Katharine Corr - The Witch’s Kiss Trilogy

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The manuscript had sent them out at sunset, this time – the first time, apart from in her dreams, that Merry had seen Jack in anything approaching daylight. She was sitting under an umbrella with her folder balanced on her knees, supposedly revising Henry VII’s foreign policy, but actually just staring at Jack’s face. At rest, the frown lines between Jack’s eyes disappeared. He looked peaceful, and young: Merry realised with a shock that he couldn’t be much older than Leo, even though he had already been through so much. She stretched out her fingers, planning to brush away a smudge of dirt from Jack’s cheekbone, when he opened his eyes and smiled at her. Merry snatched her hand back. ‘Oh. You’re awake.’

‘ Eala , Merry.’

Leo handed Jack another umbrella and started rummaging in his backpack. D’you want something to eat?’

‘Yes, if it please you.’

‘Here. I brought some of our mother’s so-called chocolate cake.’

Jack peered into the plastic food container. ‘What is so-called chocolate cake?’

‘Well, it’s got beetroot in it, and virtually no sugar.’ Leo pulled a face. ‘But I’ve poured half a bottle of syrup over it so it should still taste OK. Plus, I’m not entirely sure how your body would handle exposure to some of the preservatives and food colouring they use nowadays …’ He went off into a long, involved, pre-med school student rant about the food industry. Merry – who had heard it all before – pulled the hood of her coat over her head and got up to stretch her legs.

She wandered down to the edge of the lake. It didn’t look quite so forbidding at dusk, even though there was no glimmer of sunset through the thick rain clouds. She tried to remember when she had last seen a sunset, and eventually gave up. But there was a way to make it a little lighter. Quietly singing the words Gran had taught her, Merry conjured a flickering ball of witch fire. Her own personal supernova, it blazed into life on her left palm; stuck there, strangely heavy, as she turned her hand back and forth. The shifting surface warmed her skin without burning it, and when she held the ball close to her ear it crackled like a distant log fire. The violet flames cast strange, twisted shadows across the water; the rain, still pelting down, was falling, through the flames, not extinguishing them, but slicing them into tiny fragments of light. Merry frowned. Not thinking about what she was doing, she imagined an invisible shield around the witch fire, something to protect her little bit of magic from the unnatural winter that Gwydion’s dark sorcery was spreading.

There was that prickling feeling again, starting in her nails. And, in the circle of space immediately above her globe of light, the rain stopped falling.

I’ve done it, I’ve done something against Gwydion. It’s only small, but –

The mutterings of Flo’s mother came back to her. Not natural, she’d said; not what a true witch would do. Merry knew what spells were supposed to be: ancient words, in different languages, learnt by heart and passed down from generation to generation. Doing magic as she had just done it, by thought only, without words or ritual … What if it was wrong? Bad?

She snatched her hand back. The witch fire was extinguished, and the rain carried on falling, as if there had never been any interruption in its journey into the lake.

I shouldn’t be messing around anyway – we’re running out of time. First thing tomorrow I’m going to tell Gran about what I did earlier, with the water. See if she can teach me a spell I can use to do the same thing. A proper witch’s spell.

Merry turned away from the lake and walked back to where Jack and Leo were still sitting under umbrellas next to the heater. They seemed to be talking about family. Merry caught the end of Leo’s sentence:

‘… even when she’s actually at home. But, you know, she’s still our mum. What about your parents?’

‘If you mean my blood mother, I only saw her once. I never met my father. But my parents, the people who raised me, were good people. They worked so hard to make sure that I was prepared for my future life, even though it would mean I had to leave them …’ There was a faint catch in Jack’s voice, and he trailed off.

Merry didn’t know what to say. She had never had to face the death of even one person she loved. Jack had lost everyone: his real parents, his foster-parents, the girl in the village that Gwydion had killed, the kitchen maid who had befriended him … Sitting down next to him she hesitated for a moment – realised that the deepening twilight would at least prevent Jack from seeing her blush – then reached out and slipped her fingers into his, squeezing his hand hard. Jack glanced up at her, his lips parted in mild surprise. Merry’s heartbeat accelerated.

The portable heater burst into flames.

All three of them scrambled away from the blaze. Luckily, the rain put the fire out quickly.

Merry noticed Leo staring at her. She opened her mouth to say: It wasn’t my fault, or if it was, at least there was no killer plant this time …

But something in his expression stopped her. She knew he would end up lecturing her when they got home: about staying focused on the mission, and how she was supposed to be trying to kill Jack, not date him. But, as she sat down and took Jack’s hand again, she decided she didn’t care.

The school library, it turned out, was a pretty good place to take a nap. There was one dusty, remote corner of the Classics section where it was possible to rest quite comfortably between the end of the bookcase and a small window, with virtually zero likelihood of being disturbed. After the previous evening’s drama, Merry had needed to catch up on some sleep; now she was sitting, eyes still closed, thinking about the phone call she’d had with Gran that morning.

Merry had explained about the stuff she seemed to be able to do with water – in addition to making it boil really quickly – and her plan for moving the lake water out of the way. When she’d mentioned stopping the rain, Gran had been … somewhat concerned.

‘And you’re not using any words as part of this spell? Nothing verbal at all?’

‘No. I’m just thinking about what I want. Really hard. Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do? It’s not … bad, is it? Dangerous?’

‘Oh, no. Not dangerous.’ There had been a pause on the other end of the phone line. ‘Just not encouraged. But don’t worry about that now. If it’s working for you, stick with it.’

‘OK.’

And that was the end of the conversation, more or less. Merry couldn’t help feeling depressed afterwards: Gran just hadn’t seemed that excited about her plan. Maybe she didn’t think it would ever work. And what had she meant by ‘not encouraged’? It was almost like she was starting to agree with Flo’s mum …

Somebody nudged her in the ankle.

Merry looked up. ‘Ruby! What are you doing here?’

Ruby narrowed her eyes. ‘I could ask you the same question. I thought you had English this period. And you never come to the library.’

‘I do now. I needed a book for history.’ She tapped a book lying next to her on the floor, and hoped Ruby wouldn’t notice it was actually a collection of spells, bound in old leather with gilded runes on the front cover.

‘Yeah, right.’ Ruby shook her head. ‘I don’t get what’s happening, Merry. You’re missing classes. You’re about to be kicked off the athletics team, which used to be like, your life .’ She paused and examined her fingernails. ‘You never seem to want to hang out any more.’

‘That’s not true. It’s just—’