‘Really? I thought Mum was keeping a safe distance from the coven.’
‘She is. But they still came here after school one day when you were at work. Gran said it was unnecessary, cos it’s not like any more cursed Anglo-Saxon princes are going to show up. But you know Mum.’ Merry shrugged. ‘Anyone with “evil intent” couldn’t have got anywhere near the house. They wouldn’t get past the garden boundary.’
Leo just stared down at his tea, frowning. Merry nudged him.
‘Perhaps it was one of your mates. Come to drop something off? Or – I know: I bet it was Simon. He probably came to apologise, then chickened out when he saw you.’
‘No way, Merry. Simon hasn’t forgiven me for punching him and hasn’t suddenly become less of a jerk. He hates me. He made that abundantly clear when I bumped into him in town last week.’ Leo downed the rest of his tea, dumped the mug in the sink and stood there, head down, hands gripping the edge of the countertop.
‘Honestly,’ Merry began, ‘there has to be some other explanation. I’m sure if—’
Leo swung round.
‘What if … what if it was his ghost? What if he’s come back to haunt me?’
Merry’s stomach flipped.
She opened her mouth to say that there were no such things as ghosts, but thought better of it.
Because, honestly, I don’t know. I didn’t believe in magic swords and cursed princes this time last year. And those visions of Meredith I had were kind of ghostlike …
‘But why would Dan come back to haunt you?’ she asked gently.
‘Because it’s my fault that he’s dead. I should never have gone to Northumberland with you and Mum. I should have stayed here, warned people. Maybe if I’d said the words from the manuscript, I could have stopped Jack from … from killing …’
Merry got up.
‘Don’t you dare blame yourself for anything that happened in the spring, Leo. Don’t you dare! We did what we could. We both almost died.’ She put her hands on his face, forcing him to look at her. ‘Dan was murdered when we were under the lake, remember? And if you hadn’t been there with me, Gwydion would have won. And lots more people would have died. What happened to Dan – that was Gwydion’s fault. Not Jack’s, not mine, and definitely not yours.’
She tried to put her arms around Leo, to hug him, but he pulled away.
‘But I could have warned him!’
‘He would never have believed you!’
‘I – we could have made him. We could have shown him your powers. He would have had to believe us.’
‘You’re wrong. People don’t want to believe in things that are scary or dangerous, not really. And even if Dan had believed us, who else would we have had to tell? The whole town? Let them see what me and Gran and the rest of the coven really are?’
Leo stepped back.
‘Is that all you witches care about? Protecting your damn secrets?’
‘Protecting you. That’s what I care about!’ Merry grabbed her brother by his arm. ‘You need to stop this. I know you miss Dan. But this isn’t healthy. And –’ the words came out before she could stop them – ‘and neither is sitting by the Black Lake obsessing about what happened. You have to move on.’
Leo shook her hand away.
‘What? How did you know?’
‘I’m worried about you. Really worried. So I … I cast a spell that would allow me to see where you were tonight.’
Leo shot her a furious look, the colour draining from his face.
‘You’ve been spying on me? I can’t believe you, Merry. Why didn’t you just talk to me, if you were that worried?’
‘But I’ve tried to! You know I have. I’ve kept asking—’
Leo interrupted her.
‘And as for me “moving on”, I’ll do that when I’m damn well ready to!’ He turned and strode out of the kitchen before she could say anything else.
Merry smacked her palm against her forehead.
Way to go, Merry.
She sighed, put the biscuits away in the cupboard and unlocked the back door. Switching out the lights in the kitchen she stood on the threshold, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. The night air was heavy with the heat and the scent of roses blooming somewhere nearby, so still that every sound seemed muffled. There was nothing amiss as far as she could see. And yet …
She closed her eyes.
And there it was, like a single wrong note in the middle of a symphony, or a dab of jarring colour at the edge of a painting. Something barely discernible, but just not quite … right. So faint as to be almost not there at all.
There was something in one of the wisdom books Gran had given her. Something about certain times and places being … points of intersection. Points at which the boundaries between different realms of existence stopped being like solid walls and became more like Swiss cheese.
Merry locked the back door again and went up to her room. The summer solstice had been more than three weeks ago, and if there was something odd about their garden, surely she – and for that matter, Mum and Gran – would have noticed it before now? And even if they’d all missed something, the protection put in place by the coven had been enough to keep Jack out. The runes would hold against anything.
She was certain of it.
Besides, Gwydion and Jack were both dead. There was nothing left to be frightened of.
The next day Leo was out of the house before Merry was up, giving her no chance to apologise. In the daylight, she couldn’t pick up any hint of the strangeness she’d noticed last night. The garden seemed to be exactly the same as normal: suburban, ordinary, extremely non-magical.
At least she had plans for the day: a trip into London with Ruby and Flo, which would give her something else to do other than obsess about Jack or how much she’d messed up with Leo. She’d been hanging out a lot with Flo over the last three months; it was kind of relaxing, having a mate who knew the truth about her secret life, who understood it. And they had more than witchcraft in common. Merry couldn’t help wondering whether the last few years would have been easier if she’d been allowed to train, and if she’d had a friend who was going through that training at the same time. She really wanted Flo and Ruby to get along, and so far they seemed to be hitting it off pretty well. Her own relationship with Ruby was better, but it wasn’t quite back to normal yet. Merry hoped that shopping, eating and sightseeing – with a third person to smooth over any awkward silences – might push things in the right direction.
They caught the train from Tillingham station, and an hour and twenty minutes later got off the tube at Oxford Street. After spending the rest of the morning trying on clothes and shoes they really, really couldn’t afford, they bought some sandwiches and headed into Green Park. It was another beautiful day, sunny and cloudless. Ruby flopped down on the blanket she’d brought and stretched her legs out in front of her, face turned towards the sun. Flo arranged herself cross-legged on the grass, adjusting her huge floppy sunhat so that most of her was in the shade. Merry sat down in between the two of them and immediately rifled through her bag for her sunscreen. She squirted a big dollop of it on to her hand and began covering her arms and legs.
‘Blimey, Cooper!’ Ruby exclaimed. ‘Why don’t you live dangerously for once, let yourself develop a light tan? It’s the middle of July and you’re still Snow White’s even pastier sister.’
Flo giggled.
‘Gee, thanks,’ said Merry, pulling