Page 31 of Uncharmed

Chapter Fourteen

THE BANCROFT COMPROMISE

A nnie’s eyes darted to Maeve’s, silently asking whether she understood what in all the realms the man was talking about. The girl, still hiding behind the sofa, looked equally stumped, but she gestured her head towards the man, encouraging Annie to keep pressing on with the interrogation.

‘What do you mean, this is your house? I think you’ll find that this house belongs to Selcouth, the esteemed coven of the United Kingdom.’

‘Oh does it, indeed? Who told you that, hey? Bloody Morena Gowden, was it? I bet. I swear to the zodiac and back...’

‘You’re telling me you live here?’ Annie’s voice was supposed to sound strong and certain, but was in fact only getting squeakier.

‘Too bloody right I live here. I go away for a few months and come back just wanting a decent kip and a nice dinner to find...What in the hell and high waters have you done to my living room? Everything’s bloody pink.’

As he stepped a little further out of the shadows, Annie could just about make out a few of his defining features in the last of the candlelight.

His scowling face was rugged and a little weathered, deep lines across his forehead and furrows between his brows, a scattering of freckles that hinted at time spent outside.

A slightly crooked nose, dark green eyes, which were scrutinizing her closely, and an unkempt beard that looked brown until he stepped further into the light and revealed the slightest red tint.

He shoved back the long, dishevelled hair that was falling into his eyes.

The furious look across his face softened a fraction as he took a step closer towards her, but Annie promptly mirrored it by taking one back.

She noted that his clothes were dirty, his boots caked in mud, and she crinkled her nose at the sight.

‘Well, then. There’s clearly been some kind of...administration error,’ she said.

The man gave a resigned sigh, thumbing at his eyebrow in exasperation.

‘No, there hasn’t. I should have known that Morena would have revenge planned.

She’s furious with me for not coming back sooner, for refusing to be at her ludicrous beck and call.

This is her reminding me who’s in charge at that bloody coven, whether I like it or not. ’

Annie squinted. ‘You...you work at the coven?’ she stuttered.

‘Aye.’ Not only did this man look like some kind of lumbering...lumberjack, perhaps crossed with a cowboy-pirate, he spoke like one, too. Annie purposefully forced a more intimidating scowl back on her face.

‘Then why have I never seen you at Hecate House before? I spend a lot of time there,’ she said importantly.

He had to be lying. For various reasons that she didn’t allow herself to contemplate because they were highly inappropriate when she was trying to be menacing, she would definitely have noticed this man before, if they had ever crossed paths.

‘Because I try to spend as little time at that fate-forsaken place as possible,’ he replied grumpily.

‘Mostly thanks to Bronwyn, always asking me to join her crochet club or set me up on a date with some witch or other. And if it’s not her meddling in things, then it’s Morena telling me that field work is a waste of time and that she’ll land me in a paperwork role before next Halloween. ’

Annie still refused to drop her weapon spoon. ‘I don’t believe you.’

The man breathed out deeply through his nose with closed eyes, seemingly willing himself to find patience.

He shrugged off his jacket to hang on the heart-shaped hook next to the door that, until Annie’s redecoration, had been a nail jutting out of the wall.

He paused, scowled at it, then turned back to her with his hands on his hips.

‘Suit yourself. Either way, this is still my house.’

‘And we’re staying in it. Aren’t squatters’ rights a thing, Annie?’ Maeve bolted up to her feet from behind the sofa.

The man jumped and muttered a curse under his breath. ‘Where the bloody hell did you come from? There’s two of you, is there? Any more uninvited witches lurking behind my curtains?’

Annie decided that nobody needed to know that she had indeed been hiding behind the curtains earlier. Instead, she folded her arms crossly.

‘Who are you?’ She eyed him with suspicion. He firmed his jaw, then took a deep breath again, apparently relenting a small fraction of his surly demeanour with the dawning realization that it wasn’t getting him many answers.

‘Hal,’ he said, in a softer voice now. ‘Well, Harry. But no one’s called me that since I was wearing babygrows.’

‘Couple of years ago, then?’ Maeve said. He glowered at her.

‘Hal Bancroft?’ Annie asked, the name coming to light.

She’d seen it countless times in coven records and always wondered why she’d never bumped into the mystery warlock in question, seeing as she made it her business to be firm friends with anyone and everyone at Hecate House.

All she knew was that he headed up Selcouth’s work within the Mythical Beasts department and, from what she’d heard, he much preferred the company of animals to other wicchefolk.

Now that she thought about it, she had also definitely heard Bronwyn mention numerous times what a ‘handsome devil’ he was.

Annie made sure to scowl even more enthusiastically at the devil in question.

‘Right. And you? I got as far as Annie, but didn’t catch much else,’ he said, arms folding.

‘I am Andromeda Wildwood,’ she said, puffing her chest out a little to assert her dominance of the situation. He simply gave her a slow, single nod in return.

‘And your sidekick?’

‘Oi,’ Maeve said, smoke practically projecting from her ears at that.

‘That’s Maeve Cadmus, our newest Selcouth recruit. We’re staying here for a while to get her magic under control, until the coven is confident that she’s got hold of her amazing abilities.’

‘Brilliant. Very nice of Morena to offer up my home to an out-of-control kid and the Babysitters’ Club.’

‘Who do you think you’re calling...’

‘Maeve,’ Annie said sternly, holding her back with an arm as she lunged towards the man over the top of the sofa. ‘It’s very late. Why don’t you go back to bed and let me handle this, okay?’

‘But...’ Maeve rolled her eyes, sensing that she was fighting a losing battle if she bothered to protest. ‘Fine. Seeing as he’s clearly not a troll or a minotaur or something else cool, this all just became a lot less interesting.

But I won’t be sleeping, so come and get me if this bozo makes you walk the plank or starts asking where the treasure is. ’

Annie couldn’t be sure in the low light, but she was almost certain that the cutting assessment earned a wry smirk from Hal.

She offered Maeve a reassuring smile in the hopes that it would seem as though everything was under control, but knew already that she’d pay for shutting her out in the morning.

Annie waited until the bedroom door was closed before she turned her attention back to Hal.

‘Look, this certainly isn’t ideal,’ she said. ‘And I apologize for...’

He grunted. ‘I’ll sleep on the porch. We’ll sort this out in the morning.’

‘What?’

‘Look, Andromeda Wildwood. I’ve crossed four realms today and you don’t even want to know how long it’s been since I had a shower.

But, even so, I’m hardly going to kick you out and send the kid packing, am I?

We’ll sort this out tomorrow, when my head isn’t pounding and my eyes aren’t about to fall shut. ’

‘The porch? You can’t sleep outside on the porch,’ Annie scoffed.

‘Oh yeah? You’d rather a strange man was in here with you, would you?

I know that bed isn’t fitting us both in it,’ he said.

Even in the dark, his eyes glimmered green.

Annie blushed crossly. He bent down to pick up the heavy sack of belongings that he’d dumped on the floor, a sleeping bag, what appeared to be horse reins, a cracked glass lantern spilling out of it.

He groaned at the weight as he threw it all back over his shoulder.

‘Obviously. It goes without saying. I’ll sleep outside. ’

‘Well.’ Annie relented an inch, slightly baffled by how considerate he was. For a ruffian. ‘That is very understanding of you.’

Hal grunted again. ‘Don’t mention it. The Bancroft Compromise; why wouldn’t there be two strange witches having a sleepover in my house, after I’ve spent three months in a French shed monitoring the nocturnal patterns of banshees?’

He turned and reached for the handle of the front door, before realizing with a start that there wasn’t one any more.

Hal flexed his magic for the first time, sending a quick and graceful burst of bronze-tinged sparks to lift the smashed front door, bring the panels back together and set it into place.

Looking back over his shoulder, he gave Annie a lazy, one-fingered salute.

‘Nice pyjamas, by the way.’

Annie shoved her arms into a fold across the cartoon latte cups and scowled once more for luck, her most determined yet. When the door closed behind Hal, she made sure to fire a double-locking spell across all the doors and windows. Just in case.

Annie rose early again, barely allowing her eyelids to close before springing back up out of bed.

The spirits of the hex had been particularly vocal, tormenting her with dreams of painful wrong decisions.

But she had to put their troubles aside as best as she could and confront the immediate problem, which, she saw from the bedroom window, was currently lounging on the porch swing with a partially undone shirt and a grubby Stetson pulled over his face against the dawn.

What kind of self-respecting warlock wore a Stetson?