Chronicle and Campion have started sleeping together and they don’t bother hiding it, so it’s actually a good thing that I moved out of the girls’ room. Nara ends up on the sofa in the living room more often than not and Ilex is snappy and jealous. Because Chronicle and Campion are distracted, either spending time alone in the bedroom upstairs or going into town to sneak into clubs and dance, my magical education falls mostly to Cray.
While cartomancy escapes me, he does manage to show me how to do other things. He shows me how to make a fetch, a physical object that contains a spirit that will go out and do a witch’s bidding.
“Be careful with a fetch,” he warns me, showing me a picture he’s drawn in his journal of a rabbit with sharp black ears and eyes that shine with silver ink. “They don’t have a conscience, they don’t feel emotion, they will just get whatever it is that you want. They can easily hurt someone. You should always unmake them after they’ve brought you whatever it was you wanted.”
“Or else?”
“They can run riot, go off and develop a mind of their own.”
We gather things to make my first fetch; feathers from around the river, a reel of silver wire from the art studio and green glass beads from outside the student union, where someone clearly broke their necklace.
“You have to make it yourself,” Cray says, ushering me into the bathroom, where he’s cleared our things away. “It’s only yours, and you can’t tell me or anyone else what it is or what it’s doing.”
“You showed me yours.”
“I unmade mine. It doesn’t exist anymore.”
I still think he’s being overdramatic, but I shut the door on him and sit down in the circle on the floor. It’s the first time I’ve done a spell by myself, and part of me thinks it won’t work. I also feel completely stupid as I click my lighter and light the candle. My magical tools are spread in front of me; water in the metal cup, incense burning to represent air, my wand is earth and fire is the candle. My penknife athame is standing in for the God (a knife being like a dick, I suppose) and the Goddess is a stone with a hole in it from the lake. I cast my circle and let the church-like stillness slow my heart’s nervous beating.
The body of my fetch is an old sock with herbs and paper stuffed inside. Not exactly the most magical thing. The herbs I chose using Cray’s journal, herbs for wisdom and knowledge. I take the feathers and press them around the body into a kind of skirt, trying them off with a bit of string. Wax poured from the candle gives me a smooth face to press the beads into, and I scratch a mouth with my thumbnail.
“Goddess and God,” I say, my voice sounding weirdly loud in the stillness, “elements five; air, water, fire, earth and spirit – hear my call. Grant me the power this night to create this creature,” I can feel the energy coming to me, crackling over my body and rushing like water into the circle. Raising energy is what Cray calls it, like raising money – asking for it from multiple sources.
“I give it life, and purpose,” I say, thinking of the words I’ve written on the paper inside the fetch. Bring me knowledge and power.
Cray probably thinks I’m asking for something to do with my parents, and yeah, when he’d first told me about fetches that was the idea. I would make a fetch that would go out and bring my parents’ forgiveness to me, but since meeting Chloe and hearing her go off at me I’ve become a little bit scared of seeing my parents again. What if they shout at me like she did, or make all kinds of assumptions about what I’ve been doing?
So for now I only want to learn more about the craft, get better at it and have enough power to keep me safe and provided for. I don’t want to keep relying on Cray and everyone else to keep me safe, sure I can steal most things and glamour the rest, but that’s not all there is to it. Maybe if I get enough know-how I can move out of the coven house with Cray – live like a real person again.
I close the circle after pushing all the power I’ve raised into my fetch. Just before I snuff out the candle I could swear I see a bird the size of a crow, black and grey with beady green eyes. It flickers away just a moment after I spot it but I feel a leap of excitement. My fetch.
The physical body of the fetch goes into my jewellery box and I open the door to let Cray in and the smoke out. He watches me put my things away.
“You’re getting this really fast. We’ll have you flying before long.”
“Ha ha,” I say, knowing enough to get that he’s kidding.
“Well, not flying across the moon on a broomstick, but astral projection is a possibility,” he says.
“All these tricks and you still can’t get the electric on?”
“The candles add drama.”
“Right.”
“Besides, to get the wiring fixed we’d have to have someone from the company out to fix it. Too dangerous, someone would notice we’ve been living here, and even if they didn’t the owner of this place would notice someone in a high-vis jacket drilling into the walls –it’s hard, glamouring another person.”
I sighed. “So no heating.”
“Sorry.”
He puts his arm around my shoulders and squeezes.
“Please don’t say anything about being here to warm me up,” I say.
“I was going to say, Ilex stole a bottle of whisky from the housing blocks. It’s downstairs.”
“Best thing I’ve heard all day,” I say, and push him gently towards the stairs.
Downstairs Nara and Ilex are sitting in the living room, Nara wrapped in blankets on the armchair and Ilex lying on the sofa, the whisky bottle cuddled in his crooked elbow.
“Share,” Cray says, sitting down on a cushion and holding his hand out.
Ilex hands the bottle over with put upon sigh. I take a seat next to Cray and lean against his side.
“Ugh,” Ilex rolls his eyes, “can you two not?”
I stick my tongue out and take the bottle from Cray, who laughs.
“Be nice to them Ilex,” Nara says, flipping a page in her book.
“Oh shut up.”
Nara glances up and the sofa slides back a few inches, bumping into the wall.
“No casting on other coven members!” Ilex snaps, leaping off the sofa and snatching the bottle from my hands.
“I cast on the sofa, not you,” Nara says innocently.
Ilex glares at her. “Not funny.”
“It’s kind of funny,” Cray says.
Ilex turns on him with a look that could melt glass and takes a long drink from the bottle. The room is very tense and, trying to get everyone to calm down I summon up a little energy, colour it blue (the colour of summer skies and perfect seas) floating around us like smoke.
Ilex glances at me, eyes wandering to the air around me, and snorts. “Nice trick.”
I blush. “Is it working?”
“No, you’re still both sickening together, but thankfully this,” he raises the bottle, “is working. So now I don’t care.”
“Next time we get a new recruit, you get first shot at him,” Cray promises.
I dig him in the ribs with my elbow and he grins cheekily, landing a kiss on my cheek.
Ilex groans and returns to the sofa.
“So, Campion and Chronicle out again?” Cray asks.
“Gone to town I think, drinking, dancing, slipping wallets away from drunk townies, the usual,” Ilex offers the bottle back and Cray takes it. “Just us four tonight.”
“What about Sophia?” I ask.
“Upstairs,” Nara says.
“But she’s always up there, what does she do all day?” I say.
“She travels,” Ilex says, “astral projection. Her body stays here but her mind goes everywhere.”
“Like, all over town?”
Ilex snorts. “All over the world newbie. All over all worlds – there are planes that are much more interesting than this one, and they’re all open to you, if you have the will and the determination to find them.”
“What Ilex means is, he’s never seen them, but he�
��s read about them in Sophia’s Grimoire,” Cray says.
“I’ve never looked in the Grimoire and you know it,” Ilex says, “I’d never betray the coven like that.”
“Oh calm down,” Cray sighs.
“Anyway, none of us has ever been past the threshold, so we can all just back off,” Nara says.
“Threshold?” I turn to Cray, looking for an explanation.
“There’s a threshold between this world and the astral, that’s the one we’ve all crossed. We can leave ourselves and move around, but not too far. It’s not something we really practice.”
“Doesn’t really help with half the stuff we need to do,” Ilex puts in, “you can’t interact with solid things, that means you can’t pocket anything to bring back with you.”
“But there are other thresholds between that astral plane and other worlds. Domains of shadow and spirit, where you can learn all kinds of things and speak with Gods and Goddesses.”
I think of Ceridwen and her cauldron. I’d spoken to her then, had I left the normal world and gone to one of these other planes?
Cray catches my eye. “There are potions that alter your consciousness; they help you to see into different realms without leaving this one, but you have no control over where you go or what you see.”
“But Sophia can cross the thresholds?”
“She’s the only one bothered with it,” Ilex says, nabbing the bottle from Cray, “it takes a lot of practice and like I said it’s not really useful, unless you’re in to meeting all kinds of freaky things.”
“It’s also dangerous,” Nara says, “so don’t go trying to cross a threshold without proper protection. You need a strong circle and protective incense and wards and...Well, you’ve got to remember to close off all those thresholds behind you, when you come back.”
A shiver goes through my heart. “Why?”
“Because, sometimes the things you find, they don’t always want to let you go.” Ilex takes a deep drink and sets the bottle on the floor, leaning back on the sofa to watch me, his eyes glinting in the candle light. One hand toys with the green stone pendant around his neck. “And some’ll follow you back, given half a chance.”
Nara, clearly bored of Ilex’s attempts to scare me, gets out of her chair and goes to get the dynamo radio. After cranking it up she sets it on the floor, tunes it to a music station and starts nodding her head to the beat of a pop song as she lights fresh candles. Ilex’s eyelids flutter closed and he heaves a sigh, face going slack with sleepiness. I catch Cray looking at him sadly before he turns away. It must be hard for him, seeing Ilex lash out in his unhappiness. Even I can see that Ilex is lonely, and there’s part of me that suspects he has a bit of a thing for Cray.
Cray takes a pack of cards from his pocket, shuffles it for a few moments and then offers it to me. I pick a card and flip it over between my fingers. The two of hearts. Even a clueless newbie like me can see what that means. Cray leans over and pecks me on the cheek, moving to my mouth as Nara begins to sing softly to herself, taking paints and pencils from a box in the corner.
“We need more colour in here,” she says, when Cray and I pull apart. She’s considering the blank, cracked plaster and nibbling her lip. “I’m going to stay up and get started on something.”
“Maybe we should go upstairs,” Cray says softly, against my ear. My stomach is all knots and fluttery with nerves. He kisses my neck, his arm circling my back and guiding me to my feet. There’s a twinge of guilt in my belly as we leave Ilex to sleep in the freezing living room, whisky deadening him to the world. But Cray wants me, and I can’t change that – I wouldn’t even if I could.
Upstairs we close the door on the rest of the house, spread our bedding out again and lie down. We’ve kissed before, but this is different, it’s more searching, his hands running over my body, slipping under my t-shirt. I kiss his jaw and slide my hands down his back, feeling the dampness in the dip of his spine. Cray kisses my neck, which does funny things to my stomach and makes my toes scrunch up. He hisses when I squeeze his bum, sighs against my mouth when I let him lie between my legs.
Eventually he leans up on his hands and looks down at me. “Hey.”
“Hey,” I say, my throat thick.
He swallows and huffs a reluctant sighs, moving over to lie next to me. My skin is tingling all over, my face hot. I clench my legs together and pull my top back down.
“I don’t want to do this here, especially not with Ilex and Nara downstairs,” he says, grinning up at the damp spotted ceiling.
“We were going to do it?” I say.
“Well, it seemed like there was a distinct possibility.”
My heart is skipping, “What’s the dream scenario then?”
“You don’t have one?” he asks.
I cross my arms over my stomach. “I don’t think so. Not a real one.”
“What’s a real one?”
“You know, with a real person, not like, Dylan O’Brien or something.”
“Who?”
“From Teen Wolf.”
Cray laughs and I feel my cheeks go redder. “You know what I mean. That’s just a fantasy for Friday afternoons in Maths. I haven’t thought about what it’d really be like. Only, not like Tasha’s, because she did it in her parent’s room which just...ew. And Chloe did Sean in his best friend’s room at a party – she got someone else’s condom stuck to her arse.”
Cray snorted. “Not the magical moment I’m looking for.”
I pull my sleeping bag over us and turn onto my side to look at him.
“What was yours like?”
“I told you, with the others, remember?”
“But you must have liked her.”
“Not really. I mean, the guys I was friends with had all done it, or said they had. They started calling me names, saying I was gay – which I don’t think is a bad thing, it was just the meanness that got to me. Anyway, I was seeing her and she let me sleep with her. I suppose she was feeling the pressure too. I didn’t really mind when she broke up with me though.”
“What do you wish it’d been like?” I ask, cuddling close under the sleeping bag.
“Just...that I’d been more ready, that I’d liked her more. I mean, I didn’t really know her,” he puts his arm around me and squeezes, “I love you.”
“I love you too.”
“I’ve got this sort of...surprise, planned,” he says, “I want to do something nice, just us, away from here. But if afterwards you don’t want to, I mean, it’s a big step...we don’t have to.”
“OK,” I say, “but, I think I’ll want to.”
“Really?” Cray’s smile is sweet in the dark.
“I kinda do now.”
His cold fingers tickle me suddenly and I squirm, squawking a laugh.
Chapter Nineteen
Next morning I drag myself out of bed into the freezing cold of the house. Downstairs in the kitchen I hunt down a box of Frosties (which seem appropriate given the ice crystals on the windows) and open a carton of UHT milk. There aren’t any clean bowls, so I dig out a dusty saucepan, rinse it with some milk and give it a wipe with some kitchen roll. With my pan of cereal I make my way to the living room and sit down. The whole house smells musty and damp – like a swimming kit I once left in my locker over the summer holidays.
Munching my breakfast I take a look out into the garden and realise there’s frost on the inside of the window. Shit. I’ve sort of lost track of the weeks but it must almost be Christmas, because the decorations have gone up on campus; all those tiny fake trees and balding tinsel. Putting down my saucepan I quickly glamour my hoodie into a fur lined dressing gown.
Cray has glamoured himself a thick black jumper, he comes tramping down the stairs, followed by Chronicle, whose normally pale skin is a painful looking red on her nose and around her mouth. She has a green fur hat on her head, with an emerald green jumper dress to match.
“Fuck it’s cold,” she says, rubbing her hands together. They’re
just as red as her nose and the chapped skin of her lips. She reaches up and touches her face, glamouring it so that she appears perfect again. “We’re all going to freeze to death.”
Cray drops down on the sofa next to me and pinches my spoon, delving into the Frosties.
“Ugh, I don’t even remember what it was like to be warm,” Campion complains, shuffling into the room in a red jumper with a black fur jacket over the top.
“I’d kill for a cup of tea,” I say.
“Or a hot toddy,” Ilex says, coming down the stairs. He’s clearly hanging, even under his glamour. “Campion, any chance of a little healing potion?”
Campion rolls her eyes. “If you want to avoid feeling like this, try not drinking the whole bottle in one night.”
Ilex gives her the finger and slouches off to the kitchen.
“I’ll get my stove,” Campion says, “think there’s enough gas left for a pot of tea.”
Cray kicks the cushions into a circle on the floor and offers me the Frosties back. Chronicle hunkers down on the cushions and glares at the floor in the centre. I can hear Ilex muttering in the kitchen and rattling around mugs and cups. He’s probably looking for painkillers. He won’t find any, I’d had the world’s worst cramps the week before and kept popping them like Millions.
By the time Campion has come back with the stove and boiled up water for tea Nara has emerged from upstairs. Out of all of us she is handling the cold best and doesn’t seem to care about the frost on the windows or the damp dishcloth smell. She accepts a cup of tea when Cray ladles one out for her, and we sit in a circle blowing on our cups and warming our hands around them.
Ilex grumbles under his breath until Campion sighs and reaches into a pocket of her coat and takes out a miniature vodka bottle. It’s not full of clear liquid though, the contents are brownish green, like pond water.
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