by Katie M John
Despite this, for as long as Fox could remember, the Meadowsweets had shunned the wider Witch community. Aside from those of their kind who stumbled into Moonstone, or a few crazy fans who had made a special trip to have their spell-books signed, Fox had met with very few Witches – apart from the Ravenhearts, who lived in the same village. But even they were off limits, except for Thalia, the youngest of the Ravenheart sisters who attended the same college.
Their mother had never talked about the reasons why she had turned her back on the Witch community, or why she felt the need to abandon her witchcraft. Fox had never seen their mother cast a spell, aside from the brewing of herbal remedies, and making beauty products, which really didn’t count in Fox’s book. Besides recognizing the traditional festivals, there was very little about their lives that were “Witch” – except that was for their emerging gifts.
As cold and mocking as the villagers in Heargton liked to pretend to be of the Meadowsweet family, it was amazing how many of them still kept a willow broom by the front door, sprinkled salt boundaries on their doorsteps, hung corn-dollies in the windows of newlyweds’ bedrooms, and would knock on the door of Meadowsweet Cottage after sunset with requests for help with their troubles. Fox was always amazed by their mother’s seemingly endless compassion and generosity to the very people who made her family feel like outcasts. When she’d quizzed her mother over the relationship with the villagers, her mother only replied,
“It’s how it has always been, child.”
Will finally managed to pluck a conversation out of the air and break the embarrassing silence that had settled between them. “My great grandfather used to be a gamekeeper at Coldstone House.”
“Really? Did he know the Chase family well?”
“More than he cared to. He never said a lot – always clammed up when anything was said about them. Said, ‘it weren’t his place to talk ‘bouts fine folk.’” Will mimicked the strong Lancashire accent of his forefathers. “Granny was much happier to talk about them.”
“Oh?” Fox asked with an eagerness to know more about the Chase family that surprised her. Damn that arrogant boy! she thought, cross at the way her head was starting to do ‘funny’ stuff like branding her memories with images of his eyes, and jaw-line and… lips. Stop it! Right now! she said silently to herself. Somewhere in her head, she heard a little laugh.
“Yeah, Granny said there’d never been such a divided, warring family as the Chase family. Apparently it went way back. In the end, two of the four brothers emigrated to America just to get away from the other two. The two who stayed behind were linked to all kinds of weird stuff. She’d say, ‘Will, you stay away from that there Coldstone House, there be wickedness soaked into its very stones.’”
Fox couldn’t help but laugh at Will’s granny-impersonation and they spent the last five minutes of their journey taking it in turns to be Granny Wilkins. It was nice to be distracted, and before long, they were pulling up outside Fox’s little thatched cottage.
“Your house always reminds me of the gingerbread house, a proper fairytale house.” He smiled teasingly. “Just right for a group of witches to live in.”
“A coven: a group of witches is called a coven,” Fox said with an air of exasperation that gave too much away. She quickly tried to cover her tracks, “I mean everyone knows that, stupid!” she said, punching his arm.
“If you say so,” he replied with a crooked little smile.
Fox was unsettled by the idea Will was possibly flirting with her, although she couldn’t be sure – she wasn’t the best at all that boy-stuff. She began to feel hot and worried that she was blushing, giving him the wrong idea. The internal voice went into babbling overload, I mean Will is alright and all that, but I just don’t…
“Good night then.”
She couldn’t be sure but she thought his lips were pressing tightly together to prevent them from smiling, or…
I wonder what it would be like to kiss him? She startled at her own thoughts and mentally chastised herself. “Good night then,” she replied awkwardly, fumbling with the seatbelt clasp until eventually, he had to dive in and help her. Their hands momentarily touched and Fox felt ridiculously uncomfortable. Within moments, she’d managed to free herself from the car and half-fallen out onto the pavement.
“Are you okay?” Will asked, full of concern.
“Yep. Fine. Caught my foot in the seat belt.” Her voice was clipped with mortification.
“See you Monday.”
“Thanks for the lift.”
“No, probs, any time.”
Then he was gone and Fox was left alone with her impudent internal dialogue.
“Get any more gobby and I’m going to have to give you a name,” she muttered.
*
Fox walked into a busy, productive house, despite it being near to midnight. Swan and Bunny were busy at the kitchen table making soap for their mother’s shop. The whole house smelt of citrus and lavender. Fox ran her hand along the smooth, scrubbed pine of the table. It had been in the family for generations and was worn and shaped with years of activity and feasting. The table was the soul of their home, the place where they gathered to create, counsel, and nourish.
“There you are!” Swan said, handing Fox a tied bunch of dried lavender. “We were beginning to think you’d had a better offer.”
Fox blushed. “Lady Asquithe’s party went on longer than expected.”
“Really?” Bunny teased. “Are you sure it wasn’t because you were busy kissing Will’s face off?”
“Noo!” Fox squealed. “I don’t even fancy him. He’s…”
“Very handsome,” her mother interjected, laughing. She walked over to Fox and draped her arm over her shoulder protectively. “But he’s not Fox’s type, is he sweetheart?”
“He’s everybody’s type,” Bunny said, giggling. She was two years younger than Fox and was a fully paid up member of the Will Appreciation Society. Will had a large Year Ten fan-base, and his friends constantly mocked him about it, although in truth, it was probably because they were a little jealous of the attention.
Fox really couldn’t see it. Well that wasn’t exactly true, she could see it, she just didn’t understand it. Whatever it was that he had, it didn’t do it for her.
“So what is your type then?” Swan, the eldest of Wren’s daughters, asked.
Fox squirmed and made a show of being busy pulling the lavender heads away from the stem. She shrugged. It was an honest response. She didn’t know. She hadn’t really put that much thought into it. Jeremiah? her internal dialogue teased.
Subconsciously, she shook the thought away. He certainly was not her sort; he was arrogant, cocky – totally full of himself. He obviously knew he was handsome as… which in Fox’s eyes, made him quite the opposite.
“Maybe she likes Chip-Shop Paul!” Bunny teased.
Fox picked up a handful of orange peel and threw it at Bunny, who squealed in delight before throwing back a handful of sage. Swan, grabbed each of them by a wrist in a painful twist.
“Pack it in, we’ve got work to do.” Immediately, Swan’s calming influence washed over them and their emotions stilled. This was Swan’s emerging gift; she was an emotion manipulator, able to influence an individual’s feelings and responses with just the touch of her hand. Like their mother, she had been given healing hands. As for Fox, she had been given the gift of a photographic memory, which was good for studying but offered little in the way of party tricks. Bunny’s gifts had yet to shine, although knowing her, it was bound to be something dramatic and exciting.
Gathered together at the table, and making things for the shop, was when Fox was happiest. She couldn’t ever imagine a time when she would have to move out and leave her mother and sisters. As Fox was the most artistic of them, it was her job to write the calligraphy labels and finish the bottles with ribbon and dried flowers.
The Moonstone Cosmetics range was famous across the county, and the girls were barely able
to make enough to keep up with the demand; especially for the anti-aging Orange Blossom cream, which was made with neroli, palmrosa, and grapefruit-seed, as well as a certain sprinkle of magic. Somehow, by complete chance several years ago, an editor at The Times had been given a bottle for a Christmas present and she was so impressed it had made the pages of The Sunday Times as a “Must Have.” Within an hour of opening the doors on the Monday morning, a long winding queue of women made its way down the village high street. It had been one of the most exciting events to have happened in Heargton for many years.
Their mother had become somewhat of an overnight celebrity, supplying cosmetics and other items to famous people with a more spiritual leaning. Although their mother secretly despised all the attention, the income was undeniably useful in helping to keep the shop open; something that must be done at all costs. In one-way or another, the Meadowsweet family had run a potions and lotions shop in Heargton for over six hundred years. Each generation had lived in the same cottage and tended the herbs and fruits of the large garden.
“So Fox, did anything interesting happen?” Wren asked.
“Nope,” she replied, trying to sound as natural as possible.
“Did you see the new boy?” Bunny asked.
Fox’s mind momentarily swirled with indecision; part of her wanted to say she hadn’t but why? It was a perfectly ordinary question for them to ask. Images of Jeremiah flashed in her photographic memory. There was something about the boy that she couldn’t put her finger on. She felt the strongest instinct to keep him as far away from her family as possible. Words were powerful – no one knew this more than a Witch, and invocations could happen without intention; talking about him here brought him into their home and for some reason, Fox felt he must not set foot over their threshold. However, lying was not in her nature and so reluctantly she said, “Yep!” and then hoped the matter would be over. In a household of women, withholding information about the arrival of a new boy was futile.
“Soooo,” asked Bunny, “is he as gorgeous as Freya says he is?”
“Is he as gorgeous as Will?” Swan asked. A blush crept over her cheeks, which elicited a high-pitched response from Bunny, who was always keen to interfere in matters of romance. “I didn’t know you liked Will!”
“Oh, for goodness sake – what is it with the whole Will thing? I know we live in a small village and reasonable looking boys are few and far between but really…”
Bunny turned and flashed Fox a look before sweetening her face, keen for information about the new potential. “So?” she crooned.
Fox picked up the pestle and ground it against the scented lavender heads in the mortar. “Yeah, he’s okay – if you like that sort of thing,” she said, concentrating intensely on her grinding.
“Oh, intriguing! What sort of thing would that be?” Bunny asked.
“Arrogant, full of himself… shallow,” Fox muttered.
“Oh my! You like him!” Bunny teased.
Wren looked over at Fox, suddenly taking an interest in her daughters’ chatter. She cocked her head and tried to get Fox’s eye contact. Fox could sense her mother’s enquiring look and stubbornly continued to look down into the mortar.
“Not at all. I thought he was… repugnant!”
“What does repugnant mean?” Bunny asked, innocently.
“It means she loves him!” Swan said through giggles.
Fox sighed. “It means there is something about him I really don’t like.” All three of her companions, including her mother, stopped what they were doing and shot her a look. Fox tried to bluff it out and ignore it, but they weren’t having any of it, Fox intuition was legendary in the house.
“In what way?” her mother coaxed.
“I don’t know.” Fox shrugged again. She was certainly doing a good impression of a surly teenager this evening. “I’ve just got a feeling.”
“A feeling?” Swan asked. Being an emotion manipulator, she held great store in feelings.
“It’s nothing,” Fox said, waving a dismissive hand as she headed towards the drawer with the pretense of searching for a pen. “He just comes across as a bit of a flirt. You know, the sort that likes to go around breaking hearts for sport.”
“He sounds more delicious by the moment,” Bunny said. Her eyes were already sparkling and she hadn’t even set them on Jeremiah yet.
Wren threw her a withering look and sighed before softly chastising her, “Your hormones are all over the place. I think it’s about time I started feeding you some Evening Primrose oil to settle them down; either that or I let Swan loose on you. You’re fickle as spring sunshine.”
Bunny dropped her bottom lip and returned to her job of pouring cream lotion into the bottles. Fox was saved from further interrogation by the sound of the cooker timer.
“That’ll be the cookies,” Wren said, heading towards the oven, picking up the oven glove as she went. “I thought the workers deserved a treat!”
After cookies, milk, and goodnights, Fox headed upstairs and closed her bedroom door, relieved to be on her own at last. Her head was spinning in a highly irritating way; she wasn’t the sort to lose it over a boy, but there was something about Jeremiah that made her skin prickle. She stripped out of her clothes and fell onto the bed, closing her eyes. For the first time in her life, she found her photographic memory to be a disadvantage; every time she tried to clear her head, detailed images of the evening flooded in. And all the time, a painful warning siren screamed. Maybe I’m due on, she reasoned. She’d suffered with pre-menstrual migraines for the last year and being useless at keeping track of time, a screaming headache was often Mother Nature’s calling card. She did a mental calculation and although she wasn’t due for another week, it at least offered an explanation; certainly it was a more favourable reason than it being the result of a chemical rush over an arrogant boy.
She leant over and pushed her window wide, relishing the cool air on her naked skin before switching off the bedside light. She was certainly in no mood to read. The best thing to do was to close her eyes and slip into sleep. Although she didn’t need a lot of sleep (she could get by quite happily on five or six hours a day), she slept incredibly deeply, to the point she’d caused several episodes of panic when having sleepovers at friends’ they’d been unable to wake her. Fox’s ability to sleep through a complete fire-drill on the school away week had earned her a certain amount of notoriety. She’d also never had any trouble getting to sleep; it was as easy as switching off the light, and once out, that was it, nothing but still darkness – not even a dream.
Her sister, Swan, on the other hand, was known for her lucid dreaming, to the point, she would often leave her bed and travel around the house whilst sleeping. She’d been known to conduct baking, painting, and even flower arranging, all under the influence of the Sand Man. Fox was a little jealous of Swan’s ability to dream, thinking it must be wonderful to live so many lives and to experience so many surreal worlds.
Within minutes, she was asleep.
Morning came in a bright burst of spring sunshine, waking Fox up with an overly cheery blast of light in her face. She groaned and looked at the time on the alarm clock. It was exactly a minute until it was due to ring. She picked it up and flicked the off switch. Her headache had calmed and she didn’t want to invite it back. Monday mornings were always a challenge, especially when not naturally blessed with the skill of organisation. It wasn’t that Fox wasn’t capable, but she preferred to approach life with a spontaneity not really compatible with bus timetables, college bells, and lesson structures. It meant every Monday morning, she was forced into combat with the clock as she sought lost shoes, a misplaced rucksack, scattered belongings, dirty clothes piles, and hidden keys. There was never time for breakfast. She was too busy running around doing an impression of a headless chicken. She’d enter the kitchen to witness Bunny and Swan sat calmly eating their way through sweet, syrupy bowls of porridge, dressed in clothes that had been lain out the night before, and
rucksacks all packed according to timetable. Of course, they’d choose to be smugly unhelpful, offering no help but the ladling out of infuriating advice.
At last, disheveled and hungry, Fox would follow her two graceful, and impeccably dressed, sisters to await the school bus. If she’d been together enough to grab a cold piece of toast on the way, she’d spend her few waiting moments stuffing tasteless and soggy bread into her mouth whilst scrabbling through her rucksack to check she had the essentials; hopeful her hairbrush was still there so she could at least drag a brush through her tangles before she got to college.
The school bus, (a small eighteen-seater mini-bus driven by lecherous Peter Smithdon, who also ran the village post office) pulled up outside. Bunny threw back the sliding door and clambered over the seat to where her two best friends, Molly and Evie, waited, eager to catch up on weekend gossip. The sight of Bunny’s pert and peachy backside blocked Fox’s view so she had no idea what Bunny was on about when she turned around and mouthed a silent, “WOW!”
It was only when Fox was bent over double, her hair falling over her face like a wind-torn bird’s nest and her mouth still holding onto the remnants of half a slice of limp toast, that she understood what, or rather who, had grabbed Bunny’s attention.
“Morning, Foxy!” Jeremiah called, offering her a salute and smile that really ought to have been illegal.
With her mouth full, she was in no position to offer an erudite response and so had to settle for a clumsy nod of the head and a half-hearted wave, before Swan gave her a good shove from behind and caused her to fall into her seat.
“All aboard?” Smithdon hollered.
“Does he think he’s a ruddy train driver or sumut?” Fred muttered under his breath.
“I said, all aboard?” Smithdon repeated.