The Broken Spell (15 page)

17

B&E IN WILTON PLACE

Grace had sunk exhausted into bed that night, yet found sleep elusive – and when it did come, it was filled with dreams and visions. She was standing at the doorway of the Mirrorman’s hut. Meredith was leaning against the trunk of a tree, watching her, in a shaft of sunlight that made her blonde hair shimmer. Grace knew she was dreaming, yet could feel the cool breeze on her bare arms and the crunchy woodland floor under her shoes. She stepped inside the hut and saw Beth, with her back to the door, sitting by Vera’s motionless body. Vera still clutched the Muerte doll in one hand, but she was awake. She stared at Grace with terrified eyes.

‘She’s awake, Beth,’ said Grace.

Beth turned around slowly to look at Grace – but it wasn’t her at all. Delilah’s brown eyes stared back at her. She smiled,
fingering a bronze charm around her neck – the one Ms Gold had given to Jenny.

‘No!’ Vera whispered, as Delilah pulled a dagger from nowhere and plunged it into her heart.

Grace staggered backwards out of the hut, screaming. Outside, it was pitch black and the wind was howling. The undergrowth clutched at her ankles and she fell, landing on grass at the site of the demon well. She gasped, feeling
something
sharp under her hand. It was the Mirrorman’s fishing fly. She held it up to the moonlight and its jewelled eye sparkled.

‘That doesn’t belong to you.’ Meredith was just a few feet away. ‘It’s his.’

She pointed to the site of the well, where the ground swelled as something pushed from beneath. The grass and soil turned over and a white hand burst through, followed by another. Grace scrambled backwards as the Mirrorman’s head and shoulders emerged, hunching as he dragged the rest of his body from the earth. He reached for the fly in her hands and Grace felt the feathers flutter against her fingers. Suddenly, a net was flung over him; he curled up in a ball and was dragged back to the hole. He made horrible gurgling cries as Meredith, with an airy wave of her hand, rolled him along the ground. She smirked at Grace, as she pushed him back down, down into the demon well.

Grace looked at the fly in her hands. Its feathers fluttered
as if in response to the Mirrorman’s desperate screams. When the screaming stopped, the fly lay still and its sparkling eye dulled to black. Meredith’s laugh made her look up just as the net engulfed her…

Grace struggled herself awake.

Her sheet was drenched with sweat and her duvet was halfway across the room. She dragged it back onto the bed and curled up, pulling it over her head. Her heart was still pumping too fast, and she took long, deep breaths to help her drift back into an uneasy sleep…

At half past midnight, her phone’s alarm buzzed her awake.

Half an hour later, under cover of darkness, Grace and Delilah tiptoed across Wilton Place and around the back of Mrs Quinlan’s house. Grace had never snuck out of home before, and her palms had been sweaty since she left her
bedroom
– if this was what being rebellious felt like, she would much rather stay a goody-two-shoes.

Despite Delilah’s gory role in Grace’s dream – which Grace couldn’t face telling her about – she was grateful for her company as the two girls passed into the shadow of the ramshackle building. Delilah hadn’t hesitated when Grace asked her to help retrieve something from Old Cat Lady’s attic, using a breaking-and-entering spell. For such a timid girl, Delilah didn’t seem afraid of much. Perhaps that’s why
she’d been in the horrible dream in the first place.

‘Remember,’ said Grace, pulling a damp coil of ribbon from her pocket, ‘the cats are everywhere, so watch where you put your feet. Are you sure you want to do this?’

The small girl nodded.

Grace wrapped the ribbon around the handle of the back door, tying a double knot.

‘Open Sesame,’ she said softly.

There was a click, a short creak, and the door swung open.

‘Seriously?’ she whispered, incredulous. ‘
Open Sesame
? I didn’t think that would actually
work
!’

‘Just like Ali Baba’s cave,’ said Delilah, grinning.

They crept into the kitchen, hearing the soft mews of sleepy cats all over the house. Moving as quickly as they dared, they hurried through the dank hall and up the stairs. Grace felt her heart would beat right out of her chest any minute. Above them, the square hole in the ceiling was blacker than ink.

‘Okay,’ mouthed Grace. ‘Hold on tight.’

Delilah stood on Grace’s feet and wrapped her arms tightly around her shoulders, and Grace murmured
something
under her breath. There was a tiny jerk at first, and then they began to rise slowly towards the open hatch. Grace furrowed her brow in concentration, keeping her core
muscles
as tight as possible. It was far too risky to use the rickety old ladder – the squeaking and creaking would wake even
the heaviest sleeper – so flying was their only option. Delilah weighed almost nothing, and Grace was able to maintain a steady pace until they landed softly inside the attic.

The box of junk she and the girls had collected as
punishment
was still sitting near the opening where they’d left it. She rifled carefully through the box while Delilah stuck her head down the hatch, listening for any movement in the house.

‘Ah! This is it.’ Grace whispered, pulling out a Y-shaped object and turning it in her hands.
Balau Dowser
, she thought.
Such a pretty name for such a boring-looking thing
.

She unzipped the front pocket of her hoody and tucked the dowser inside. As she got up and turned to leave, she saw a pair of glowing eyes staring at her from the far wall, which made her nearly jump out of her skin. There was an
accusatory
‘miaow’ and the cat leapt from its perch.

‘Let’s go,’ Grace hissed, tugging on Delilah’s arm.

The girl balanced herself on Grace’s trainers once more, and they lifted over the wooden border of the hatch and down to the carpet below, landing with a bump. They froze. There was a small sound – the sound of bedclothes stirring, which was coming from a room to their right. This was
followed
by a low groan and the soft smacking of lips. Then silence.

Grace felt a fire in her chest as they slid down the stairs, desperately trying to hop over lazing cats without falling over
one. They made it to the kitchen, and were almost through the back door, when Grace spotted something on the table next to a small leather satchel. It sparkled pink and white, and the bouncy star on top had tiny streamers. It was the glitter pen Grace had won in one of Ms Lemon’s woodland treasure hunts. She must have been using it and left it behind in her last lesson with Mrs Quinlan.

Well
, she thought,
it
is
mine
.

She pocketed the pen, but then noticed the end of a tube of lip gloss poking out of the satchel on the table. She pulled out the tube and immediately recognised Rachel’s
favourite
brand and colour. Carefully spilling out the rest of the satchel’s contents, she saw one of Una’s turtle earrings, a hair bobbin like the ones Adie wore, and a badge with the Evil Eye symbol, torn from Jenny’s schoolbag. Personal
possessions
of the coven. In the front pocket of the bag she found a coil of rusty wire, a small glass bottle of brown liquid and a folded sheet of paper. She opened the paper and read,

Delilah caught hold of the piece of paper as it fell out of Grace’s hand.

‘A binding spell,’ said Grace. ‘She’s trying to bind our powers.
Why
?’

The floorboards upstairs creaked as something moved across them.

‘We have to go,’ Delilah whispered urgently. ‘Now!’

Grace grabbed the small bottle from the table and ran
outside
after Delilah.

In the muddy garden, Grace pulled out the stopper and emptied the contents of the bottle into a clump of weeds. Then she scraped some watery muck into the bottleneck.

‘Wait, just a moment!’ she said, and hurried back into the house, being careful not to leave any muddy footprints. She filled the bottle at the kitchen sink.

‘Mephistopheles,’ Mrs Quinlan’s voice growled from upstairs. ‘Stop that infernal racket, and get off my bed! You’re tearing holes in the blanket.’

‘Grace!’ hissed Delilah. ‘Come on!

‘Mephis!’ the old woman shouted. ‘Do that again and you’ll go straight to the kitchen and stay there ’til morning. Do you hear me?’

Grace replaced the bottle stopper, and shook the contents until it resembled the brown liquid she had thrown out.

‘Right, that’s it!’ roared Mrs Quinlan ‘You asked for it!’

The snarling screech of a cat was followed by the thump of heavy footsteps on the stairs.

‘Hurry!’ Delilah squealed.

Grace jammed all the items back into the leather satchel, including the glitter pen from her pocket, and raced out the back door behind Delilah. She’d just managed to pull the door shut, when Mrs Quinlan’s furious frame thundered into the kitchen.

‘Damn cat!’ she yelled. There was a snarling ‘thrump’, then the clicking of tiny claws across the lino and scraping as the cat began to scratch at the back door.

‘You know where the litter tray is!’ the woman howled. ‘Use it!’

The cat continued scratching.

‘You’re really starting to get on my wick, Mephis.
What
?’

Her footsteps smacked across the kitchen floor towards the back door.

‘Get back!’ Grace hissed, dropping to her hunkers and flattening herself against the wall. Delilah crouched down beside her, holding her breath.

The door was wrenched open and Mrs Quinlan’s face shot out to scan the garden. The cat hung by the scruff of the neck from her weathered hand, twisting from side to side as the old woman squinted her eyes and sniffed at the air. Grace didn’t even dare to blink as the cat’s face turned in her direction and it let out a gurgling growl. Its green eyes stared straight at the two girls.

Mrs Quinlan snorted impatiently.

‘Stupid cat,’ she said, stepping back inside as the poor
animal continued to wriggle and yowl in protest.

As soon as the door was shut, Grace and Delilah took off, racing through Wilton Place and out onto the main road.

The next day was unexpectedly sunny. Grace sat at the edge of the football pitch, picking at her lunch, and
periodically
lifting her face to the warmth with her eyes closed. It was strange how sunshine could make the world feel like a better place, if only for a little while.

‘Hey Grace,’ a voice said and, a second later, Una plopped down beside her.

‘Hey.’

‘Long time, no see,’ said Adie, kneeling down on her other side. ‘Where’s Delilah?’

Grace shot her a look.

‘I was only wondering,’ Adie said quickly. ‘You weren’t in the lunch room, so we figured you must be out here with her.’