What Magic is This?

by Holly Bourne

  First published in 2019 in Great Britain by

  Barrington Stoke Ltd

  18 Walker Street, Edinburgh, EH3 7LP

  This ebook edition first published in 2019

  www.barringtonstoke.co.uk

  Text © 2019 Holly Bourne

  The moral right of Holly Bourne to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in any part in any form without the written permission of the publisher

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library upon request

  ISBN: 978-1-78112-904-3

  To Lucy,

  No one else I’d rather cast a spell on a magic tree with

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  TWO AND A HALF YEARS LATER

  CHAPTER ONE

  So telekinesis is totally harder than I thought it would be.

  I stare at my eyeliner pencil on the carpet, squinting, using all my concentration to make it move.

  Move, eyeliner pencil. Go on. Roll onto your side. You can do it. I believe in you.

  My brain hurts and it feels like it’s about to pop a vein. But I keep going. I can sense a twitch coming. Surely the pencil must be about to move? I’ve been staring at it for ten minutes.

  Come on. Just twitch. MOVE, YOU STUPID EYELINER PENCIL. CAN’T YOU FEEL MY BULGING BRAIN VEIN WANTING IT SO?

  Yet the pencil stays still, determined not to move. I can’t believe it. I mean, I know it sounds a bit up myself, but I’ve always assumed, ever since reading Matilda, that I totally have the power to move objects with my mind. And that the only reason I haven’t done it yet is because I’ve never given telekinesis the proper time and attention.

  But here I am, on the night of a Super Blood Wolf Moon, dressed up like a sexy Wiccan. I’m ready to finally embrace my natural witchness, but … my inner witch is not obeying. This is quite annoying and actually doesn’t bode well for everything I have planned for this evening.

  The doorbell rings, echoing around the house. I hear Mum call, “I’ll get it!” and I let her. One more try …

  I stare at the eyeliner again.

  Move … just move … come on, you big fat eyeliner pencil. Just roll a bit …

  I hear voices and greetings and the thud of someone running up the stairs, but I stay focused. Squinting … wishing …

  My bedroom door flies open just as the eyeliner rolls over slightly.

  OH MY GOD! I DID IT! I DID IT!

  I snatch it up triumphantly and turn to Mia, who’s standing in the doorway, looking like a Goth queen. There isn’t much of her face that’s not covered in eyeliner.

  “I just made this pencil move,” I tell her. “With my brain! I have telekinesis!” I wave the eyeliner over my head.

  “Seriously?” Mia says, and raises an eyebrow, grinning.

  “I think so! I’ve been practising all day and it just suddenly rolled right then …” I pause and suck on the end of the pencil. “Or it might have been the gust of wind from the door opening that moved it …”

  “Let’s be honest, Sophia,” Mia says. “It was most definitely that.”

  Mia strides in and dumps all her sleepover gear onto my bed. Her bag makes a rather worrying clanking sound as it lands on my purple duvet, like she’s got multiple kitchen sinks in there.

  “Hey, it may very well be the case that I’m an actual witch!” I tell her.

  “Well, we’ll know after tonight, won’t we?” Mia replies.

  She starts emptying her bag of its contents – getting out loads of candles, a ball of wool and a bunch of red roses. I get up from the carpet to look at her spoils and I pick up one of the roses.

  “Thanks for getting me the rose I needed,” I say. “Were they expensive?”

  Mia points and winks at me. “They were down to only three quid in Tesco. I think they’re about to die.”

  “Won’t an almost dead rose tarnish the magic?” I ask.

  “They’re not dead yet. We only need them for tonight.”

  I hear Mum’s footsteps on the stairs. “Sophia?” Mum’s voice warbles. Mia and I look at each other in fear, and then to the bed, and then back to each other again.

  “Quick,” I whisper. “Hide the weird stuff.”

  Mia tugs my childhood blankie off the bed and drapes it over her witchcraft collection just as Mum pushes into my room.

  “Mum, you didn’t knock!” I complain.

  She ignores my protest. “What the hell have both of you done to your faces?” Mum asks, taking in our insane amount of make‑up.

  Mia and I both start snorting with laughter. “We’re just experimenting,” I say. “Trying out new looks.”

  Mum clips an earring onto her ear, still frowning. “I thought the point of a new look was to make you look better?” she says. “Not worse. You look like you’ve punched yourself in both eyes.”

  Cheers, Mum, I think. I twist my head to check myself in my mirror. I spent ages on this smoky‑eye look. I even watched a YouTube tutorial to make sure I got it right. And my wrist hurts from all the blending I had to do.

  “I think we look cool,” Mia says, beaming back at her. Mum’s eyes shift to Mia’s long sleeves bunched over her hands. Mum bites her lip and clips on her other earring. I wonder if she’s noticed Mia’s new obsession with never showing her arms, but Mum doesn’t comment.

  “Yes, well …” Mum says. “Anyway, Sophia, there are some pizzas in the freezer for you guys. And I got some dips and crisps like you asked for.”

  “Thank you,” I say.

  “Don’t be too noisy, otherwise Ken next door will get upset.”

  “We won’t.”

  “That means the TV can’t go over twenty‑five.”

  “I know.”

  “And call me if anything happens …” Mum’s eyes flick to Mia’s covered arms again. “Anything at all.”

  “Mum, we’re just watching movies and then sleeping,” I reassure her, while thinking, And dabbling with witchcraft using spells we found on Google. “We won’t be noisy.”

  “Hmm. OK. Well, still. Call. Any doubt, just call. I’ll be back by ten tomorrow.”

  Mum leans in for a kiss, suffocating me with her perfume. I hope it wears off by the time she gets to the date that she’s hiding from me. “Just having dinner at Sandra’s,” she told me. Yeah right. Not that I blame Mum for wanting to find someone new. It’s been almost a year now. But, God, what does it mean if your tragic mother’s love life is going better than yours? She’s old and mental, while I’m in the prime of my youth. And I’m the one having to turn to magic to get a boyfriend.

  I peck the air next to Mum’s neck and wave her out of my room. We hear her collect her overnight bag, call goodbye up the stairs and then the click of the front door.

  “Your mum out on another secret date?” Mia asks.

  “She thinks I’m so stupid.”

  “How do you feel about it?”

  I shrug. I don’t really want to talk about it. “I feel like we can get the ingredients back out now,” I say, lifting blankie off them.

  Mia decides not to push it and screws up her face instead. “Did you just call them
‘ingredients’?”

  “Yeah. What else are we supposed to call them?”

  “I don’t know,” Mia says. “But not ingredients. We’re making spells, not a fish pie. You need to take it seriously.”

  I raise both eyebrows. “I am.”

  “Good. Otherwise the magic won’t work.”

  I reach over and gently poke her. “Mia, I’m taking it seriously, I pro—” I break off as the doorbell goes. “That will be Alexis. I’ll go let her in.” I scramble off the bed and pad downstairs.

  When I’m halfway down, Mia calls out, “I hope you’re not going to waste our evening of magic on trying to win back Aidan.”

  I hold my hand to my heart at the mention of his name. Aidan, Aidan, Aidan. I’m addicted to hearing it. I close my eyes and feel the humiliation and pain and rejection bombard in.

  “You’ll have to wait and see,” I call back, brushing aside my feelings.

  The doorbell trills again.

  “Let me in,” Alexis yells into the letterbox. “I’m so cold I’m scared Hell has actually frozen over and now loads of weird stuff is going to happen out here. It’s not safe.”

  I force a smile onto my face and let in the last member of our coven.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Our agreed dress code for the evening is “Outfits That Would Scare Children” and Alexis has certainly followed the brief. I open the door to see her covered in black and lace … and more black and more lace. But her face is make‑up free, her nose red and snotty.

  “Hi,” Alexis sniffs. She steps into the warmth of my house with her sleeping bag wedged under her armpit. “Sorry I’m a bit late. I was just leaving and then I saw Casper’s water bowl, by the door, ready to go out with the bins tomorrow and … and …” Alexis judders into tears and leans on the wall to steady herself. I close the door and go to hug her, and she flings herself into my arms.

  “Sorry,” Alexis keeps saying as she makes my neck all damp. “Sorry. It’s just … it had Casper’s name on it, you know? He loved that bowl.”

  I nod into her hair, pat her back and keep repeating, “There, there.” Alexis has been sobbing on and off since her dog, Casper, died last week. This is very sad, yes. However, Mia and I have been slightly thrown, as Alexis always hated that dog. Like, literally hated him. Her nickname for the Yorkshire Terrier was “Crap Bag” and she complained about him all the time. His crimes against Alexis included: barking, smelling, being around her at any given moment and taking attention away from her – not that she’d ever admit that last one.

  I give Alexis a final squeeze and break off the hug. “I have dips,” I tell her. “So many dips.”

  At the sound of the word “dip”, Mia appears at the top of the stairs. “Oh my God, I forgot about the dips!” she calls down. “Can we open them now?” She gallops towards us but stops when she sees the state of Alexis. “Oh, hon, what’s wrong?”

  Alexis shakes her head. “It’s nothing. Sorry, I don’t mean to be dramatic … I just … as I was leaving, I saw Casper’s bowl …” She starts crying again.

  I let Mia take over while I get on with arranging snacks. I pad into the kitchen and yank everything out of the fridge. Then I tip a pile of crisps into a bowl and place the dips and crisps on a tray. I hear Mia calm Alexis down and the two of them thudding back upstairs.

  “I really don’t mean to be dramatic,” Alexis repeats as they head up. I grin to myself, as Alexis is a very dramatic person. Both my friends are. It’s impossible for me not to become “the quiet one” when I hang out with these two – even a foghorn would struggle to get attention. Mia’s shyer in company but pretty demanding when it’s just the three of us.

  I follow them up to my room, where I find Alexis much calmer, sitting down in front of my mirror so Mia can do her make‑up.

  “I did try to do the whole eyeliner thing,” Alexis explains as I bash in with my tray and set it on the floor. “But I kept crying it off, you know? From the grief?”

  Mia is leaning forward over her as she smudges my kohl pencil over Alexis’s face.

  “Has Sophia told you about her telekinesis moment with the eyeliner yet?” Mia asks Alexis, using her pinky finger to smudge the make‑up.

  “What’s telekinesis?” Alexis asks, then yelps, “Ouch, Mia! You got some in my eye.” Alexis bats Mia away for a moment and blinks madly.

  “Telekinesis is the ability to move stuff using just your brain,” I say.

  “And you did what? Made your eyeliner float or something?” Alexis asks.

  “Well, not exactly, but it rolled over,” I tell her.

  “Using the wind from the door swinging open,” Mia adds, and I stick my tongue out at her.

  Alexis looks unimpressed. She leans into the mirror and inspects her face. “Oh God, I look like Mia!” Alexis twists back and sees my snack assortment. “Is that Moroccan hummus? Oh my God, you STAR.”

  We all sit in a circle and demolish the food, spraying crumbs and dropping dollops of dip onto my carpet as we talk and eat.

  I’m feeling a bit apprehensive about everything we’re planning to do. The whole witch thing started as a joke, sort of. There’s this show about them on Netflix we all watched together a few weeks ago. And, because it was a Sunday night and we were bored, we jokingly cast a “Sunday Snow Spell” in Mia’s kitchen to cheer us up. It involved melting chocolate with marshmallows and chanting a bit and then eating the marshmallows. We’d totally made it up and it was completely stupid – until it actually snowed that night while we slept.

  “We’re witches,” Mia messaged us the next morning, with a screen grab of the announcement that school was closed. “We did it.”

  “It was forecast to snow,” I pointed out.

  “Not this much.”

  “Yeah, but still.”

  Anyway, since then, Mia’s got proper into witchcraft. She’s been googling all these spells, wearing even more black than normal and keeps touching tree branches and leaves and stuff whenever she walks past them. I guess Mia’s always had a tendency to veer towards the dark side. She’s dyed her hair black since Year Seven. Her long sleeves are black and I worry that they could be covering a multitude of darknesses. She changes in a toilet cubicle after PE rather than with everyone else and she wore the long sleeves even in the summer, no matter how hot it was.

  Soon all that remains of the dips is a bowl of crumbs and two empty tubs, scraped clean. We sit back on my carpet, cradling our bellies and sighing about what we’ve done to ourselves.

  “Will the magic work if I’m this … full?” Alexis asks. She looks down at her bulging belly, strokes it and says, “Mummy is so proud.” It’s hilarious when Alexis stuffs herself. She looks about six months pregnant for a good few hours afterwards. Alexis looks back up at me. “Didn’t you say you had pizza too?”

  “HOW are you still hungry?” I screech in disbelief.

  “It’s the grief!” Alexis replies.

  Mia claps to get our attention. “Let’s get going already. We’ve got three spells to cast tonight and we’ve not even set up the magic circle yet.”

  Alexis is still rubbing her belly. “Can the pizza be the magic circle?”

  “Honestly, how are you still hungry?” Mia asks.

  “I told you, it’s the grief!”

  I stand up to stop this turning into yet another argument. I’m always caught in the middle of Mia being upset that Alexis doesn’t take her seriously, while Alexis is upset that Mia is too serious all the time.

  “How about I put the oven on?” I say slowly, like they’re children. “And, while I’m doing that, you two can get all the ingredients ready?”

  “Ingredients?” Mia yelps at me, ruining my attempt at peacekeeping. “Ingredients? For God’s sake, Sophia. None of you are taking this seriously.” She throws her hands up and storms out of my bedroom.

  CHAPTER THREE

  I look at Alexis.

  Alexis looks at me.

  We hear the slam and lock of the bath
room door.

  “What did I do?” I ask.

  Alexis rolls over onto my bed, stretching her feet out. “It’s just Mia,” she says. “You never have to do anything for her to react like this.”

  “What should we do?” I say.

  “Exactly what she wants you to do. Follow her …” Alexis replies as she shakes her head and laughs. “And Mia calls me the drama queen.”

  I stand up, unsure and annoyed. I love my friends, I do. But between the two of them, and their issues and demands, there’s rarely room left for me. Tonight was supposed to cheer me up. Me. After Aidan. But now it’s turned into a frigging dead‑dog vigil, mixed with dramas I don’t even understand. “Why don’t you sort the pizzas out,” I suggest, “and I’ll go talk to Mia?”

  “A million times yes,” Alexis says.

  I edge out into the hallway, not sure why I’m creeping. I hear Mia crying on the other side of the bathroom door and my stomach squeezes.

  I knock gently and her crying stutters. “Mia, it’s me,” I say needlessly.

  “I just want to be alone right now,” Mia sniffs.

  “We didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “I’M NOT UPSET.”

  “Maybe you are just a tiny bit.”

  “NO, I’M NOT.”

  “You’ve just locked yourself in the bathroom.”

  “NO, I HAVEN’T.”

  Then I hear her laugh at herself and my stomach relaxes, knowing Mia’s on her way back to normality. I do not like the thought of her being locked in a room where my razors are.

  I laugh too. I wait. I listen as Mia’s crying calms down, mixed with the sounds of Alexis opening and closing the oven door with gusto. I wait a bit more, letting silence work its magic. And then, with a scrape of the lock, the door swings open, revealing Mia huddled on the bathmat.

  “Sorry,” she says sheepishly. Her eye make‑up is all over her face.

  “I’m sorry too.”

  Mia wraps her arms around her chest. “I just … well … it’s like you’re not taking the witchcraft seriously.”