Читать книгу The Witch’s Tears - Katharine Corr, Katharine Corr - Страница 11

THE BUS TURNED up, eventually. As they queued to get on, Merry spotted one of Leo’s old school friends already on the bus, but her brother didn’t seem to notice him. He went upstairs to the stiflingly hot top deck, dropped into a seat at the back, pulled an ancient iPod out of his pocket and put his headphones on.

Merry did the same for a while, sinking into the music, singing along inside her head, tapping out the rhythms on her knee. The muggy air and the glare of the sun through the window was making her eyelids heavy. But she suddenly realised that having Leo next to her was too good an opportunity to waste: the way he’d been recently, she didn’t know when she’d next get to talk to him alone. She paused her playlist and nudged him with her elbow.

‘What?’ He pulled one earbud out.

‘I was wondering, when do you want me to put the protective charms on you? I need to look some stuff up, and I’m going to be working at the cafe this afternoon, but I could have a go this evening if you like.’

‘Don’t bother. I’ll be fine.’ He pushed the earbud back in.

Merry yanked it out again.

‘Hey!’ Leo glared at her.

‘What do you mean, “I’ll be fine”? You don’t know that. I have to keep you safe, and witchcraft is the only way I can do it.’

‘Witchcraft?’ He groaned, running one hand through his hair. ‘You all act like it’s so great, but it isn’t. Charms and spells and curses … It was magic that got you involved with Gwydion. It was magic that killed Jack.’ He shifted in his seat, turning away from her.

Merry stared at the back of his head for a few moments. He was sort of right, but …

‘What about your eye, though? And all the other injuries you had?’ She poked him in the back. ‘Magic fixed you. Otherwise you’d still be lying in bed bleeding.’

Leo swung round.

‘Well, that’s another problem, isn’t it? I’m going to medical school in September, supposedly. I’m going to have to study for five years and train for even longer so I can be a doctor. But what’s the point?’ He flung his hands up in a shrug. ‘Why should I bother when Gran can throw some pink liquid around, sing a few bars of terrible music and heal me, just like that?’

Merry opened her mouth to reply, but Leo wasn’t done.

‘You lot have all this power, but who benefits? Your families, maybe. And a handful of locals who still believe the legends and stories, and aren’t too proud to go to the resident wise woman when they need some help. Nobody else. Oh, you go on about protecting your identities like you’re so many superheroes. But you’re selfish, basically. You just want to keep the power to yourselves.’

‘That’s not true! You know it’s not true. People would be terrified of us if we didn’t keep it secret.’ Merry looked around at the empty seats as if they might give her some inspiration. ‘Helping people without them knowing that we’re helping them is really hard. And the coven aren’t perfect. But they try. You know they try.’

Her brother shrugged, crossed his arms and sank lower in his seat.

‘They helped me, back in April.’ She paused. ‘Or would you rather they hadn’t bothered?’

‘Course not.’ Leo was flicking the on-off switch of the iPod back and forth with his thumbnail. ‘Of course I’m glad they helped you. And I’m glad you could stop Gwydion.’ He stared at her, searching her face. ‘You know that, right?’

Merry nodded. ‘Yeah.’

‘But I …’ he sighed. ‘I dunno. I’m tired, I guess. I need …’

‘What?’

Leo twitched one eyebrow upwards.

‘To get away from here, maybe. Lately, I feel like something about this place is sort of … sucking at me. Sucking away my energy.’ He yawned and rubbed his eyes. ‘Ignore me. Like I said, I’m tired.’ He glanced out of the window. ‘It’s nearly our stop. Come on.’

They walked in silence back to the house, Merry trailing a few steps behind her brother, watching his hunched shoulders. It was hardly surprising he was in a bad mood, given what he’d just been through. She could still feel the pain she’d sensed earlier, like a long, continuous howl of anguish. Was it new, this agony? Or had it been there all the while and she’d just been too wrapped up in witchcraft and in her own loss to notice it?

I wish I could make him better. I wish, I wish.

Not paying attention, she turned off the road and bumped straight into Leo, standing motionless in middle of the driveway.

A transit van was parked in front of the house. And there, sitting on the front step, was Ronan.

He glanced up from his phone and smiled at them.

Leo turned and looked at her, his eyes wide, and Merry knew her brother was thinking the same thing: how on earth were they going to explain Leo’s miraculous recovery?

Ronan was walking towards them. There were spells to alter perception and memory, but Merry didn’t know them off by heart. Meanwhile Leo was fumbling in his bag for his sunglasses, but it was definitely going to be too late.

‘Leo!’ Ronan clapped one hand on Leo’s shoulder. ‘You look great. So much better than yesterday.’ He scanned Leo’s face. ‘So much better than I expected, to be honest.’

For a moment nobody spoke. Merry could feel the blood rushing up to crimson her face. Leo, also scarlet, was staring at the tarmacked ground. She had to think of something. She had at least to say something.

‘Um …’

‘Are you a witch?’ Ronan suddenly asked. ‘Or do you just happen to know one?’

Leo’s head snapped up. He took a step sideways to stand in front of Merry.

‘What do you want?’

Ronan laughed.

‘Relax. I’m not about to reach for my pitchfork and start trying to burn people at the stake. Not my style.’

Leo didn’t move.

‘I said, what do you want?’

Ronan backed away a little, holding his hands up, palms out.

‘Really, I just came to see how you were doing. And I know about witches because I’m one too. Well –’ he shrugged – ‘a wizard. So can I put my hands down now? Please?’

A wizard?

Merry didn’t know how to react. Sure, she was relieved that she didn’t have to come up with some plausible explanation for Leo’s unbruised features. But her brain was simultaneously sending a massive, flashing ‘DANGER!’ alert to the rest of her body. Her fingernails started to tingle.

Get a grip, Merry. Get a grip.

‘A wizard?’ Leo exhaled loudly, shaking his head. ‘Sure, you can put your hands down. Why didn’t you say something last night?’

‘Generally, I don’t go around advertising the fact to folks I don’t know. They tend not to react so well. Besides, my healing spells aren’t all that great, to be honest. I didn’t think I could do anything to help.’

‘Are you kidding? You saved my life.’ Leo stuck his hand out. ‘I owe you one.’

‘It was my pleasure.’ Ronan took Leo’s hand. But instead of shaking it, he pulled Leo into a brief hug. ‘Honestly, any time. So,’ he glanced at Merry, ‘are we good?’

Were they? Merry hesitated. Gran had told her – less than two hours ago – that wizards were untrustworthy. But this one had actually rescued her brother. Had turned up again today to visit him. And there was Leo looking all … smiley.

What wouldn’t I put up with to have Leo happy again?

‘Of course.’ She nodded. ‘We’re good.’

‘Grand.’ He smiled. ‘So, listen, I have to take off, but I wonder if you fancy watching the footy tomorrow? We could go to one of the pubs in town, have a couple of drinks …’ He trailed off, looking enquiringly at Leo. Obviously, the invitation wasn’t meant for both of them. Leo was already nodding enthusiastically.

‘Definitely, sounds great.’

‘Excellent. Here’s my number.’ Ronan pulled a pen out of his pocket, took Leo’s hand in his and wrote on the back of it. ‘Text me later and I’ll tell you which pub I’m going to.’ He waved at Merry and climbed into the van. She watched as he reversed out of the driveway and took off in the direction of the Black Lake.

‘Huh.’ Ronan was not what she’d expected, when Gran talked about a visiting wizard. Because it had to be him; how many wizards could there be, wandering around an average market town at the edge of Surrey? Clearly, not all wizards were going to be like Gwydion. But she’d still expected someone … weirder. She turned to say as much to Leo, but he was gazing at the mobile phone number Ronan had scrawled across the back of his hand. Now that was weird – too familiar, almost, from someone he hardly knew.

‘I wonder why he didn’t just get his phone out and text you.’

Leo pulled a face. ‘Why? This was just as quick.’

‘I s’pose.’ Merry turned towards the house, but her brother put out a hand to stop her.

‘Hey – don’t tell Gran that I’m going to the pub with Ronan. You heard what she said this morning, about wizards.’

He was right; Gran was unlikely to be thrilled.

‘Sure. I won’t say anything.’

‘Thanks.’

A car turned into the driveway: their mother, back home from her yoga retreat. Merry waved at her and went to open the front door. ‘And just remember,’ Leo called out behind her, ‘I’m allowed to have my own life. OK?’

No more spying on him, in other words.

OK, Leo. I’ll remember.

‘Mum, I’m going up.’ Merry yawned and rubbed the muscles in the back of her neck. It was Friday evening – only 10.30, but she was definitely feeling a bit … bleugh. Lack of sleep combined with working all afternoon at Mrs Galantini’s cafe in town (her new summer job) and all the drama with Leo. ‘I think the cats are still outside.’

Her mother didn’t reply; she just kept scrolling up and down through a document that was open on her laptop. It didn’t look like she was actually reading any of it.

‘Mum? You OK?’

‘Huh?’

‘I’m going to bed.’

‘Oh, all right. Do you know where the cats are?’

Merry frowned. ‘Outside, I think.’

Merry thought yoga was meant to relax you, but Mum had been restless all evening, fidgeting with stuff in the kitchen during dinner, rearranging cushions on the sofa while they were trying to watch TV. Leo had taken himself off upstairs at that point, having barely spoken two words to Merry since their conversation on the driveway earlier.

‘Is anything wrong?’

‘No, not really. I just feel a bit …’ Mum scrunched her face 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 home, taking a shower and having a bite to eat. Mum was around but Merry had gone out and, for some reason, Leo was relieved that his little sister wasn’t there.

Ronan had suggested they meet at the Albany, a pub on the outskirts of Tillingham that Leo was able to walk to in twenty minutes. It was a Saturday afternoon and unsurprisingly the pub was heaving, people spilling out along the pavement in front. Leo went in and stood on tiptoe to scan the bar area, but he couldn’t see Ronan anywhere. He pushed his way through to the back of the pub and the deck that overlooked the river: there was still no sign of him. Leo checked his phone, but there were no messages. Perhaps he had misunderstood the plan? Or … or what if Ronan just wasn’t coming? What if he’d only invited Leo out of pity, and had now found something else to do, or someone better to hang out with?

Leo took a deep breath. He ordered a drink and found a spot where he could lean against the bar and wait.

Fifteen minutes later, he was still standing there on his own. His face began to burn: he’d been stood up. He looked around at the other people in the pub, laughing and chatting to each other, and sighed. This used to be one of his favourite hangouts, but he didn’t seem to fit in any more. Not here. Not with his old friends. Not even at home.