‘Ben …’ I said hesitantly.
‘Yes?’
‘Ben, I …’ I stopped, my stomach sick with indecision. I felt as if I were standing on the edge of a cliff, trying to screw up the courage to dive. Ben turned me to face him, studying my expression in the moonlight.
‘What is it? Come on, spit it out. There’s been something on the tip of your tongue since we left the house, hasn’t there? Whatever it is, it can’t be that bad. Let’s see … Pregnant? STI? Secret piercing in an embarrassing location that’s going to set off the metal detectors on your next holiday?’
‘No, you idiot!’ I was laughing now, in spite of myself. ‘None of those. No it’s …’ I steeled myself for the plunge. ‘Ben, did you know my mum?’
‘Oh.’ He looked down at his mittens, flexing and unflexing the fingers inside the sheepskin. ‘Do you know, I’ve been waiting for that question for a few years now. Yes, I knew her. But you know, you have to ask your dad the things you really want to know.’
‘I have asked him, Ben! I’ve asked and asked, and nothing. Don’t you think I have a right to know about her?’
‘Yes, I do.’ He stopped and bit his lip, his brow furrowed in indecision. Then he took a deep breath and looked out to the quiet sea. ‘But your dad has a right to his reasons too.’
‘What are they? Can you tell me that at least?’
‘What are any of our reasons? Love, cowardice, a reluctance to probe where it hurts, a desire to protect …’
‘Protect who? My mum? She’s gone, Ben! Himself?’
‘Himself, maybe. But mostly you, I think, Anna.’
‘Me? Protect … me?’
Ben nodded, his face troubled.
‘Yes. Perhaps he’s waiting until you’re ready.’
‘Ready for what? And when will that be? For God’s sake, Ben, this is killing me. I need to know; I deserve to know.’
‘Look, there are some things I can’t … I won’t tread on Tom’s toes. But maybe – well, ask me your questions and if I can answer them I’ll tell you.’
I gulped. So. This was it. What did I really want to know? Why did she leave? Did she ever love us? Was she a bad person? All of those. Most importantly, was she the person who took away my magic, and if so why, what did she fear about me? But I couldn’t ask Ben that – and anyway, perhaps it was better to ask something I could bear to hear.
‘What did she look like?’
‘Oh!’ Ben laughed as if he’d been expecting something more difficult. ‘Lovely. Very lovely. A lot like you. Dark hair, intense eyes, skin like cream and cochineal. Yes, Isla was lovely.’
‘Like me?’ I whispered. He nodded, his eyes full of compassion.
‘Yes, sweetie, a lot like you.’
‘And … what was she like?’
‘Very clever, very opinionated, very funny. Very lovely too. Even … even at the end, when things were worst.’
‘What things?’ I asked, hardly daring to breathe. ‘Ben? What was so bad?’
‘Anna …’ He took a step forward and took my hand. ‘Isla was ill, you have to remember that. She—’
‘Ben!’ A furious roar made us both jump and turn towards where the darkness of the wood was suddenly pierced by the beam of a torch. A shadowy figure was coming towards us, stamping across the snow.
‘Tom …’ Ben held up his hands placatingly. ‘Tom, I wasn’t saying anything …’
‘Really? What was that I just heard then? Figment of my imagination? Voices in my head, or hadn’t you got that far?’ Dad was spittingly angry. I had never seen him so furious.
‘Tom, I hadn’t said anything about that.’
‘Good, because it’s none of your damn business,’ Dad hissed.
‘No, but it’s Anna’s business.’
‘Anna’s business is my business.’
‘She needs to know sooner or later.’
‘And I will tell her – but when I decide, not when some drunken arsehole blurts it all out.’
‘Tom, please. Be reasonable. She’s seventeen!’
‘She’s too young.’
‘She’s old enough to understand.’
‘Understand? I’m not sure I understand, even after all these years. And I’m sure as hell that you don’t understand, you interfering tosser. Anna’s a child, how can a child—?’
Suddenly I’d had enough. Rage boiled up inside me.
‘I am here, you know!’
Both of them turned to look at me, their faces blank with surprise. I truly think they’d both forgotten.
‘Anna …’ Dad put out a hand.
‘Get off me!’ I took a step back. ‘I’m sick of being treated like a kid. I’m not a child. If you knew what I’d had to deal with this past year …’ I stopped, too full of anger to form the words. Fury choked me at the thought of it all and I couldn’t speak.
‘I know,’ Dad said. ‘I know it’s been hard.’ His face twisted with pain.
‘You don’t know. You don’t know anything about me – but you know what’s worse? I don’t know anything about me, because you won’t tell me. Who am I? Mum is half of me – I need to know who I am!’
‘Please, Anna, please don’t do this.’ Dad’s face looked like a man on the rack, deep lines of pain etched into his face.
‘Tell me,’ I said, and I put all my power behind the words. Dad groaned, a sound of physical pain.
‘I c-can’t.’
‘Tell me!’
‘No…Oh God…’ Dad moaned, and he fell to his knees in the snow, forced down by the strength of my witchcraft.
Suddenly I was horrified. What was I doing? Breaking and battering my dad like a ragdoll? Was this what my mum would have wanted?
I put my hands to my mouth and dropped to my knees beside Dad.
‘Dad, oh, Dad, I’m so sorry. Are you OK?’
He was shaking his head dully, like a man with water in his ears. Then he straightened painfully and put a hand on my shoulder, trying to stand.
‘I’m OK … funny turn … too much goose maybe.’ He gave a hoarse, shaky laugh. I looked at him and, suddenly, in the lines of pain in his face I saw … something. A flicker. Nothing more. But it was there. Enchantment. So deeply buried it was barely perceptible, but the magic was strong. Now I’d noticed it I could see it more clearly, woven through and through, weft and warp, until it was a part of the very fabric of his soul. Something was binding him, binding his will, and had done for so long that it had grown to be a part of his psyche.
‘I can’t tell you, Anna,’ he said. ‘Not yet. But I will, I promise. Just – just give me a little time, will you?’
‘OK.’ I was too stunned by the realization of Dad’s enchantment to argue much more. Who’d done this to him – my mother? How? Why? The ground seemed to shift beneath my feet. ‘OK. I won’t ask again. But please, Dad, soon.’
‘Soon.’ He nodded and took my warm hand in his cold one, putting them both in his coat pocket together, as he used to when I was little and my hands were the cold ones.
‘Ready for some mulled wine, Anna?’ Dad asked. I nodded and Dad turned to Ben with a rueful, half-apologetic smile. ‘Ben? I think we could both use a drink.’
‘Yes. Quite.’ Ben smiled too and the awkward moment was over.
Dad turned back to the house. He put his free arm around Ben’s shoulders and we began to walk, Dad’s pace still slow. He was getting old, I realized. No longer the giant who’d carried me for miles on his shoulders when I was little. The realization made my heart give a painful clutch and I let my glove fall to the ground.
As I retrieved it they drew a pace or two ahead and I watched them lean on one another. Two old friends, no longer in their prime, their heads drawn together in companionable reminiscence. I could only hear snatches of their conversation, but I knew they were discussing old times, old friends, and yet always skirting painfully around the subject closest to my dad’s heart.
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘The scraper’s in the do
or, Lorna.’ James was heaving suitcases into the boot of the car. ‘No, the other door.’
‘Oh for heaven’s sakes, James. Why can’t we use de-icer like normal people? Honestly, men, Anna. Don’t ever get married.’
‘Bye, Tom.’ Ben gave Dad a crushing man-hug and then turned to muffle me in his thick greatcoat. I hugged him back, breathing in his particular scent; the smell, I realized suddenly, of London. He smelt of expensive cologne, dry-cleaned wool, and the sooty tube-air I had almost forgotten. My heart throbbed for a moment with something that was not quite homesickness – for my home was here now – but was close.
‘Goodbye, little Anna.’ Ben kissed the top of my head and spoke quietly, next to my ear. ‘Come and see us sometime.’
‘Thanks, Ben. I’d love to.’ I meant it.
‘We’re only a train ride away.’ Rick stuck his head out of the car window. ‘And you’ve always got a bed at ours if you need it. Well, a sofa bed.’
He grinned through the window and James honked the horn, penned in behind their convertible. Ben stuck up two fingers and then lowered himself behind the wheel, and they bumped off up the rutted lane, the ice crackling beneath their tyres.
Dad put his arm round me and we stood watching for the glimpse of their cars as they crested the hill. Then they were gone, and the stillness of the forest settled around the house again.
We were just turning back to the house when I stopped.
‘What is it?’ Dad asked. ‘Did they forget something?’
‘No …’ I said slowly. I put out a hand, pointing.
There were footsteps, boot-marks, in the snow, all around the house.
Two sets of prints, maybe more, traced a wavering path, right around the outside. In places they led so close to the house the walkers must have almost brushed the walls. In other places the tracks wavered out a few feet as if the walkers had wanted a better view of the building. Dad stared at them for a moment, as puzzled as me.
‘Huh. How odd.’
‘Whose are they?’ I asked.
‘Not mine,’ Dad said. We peered closer. The prints were much bigger than my size sixes, closer to Dad’s size tens. Then Dad seemed to shrug it off.
‘Probably Rick or James. James was saying last night he wished he’d had more time to explore the countryside. Maybe he came out this morning for a poke around.’
‘What and just walked round the house? Twice?’
‘Why not?’ Dad shrugged. ‘I can’t see what else it could be, can you? Who’d come out here just to walk round the house?’
‘I guess …’ I trailed off. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but something about the wavering yet purposeful tracks creeped me out. It just didn’t seem like something James would do. Why would he walk steadily twice round the outside of the house, so close he could peer in each window? If he’d come outside to explore he would have gone round the outbuildings, up the lane, into the woods.
But Dad was right, of course. Who on earth would come all the way out here, just to walk around our house? Granted there wasn’t much to do in Winter, but the kids weren’t that bored.
‘So what now?’ Dad asked as we made our way back to the house. He’d clearly dismissed the matter from his mind. ‘Toast? Telly? Fancy giving me a hand with the tiling?’
‘Dad,’ I blurted, ‘why don’t you ever talk about Mum?’
His face got that agonized, shuttered look I knew so well and I realized that for years – ever since I could talk, basically – I’d backed away from causing my dad pain. I’d shielded him from discussing my mum, even helping him to skirt around the conversation when it came up with other people. Now, as I saw the expression in his eyes, every instinct was shouting at me to stop pushing, stop hurting him.
Except this time, I didn’t stop.
‘Please, Dad. I’m starting to realize, there’s so much about myself I don’t know.’
Like, why one of the most powerful groups of witches in England wanted to recruit me. Why my own mother had wanted to hide my existence. Why she’d tried to stifle my magic, prevent even the chance of me becoming a witch. What was wrong with me?
‘Dad …’ I begged.
I could see the ripples of pain coursing through him as I spoke, see the way the spell ran through him, controlling his every word. I ought to stop hurting my dad – but … but wouldn’t the right thing be to set him free?
I pushed against the enchantment with my power, feeling its subtlety and steely strength.
‘Dad …’ I said again, and I took his hand, reaching into him. I could feel it woven through and through his mind, twined so closely into his own desires that it was impossible to tell where Dad’s own reticence ended and the spell began. This was no crude charm, slapped on top of his psyche like a gag. This had been done by someone who knew Dad, knew exactly how he worked, what he himself wanted. It had to have been my mother – it had to have been.
It was also way beyond me, I could tell that immediately. I had a strong suspicion it was probably beyond Maya too, maybe even beyond anyone’s power to remove without slicing through Dad’s psyche, ripping his mind into useless shreds. It had grown into Dad, grown to be part of him as much as his blood and his bones.
I sagged into a kitchen chair, overwhelmed by the strength of my mother’s opposition, her strength of will reaching back over the years to thwart me even now.
Dad looked at me, misunderstanding my frustration, and his face was full of compassion.
‘I will tell you, sweetie. I promise I will, just, please, trust me.’
Trust you? Or trust her? How could I trust her?
‘Never mind,’ I said tiredly. ‘I think I’ll go upstairs; I’ve got English coursework to do.’
‘All right, sweetie. Oh wait, hang on. I nearly forgot. Seth rang.’
‘What? Why didn’t you wake me?’
‘He said not to. Asked me to pass on a message.’ Dad led the way into the hall and passed me the message pad by the phone.
Seth rang, it said in Dad’s handwriting, to let you know his grandad had a funny turn. Bran’s in hospital. Elaine’s there. Seth’ll be down at the harbour for the rest of the morning if you want to see him.
Oh no.
The cold sea air was searing against my face as I strode along the cliff road, my face turned unseeingly towards the channel. Please, please let this have nothing to do with me. Please let Bran be OK. Please let it all be all right.
Then Seth’s voice, urgent, furious, came into my head. Anna, don’t. You’ve got to stop thinking that everything bad that happens in a fifty-mile radius is to do with you.
I was totally engrossed in my thoughts, so that when the voice in my head called, ‘Anna. Hey, Anna!’ I jumped and almost tripped.
‘Seth!’ I hadn’t noticed I’d reached the harbour. I hadn’t noticed the small yacht drawn up by the quayside. I hadn’t even registered Seth, standing on the deck and waving, until he called my name. ‘Seth, sorry, I was completely … I was thinking about something. How are you? Are you OK?’
‘I’m all right. Come aboard and I’ll tell you about it.’
‘Who does it belong to?’ I asked, looking bemusedly at the sleek lines and tall mast. I knew every boat in Winter harbour by now, at least at this time of year, and this was not one I’d seen before. It was run-down though, even I could see that. Peeling varnish, cracked woodwork … The name Charley’s Angel was painted on the stern.
‘Belongs to a customer at the pub – Charles Armitage. We got chatting – he needs it doing up and said he’d pay me. Come on, I’ll show you round.’
He held out his hand and I fought down the nausea that immediately clutched my stomach. I’d never felt the same about the sea, not since the fight with the Ealdwitan. Every time there was a storm I listened to the crash and roar of the waves and saw, in my mind’s eye, the waters rising, the foul sightless things of the deep ocean invading Winter’s streets again.
I hadn’t swum, or paddled, or been to the beach
since. But sailing was another matter. Sailing was life itself to Seth and there was no way to love him without loving his boat.
So I shut the terrifying images away in the part of my mind that I kept for my nightmares, and leapt, with my heart in my mouth, across the narrow sliver of oily water between the boat and the quay.
Seth caught me safely and steadied me, and then I followed him down into the small cabin, ducking my head and blinking as my eyes adjusted to a blinding combination of orange corduroy wallpaper and purple flowered curtains.
‘Wow.’
‘You said it. Last refurbished around the time of Charlie’s Angels, the original.’
‘That wallpaper! Those light fittings!’
‘I’m more worried about the engine and the state of the hull.’
‘Seth, can you do it?’
‘I think so. I can take it to the chandlers if there’s anything really wrong and charge it back. Basically Charles just doesn’t want to have to bother with it himself. He’s only got a holiday cottage down here; most of the time he lives in Surrey so it’s just a pain for him to have to supervise. But of course the more work I can do myself, the more money it means for me. And God knows, anything I can save will come in handy next year.’ He looked sober. We were both worried about funding university.
‘Anyway …’ He seemed to shake himself. ‘It’s got a little generator so we can boil a kettle. Would you like a cuppa?’
‘I’d love one.’ I sat down on the nylon bunk cushions and bit my thumbnail. ‘Listen, how’s your grandad? I was so sorry…’
Seth grimaced.
‘Not half as sorry as I am. I mean, of course I want the old bugger to get better for his own sake, but this is going to make life bloody difficult for you and me.’
‘He’s still … ?’ I trailed off. Seth nodded grimly. ‘Have you tried talking to him, or your mum?’
Seth bit his lip and looked out of the porthole, not meeting my eyes. At last he sighed.
‘I wasn’t going to tell you this but … well, maybe it’s better just to spit it out.’ He stopped and I was suddenly worried, worried by his unhappy stance and refusal to meet my eyes.
A Witch in Love Page 7