Page 61 of Uncharmed

‘They’re close by. Mage can sense it, too,’ Hal said matter-of-factly as he jumped down from the horse’s back to adjust the saddle and reins.

‘How did they find us?’ Annie gasped, rushing to help.

‘I think we probably sent enough protective magic into the air to alert anyone of a magical persuasion in the United Kingdom as to our rough whereabouts. On the plus side, it’ll help the coven locate whatever is about to unfold.’

‘But they won’t be the ones to find us first,’ Maeve said grimly.

‘Mage, transference is off the cards, so you’re in charge of my girls,’ Hal said, giving the horse a gentle stroke down his velvety muzzle.

Maeve wasted no time, a glint in her eye as she seized the front of the saddle, threw a foot into the stirrups and launched herself up.

Hal tossed a red apple up for her to catch and she presented it to Mage as a thank you.

‘But what about you? We can’t all fit on Mage,’ Annie said, realizing that the logistics didn’t work. ‘Will you be able to keep up?’

‘I’ll meet you there. I stumbled across the witches’ ring once; it’ll show me the way again.

’ Hal spoke with determination, but Annie knew his face well enough by now to recognize the almost imperceptible but unconvinced furrow in his brow.

‘I’m lucky enough to be loved by this woodland and, by default, that means you are, too.

They’ll keep you safe until I get there. ’

‘I’m not leaving you behind.’

‘Yes, you are. These people have no interest in someone like me. I’ll be alright.’

‘Hal...’

‘Please don’t kiss,’ Maeve grumbled from above.

Annie wasn’t entirely sure how she managed to make her body move away from him, but her place was by Maeve’s side.

She felt Hal’s rough hands find her waist and squeeze, before he gave her a lift up behind Maeve.

With one last, lingering look up at both of them, Hal patted his beloved familiar decisively on his back leg.

‘Away, boy. You know what to do.’

‘You okay back there?’ Maeve called, holding onto the reins as tightly as she could. Annie could just about make out the tops of Karma’s ears, white fur sticking out over the flap of Maeve’s satchel as the cat burrowed herself down into the bag.

Under the moonlight, Mage tore through the meadow in a streak of bronze and billowing pink cloak trailing from Annie’s shoulders.

She glanced back just in time to see the shape of the cottage and the faint silhouette of Hal disappear from her view.

She had to trust that he would be okay and surrender to the unfolding of however this would end.

She couldn’t fix everything herself. They all had a part to play.

‘No, I am not alright. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to brush my hair again. Are you?’ Annie shouted back, fighting against the tearing wind. In return, she earned an unbridled, joyful cackle of a laugh from Maeve.

‘This is the best night of my life. You know, aside from the imminent death that’s hanging over us. Kind of just ignoring that part. I’m having a blast.’

Annie, despite herself, found that she cackled back.

A big, loud laugh that caught on the trailing wind and surrounded them like a superpower, their laughter combining as it always did into something greater and better and stronger.

Maeve’s euphoric reaction was insane, all things considered, but it made a certain amount of sense that she’d be feeling even more untouchable than she normally did.

There was so much magic in the air on Halloween night and Maeve had a proven track record of pulling the stuff like a tide to the shore.

It was bolstering her, making her believe in herself.

Her enchanted excitement was infectious.

‘You are such a weirdo.’ Annie had to yell to be heard.

‘I thought we’d established that we both are,’ Maeve yelled back. ‘Together.’

Maeve whooped at the top of her voice and Annie had to smile at the absurdity of it all. This girl was braver than anybody she had ever known.

Eventually, having traversed what felt like the entire expanse of British woodland, Mage’s pace slowed to a steady but alert trot.

Picking up his hooves more cautiously through the leaves, he led Maeve and Annie into the very same clearing that they had stumbled across all those weeks ago.

Detecting the same scent of concentrated magic that the horse was drawn to, Karma’s fluffy head sprung up through the gap in Maeve’s bag.

She gave an inquisitive chirp of recognition.

They had found it. Well, Mage had found it.

Annie was sure to conjure another red apple in the palm of her hand for him to snaffle as a reward.

The toadstools lay in a pristine arc, untouched and unmoved, in splashes of garnet red and milky white that reminded Annie for one heart-tugging moment of jam and cream and Celeste.

If she could return to that day when Morena had so unexpectedly summoned her from there, she wondered whether she would still accept the invitation so readily, if she could know then what she knew now.

She would, in every universe. It had led her to where she was supposed to be.

Feet firmly back on the ground, Maeve glanced uncertainly at Annie. ‘Last time we were here, the golden rule was not to step inside it. Something about dance moves so dodgy that you literally die?’

‘It’s actually more a case of dancing for eternity even through death, a terribly lonely and unspeakably tragic demise,’ Annie said lightly.

‘Fantastic,’ Maeve grimaced.

‘Just...move slowly. Hal knows every inch of Arden Place and every last creature within it. Spirits like these are the guardians of the woods and he’s certain that they’ll want to help him – and us by association, just as they did with Karma.’

Hearing her name, Karma leapt gracefully out of Maeve’s bag and landed with her front paws directly inside the fairy ring.

Annie and Maeve both let out a simultaneous gasp, uncertain of what it could trigger this time around, but the cat simply shook out her fur with a tinkle of her bell and promptly began batting around an acorn.

‘We shouldn’t be standing unprotected; they’ll be here any moment. Let me go first,’ Annie said quietly, pressing a hand against Maeve’s shoulder to hold her back.

‘We’ll step together,’ Maeve said firmly. ‘If you’re about to burst into the merengue of death, then I’ll try a Charleston, alright? On the count of three.’

With matching deep breaths, a glasses nudge from Maeve and a determined hair flick from Annie, they took one first step in unison and then another to join Karma in the witches’ ring.

A furious gust of wind picked up from nowhere, tangling their hair in a frenzied whip.

Then it promptly dropped, like the woods had judged the outcome of their bravery and then sighed with relief.

The finest, most iridescent of glitters blossomed at their fingertips and travelled up towards the tops of their arms, along their shoulders, down their backs.

A subtle but mighty protective magic had been activated, courtesy of Arden Place.

Time ticked by, but there was still no sign of Hal.

Annie had expected that Mage would canter back to the cottage the moment he safely delivered them to the circle, but the horse placed himself behind them, reversing his rear into the trees so that he could keep watch across the clearing.

Hal must have instructed his familiar to remain close by.

Maeve gave a shiver, a spray of goosebumps prickling sharply on the bare inches of skin at her neck.

Annie could feel them springing up across her own shoulders, too.

She was about to make a dig at the girl, how she’d specifically told her to put on another jumper.

But then a toffee-sweet scent carried on the wind, with a rich, earthy combination like embers and apples that was so distinctly familiar and autumnal, it took Annie a moment to notice it overpower the air.

Her tongue was flooded with the taste to match, tangy and coppery, the faintest, sweetest hint of animal blood.

Maeve began to pick at the skin around her nails and scratched at her fingertips absent-mindedly as though they were itchy.

‘Do you hear something?’ Annie asked, freezing to the spot the very same moment that Maeve suddenly held her position.

A brittle, crunching brush across the crackling carpet of leaves, somewhere not so deep into the woods. The murmur of voices.

‘Something wicked this way comes,’ Maeve muttered with a wayward smirk.

Annie flicked up her conjuring hand defensively and strained to tune in, to try to at least pick up on which direction they would show themselves.

But the whisperings, growing louder and louder, were flooding in from every direction.

Like they were falling from the sky, pulling up from the earth below them, laying in wait at the edge of the universe.

They were using their magic to hunt Maeve and it could only be a matter of moments before they found where to aim their sails.

They didn’t have much time. Annie knew she had to seize the moment this time, and Maeve, too.

She spun around to the girl and held her shoulders tightly.

‘Before this all goes to complete chaos and revelry...’ Annie began.

‘My two favourite things,’ Maeve said, eyes glinting excitedly behind her glasses. The voices were growing louder, more agitated. Annie could sense their angry desperation. Eager to play their ace, eager to arrive. They had found them.

‘...I need you to know that meeting you has been the greatest happiness of my life, Maeve. I have been counting my lucky stars every night since we found one another. You have taught me so much about living authentically. About joy. About life. About myself. About what the point of anything and everything is.’

‘Not too much, then?’

‘And I know you think I’m cringey and bonkers and utterly hopeless,’ Annie went on.

‘And you’re right, I would absolutely be the first one to die in a horror film.

So, just in case that’s where we find ourselves tonight, I need you to know how special you are, that you can take on the world.

I need to make sure you hear that, because it wasn’t something I ever heard myself.

Maeve, you are capable of shining brighter than every star in the sky. And don’t ever forget it, okay?’

Maeve pulled her bottom lip underneath her teeth.

‘Okay?’ Annie repeated, giving Maeve’s shoulders a gentle shake.

‘Okay,’ Maeve said with an uncharacteristically serious nod. She opened her mouth to inevitably fire back something dagger-sharp, as always. But instead, she said quietly, ‘Thanks for looking after me, Annie.’

Annie reached out to smooth her hair reassuringly. ‘We’ve looked after each other.’

Maeve placed her own hands on Annie’s shoulders to mirror her stance and give her a shake in return. ‘And, Annie, we are not dying tonight, just so you know.’ Her eyes twinkled. ‘They don’t know who they’re messing with.’

They grinned at each other, sharing a camaraderie that had inadvertently rooted itself deeper than oak trees.

Whatever was about to unfold, whichever tarot cards had been flipped by a greater force, whatever unworldly powers were about to erupt and crack open the atmosphere on Halloween night, Annie had learned that some things were deeply unshakeable. This girl was hers to protect.