For a moment, her expression filled with compassion. “Oh Robert, do you really think I’d leave you here to die?” She lifted his arm and put the phone to his hand. “Here. Call your precious girlfriend. See if she could give a damn.”
She took a step back to get a better view. She grinned as he tried in vain to use the phone. When his arm dropped for what was sure to be the final time, she started to cackle.
“Oh, Robert. I’m so sorry.” She sighed. “I’m sorry to do this to you, my love, but you gave me no choice. If only you’d done as I asked, you’d still be alive and we’d be lovers. But no, you didn’t want it. You didn’t share my dream, so in the end, you had to pay the price. Sorry my love, really, I am.”
She started with the cackling again, louder this time, and turned to leave. Finally, the vision faded.
Chapter Fifteen
“Should be ‘round here somewhere,” Tarquin said to Tabitha as they drove through town. Tabitha looked at the GPS. “Says it should be around here, next to Costa Coffee.”
Tarquin looked through the window. “Well, here’s Costa. Hang on a minute, there’s a side road.”
Two minutes later, they were parked on the street running along the side of Costa, looking through the driver’s window at the parking lot used by employees and the yard that was piled high with boxes.
Tarquin unclicked his seatbelt and turned to look at Tabitha. “Okay, I think this is the place.” He leaned forward and peered through the window, up at the flat above Costa. “Looks like it’s up there.”
Tabitha looked in the direction of his gaze. “Hmm. Doesn’t look like the kind of place you’d want to be living in, does it? I only hope that Scarlett hasn’t come to any harm and that we’re not too late.”
Tarquin gave her a reassuring smile. “Tabitha, everything’s going to be fine.”
“Well, if you say so.” Tabitha reached for the door, then paused, her face a mixture of confusion and concern.
“Tabitha, what is it?”
“I don’t know. There’s just something. Can’t you feel it?”
Tarquin took a deep breath and silently studied the surrounding environment for a moment. “Well, there’s something, but I’m not sure it’s something to worry about. Should we go?”
“Yes. You’re right.” Tabitha opened the passenger door and stepped out of the car.
Tarquin followed Tabitha across the yard to the main door that served as the entrance to the flat block.
“Tarquin, I’m worried.”
He hurried forward to join her. “Worried, what about?”
“Well, this cat, this—Raven, is she called?”
“Raven, yes. What about her?”
“I’m worried she might be up to no good.”
“What makes you think that?”
“I—I don’t know. Call it a witchy sense if you like.”
Tarquin nodded. “Or an aunt’s?”
Tabitha smiled. “Yes, but it’s Scarlett that I’m really worried about. All this stuff, this interest in the dark arts. It’s all happened since Raven came on the scene.”
Tarquin’s expression turned solemn. “You think Raven might be doing… ”
Tabitha nodded. “That’s exactly what I’m thinking.” She placed a hand on the door handle and paused, as if suspended in time.
“Tabitha, what is it? You’ve gone pale all of a sudden.”
“Tarquin, I… I’m worried about what I might find.” The image playing out in her mind made her worry that she might not be able to cope.
“Then, you stay here. I’ll go.”
Tabitha shook her head. “No, no. I’ll go.”
“No, Tabitha. I don’t mind. Really, I don’t.”
Tabitha took a deep breath and composed herself. “No, no, come on. Let’s get this over with, before that girl… ”
Tarquin grinned. “Oh, she’s not that bad.”
Tabitha heaved open the door. “It’s heavy,” Tabitha said, straining to pull it all the way open. “Here, after you. You go first.”
“My pleasure.” Tarquin stepped inside, put one foot on the bottom stair and looked back over his shoulder to watch Tabitha bang the door shut. Darkness engulfed them. “Tabitha,” he whispered. “Are you okay?”
Tabitha grinned and wondered why people feel compelled to whisper in the dark. “Yes, are you?”
“Yes.”
Three more steps up, halfway towards the first floor, Tabitha paused, placing a hand on the banister.
Tarquin turned around. “What is it?”
“That strange feeling I had before,” she whispered. “It’s back.” Tabitha was filled with a sense of foreboding. She felt torn between the fear of what she might find waiting for her and her duty to ensure Scarlett was safe. She knew that she had to put Scarlett’s safety first, but inside she feared that something terrible might happen, and this might spell the end for her.
Tabitha took another step up the stairs and allowed her thoughts to wander. She’d been feeling worn out recently and knew her days as a witch were coming to an end. She’d soon be some ancient relic in a home with a tartan blanket over her lap and a nurse that wheeled her outside on sunny afternoons. The dark air around her grew tense, compelling her to stop and lean back as far as she could go.
“Tabitha, what is it?”
“The air’s gotten tense, can’t you feel it?”
Tarquin raised his chin and sampled the air. “Yes, there is something. I can feel it now.”
Panic flashed up in Tabitha’s eyes. “It’s the space-time fabric. There’s some kind of disturbance in the field.”
“You mean—?”
Tabitha nodded. “Yes, that’s what it is. The disturbance is causing the field to warp.”
“Come on.” Panic had crept into Tarquin’s voice. “We have to get there, fast.”
“Yes. I just hope we’re not too late.”
Without another word passing between them, they finished their ascent to flat 2B.
Tabitha tried the door and grimaced. “It’s locked.”
Tarquin crouched down to look at the lock and shook his head. “It’s not. Lock is broken. I think the door is stuck.” He reached out to give the door a shove, and jumped back, striking his heels against the skirting board.
Tabitha tried the door, then shook her head in frustration. “Tarquin, what is it?” He’d slumped back against the wall, struggling to catch his breath.
He extended his arm toward the door. “It’s the force of the invisible field. It has to be coming from within, I can feel it being cast.
+++
The vortex showed them the same woman, Vixen, but she looked different somehow. She’d changed her clothes, but it was more than that. She was hiding in a room. Scarlett tried to work out where she’d seen the room before.
“Look,” Raven whispered, nudging the back of her leg.
Scarlett followed Raven’s paw through the ether to the wall nearest the bedroom and gaped. Vixen was in the flat, hiding in the bedroom.
Scarlett looked into the vortex. “What’s happening? I don’t get it?” She didn’t know what to think. Until this moment, she felt like she’d been doing well, but now, something strange was starting to happen. Her mind flashed back to how the spell had been cast and she tried to pick out what she’d done wrong. The look in Raven’s eyes sent a shiver right through her.
Raven stepped forward. “Something’s wrong, I can tell.”
She felt an expanding ball of panic waiting to consume every cell in her body. “I… I don’t know. What did I do wrong? Oh my God. If this thing goes pear-shaped, then my aunt… she’ll never let me near a magic spell again.”
Raven looked at her, completely expressionless. “If this thing goes wrong, Tabitha will be the least of your worries, believe me.”
“Thanks, Raven. You’re not helping.” Scarlett wished Amanda was there. She’d know what to say to calm her nerves.
Raven peered into the vortex, confusion written
all over her face.
Scarlett ran the back of her hand across her forehead. “What is it?”
“Something’s not right, not right at all.” The vortex began to wobble and the cloud above faded. “Guys… ”
Scarlett could feel her legs start to tremble as she ran her tongue around her mouth, trying to wet her drying lips. Her voice reduced to a murmur. “What have I done?” She placed a hand over her eyes and shook her head.
The vortex continued to wobble, before momentarily disappearing completely. The strain was evident on each of their faces, but Scarlett continued to feel the brunt of the force. “It’s starting to collapse, isn’t it?”
Raven was still expressionless. “I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it looks like it is about to collapse.” She nodded. “I’m sorry to say that you’re right.”
Scarlett shrieked. “What have I done? What are we going to do?”
Raven shook her head. “This was always the risk, Scarlett. There’s nothing I can do now. It’s down to you.”
“Oh my God, we’re all doomed.”
The vortex pulled them towards it, like steel to a magnet.
Scarlett fought to stand her ground, just about managing to stay on her feet. “This is it, isn’t it? It’s going to collapse and consume the whole of Bicester, along with every neighboring town for miles.” An air of resignation rushed over her. “Like a nuclear bomb.”
Raven nodded. “It feels like we’ve just seen the flash in the distance and all we can do is pray.”
Scarlett wished she’d kept her mouth shut about the nuclear bomb analogy. When images of a documentary she’d seen about Hiroshima came to mind, she doubled over, trying not to be sick with fear. Then, standing up straight, she looked at the ceiling and prayed for divine intervention.
The door clicked and a gust of fresh air blew in. “Scarlett, you in there? What are you doing?”
Scarlett’s eyes filled with tears. “Aunt Tabitha!”
“Scarlett,“ Tabitha said, marching into the living room. “Whatever are you doing?”
Scarlett wanted to throw herself crying into her aunt’s arms, like a two-year-old that had been lost in a supermarket.
Tabitha approached the faltering vortex with an air of confidence. “Come on, get out of my way.” She sighed. “Honestly, you’ll have the whole of Bicester sucked up.” She looked over her shoulder. “Come on Tarquin, it’s going to be okay. I think.”
Tarquin strode into the living room. “Looks like we’ve got here just in time, doesn’t it, Tabitha?”
Tabitha nodded, glanced at a patch of carpet next to her and waited for him to move across the room. “What do you think?”
Tarquin shook his head and contorted his mouth, as if carefully going over the facts. “Not sure. It’s gone a bit too far to salvage the operation.”
Tabitha nodded. “My thoughts exactly.”
Watching their calm, confident manner, Scarlett breathed in and resisted the urge to cry as she exhaled. And to think that only recently she was in Costa, thinking about going off and leaving everyone. Amanda had been right. Bicester was her home, the place where she belonged.
She was part of a community that was far stronger collectively than they were as individuals. What would have happened if she’d gone off traveling, got carried away with herself, and attempted something similar? Without the help of her aunt, it would have ended in disaster. She might very well have been lost forever.
Waiting for Tarquin to start muttering into the vortex, Tabitha turned and smiled at Scarlett. “It’s going to be okay,” she whispered.
She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “Thanks to you. Aunt Tabitha, I’m so sorry. I had ideas above my station, I—”
Tabitha took a deep breath and stared at Scarlett, nostrils flared to the fullest. “Not to worry. It happens to all of us when we’re first starting off. The trick is to learn from it.” Her tone of voice grew gradually warmer as she spoke.
Scarlett gave a teary smile. “Really? You think I can still cut it as a witch? You don’t think I should pack it all in?”
Tabitha shook her head. “No, I don’t. But it’s a good thing we had Tarquin to come and sort things out, isn’t it?”
Scarlett rubbed her eyes, sniffed and said, “Yes. He’s a good man, isn’t he?”
“The best.”
The vortex rose up into a column of light, the clouds reformed and golden raindrops pelted down. Scarlett looked on, not knowing what to think. From what she could gather, it looked like Tarquin was regaining control of the situation.
Everything began returning to how it had been at the start, when things were going well. It was just the raindrops… she couldn’t remember them falling this hard or heavy. Indeed, they appeared now to be much more like hailstones than rain. She wanted to believe her aunt, that everything was going to be okay, but she knew that as long as Vixen was still at large, none of them were safe.
A gust of wind appeared from nowhere, blowing the hailstones this way and that, but always remaining within the vortex. Tarquin’s calm expression evaporated and a look of confusion and fear took hold.
Tabitha took a step towards him. “Tarquin, you okay?”
His face had turned a strained red. “Y… yes. Should be. I’m struggling to—”
“Do you need a hand?”
Tarquin nodded. “If you wouldn’t mind.”
Tabitha moved across the room to stand beside Tarquin. In no time at all, the entire flat was filled with a kind of primordial chanting, in some kind of ancient tongue that no one aside from Tabitha and Tarquin understood.
Scarlett watched with interest, trying to learn something, to take something positive out of the situation. She knew that a few weeks down the line, her fragile confidence was going to take a battering, should they make it that far, but for now that was the least of her worries. She would have to cross that bridge when she came to it, put it on the pile of things to deal with when her head was in the right place.
Things had calmed down considerably from earlier, but it was evident from the looks on both of their faces that, as Tim would put it, they were not out of the woods yet.
Tim. She wondered what he was doing right now. Unless her aunt and Tarquin could get things sorted out, she might never see him again.
They glanced up at the ceiling, took in a deep breath and started chanting louder, their voices booming. The walls trembled, the floors quaked. The cloud swirled around and gushed like a powerful multi-colored river.
The gushing sound grew louder, akin to a mighty waterfall. The vortex rose high into the cloud, touching the ceiling as the rain pelted harder, now thundering down onto the carpet. A wind appeared, blowing in her face, drying her skin, rocking her head right back. Scarlett lowered her head, raised her hands to cover her ears, and turned away from the vortex. She opened her mouth to scream.
With an earth-shattering ‘crack,’ the vortex compressed down into a shiny golden ring. The gushing reduced to a gentle ripple then faded out altogether.
Still exhausted from her efforts, Scarlett raised her head to see Tarquin and her aunt, despite looking quite drained themselves, slapping each other on the back, congratulating themselves on a job well done.
Tabitha took a deep breath and exhaled through puffed cheeks, relief written all over her face. “That was a close one, wasn’t it?” she said to Tarquin with a smile.
Tarquin nodded. “I always knew you had things under control.”
Tabitha chuckled. “Oh, I don’t know about that.” She turned to look at Scarlett who had moved up beside her. “Panic over.”
She smiled and gave her aunt a hug. “Thank you.”
Tabitha closed her arms loosely around Scarlett’s back. “Don’t mention it. Just try and be a bit more careful next time.”
“Oh, I won’t be trying anything like this again.” Scarlett regretted the words as soon as she’d said them.
First of all, it wasn’t like her to just give up aft
er a setback. If she did, then she’d be spineless, without any kind of credibility to her name. Amanda wouldn’t mind if she stopped taking so many risks, in fact, it would probably please her no end. But deep down, she knew that if she gave up now, she’d never be able to look at herself in the same way again.
Tabitha smirked. “Something tells me you don’t mean that, Scarlett.”
“Well—”
“As I said, learn from your mistakes and you’ll be much stronger for it. Life is about taking risks. Often, you have to take risks to meet your aspirations.”
“Well, I promise I’ll be more careful, then.”
Tabitha smiled. “That’s good enough. You’ll make a great witch one day.”
“Thanks, Auntie.” Scarlett dropped to the sofa and put her head in her hands.
Tabitha furrowed her brow and glanced towards the bedroom. “What’s that noise?” she whispered to Tarquin.
Tarquin held his breath to listen. “What noise?”
“Just now. I heard a noise from the bedroom, like there’s someone in there.”
Raven looked at Tabitha. “That must be Vixen.”
“Vixen? You mean she’s here?”
Raven nodded. “We saw it the vortex.”
Tabitha looked at Tarquin. “Tarquin?” Her tone suggested she was issuing an order rather than asking a question.
Tarquin sighed, then smiled at Tabitha. “Okay, follow me.”
They filed out of the living room.
“Shh,” Tarquin said, looking at each of them. He turned his ear towards the door and nodded. “Definitely in there,” he whispered.
He placed a hand on the door handle, inched it down and nudged the door open just enough to get a peek.
Vixen flung open the bedroom door, knocking Tarquin off balance.
“Stop her,” Tarquin shouted, as they all rushed to prevent her from escaping. It was left to Raven to scamper along and try to cut her off.
+++
Tim drove past Costa, spun around the corner, and came to a screeching halt outside the gates leading to the parking lot. He shut the car door with a thud and ran across the yard. No sooner had he opened the door than he heard footsteps thundering toward him in the dark.
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