfixed like a rabbit in the headlamps by the two blinding beams that cut through the falling snow. Then the driver spotted me sprawled in the road. The sudden blare of a horn split the night, followed by the shriek of brakes and a slushing grinding slide, as the tyres tried and failed to grip on the icy tarmac.

  As the car slalomed across the road I squeezed my eyes shut, clenched my teeth, and put every ounce of magic I had into stopping the car. I opened them to find a number plate, stationary, just inches from my nose.

  Then the driver’s door creaked open.

  ‘You total bloody …’ A furious bellow cut through the silence. ‘Are you drunk or were you just born stupid?’ A tall shadowy figure was striding around the bonnet. ‘What the hell are you doing lying in the—’
<
br />   The figure stopped.

  ‘Anna?’

  I put a hand up, shading my eyes against the glare of the headlamps.

  ‘Wh-who?’

  ‘It’s me.’ Abe fell to his knees in the snow beside me. ‘What in the name of Mike are you doing? Do you realize I could have killed you?’

  ‘I stopped the car,’ I said wearily.

  ‘I stopped the car,’ he snapped. Then he noticed the blood on the snow, my ripped jeans, the bike lying half across me. ‘Jesus, Anna. What happened? Did you get hit?’

  ‘Nothing so dramatic. I fell off.’ I spared him the details about my spat with Caroline. Something told me that Abe would find the idea of two girls bitch-fighting over Seth less than enticing. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘On my way back from dropping Emmaline. Are you OK?’ He was peeling away the wet, bloodstained denim as he spoke. His hands were gentle but when he touched my ankle I couldn’t suppress a whimper and he shook his head. ‘I’ll take that for a no. Here …’ He shifted the bike and then put an arm around me, supporting my weight. ‘Come on, let’s get you under a street lamp and we can take a look at the damage, see if it’s an A&E job.’

  He heaved me to my feet and I managed to stand, my teeth clenched against the pain, breathing hard. Abe looked at me quizzically for a moment, then he bent down, and swung me up into his arms.

  ‘Abe,’ I said. ‘Abe! Put me down! I can walk, for heaven’s sake.’

  ‘Really?’ He turned his head to look at me, his face strangely close now I was gripped against his chest. ‘So all that screaming stuff when I touched your foot, that was just play-acting, was it? Look, if you’ve got an alternative suggestion, bring it on. Otherwise …’

  ‘I’m too heavy …’ I struggled half-heartedly as he began walking, but he only clamped me closer. ‘Please, this feels weird, put me down.’

  ‘You’re not heavy, for God’s sake. You’re a teenage girl. Stop wriggling or I’ll lose my footing in the snow and we’ll both end up in A&E.’

  I subsided, and a few minutes later we reached a street lamp and stopped beneath its pool of chilly light. Abe put me down in the snow and knelt beside me, pulling the blood-sodden denim up to my knee. What was underneath made me wince and Abe gave a low whistle.