Early the next morning, in the dim greyness just before dawn, Merry heard singing outside Leo’s window. Chanting, really; voices rising and falling along different harmonic lines that somehow combined into a single, sombre melody. She couldn’t make out the words. Pushing the curtain aside and peering through the glass, she saw a group of women standing with their arms raised. Some of them seemed to be holding things: bunches of twigs, stones, a metal bowl on a chain with smoke coming out of it. As Merry watched, one of the women knelt, pulled out a knife and started carving a shape in the lawn underneath the window.
‘Oh, my – Leo!’ She shook him awake.
‘Huh? What?’
‘There’re people downstairs in the garden – I think they might be witches. They’re singing. And one of them’s messing up Mum’s lawn.’
By the time they had got downstairs and unlocked the back door, the women had moved away from Leo’s window and were vandalising the grass at the front of the house. Leo ran towards them, waving his arms.
‘Stop! What the hell are you doing?’
The woman with the knife straightened up. Merry knew her: she lived in the old manor house a little further down the lane.
‘Mrs Knox?
‘A bad business this, Merry. Very bad. We came as soon as we got your grandmother’s message.’ She followed Merry’s gaze to the large carving knife in her hand. ‘Protective runes. If we’d known the counter-curse was going to break down …’ Mrs Knox shook her head, sighed. ‘Didn’t think it would happen in my lifetime. If it happened at all.’ There were murmurs of agreement from the other women. As Merry looked at their faces she found more of them that she recognised. One of the checkout ladies from the local Waitrose; the woman who owned the bookshop on the high street; a girl whose name she couldn’t remember, who was in the year above her at school and sometimes worked in Zara on Saturdays.
‘Are you, um, Gran’s coven?’
‘Some of it, yes.’
Well. This is weird.
Leo stepped forwards.
‘I don’t know what exactly Gran has asked you to do, but you cannot go around messing up people’s lawns and – and singing at them. Our mum’s going to go insane—’
‘No need to worry. The runes will have faded by the time she gets back.’
‘That’s not the point. You’re still trespassing.’ He blushed and tugged at the hem of his T-shirt; Merry saw the Zara girl staring at him, grinning. ‘What’s a counter-curse? And what does any of this have to do with us?’
‘Ah. Think your grandmother had better deal with that. She’s presenting at a conference in Whitby this week, but she’ll be back Saturday morning. You’re to visit her at one o’clock.’
‘But—’
‘No more questions.’ Mrs Knox nodded to the other women. ‘We’ve one more side to do, then we’ll be out of your way. I’d have some breakfast and get dressed, if I were you, young man. You shouldn’t be standing around in your underwear in this kind of weather.’ After gazing at Merry one last time – such a strange look, it made Merry shiver and pull her coat tighter – she turned away and started shepherding the rest of the coven round to the far side of the house. The conversation was clearly over.
For the next couple of days Merry avoided her brother as much as possible. She knew Leo wanted to talk about what had happened, about the boy in her room and the sudden arrival of the coven, but she didn’t. Instead, she spent Thursday evening in her room, trying to catch up on homework, and on Friday she persuaded Ruby to go with her to the gym at the local community centre. Ruby was happy enough for the first forty-five minutes (a drop-in yoga class) but was less keen when Merry suggested working out with some of the weights and exercise machines.
‘Can’t we go and get some dinner now? I’m knackered. We don’t all have your stamina.’
‘Just a bit longer, please? I’ve got a javelin competition on Saturday.’ A partial truth: Merry’s life seemed to be full of those at the moment. But the whole truth was far too complicated. ‘Sit and have a rest while I use the punchbag.’
Ruby groaned, but she sat on the floor and got out her phone while Merry searched for the least rank pair of gloves. She liked feeling that her body was strong, that it would do pretty much whatever she asked of it; she’d started doing more sport a few years back, encouraged by Gran, and kept it up even after she began to see less of her grandmother. Plus, the boxing was therapeutic. Taking out her frustration on the bag, she almost forgot she wasn’t alone until Ruby interrupted.
‘Merry? Is something up? You’re being even more weird than normal.’
Merry stopped and looked at her friend.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, I get that you like to be busy. But at the moment – you never seem to stop. It’s either sport, parties or late-night studying. All the time. And you’re still not getting everything done. It’s like you’re …’ Ruby’s face scrunched up. ‘I dunno. I’m just worried about you.’
Merry pulled off the boxing gloves and started examining a cut on her knuckle.
Ruby knew, almost. So maybe Merry should actually talk to her. Tell her that she’d come to the gym this evening because she was hiding from her own brother, and because she was trying to forget that someone had threatened her with a knife three nights ago. That when she was exercising, or out with mates, or completely exhausted, she didn’t have to think about what she’d done last year, or about what she’d given up. That she had once been a witch, and now she wasn’t.
Tell her how hard it was to want something that she knew she shouldn’t want.
She might understand, if I explained.
What, like you tried to explain to Alex? And how did that work out for you?
The mixture of disbelief and fear on Alex’s face still haunted her. It was too much of a risk.
‘I’m fine, Ruby. Just, you know, stuff. School, mostly. I’m not sure I can be bothered to resit chemistry. I know I’m going to fail again, and I’ve got so much else to do …’
‘Then just drop it. You need to stop trying to please everybody, Merry.’ Ruby grinned. ‘Who wants to be good the whole time anyway, eh?’
Well, I need to be, Merry thought. Because the alternative to me being good, is me being bad. And me being bad will be terrifying.
She shrugged.
‘Yeah, maybe. Come on.’ She held out her hand to Ruby. ‘Let’s go late-night shopping and try on expensive clothes that we’re never gonna buy.’
‘Oh, yes – and hats. And shoes.’
‘Yeah. Those really hideous high heels with the spikes all over them. And I saw this pair of purple, thigh-high, lace-up boots the other day …’
Ruby giggled.
‘That’s your birthday pressie sorted then.’
Merry smiled. Tonight, at least, she was going to be a completely normal teenager.
Sadly, pretending everything was normal wasn’t