Page 43 of Uncharmed

Having beaten the dough to a pillowy pulp (which in itself helped to vent her fears and frustrations), she shaped cinnamon buns along with a loaf of fresh pumpkin sourdough bread and prepared the batter for sugar strand donuts.

Then she fired her magic back towards the stove to start heating the oil.

Maeve, who had stolen the hat for herself and had been observing the scene over a stack of sketchbooks and pencils scattered across the dining table, let out a yelp.

‘What’s wrong?’ Annie asked absent-mindedly, before noting Maeve frantically pointing at the stove. They both screamed.

The entire pan had burst into flames, licking at the walls of the kitchen and blowing menacingly towards the gingham curtains.

Again. Maeve darted over to yank Annie out of the kitchen, while Hal came sprinting in from the porch to magically extinguish the flames.

All three of them stood in shocked silence for a moment, watching a cloud of black smoke float from the bottom of the curtains and out the window.

‘I think I’m having a bad day,’ Annie said matter-of-factly, a rogue tendril of hair flopping into her face as she spoke.

‘I didn’t know you had those,’ Hal said, mopping his brow on his rolled-up sleeve.

‘Isn’t it my job to be setting things on fire around here?’ Maeve asked dryly, looking decidedly smug.

Hal insisted that Annie abandon anything hot-oil related, including sugar strand donuts, and take a seat at the table, while he made her a steaming mug of strong tea. She sat bolt upright with her hands on her lap, in shock at the events so far. She was a walking disaster.

Meanwhile, Maeve chattered away, evidently unfazed – even enjoying the switch-up to their usual routine. Something caught her attention, and made her pause as she used her magic to sweep watercolour paints haphazardly across a page with lovely results. ‘Did you hear that?’

‘Hear what?’ Annie said, hearing a snap in her voice that wasn’t usually there. She felt...frustration. Maybe even full-blown, ugly annoyance. ‘If some kind of tempestuous, ill-tempered spirit is about to attempt to contact you on today of all days, they’re going to regret it, big time.’

‘That!’ Maeve said, louder this time as her chair squeaked back against the wooden floor and she shot to her feet. This time, Annie heard it, too. A faint, furious yowling that she’d recognize anywhere. That was enough to spark a little life back into Annie’s numbed mind.

‘Is that Karma?’ she asked, running to join Maeve at the front door.

They could see movement among the long grass and could hear Karma’s distinctly unimpressed caterwauls somewhere nearby, but the cat refused to show herself.

Either side of the porch, the pair of them brushed their fingers together, clicked their tongues, pss-pss-pss ’d, trying all of the usual tricks for Karma to show herself, but none seemed to work and Karma stayed determinedly hidden away in the meadow.

Even a spoonful of custard came to no avail.

‘She’s being a madam,’ Maeve said with a tut.

‘Karma, what is it? What’s wrong?’ Annie said, at a loss as to why her familiar was behaving so strangely. It was then that Annie noticed the problem, finally spotting the tops of her cat’s ears. They looked...soggy.

Karma was distinctly less groomed than usual.

In fact, her fur was dishevelled, sticking out at all angles as though she’d been electrocuted and absolutely sopping wet.

Her bright white coat was soaked with dark, muddy water, her signature pink bow and bell stained grey and brown.

As Annie ran out to gather her into her arms, she gasped.

She could have sworn that the cat’s perfect downy ears had grown a fraction and now looked ever so slightly too big and tufty for her tiny head.

Annie was not the only one who had transformed overnight.

‘You fell in the stream, didn’t you?’ Annie whispered quietly, not wanting to embarrass Karma in front of anyone else, and earned an ashamed mrow .

Her large round eyes gleamed with curiosity and confusion, staring at Annie with indignance, as though to ask what she thought she was playing at, throwing away perfection without consulting her familiar first. She looked entirely sorry for herself.

‘Oh, Karma, it got you too? Don’t worry, it’ll be alright. Even princesses fall in streams sometimes.’

Karma gave a sorrowful, self-pitying whine and a headbutt to Annie’s chin, clearly communicating that Annie must renew the spell at once or face her wrath.

‘No can do, I’m afraid, darling. It’s for Maeve’s benefit and I know you love her enough to make the sacrifice. Mistakes and slip-ups are sadly now part of the deal. We’re stuck like this for a while.’

The gathering storm couldn’t have been the result of Annie turning her back on the hex.

Her magic wasn’t powerful enough to have impact on the elements – that kind of witchcraft only ever showed itself in highly charged, extreme circumstances.

But the grim weather certainly added to the feelings of loss and hopelessness that had been plaguing her all day.

It seemed suitably dramatic and reflected her mood rather well, as though the end of the world might be about to fold in over them literally, as well as the figurative way that it felt the case for her.

‘Any more takers?’ Hal called gruffly around the doorframe into the meadow. He gave it a few more moments, allowing a particularly slow pair of garden snails to finally cross over the threshold and nestle their way behind the shoe rack.

Annie hadn’t had much choice in the matter, seeing as it was technically still Hal’s home, when he asked whether she’d mind an open house for the woodland animals while the weather was so harsh.

Not that she’d have protested anyway, but she had had to steel herself slightly at the sight of the entire downstairs of the cottage packed to the rafters with what felt like every single resident of the British woodland network.

Among red squirrels, foxes, badgers, roe deer, hedgehogs, otters and the realms only knew what else, even Mage had been led underneath the spiral staircase to bed down and was currently giving Karma a very wary side-eye.

The chaos had just about begun to calm slightly, after Hal laced a trough of berries and currants with a potent sleeping draught, mainly to ensure that no one ate any of the other guests under his roof.

Maeve had taken great comfort in knowing that she was surrounded by company for the night and had encouraged the entire family of wolf cubs to share her bed with her.

It was the first night that Annie had seen the girl half keen to go to bed.

She was already fast asleep, her chin resting on a snoozing cub, and the sight of her finally enjoying a good night’s sleep was enough for Annie to think that this awful day might just have been worth it.

‘That’s the last of them,’ Hal said, hands on hips and looking pleased. ‘Thanks again for being good about this. They all know that they can come by whenever there’s lightning. Rabbits in particular hate the thunder.’

‘Of course,’ Annie said, doing her level best to ignore the squeeze behind her ribs as he did a quick headcount across the new guests to make sure no one had been left outside.

She had never met anyone quite like him.

They stood side by side, looking out at the living area with the roaring fire and what must have been a hundred content creatures.

‘I think it’s wonderful. You’re very kind. ’

Hal gave a ‘ hmm’ . ‘Or a mug.’

‘Where do you normally sleep, then, when your couch is taken by snoring pine martens? Not a question I’ve ever contemplated before, I have to say,’ Annie asked, laughing as she cast a sprinkle of magic over the scene to conjure a few blankets across the smaller creatures and tuck them in.

Beside her, she sensed Hal’s body language tense up just the slightest fraction. ‘What is it?’

‘Well, normally I’d be sleeping in my room,’ he said quietly, his gaze determinedly fixed on Mage, who was finally starting to relax a fraction in Karma’s presence as she made puddings on his flank. ‘But it’s just this moment occurred to me that there’s a guest in there.’

Annie tensed to match as it dawned on her, too. ‘Oh. Right. I see.’

‘It’s not a problem. There’s no way you’re staying down here with this lot. I’m sure I can find somewhere. I’ll figure something out. Maybe Mage will have me. He snores like a bastard, but...’ Hal rubbed the back of his neck, exhaling a resigned sigh.

‘You can’t do that,’ Annie replied, horrified at the idea of him sacrificing yet another night’s sleep out of kindness. She had turned this man’s life upside down enough. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. We’ll share.’ The suggestion was aloud and out in the universe before she could stop it.

His head snapped around to her, brows shot high. There was a mild panic to his expression. ‘Share?’

‘Right, we’ll share,’ Annie said again, hoping that she sounded absolutely easy-breezy about the whole thing, even as her heart skipped several beats, flailed and then nosedived to somewhere around her ankles.

Hal didn’t say a word, but she saw his cheeks were flushing just as much as hers were.

‘It’s not a big deal. We’ve been living together for weeks.

We’re in a pinch and it’s just a bed. One night. ’

Hal seemed unconvinced. ‘You’re sure?’

Annie frantically smoothed her hair behind her ear and forced herself to focus on the practical matter at hand, not the extremely endearing way that Hal looked so concerned about the arrangement.

‘It’s settled,’ she said briskly, drawing the last set of curtains downstairs before approaching the spiral staircase. ‘Bagsey the side nearest the window.’

Hal’s sheepish grin returned the slightest inch. ‘Can’t argue with the laws of bagsey. I’ll give you some privacy to...’