Kerry Barrett - I Put A Spell On You

I walked down the hall, towards reception and allowed myself a tiny smile. The spa was comfortably busy. Lots of the treatment room doors were closed and inside I could hear a quiet murmur of voices and the soft music we played. I walked past an open room and caught the eye of the therapist, Jane, who was in there preparing for her next client. She smiled at me as she smoothed a clean towel over the bed. And then the plinky-plonky calming music stopped. Jane raised an eyebrow at me, questioning what had happened. I shrugged.

“I’ll go and find out,” I said, walking on.

I pushed open the door to reception and suddenly deafening heavy metal music blared through the sound system.

Two women waiting on the sofas shrieked, and Nancy leapt to her feet in shock from behind the reception desk, knocking over her chair.

I dropped my bag and ran to where the spa’s iPod was plugged in.

Soothing Sounds 2 , it read. Whatever this noise was, it certainly wasn’t soothing. I jabbed at the buttons. Nothing happened.

“Turn it off!” squealed Nancy. I glowered at her and yanked the iPod out of the dock altogether. Nothing happened. She dived past me and pulled the plug out. The music continued to blare.

Women – and one man – were flooding out of the treatment rooms in various states of undress, pressing their hands to their ears. The two women who had been waiting grabbed their coats and fled outside, followed by a flock of therapists and clients. I looked round in desperation, my head pounding and my ears ringing. At a loss about what to do next, I grabbed a pile of robes and handed them out to clients who weren’t wearing many clothes.

“I am so sorry,” I bellowed over the music. “I have no idea what’s going on. Please get dressed and I’ll refund the cost of any classes and treatments.”

Nancy had put on her coat. Now she went to leave and I caught her arm.

“Wait,” I said in her ear, fishing a handful of notes out of the till and shoving them at her. “Take everyone for a cup of tea while I sort this out.”

She took the money and almost ran out of the door followed by a crowd of clients. As she went out, Xander came in, his face a mask of horror.

“What’s going on?” he yelled.

“I don’t know,” I shouted back. “I don’t know what this is.”

Xander smiled briefly.

“I think,” he said, “it’s Iron Maiden.”

I thumped his arm.

“I meant, I don’t know why it’s happening.”

“Can’t you shut it up?” he asked. “Man, it’s loud.”

He put his hands over his ears.

I waved the unplugged iPod in his face.

“I tried,” I said. “It’s still going.”

Xander put his mouth to my ear. I could feel his breath hot against my face.

“Harry,” he said. “Do something.”

I suddenly realised what he meant and cursed my own stupidity.

Raising my arms into the air, I waggled my fingers and muttered some words.

A shower of sparks flew around the room, bouncing off the walls and ceiling and startling me. And the music switched off.

Xander hugged me.

“Well done,” he said. “Must have been an electrical fault.”

But I wasn’t pleased. I was relieved the noise had stopped, but something wasn’t right. That wasn’t an electrical fault. No way. An electrical fault wouldn’t have sparked back at me like that when I tackled it with magic. All witches send out sparks when we use magic, but each of us spark in our own way. My silver shimmers are very like my mum’s. Aunty Tess produces a cloudy grey mist and Esme shoots out pink sparkles that I love, but which I can see are pretty hard to disguise. When I’d switched off the music, it had sparked back at me, sending vibrant blue crystals shooting across the room. An electrical fault wouldn’t have done that. In fact, an electrical fault wouldn’t have responded to magic at all. Only another witch could produce sparks like that. I was convinced this was witchcraft. And I had absolutely no idea where it was coming from.

Chapter 11

I didn’t want to think about how much the Iron Maiden incident, as I’d started calling it, had cost me in refunded classes and vouchers for free treatments to apologise for the inconvenience. But, the only silver lining to the whole nightmare was that for a few days everything calmed down. There had been no more loud music, no more power cuts. All my staff were fit and healthy. I tried not to hope that it was all over, but it certainly looked that way.

Lou had emailed to say things had kicked off on the case she was working on. She reassured me that she was still looking at Star’s death, but she didn’t have time to meet up right now. I swallowed my disappointment and told her to ring me when she was less busy at work.

A week after the Iron Maiden incident, I was in Esme’s room, watching her get dressed for a night out with Jamie’s parents, when her phone rang.

“Answer it,” she said. She was trying to get into a posh-looking dress and failing miserably. I looked at the screen.

“It’s Xander,” I said. “Why’s he phoning you?”

I swiped the screen and put it on speakerphone, holding it up to Esme’s face as she twisted round and tried to get her arm through the sleeve.

“Hello,” she shouted.

“Howarrya,” Xander drawled. Esme sat down, suddenly, on her bed, the back of her dress gaping. I eyed her suspiciously. She could deny it all she wanted, but Xander definitely had an effect on her.

“I’m stuck in my dress,” she panted. ‘I can’t reach the zip and there’s no one to help me.” She looked pointedly at me and I stuck my tongue out at her.

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