Wilde

by Eloise Williams

  I think of the drawing of the cage my mum drew. A sudden soft wind whispers through the ribbons and garlands and makes them ripple like a waterfall. I swallow hard. I’m nearly there. I’ve nearly told it all.

  ‘Winter stayed there with her hands tied for three days and nights before the waterfall thawed enough for the birds to get through. They untied her ropes with their beaks.’

  Actual birds start to land on the fences and the house. It’s so magical having them there watching. They have protected me and my ancestors. I am telling the story for them as well.

  ‘Winter made her way back to the woodcutter’s house and told the woodcutter and his wife what had happened. They wouldn’t believe her because, of course, they couldn’t believe that of their seven daughters.’

  The day has become so dark and hot that the solar lamps around the house turn on. I wipe sweat from my upper lip. Everyone is listening.

  ‘They took her to the town and the woodcutter and his wife told the people of Winter’s gifts. All the people blamed her for the disappearance of the seven sisters. The poor girl went to trial and the town condemned her as a witch.’

  The class all turn their backs on me as we’ve rehearsed for Gwyneth’s version of the play and I stand at the gallows, imagining the fear that Winter must have felt. The terror coursing through her veins, crystallizing into hate when no one listened.

  ‘She was hanged as a witch and, in desperation, just before she died, she cursed the town until the truth be told. And now you look on me. Wilde. At the gallows. And when you know how weird I am, you will condemn me too.’

  I have to do this. To show them who I really am. I’m so sick of hiding. Sick to my bones. ‘I am a witch. I can call the birds to me. I can fly.’

  I should fly to show them, but I’m so tired. Looking at these people, this town where I was meant to grow up, I can’t summon the power. I stand at the gallows, broken, exhausted, wanting to be accepted, wanting to sleep without fear.

  Jemima comes towards me as the hangman. She turns to the audience and I wait for whatever cruelty she has planned. Perhaps her nastiness will give me energy again.

  She projects loudly, ‘I am a witch too.’

  I gasp.

  ‘I am so weird I can pop the cork from a bottle with my voice.’

  She takes a bottle from one of the others and puts it down in front of her. She then puts her fingers in her ears and sings the highest note any human has ever hit. The cork pops out of the bottle and there is a stunned silence followed by rapturous applause and cheers from the audience.

  ‘I am a witch too.’ Dorcas steps forward. ‘I breathed life back into a spider once. It was in the shower and I didn’t notice, and it was almost washed down the plughole and I took it out on toilet roll and blew on it gently until it came back to life.’

  She gets a round of applause. With my love of spiders, I bite back tears.

  ‘I’m a witch. I’m so weird I can recite the alphabet backwards!’ Lewis only gets as far as ‘S’ but gets a huge cheer anyway and jumps offstage to start signing autographs straight away.

  ‘We are witches. We can do this!’ Ivy pretends to be a ventriloquist’s dummy for Holly. It’s so realistic, it’s actually quite scary.

  The others join in. Branwen can make her eyebrows dance and Cadi has broccoli for breakfast, which doesn’t prove she is a witch but certainly is weird. Thomas, Cai and some of the other boys hang by their legs from the trees and then somersault down. Mabli goes en pointe without shoes for more than ten seconds, which is miraculous.

  Susan Stevens steps forward. ‘I am a witch.’ She looks to me for encouragement. I nod and smile, though there are tears spilling down my cheeks. ‘I am a witch and so weird I can do this…’

  She picks up one of the candles Mae hasn’t let us light and passes her hand over the top of it. The wick flickers into flame. I wonder if I am the only descendant of Winter here.

  When they have all announced their witchery, the class all turn to me. They are all so brilliantly weird. We are all so brilliantly weird in our own ways. Those who now know what I really am and those that don’t.

  ‘We are all witches because we are all magic.’ My voice is trembling, but I will never be silent again, even if I am afraid. ‘We are all weird. So, instead of fighting it, let’s celebrate our weirdness?’

  I ask it as a question and the audience murmurs its agreement. There is a rumble of thunder and everyone looks up.

  ‘You haven’t shown us what you can do, Wilde,’ Dorcas says loudly, then turns her back to the audience and whispers to me, ‘Make it look like a trick.’

  This is the moment, my moment. ‘I am a witch and I can fly.’

  I float up, just a little, staying low enough for it to look like an illusion, a trick of the eye. But I am flying. I am myself.

  I feel something strange on my face. An unfamiliar but so familiar feeling. I realise what it is and throw my hands up into the air and laugh.

  ‘Oh, and also, I can make it rain!’

  This gets a standing ovation and a cheer as the rain begins to fall faster.

  ‘That wasn’t you really, was it?’ Dorcas’s curls twinkle with raindrops and the shine of the garden’s lights.

  ‘Of course it wasn’t. I’m not that powerful.’

  ‘Shame.’ Jemima stands next to me. ‘Is the curse gone?’

  I wonder if the storm was purely coincidence or if it was Winter sending us a message. I take a deep breath of air. It smells different. Sweeter. Something beyond the heavenly fragrance of freshly falling rain. I nod. I really think it is.

  ‘Truce then. As long as you never ever do anything bad to me again.’

  ‘I won’t. I’m so sorry, Jemima. But, likewise, you have to stop being such a bully.’

  ‘I’m not a bully.’

  I look at Jemima and raise my eyebrows in mock disbelief.

  ‘Oh alright. I’ll try a bit, as long as things go my way. Also, Mae tells me she is setting up a theatre company with you?’

  It’s the first I’ve heard of it but, looking around me, I wonder if perhaps it would be quite fun. As long as we don’t do plays about witches. I look at Jemima and I know that if we do, of course she’ll be cast in our plays because she is the best actress of all of us.

  ‘Yes. I really want to. I’ve been planning it for ages.’ For once, the lie doesn’t hurt.

  ‘Awesome news.’ She grabs Holly and pulls her over to us. ‘Holly won’t tell anyone either, will you?’

  Holly moves in closer. ‘I’ve never ever kept a secret from Ivy before. I so want to have a secret of my own and this one is just brilliant.’ Her eyes glow mischievously. ‘Is that bad?’

  ‘In this case, no.’ Dorcas smiles.

  Jemima swings her hair and slaps me in the face with her ponytail. Not a completely reformed character yet then.

  Lewis is still signing people’s programmes and arms, but he looks up and grins. I’m so glad to have stuck up for him when the chips were down. I know in my heart I can trust him. I watch as he picks up his baby brother and laugh when his brother is sick all over his shoulder. Lewis laughs too. I guess the grossness of baby sick is something you get immune to.

  Dorcas links her arm through mine. ‘Thank you, Wilde.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Being so totally odd. The best thing that has ever happened to us bunch of misfits at Witch Point Primary is to know a real witch. It’s really, truly, brilliantly weird.’

  I laugh, then cry Wilde’s call to the birds.

  ‘Aeeeeeeeeeeyaaaaaaaaeeeeeeeeeeee’.

  They fly up and break the clouds as shimmering rain pours down harder. Mae puts some music on and plays it loudly from the porch. People dance, laugh, shelter, show each other their own weird abilities.

  Dorcas hugs me, then we jump up and down in the weirdest way we can, splashing water up from the puddles which are appearing everywhere. Holly throws herself in to join the bouncing group hug. Jemima walks away
then changes her mind and dives at us. We hoot with laughter and keep jumping.

  From the corner of my eye, I see Susan walking towards the garden gate.

  ‘I’ll be right back. Keep jumping!’

  I dash through the rain, bumping into dancing people. ‘Susan, wait.’

  She is at the gate now, and I worry she won’t hear me over the noise of the party behind, but she stops.

  ‘You aren’t going anywhere.’ I think of the magic she just did. Lighting a flame from nothing. Perhaps, just perhaps it was real magic. I could ask her about it, but I know how personal a decision it is to say. She will tell me if she wants to.

  ‘You need to join the party. You have to make an effort. You have to put yourself out there.’

  ‘But what I did to you. Accusing you like that. It was awful. I was so scared.’

  I know what fear looks like. Perhaps facing that fear was the only way to let out who I truly am. ‘You did me a favour, in a really strange way.’

  ‘But I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Wilde.’

  ‘You should be.’

  She stares at me with pain in her eyes and I stare back with the rain plastering my hair to my head and the whooping and chaos behind me. Susan needs to be a part of this happiness. We all do.

  Grabbing her by the hand we run back into the garden and jump higher than anyone else.

  21

  ‘Yeah,’ Tom Jones says as I leave the house.

  The sky is freshly washed. The clouds are white and puffy, hung out to dry in the startling blue. It’s the start of the holidays and it’s going to be good. I can’t stop smiling. My cheeks ache. I think I must have smiled through a whole night’s peaceful sleep.

  The curse has been lifted. The streets are empty. Birds hop about happily in the puddles and in the glistening trees. I check that my raven brooch is attached to my T-shirt. I don’t need to get it fixed to wear it proudly. It was my mum’s and it has history.

  ‘Dad.’ It’s gone through to his voicemail. ‘Dad. I’ll see you later, but I wanted you to know. I’m happy to stay here. I want to stay here.’

  He is away working lots and there’s plenty of room here. We can use our yellow flat by the sea for holidays and weekends. It’s not so far away. I’m hoping to talk him into it tonight when he gets back. Something tells me he won’t need much persuading when he sees how happy I am. I’ll tell him about the plans we have to start our garden theatre company. I’m still going to travel the world one day but first it’s time for a new story here.

  I have one more message to deliver before I can start afresh. I type it into my phone, choosing my words carefully and honestly.

  ‘Dear Wilde.

  A letter to yourself. I just wanted you to remember that you are changing your ways. Perhaps, one day, you’ll be able to tell everyone the story of who you really are and why you caused so much trouble. Until then I want you to know that you are doing your best and life isn’t easy. I hope you will forgive yourself and if you sometimes worry that you aren’t doing brilliantly, remember life is easier with friends, but you managed on your own for a long time and you can do that again, because inside you there is a good person who tries really hard. Alone doesn’t always mean lonely. The most important thing is being a friend with yourself.

  Yours hopefully, Wilde.’

  I save it and take a deep breath. It’s cooler today after the rain. The air feels different. Clean and without a trace of curse. I like it here in my new life. I like Witch Point a lot.

  Dorcas and Susan are meeting me at the waterfall. We are calling ourselves the three weird sisters and we are going swimming.

  Acknowledgements

  On my travels I have met so many extraordinary young people. You have made me remember how much courage it takes to be young, so my first big thank you goes to you. Without you my stories would be nothing. You create the magic.

  Thanks to my brilliant editor Janet Thomas, who has again worked her dazzling enchantments on my words, and my gorgeous agent Kate Shaw, who stirred the spell of belief in my stories when my self-belief was at the bottom of a very murky cauldron. Thanks to Meg, Simone, Penny, and Rebecca of Firefly Press for making the book fly without a broomstick and to Anne Glenn for making it sparkle like the most beautiful of spells. You are wonderful witches, all.

  My coven of friends who have stuck by me through all sorts of bad luck charms. Special thanks to fellow writers Janine Barnett-Phillips, Rhian Ivory, Jennifer Killick and Jane Fraser, who have cheered me on from afar on an almost daily basis.

  Thanks to all the teachers, librarians, booksellers, bloggers and vloggers who have cast my stories further than I ever imagined possible. Thanks to Literature Wales and Books Council Wales, who have supported me from when I was a mere witchling.

  Wilde, Dorcas and I would like to thank Robin Stevens for creating the Murder Most Unladylike Mysteries. We are huge fans of Daisy Wells and Hazel Wong and wish that our detecting skills were as good as theirs.

  My husband Guy, who must have swallowed about a thousand patience potions while I wrote Wilde.

  My familiar Watson Jones, super-dog and chief pitchfork waver.

  My sister Jo, who once threw me down the stairs in a sleeping-bag and taught me resilience.

  My mum and dad, for the costumes, the turnip lanterns and the years of stories.

  My niece Rosie, who will teenage eye-roll when she sees this but will immediately check to make sure she’s been mentioned before said eye-rolling commences.

  The rest of my family, who taught me who I am and how to be an individual. This is a story about individuality. I lost my Aunty Carol to diabetes on 24th November 2019. The world will never be the same without her. She was a true individual and she taught me a lot.

  To all the characters in books who were for a long time my only friends. Thank you.

  Thanks to all the fellow witches in the world. You are brave, you are beautiful, you are Wilde.

  First published in 2020

  by Firefly Press

  25 Gabalfa Road, Llandaff North, Cardiff, CF14 2JJ

  www.fireflypress.co.uk

  Copyright © Eloise Williams

  Map and inside illustrations © Guy Manning

  Cover designed by Anne Glenn

  Inside cover layout designed by Mad Apple Designs

  The author asserts her moral right to be identified as author in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act, 1988.

  All rights reserved.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form, binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  A CIP catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 9781913102180

  ebook ISBN 9781913102197

  This book has been published with the support of the Welsh Books Council.