Page 24 of Uncharmed

Chapter Eleven

PICTURE PERFECT

A nnie had come to the fundamental conclusion at around three o’clock in the morning that she was simply a terrible person.

After little to no sleep, tossing and turning on the pokey single bedframe upstairs, she threw aside the duvet with defeat.

As always, the regrets of the Splendidus Infernum spirits haunted her dreams and waking moments alike, but now they were combined with her own cruel uncertainty.

Without her usual routine to follow like a tightrope, she felt untethered and the reality of her and Maeve’s situation kept bursting her bubble of optimism with a sharp pin.

Naturally, she had agonized all night over everything she had said to Maeve, her own regrets combined with those of her ghost companions.

All of this was so messy and unconsidered, not at all like her.

But the fact was this was about the girl’s happiness and the girl’s future and making her feel comfortable during their time together, so that she could come to understand her sacred powers.

‘I think we got off on the wrong foot yesterday,’ Annie said as she took a seat at the other end of the sofa from Maeve, who so far had sulkily accepted a single cup of coffee without a word and pointedly ignored that morning’s peace offering pancake buffet – although Annie caught her glimpsing back at them several times. ‘And the day before.’

Maeve, of course, just shrugged and stared determinedly at Karma, who was selflessly keeping her feet warm in a sleepy bundle.

Annie barrelled on determinedly. ‘You were mature enough to tell me I was doing something wrong, to communicate that, and I ignored it. I’m very sorry for the way I reacted.

It was the wrong approach. I should have understood that you’re just keen to get stuck in.

Magic is so exciting and you deserve to explore it in your own way. ’

A quiet passed between them while Annie debated with herself what might be the next right thing to say. She was surprised when it was Maeve who relented and broke the silence first.

‘I meant it, you know. I don’t need a nanny,’ she said.

‘Alright, alright. Can we please not use the term nanny?’ Annie said, exasperated.

‘It makes me sound like I should have a blue rinse and a pension. I am in fact still the right side of one hundred years old, even if you’re not convinced I am.

I’m not here to control you and I’m not here to be a nanny. ’

The girls paused their bickering for a moment as they caught eyes – one side glaring and one side browbeaten – both still attempting to figure out how to prowl around one another. Maeve pushed up her glasses and shrugged again. ‘What are you, then?’

Annie sighed. ‘Can I just start with being a friend?’

Maeve hesitated, then gave an almost imperceptible nod, which Annie somehow knew was best interpreted as the closest version of an apology that Maeve had to offer. ‘I suppose that would be alright.’

Annie exhaled with relief, grateful for finding a reluctant truce if nothing more.

She was struck by how one moment this girl was wise beyond her years, and the next she was still so soft and young to be out and alone in the world.

That familiar nip of empathy gave a merciless squeeze around her heart.

She would look after Maeve whether she wanted to be looked after or not.

‘Can we try again?’ The timid voice that came with Maeve’s request caught Annie off guard. ‘Or have I blown it?’

Annie smiled at her in return. ‘You’re allowed to try as many times as you like in this house, Maeve. You haven’t blown anything. Well, apart from the pumpkin. That was very much blown up.’

At that, they both let out matching reluctant snort-laughs, Maeve wincing with regret. It felt as though the glacier of yesterday finally began to melt an inch. Annie, pleased with the progress, raised her mug to cheers Maeve.

‘To fresh starts,’ Annie said decidedly. ‘I have a much better idea up my sleeve for today.’

The sleeve in question was an enormous, ballooning artist smock that she conjured for each of them.

Annie had decided at some point during her sleepless night that, with the stack of sketchbooks in mind, she had gone about this all wrong.

This wasn’t a test to be passed. Maeve wasn’t here to tick boxes or impress anybody, and she certainly didn’t want to be reminded of school.

Rather than an academic approach with no room for error and an intense spotlight on the girl’s naivety to this new world, it made much more sense that Maeve’s magic would naturally express itself through creativity.

Annie was initially tempted to start in the kitchen, but reminded herself that this was not about her own magical passions.

The artist smocks were accompanied by matching berets and even some optional twiddly black moustaches. Armed with two large wooden easels, a pair of palettes and an enchanted paint box, Annie arranged their studio in the living room. As soon as Maeve saw the paint box, her eyes lit up.

‘I get to use this?’

‘Absolutely, it’s for you! The paints are enchanted with a little Pigmentum Captura spell that you’ll harness for yourself with time and practice. It allows you to capture colours from the world around you and extract them for your paintbox.’

Each shade in the palette had an enticing, technicolour reflect of iridescence, like spilled oil.

The vibrant orange-red came from the smattering of wild poppies that peppered a patch of meadow by the path.

The vivid turquoise came from the wings of a butterfly that had landed on the handle of Maeve’s mug.

The dreamy pink was, of course, colour matched precisely to Annie’s favourite lipstick.

Colour catching was a nifty spell she often used for icing celebration cakes, to extract the essence of a colour and the emotions sparked by a memory to match.

So, Maeve and Annie spent the day making a mess. But, Annie was forced to tell herself, over and over again as her fingers itched and twitched to make it prettier, it was a beautiful mess. There was such a thing.

‘This is the coolest thing I’ve ever done,’ Maeve said, as she stretched out her fingers to send a stripe of banana-captured yellow towards her canvas.

The flickers of her magic carried the colour like a shooting star through the cottage and it splatted onto the stretched fabric in a satisfying splash like a bursting water balloon.

The only hard and fast rule to Maeve’s painting session had been no tools, to allow her magic to freely lead the way.

Maeve’s canvas was quickly turning into an experimental masterpiece that looked as though it belonged in an expensive gallery, something the Sorciety would try to purchase.

Annie, mostly worried about whether the purple paint that she flicked on her dress with all of her enthusiasm would be easily removed, had insisted on using a paintbrush to keep things neat – and then started again three times anyway.

She had taken herself off to make them a cup of tea when she got embarrassed that her painting wasn’t very good.

She offered out the steaming mug of strawberry lemonade tea, zesty and sweet and bright, and stood a few paces back behind Maeve, to watch as she launched more colours in a free-spirited way.

Sunshine streamed through the gingham curtains of the cottage, with a red tinge from the fabric.

It gave the whole scene a dreamlike quality that soothed both witches’ uncertainty.

‘I don’t know how you do that,’ Annie said, marvelling at the way that Maeve cast colours this way and that. A lucid orange, inspired by the marmalade on the kitchen counter (and memories of Jessica), landed in a dash across the canvas.

‘Do what?’ Maeve called back.

‘You just dive in and...make stuff. Without freezing. Without overthinking it or questioning whether it’s going to be any good.’

‘Well,’ Maeve said distractedly, contemplating the paintbox for her next move. ‘It doesn’t really matter, does it? Can’t it just be a complete mess? You said that none of this was a test.’

‘Right,’ Annie faltered. ‘It’s absolutely not.’

‘I’m just enjoying myself,’ Maeve said simply. ‘Doesn’t have to be perfect.’

Annie had to look away from the painting, mortified to find her eyes were smarting as she watched the paint fly.

Maeve’s take could not have been a sharper opposite to her own.

It occurred to Annie that perhaps she spent her whole life feeling as though everything was a test, one that had to be passed to prove something.

But somehow, it was always a test that she hadn’t prepared hard enough for.

She existed with a feeling that she was constantly in trouble – except she didn’t know with whom or why – and she was always trying to earn her way back into their good books.

She was relieved and somewhat amazed to think that Maeve did not live that way.

That it was even possible to do so. Maeve trusted herself enough to believe that something magical might come from the mess she made.

With one final blast of a dazzling azure blue, a colour that they had given to the paintbox from the bright midday sky, Maeve’s hand finally dropped to her side. She shook out her wrist and winced a little.

‘Continuous magic practice when you’re not used to it can really wipe your stamina,’ Annie said, noticing the first telltale signs. ‘Let’s have a biscuit. I’ll summon a couple of the jam and cream sandwiches from Celeste.’

In synchronized exhaustion, Annie and Maeve flumped down onto the couch side by side, Annie smartly crossing one leg over the other while Maeve slid down into a diagonal slope, half hanging off the cushions.

She pulled the two sides of her biscuit apart and scraped off the filling with her front teeth, while Annie dunked hers in her cup of tea.