Page 39 of Uncharmed

Chapter Seventeen

MAEVE’S CONFESSION

T he heady, perfumed bathwater clung to Annie’s skin in a damp sheen, flushing her face and making her eyelids droop closed.

Damp tendrils of hair clung to her forehead and she wiped them to the side along with the last few tears that sprung from the hex.

It had been a particularly difficult burst of the spell.

It all felt so much more extreme out here in the open than at home in her bathroom.

Even so, she had made sure to double down on certain potion ingredients to strengthen it as best she could, after the spell had failed her so many times with Hal earlier that evening.

Splendidus Infernum was often unpredictable that way.

Sometimes the spirits would feel even more regretful than usual and, with Halloween looming, their passions were strengthened as the veil between the living and the dead grew thinner.

Tonight Annie had found herself haunted by a young woman who regularly visited, the stars blurring behind her tearful eyes as she listened to reams of overpowering, unfinished business.

Her most imperfect decision, the purest of irreparable heartbreak.

Annie needed to drag herself upstairs and at least try to get a burst of genuine sleep.

As a compromise to get the girl to go to bed, she had promised Maeve that they would dabble with short-distance transference in the woods tomorrow.

Annie suspected that her terrible sense of direction combined with Maeve’s travel sickness might make for a challenging lesson.

It was comforting to know that Hal was nearby to help fix things, if she needed him.

She scooped a handful of the water into her hands and watched the maroon liquid trickle between her fingers like red wine, ripples flooding the surface one after another. There was still the sound of crying lingering on the meadow’s air, a childlike, sorrowful sound.

It took Annie a moment to come around from the spell’s drowsy lull to realize that the crying was not residual from the visiting spirits.

It was coming from inside the cottage, drifting through an open window.

Annie had never left the bathtub so quickly.

She grabbed for her dressing gown, threw it on and sped inside, slipping and sliding on wet feet as she careered through the cottage and into Maeve’s room.

‘Maeve? What’s wrong?’

Maeve was sitting up in bed, her back rigid against the headboard while she hugged her legs and rested her forehead on her knees.

A crackle of rogue magic clung to her pyjamas and the crown of her head and she batted away the sparks as she realized that Annie had discovered her.

She glanced up with swollen eyes that matched Annie’s own.

‘I didn’t want to tell you.’ Her voice didn’t sound like Maeve at all. She sounded afraid.

‘You can tell me anything,’ Annie said instinctively, as she rushed to the edge of the bed and held out a hand to Maeve’s, who accepted it gratefully.

‘There’s someone here.’

Annie shook her head. ‘Did you have a bad dream? Hal’s sleeping out in the living room, remember? I’m sure you just heard him tossing and turning.’

Maeve wiped at her eyes crossly with the backs of her hands and sniffed. ‘It’s not Hal and it’s not you. I...I feel something here, Annie. In this place.’

There was a gruff throat-clear from the side of the room. Hal was leaning against the doorframe. ‘Sorry, I don’t want to interrupt. I heard the back door fly open and just wanted to see if you were both okay. Do you want me to go?’

Annie gave him a grateful half-smile, but turned back to Maeve to let her make the decision.

Maeve shook her head. ‘You can stay. Maybe you know something that we don’t.’

Annie rubbed Maeve’s forearm, which was still wrapped tightly around her legs. ‘Can you try to explain what it is that you’re feeling?’

Maeve still looked reluctant to share, but took a deep breath. ‘I know I’m about to sound completely mental, that’s why I haven’t wanted to say anything but...I can sense something. At night – every night, since we got here.’

‘You should have told me,’ Annie said, pulling Maeve into a hug straight away without any more questions. ‘I’m sorry you’ve been holding onto this all by yourself.’

Maeve leaned her head against Annie’s shoulder.

‘Someone...or maybe even more than just one someone...it’s keeping me up at night and it’s creeping me out.

’ She sounded frustrated, annoyed with herself for letting it get the better of her.

‘As soon as bedtime starts to roll around, I feel sick.’ She mumbled the last part as though she were embarrassed to admit it.

‘Since when?’ Annie asked.

‘I felt it the moment we walked in the front door for the first time, like my instincts suddenly sharpened. It was like stepping into a cold shower.’

Annie had a flashback to their arrival at Arden Place.

She had been so distracted by the unexpected sights that greeted them, but not enough to miss the full-body shiver that Maeve had given as she stepped over the threshold.

Her sudden, unpredictable mood swings. The constant begging to stay up as late as she could possibly get away with.

Annie had pinned it on typical teenage behaviour, but perhaps there was something more sinister at play.

‘I thought you liked it here. I’m so sorry, Maeve.’

‘I do! I’m so happy here – at least in the day. I’ve tried to ignore it and tell myself I’m being a stupid baby, but it hasn’t gone away. I can still hear them and feel them. All the time. It’s like a presence or something.’ Maeve wrapped her arms even more tightly around herself.

‘You hear someone? They speak to you?’ Hal asked, curiosity and concern both audible in his voice as he took a few steps closer to the bed.

Maeve nodded, then tucked her hair behind her ear to glance at Annie for reassurance, as though she were trying to weigh up whether she was being taken seriously or not, whether it was a safe place for her to remain honest and vulnerable.

‘Yeah, I hear them,’ Maeve said. ‘Occasionally I sense they’re nearby in the daytime, too.

And then tonight, for the first time, I.

..I swear I saw them, someone sitting at the end of my bed.

As though whatever it is is getting stronger.

Right where you’re sitting, Annie. It’s always the same time,’ she said quietly. ‘Just after midnight.’

Annie felt ice flood her veins, but her face flashed burning hot. A coincidence. It had to be.

There was no possible way that Maeve could be feeling any kind of repercussions from the spell – a spell that had absolutely nothing to do with her and no malevolent intention towards her.

Splendidus Infernum was a tightly bound, immaculately practised routine of necromancy that Annie had mastered over years upon years of discipline and rules.

There was no way that it could be interfering where it wasn’t welcome.

‘It’s just your magic settling in,’ Hal said calmly. ‘It can do strange things to you at the beginning. Being fifteen is tough at the best of times, kid, but throw magic into the mix too and it’s bound to be unsettling.’

‘I think it’s more than that. There’s this breeze.

It rushes in through my window from the garden and clings to me, even when I’m under the covers.

Every single midnight. I can’t shake it.

It makes me feel dreadful, as though I’ll never be happy again.

All they ever want to do is tell me how sorry they are for the mistakes they’ve made.

It’s exhausting,’ Maeve confessed, plucking at a thread on her patchwork quilt. ‘I haven’t been sleeping much.’

So it was true. Annie couldn’t keep eye contact with either of them.

Thoughts twisted themselves into uncertain shapes.

Brewing the potion in unfamiliar surroundings, she had been careless.

And with everything that Hal had noted about Maeve’s powers after only a matter of hours around her, it would unfortunately make sense that Maeve was attracting elements of Annie’s own magic to her, like a magnet.

That could absolutely include the haunted, regretful spirits that lingered in her Splendidus Infernum bargain .

‘That sounds horrible, Maeve,’ Annie said, swallowing a throat full of dread so solid that the words came out thick and suffocating. She felt sick with inky black guilt. ‘I’m so sorry.’

She caught Hal’s eye. He was staring at her, a loaded look in his green eyes.

Did he know that she knew something more?

That was impossible, surely; the spell would ensure that her words always sounded believable and appealing to him.

As far as Hal was concerned, the hex would pick up the weight of her secret and cleverly keep it hidden.

‘I am happy, I am. I’m having such a good time here,’ Maeve was quick to add.

‘But this feeling comes every night to ruin it and then, when the murmuring stops and I can eventually sleep, I spend the day feeling like I’m trying to remember a dream.

All I can remember is the sadness from their voice and it stays with me all the time. ’

‘You’re brave to tell us,’ Hal said, tenderness in his deep voice.

‘I promise you though, this is a safe place. There are so many protective enchantments around Arden Place. Mostly to keep people out in general, because, well...I hate people – but especially any kind of dark magic. I keep a close eye on things around here,’ he said, catching Annie’s eye, too.

Maeve shrugged and stretched her pyjama sleeves over her hands. ‘Like I said, I don’t really understand what it is. Do you think this place is haunted or something? That would be cool.’

‘No one’s being haunted on my watch, kid.’ Hal shot a wink in Maeve’s direction.

Annie gave the girl a weak smile and wrapped a soothing hand around the fist that was still frantically tugging at blanket threads.

‘Are you going to make me leave?’ Maeve asked quietly. It was as though she’d been daring herself to ask, steeling herself to hear an answer that she didn’t want. Annie felt Maeve’s apprehension tighten itself like a boned corset around her own ribs.

‘I’m not going to make you do anything you don’t want to do,’ Annie said. ‘Please don’t worry about this, okay? You leave that to me. I’ll do the worrying for the both of us.’

‘How about I do it for all three of us?’ Hal added.

Annie knew what Maeve’s revelation meant.

A terrifying realization had cemented itself in her mind and she knew what had to be done.

She would have to give it up. After so many years of it controlling every aspect of her life, tampering with her strings like a marionette master, permitting her to remain in the confines of perfectionism to keep everybody happy. ..

The spell would have to end.