The Language of Spells (26 page)

Gwen let herself in through her back door and dumped her bags onto the table. Cat appeared in the doorway, glaring at her with undisguised fury. He let out one of his God-awful screeches.

‘In a minute, you impatient beast.’

Then she took a second look. Cat looked unhappy. His fur, which usually stuck up in random tufts around his face and neck, was standing to attention all over his body, like someone had just connected a wire and plugged it in.

Coldness dripped down her spine. What if someone was in the house? A knocking at the door almost made her cry out.

She wrenched it open, determined to be angry, not frightened. For a long moment, she stood on the doorstep looking out into the black and white garden. A flurry of snow whirled out of nowhere, obscuring her vision and the wind scraped across the skin on her face like razor blades. Gwen stayed motionless, squinting out into the blurry white, trying to see if there was someone there. ‘Hello?’ Her voice was a weak thread, whisked away instantly by the gale. Another second and her hands began to burn from the icy cold. She stepped back inside, shut the door and locked it.

‘I’m not scared.’ She looked around the kitchen. ‘I’m not leaving, so you might as well stop it.’ Feeling bolstered, she went into each room of the house and repeated her mantra. ‘I’m not scared. I’m not leaving.’

Gwen had almost convinced herself that she wasn’t frightened any more when the phone rang. She jumped, then laughed at herself.
So much for the mantra.
It was Ruby, sounding as breathless and stressed as Gwen felt. ‘Is Katie there?’

‘No. Why?’

‘She’s not in her room. Her bed hasn’t been slept in.’

Gwen looked at the clock. It was half past seven. ‘Could she have left for school already? Made her bed?’

Ruby snorted. ‘Get up early for school? Not likely.’

‘Have you tried her mobile?’

‘Only about a thousand times.’

‘I haven’t seen her; I’m sorry.’

‘I’m going to call the police.’ Ruby’s tone was challenging.

‘Okay, if you think—’

Ruby took a deep breath. ‘If this is some kind of joke you two are playing on me, you’d better stop it now.’

Gwen was stunned. Just how irresponsible did Ruby think she was? How cruel? ‘What on earth are you talking about?’

‘I know you’ve been planning something. I’m not stupid. I know you want to take her away from me.’

‘Hang on—’

‘I won’t let you. She’s my daughter.’ Then the awful sound of Ruby crying and the phone went dead. She’d hung up.

Gwen redialled and spoke the moment it connected. ‘I haven’t planned anything. I don’t know where Katie is.’

There was a short silence then Ruby said, ‘Oh God,’ very quietly.

‘When did you last see her?’

‘Last night. She went to bed early. She had a sore stomach.’

‘Okay. Have you rung around her friends?’

‘David’s doing that now.’

‘I’m sure she’s just gone to someone’s house. Let me know, won’t you?’

‘Okay.’

After hanging up, Gwen paced the floor. She put the kettle on to make tea, and then discovered a mug of hot water, no tea bag, ten minutes later. Finally, Ruby rang.

‘Any joy?’

‘No.’ Ruby’s voice was bleak. ‘Her hoodie’s gone and her trainers, but her uniform is all here. She’s not gone to school. We’ve rung the police.’

‘Oh, honey. It’s going to be okay. I’m sure she’s skiving with a friend.’ Gwen wanted to ask about boyfriends, but was worried she’d send Ruby over the edge.

‘Was she seeing anyone?’ Ruby was already there.

‘Not that I know of. But you’d know better than me.’

‘I doubt it.’ Ruby’s voice was so quiet Gwen had to strain to hear. ‘I’ve lost her.’

‘No. She’ll turn up. She’ll be okay.’

‘Where is she, Gwen? Why wouldn’t she leave me a note? She knows the rule. If you go out, you leave a note. On the fridge. There’s a pad there. And one by the phone in the hall.’

‘I don’t know. I’m sorry.’

‘Okay.’ Ruby sounded so worried, Gwen wished Katie was with her, wished she could produce her like a rabbit from a hat. Ta-da.

Gwen held the phone for a moment after Ruby had hung up. There was only one other person she wanted to speak to, but they were over. She wasn’t with Cam, she had no right to call him and he had no responsibility to pick up. She tried to concentrate, to process the news: Katie was missing. Gwen’s stomach swooped lower. The phone rang and she realised that she was still standing in the same position, gripping the plastic casing tightly.

‘She was at a party,’ Ruby said. ‘David just spoke to Imogen. She said she saw Katie there, but only for a bit and she doesn’t know when she left or where she went. We’re going to go and start looking.’

‘I’ll come and help.’

‘No,’ Ruby said quickly. ‘Thanks, but she might come to your house. To see you. I want you to be there if she does.’

‘Okay,’ Gwen said. ‘Keep in touch.’

‘I can’t believe she went out without telling us. I never thought she’d do anything so stupid.’

Gwen made soothing noises and steadfastly didn’t voice her own thoughts. Katie was probably somewhere in Bath. Maybe with a boyfriend. When Gwen was a teenager, the only truly stupid things she’d ever done had been over a boy.

She made a cup of tea and carried it with her as she paced the house. A while later she realised it was cold and poured it down the sink.

Gwen looked out of the window; the snow had started again. Innocuous swirling flakes giving way to a steady fall of thick white. Snow that meant business. And Katie could be out in it. She gave in and called Cam. The need to hear his voice was overwhelming. They might not be an item, but they had been once. That had to count for something.

He answered the phone sounding wary, but his tone changed as soon as Gwen explained what had happened and she drew a few moments’ comfort from his voice. He was sympathetic and positive. ‘I cut school all the time at her age. She’ll be at a friend’s house watching films and eating crisps.’

‘Absolutely.’ Gwen tried to believe him. ‘I really hope so.’

‘I’ll call Harry, though. Just to be on the safe side.’

Gwen’s breath came out in a whoosh. ‘Thank you.’

‘And I’ll come round after work…’ he hesitated and in that silence a thousand unsaid words hung in the air ‘…if you want me to.’

‘I do,’ Gwen said. ‘Please.’

Less than an hour later, and Gwen couldn’t stand being in the house any longer. She checked in with Ruby and then walked through the town. She checked the park and the shops that Katie liked. She called everyone she could think of, but nobody had seen Katie.

At eleven o’clock, Ruby rang. Gwen snatched up the phone. ‘Is she home?’

‘No.’ Ruby paused. ‘I want you to find her.’

‘I’ve been all around the town. I checked Claire’s and the park and—’

‘No. I mean I want you to find her.’ Ruby’s voice was steady. ‘Find her. Use the force or whatever you call it.’

Gwen was silent for a second, thinking, and Ruby misinterpreted.

‘For God’s sake, you’re not going to hold a grudge now? You want me to apologise. I’m sorry, Gwen, I’m really sorry. I’ve been a shitty big sister. Now, please—’

Gwen cut across her. ‘It’s not that. It doesn’t always work.’

‘It’s Katie. It’s got to work,’ Ruby said.

‘I’m going to try,’ Gwen said. ‘Of course I’ll try.’

‘Thank you.’ Ruby’s voice cracked.

‘Right. I’ll do it now.’

‘Okay.’ Ruby paused.

When she didn’t say goodbye, Gwen realised Ruby was waiting for her to do it there and then. ‘I mean, I’ve got to go. I’m going to hang up. I can’t do it with you watching.’

‘I can’t see you,’ Ruby said.

‘You know what I mean.’

‘Fine.’ Ruby sounded stronger. More like herself. ‘Call me straight back.’

Gwen went into the kitchen: the safest, most soothing room in the house. She could see Katie everywhere. By the fridge, demanding cola, at the table scoffing white chocolate chunk cookies and leaning against the counter, drinking tea from the Snoopy mug and complaining about her teachers.

A sob escaped and Gwen clamped a hand over her mouth to stop any others following it. She wasn’t going to cry. Crying suggested tragedy. There was nothing to cry about because she was going to focus and she was going to find Katie and there would be nothing left to do but give her an almighty bollocking for worrying them like this.

She sat at the table and took several deep breaths. She half-expected Katie’s location to simply spring into her mind, she was thinking so feverishly, but it didn’t. Instead the entirely prosaic list of possibilities looped round and round. It was agonising. God only knew how Ruby and David were feeling.

Okay, something of Katie’s. The Snoopy mug might do. Katie had certainly adopted it. With it clasped in both hands, as if she were warming her fingers, Gwen closed her eyes. She fixed an image of Katie in her mind’s eye and waited.

And waited a bit more.

Twenty minutes later, she was going cross-eyed from staring at the Snoopy mug and the panic had been almost entirely replaced with an awful calm. She couldn’t do it. The one time in her life when she’d actually thanked her mother, the powers that be, Mother Nature, whoever, for her strange ability and it had deserted her.

The knocking made her jump.
Katie
. She crossed the room in giant steps and yanked open the door. It was Cam, looking tall and serious and grown-up in his dark suit and tie. ‘No news,’ he said immediately. ‘Sorry.’

Disappointment and relief at seeing him vied for prime position. ‘It’s been too long, now,’ she said. ‘And it’s freezing out there.’

‘I know.’ He stepped inside and, for a moment, she thought he was going to hug her, but then he moved back and folded his arms.

‘Ruby called me,’ he said. ‘She wanted to know what Harry thought. And she asked me to bring you this.’ He pulled a scarf from his jacket pocket and Gwen took it automatically. She gazed at the thin cotton in her hand and realised with a jolt that it was Katie’s. It was a cheap light blue-grey scarf with translucent sequins and many loose threads and she’d seen it knotted artfully around Katie’s neck many times. She swallowed. ‘Thank you. I need a minute.’

‘I’ll wait in the other room.’

Gwen wondered how much Ruby had said to him. She thought about his face when she’d found Archie, his instant dismissal.

‘I know you think this is crazy. A waste of time—’

‘It’s worth a try,’ Cam said, his voice tight.

Gwen smiled weakly. ‘I hope so.’

Cam hesitated. ‘You know I don’t believe in this stuff.’

‘I know. You think Archie was a lucky guess.’

‘Not a conscious one. I don’t think you intentionally, um—’

‘You don’t think I’m a filthy, lying fraud,’ Gwen supplied helpfully.

‘Exactly.’ Cam looked grateful. ‘And I really hope it works. But if not, is it okay if I call Harry to offer my services? I want to go out and look.’

‘Definitely. We should do everything. Thank you.’

‘Good.’ Cam’s shoulders went down a notch.

Gwen waited until she was alone and then another minute to check Cam wasn’t going to pop back to ask her something. Then she held the scarf up to her face, scrunching it up and inhaling the faint traces of Katie’s scent. Nothing except a hit of Impulse body spray. She rubbed the material between her fingers, closed her eyes and tried to open her mind. She imagined a blank screen unrolling, ready for the image of Katie to appear. Of her surroundings. She forced the desperate mind-chatter to quiet and watched the blank screen as patiently as she could. Nothing.

Five minutes more – minutes that seemed to jerk past – and Gwen couldn’t sit at the table, alone with her failure, any longer. She jumped up and went through to the living room. Cam sat on her sofa, a slice of black bisecting the riot of colour. She couldn’t speak, only shake her head. Cam stood up and this time he did put his arms around her. Gwen was ashamed that she could think about how good it felt to have his arms around her, however briefly. They weren’t together and it was ripping her apart inside but, for that one moment, she could hold onto him and gather a small measure of strength.

After a few minutes, Gwen took a deep breath and rang her sister. Ruby answered on the first ring. Gwen could hardly get the words out, the depression was pressing down on the top of her head and squeezing her from the sides. She wrapped her arms around her body and squeezed with her arms, too.

‘I don’t know why.’ Gwen couldn’t stop crying. ‘I’m sorry, Ruby. I’m sorry.’

Ruby was crying, too. Gwen could hear her hiccupping and swallowing. ‘Is it because I’ve been horrible?’

‘No! Ruby, I swear I’m doing my best.’

‘But what if it’s like karma or something? That it won’t work because of the way I was that time?’

Instantly, Gwen knew what she was talking about. The day Gwen had gone to hide from the journalists and the curious people and the kids from school who wanted to shout some more names at her. She’d gone to David’s parents’ house and Ruby had refused to let her in.

‘I know it wasn’t your fault, but I was really angry with you,’ Ruby was saying. ‘I thought we were going to have to move again and I’d finally got settled. I actually had friends and I had my life and I had David.’

‘This isn’t the time,’ Gwen said, feeling awkward. ‘But, you know, you were twenty. If Gloria did another flit, you didn’t have to go with her.’

Ruby didn’t seem to hear her. ‘It wasn’t all about you and magic and that poor kid who committed suicide. I was dealing with my own problems. I didn’t need anything else right then.’

‘I’m so sorry Stephen Knight’s death was inconvenient to you,’ Gwen said, the old anger bursting through. ‘I’m sorry the worst days of my life gave you a headache. Did it spoil some of your dinner dates with David? Sour your skiing trips with his loaded family?’

‘I’d just had a baby. Which, for the record, is fucking horrible. I was sore from the stitches and I’d never been so tired in my life. I was a new mother living in David’s family’s house being treated like the poor country cousin who didn’t know to keep her legs together. David was studying all hours for his endless bloody exams, and I needed a mother, but all I had was Gloria waltzing in and out offering to read the baby’s cards and I needed you but you were either shagging Cameron Laing or—’