Later, she would probably get out Grandma’s playing cards. Holding them close always cheered her up and reminded her that you couldn’t change the cards you were dealt with. Connecting with them was like holding a piece of her grandma and the Realm in the palm of her hand. Which got her thinking again about the other witches; surely some of them had to have survived. But just how many others were there?
Chapter Three
The Southwoods
Four months later
“R
eady? Three, two, one, go!” Amanda’s face contorted with a mixture of laughter and disgust at the salty water which had made its way into her open mouth. “Yuck.” She gagged, accompanied by a giggle.
“Ok, 1-0 to the wave. Remember to keep your mouth closed next time! Again?” Isaac shouted over the sound of the sea.
In answer, Amanda rushed back and skipped her way along the foam. Her shoulders were set and her eyes ready as the water once more pulled back and began to surge. The game was a heady mixture of chicken and chase. The aim, to run at the water and out again before the crashing swell could hit the shoreline, showering the loser in a salty bath.
The children had played this game countless times before, but the sting of the hot weather added a sprinkling of more danger. Barefoot, the hot sand threatened to burn their feet, a far cry from the customary dance with pneumonia they usually faced here at the beach.
Still, Amanda noted, despite this one failure, she was winning more than losing this year. Perhaps, at last, the age difference between them was beginning to melt away. Nonetheless, the two children thrilled as the rolling waves headed their way once more and the game began again. Graceful and confident, Amanda skipped as the water danced towards her.
Neither one had reached the age where embarrassment proceeded to be victorious over fun. Amanda thought it likely they would never be too old for this game. In fact, she had spotted both her parents lose themselves in just such a manner when they thought she wasn’t looking. She had also spotted her dad pick up her mum and throw her around as if they were teenagers before smooching as well.
“Yuck!” Amanda yelled at the memory.
“All right?” Isaac asked, concerned.
“Yes, fine, just a bit more water,” she replied, pretending to spit it out.
Walking along the beach, Amanda’s bare feet sunk into the wet sand. When exhaustion finally overwhelmed them, the two children scooped up their shoes. A stiff breeze blew across the open water, ruffling their hair. They quenched their thirst and hunger with snacks from Isaac’s rucksack. Both needed the nourishment before setting off home. Tackling the moderate climb back up the grassy embankment to the top of the hillside known as Devon Cliffs required vigour and a positive attitude.
Fully refreshed, her brother looked up at her. “Shall we give it a go then?” With warm smiles, the two began to walk.
There, amongst a nest of caravans, was their own temporary home. This was accessed via a road more suited to a four-wheel drive vehicle than their own Volvo.
What their car lacked in modern youthful mod cons, it made up for with steel and grit. Amanda had urged it on as it made its way up the uneven gravel path to the campsite, delighting in the old car’s fortitude and strength.
She watched as her brother ate up the walk back, his longer stride making short work of the incline. The hillside location provided a spectacular sweeping view of the beach below. Had the two children been older it would have been somewhere they might have described as idyllic. For now, it offered them both a chance to relax and cool off after the exertions of the morning.
The peaceful ambience of the place broken, Amanda and Isaac stood on the hilltop and listened to the shrill cawing coming from the numerous seagulls overhead, the thrashing of the sea below, and the wind whistling as it channelled through and over their heads, heading for the open ocean. Whilst the waters of Devon didn’t offer the crystal-clear and alluring blue of the more exotic Caribbean seas, as the sea hit the rocks, thrashing and arguing with the land at the shore, it broke with a breath-taking intensity.
Amanda had to admit she felt nervous being underneath the flight path of the gulls that flew overhead. Her main worry was in case they accidentally caught her with one of their bombs, but also because she wasn’t a fan of birds in general.
Something about the beating of their wings and their seemingly random flight had always unnerved her. If someone were to trace back when this anxiety first began, they would with confidence pinpoint it to a particularly traumatic experience with some stale bread and a goose, when she was barely more than four years old. Amanda often found herself rubbing her ring finger absentmindedly when birds were about, as if she could still feel the memory of the bill which took a chomp at her finger instead of the bread.
The Southwoods had been regular holidaymakers at the Devon Cliffs site ever since Mr Southwood had managed to secure them a family caravan; or, as he had termed it, a bolt hole.
Neither Amanda nor Isaac had any idea why they would ever be in need of a place to escape to. Both had hated the idea at first. It had meant no more holidays abroad, not while their mum and dad were trying to pay for all the fees which came along with caravan ownership.
Neither child had fancied holidaying in the wet countryside of Devon every summer, but Dad had been adamant that ‘this would be good for them’ and get them away from all the electronic devices they were too fond of, in his opinion. These days, if pressed on the matter, both children would have been forced to admit Devon Cliffs did make a nice change from their hectic life back in London.
Mum and Dad had never taken them out of school to visit the site before. Despite it being early in the unpredictable month of May, as luck would have it, there was a heat wave. There wasn’t a drop of water to be found in the skies and both children had felt an unusual sense of adventure to the trip. After all, they were missing school and homework. All with their parents’ permission.
Amanda looked over to find her brother Isaac deep in thought with his shoulders hunched over. A small hint of a smile touched his lips as he read the book on Minecraft he’d brought with him. She searched in vain to find his eyes underneath his hair. Frowning to herself, she remembered they had also missed a trip to the hairdressers to come here. There had to be something wrong for them all to need to rush off like this.
She put the thought to the back of her mind and decided to engage her older brother in some conversation. “It’s so great to be away from school and not have anything to do. I can just gaze at the sky and remember what it feels like not to have anywhere to go, be or do. I used to think being here was boring, but I must admit, it does feel rather wonderful. Don’t you think?”
Isaac didn’t flinch from his position and showed no signs of even being alive. Amanda decided to try a different tactic.
“Isaac?!” she shouted. Now she could see a broad fully grown smile hit his lips, as he at last noticed her and looked up from his book. “There you are,” she said with a satisfied sigh. “Shall we go down to the rock pools and see if we can catch some crabs?” If all else failed where her brother was concerned, the lure of fishing worked more times than not.
Amanda smiled as Isaac closed his book, hungry for the adventure of the rock pools. The two headed down to one of the best spots they knew.
Spinning around and around breathlessly, Amanda fell to the ground, laughing. “Isn’t this place the most beautiful you’ve ever seen? I don’t think green has ever looked like a more wonderful colour in my entire life. Up here I feel as if anything is possible. It’s like we’re on the edge of the world and could fall off in a moment, yet something is holding us here.”
Isaac, at last aware of his surroundings, chimed in and agreed. “And the sky is full of the most marvellous clouds I ever saw. If you look long enough and peer deep into the sky, you can imagine almost anything.”
The two fell back and lay on the carpet of grass. Looking high up into the sky they tried to spot shapes in the
clouds. Soft hints of fond memories touched them both as they remembered the game they had enjoyed since they were young.
Suddenly, Amanda saw Isaac sit bolt upright. It was clear to her he’d seen something. At first, she thought he’d spotted an extraordinary shape in one of the clouds. She listened with a keen ear to hear what new figure her brother had seen in the fluffy white clouds.
Then Amanda looked closer at the paleness of his face. The joy which had lit up his face only moments ago had vanished. Instead, he stood rigid and tense, his teeth biting at his lip, and a deep frown had begun to form. His arms straining, she noticed his fingers were closed tightly in a fist, white at the knuckles.
“Isaac, what is it?” she asked, shaking his arm. Her hands suddenly clammy, she felt goosebumps springing up all over her exposed skin.
When she could see he was trying hard to respond, panic rose up in her throat, threatening to take possession of her. Amanda sensed his reluctance to answer her was simply because he couldn’t find the words, as if his mind could not process two things simultaneously. Alarmed, she took a deep breath, gulped, and followed his gaze into the sky.
For a moment Amanda thought it was nothing more than a dark storm cloud. Albeit a strange and oddly isolated one. She squinted and strained to see better. The sounds of her brother scrabbling to his feet next to her did nothing to ease the tension which ran through her.
Isaac had proven his mettle to her time and again and she knew he was not one to scare easy. Her brother had always been shorter than his peers, despite the genes gifted to him by his mum and dad. As a toddler, it hadn’t mattered a jot and Isaac had been a happy boy. As he grew older the size issue became more obvious as the boys around him began to take note of their own physical prowess. On the school football fields, he felt his difference most often, always being the last one chosen for a team.
Later, the bullying had come, but his vertically challenged size, as Mum liked to describe it, had never once stopped him standing up for himself. What he lacked in stature he more than made up for with heart and courage.
Amanda took after her mum more than her dad, having inherited her shocking unruly red hair and piercing auburn eyes. She’d always felt at odds with the world because of it and had endured the sting of childhood bullying. Perhaps this was why she and Isaac were so close. So, she trusted his instincts to be afraid now. Amanda pulled the cardigan she hadn’t needed earlier closer around her shoulders.
Her hair was one of the many things that made Amanda feel like an outsider. She’d experienced strange occurrences which were impossible to explain. Dreams about otherworldly places and voices which called out to her in the night. She shuddered as she recalled the memory of a fire spontaneously erupting during a school trip. Her mother had told her not to worry, that she was nothing more than a sensitive soul. Her dreams were the hallmark of an exceptional and imaginative mind. One day, her mother told her, she would put it to better use.
The other things, like her ability to know what others were feeling, her mother had more difficulty explaining away. Yet, she always found something to deflect or distract her with, and when that didn’t work, her mum would just tell her to stop fretting so much and put an end to further discussion on the topic.
Above her head, a great dark rip appeared in the sky, unlike anything she had ever seen before. If this was an ordinary cloud, she would have recognised it. But everything about it felt wrong. Her brother knew too, she could feel the fear coming off him in waves, thrashing and arguing with him as the sea did with the shore.
It seemed the clouds were crumbling away above her head. A sudden sense of foreboding came over her. She shook her head; foreboding wasn’t the exact feeling her mind had reached for. The sensation was more like being inside a bubble. If she could just pop it, she would reach the revelation of what was on the other side. But no matter how much she strained she couldn’t.
Trembling, she reached for her brother with her still clammy hands and felt herself searching for his strength. As the rips became larger, turning into great dark cavernous bubble-shaped black holes, like balls in a tennis machine, they appeared one after the other in the sky.
Pop, pop, pop filled the air and both children threw their hands to their ears. Then came a deeper, more ominous vibration, and a threatening sensation crackled around them. From the holes, which Amanda had thought looked like the world was falling apart at the seams, came thick black dust leaching out, spreading across the horizon.
They spent so long looking at it, the two shuddered as they realised the shadows had blocked out what had been a glorious sunny day. With the swift change of wind, the day had become night.
“Is that sand?” Isaac asked, without taking his wide eyes off the aerial display.
Amanda shook her head. “I don’t think so. It’s black, isn’t it? The sand isn’t that colour around here.”
The jet-black dust danced in the sky like a murmuration of swallows, keeping the two children transfixed. Both found themselves rooted to the spot, but rather than numbness in their legs, it was a morbid fascination which kept them frozen. From out of the dark cavernous holes the black dust descended. Rolling over the beautiful landscape, the incoming waves moved like a living creature, a hideous monster from a nightmare.
Creeping like a storm of locusts, the monstrous dust flooded down and over the land beneath it. Seeming to rain down and hammer away at the ground, it devoured everything in its path, moving with a relentless pace.
As fascination turned to panic, screaming until their lungs burned, the two at last found their feet. Sprinting hard, the darkness followed hot on their tails.
The sounds of their shouts now locked in their hoarse throats, the two Southwood children felt themselves being scooped up into the air. Amanda closed her eyes, afraid to look at what had grabbed her.
Instead of the expected vice-like pain of some nightmare with a tight grip on her, Amanda realised it felt more like she was floating or flying. Her mother’s shrill voice screamed in her left ear as Amanda dared to look. “We have to run, NOW!”
Her mum’s voice was screechy and as Amanda looked up from her arm, she saw a thin haze of tears covering her eyes. Full of panic and fear, Amanda felt the crunch of the earth beneath her feet again. The sensation grounded her, and she grabbed hold of her mum’s hand and reached out for her brother’s.
The car up ahead had its doors open in desperate invitation. The engine was running. Dad was at the wheel. She saw him flash a look behind them and gasp. Amanda looked at her brother. Like her, he was only focused on getting to the car. Veering wildly from side to side, the thunderous footsteps of the three Southwoods were impossible to hear over the sounds of devastation behind them.
“Get in the car. NOW!” Dad screamed at them.
Mum, Amanda and Isaac lurched forward. Hearing what sounded like hailstones behind them, none dared to look back. Driven by adrenaline, their thoughts turned to this one single action: to get to safety.
Flinging the doors closed behind them, Dad skidded off without a word. His eyes were wide and focused on the path ahead. With the jerking movement of the car taking off, Amanda slid across the seat, colliding with her brother. She felt him reach out and put his arm across her chest to steady her.
With an effort, Amanda pushed herself back to her side of the car and buckled in the belt faster than she ever thought possible. Looking across at Isaac, she let out a sigh of relief; he too had managed to get secure.
Nothing like this had ever happened to them before and still breathing hard, Amanda forced herself to look behind, inviting instant regret to settle like a stone in her gut.
Half of the untamed and once beautiful hilltop had vanished into the waters. The dust had become disembodied dark bullets that rained down, attacking the ground behind them.
She pulled closer to her brother, putting her head on his shoulder, and held tight to his side. Both trembled uncontrollably.
“Dad, what’s happening, wh
at’s going on? What is it in the sky?” Isaac asked, hugging himself as if to keep warm.
Amanda found the fear in her brother’s voice foreign, but she had to give him credit. She didn’t think her mouth would be able to form the millions of questions racing through her mind. She held her breath and waited for the answers.
“It’s not my area of expertise but I think we can safely assume it’s nothing good!” Dad replied, never blinking or taking his eyes off the road.
The car became an ice skater beneath her dad’s hands, wrestling with the skids as he sped along the gravel path.
“Well, where are we going? All our stuff is back in the caravan,” Isaac asked with a quiver.
“We’ll just have to leave it. Don’t worry, you each have a bag of stuff in the boot,” Mum answered. Dad was too deep in concentration, engrossed in the flight of the car’s musical dance.
Instead of easing their concern, both Amanda and Isaac paled at the information. Amanda couldn’t help thinking her parents must have been preparing for this. They had known something terrible was coming, and worse, hadn’t told them a thing. Which turned the thought, like a worm in her stomach, into a worry. What other secrets had her parents been keeping from them?
Chapter Four
The Westwoods Wait
Aero waited with her usual impatience. It wasn’t a motivating eagerness, such as waiting for a special day to arrive, or the delivery of a present in the post. Instead, it was the sort which caused her to fret and feel helpless, to wear holes in the carpet and in her shoes. The kind that made her want her friends around and her family right next to her where she could see them.
The anxious wait for her mother and aunt to return from patrol caused her to suffer. When they were out of sight, her mind roamed too freely on the worst possible outcomes. Unfortunately, it didn’t take long for these trips to become a necessary routine and she found herself having to endure it with ever more frequency. Whilst her dad cared about her, he had his own worries and couldn’t keep babysitting her.
A Sorcery of Shadows: The Westwood Witches 2 Page 3
