The Witches of the Glass Castle (The Witches of the Glass Castle Series Book 1) (2 page)

The narrow streets of Silver Brook were eerily deserted. In fact, they were surprisingly quiet for such a bright summer’s day. Only one car chugged along the winding road – a rusty blue station wagon. It wasn’t an urbanised town, so the roads were never congested like they often were in the larger cities. Silver Brook was, for the most part, surrounded by mountains and forest, but the warm summer months tended to bring out the tourists. Not today, however; today was different.

With an impromptu swerve, the clapped-out station wagon veered off the main road and pulled on to a parched dirt track. Pebbles and clumps of dried mud crunched under the weight of the bulky tires. The car rattled along at a leisurely pace, closing in on an archway of trees, all o
f which seemed to bend towards each other, creating a tunnel.

Cassandra drove into the tunnel, and at once the glare of the afternoon sunlight vanished. ‘This brings back memories,’ she remarked to her sister, who sat in the front passenger seat picking at her chipped, orange nail polish.

‘Tell me about it,’ Madeline agreed. ‘It wasn’t all that long ago our mother was driving
us
here for the first time.’

‘Not that long ago?’ Cassandra echoed. ‘Try twenty years!’

‘For
some
of us, maybe!’ Madeline spluttered in outrage. ‘Stop insinuating I’m as old as you are.’

‘You’re only two years younger than me!’ Cassandra laughed.

Madeline frowned at her.

‘OK,’ Cassandra relented. ‘It’s been eighteen years for you.’

‘Eighteen years ago…’ Madeline processed the thought, gazing wistfully out at the tunnel of branches. ‘Am I really that old?’

‘Yes, dear,” Cassandra replied with a smile, ‘I’m afraid so. At least you can take solace in the fact I’m even older.’

Madeline considered it. ‘True.’

From the backseat, Mia listened to her mother and aunt’s conversation. Right now everything seemed like a mystery to her. She wasn’t even sure where she was going. All she knew was that she and Dino were being sent away for a while. Of course, her mother and Madeline hadn’t exactly used the words ‘sent away’, but that had been the gist of it.

Mia blinked against the bursts of sunlight that sporadically broke through the trees. She squinted, trying to glimpse beyond the tunnel, but the bright light between the gaps blinded her. She looked away quickly, almost as though she’d been burnt by it.

Sitting beside her, Dino showed no reaction. He stared straight ahead, his eyes locked to the back of his mother’s head, fixated on her mane of fiery red curls. Where Mia displayed curiosity, Dino’s stance was that of a condemned man. It was as though he already knew what was beyond the tunnel – or at least what it represented. And it symbolised the end. To him, the tunnel was a portal of rebirth into a life that he did not want. And consequently, the end of the life he had.

Mia
wanted to speak to him, but she didn’t dare. His dark-brown eyes were cold and warded her off.

She
sighed. Dino was no stranger to a sullen mood, but ever since the basement his bad temper had become a permanent fixture. It was like he was a different person. Unlike Mia, Dino was experiencing side effects from what happened that day. From what she could gather, he was still tortured by the pain in his head. It had lessened, but it had by no means gone. Of course, nobody knew the full extent of his suffering because he had barely spoken in days.

All of a sudden
Madeline let out a piercing shriek, cutting through the tension in the back seat. ‘This is it!’

‘This is it!’ Cassandra repeated, matching her sister’s enthusiasm.

Mia sat up a little higher in her seat as the tunnel of trees opened out into a rolling meadow, dotted with buttercups and lush green grass. The sun beamed vibrantly, somehow more dazzling than it had been in town.

‘Cassie!’ Madeline gushed. ‘It’s exactly as I remember it.’

‘Exactly,’ Cassandra agreed. ‘It’s good to see that some things never change.’ She kept her concentration on the dusty road, but she glowed with a new energy.

Madeline twisted in her seat, leaning into the back of the car. ‘Do you see it? Do you see the castle?’ she asked her niece and nephew.

Mia peered out the car window. At the far end of the meadow was a magnificent stone castle. ‘Yes, I can see it,’ she said, looking back to her aunt.

Madeline and Cassandra both let out a whoop of delight.

‘What about you, Dino?’ Cassandra asked, her eyes still on the road.

Dino gave a heavy sigh. He glanced half-heartedly out the win
dow. ‘Yeah,’ he muttered.

The two women cheered again.

‘I’ve been waiting a long time for this day,’ Cassandra rejoiced.

‘Me, too!’ Madeline s
ang. ‘You’re all grown up.’ She smiled fondly, but more at Mia than Dino. ‘And now our coven is finally complete!’

‘Maddie,’ Cassandra scolded her, ‘this isn’t about you. It’s about them.’

Madeline pouted. ‘It’s about us. All of us. And so what if I’m excited about finally getting our four?’ She elaborated for Mia and Dino’s benefit. ‘We need four to make a strong coven of witches. That’s where the big power is. But it’s only ever been the two of us, your mother and I. Well, since Anton and Phillip, anyway.’

‘My uncles?’ Mia furrowed her brow. She had never met her uncles, but she recognised their names from the rare occasions that her mother or aunt spoke of them.

‘Yes. We were a coven,’ Cassandra confirmed. ‘But that was a long time ago.’

‘What happened to them?’ Mia asked.

‘Those two useless fools!’ Madeline scoffed. Her red hair bobbed wildly as she turned her attention back and forth between Mia and Cassandra. ‘They are poor excuses for witches. Pitiful men…’

Cassandra cut her off abruptly,
‘Can we please not talk about them today? This is supposed to be a happy day.’

‘A
happy day?’ Dino snapped. It was strange to hear his voice after such an extended silence. ‘How is this is happy day? Our lives are over and you’re sending us away to live with some old nutcase.’

Cassandra and Madeline swapped
a quick glance.

‘We’re not sendi
ng you away,’ Cassandra assured him. ‘You’ve been blessed with a gift, and Wendolyn will help you to develop it. You’ll only be here during the summer. You’ll be back home in time for school.’

Dino grimaced. ‘Bonus.’

‘And she’s not a nutcase,’ Madeline said, glaring at him, less tolerant than his mother. ‘She’s opening up her home to you. You need to learn to show some respect.’

‘Maddie
,’ Cassandra stepped in, ‘have a little patience. He’s going through a tough time.’

Madeline rolled her eyes.

‘And, Dino,’ Cassandra added, ‘we’re only a short drive away if you want to come home. But with your…
new abilities
,’ she chose her words carefully, ‘I think it’s important for you to be here. Wendolyn will guide you, and soon the pain will subside.’

‘Why aren’t I in any pain?’ Mia wondered out loud.

Dino narrowed his eyes resentfully.

‘Because your power is not the same as your brother’s,’ Cassandra explained.

‘Oh.’ She chewed on her thumbnail. ‘So, what is
my
power?’

Cassandra and Madeline laughed. They ignored her question and continued chatting among themselves.

Mia looked at Dino, and for the first time during the car journey, he looked back at her. She drew in her breath. He was her brother, but she almost didn’t recognise him – not as she had previously known him, anyway. His eyes were like bottomless pits and his stare was intrusive, as though he were stealing all of her thoughts before she had even had them.

Can you hear me?
she asked silently, testing him.

He didn’t respond. H
e continued to stare at her, silently picking her apart.

Mia turned away from him, but his focus didn’t shift.
Stop looking at me!
she wailed inside her head. She lifted her hand and covered his eyes, breaking the stare. Dino pushed her hand away and returned his attention to the back of his mother’s head.

As they drove along the vague track snaking through the meadow, their view of the castle became clearer. It was exquisite. The building looked as though it had been standing for centuries – and it had. Yet for all the solidity of its old stone walls it seemed somehow insubstantial, as if masked
by a veil of secrecy.

‘Wendolyn lives here?’ Mia murmured in awe.

‘Yep!’ Madeline nodded. ‘That’s why she takes in young witches. She’s got so much space, and you’re cut off from civilisation out here. I think you need that when you’re trying to control new power.’

‘Is she royalty
or something?’ Mia asked.

‘No!’ Madeline laughed tunefully
. ‘She’s an elder witch. They tend to set up camp in old buildings.’

‘Plus,’ Cassandra joined in, ‘this is a
glass
castle. It’s quite common for practising witches to enchant their homes. It creates an illusion around their land – it makes the place invisible to regular civilians. As translucent as glass.’

‘Early powers can be rather temperamental,’ Madeline mused. ‘So it’s good to have a place where you can grow, away from the prying eyes of the powerless.’

They reached the end of the road and rolled to a stop in the castle’s courtyard. Cassandra turned off the engine and unbuckled her seatbelt. With a deep breath, she swivelled around in her seat to face her children.

‘I’m very proud of you,’ she said, her blue eyes glassy with tears.

Madeline clumsily nudged her sister aside. ‘You’re going to have the best time!’

All of
a sudden, Mia was choked by a sense of dread. Her mother and aunt’s words of encouragement had actually had the opposite effect on her. She didn’t want to get out of the car. She had never been away from home before – not for more than a few days, anyway. And with all of the changes thrust upon her, the last place she wanted to be was in a glass castle, hidden and cut off from the rest of the world. Alone.

‘Will you visit?’ she asked meekly.

‘Probably not,’ Cassandra replied. ‘Now is the time for you to stand on your own. My presence would only hinder you. I can’t help you with this, and neither can Aunt Maddie.’

The
colour drained from Mia’s face. She gripped the back of her aunt’s chair.

‘Don’t worry,’ Madeline said brightly. ‘Dino will be here with you. He’ll take care of you. Won’t you, Dino?’

He stared straight ahead, obstinately disregarding their comments.

Madeline shrugged, unconcer
ned. ‘Don’t worry, babe,’ she said to Mia, ‘you’ll be fine.’ She stretched into the back seat and playfully pinched her niece’s cheeks.

‘OK. It’s time,’ Cassandra announced. She opened the car door and stepped out gracefully. Madeline followed her lead.

Only Mia and Dino remained in the car, one afraid and the other stubborn.

Outside in the courtyard,
Madeline skipped up to the castle, her long, rainbow skirt billowing and her eyes childlike. Cassandra busied herself with unloading the bags from the car.

Mia looked at Dino. ‘Come on,’ she said quietly. ‘We should get out.’

‘Why?’ he challenged.

‘Because it’s already started.’

The response was enough for both of them. Without another word they accepted their fate and left the security of the car. The simple act was the first step on a path that would undoubtedly change their lives forever. Neither was prepared, but destiny had picked them and it was out of their hands.

Madeline banged her fist a
gainst the arched mahogany door. Her wrist jangled with its freight of chunky, multicoloured bracelets. ‘Wennie!’ she yelled.

‘Don
’t shout like that,’ Cassandra scolded her. ‘It’s rude.’

‘Wennie!’ Madeline screamed again, more stridently than ever.

The second call seemed to work, because at last the castle door heaved open and an older lady stepped out into the courtyard. She wore a full-length purple dress over her rounded frame, and her long, white hair was twisted into a braid that tumbled over her left shoulder.

‘Girls!’ the lady greeted her guests
with a cheery smile. ‘Good heavens, you look well!’

Madeline virtually jumped into the
older lady’s arms. ‘I know! I look fantastic, don’t I? Would you believe I’m thirty-four? I don’t look a day over
twenty
-four,’ she boasted shamelessly.

Dino snorted. ‘You wish,’ he muttered under his breath.

Madeline shot him a frosty glower.

Cassandra cleared her throat lo
udly. ‘Wendolyn, it’s so wonderful to see you. It’s been far too long.’

The lady
took Cassandra’s hand and rubbed it affectionately.