‘Seth, what is it? You’re frightening me. Is Bran OK?’
‘Well … not really. Look, I didn’t want to tell you because I thought it would make you feel bad. But I did talk to Mum and I asked her to talk to Grandad. I said that it was my house, mine and Mum’s, I mean, and that I wanted to have you over, as my girlfriend, during Christmas. I said I was fed up of tiptoeing round Grandad’s feelings. I said I wanted to have you over to dinner with Grandad there and put an end to this. And I wanted Grandad to be nice to you. Anyway Mum thought it was perfectly reasonable, though she was a bit doubtful about bringing Grandad round to the dinner idea, but she said at the least it was completely reasonable for me to want to see my own girlfriend in my own house. So she talked to Grandad – we both did – and …’ He trailed off.
‘It didn’t go well?’
‘Worse than that.’ Seth ran his hand through his hair, tousling it into wild curls. ‘He went into a rage; I’ve never seen anything like it. Mum simply couldn’t get a word in edgeways. He just bellowed at us both for about ten minutes without drawing breath and, then, when Mum tried to reason with him, he had a kind of … a kind of fit.’
‘His funny turn,’ I whispered, suddenly cold with the realization. Seth nodded.
‘Yes. It was like, I don’t know, some kind of seizure, almost like a heart attack. His face went grey and he couldn’t speak. Mum had to take him to hospital in the end and he’s still there. But it looks like he’s never going home, or at least not home to Castle Spit. He’s too ill to live in such an isolated place.’
‘Because of me.’
‘No,’ Seth said forcefully. ‘Not because of you. Because he’s a stupid, prejudiced old man. Because he’s never been crossed in his damn life and can’t cope with it now. Because he’s so full of rage that he can actually induce a seizure to get his own way. This is his fault, not yours.’
‘He hates me that much.’ It was a statement, not a question.
‘I don’t think …’ Seth’s brow furrowed, trying to explain it. ‘I don’t think he hates you, exactly. That’s the weird thing. He just doesn’t want you to be with me. It’s his bloody obsession with oil and water, oil and water. He kept muttering about it in hospital. They thought he was cracked, and no wonder.’
‘He doesn’t want you to be with a witch,’ I said flatly. A wrench of pain crossed Seth’s face. I knew he wanted to deny it. But he couldn’t. There it was.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, and I knew he didn’t just mean about Bran, but about the whole situation, the whole fact of us being on opposite sides of a chasm-wide divide.
The kettle came to the boil, screaming its shrill whistle into the silence that had fallen between us. Seth got up and took it off the ring and then came to sit beside me, putting his arm around me.
‘Anna, it’ll be fine.’
‘It won’t be fine,’ I said. ‘It won’t. I can’t see how it’ll ever be fine.’ I almost wanted to revel in the awfulness of it all. This at least was a concrete problem you could sum up in ten words – not a shifting, nebulous enigma like my past, my mother, my growing power.
Instead of trying to persuade me, Seth kissed me. Perhaps it was to make me feel better, perhaps to shut me up; I didn’t care. He twisted one hand in my hair to bring me to him and I felt his lips, his tongue, his hands, hot, intense and full of love. I melted under his warmth, melted into him, feeling my limbs grow soft and heavy with desire. Seth leant me gently back and we lay together on the narrow bench, rocking with the waves that rocked the boat, pressed against each other so that all I could hear was the crash of waves and the roar of my own breath and blood, harsh and urgent.
Except I couldn’t let go. I couldn’t let go, just in case …
‘Emmaline thinks I need to do magic.’ I tried to keep my head above the rising tide of desire. ‘You know, so it doesn’t come…the wrong time…Seth…I…she says …’ The words tangled on my lips, losing themselves between gasps. I couldn’t think, couldn’t speak …
‘I don’t care about Emmaline,’ he said, very low. His lips were against my collarbone and I felt the words, breathed hot against my skin, as much as I heard them. ‘I don’t want to talk about Emmaline. I don’t want to think about Emmaline. I want you …’
It was almost dark by the time I tore myself away. I didn’t want to leave, but it was getting late and I knew Dad would start worrying soon.
‘I’ll walk you,’ Seth said as I pulled on my shoes and buttoned up my coat.
‘It’s too far. You don’t need to, I’ll be fine.’
‘I want to,’ Seth said firmly. He took his sou’wester off the peg. ‘I need the walk. I don’t want to go home.’
Home. To sit in the empty flat above the pub while his mum kept a quiet vigil at Bran’s hospital bed.
‘OK,’ I said. Seth zipped up his jacket and I opened the cabin door, bracing myself for the achingly cold air outside. For a minute everything was dim as my eyes adjusted to the twilight. Then the black gleam of the harbour and the glinting lights from the pubs along the quayside swam into focus – and so did the shape of the man standing on the quayside watching the boat. Something about his stance told me that he wasn’t just admiring the view of the bay.
‘Seth,’ I said in an undertone, then louder, ‘Seth.’ His head appeared out of the cabin door behind me, then he sighed.
‘Hello, Greg.’
‘Flemish your damn line,’ the man growled.
‘What the hell d’you mean?’ Seth vaulted easily over the boat rail on to the quay and examined the mooring rope twisted round a bollard. It looked fine to me, but Seth picked up the loose end snaking across the icy footpath with a disgusted expression. ‘What the … ? Look, Greg, you know I didn’t leave it like this.’
‘Unravel itself, did it? Someone’ll break their leg on that.’
‘I’ll put it right,’ Seth said shortly, coiling the rope into a neat pile. Greg only stood and watched, his arms folded. Then Seth straightened, helped me flounder across the narrow gap to the quay, and put his arm around my shoulders, turning us towards home, Greg’s eyes on our backs.
‘Night,’ Greg said, and there was something mocking in his tone.
‘Night,’ Seth snapped. His pace was uncomfortably brisk as we walked along the quay, feeling Greg’s silent gaze following us, until the darkness of the cliff road swallowed us up.
‘Seth,’ I said at last as he forged up the hill, his arm around me painfully tight, ‘Seth, slow down. It’s not a race.’ I tried not to pant.
‘Sorry.’ Seth slowed to a more normal pace and dropped his furious hold on my shoulders. ‘Sorry, I was just … you know. Greg pissed me off back there.’
‘So that was him? The Greg?’ The Greg who goaded Seth into a fight years back, I meant. A fight which left Seth facing police questions and Greg in hospital.
‘Yes,’ Seth said, and his mouth set into a grim line that stopped me asking any more questions.
Instead I took his hand and we began to walk again in silence, just the sound of the waves crashing against the foot of the cliffs and the crunch-stamp of Seth’s boots on the snow. As we climbed I felt his mood begin to lift a little. His hand relaxed in mine and I heard him sigh, wriggling his shoulders inside the sou’wester as if shrugging off a weight.
At last, as we passed the castle ruins, he spoke, his breath drifting white in the night air.
‘Where do you think we’re heading, Anna? You know, in the future.’
‘Where? I don’t know. I can’t see past A levels at the moment. Uni, I guess. Maybe a year out. Why?’
‘No, I meant us. As a couple.’
‘I don’t know.’ I thought of Bran’s implacable opposition to our relationship, and Emmaline and Abe’s quiet hostility.
‘It’s just … I was wondering. I mean …’ I heard him swallow in the night air. ‘I was wondering what’s next. For us. Do you think … the next step … I mean, are you ready?’
‘Ready?’ I echoed
foolishly.
‘Oh, Jesus.’ He stopped under a spreading oak and ran his hands through his hair so that it stuck out in all directions. His face in the moonlight was a cold, chiselled sculpture of light and shadows. I wanted, almost, to close my eyes to his beauty, hardly able to bear the constant reminder of how lucky I was to be with him. But I couldn’t tear my gaze away.
He swallowed again; I saw the muscles in his throat move. Then he took my hand. We stood in the shadowy moonlight, hand in hand, and Seth rubbed his thumb over the seaglass ring.
‘Anna, I don’t want to pressurize you. I know it’s different for you. After all, you’re …’ He stopped.
‘I’m what?’ I asked, completely confused. A witch?
‘A virgin.’
Oh! Oh … Heat suddenly flooded through me, a spreading wave pulsing outwards from my heart until it reached my cheeks.
‘And I want it to be right. I want it to be special. But do you think…?’
‘I want …’ My voice trailed away, my throat too tight to speak. What did I want? I wanted Seth. I wanted him, completely and utterly, so much that it hurt. But something was stopping me. It wasn’t the strength of my feeling for him – because I knew that I loved him. I had no doubts about my feelings for him, no fears that they would change. So what was holding me back?
‘I want …’ I swallowed.
‘Yes?’ He looked at me, his eyes smoke-dark in the winter dusk and so hungry they tore at my heart.
‘I want …’
I want you, I thought.
But instead I heard myself say, ‘I – I just want a bit more time. I’m sorry, Seth. You know I love you, it’s not that. And I do want to, but just – just not yet. Is that OK?’
‘Of course.’ If he was disappointed he hid it well. ‘Of course, I understand completely. Anyway, you’re only seventeen. Not even legal in some places! You’d be jailbait in California.’
I laughed.
‘Well, it’s my birthday in January, don’t forget. So you’re safe after that, no matter where I choose to seduce you.’
‘So, Californian holiday in February?’ he teased. I smiled and then hugged him, burying my face in his warm neck.
‘Oh, Seth, thank you for being so lovely. I’m sorry, I just feel …’
‘Anna …’ His arms around me were firm and his lips moved against the top of my head. ‘Don’t be stupid. You’ve got nothing to apologize for. We don’t need to rush anything – God knows my first time was pretty crap; I wish I’d waited. I don’t want to be the person you regret for the next ten years.’
‘I would never regret you,’ I whispered, my lips against his shoulder. ‘I would never regret anything we did together.’
We stood, locked together in the gathering dusk, my head against his shoulder, his cheek warm against the top of my head. The wood was full of soft shiftings and patterings as the snow slipped from leaves and branches on to the forest floor. Apart from that the only sound was our breath, making clouds of white in the darkness. I was as close to completely happy as it was possible to get, and I felt light and drained of magic. The hollow space it occupied in the middle of my ribs was filled up with love and contentment.
‘I wish we could stay here for ever,’ I whispered, a catch in my throat.
‘Oh, love.’ Seth kissed the top of my head, his breath warm in my hair. ‘It’ll be OK.’ I don’t know what he meant – Bran, exams, magic, us; it could have been any of them. But it didn’t matter. Just for a moment I believed him.
CHAPTER EIGHT
I awoke on the sixth of January with a feeling of foreboding. It was Twelfth Night – the end of Christmas and the first day back at school.
I hadn’t finished my coursework essays and I hadn’t revised for the January exams. But, as it turned out, they weren’t the only problems.
‘Bloody vandals,’ I heard. ‘Bloody kids. You should call the police, Tom.’
Oh no. My stomach lurched. Please tell me I hadn’t done something awful in my sleep. I stumbled out of bed and stuck my sleep-draggled head out of the window. The cold hit me like a slap and my eyes took a moment to adjust to the searing light off the snow. Dad and the farmer who owned the stableyard up the lane were standing on the snow-covered drive, looking at one of the outbuildings round the corner of the house.
‘Anna!’ Dad called up, hearing the sound of my window. ‘Know anything about this?’
‘About what?’ I croaked.
‘Come down. I’ll show you.’
I pulled a fleece on over my pyjamas and stumped downstairs, wondering what time it was. The kitchen door stood wide, letting a blast of cold like a freezer into the house, and I stuck my bare feet into my wellies, shuddering at the collection of twigs and grit in the toes, and made my way blinkingly into the snowy morning.
Dad and Miles Garroway were both looking at the outbuilding that served as our garage.
DEUT 18 10-12 MM
It was painted in crimson letters a foot high across the side of the barn, and below it was a crude drawing of something that looked like a pick, or perhaps a hammer of some kind. The red paint had dripped to the ground and stained the snow like blood.
‘Graffiti!’ I said, surprised. I don’t know what I’d expected, but not this – whatever it was. My first feeling was of relief – relief that it was nothing to do with me. My second feeling was a fear that perhaps it was.
‘What on earth does it mean?’ Dad said wonderingly. ‘It’s bloody odd graffiti. Whatever happened to Sharon 4 Trevor 4 Eva or Fred Woz Ere? Have you seen anything like it before, Miles?’
‘It’s anti-capitalists,’ Mr Garroway said grimly. ‘Look at that hammer. Dead ringer for the Soviets.’
‘But what anti-capitalist in their right mind would come all the way out here to daub on a fallen-down barn?’
‘If you ask me, most of them aren’t in their right minds. You used to work in the City, didn’t you?’
‘Used to!’ Dad protested. ‘I was sacked! Hardly makes me one of the blood-sucking classes.’
‘Animal rights then,’ Miles said. ‘Christ knows we’ve had enough trouble with that up at the stables. Even though it’s all bloody drag hunts now anyway.’
‘But we don’t own any animals,’ Dad said, baffled. ‘I haven’t even bought the chickens I’ve been banging on about.’ He turned to me. ‘Anna? There isn’t anyone local I’ve offended, is there?’
‘No, Dad.’ That was true enough. There was no one Dad had offended.
I managed to hold myself together while Dad said polite goodbyes to Miles, but as soon as he crunched off up the snowy lane I ran back inside, up to my room, and googled DEUT 18 10-12 MM.
Link after link came up, all pointing towards the same thing. By now I knew, or at least guessed, what the text would say – but I couldn’t stop myself clicking on the first link, wanting to know for sure, to see it in black and white before me.
DEUTERONOMY 18
10 There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch.
11 Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer.
12 For all that do these things are an abomination unto the LORD: and because of these abominations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee.
I sat for a long time, staring at the screen, until the words shimmered in front of my eyes, burning into my retinas. Cold fear coiled in my stomach and trickled down the back of my neck. At last I erased my internet history, closed down the browser and shut down the machine.
It didn’t erase the words from my mind though.
Witch. Abomination. And, in dripping blood-red letters on the side of our barn, the letters MM. What did it mean?
‘I need to talk to you.’ I grabbed Emmaline during break and pulled her into a cloakroom. There were two first-years there and I tried not to show my impatience as they slowly w
ashed their hands, chatting all the while. ‘Where were you? I tried to phone you all morning.’
‘Oh, sorry.’ Emmaline took the clip out of her hair and started rearranging it in the mirror. ‘My phone’s out of credit. Do you have a brush?’
‘No.’
‘Do you have a brush?’ she asked the littlest first-year. The girl blushed pink and nodded, holding out a sparkly brush with a High School Musical sticker on the handle. Emmaline started dragging it through her hair, her clip in her mouth. ‘What d’you want anyway?’ she asked indistinctly. I made a face and nodded at the two girls. ‘What?’ Em said unsubtly, frowning over her glasses. ‘Cat got your tongue?’
‘No,’ I said crossly. ‘It’s, you know. Private.’
‘Oh.’ She handed the brush back to the little girl. ‘Cheers for the brush. Now trot along, you two. Bell’s due in a sec.’ They fluttered out, full of excitement, and Emmaline turned to me with an air of long-suffering calm. ‘Come on then, spit it out. What’s the drama?’
‘Someone knows,’ I said through my teeth. ‘About me.’
‘Knows? What do you mean?’
‘What do you think I mean? They came in the middle of the night, while we were all asleep. They painted a Bible reference on the wall of the barn; Deuteronomy 18: 10–12.’
Emmaline didn’t need me to tell her the rest. Her expression remained impassive, but she stood stock-still for a moment. Then she kicked open the cubicle doors to check we were absolutely alone and wedged her Philosophy textbook under the door into the corridor, jamming it shut.
‘OK. First things first.’ Her face was pale but her voice was grimly calm. ‘Were there any other letters? Any signs?’
‘Yes, there was a kind of hammer and the letters MM. What do they mean?’
‘Nothing good.’
‘Really? I’d never have figured that out by myself. Cheers, Em.’ My fear was making me cross. ‘Would you like to be more specific?’
‘MM means Malleus Maleficorum. Do you know what that is?’
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