by Lynne Thomas
I’m thrilled. Agatha, I notice with irritation, is frowning.
“What?”
“You are getting the hang of this a bit quick, don’t you think?”
Here we go.
“I know this may seem strange,” I say, not expecting Agatha to understand, “but it feels right. It’s like second nature and the more I explore these different skills, the easier they become.” I lift my shoulders. “I just know what to do. It’s like those people who have never played piano or guitar before and they can just play, straightaway, without any lessons or anything, you know?”
“Ooh, I’ve got a cousin like that,” Rhiannon gushes. “When he was six, he got a toy drum set and he could just play it, right from the start. His parents were amazed. They…”
She stops, embarrassed.
Amused, I nod.
“That’s the sort of thing I’m talking about. I can’t really explain it; I just know in my heart that this is the way it’s meant to be. Anyhow, you should be pleased that I’m such a fast learner. We don’t have that much time, remember.”
“Woah up there. What’s all this ‘we’ business?” Rhiannon splutters. “I’m not a part of your freaky little gang. I’m here against my will.”
She can’t get the words out quick enough, can she? Witch.
Oh well, she does have a point I suppose.
Agatha ignores her, so I follow her lead and do the same. “You’re right, I guess,” she says.
“Good,” I check my watch. “Time’s ticking on and we don’t want to get stuck here. I’m going to skip the other stuff and move on to you, Ag, if you don’t mind.”
Agatha pales. Her eyes flit to the can. I chuckle.
“Calm down, it won’t be anything like that, I promise.”
“OK,” she nods, nervous. “Shall I sit, or stand?”
“Stand. Rhiannon, you stand by her side, just in case.”
“Just in case?” Agatha yelps. “What do you mean, just in case?”
I smile wickedly. “Kidding! This’ll be a piece of cake, you’ll see. Relax. Now, be still.”
I stare into Agatha’s eyes and conjure the deep pounding rhythm of my heartbeat. I focus and block out everything except the pair of scared violet eyes staring back at me. I focus, I breathe, I reach.
Silver arms shoot from my chest. They fly through the air towards Agatha. She giggles as the invisible bands wrap themselves around her arms and legs. The moment I’m sure that Agatha is secure, I raise my eyes.
Nothing happens.
I feel a flutter of unease in my stomach and I flip it aside. I can do this. Piece of cake. I push harder.
The air surrounding Agatha starts to tremble and vibrate and glow.
“Jelly?”
“Stay calm, Agatha. Everything’s OK – OK?”
“I’m getting warm!”
“It’s OK, Ag. Just give me one more minute.”
Blowing out my cheeks, I lift my head. My eyes drill into Agatha’s. She starts to rise, but makes slow and shaky progress.
Come on…come on.
Agatha floats slowly back to earth. NO – I can do this. I CAN!
I concentrate harder, my whole body shaking with effort and frustration. Agatha inches higher into the air. Sweat breaks out on my forehead. This isn’t going to beat me. No way. I can do this. I can…click.
And suddenly, I get it.
My muscles relax and I close my eyes. In my mind, I see Agatha, floating a couple of inches above the ground. I picture her floating higher.
“Jelly, open your eyes,” Agatha squeals. “What are you doing? Open your eyes.”
“Shhh. It’s fine, I promise. Trust me.”
In my mind’s eye I see Rhiannon, staring, mouth open. I imagine her next to Agatha and up she goes. I smile at her yelled protest. I picture them bobbing up and down, one after the other.
Rhiannon yelps and I snigger.
Oh, come on! Of course I’m going to have fun with this. Never look a gift horse in the mouth is what my mother would say.
“Hey, cut it out,” Agatha calls, her voice wavering as she travels through the air.
Smiling, I set them back on terra firma. I know that my eyes are gleaming.
“Oh, wow. This is so strange,” I whisper.
Agatha, disgruntled at the whole bobbing up and down thing, brushes twigs and leaves from her jeans.
“Really? I thought that all of this was second nature to you. What could possibly be so strange?”
“Now, now,” I soothe. “Don’t get upset.”
Agatha sniffs and for one surreal moment, reminds me of Rhiannon.
“What’s so strange, then?” she finally asks, pretending not to be that interested.
“It’s getting easier. At first, I couldn’t manage it, but then something clicked and it wasn’t a problem anymore. It was easy. Really, really easy. Easy peasy. Waaaaaaaaaay too easy.”
I turn to Agatha, prickles of fear crawling up my spine. I don’t know if it’s the aftershock of being attacked by the Hunter in broad daylight, or exhaustion catching up with me, but it’s all too much. I’m fourteen, for crying out loud, and until a couple of days ago I was a prickly teenage girl. I snag my bottom lip between my teeth.
“Something’s wrong. Crin told me not to tell anyone, and I told you and Humphrey –
“And me,” pipes Rhiannon.
“Oh God…”
Miserable and insecure, I slump to the floor. Running, mind reading, levitation; it’s all straightforward. The second the know-how clicks inside me, I’m at home with it. For the first time in my life, I know what to do, how to do it and when to do it. I’ve never felt so sure before and this is the problem.
I drop my head into my hands to hide the tears.
“Is she crying?”
“Rhiannon, leave it.”
“Oh my God, she is – she’s crying!”
Humphrey strides into the clearing.
“SHUT UP!”
He kneels next to me, scattering sand in my lap.
Thank God.
“This should be hard, Humph.” I shake my head. “But it’s not. It’s really easy. Much, much easier than school.” Tears prick at the back of my eyes and I blink them back. “There’s something wrong with me.”
“There’s nothing wrong with you, Jelly.” He rubs my back. “Well, obvious alien thing aside.”
My giggle turns into a hiccup and he chuckles. I look him in the eye.
“I can’t do this without you.”
He looks at me back.
“I know.”
Humphrey smiles and ruffles my hair.
“Good,” I say, wiping away the last of the tears. “Because I need you. You were right, though, when you said all that stuff. Every word of it was true.”
“I know.”
“When did you get here anyway?” I ask.
He shrugs. “Just then. I walked through the bushes and saw you crying on the floor.” He tilts his head at Rhiannon. “What did the She-Witch do to you?”
“As if!” I squeal and Humphrey winks at me.
“I heard that,” Rhiannon shouts, but we ignore her.
I grab Humphrey’s hand and haul myself to my feet. I shake the last of the sand from my clothes and peer up at him.
“Wanna see something really cool?”
*** *** ***
An hour later, knackered but happy, I lie on the ground with my two best friends. Humphrey shakes his head for the seventh or eighth time, a massive grin on his face.
I grin back. “It’s not a bad perk, is it?”
Agatha rolls over and cradles her head in her hands. She squints at Humphrey.
“What did Rhiannon say to you back there at the bus stop?”
Rhiannon, who hasn’t bothered with us at all for the past hour (apart a smug “look who’s back” thrown at me just after Humphrey’s arrival), lifts her head at the sound of her name.
“Just leave me out of it, OK?”
Agath
a throws a twig at Humphrey.
“Tell us, come on. You had a go at Jelly for keeping secrets, so you’ll be a hypocrite if you keep it to yourself.”
Hmm, there’s logic there somewhere.
“Can’t we just go home? There’s not much left that Jelly can levitate.”
Rhiannon sounds bored rather than urgent, but even I’m starting to wonder what was said during their little conflab.
“Come on Humph. Agatha does have a point.”
Humphrey raises his head and displays an impressive double chin as he looks over at the unusually quiet cheerleader.
“Rhiannon?”
She shrugs.
“Whatever. I don’t imagine for one second that the get-along-gang keeps secrets from each other, so go ahead, knock yourself out.”
She sits up and gets to her feet.
“I’m going for a walk.”
With three pairs of eyes trained on her back, she strides out of the clearing.
I whistle a low whistle.
“What was up with that?”
“Who knows what goes on in a cheerleader’s head?” says Agatha. “Not me, for sure. So,” she says, flopping onto her back, “tell us, Humph.”
Humphrey picks a blade of grass and sticks it between his teeth.
“She said lots of things that I ignored, like how ‘pathetic’ I was being and how I was such a big ‘loser’. Humphrey makes an ‘L’ shape on his forehead with his thumb and forefinger and I burst out laughing. Sounds like Rhiannon.
“She was getting me really mad,” Humphrey says, rolling the grass over his teeth. “Then she said that I was the worst excuse for a best friend that she’d ever seen and it’s no wonder there are only three of us”.
My laughter dies. Humphrey’s eyes swivel in my direction.
“It stings when she’s right, doesn’t it?” he says.
“Like no pain I’ve known,” I reply.
Twigs snap underfoot as Rhiannon returns. Faced with three pairs of inquiring eyes, her face turns pink.
“Just thought you’d want to know that we’ve missed the tide.”
Shit.
We tear through the shrubbery towards the runway, arriving on the beach amidst collective groans of dismay. While we’ve been chatting, the sea has stealthily crept back to claim the land.
“How do we get out of this, oh magic one?”
“That’s really funny Rhiannon, not to mention helpful. Thanks.”
Agatha, who can manage two strokes and a bubble before sinking, is very pale. I squeeze her hand.
“It’s OK, Ag.”
“How can it be OK? We’re going to starve to death if we stay here and we’re going to drown if we go out there,” she gestures at the sea.
“No,” Humphrey shakes his head. “We’ll die of thirst before we starve.”
Agatha moans.
“Wrong!” I say with a big grin. Surveying the length of the water, I scan the far away beach, screwing up my eyes against the sun. Satisfied that the cove at the end of the beach is unpopulated, I turn back to the others.
“Keep calm and if you feel sick, close your eyes.”
“Oh dear,” mumbles Humphrey.
“Here we go,” I breathe. Closing my eyes, I imagine myself stood beside my friends. Seeing Rhiannon stood a little way off, I reach out to her and feel the familiar thudding in my head. Mercury threads slither their way towards the cheerleader and wrap themselves around her body like a shawl, lifting and carrying her towards the rest of us, her feet bobbing inches above the ground. I entwine us all in the same silvery thread and we rise, as one, to hover alongside Rhiannon.
I imagine us all speeding our way across the water and feel a tugging in the pit of my stomach. Wind rushes at my face and my hair streams out behind me as I fly through the air. Hearing the others gasp and squeal, I open my eyes and take a peek at their grinning faces. I laugh out loud as we zip along.
We reach the beach in seconds and, reluctantly, I slow our flight and drop us onto the warm sand. Humphrey rushes forward and gives me a massive hug.
“That was amazing; just like flying,” he spins me round, “oh wow, that was so cool.”
“Put me down, stupid,” I giggle, secretly pleased. Things are falling into place, I can feel it. Getting back my breath and my balance after all that dizzying spinning, I scan the cliff tops just to make sure that no one saw us.
Someone did.
A figure stands silhouetted on the cliff top. He watches us and, despite the heat of the day, goosebumps race across my skin.
Oh-oh.
The others haven’t seen him and I want to keep it that way. I squint against the sunlight, looking for a clue to the identity of the watcher. The light is so bright behind him that I can’t make out his face. I take a step closer to the cliffs and the figure retreats backwards until he’s out of sight.
I shiver, my earlier joy replaced by a dark, unnamed fear. Someone saw our flight across the water.
Again with the ‘oh-oh’.
“What now?”
“Hmm? Sorry, what?”
Rhiannon repeats her question, mouthing the words with exaggerated care. Despite sinking spirits, I smile. Some things never change.
“Well, we can’t go back to school and it’s too early to go home. Anyone got any suggestions?”
“We can’t go to my house, my mother’s home,” Agatha says, sounding apologetic.
Humphrey shakes his head. “My dad’s home. He’ll be in all day. Sorry.”
I shrug. “I’m in the same boat. Mum only works mornings, then she picks Molly up from school. She’ll be home by now.”
I turn to Rhiannon.
“What about your place?”
“erm….”
She blushes as we stare at her.
“I…um…I suppose that…erm, we could go back to mine. Go back to my house, I mean.”
Agatha is about to ruin it by speaking, so I give her the ‘we’ll talk later’ look and turn to Rhiannon. “If you’re sure that is. What about Ricky?”
Rhiannon scuffs the ground with the toe of her shoe. “He’s staying with friends after school. He won’t be back tonight.”
Still not quite believing what I’m about to do, I nod, flash her a smile, and say,
“OK then, we’re good to go. Lead the way.”
Rhiannon turns and, after a moment’s hesitation, heads off down the beach.
“You can explain what’s going on with you and her later,” Agatha whispers from somewhere behind my left shoulder.
I grin.
“Oh come on Agatha, don’t you want to see the inside of the Miles mansion?”
Agatha pretty much runs after Rhiannon.
Humphrey flashes me a smile and, tucking my hand in his, pulls me along the sandy beach toward another round of surprises.
Chapter Eleven
Rhiannon’s house is huge. Like, really huge. It stands proud at the end of a tree-lined avenue, towering over the other rooftops and dominating the skyline. We see its white walls as soon as we turn into the road; like great sails catching the wind.
Mummy and daddy Miles must be very good at their jobs, even if they suck as parents. Rhiannon shrinks as we approached the house and hovers at the bottom of the drive.
I nudge her. “Shall we go in?”
“What? Oh, sure.”
The first thing I notice is how glamorous it is. Polished marble gleams, chandeliers sway, and the mosaic floor squeaks beneath our feet. We follow Rhiannon to the end of the hallway in silence.
Hey, it’s hard to talk with your mouth hanging open. Try it some time and you’ll see that I’m right.
The size of the kitchen takes my breath away.
“This is bigger than my house.”
The words pop out of my mouth and I groan on the inside.
“Sorry.”
Rhiannon doesn’t pay any attention.
Humphrey whistles. “Wow. This is some kitchen.” State of the art appliances si
t on every surface and it all shines as new. “I doubt that any of the hotels on the front has a kitchen like this.”
Rhiannon shrugs. “Mother had a complete re-fit when we moved in.” She grunts. “She’s never lifted a finger in a kitchen in her life. It’s just for show, like everything else around here.”
Oh-kay…
“Anybody hungry?”
“I am,” Humphrey answers.
“No surprises there,” Agatha jokes, poking his tummy.
Acting like a normal human being for once, Rhiannon grabs loads of food from the refrigerator. “Let’s go to my room, it’s a bit more relaxed up there. You can tell me all about this Hunter thingy and whether or not you’ve put me in mortal danger and then I can ring your neck at getting me involved in something so crazy.”
So much for acting like a normal human being.
The doorbell rings, slicing through the air.
White faced, I stand frozen. What does that little girl in Poltergeist say?
He’s he-ere.
I turn to Rhiannon.
“Are you expecting company?”
“No.”
“Could it be Trish, or Melissa?”
“Jay…”
“Sshhh Humphrey. Rhiannon?”
“No. They have a field trip this afternoon to Fairwater. Melissa spent two hours last night picking out what to wear. Even if they are wondering where I am, it won’t stop them going.”
“Damn.”
The doorbell rings again, longer this time, more insistent.
“It might be nothing,” I mumble under my breath. Agatha and Humphrey swap worried looks.
“OK,” I say, striving for calm. “No one would associate us with Rhiannon, so it’s not going to be someone looking for us. Unless it’s the Hunter.”
Damn, did I say that last part out loud?
I hold back from telling them about the figure on the beach. It’s too late now anyway.
“Why am I doing this?” Rhiannon sighs. “Get upstairs, quick. My room is third on the right, shut the door after you and keep quiet. I’ll get rid of whoever it is.” She drops the food on the kitchen table, ushers us into the hallway and pushes us up the regal staircase. We reach the landing and I tell Agatha and Humphrey to hide in Rhiannon’s bedroom. They make a fuss, so I push them in and shut the door. Alone, I sit by the top step and peek through a gap in the banister.