The Broken Spell (6 page)

‘You mean like making ourselves pretty?’ said Rachel. ‘Yeah!’

‘Or ugly, or old, or animal-like,’ said Ms Gold ‘Whatever you want. Glamour is like a sheet between you and the rest of the world, and you can draw whatever you like on it. It doesn’t require a potion or anyone else to help. It’s just you and your imagination.’

‘Brilliant!’

‘Hands out like this,’ Ms Gold straightened her arms in front and spread her fingers. ‘Repeat after me:
Faciem occulta,
personam ostende
. Feel that tiny buzz beneath your fingertips? You need to keep hold of that and build it up. Wiggle your fingers.’

Una started to flap her hands around.

‘
Gently
!’ said Ms Gold. ‘Gently, at first. Still got it? Right, wiggle a little more now. The buzz should feel stronger, it should be spreading up to your knuckles. Is everyone
following
me?’

Five heads nodded.

‘Right, here comes the difficult part. You want to tip that buzz into your hands and use it before it falls out. So, when
you’re ready, I want you to take a deep breath, picture
very
clearly in your mind what you want to see in the mirror, scoop your hands up and over your face, keeping your
fingers
moving all the time – hold on to that buzz – and ripple your hands down without touching your skin. Everyone ready? Then let’s go for it. Scoop and ripple down the face!’

Grace’s heart was racing as she pictured herself with thick, bouncy locks of curly black hair. However, as she lifted her fingers, she felt the buzzing slip down the sides of her hands and disappear altogether.

‘Very good, Rachel!’ Ms Gold exclaimed. ‘Goodness me, you’re a natural Glamourer.’

Grace opened her eyes to see Rachel’s were a deep shade of purple. Her hair had zipped itself into a stylish bob, and her teeth were blindingly white.

‘Mine didn’t work right, Miss,’ Jenny said, leaning over to scrutinise her reflection in the hand mirror in the centre of the desk. It looked like she had meant to give herself tiger stripes, but the orange, white and black had spread across her face in uneven blotches.

‘Ah,’ the teacher replied, ‘that’s lack of clarity in your
self-imaging
. You imagined the stripes, yes? The colours. But you didn’t picture their exact placement on your face. Always remember, girls, Glamour can do wondrous things, but you have to be
specific
about what you want. Otherwise, it dumps the elements in any old order. As you’re building the buzz,
take a moment to picture
exactly
the result you want. Take your time, there’s no rush.’

‘It didn’t work for me at all, Miss,’ Una said, frowning into the mirror.

‘Me neither,’ said Adie.

‘Or me,’ said Grace.

‘There’s a knack to catching the buzz,’ Ms Gold replied, ‘so don’t despair. Rachel’s rather unusual – I’ve never seen anyone get it perfect on their first go. Just remember the golden rule of witchcraft–’

‘Knowledge equals power,’ said Grace.

Ms Gold smiled and took Grace’s hands, holding her arms out straight.

‘Practice makes perfect.’

After an hour of Glamouring, Grace still hadn’t managed to give herself bouncing black curls, but she had managed to change her eye colour from green to blue, and had had an interesting blunder when she tried to make her face like a fish, but made it red-brick instead by glancing out of the window at a wall just as she caught the buzz. They were not outstanding achievements, but she felt wonderfully in
control
. Even though she didn’t always get the result she wanted, the very fact that she could change her appearance made her feel so
witch-like
. Finally, she and the girls were getting somewhere. They weren’t just students learning about plants and fungi and all their properties. They were
witches
. Real
witches, learning real magic. It was bliss.

‘Thanks Miss, that was so brilliant!’ chorused the girls, as they prepared to go home.

‘Seriously, Miss, that was the best class ever!’ Jenny grinned.

‘You’re very welcome, girls. It’s my pleasure.’

‘Miss?’ Una said tentatively.

‘Yes, Una.’

‘What happened to your coven? How come Ms Lemon and Mrs Quinlan won’t let you teach us?’

Ms Gold’s light-filled eyes darkened as she got up from her chair.

‘I don’t want to rake up old graves, there’s no good in it.’ She took a deep breath and gave them a big forced smile. ‘Let’s leave the past in the past, shall we?’

5

OLD SPELLS, LIKE FINE WINES

Once again, the dense air of Mr Pamuk’s shop was heavy with incense. Grace was wary of being back in the stone cavern and kept a good ten metres distance from the enchanted mirror, where she had seen – what? A terrifying face with weird eyes, a creature that had tried to get her…

But Ms Lemon had insisted they return to the shop for another visit.

‘Best to face your fears,’ she said. ‘Besides, Mr Pamuk is a fountain of information. You’ll need his advice. Not to
mention
he’s the only decent supplier around here – you can’t be a witch without him.’

This time the girls were given free rein to wander around
the shop as they pleased, picking up items and asking what the more interesting-looking ones were for. Grace thumbed carefully through an ancient spell book. The crunchy brown pages were covered in an indecipherable scrawl of black ink, punctuated with hand-drawn diagrams.

‘Do spells go out of date?’ she asked. ‘I mean, we used our ordinary kind of language when we were doing spells. Do the old ones stop working if the language is too old?’

‘Not at all,’ said Mr Pamuk. ‘And frequently, like fine wines, spells mature wonderfully with age.’

‘Do you mean they become stronger?’

‘More potent. Yes, very often. The most successful witches will always include some of the oldest spell books in their libraries.’

‘Mr Pamuk, this mirror’s broken.’

Across the room, Una held up a small mirror with a wooden handle. The face of the mirror was shiny, but showed no reflection.

‘Careful, Una!’ said Grace.

‘It’s alright, Grace,’ said Ms Lemon. ‘That’s a Penzios Mirror, for Reverse Glamour spells – changing the
appearance
of others.’

‘Cool!’ Una said, smiling into the empty glass. ‘I’d love to try some
Reverse
Glamour.’

‘You’d have to master basic Glamour first.’

There was a stony silence.

‘Yes,’ Una said robotically. ‘I would have to learn basic Glamour first.’

‘What’s this?’ Jenny rushed in to change the subject. She held up another, rather dull-looking ancient book.

‘Goodness me,’ said Mr Pamuk. ‘You have a good eye. That’s an
Il Fuoco Dormiente
, first edition. One of the finest collections of spells and enchantments ever written. If old spells are fine wines, that’s a veritable cellar-full.’

Jenny frowned as she lifted the worn cover, running her hand across the aged pages.

‘Lovely!’ said Grace as she wandered off to another corner of the shop.

One pleasant hour later, and it was time to go. The girls groaned in protest.

Grace lifted the wicker hat off her head, slightly
disappointed
that Mr Pamuk couldn’t demonstrate its use.

‘Unfortunately it was badly damaged during a fierce battle many centuries ago. Rumour has it Attila the Hun himself fired an arrow through the artifact, ending its power of
invisibility
and, sadly, rendering its wearer very visible.’ Mr Pamuk smiled fondly as he placed the hat carefully on a wide shelf. ‘Still, an extraordinary item.’

‘Jenny,’ called Ms Lemon, ‘I said, it’s time to go.’

‘Coming, Ms Lemon.’ With her back to the others, Jenny shuffled with something at a high table before swinging her bag onto her shoulder and turning. ‘Right. Let’s go.’

‘What were you looking at?’ Grace whispered.

‘Yeah,’ said Una. ‘You missed Grace in a tatty hat
not
going invisible. It was majorly exciting.’

Jenny shook her head in warning and hurried up the stone steps.

‘Well,’ said Una, when Ms Lemon had left them. ‘You gonna spill?’

Jenny smirked as she rooted in the bottom of her rucksack and pulled out a sheet of copybook paper.

‘That book I was looking through, with all those spells? Well, I found something really cool.’

She unfolded the piece of paper and held it out. Grace leaned in to read Jenny’s blue scribbles, but couldn’t make any of it out.

‘Is that English?’

Jenny tutted. ‘Yeah. Look, don’t mind my writing. I’ll re-do it neatly later. But do you see what it is?’

They all stared and frowned. Jenny tutted again.

‘It’s a spell for seeing into the past. You can look back into history.’

There were a few interested sounds and nodding heads.

‘Don’t you get it? We can look back and see what
happened
between Ms Lemon, Mrs Quinlan and Ms Gold. We can find out what broke up the coven.’

‘And then we can sort it out,’ said Una. ‘Genius!’

‘Wait, wait, wait,’ said Grace. ‘You want to do a spell? We
can’t. No way. They’d go nuts if they found out.’

‘Quinlan and Lemon would go nuts,’ said Jenny. ‘Ms Gold wouldn’t mind at all.’

‘It’s too dangerous. What if it goes wrong?’

‘It
won’t.
We’ll be really careful. And it’s not like we’re beginners anymore. We’ve learned loads already.’

‘We can do Glamour,’ said Rachel.

‘Yeah!’ Una was grinning with excitement now. ‘We are doing spells now. And, like Ms Gold said, practice makes
perfect
.’

Grace shook her head.

‘Grace.’ Jenny took her arm. ‘By the time we’ve learned all the boring plants and stuff that Quinlan’s teaching us, we’ll be old enough to leave school. Do you want to get the whole way to eighteen without casting any spells? Just think, if we can get the old coven back together we’ll have the best of both worlds. Lemon and Cat Lady can teach us all the theory they want, and Ms Gold can show us how to use it.’

Grace chewed on her lip and didn’t answer.

‘It’s just looking into the past,’ Jenny pushed. ‘We’re just going to watch people, like on TV.’

‘Come on, Grace,’ said Una. ‘Please.’

Grace glanced at Adie, expecting to see a very worried face. But even Adie appeared unwilling to wait years to try out some real magic. Grace sighed.

‘Alright. But we have to be
really
careful.’

That lunchtime, the five girls went to the quietest part of the P block. Jenny had lit incense, and Grace was trying not to gag on the hideously floral scent.

‘Do we need to have
four
sticks burning?’

‘It’s for atmosphere,’ Jenny replied. ‘It’ll help.’

‘Not if they can smell it out in the hall.’

Grace knew that wasn’t likely, but she said it anyway. This part of the P block was generally empty during lunchtime, and they were safely hidden in one of the labs at the very end of the corridor.

The girls sat on the floor in a circle. In the centre was Mrs Quinlan’s yearbook, a small dish filled with crushed herbs collected from the woods, and a sprinkling of soil from the football pitch. They each held a piece of silverware borrowed from home. A bracelet, a ring, a couple of forks and, in Una’s case, a very large soup ladle.

‘That’s huge!’ said Rachel.

‘My parents’ wedding stuff is buried in the attic. I wasn’t going mooching through all that junk. This is fine.’

‘Let’s get started.’ Jenny leaned forward and pushed her fork into the dish of herbs, and held onto it. The others
followed
suit, pushing their silverware into the herbs. Then they chanted:

‘Beloved Chronos, lord of time,

Thy bounty and thy strength divine,

With meek and humble force we cast

This charm to view what now is past
.’

It wasn’t long before something started happening. The silverware started to jerk in their hands, making soft screeches against the porcelain dish. They each stared intently at the yearbook, careful not to let their minds wander. Grace felt that she could see right through the pages, down to the photograph of the old coven leaning against the wrought iron gates.

And as she blinked, the picture came to life.

Vera slouched, glancing contemptuously at the camera. Beth leaned forward, looking up from beneath her heavy fringe. Meredith swept one hand beneath her golden locks and gripped the gate as the wind picked up, causing the metal hinges to rattle noisily. Grace could feel the wind in her face and hear the metallic sound continuing, but from much
farther
away. It picked up speed like an approaching train.

Clickety-click-click

Clickety-click-click

Grace held her breath as the image before her was swamped in light that spread while the metallic crunching got louder and louder. She fought to keep her concentration, her heart racing as she could almost feel the railroad sleepers beneath her, panting as the unseen train bore down on her,
threatening
to crush her. A foghorn blared and sent her flying across
the floor. She blinked in the sudden silence.

There was soft grass against her cheek. She heard groaning as the others sat up and stretched their aching limbs. Looking up she could see a worn, gravel track through the grass, and beyond that, woods.

‘What happened?’ said Adie. ‘Where are we?’

‘At school,’ Jenny replied.

‘No, we were in the lab in the P block, doing the spell. Now, we’re somehow outside.’

‘We’re at school,’ Jenny said again, and pointed past Adie. Grace looked behind her to see what looked like the school building.

‘That’s not… It’s different.’

‘There’s no P block yet,’ said Jenny. ‘We are standing where the P block
will
be.’

‘Oh God. We’ve gone back in time!’ said Grace.

She jumped to her feet and ran a few metres until she could see the football pitch. Two teams were playing. One in blue, the other wearing a uniform that looked something like St John’s. But subtly different.

‘Oh God!’ she said again. ‘It’s actually happened!’

‘Let’s not panic,’ said Jenny.

‘Let’s not panic?’ cried Grace. ‘Like TV, you said. We were supposed to be
watching
, that’s all, not
in it
. You’ve taken us
back in time.
’

‘It’s an old spell. I guess it’s gotten really potent, like Mr
Pamuk said. Look, it’s not permanent. We’re bound to get bounced back to our own time.’

‘But when? We could be here for days. We could be here forever!’

‘Stop panicking, Grace. You’re not helping.’

Grace blushed in spite of her anger. She didn’t like being the one to lose her cool – even Adie wasn’t screaming
hysterically
like Grace was. But she hated that Jenny didn’t seem at all fazed that they’d just been zapped back to the 1970s. She tried to say this in calmer tones, but was interrupted by a loud ringing from inside the building. A door banged.

‘You girls!’ A woman’s voice shrieked. ‘What do you think you’re doing standing around outside? Get to your classes, immediately!’

A skinny figure marched towards them, swinging a heavy textbook.

‘Didn’t you hear me?’ the woman said, the book quivering menacingly in her hand. ‘Get to your classes!’

Not knowing what else to do, the five girls obeyed, and moved through the heavy doors into throngs of students. They circled the corridors, avoiding being pushed into
classrooms
by the crowds, until the halls were almost empty.

‘What do we do?’ asked Rachel.

‘I don’t know,’ said Grace. ‘But we better hide somewhere, or that woman might find us again.’

‘Vera!’ called a voice nearby. ‘Wait for me!’

The girls all turned and, to their astonishment, saw a young Mrs Quinlan, complete with red spiky hair and
piercings
, being chased by a young Ms Lemon.

‘Follow them,’ Una hissed, as the others were getting over the shock.

‘They’re going into a classroom,’ said Adie.

‘So?’

‘No,’ said Grace. ‘We can hide in the toilets and wait ’til the bell rings. We’ll follow them when they leave.’

She grabbed Una’s elbow and steered her towards the girls’ toilets.

‘Do you hear that?’ she heard Adie say behind her. Grace turned to answer, but Adie wasn’t there. And Rachel wasn’t there. And neither was Jenny.

‘Una! Where’d they go?’

Before Una could answer, they were almost run over by a group of students and bundled through an open door.