Dark Spell (7 page)

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 blurted 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.

“Let’s go downstairs,” said Josh, “and you can tell me exactly what’s going on, and then maybe we can work out what to do.” As he spoke, his mind was replaying events from last summer: things that had seemed inexplicable at the time, but suddenly made perfect sense if Callie was a witch. It made such perfect sense that he couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of it himself. Of course, he hadn’t thought of it himself because it was impossible.

“Let’s go into the garden,” Callie said.

Sitting in the sun, she told Josh everything: Evie’s broken arm, Rose’s coven, her training and the escalating disturbances taking place around her.

“So now you know why it’s my fault.”

Josh didn’t reply. The more he heard, the harder it became to disbelieve.

“Josh?”

He tried to reason his way through what he’d just seen and heard. “Why now? Why would this suddenly start
now
? You’ve known you’re a witch for months, haven’t you?”

Callie nodded.

“And you’re getting better at controlling things?”

“Yes…”

“It doesn’t make sense. Surely this would have happened when you had the power but you didn’t know how to use it, if it was you causing it?”

“I… I don’t know.”

“Has anything happened anywhere except your house?”

“No. Just in the house.”

“Well, if it was you, surely these things would happen wherever you were?”

Callie shrugged. “I haven’t really been anywhere else since it started. Not for more than a couple of hours at a time.”

Josh thought silently for a few minutes.

“Okay,” he said. “Let’s try to clear up your room, then you call your parents and ask if you can stay with me and Mum at the cottages tonight. If nothing happens while you’re there, then it’s your house, not you, making these things happen.”

“But what if something does happen?”

“Then we’ll deal with it. But you’ve got to tell Rose what’s been happening.”

Callie nodded. “I know. I thought I could sort it out myself, but…” She gave a rueful smile. “I’ll go and see her on the way round to the cottages.”

Something else had occurred to Josh. “Do your parents know that you’re a witch? Wait – is your mum one too?”

Callie gave a mirthless laugh. “Dad doesn’t know and Mum’s mortified. She’s not a witch and she’s ashamed of me and of Rose. She definitely thinks I’m a freak.”

Josh wanted to protest that she couldn’t possibly, but something told him not to. Instead he stood up.

“Right. Let’s sort your room out.”

It took over an hour to get the bits of stone out and distribute them round the garden, mop up the puddle
and clean the floor. At least water was no longer oozing from the wall. They moved a couple of posters and Callie’s desk to hide the wet patch, then stood back to inspect the result of their efforts.

“Well, it looks okay to me,” said Josh.

“You’re not my mother,” Callie pointed out unnecessarily. “She’s like someone from
CSI
. It’ll just take one bit of gravel and she’ll work everything out somehow.”

“They all do that, don’t they?” said Josh, still scrutinising the room. “You get the place immaculate and they come home and take one look round and they’re like, ‘I see you had six friends round and ordered pepperoni pizza – sixteen inch – and drank nine cans of Irn-Bru and talked about films.’ Honestly, mothers are a different species.”

Callie was laughing now.

“With any luck she won’t even come in here if I’m staying over at your place,” she said, holding up crossed fingers.

“Has she texted back yet?”

“I left my phone downstairs. Let’s go and check.” Callie picked up her sunglasses, closed her bedroom door and led the way down to find that there was a text from Julia.

“Yes, it’s fine,” she said as she read it. “Now, what about the beach? I’ve had more than enough of this house, and there’s a picnic that needs eating.”

Lying on the hot sand, stuffed with food, surrounded by the noise of holidaymakers enjoying the sun, the situation seemed a little less daunting than it had in Callie’s bedroom.

“So, tell me more about being a witch. Can you do lots of cool stuff? Do you have to meet with the rest of the coven at full moon?” Josh had been longing to ask, but he hadn’t wanted to earlier in case it upset Callie again.

“And dance naked round a cauldron?” Callie interjected acidly.

Josh went scarlet and choked on his drink. “Don’t do that,” he wheezed in between coughs.

“Anyway, I can assure you there’s no dancing, and no cauldron, and certainly no nakedness.”

“Please, don’t even make me think about that.”

“And they don’t worship the devil. Or have familiars,” she went on, ignoring him.

“What about Luath? And Chutney Mary?”

“They’re not familiars, you fool, they’re pets.”

“Well, what’s the difference?”

Callie opened and closed her mouth. “Actually, I must admit I’m not sure.”

“What about George?”

“I don’t think he’d be very pleased to be described as a pet
or
a familiar.”

Josh elbowed her in the ribs. “No, I mean what does he think about all this? I take it he does know?”

“Oh yes, he must know, but no one’s ever actually told him, so he doesn’t have to think anything about it. But I suppose the fact that he and Rose are still together speaks for itself.”

When they tired of the beach, Josh and Callie dropped the borrowed wetsuits off. They’d gone into the house with some trepidation, but everything was just as they’d left it, and Chutney Mary accompanied them from room to room, purring cheerfully, tail high.