Breathless, I take it out, insert it in the lock of the chest, and turn it.
It opens.
I lift the latch, then open the chest.
Inside are about thirty books. They’re all shapes and sizes, some with hard covers, some paperbacks. I take one out. To my surprise, I realize it was my mother’s. On the front it has her name, Alice Young, and it’s illustrated with flowers and stars. I scan the front of the other books, my jaw dropping as I see the names. Alice Young. Lizzie Brown. Then underneath, Harriet Tucker—my great-grandmother. And right at the bottom, Josephine Fox. My great-great-grandmother.
Oh my Goddess. These are Books of Shadows. All witches have these. Sometimes we use them as diaries or journals, recording our day-to-day practices, at other times they’re for listing the ingredients for spells, for writing down research into herbs and crystals, or merely for transcribing our thoughts on festivals and practices. I’ve amassed a few over the years, and I have a couple of my mother’s, which I’ve devoured. But I hadn’t realized all these existed.
I take out the book right at the bottom. It’s one of Josephine’s, dated 1928. I know she was born in 1899, so that would make her the same age as me when she wrote this. I open it carefully and leaf through the pages. It’s a recipe book, and it also has pages recording the benefits of various herbs she’s discovered. Alongside the recipes are spells to enhance the herbs’ properties.
“Oh, Merlin…” I sink to the floor and bury my face in Merlin’s fur as he comes up to sit beside me. I knew that my mother and grandmother used baking to do their magic, but I never realized it went back this far, and maybe even further. Perhaps it goes back as far as the first Alice Young in the seventeenth century. Or maybe even as far back as Morgana.
I’m no longer able to talk to the women in my family, but through their journals and the beauty of witchcraft I can still connect with them and use their skills to further my own.
“I’m all right,” I tell Merlin as he whines and licks my face, and I realize there are tears on my cheeks. “Come on.” I get to my feet and pick up the chest. “Let’s go in the living room. It’s warmer in there.”
I spend a couple of hours reading through the journals. Then I stop and make myself some dinner—pasta tonight, with a lamb ragout and some herb bread. My mind dips and whirls like a kite in the wind as I eat, thinking about my family, and about Arthur. I wonder how James is getting on with making the ring? Will it mean Arthur can escape the suit of armour? I look down at Merlin, who’s stretched out on his side in front of the fire, dozing. Is he truly an old friend of Arthur’s? Or am I going crazy?
Knowing there are no answers, I take my plate out and wash it up, then check the time. I have thirty minutes or so until Immi’s due to call. I nip upstairs and change, brush my hair and braid it, slick on a bit of lip gloss, then return downstairs.
Merlin is sitting at the bottom of the stairs with one of the journals in his mouth.
I stare at him. “Oh! What are you doing with that?” I bend and take it from where he’s holding it tenderly in his jaws. It’s one of my great-great-grandmother’s. I look at Merlin. “Why did you pick this one?”
He sneezes in response.
I go into the living room and perch on the edge of the sofa, then leaf through the book slowly. It looks much the same as the others. Recipes, notes, jottings, the occasional picture. I can’t imagine why he’s singled this one out.
Then I turn the page and my eyes nearly fall out of my head. Neatly drawn on the page are the twelve astrological symbols, and at the top are written the words, ‘The Star Sign Spell.’
Chapter Thirteen
When the doorbell sounds, I open the front door to see Imogen standing there, looking gorgeous in jeans and a pretty blue blouse beneath a long black coat. She’s released her hair from its usual tight bun, and it hangs around her shoulders in brown waves. She’s also carrying a beautiful bouquet of spring flowers—peonies, roses, tulips, freesias…
To my surprise, she holds it out to me. “Happy Ostara,” she says.
I’m so touched that she understands the importance of the day that my eyes fill with tears.
“You’re not going to cry, are you?” she asks suspiciously, even though her own eyes shine as I take the flowers.
“Of course not,” I say in a squeaky voice. “They’re beautiful. Thank you so much. I’ll just pop them in some water.” I go back inside, run a few inches of water into my washing up bowl, and lie the flowers carefully on the sink so the ends sit in the water. Later, I’ll take time to arrange them in a vase. “That’s so thoughtful,” I tell Imogen, who’s bending to kiss Merlin’s head.
“I know it’s a special day for you,” she says. “It was the least I could do. Mary had some amazing bouquets in the florist shop. It was tough to choose.”
“They’re gorgeous. I’ve never seen such big roses.” It really feels as if spring is on the way now.
“You look lovely tonight,” she says as we go into the hallway. “I love the colour of your hair. It’s so much more interesting than my muddy brown colour.”
I glance at myself in the hall mirror. The light above me shines on my red hair, giving it gold highlights. Tonight, I look as if I belong in Glastonbury. I’m wearing a floor-length green skirt, with a tie-dyed top in blue and green. I could easily be the witch in Beatrix’s painting. “Thought I’d jazz things up a bit. Anyway, you look gorgeous too, as always. It’s nice to see you out of a suit.”
“Feels odd. Not sure if I like it.”
Smiling, I lead the way out of the house and close the door behind us.
We start walking down to the Lady of the Lake, Merlin trotting beside us. It’s dark, and the streetlights cast golden circles on the ground. I think of the festival, of the fact that it’s the birth of new things, and something springs into my mind. “Have you heard from Christian?”
“Why do you say that?”
“I was just thinking about his sister having a baby, and I wondered how it was.”
“You freak me out the way you do that,” she says. “I bumped into him this morning. The baby’s not well. She has an… um… Atrial Septal Defect.”
“A hole in the heart?”
“That’s right. Apparently, as a baby’s heart develops, there are several openings in the wall that divides the upper chambers of the heart, but they usually close during pregnancy or after the baby’s born. But Cassie’s—that’s what they’ve called the baby girl—haven’t closed. She has a heart murmur, and she’s having difficulty breathing.”
“Oh no, Immi… Can anything be done?”
“They will do surgery if they have to, but they want to wait a few days to see how she does because she’s so small.” She bends her head, and her hair swings down to hide her face.
“How’s Christian?” I ask softly.
“Worried out of his mind, of course.” She hesitates. “Is there anything you can do?”
My eyebrows rise. “Magically, you mean?”
“Mm.”
Although I’m a witch and a pagan, Imogen knows I’m interested in lots of other religions and practices. Most religions feature some form of faith or spiritual healing, and although the main way I do my spells is through cooking, I also sometimes practice a form of spiritual healing.
“I don’t have any great skill,” I tell her gently. “I can sometimes help a headache or ease a tight chest, but I can’t cure serious illnesses.”
Unbidden, I hear Arthur’s voice in my head, then, saying You can do much more than that. Hmm. Where did that come from?
I clear my throat. “Anyway, I don’t like doing direct healing without the permission of the recipient.”
“Can I ask Christian?”
I frown. I see the guy frequently at the museum. He was dismissive of astrology; he might think me ridiculous and laugh in my face next time he sees me.
I lift my chin. If he does that, then he’s not worth my time. “Of course,” I tell her. “
I’d be happy to help if he and his sister wants.”
“Okay.” She doesn’t say anything more.
“So what else have you been up to today?” I ask her.
“Going through the evidence from the library and trying to come up with a hypothesis for the murder.”
“And have you?”
“No. Don’t tell my boss.”
I smile and hold the door of the pub open for her. She goes in and Merlin follows her, knowing he’s allowed inside. I go after them and let the door swing shut behind me.
It’s warm inside—flames are leaping in the grate, and the room is busy. I know most of the people present. Cooper’s there with a couple of mates, and he waves hello. Christian is standing at the end of the bar talking with another guy around his own age; he nods as he sees us, and Imogen gives a casual, I-see-you-but-I-don’t-really-care-that-you’re-here kind of nod back. To my disappointment, I also glimpse Matthew Hopkins, playing pool in another room.
“Dammit,” Imogen says. “Do you want to leave? Go to the pub down the road?” She knows that Matthew has it in for me.
But I want a drink and I don’t want to leave, so I shake my head and go up to the bar. We place an order—red wine for me, Scotch and Coke for her—and take them over to a free table by the window. A lone candle casts the table in a yellow glow. The pub smells of the malty aroma of beer and salt-and-vinegar crisps. I feel comfortable here, safe, if I forget about Matthew Hopkins.
“Christian looks nice,” I say.
Imogen gives me a wry look and glances at him. “He’s with his brother-in-law. Trying to take his mind off Cassie for a few minutes, I suppose.” She has a large mouthful of her drink and sighs, then bends to stroke Merlin’s ears. He closes his eyes in bliss. “Anyway, what have you been doing today?”
“Working in the garden, mainly. And then this afternoon, I made a very interesting discovery.”
“Ooh, do tell.”
I explain how I discovered the journals of the witches in my family, and the kind of things they contain. “And then, just before you came,” I add, “I found something very important. It was in one of Josephine’s journals—my great, great-grandmother. She was born before the turn of the previous century.” I glance around to make sure nobody’s watching, then lean closer to Imogen. “I found a page where she’d drawn all the astrological symbols in a circle.”
Imogen’s eyes widen. “What?”
“And in the middle, she’d written a spell that could be used. She called it The Star Sign Spell.”
“What did it do?”
I take a deep breath. “It binds the soul of someone who’s died to this plane.”
She stares at me. “You mean Liza?”
“Yes. That’s why we’ve seen her ghost. It’s intense magic, and it would take someone with a lot of power to cast it.”
“You’re telling me our murderer is a witch?”
“Yes.”
She sits back in her chair, stunned. “Does that mean it’s a woman?”
“No, not necessarily. Witchcraft is all about balance, about the recognition of a god and a goddess. Women are often drawn to it because it recognizes the goddess and she is seen as the god’s equal, but there are many male witches. Some people call them wizards or warlocks, but many men who follow the Craft just call themselves witches.”
I sip my wine and let Immi study me thoughtfully. In essence, it doesn’t help with her investigation at all. Even if it were to lead her to discover who committed the murder, she can hardly use the information in court to prosecute them. But if it helps us to discover who did it, it’s still an important detail.
“How does the spell work?” she asks eventually.
“I’m not a hundred percent sure,” I admit. “I’ve never dabbled in that kind of magic. Everything I do is focused on healing and light. To do any kind of curse, you have to draw on negative feelings—hate, fear, and resentment, that kind of thing, and I don’t like doing that. The person who did this must have really hated Liza.” I rub my nose. “Well, obviously. I guess you don’t murder someone unless you dislike them in some way.”
Imogen gives a little nervous laugh at that, and that sets me off, and soon the two of us are giggling like fourteen-year-olds.
“It’s not funny,” she says eventually.
“Not at all.” I wipe beneath my eyes. “It’s really not.”
“Care to share the joke?”
We both look up at the man’s voice, and my heart sinks to see it’s Matthew Hopkins. I hadn’t heard him sneak up on us. Oh Goddess. How much of what I said did he hear?
Merlin barks, and I sink a hand into his fur.
“This is a private conversation,” Imogen says icily. “And I’ll thank you for not joining in without being invited.”
He ignores her and turns his full attention on me. “So what kind of magic do you dabble in, Gwen?”
He did hear me. I squash down the feeling of panic that rises within me and glare at him. “I’m having a quiet drink with a friend. I’m not interested in conversing with the press.”
“I heard you discussing the murder of Liza Banks,” he says. He looks at Imogen for the first time. “I’m guessing you’ve questioned Miss Young and ruled her out of your enquiries.”
“I’m not at liberty to discuss any undergoing investigation, sir.”
“Gwen hated Liza,” he continues. “I’ve interviewed several of their old school friends who were keen to discuss the animosity that Gwen bore for her.”
“I bet they were,” Imogen says. “Anything for their five minutes of fame.”
“I didn’t hate her,” I protest.
Matthew’s eyes narrow. “Even though she took your boyfriend?”
“She didn’t take him. We’d already broken up.”
“That’s not what I heard,” he says. “One of her closest friends told me she started dating Luke Mathers two months before you left the University of Exeter and moved back to Glastonbury.”
Nausea rises inside me, and for a moment I think I’m going to vomit. Merlin growls and bares his teeth at the reporter. For a moment, I’m tempted to let him sink his teeth into the man. But Matthew would complain and demand to have the dog put down, so I restrain him.
Imogen gets to her feet. “Did you think I wouldn’t read the article you published this morning?” she asks softly. Despite my shock, my eyebrows rise. What article?
Matthew’s lips curve up in a nasty smile. “I wondered if you’d see it.”
“Of course I saw it.” She glances at me. “He wrote a summary of the investigation so far. Some of the highlights were ‘inept police department,’ ‘incompetent officers,’ and ‘bungling detective chief inspector.’”
Matthew laughs.
Imogen’s eyes narrow. “I’ve already asked you once to leave us alone,” she states clearly, her voice ringing across the room. “If you don’t move away from the table now, sir, I promise I will make you do so forcefully.” She’s putting on her DCI voice. I would’ve laughed if I wasn’t so upset.
“Need some help?” Christian ambles up to us, his voice casual, although his eyes are hard.
“Mr. Hopkins was just leaving,” Imogen states.
“I really wasn’t,” Matthew says.
Christian glares at him. “You’re drunk.”
“And you’re ugly, but in the morning I’ll be sober.”
“You’re not fit to polish Winston Churchill’s boots,” Christian snaps, “let alone claim his sayings as your own. Get out before I throw you out.”
I know that Imogen can cope perfectly well on her own; I’ve seen her manhandle men twice her size on more than one occasion. But she keeps quiet, and Matthew’s gaze slides from her to Christian. She and Christian are both tall and look like they can handle themselves, and for the first time Matthew looks uncertain.
“I know you had something to do with Liza’s death,” he says to me. “And I’m determined to prove it.” He turns on his heel, wa
lks out, and lets the door bang behind him.
Everyone breathes out a sigh of relief. Imogen turns to me with a look of pity on her face.
“Gwen…”
“I’m all right.” I speak brightly, even though I’m not.
“He just wants to hurt you,” she says, looking pained because she knows I’m upset.
“I know. Don’t worry about it.”
“But—”
“Don’t worry about it,” I repeat, and she falls silent. I get to my feet. “I think I’ll head home.”
“Let me walk you,” Christian says, but I shake my head.
“Merlin won’t let anything happen to me.” I’m already pulling on my jacket. Then I stop and rest a hand on his arm. “I’m very sorry to hear about baby Cassie. I hope she improves soon.”
His expression softens. “Thank you.”
I turn to Immi. “I’ll see you later. Thanks again for the flowers.”
“You’re welcome.”
We exchange a kiss, and then I leave them to it and walk out into the night.
I pause for a moment outside, making sure Matthew has left, but there’s no sign of him. “Come on,” I say to Merlin. “Let’s go home.”
We walk quickly up the hill to my house. I try not to think about anything, but it’s impossible to stop Matthew’s words ringing in my head. Is it true that Luke and Liza were already seeing each other before we broke up? I want to say no, but deep down, I know it’s true.
I let myself into the house, close the door, and lock it behind me. Then I sag tiredly against the wall. Ultimately, what does it matter? It was years ago. Liza’s dead, and I’m not in love with Luke anymore.
What does matter is that Matthew has new fuel for his theory, and I know he’s got the bit between his teeth. He’s convinced I’m a witch, and he’s not going to stop until he proves it. I need to be more careful. It might not be the seventeenth century, and I’m not likely to be hanged for practising witchcraft, but who knows what damage it might do if the town gets to find out? My private life is exactly that—private, and I don’t want everyone knowing my business.
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