Page 5

Chapter Five

We pulled over at the next service station and Maddie insisted on taking over the driving. I let her because her colour was up and we were driving her car; she’d taken one look at Rustbucket Rosie and insisted that we use hers. It had been impossible to argue, and anyway it was unlikely Rosie would have made it all the way to Cornwall. I was ninety percent sure her engine was held together by sheer willpower – her existence definitely defied science – but I wasn’t ready to put her out to pasture just yet. She could rest at home and guard the flat for me instead.

After some brunch and a wee stop, I fell asleep. When I woke up again, the scenery made my heart clench: the rugged cliffs, the hidden sandy inlets, the bright blue water crashing into white waves.

My body tingled as I tried to steady my breath. Everything in me screamed that I was finally home . How the hell could I have spent so long away from all this? I knew the answer: I’d had to get away, had to leave, but now I was back it felt as if this landscape was a part of my very being, like my bones weren't made of calcium but of Cornish rock.

We drove into Witchlight Cove through the barrier that only we magical beings could sense. My nose was practically glued to the window. So much of it was achingly familiar. There were the same shops, brightly painted with large bay windows. There was the square where the large remembrance memorial rested. I didn’t need a statue to remember the names of the dead and fallen, and I shuddered at the thought of my parents’ names etched in the cold metal.

I looked around and my heart started to race. ‘Maddie,’ I started as panic wormed its way in. ‘Where’s my fucking house?’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ Maddie replied airily, keeping her eyes on the road.

‘Don’t worry about it?’ My voice rose an octave. ‘Maddie – I can’t remember where my house is. Where my generational home is! What the hell is wrong with me?!’

She smiled. ‘Chill, Bea. Nothing’s wrong with you. Trust me, it’ll be fine in a minute.’

Her words didn’t soothe me; there was nothing like being told to chill when you were mid-breakdown to really make you feel worse .

There was something fuzzy about my recollection of the house; it wasn’t quite clicking into place. There was a big front garden – no, surely the garden was at the back? And what colour were the roof tiles? Hold up – did it even have roof tiles? I swear, I could have been ten feet from my home but if Maddie had left me there I couldn’t have found my way to it. Why couldn’t I remember the place where I’d spent the first eighteen years of my life?

Did I even have a house? Had I dreamt it? Maybe I’d actually been raised in a hedge – my hair often looked as if I had been.

My heart was pounding. ‘Maddie, this isn’t right!’

‘Actually,’ she turned to me and grinned, that old mischief I knew so well finally twinkling in her eyes. I’d missed it. ‘It’s absolutely right. To be honest, I’m a little relieved. It means the ward is still in place.’

I stared at her aghast. ‘That’s how you warded the house? You made it so nobody could remember where it was?’

Her smile transformed into one of her trademark smirks. ‘Clever, right?’

Clever? Yes. Absolutely batshit? Also yes. She was unbelievable. No wonder she had collapsed – the amount of energy required to hide something of that size was huge. ‘ Clever, yes, but dangerous,’ I chastened her. ‘So that was why you fainted!’

Something in me eased now that I had a reason for her collapse; she didn’t have a rare magical disease, she’d just overstretched herself like a favourite jumper pulled out of shape.

She waved off my worry. ‘Don’t worry. It’s done now and I’m fine. The house is around the corner. You’ll see it any minute now.’

As we turned another corner, I felt the ward give way – and there it was: a chocolate-box cottage with a thatched roof, vines climbing the stone, wisteria blooming purple in spring, and a large sky-blue wooden door. This was it. This was my home.

An idiotic part of me still half-expected the door to open and my dad to be standing there, pushing his glasses higher up his nose whilst my mum’s arms slipped around his waist. They’d stood there together so many times to wave me off as I’d walked into the village. Tears blurred my vision.

‘Are you okay?’ Maddie asked softly.

I couldn’t speak.

There was the garden where Mum had made flowers bloom with a touch of her fingertips, where Dad barbecued, where Maddie, Ezra and I mixed pretend potions out of herbs and mud. For a second I could hardly breathe for the crushing sense of loss. This was why I hadn’t returned. God, it hurt to feel.

‘The garden looks good,’ I said finally, my voice wobbling. ‘Mum would approve. Thank you for that.’ It did look good, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. The house always had a certain feeling to it – a vibe or whatever it was – and it was gone. A cold shiver of dread rolled down my spine.

‘Sure,’ she said quietly. ‘I loved Iris too.’ Of course she had, the way I loved Yanni.

I cleared my throat, desperate to stave off tears. Something was off – and it wasn’t the lack of my parents. I frowned as I tried to put my finger on it. ‘It feels different,’ I said finally.

‘You’ve been gone for ten years.’ Maddie gave my shoulder a sympathetic squeeze before opening the back door of the car so Eva could jump out. It was so fancy that all of the doors worked; only the passenger side of Rosie worked so this was a luxury I wasn’t used to.

I was prevaricating. I took a deep breath and followed, slinging my bag over my shoulder and trying to look casual, even though everything inside me was screaming wrong, wrong, wrong!

Maddie walked purposefully towards the cottage but my steps faltered. This time, it wasn’t grief holding me back; something was buzzing in the back of my mind, something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. ‘There’s something missing,’ I mumbled.

She sighed. ‘Yeah, there is.’ She opened the front door then stepped aside, tucking her brunette strands around her ear, flashing the pink tips. ‘Look, like I said there’s no easy way to tell you. It’s easier to show you.’

Finally relinquishing my place by the car, I walked down the crazy-paving path. I paused at the threshold, lingering by the blue door. The feeling of wrongness was even stronger now.

I dropped my bag to the floor and stepped inside.

As my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I looked around and soaked in the feeling of home. So much was familiar: the paintings on the walls, the curtains on the windows, even the mugs on the coffee table. But that feeling of absence was pressing down even harder on me – and it wasn’t my parents’ absence.

And then I saw it – or rather, I didn’t.

My stomach dropped.

Maddie’s face was ashen, her eyes wide with the worry she’d been trying to hide from me. I finally understood the fear that had emanated from her since the moment she’d broken into my apartment the previous night.

‘Yeah,’ she whispered brokenly. ‘That’s the main reason I needed you to come back.’