Page 12 of Under Your Spell

‘Didn’t think so.’ Serena sails forward. ‘Come on, Lil,’ she calls over her shoulder.

Lil and Henry are just standing, silently smiling at each other.

‘Lil?’ I shake her by the arm.

She turns to me, her pupils so wide she looks as if she’s been taking hallucinogens. She makes a noise that sounds like, ‘Waaa?’

I stifle a laugh. ‘We’re going back through.’

‘Oh… yeah… right…’ she says, visibly collecting herself. ‘See you later, Henry.’

‘See you later, Lil,’ Henry whispers, and my sister melts like he’s just quoted Shakespeare.

When we return to the sitting room it’s to find Ripp centre stage – he’s telling a raucous story that involves him and Carl and a stripper they picked up in Las Vegas, and everyone around him is laughing. I know this story because I remember seeing the paparazzi photos of my father stumbling out of a club with his arm around a topless woman. It was the same week he didn’t turn up to my thirteenth birthday party.

‘Why don’t you give us a little tune, Ripp?’ someone calls. ‘Something for Carl?’

‘Oh, Jesus,’ I mutter under my breath.

‘Oh no, I couldn’t possibly,’ Ripp says with a bashful wave of his hand, though his eyes drift towards the piano in the corner of the room.

‘Yes, yes, go on!’ more people start joining in.

‘Dee?’ Ripp says, looking at my mum, and there’s a frisson of excitement, something electric that zaps through the crowd.

Mum rolls her eyes good-naturedly. ‘I don’t think so, Ripp.’

‘You know Carl would have loved it,’ Ripp wheedles. ‘He was always on at us to sing together.’

‘That’s true, Dee,’ Petty puts in.

Mum blinks, and I think there are tears in her eyes. ‘Oh, all right,’ she says. ‘For Carl.’

With that, she makes her way to the piano, Ripp loping along behind. When she sits down in front of the keyboard, she doesn’t hesitate, just lifts her hands and brings them down, a crash of chords as she starts singing ‘Girl From the North Country’. Her voice is still beautiful: warm honey spilling through the room. Ripp joins in with her and, say what you like about the man, he can really sing. Their voices blend perfectly; something magic is happening and everyone here knows it. There’s a collective holding of breath, a stillness.

‘This was Carl’s favourite song,’ Petty whispers, her cheeks already wet with tears. ‘God, she’s wonderful.’

My hands are curled into fists, as I look at my mum, at Ripp. I see the flash of someone taking a photo. Finally, I pull myself away, take a step backwards, then another, and another, until I’m out of the crowd.

Until I back right into someone. Their hands come up to my arms to steady me, and even before I turn around I know who it’s going to be. Perhaps it’s the smell of his aftershave – he was always a little too heavy-handed with the stuff and it seems that habit hasn’t altered – or perhaps it’s the deep, apocalyptic sense of dread that tips me off, but either way, I know.

Slowly I turn around. ‘Hello, Sam,’ I say, and I’m relieved to hear that my voice at least is steady, even if the rest of me feels like I’m on a boat adrift in choppy waters.

‘Oh, my darlin’ Clementine!’ He twangs the words in a faux-cowboy impression and if I didn’t already viscerally hate that song with every fibre of my being then this moment would have done the trick. The man who almost broke me grins down with a lazy, lop-sided smile. It is a smile that once set butterflies loose in my stomach, a smile that made me feel giddy. Now there’s just a dull feeling of nausea, that swooping sense of falling from a great height.

Of course he’s here, in my house, today. It’s as if that bloody spell has summoned him.

Sam Turner – the original victim of the curse, the boy who broke my heart at seventeen – is actually pretty famous now. He’s still good-looking, with his long, sandy hair, and tall, rangy body, but he’s more polished than the scruffy young guy I remember. I’ve seen pictures of him, but have managed to avoid meeting him in the flesh for almost fifteen years. It wasn’t hard – we don’t exactly move in the same circles.

‘You’re looking good,’ he says, giving me a not-so-subtle once-over. ‘But then you always were gorgeous.’ The smile grows, his blue eyes crinkle at the corners, tiny lines that weren’t there the last time I saw him.

Over the years I have imagined this – meeting Sam again. Sometimes I imagine screaming at him, punching him right in the nose. Other times I imagine demonstrating an icy poise as he grovels in front of me. In none of my imaginings did I picture him acting as though nothing ever happened. I never thought that I would simply stand, frozen, heart pounding as he smirked and made small talk.

He leans casually against the wall, drink in hand. ‘So how have you been? What have you been up to? You’re a teacher, right? I was hoping I’d run into you. Your dad wasn’t sure if you were coming or not.’

Something short-circuits in my brain. Even now, in this moment, I’m dimly aware that I’ll regret running away. I can’t do anything but gape at Sam, can’t even begin to sift through the wild range of emotions that the sight of him, and the words coming out of his mouth, have set churning inside me. He’s here, in my house. He’s been talking to Ripp about me. Ripp is here too.

‘I have to go,’ I manage to choke out, and then I shoulder past him, through to the hallway.