Page 13 of Weave Your Magic

Sat next to each other on Temperance’s bed in the here and now, Temperance and Susie stared out of the tiny window as The Witch’s Nose sign squeaked back and forth in the breeze. Temperance was still in her towel – feeling too stuck in what she was trying to say to be able to think about what to wear. What’s the perfect outfit when you need to warn the boy that broke your heart that he’s in some kind of mortal danger?

‘Now don’t leap in until I’m finished, OK?’ Susie turned to her big sister. ‘Let me pose you a hypothetical, like we’re seeing this from the outside, yeah? Then when I’ve finished, you tell me how it seems.’ She cleared her throat. ‘I have a friend. Let’s call her . . . Chastity. She had a big First Love. A real Dawson’s Creek of a situation, if you will. But her Pacey upped and left before all these teenage longings could be satisfied.’

‘Who’s the Dawson in this thing?’

‘There’s no Dawson here. It was never about Dawson and you know it. Anyway, Pacey runs away. Chastity-slash-Joey never knows why, despite dropping all the hints around Pacey’s Gran for, like, twelve years. Chastity’s little sister even once, long ago, busted her improvising a bonkers little spell to locate him, featuring about forty candles and a road map of the British Isles. Luckily only one sofa cushion was singed that day.’

Temperance’s cheeks flushed hot pink.

‘Chastity has lived her life, had some other boyfriends, but no one ever comes that close. She’s looking for true love. She’s very vocal about that. One day she finds a wedding dress absolutely stuffed with the purest love ever. Which she can feel, because she’s a witch. Should have led with that.’ Susie paused to tip her fingers in a salute to the pub sign. ‘She drinks too much one night. Has a bad dream while sleeping on the beach and tanked up on expired rum. But because on a normal day she can feel the magic in some things, she is maybe,’ Susie scrunched up her eyes, ‘seeing the magic in things that are in fact just ordinary. Ordinary worries. Storms and fires are bad, they’re scary. Seeing your ex with yesterday’s mascara on your cheekbones is cringe. But does it necessarily mean any of it is linked? Or in any way magic? Maybe Chastity is still,’ she pinched her fingers together, ‘this much drunk?’

Temperance folded her arms. ‘I know the difference, Suse. I can feel it. The difference between putting on a nice warm coat and enjoying it because it’s made from really good wool, beautifully stitched. And putting on a lovely coat that warms you from the inside because it remembers friendship and trust in its fibres. The way you can listen in to the magic, the memory, by opening yourself to it, being still and tuning in. This feeling I have, about this danger – there’s no stillness. I’m not tuning into this one: it’s blaring right in my ears, whether I want to listen or not. it’s like a Stevie Nicks song on concert speakers. It’s loud. It’s deep. It’s taking no prisoners. It’s not like having a perfectly good dance around to some Ariana Grande and then switching the radio off. I can’t turn this off, it is shouting in my heart all the time. And I felt it before I saw Abel on the green. I’m not making it fit around him. I’m not even that bothered about him at all!’

Susie kept her hands firmly wrapped around her mug and her tongue in her cheek.

‘But I can feel he’s in trouble. Big trouble. So I can’t . . . as a good human being, just let him toddle off into the jaws of some awful tragedy. I mean, if for nothing else than for poor Margie. She’s like a surrogate gran to us, right?’

Her little sister nodded, waving her right hand over the duvet cover to tuck it more tightly around them both.

‘And as much as Abel has apparently lost his sense of humour and become a moody douchebag in the last twelve years, he’s technically still one of us. We can’t let him come to harm, can we?’

‘No. But . . . saying you’re right about this magical danger . . . which for the record I’m not . . . what do we actually do about it?’

Temperance bit her bottom lip for a moment. ‘You’re on shift in a bit, aren’t you?’

‘In three minutes, to be precise.’

‘OK. You get to the pub, and do not let him out of your sight, Suse. Seriously. I’ll try and come up with some sort of plan.’ She gulped. ‘Abel’s not going anywhere until I work out what’s happening here. Even if this village is beneath him. He’s staying whether he likes it or not.’

Chapter 7

‘Well, if it isn’t Mr Miagi,’ Susie drawled, bringing out her old nickname for a boy she’d once loved like a brother. The summer Susie turned nine, she decided she wanted to learn to surf and that fifteen-year-old Abel would be her teacher. It hadn’t really gone so well, but he’d been patient and kind through it all.

Abel looked up from behind the bar, polishing optics with a tea towel. A smile cracked its way into his cheek on one side. ‘Wipe Out?! Christ, you’re so . . . grown up!’ He lifted the polished wood hatch and strode out to pick her up into a hug.

Susie blinked. This certainly didn’t seem like an Abel with a stick up his butt, the way Temperance had just described. Much more like the boy who used to play stuck in the mud with her on the green long after all the other older kids lost interest. ‘Oof! Good to see you, too. Growing up is a thing that tends to happen. I wasn’t going to stay in tie-dye leggings and a Polly Pocket T-shirt for twelve years.’

He put her down, his smile washing away into something wistful. ‘I remember that T-shirt.’

Susie laughed. ‘Tee had to turn it into a pillow for me, just so I’d agree to stop wearing the raggedy thing.’

‘Gran said you work here now. That’s awesome.’

‘Yeah, amongst other things, here and there. I’ve done a bit of seasonal stuff along the coast too. But you can’t beat The Witch’s Nose for the tastiest local gossip. It’ll be buzzing with the news that you’re back. The prodigal grandson.’

‘Yeah, I mean . . . the thing is, I’ll probably get going soon.’

Margie came through the swing doors from the kitchen carrying a tray of IPA cans. ‘Not until you’ve helped me with the delivery, you won’t. Let a little old lady cart all this about like a Shire horse on its way to the knacker’s yard? Pfft.’ She shook her head, making the collection of gold chains and charms around her neck tinkle.

Susie bit back her smile. Margie was little but she packed a sinewy punch when she wanted to, from so many years of changing barrels. She was clearly working an angle with her grandson and Susie was only too happy to oblige, especially as she’d stepped into the pub with the same mission: keep Abel in sight, make him stay.

‘It’s the big city in him now, Marge. Only out for himself, no sense of community,’ she teased. ‘Where have you come from, anyway?’

‘Bath,’ Abel replied, quietly.

‘Bath?!’ Susie guffawed. ‘All this time Temps and I thought you were in Melbourne or Texas or . . . Casablanca, and you were only in Bath.’ Her tone cooled suddenly. ‘Bath isn’t that far away. Close enough to come back for visits. Easily.’

Margie gave him stony look. ‘Well, he’s here now. Come on, lad.’