The Broken Spell (4 page)

‘Where’s the light?’

She heard a dull thump and a groaning ‘Ow!’ from Jenny before the room gently illuminated. Jenny frowned at the filthy light switch and wiped her finger on her jumper.

‘This is, by far, the worst day of my whole, entire life,’
Una grumbled.

‘That’s a bit of an exaggeration, Una.’ Grace stepped into the maze of dusty boxes, hissing as her leg glanced painfully off the jagged edge of an old trunk.

‘This is going to take all night!’

‘Couldn’t we just say we’re not doing it?’ said Rachel. ‘I mean, we’re not in school. This is slave labour.’

‘I guess we could,’ Grace replied. ‘But I think she’d chuck us out for good.’

‘
And
she’d probably curse us,’ Adie said, widening her eyes as Grace shook her head. ‘I wouldn’t put it past her!’

‘Let’s just get on with it,’ said Jenny. ‘The sooner we start, the sooner it’s over.’

The girls worked solidly for two hours and got more than halfway through the list. By then, they were covered with dust and dirt and Rachel was nursing a broken nail. Una lay sprawled across several piles of boxes shouting instructions at the others.

‘No,’ she said, turning the list in her hand and examining the crudely drawn diagram. ‘You’re looking for a Y-shape, like a slingshot. That’s not a ‘Y’ shape, Grace. Try again.’

‘Would you like to come here and do some actual work, Una?’ said Grace.

‘No thanks, not really.’

Jenny snorted and threw an old blanket at her. Una squealed, swatting at the moth-eaten wool and rolling onto
the floor, taking one of the dusty boxes with her. The lid flipped off, spilling the contents everywhere.

‘Una!’ cried Grace.

‘That was Jenny’s fault.’

‘Like we haven’t got enough to do!’

Grace righted the box and kneeled down to pile the books and wooden ornaments back in.

‘Hey, look at this.’ She wiped the cover of one slim volume with her sleeve, and held it up. ‘St John’s Yearbook, 1977’.

‘No way!’ Jenny swiped the book and flipped through the pages.

‘Do you think Mrs Quinlan’s in there?’ said Una.

‘Yeah, why else would she have it? Just wondering will we recognise her.’ Jenny stopped and jammed her finger into one page. ‘Look at that. Ms Bethany Lemon. That’s her,
leaning
against the school gates.

‘And that must be Ms Gold,’ said Rachel. ‘Wow, she’s barely changed at all. How weird is that?’

‘Then that,’ said Grace, planting her finger on the girl standing between them, ‘is Mrs Vera Quinlan – or whatever her last name was back then.’

Slouching, with one elbow on the iron gate, the youthful Mrs Quinlan was the very picture of a 1970s punk, a faded denim jacket over her rumpled school jumper, torn tights, knee socks pushed to her ankles, and short asymmetric hair spiked into sharp points and certainly dyed (though it was
difficult to tell what colour in the black and white photo). Her eyes were heavily lined in black, and the glint of several piercings poked through the Johnny Rotten hairdo.

‘Hold. The. Phone,’ said Una, pushing her face right up to the page. ‘This is so freaky. I’m having an out-of-body experience.’

‘Vera Miller, she was, before she was Quinlan,’ Rachel read. ‘And look at the stuff other kids have written.’

Beneath the photo were the obligatory scribbles of other students, written at the end of the school year. Grace took the book, turning it this way and that as she read.

Take it to the Max, V. You’re awesome!!

Diggin’ your tunes, V-girl! Keep in touch
!

Movin’ on and movin’ up in the world. Far out V xx

YOU ARE DYN-O-MITE!!

To the grooviest groovy chick I ever met – life won’t be the same without you!

The girls looked at each other in surprise.

‘Mrs Quinlan was…
popular
,’ said Grace.

‘There’s friendly stuff scribbled all over this page,’ said Jenny, ‘
and
the next one. Loads of people. Wow.’

‘And she looked cool,’ Rachel said. ‘I mean, actually
cool
. Look at her hair. My mum went mental when Una put a few highlights in mine, and you could barely see them.’

Grace smiled and ran her fingers over the old, fading photograph.

‘They look like they were good friends, don’t they?’ she said. ‘Wonder what happened…’

A soft breeze blew through a kitchen window onto
seventeen
-year-old Bethany Lemon, who sat at the table, staring into her slightly undercooked porridge and tugging at her fringe. It was the summer of 1977 and the yearbook photos were being taken today. She pulled her heavy fringe across one eye, low enough to almost cover her nose, and wondered if she could cover her face altogether.

The pictures were taken individually now that Beth was in the last year of school. No more hiding behind the boy or girl in front; no more subtly glancing off to one side just as the photo was taken, ensuring her face was barely visible in the printed book.

Stephen McFadden had already snapped one of her, Vera and Meredith by the school gates. ‘A candid moment’, he called it. He had smiled widely and explained, mainly to Vera, how people’s real memories of school were rarely captured on film. ‘Posed images’ eclipsed the reality of their
teenage
years. He preferred to catch a genuine moment, when the subjects were unaware. We were unaware, alright, Beth thought bitterly. She hadn’t seen the camera in time to avoid it.

‘Are you going to eat your breakfast?’

Her mother barely looked up from her own bowl as she spoke, and Beth nodded mechanically. She picked up her spoon and poked at the stodgy mess. Her father sat silently on her other side.

Breakfast and dinner were still a family affair in her house, though she couldn’t, for the life of her, understand why. There had been a little more conversation at each meal when her brother still lived at home, but that usually broke down when he made excuses and left the table early. Now he lived with his wife in a big house nearly three hours drive away. They were expecting a baby too. She couldn’t blame him. He was creating a happy family life to replace the one he’d never had. Her parents must have been happy at some point, but not in her living memory. They didn’t argue; they didn’t fight. They just didn’t like each other. And she didn’t think either of them was particularly fond of her. But still, twice a day, they sat down together and ate in silence.

Today she counted the minutes until she could politely leave, and hurry to school to meet her coven. Meredith and Vera were never quiet – they argued all the time – and with
them
she felt comfortable. She could take a break from her shyness, and from the cloak of unhappiness that shrouded her home. They were kind of her surrogate family. In some ways, they felt more like her
real
family.

‘Keep moving, Lemon.’

A strong hand gripped her elbow before she rounded the school gates, and steered her past them.

‘Where are we going?’

Vera’s numerous piercings jingled slightly as she whipped her head around, scoping out the area for teachers and other authority figures. When she was satisfied they were in the clear, she smiled at Beth.

‘The river.’

‘They’re taking the yearbook photos today.’

Vera huffed impatiently. ‘We’ll be back in time for them.’

‘No rush,’ said Beth. ‘What are we doing at the river?’

‘Collecting. We’re going to see the Old Wagon today.’

‘I wish you wouldn’t call her that.’

Vera’s arm remained tucked into Beth’s as they hurried past the woods along the quiet road that led to the river.

‘What should I call her then?’

‘How about ‘Mrs Allan’,’ replied Beth. ‘That’s her name.’

‘Old Wagon suits her just fine.’

‘Vera, she’s… infirm! You should be nice.’

‘Just ’cos the woman’s so old and decrepit that she can’t leave her house, does that mean I’m required to undergo a complete personality transplant? You’re just soft.’

‘If I were in her position, I’d want people to be kind and nice to me.’

‘Well, you’re not. So thank your lucky stars.’

The sound of rushing water grew louder as they walked on, and soon the river was in sight. Carefully, they slid down the bank to where Meredith stood waiting.

‘Mostly aquatic stuff she wants today,’ she said. ‘Spawning brook lamprey, if you can find them.’

‘What does she want with brook lamprey?’ Vera sniffed.

‘
Spawning
ones only,’ replied Meredith. ‘She preserves them in vinegar. They’re good for perception-altering spells. Says she can take a holiday to Tenerife… in her mind.’

‘Hmph.’ Vera looked ready to make a snide comment, when Beth noticed her features suddenly brighten. ‘That would be a Four Poles spell, wouldn’t it?’

‘You can do it that way,’ said Meredith. ‘But she could manage it by herself. It’s possible.’

‘But it’s better with four people.’

‘Yeah, it’s better with four.’

Vera hunkered down on the bank, apparently digging for lamprey.

‘Much better,’ she said. ‘Better than one, two, or even three.’

Meredith’s face kept its usual coolness, but Beth’s heart suddenly thumped in her chest. Four witches were better than three? What was Vera saying? They had been three for years – it was a great Wiccan number, Vera had said so herself. Why would they want a fourth? Beth watched as Vera calmly picked through the mud, wondering how her friend could suggest something so drastic. Panic was already breaking out
a sweat across Beth’s brow, and she looked to Meredith to put an immediate end to the idea. But the blonde girl simply stared, then turned and began searching in the shallow water. Beth didn’t want change. The coven was her family, her only security, and she didn’t want anything to break that.

An unfamiliar feeling rushed through her – anger at Vera’s callousness. She was aware that she was the weak one, that she needed the other two more than they needed her. But until this moment, she didn’t believe it really mattered. They were sisters, and would always do right by each other. But now Vera was bored. Bored with her and with the coven. Grey clouds settled over the sun, dulling the reflections of the river and turning the water to silty brown. The other two carried on as usual but Beth knew, with that one little sentence, everything had changed.

Mrs Allan’s wheezing breath whistled in time to the
ticking
of the old cuckoo clock on the wall. She was a large woman, squeezed into a flimsy armchair that had fraying, beige upholstery and shiny, mahogany legs. Her upper body tilted forward slightly, as if she was perpetually on the point of getting up. But she never did. Her ancient lungs and weak heart kept her confined to her room and, for the most part, to her chair. Her eyelids had the unnerving habit of drifting shut when she was still wide awake, though it seemed the
woman could see right through them. She revelled in
startling
her young visitors with sharp outbursts, chastising them for touching some ornament or other without permission, when she had appeared to be in a deep sleep.

‘A couple of lamprey, as promised.’ Meredith placed a jar on the occasional table in front of Mrs Allan.