up. ‘You know that sensation of chalk squeaking against a blackboard?’ She laughed a little. ‘Probably not. Do they even have blackboards at school these days?’
‘No,’ Merry shook her head, ‘but I remember from nursery.’ And she remembered the feeling she’d had the other evening, that odd sensation of things being out of kilter.
‘Ignore me.’ Mum shut her laptop and got up. ‘There’s too much magic in the house at the moment, what with the cooling spells you’re using and the extra protection runes I asked the coven to apply. It gets to you sometimes. Gets to me, at any rate. Makes my skin crawl.’
Too much magic? Merry wasn’t really sure what her mother meant. She glanced out of the window, but all she could see was her and Mum, their reflections broken into a mosaic by the leaded glass.
‘Do you want me to lift the cooling spells?’
‘Course not. Not until this heatwave breaks.’ Mum reached for the light switch. ‘Bedtime. Night, sweetheart.’
Merry got into bed, but sleep wouldn’t come. However tired her body was, her mind refused to switch off. After a couple of hours she got bored with lying in the dark, turned on the lamp and picked up her journey book from the bedside table. In the back she had tucked the list of spells that she was supposed to be practising before her next training session with Gran.
She glanced over the list and tried to pick the most straightforward: a shifting spell, which enabled the caster to make an object disappear from one place and reappear in another. Eventually, some witches got so good at this type of magic that they could transport themselves instantly – a charm known unofficially as the ‘broomstick spell’ – which sounded really handy. She leant on her elbow for a moment, imagining herself zipping around magically: no need for buses or a car, or plane tickets … Unfortunately, getting a broomstick spell wrong tended to have terminal consequences – Gran had made her swear not even to attempt it. Not yet, anyway. All she was supposed to do at the moment was to pick an object and move it a short distance by singing the charm and visualising the spot where she wanted the object to materialise.
How hard could it be?
Merry scanned her room and spotted – forgotten and dusty on top of her wardrobe – a unicorn snowglobe that she’d been given one Christmas several years ago by a would-be boyfriend of her mum’s. The unicorn inside was pale pink, with a dark pink bushy mane and tail and an oversized gold horn. It looked a bit grumpy, unsurprisingly.
She placed the globe on the floor in the middle of the room, sat down cross-legged in front of it and began to chant the short phrase over and over. While she was chanting, she pictured the exact spot on the dressing table where she wanted it to appear. Gradually, the globe started to fade, until she could see the carpet through it. She closed her eyes, trying to get inside the spell, to feel the magic rippling through her, the power of the words …
Something skittered across the background of her mind, and as she winced and screwed her eyes tighter shut, trying to identify the distraction, her magic tumbled out of control. There was a loud thump and the brittle clink of shattering glass.
The snowglobe was embedded in the wall above the dressing table.
‘Oh, for …’ The glass orb had smashed and glittery water was soaking into the carpet. Half of the base and about two-thirds of the unicorn were protruding from the wall, as if the bedroom had been built and plastered around them. She tugged at the unicorn’s head, but it wouldn’t budge.
This wasn’t a healing spell, or something with five hundred different components that she had to remember in the right order. It should have been easy. But she’d lost focus and her magic had gone wild. Again. She could imagine a couple of the less friendly members of the coven shaking their heads and tutting. That Meredith Cooper. Calls herself a witch, but she still can’t master her power. Can’t be in the coven if she can’t be trusted.
Well. Maybe she didn’t want to be in the damn coven. Gritting her teeth, she glared at the sparkling shards of glass scattered across the carpet, ordering them to get into the bin! A tiny whirlwind swept up the fragments and deposited them in the wastepaper basket.
So was it just that sudden distraction that had messed up the shifting spell? Such a strange sensation, like a spider running across the inside of her brain. Merry paused by the window. Something on the other side of the glass caught her attention; some fluctuation of patterns or textures, out there in the darkness. Peering into the shadows, she picked up a hint of that same discord she’d felt two nights ago, standing on the threshold of the kitchen.
And there it was, at the edge of the laurel tree next to the gate: an indistinct shape that could almost, if she squinted at it, be the outline of a man. A patch of light that could just possibly be the moonlight reflecting off blond hair.
Merry unlatched the window so she could lean out, half opened her lips to call Jack’s name …
But then clouds scudded across the moon, and her eyes watered a little from staring so hard, and the laurel tree was just a tree, after all.
She took a deep, jagged breath. Jack was dead. Dead and buried underneath the Black Lake. It had been too much, the last couple of days: the unexplained witch deaths and Leo seeing ghosts and being beaten up by Simon and—
She didn’t want to do this again. To be the person who couldn’t sleep because of strange dreams, the weirdo who saw visions in broad daylight.
Whatever was trying to happen – if anything was trying to happen – she wasn’t going to allow it.
Merry went to her desk, opened one of the drawers and pulled out a knife. Her new silver-bladed knife, with an ash handle. Obsidian knives, like Gran had, were the best, but silver was still good for conducting magic and warding off evil. Returning to the window, she reassured herself that Mum wouldn’t care, and carved a mark deeply into the sill: Algiz, the rune for protection and defence.
The fragrance of roses wafted through the open window, so cloying it made her feel slightly sick. She slammed the window shut, slipped into bed and turned out the light.
* * *
Leo was at the Black Lake again. It was late; the faint pearl sheen of moonlight slanted through the clouds. He could make out the shape of a tent a few metres away. As he watched, a figure emerged from the tent and walked towards him. He couldn’t tell who it was. Until an orb of purple light appeared in the hand of the stranger, illuminating his face: Ronan.
‘I’m glad you’re here, Leo. He’s been waiting such a long time for you to come back. To finally set him free.’ Ronan raised an arm and pointed towards the lake. Another shadowy outline had appeared at the edge of it.
Leo gasped.
Dan.
Leo ran towards his friend, shouting his name. Dan took a few paces in Leo’s direction before stumbling, falling forward into Leo’s arms.
‘Dan!’
But there was no answer, no heartbeat.
He lowered Dan’s body softly on to the grass. Moonlight struck the sword hilt protruding from his chest, silvering the gold.
Dan was already dead. Once again, he was too late.
Leo woke with a jolt, his heart pounding. He collapsed back on the pillow and looked around his room. He reached over, squinted at his alarm clock and groaned. Time to get up for work already. He was almost tempted to turn over and go back to sleep, maybe call in sick. Prising himself out of bed just seemed like far too much effort. But then he remembered: that afternoon, after work, he was meeting Ronan. He lifted his hand, glanced at the faint trace of biro still left on his skin and smiled. For the first time in what felt like ages, he was almost excited about something.
Six hours at the farm dragged by, but eventually Leo was back